INS Chief Seeks Better Verification Methods : Immigration: A much-debated phone system in which employers would check documents like they do credit cards is one idea being considered.

U. S. Immigration and Naturalization Service Commissioner Gene McNary said Wednesday that he favors reforms--perhaps even a telephone verification system--to close documentation loopholes that have allowed illegal immigrants to continue to find jobs in the United States by using phony paper work.

Such new procedures, McNary said, could provide prospective employers with an efficient means of verifying documents demonstrating a person’s eligibility to work in the United States, thus achieving two goals: reducing the job market for illegal immigrants and cutting down on discrimination against foreign-looking job-seekers.

“What we’d like to do is improve the verification system,” he said during his first official visit to the U. S.-Mexico border zone in San Diego.

However, McNary, speaking from atop the southern levee of the Tijuana River, a major crossing area for the undocumented, said he is categorically opposed to any effort to create a national identification card--a document that is anathema to civil libertarians and others who see it as an Orwellian intrusion into individual privacy.

“I don’t and never have” supported a national ID card, said McNary, apparently reflecting the official position of the Bush Administration.

Asked about alternate proposals, McNary said, “It might just take a phone call.”

He was referring to a projected telephone verification system--similar to that used for credit cards--that would allow employers to dial a number and quickly assess whether the paper work presented by a job applicant is forged or authentic. It is among the most popular of the ideas for improving the methods to root out the phony documents that are now in wide circulation.

McNary did not fully back the telephone verification procedure, but he indicated that it is one alternative being seriously studied by authorities seeking to reduce the job market for the undocumented. It was the only alternative he mentioned during a news conference at the border, aside from a $1-million advertising campaign aimed at encouraging employers not to hire illegal aliens.

McNary’s comments were the strongest to date on the telephone verification concept, said Verne Jervis, the commissioner’s chief spokesman.

However, a phone verification system is far from becoming reality, and many questions remain about how it would be put in place and how effective it would be. A central issue is whether such verifications would be mandatory for all employers--something that many consider unlikely because of the burden to the employers and the expense of setting up such a system--or whether employers could simply use the system as an option.

Many observers have already said that such a system is doomed to failure, particularly if it is a voluntary process dependent on the good faith of employers who benefit from undocumented labor.

“It doesn’t sound like a cure-all to me,” said Kitty Calavita, assistant professor of social ecology at University of California, Irvine, who has conducted extensive studies on the relationship between employers and immigrants. “For a vast number of employers in this area, it’s just not in their interest to check.”

The document verification issue has been among the thorniest facing lawmakers since Congress began debating the reform of immigration laws early in the 1980s. The debate intensified in 1986 with the passage of the Immigration Reform and Control Act, which, for the first time, made it a federal crime for employers to hire undocumented workers. However, the law established what many consider an inadequate, cumbersome and loophole-ridden verification system that officials concede has supercharged what was already a booming market for false documents.

Several studies have shown that undocumented immigrants have managed to easily bypass the requirements by showing forged identification documents to prospective employers.

Most employers must now review a range of up to 17 documents--from driver’s licenses to passports to visas--to verify eligibility for jobs in the United States. But there is a major loophole: Employers are not required to check the authenticity of the submitted paper work, beyond a cursory inspection for obvious forgery or other irregularities.

Last month, the General Accounting Office, Congress’ investigative arm, charged that the process has led to “widespread discrimination” against legal residents, particularly those who look foreign. Many employers are afraid to hire such applicants, the study found.

A phone verification system, proponents say, would resolve matters quickly by allowing employers to dial a toll-free number, punch in identification codes and receive a timely answer about whether the documents submitted by the applicant were real and current.

McNary, who has been the nation’s top immigration officer since October, said the technology should not be a problem, but others have questioned the effectiveness of such a system. For one thing, a prospective employee may present a document that is indeed a valid one, but that could belong to someone else. Many undocumented job-seekers borrow legitimate documents or purchase them on the black market, studies have shown.