Hispanic leaders speak out against immigration enforcement push
Baltimore Business Journal - by Scott Dance Staff

Local Hispanic community and business leaders spoke out Thursday against a U.S. policy that would require them to fire any employees who aren't in the records of the Social Security Administration.

The policy, implemented by the Department of Homeland Security as part of immigration law enforcement, would put an unfair burden on large and small business alike to police their own employees to prevent undocumented immigration, local opponents of the measure said.

The AFL-CIO, National Immigrant Law Center, ACLU and other groups filed a lawsuit over the policy in federal district court in August and a judge granted a preliminary injunction Wednesday preventing the policy from being enacted until a final ruling is made.

Representatives from the House of Delegates, Baltimore Hispanic Chamber of Commerce and Casa de Maryland, a Latino advocacy organization, joined the national nonprofit group Interfaith Worker Justice in supporting a change in the policy at a Thursday morning press conference in Woodlawn, two miles from the Social Security Administration headquarters.

Baltimore Hispanic Chamber of Commerce President Maria Welch told the dozens of Latino workers in the audience the policy wrongly encumbers the 275 businesses in her group.

"We're not immigration and we don't want to be immigration," Welch said. "There are other ways to do this."

The government informs employers that their workers are not in Social Security records through what are called "no-match" letters. The policy would give employers 90 days to document workers who receive the letters before being required to fire them or paying a $10,000 fine.

But many times, receiving a letter has nothing to do with illegal immigration, state Del. Tom Hucker, a Montgomery County Democrat, told the audience.

Welch said in an interview she had personally received a no-match letter after changing her name when she got married, and it took six months to resolve.

All employers should be required to do is review an employee's driver's license or other ID and file an I-9 form, an employment eligibility verification, Welch argued.

"They are asking us to be INS agents in a way," she said.
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