Leave your feedback Share Copy URL https://www.pbs.org/newshour/show/bush-administration-pushes-enforcement-of-immigration-workplace-laws Email Facebook Twitter LinkedIn Pinterest Tumblr Share on Facebook Share on Twitter Transcript The Bush administration announced new measures to crack down on immigration laws in the workplace. An immigration liberalization opponent and a business trade association representative debate the move. Read the Full Transcript Notice: Transcripts are machine and human generated and lightly edited for accuracy. They may contain errors. MICHAEL CHERTOFF, Homeland Security Secretary: Time has run out, so now we're going to go back to the old tools, and we're going to sharpen them up as best we can. RAY SUAREZ: Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff said today Congress's failure to enact comprehensive immigration reform this year had forced the Bush administration to act on its own. Joined by Commerce Secretary Carlos Gutierrez, Chertoff announced new workplace verification laws. He said employers who ignore them could face criminal charges and thousands of dollars in fines. MICHAEL CHERTOFF, Homeland Security Secretary: People who willfully and consciously hire illegals, knowing that they're doing it, and knowing that they're committing crimes in order to do it, including identity theft, those are the people we're going to be targeting for criminal sanctions. RAY SUAREZ: Currently, employers must check workers' Social Security numbers against a federal government database. Employers are notified when the numbers don't match up. Under the new rule, employers notified of a no-match will have 90 days to confirm an employee's work eligibility or fire them. Failure to comply could lead to fines of up to $12,500 per violation and felony prosecution.Chertoff says the government has made nearly 750 such arrests already this year. Immigration agents launched the first in a series of high-profile workplace raids last December, sweeping through several Swift Company meatpacking plants.In the first five months of this year, they detained and deported over 3,200 undocumented workers. But Commerce Secretary Gutierrez argued the government was not trying to put the squeeze on employers. CARLOS GUTIERREZ, U.S. Commerce Secretary: We've heard from employers consistently that they did not believe they had the tools and that they didn't have the law to be able to enforce what we're asking them to enforce. What we're going to do with our executive branch authority, the president's authority, is to give employers tools to the extent that we can. RAY SUAREZ: The two cabinet secretaries also announced plans to deny entry into the U.S. for increased numbers of immigrants associated with international gangs, install an exit system to monitor the departure of foreigners from airports and seaports, while reducing processing times for immigrant background checks.We get two views now of the impact these new rules will have on the business community. Mark Krikorian is executive director of the Center for Immigration Studies, a Washington, D.C., think-tank devoted to the research and analysis of immigration. And Craig Silvertooth is director of federal affairs for the National Roofing Contractors Association.Mark Krikorian, is this really a change in anything or just an announcement by the federal government to enforce existing law?