Lawmakers Clash Over New Call for National ID Card : Congress: Some on House panel say idea will help enforce immigration laws. Latino officials say it will foster discrimination, invasions of privacy.

Creation of a single, tamper-resistant identification card to verify employment eligibility--a controversial proposal designed to reduce illegal immigration--received a largely sympathetic hearing Wednesday from members of a House subcommittee.

But the concept was assailed by Rep. Jose Serrano (D-N.Y.), chairman of the Hispanic Caucus, who maintained that any such document would lead to invasion of personal privacy and pervasive discrimination against Latinos and those of Asian heritage.

The debate over initiatives to ensure that U.S. employers hire only those legally eligible to work in this country occurred during a hearing on the effectiveness of the employer sanctions enacted seven years ago.

It was the latest clash over an idea that has aroused vociferous opposition from immigrant-rights and civil-liberties groups over the last decade.

The House Judiciary subcommittee on international law, immigration and refugees heard testimony from lawmakers, Administration officials and academicians who said that sanctions adopted under the Immigration Reform and Control Act of 1986 have been largely ineffective.

In addition, the panel was told, sanctions have caused discrimination against members of minority groups who look or sound like immigrants.

The 1986 measure granted amnesty to millions of immigrants who were in the country illegally, while simultaneously imposing sanctions against employers who hired workers unable to show they were in the country legally.

Rep. Romano L. Mazzoli (D-Ky.), who chairs the subcommittee, noted that workers can use any of 29 different documents to verify employment eligibility--a daunting maze for even the most conscientious employers.

Chris Sale, acting commissioner of the Immigration and Naturalization Service, said the Administration hopes to remove 14 of the documents from the list, including those most susceptible to fraud.

“We have a goal of getting down to two, probably three documents,” she said.

Mazzoli indicated that he would like to strengthen employer sanctions, beef up the U.S. Border Patrol, increase enforcement of minimum-wage laws and labor and safety standards and consider a fraud-resistant identification card.

Others testified that easily manufactured fraudulent documents have mushroomed into a multimillion-dollar underground industry in bogus Social Security cards, birth certificates and other documents that can be used to demonstrate work eligibility.

“One can certainly manufacture something which is a great deal more difficult to fabricate than the ones we have now,” said Rep. Anthony C. Beilenson (D-Woodland Hills), who has introduced a bill to establish a national identification card for all eligible workers. “There is simply no way to enforce our existing law without it.”

Beilenson’s proposal, one of several such measures pending before Congress, calls for using a Social Security card with a photo, fingerprint or verifiable bar code.

Lou Enoff, acting commissioner of the Social Security Administration, said it would cost $2.5 billion and require an additional 8,000 government employees to reissue new Social Security cards. Adding a photo would cost more, he said.

Serrano said such a card “would only substitute one form of discrimination for another. . . . The only persons who will be approached to produce ID cards are those who look and sound foreign.”

Civil liberties groups contend that a new identification card could lead to a national data bank with information about every American that would pose a threat to individual privacy.

Beilenson said that using an enhanced Social Security card would decrease discrimination and “pose no greater threat to the privacy of citizens and legal residents than already exists.”