Posted on 12/24/2007 9:32:03 PM PST by BGHater
'No-match' letters to employers won't be mailed as appeals court decides case
Employers will get a pass this year on rules that would have required firing illegal immigrants.
The Social Security Administration says it will not mail out "no-match" letters this year to more than 138,000 employers nationwide.
The program was stymied because of a lawsuit by a coalition of labor, business and civil liberties groups.
No-match letters inform employers that a worker's name and Social Security number don't match. There can be a variety of reasons, but sometimes that's because the worker is an illegal immigrant. The letters would have flagged 8.6 million workers nationwide.
In Georgia, 4,669 employers will get a pass on the letters this year.
"There are some employers who are probably relieved because if a large portion of their workers are listed on the mismatch letter, they could lose some or most of their employees, with no one to take their place," said Eileen Scofield, an Atlanta immigration and labor lawyer.
A spokesman for the restaurant industry said what the government needs to do is adopt comprehensive immigration reform, rather than more rules.
Twenty-two percent of the nation's 7.6 million food prep and service employees are foreign born.
"We don't think you can enforce your way out of our broken immigration system," said Mike Shutley, director of legislative affairs for the National Restaurant Association.
In August, the Department of Homeland Security issued a new rule giving employers 90 days to terminate workers whose paperwork could not be reconciled once they got a no-match letter.
That rule is on hold, however, after a federal district judge in California issued an injunction in October. The case is on appeal to the Ninth District Court of Appeals.
Labor groups, including the AFL-CIO, as well as the American Civil Liberties Union argued in the lawsuit that legal workers and others might be fired unfairly. They also said the government did not consider the impact on small businesses. Some causes for Social Security mismatches include typos, name changes from marriage or divorce and multiple last names.
In some cases, however, the mismatch happens because a worker is not legally authorized to work in the United States. That's what the Department of Homeland Security is trying to address.
"The no-match letters are an important tool not only for the department to better enforce our immigration laws, but also for employers to make sure that they are complying with the law and appropriate hiring practices," said Veronica Valdes, spokeswoman for the Department of Homeland Security.
"We are in no way abandoning the no-match rule," Valdes said.
The department will revise the rule and try again, she said.
In the past, employers were not required to act on no-match letters, although some would follow through and terminate workers who could not clear up their paperwork.
That's the case with Miguel Candelaria, owner of MA&O Construction. Candelaria helped found the Hispanic Contractors Association of Georgia.
Candelaria got no-match letters for the 2005 tax year affecting eight of about 500 employees. A few employees had legitimate mistakes, such as typos in their names or numbers, that needed to be fixed, he said.
A few had used their children's Social Security numbers, and some had expired work visas. He fired them.
"The ones who couldn't come up with the stuff, they're gone," Candelaria said.
THE STORY SO FAR • Previously: The Social Security Administration had been notifying employers that a worker's name and Social Security number didn't match. • The latest: Because of a lawsuit over stricter rules, the program has been put on hold. • What's next: The government will revise its procedures.
Of course some of those papers still had wet ink on them .
Merry Christmas to all.
Every Representative and Senator who served since the FDR administration would go to prison just for the Sarbanes-Oxley implications of the Social Security system deficit
Thank you, and a Merry Christmas to YOU, doc!
It's a funny world when these three groups are all pro-slave-labor for illegal aliens.
Bobby Kennedy must be spinning in his grave, LOL.
Thank goodness we’re building that wall to keep the illegals out. Looks like that’s our only hope.
Nope, the only acceptable answer to these folks is to make all the illegals legal. Geeez, lack of enforcement is the reason we got in this mess to start with.
Gee,what a shame...
If there are no illegal aliens to work for peanuts,
the employers that scourge the populace for low wage earners might have to pay a living wage.
These employers are nuts. Sooner or later as it goes full circle which it always does; they will have no customers because no one that can afford anything will be left to buy their goods.
And don’t think the politicians or the lobbyists will care. They will just move on to the next scam.
They are everywhere in all the corporations, government; etc.
We should demand that government fire all illegals as we are probably paying for them twice.
Why would they kill the golden goose? That withholding and FICA taxes is found money...to the tune of thousands of billions of dollars.
“Grampa - is that a house in that picture? Where’s the 9-foot wall with razor wire?”
“Grama - What’s a ‘pedestrian’”?
“Grampa - You mean you could say anything you wanted?"
I don’t know the exact number of illegal aliens employed by the Federal Government, but I do recall hearing that they are this country’s LARGEST employer of illegals.
Unfortunately our government does not give a damn about us.
Merry Christmas!
More pandering by Bush and his acolytes.
A nation which refuses to maintain the integrity of its borders will not long survive as a nation.
A President who violates his oath of office should be impeached.
Feds won’t enforce rule on firing illegal immigrants....
jorge bush & his legacy!!!!
But let me stop paying income taxes and lets see how fast they ENFORCE my butt to jail!
At least send me a letter if somebody else is using my SS# so I can straighten it out and check for identity theft!!!!
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