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DHS and Census walk into a bar ...

By Dan Moffett

Palm Beach Post Staff Writer

Sunday, August 26, 2007

Were it not for the tragic farce in Iraq, it would be much easier for Americans to enjoy the incompetence of government.

They could look at the chronic mismanagement, bureaucratic bungling and proliferation of bad ideas in Washington and find comic relief from the dog days of summer.
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Were it not for the tragic fiasco in Iraq, the federal government's all-around ineptitude would be the biggest joke on the planet.

If you need a really good belly laugh, U.S. immigration policy is always the right place to look. The past couple of weeks have been priceless.

Get this one: The Census Bureau is supposed to count everyone in the country in 2010. The bureau says it will be very difficult to count illegal immigrants, if the Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency insists on cracking down on them and driving them underground.

So the census people are asking immigration agents to suspend enforcement raids so the counters can go out and do their job.

Think of it as one big national timeout. It will sort of be like spending a year in Canada. ICE agents can catch up on vacation time, and immigrants can earn some extra cash. Odds are 2010 will turn out to be a boom year for the economy.

Of course, the fear is that U.S. citizens - whites, blacks, Hispanics, Asians, etc. - will demand equal time and a year off from following federal laws, too. While cutting immigrants some slack is good for the economy, doing it for everyone else is probably bad. But the potential entertainment value is obvious.

More comic relief has come from Michael Chertoff, the secretary of the Department of Homeland Security.

Mr. Chertoff, having failed to persuade Congress to pass a comprehensive reform bill this year, decided to launch his own crackdown against companies that employ illegal immigrants.

That meant doing something about Social Security fraud. Mr. Chertoff announced new rules under which DHS will toughen enforcement of "no match" letters the Social Security Administration sends to businesses that have workers with questionable identities. A "no match" letter tells an employer that the names or Social Security numbers of employees are different than those that the government has on file.

Typically, a "no match" letter draws about as much attention as a sparrow flying through Wyoming.

But Mr. Chertoff has promised to change that. He says, beginning next month, DHS no longer will consider the letters polite notification but evidence of "constructive knowledge" that an employee is not authorized to work. Companies that have "constructive knowledge" are liable for fines of up to $11,000 per unauthorized worker.

The absurdity of the mathematics in this federal offensive is humorous in itself. The government is expected to send out 140,000 "no match" letters - Florida figures to get at least 20,000 - that could affect as many as 8 million employees.

This would suggest that enforcement agents won't be able to give the Census Bureau that break in 2010 because they'll be too busy chasing down letters from 2007, 2008 and 2009.

Mr. Chertoff and the Bush administration appeared quite pleased with their initiative until connoisseurs of bureaucracy uncovered an unfortunate glitch: The Department of Homeland Security and the Social Security Administration aren't allowed to talk to each other.

Privacy laws prevent sharing of Social Security information with other agencies. So while Mr. Chertoff might like to go after employers who hire workers with fake ID numbers, the law prohibits him from trying to find out who they are.

DHS has a Plan B, however. Of course, everyone in Washington has a Plan B or C for immigration.

Mr. Chertoff's backup position is that his agency will rely on tipsters to voluntarily come forward and turn in employers who are breaking the law. It's kind of a "don't ask, but please tell" policy.

If you're thinking, "Well, wait a minute, this sounds just like how the system works, or rather doesn't work, right now," you are correct.

So go ahead and enjoy a good laugh on your federal government.
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