Thread: Newsday:Check Social Security and immigrants

Newsday.com
Editorial: Check Social Security and immigrants
August 16, 2007

This year's failure by Congress to pass a comprehensive immigration-reform bill has left the nation with limited options. The most controversial one that the Bush administration has chosen is an administrative action to crack down on employers who carry illegal immigrants with bogus Social Security numbers. Given the popular sentiment in favor of enforcement, this is a politically necessary step. But it may well have unintended consequences.

This page has consistently favored a bill that addresses the immigration issue on many fronts: enforcement at the border, yes, but combined with an earned path to citizenship for those who are here illegally but are ready to comply with the law, and a guest-worker program that would meet the needs of our economy and of immigrant families.

But the emotional heat on this issue makes any kind of compromise elusive. One solution by the Department of Homeland Security is new rules to come down more vigorously on employers for disregarding "no-match letters" from the Social Security Administration. These documents alert employers that the numbers for their employees don't match federal records. The government admits its database is sometimes wrong, so Washington must work hard to ensure the accuracy of the records.

This tightening could help placate those who demand better enforcement, and might lead to much-needed legislative compromise. But it's also possible that this action will displace some workers, driving them further underground. Some employers who now pay them by check and keep faulty records may simply "fire" them and pay them by cash, with no records at all.

Some who have been working indoors, in factories, may have to fall back on the hiring situation of last resort: standing on streets, looking for cash-paying day jobs. While enforcing the laws on the books is a necessary part of immigration reform, it would be ironic if that ends up worsening the very problem that made Long Island a prime locus of immigration conflict.

Copyright © 2007, Newsday Inc.

http://www.newsday.com/news/opinion/ny- ... 9205.story

an earned path to citizenship for those who are here illegally but are ready to comply with the law

How much more ignorant can these people get. Wake up you stupid fools if there still here illegal there not complying with law. If they were ready to comply with the law they would leave and come back in

LEGAL! LEGAL! LEGAL!

Many pro-illegals say that our economy will be hurt if we remove illegals, OK we are hurting now. Let us get rid of the illegals and get it over with and then we can build America back up to a nation of laws and enforcement. One of the first thing we need to do is get rid of the ACLU and the liberal judges who don't believe in protecting America and victims first.