Illegal workers face new federal offensive

By Lornet Turnbull
http://archives.seattletimes.nwsource.c ... e=20070831
Seattle Times staff reporter
KEN LAMBERT / THE SEATTLE TIMES


Will Pittz hands a letter to Joy Chang of the Social Security Administration in Seattle on Wednesday requesting a meeting with a Social Security commissioner about "no-match" letters. Pittz leads a delegation of employers and immigrant-rights supporters.

From the kitchens of swanky Belltown restaurants to the farm fields of Eastern Washington, a looming federal crackdown on illegal-immigrant hiring could create widespread workplace disruptions.

In letters to be mailed starting Tuesday, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) will warn employers of some 8 million workers nationwide that they must fire any employee who lacks a valid Social Security number or risk criminal charges and hefty fines.

Millions of illegal immigrants land jobs by using an assortment of phony documents — including fabricated or stolen Social Security numbers. And with unemployment at record-low levels, this new Homeland Security regulation is creating angst in a range of industries.

Immigrant-rights advocates say the Homeland Security letters could drive thousands of workers underground, where many illegal immigrants already are paid under the table. Many will join the ranks of day laborers or become transient, constantly moving among employers, trailed by the letters.

About 15,000 letters will be sent each week for eight to 10 weeks. Some 140,000 letters eventually are expected to be mailed — 5,000 to Washington state employers, the seventh-highest number nationwide. "It's still a bit of a shock that they're going to do this," said Anthony Anton, executive director of the Washington Restaurant Association. "We think once these letters come out, most [undocumented workers] won't show up for work the next day."

"No place ... to hide"

The notices from the Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) division will be added to the letters sent out by the Social Security Administration over the course of the next year. The companies that receive them are those that employed people with Social Security numbers that didn't match their names during the 2006 tax year.

A clerical error or an unreported name change can create the discrepancy, but in many cases the names listed are of undocumented workers using phony Social Security numbers.

"Not only are we going to catch a larger percentage [of employers] but ... once we do catch somebody, there's going to be no place for them to hide," Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff announced this month.

So-called Social Security mismatches represent about 4 percent of all wage reports employers submit each year; the taxes these workers have paid over time total $585 billion — money illegal immigrants are not eligible to access.

The new regulation, effective Sept. 14, gives employers 90 days after they receive a letter to resolve any discrepancy with the Social Security numbers, or they risk being held liable for knowingly hiring illegal immigrants. In addition to criminal prosecution, employers face fines up to $11,000 per worker.

"DHS is turning the screws on the employment community ... trying to make it more uncomfortable for employers to simply ignore these letters," said Steve Miller, a Seattle immigration attorney.

"This does raise the stakes: Employers are going to have to establish processes and procedures for hiring people who are lawfully present in the U.S."

Attorneys are urging employers not to ignore the letters — or they do so at their peril.

"The most legitimate employers will take this seriously and say, 'We don't want to have these letters sitting around in the event of an audit,' " Miller said. "The most unscrupulous ones will say they're willing to take the risk ... "

On Thursday, a delegation of employers and immigrant-rights advocates delivered letters to Social Security offices across the country — including in Seattle — asking the agency not to mail the letters. The AFL-CIO has filed a suit against the federal government over the new rule.

"It's ICE's job to enforce immigration law; Social Security shouldn't get involved," said Hilary Stern, executive director of Casa Latina, which operates a day-labor center downtown. "This will result in a loss of taxes; companies will end up having to rehire the employees they lose in a never-ending cycle."

There's also worry about the potential for abuse.

Rebecca Smith, a coordinator at the National Employment Law Project, said the new regulations could lead to discrimination against foreign-looking and foreign-sounding people.

"What we may see is employers who get the no-match letter, rather than following the process, jump the gun and fire people," Smith said. "There'll be employers who are just trying to comply with the law and make mistakes, and there'll be others who use it in a way that undermines workers' rights."

Legal loophole

The stepped-up enforcement follows failed efforts this year in Congress to reform immigration laws.

Current law does not require employers to verify workers' immigration status, so companies often accept documents presented by workers at face value — a loophole that has enabled millions of illegal immigrants to get jobs.

In the construction industry, it is estimated that up to 30 percent of workers are unauthorized; in agriculture, up to 70 percent.

Ira Mehlman, a spokesman for the Federation for American Immigration Reform, said if companies can verify a person's ability to pay with a credit card, the government should be able to verify someone's eligibility to work before they are hired. The technology exists, he said. But employers and the government, he said, "don't really want to enforce the law."

Graham Black, owner of gProjects, a Seattle-area builder, said he thinks a lot of construction workers will get around the new regulation by going into business for themselves.

"If someone has four guys installing floors for him, he gets four no-matches, my thinking is that those four will go off and form a company and the former employer is within his rights to hire them to do the same job they were doing," Black said.

"I don't anticipate anyone is going to pack up and go home."

Lornet Turnbull: 206-464-2420 or lturnbull@seattletimes.com