There are many interesting facets to this story in the Chicago Tribune—among them Rep. Luis Gutierrez’ signal that he might support having a U.S. national ID.

“We need to know who’s working in the United States, and we need to make it easy,” Gutierrez told the paper, referring to the push to create a national ID in immigration reform legislation Congress may consider this year.

The story also describes how a UPS worker nearly lost her job because the name she was using—her married name—doesn’t match up with Social Security Administration records. I discussed how electronic employment eligibility verification would plunge Americans into an identity-bureaucracy morass in my paper, “Franz Kafka’s Solution to Illegal Immigration.”

Expect much more Kafkaesque identity bureaucracy—and greater government control of your life—if a national ID is part of immigration reform. When you find out that your papers aren’t in order and that you’ve been denied access to work, housing, financial services, and health care, one of the Washington deal-makers you have to thank may be Luis Gutierrez.