No-Match SS Letter Rule Temporarily Halted

The Suskinds immigration blog and the Lawprofessors blog on 8/31/2007 explain the halting of the sending of letters to employers this week, telling  employers that workers who have social security numbers that don’t match the Social Security Administration’s  records might have to be let go.

In San Francisco A federal judge today issued an order temporarily blocking the government from implementing the new Department of Homeland Security  rule.

Implementation would cause U.S. citizens and other authorized workers to lose their jobs and  it would use use error-prone social security records as a tool for immigration enforcement, the reports say.

The judge's order also stops the SSA from beginning to send notices on Tuesday to approximately 140,000 employers across the country notifying them of the new rule, which would impact approximately eight million workers.

The order comes as a result of a lawsuit  by the (AFL-CIO), the ACLU, and others. A hearing on the groups' request to permanently bar the implementation is scheduled for October 1.

The new DHS rule would impose liability on employers based on failure to respond to an SSA "no-match" letter, even though SSA errors are caused by innocent factors such as typographical errors and name changes due to marriage or divorce, and the use of multiple surnames, which is common in many parts of the world.

According to the Office of the Inspector General in SSA, 12.7 million of the 17.8 million discrepancies in SSA's database - more than 70% - belong to native-born U.S. citizens.  Under the DHS rule, employers might be required to fire employees whose erroneous SSA records are not fixed within 90 days after the "no-match" letter is sent. The DHS rule would threaten jobs of U.S. citizens and other legally authorized workers simply because of errors in the government's inaccurate social security earnings database.

The court found that the "balance of hardships tips sharply in favor of staying the rule while it is being challenged," and states the chance of irreparable harm from implementing the No match letters outweighs the risk of harm caused by delay.

For more details check out the order:
      http://www.nilc.org/...

and the complaint at: http://www.nilc.org/...

It’s nice to see that common sense prevails.

•  Common sense, all right

  This policy was going to be a big threat to the profit margins of Republican campaign contributors who hire workers who had purchased their social security cards in Macarthur Park.

  by Utahrd on Fri Aug 31, 2007 at 10:00:16 PM PDT

  •  Good point!

    I wonder how many Republicans will vote Democrat or contribute to Democrats, because they see the Republicans hurting their financial well being on this matter.

    by immigradvocate on Fri Aug 31, 2007 at 10:07:41 PM PDT

  •  well

    that might be true for the 5.1 mil no-match letters that would have gone to foreign-born workers. ("might" being the operative word in that phrase)

    but what about the 12.7 mil that were going to go to native-born US citizens whose records were screwed up by SSA? ... did they too "purchased their social security cards in Macarthur Park?"

    At least it's great to know that the AFL-CIO is savvy enough to see-through Bush's publicity stunt, and not let Chertoff put American workers out of work in order to garner brownie points with the retrictionist right-wing.

    by Duke1676 on Fri Aug 31, 2007 at 10:44:22 PM PDT

    •  Migra Mattes is a great site. Congrats!

      by immigradvocate on Fri Aug 31, 2007 at 11:40:55 PM PDT

  •  which is a few blocks

    from the courthouse where I work...

    by murphy on Fri Aug 31, 2007 at 10:44:55 PM PDT

•  Glad somebody saw the light

  This rule would play havoc across the country. In my job I see errors in reporting SS numbers all the time. If everybody who was a victim of bureaucratic bungling lost their job, I shudder to think of the results !

  by murphy on Fri Aug 31, 2007 at 10:44:08 PM PDT

•  For a liitle perspective on just how stupid

  this plan is, we need only look at some simple arithmetic.

  The undocumented workforce is approximately 7.2 million

  The current US workforce is 153.2 million

  The current unemployment rate is 4.6 percent (7.1 million)

  Number of no-match letters to foreign born workers would be 5.1 million

  Number of no-match letters to US citizens would be 12.7 million

  So let's now say I'm Tom Tancredo, Pat Buchanan, or Lou Dobbs, and nothing would give me a bigger hard-on than to force 5.1 million undocumented workers out of work and starve them out of the country through "attrition" by sending them no-match letters.

  Likewise let's assume that the SSA, when swamped with nearly 13 million requests from citizens for processing within 90 days, manages to get 50% of them done in time (that would mean processing 144,444 request everyday for 90 days including weekends and holidays, no small task). This would leave 6.4 million US citizens unable to to process requests and then be fired.

  Now, just for arguments sake, lets say that half the jobs left vacant by the newly fired foreign workers would be filled by the currently unemployed who would be willing to pick fruit, bus tables, mow lawns or do roofing or drywall (and be willing to relocated to do such jobs) and replace 2.5 mil of the 5.1 million jobs opened up by the no-match letters.

  that would leave 4.6 million currently unemployed US citizens and add an additional 6.4 million newly unemployed citizens for a total of 11 million....an increase of nearly 4 million.

  brilliant ... absolutely brilliant
   

  by Duke1676 on Sat Sep 01, 2007 at 12:25:21 AM PDT

•  The millions of legal workers who get a letter

  need to know there is a problem with their records since their money won't be credited to their accounts. The earlier they are aware of that and get it straightened out the better.

  The 90 day limit with an understaffed SS office would create a lot of problems, they'd have to amend the time limit so that a person isn't fired until their case and further documentation is reviewed if that clause isn't already in the law.

  Those who complain about the expense of illegal immigrants rarely mention the billions of dollars that is in the Social Security suspension fund, money they pay in for social security and Medicare that they will never get. (If that was in the proverbial lock box drawing interest it would be a great help to the system!)

  by joynow on Sat Sep 01, 2007 at 01:11:52 AM PDT