DHS Undermines Economic Security with No-Match Rule

The following release comes from our partners at the National Immigration Forum. The National Immigration Forum, founded in 1982, is the nation’s premier immigrant rights organization. The Forum advocates and builds public support for public policies that welcome immigrants and refugees and are fair to and supportive of newcomers to our country. For more information, visit their website at: www.immigrationforum.org

DHS Undermines Economic Security with No-Match Rule

Washington, DC - Today, DHS issued a final administrative rule notifying employers that failure to take action upon receipt of Social Security Administration "no-match" letters will serve as constructive notice that an employer had hired an employee who was an undocumented immigrant. These "no-match" letters are in fact wage report letters issued by the Social Security Administration that are designed to identify possible record-keeping errors and other problems associated with matching wages to Social Security numbers. The following is a statement from Ali Noorani, Executive Director of the National Immigration Forum.

While Congress holds hearings on Wall Street's financial crisis and the Bush administration's response, and the Department of Labor releases unemployment statistics confirming the pain of a slow down in the economy, the Department of Homeland Security continues to march to the beat of its own deportation-only drum. While the country focuses on a severe credit crisis, the lack of health insurance crisis and a looming recession, DHS's action effectively pours salt onto a wound widening everyday. To burden good employers with mounds of enforcement-laden paperwork based on bad data stifles an economy struggling to survive.

Today's release of a final administrative rule regarding "no-match" letters is opposed from all corners of our economy. The so called "no-match" rule turns an advisory letter issued by the Social Security Administration - designed to ensure that individuals paying into the Social Security system are properly credited for their work - into a tool for tracking down undocumented workers. While employers should certainly take steps to correct discrepancies, the no-match rule will not seriously address the problems of illegal immigration.

Inaccurate databases, human error, and failure to report name changes can all contribute to the "no-match" problem, but this new rule is likely to turn all no-match letters into scarlet letters, leading to unnecessary dismissals and possible discriminatory hiring practices. Given our country's rapidly unraveling economy, measures that further weaken businesses and threaten the economic security of our nation and of legitimate workers - native and immigrant worker alike - is bad public policy.

The Bush administration is determined to continue the drumbeat of deportation-only practices, using its last few months in office to put regulations in place that will make it that much more difficult for a new administration to tackle immigration in a straightforward and reasonable way. The administration should heed the call of thousands of employees and employers who fear the ramifications of this new rule.

The next administration and Congress should move quickly to help America get back on its feet by enacting immigration reform that is fiscally responsible, creates genuine security for communities, and leads to rational regulation of immigration. The no-match rule makes no contribution to those objectives and should be shelved before it disrupts the economy even further.

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E-Verify Program Snares Citizens

in the news

Electronic Dragnet for Undocumented Nets Citizens

April 8, 2008 09:07 AM (EST)
Roberto Lovato
The Huffington Post

Two hours after starting his new job at a food processing plant in 2006, Fernando Tinoco got fired. "I went to work, felt really good to have a new job and started going to it," says Tinoco, a 53-year-old naturalized U.S. citizen who lives in Chicago. "And then they called me into the office and told me that my Social Security number was fake," he adds, "And then they fired me." Apparently, Tyson Foods Inc., Tinoco's former employer, was one of the more than 52,000 companies voluntarily participating in "E-Verify", a Department of Homeland Security (DHS) program designed to identify undocumented workers by electronically verifying their employment eligibility.

After the Kafkaesque experience of being hired, fired and trying to maneuver through the famously overstretched bureaucracy of the Social Security Administration to re-confirm status, Citizen Tinoco has become an outspoken critic of U.S. immigration laws' impact on citizens. "I think that citizens need to be as careful of these new immigration laws," says Tinoco, who now works at a school, adding, "they can ruin our lives too." Tinoco found his concerns echoed by Jim Harper of the conservative Cato Institute, who recently wrote that "If E-Verify goes national, get used to hearing that Orwellian term: 'non-confirmation.'"

That is why E-Verify is opposed by an unlikely alliance that includes the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, major unions, Republican legislators and others. But it is only one of a growing number of legislative and administrative immigration control initiatives that Tinoco and many critics believe will negatively impact not just non-citizens, but citizens as well. This week, for example, Congress is considering the Secure America through Verification and Enforcement (SAVE) Act, which includes provisions that mandate a national verification system like that of the more voluntary state programs like E-Verify. >>read full article

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“No-Match” Letters Still Bad for Workers, Employers, and the Economy

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
March 26, 2008

Contact:
Erik Sorensen, Communications, CAUSA (503) 488-0263
Aeryca Steinbauer, Coordinator, CAUSA (503) 984-6816

“No-Match” Letters Still Bad for Workers, Employers, and the Economy

Salem, OR— Last fall after a court stopped the No Match plan stating it would hurt legal workers, the Department of Homeland Security said it would review its plan. Today, DHS reissued its 2007 Social Security Administration (SSA) no-match rule and a supplemental regulation in the Federal Register with only minor cosmetic changes that do not begin to address the court's concerns.

SSA no-match letters' purpose is to correct discrepancies in SSA's records that prevent workers from receiving credit for their earnings. The letters are not and have never been an immigration-enforcement tool, and they are ill-suited to that purpose. While undocumented workers are among the millions of workers who receive no-match letters each year, many legal workers - including U.S. citizens - receive letters because of clerical errors, unreported name changes, and other discrepancies in their records.

“The rule is bad for the economy and is certain to cause massive layoffs of employment-authorized workers and U.S. citizens”, said Aeryca Steinbauer, Coordinator with CAUSA. “There are many factors that may trigger a no-match letter, including misspelled names, name changes, and database errors. Employers can easily dismiss employees, regardless of their legal status, because of a flawed system, and errors in the system create a cloud of suspicion between business and its workers.”

According to the Office of the Inspector General at SSA, 17.8 million discrepancies in the SSA database that could result in a no-match letter, 12.7 million (or over 70 percent) pertain to native-born U.S. citizens. In addition The Government Accountability Office (GAO) testified before Congress that the SSA database that generates no-match letters contains “hundreds of millions of records, many unrelated to unauthorized work,” and that “in terms of poor earnings reporting, its focus is not on unauthorized workers.”

“There are fundamental problems with this rule,” said Jeff Stone, Government Relations director at the Oregon Association of Nurseries. “With such a large number of foreign-born workers contributing to the economy, the productivity in many sectors would be significantly reduced without them.” The nursery group represents the state’s largest sector of agriculture with 2,100 businesses and more than $1 billion in annual sales. Nurseries are a key generator of revenue for Oregon, with more than 75 percent of its product exported outside the state. “We are urging Congress to adopt reform that allows these valued workers a legal way to support our economy,” he said.

The public will have until April 25, 2008, to comment on the rule. Comments can be submitted at DHS’s website at: contact.dhs.gov or by calling 202-282-8495.

CAUSA is Oregon’s statewide, grassroots immigrant rights coalition. We work to defend and advance immigrant rights through coordination with local, state, and national coalitions and allies.

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