COLUMBIA, S.C. - U.S. Sen. Lindsey Graham said Tuesday he will introduce legislation to replace all paper Social Security cards with plastic biometric cards that can't be duplicated, so employers can be certain of the legal status of their workers.
The South Carolina Republican said Congress must address the out-of-control illegal immigration problem, and last month's defeat of comprehensive immigration reform in the Senate means the problem must be tackled piecemeal.
"The root cause, the basic problem with immigration is employment," Graham said. "The reason people come here in such large numbers is to get the jobs in America that pay more in one day they can make maybe in six months where they come from."
America needs a legal guest worker program to fill jobs citizens don't want, but the U.S. must control who enters the country for national security, he said.
Employers need a system they can rely on to determine the legal status of potential workers, so Graham said he plans to introduce a bill this fall to replace all Social Security cards over the next 10 years at a cost of $8 billion to $10 billion. The new cards would be tamperproof.
"The documents used to ...   more »