Thread: 2 federal agencies hold illegal immigrant data, don't share

2 federal agencies hold illegal immigrant data
The IRS and the Social Security Administration have data on illegal workers, but they don't share it.
By Liz Chandler
Inquirer Washington Bureau

WASHINGTON - Two federal agencies keep to themselves a mountain of evidence that investigators could use to indict the nation's burgeoning workforce of illegal immigrants and the firms that employ them.

Last week, immigration agents trumpeted the arrests of 1,187 illegal workers in a massive sting on a single company, but they acknowledge that they relied on old-fashioned confidential informants and an unsolicited tip to get their investigation going.

It didn't have to be that hard.

The IRS and the Social Security Administration routinely collect strong evidence of potential workplace crimes, including names and addresses of millions of people who are using bogus Social Security numbers, their wage records, and the identities of the bosses who knowingly hire them.

But they keep those facts secret.

"If the government bothered to look, it could find abundant evidence of illegal aliens gaming our system and the unscrupulous employers who are aiding and abetting them," said Rep. J.D. Hayworth (R., Ariz.).

The two agencies, Knight Ridder found, do not analyze their data to root out likely immigration fraud - and they won't share their millions of records so that law enforcement agencies can do that, either.

Privacy laws, they say, prohibit them from sharing their files with anyone, except in rare criminal investigations.

But the agencies don't use the power they have.

The IRS doesn't fine even those employers who commit the most egregious violations and repeatedly submit inaccurate data about their workers. Social Security does virtually nothing to alert citizens whose Social Security numbers are being used by others.

Evidence abounds within their files. One internal study found that a restaurant company had submitted 4,100 duplicate Social Security numbers for workers. Other firms submit inaccurate names or numbers for nearly all of their employees. One child's Social Security number was used 742 times by workers in 42 states.

"That's the kind of evidence we want," said Paul Charlton, the federal prosecutor in Arizona. He regularly prosecutes unauthorized workers but says it is difficult to prove that employers are involved in the crime.

"Anything that suggests they had knowledge... is a good starting point," Charlton said. "If you see the same Social Security number a thousand times, it's kind of hard for them to argue they didn't know."

Congress and bureaucrats have watched the problem grow for more than a decade.

An estimated seven million unauthorized workers are gainfully employed in the United States. They're picking crops, building homes and tending yards in a shadow economy at work every day. In some cases, they work for the government on public projects that pay them with taxpayer money. They have built roads in North Carolina and military housing in California and even helped reconstruct the Pentagon after the 9/11 attacks, until law enforcement got word.

They also work at airports, seaports, nuclear plants, and other sites vulnerable to U.S. security.

Those are the sites where immigration officials have focused their attention. But on Thursday, they announced a new push toward arresting bosses who hire unauthorized workers.

Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff has asked Congress for access to the secret earnings files, a tool that he says would help "get control of this illegal workforce."

In last week's busts at plants nationwide belonging to Ifco Systems North America Inc., a Houston-based maker of wooden pallets, more than half the workers were using invalid or stolen Social Security numbers, authorities said.

"We need to be able to... spot that kind of widespread abuse and not really just have to wait for tips," Chertoff said.

The IRS wants to protect the privacy of its records because disclosing them might lead companies and employees to stop reporting income and paying taxes and go underground, where exploitation is more certain. IRS Commissioner Mark Everson told Congress in February: "At least now, we are collecting some taxes in these areas, and we are working to collect even more."

The records at issue are earnings reports, sent by employers along with money withheld for taxes and Social Security.

They contain workers' names and Social Security numbers, and when they don't match Social Security records, the information is set aside in the Earnings Suspense File. Created in 1937, the file contains about 255 million unmatched wage reports representing $520 billion paid to workers but not credited to their Social Security earnings records.

Typos and name changes can cause wage reports not to match Social Security records. But increasingly, officials cite unauthorized workers using bogus Social Security numbers as a driving force behind the mismatches.

Incorrect files mushroomed during the 1990s, as migrants poured into the United States. Almost half the inaccurate reports come from such industries as agriculture, construction and restaurants, which often rely on unauthorized labor.

Social Security's inspector general Patrick O'Carroll told Congress in February, "We believe the chief cause of [unmatched] wage items... is unauthorized work by noncitizens."

The IRS also receives the mismatch information. It tries to match workers involved to its records, then investigates whether the workers are paying taxes.

Particularly disturbing is that possibly millions of the Social Security numbers belong to others. In Utah, after Social Security provided data for one criminal probe, investigators discovered that Social Security numbers of 2,000 children were being used by other people.

"What do you think we'd find if we had the ability to analyze all of their information?" asked Kirk Torgensen, Utah's chief deputy attorney general. "It would be invaluable. How short-sighted is it that the government doesn't follow this trail?"

Firms in the Know?

Internal federal studies suggest some companies are aware of the illegal status of their employees. Auditors have found:

• About 8,900 of the nation's six million employers account for 30 percent of inaccurate reports.

• Ten statesaccount for 48 percent of the U.S. workforce but have 72 percent of the unmatched earnings reports.

• Some companiesrepeatedly have reporting problems, including 43 that made the worst-100 list for 16 straight years. One company submitted 33,000 errant earnings reports in a single year.

http://www.philly.com/mld/inquirer/news ... rer_nation
- Liz Chandler

• Some companiesrepeatedly have reporting problems, including 43 that made the worst-100 list for 16 straight years. One company submitted 33,000 errant earnings reports in a single year.

Why aren't these people in jail? I guess if you have enough money, the law doesn't apply to you.