Social Security policy unfair to immigrants, groups say
Joshua Schubert


Russ Davis, executive director of Jobs with Justice, demonstrates outside the Boston Social Security Administration office yesterday.

One day after a federal judge's controversial immigration ruling, local activists voiced their disapproval of a policy they say the federal government uses to discriminate against undocumented immigrant workers.

Carrying signs that read "no-match letters do not match with this country's values," protesters rallied outside the Tip O'Neill Federal Building near North Station in opposition to the Social Security Administration's no-match letters, which are sent to employers of suspected illegal immigrants.

The letters give the employer 90 days to resolve each case, Marcony Almeda, immigration policy analyst for the Massachusetts Immigrant and Refugee Advocacy Coalition, told The Daily Free Press in September. If employers do not resolve the issue within this time period, they are forced to fire the suspected worker under penalty of federal law, Almeda said.

But of the 37 million letters that were sent out last year, only 10 million turned up employees that were actually undocumented workers. The other 27 million were workers who had accidentally recorded the wrong Social Security number on employment paperwork -- which didn't match up with federal records.

On Wednesday, The San Francisco Chronicle reported U.S. District Judge Charles Breyer blocked the federal government's attempts to hold employers responsible for firing undocumented workers. Breyer said the no-match letters "would result in irreparable harm to innocent workers and employers" and forbade authorities from prosecuting business owners who do not fire employees whose Social Security numbers fail to match government records, the Chronicle reported.

Protesters yesterday decried the federal ruling, saying it enables discrimination against immigrants.

"We are here to bear witness to the cowardice of elected officials," said Centro Presente Executive Director Elena Letona, who said federal officials use no-match letters to "instill fear as a way of controlling [immigrants].

"We know this and we are not fooled," she said.

The American Civil Liberties Union called the no-match letter policy problematic because it places undue onus on employers to enforce federal initiatives and is based on commonly flawed Social Security records.

"The Bush administration showed a callous disregard for legal workers and citizens by adopting a rule that punishes innocent workers and employers under the guise of so-called immigration enforcement," said director of the ACLU Immigrants' Rights Project Lucas Guttentag after the San Francisco hearing. "The court exposed the new rule's fatal-flaw rule by recognizing that no-match letters are based on error-filled SSA records and that the administration's about-face on the use of these records was improper."

Russ Davis, director of Massachusetts Jobs with Justice, a workers' rights group, said the government has implemented no-match letters to "avoid real immigration reform."

Davis called Breyer's injunction of the no-match letters a "temporary victory" and added activists should remain vigilant and continue to fight for immigrants' rights.
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