Thread: More BS from Albor Ruiz!

Quashed Social Security no-match letter plan still stinks
Sunday, March 30th 2008, 4:00 AM

Turning Social Security Administration "no-match" letters into an immigration-enforcement tool was a terrible idea last year. This year, it is still a terrible idea.

The Department of Homeland Security and the SSA's 2007 plan to send out 140,000 letters demanding that employers fire workers whose Social Security numbers did not match those in their records was bad. So bad in fact, that federal courts blocked its implementation.

Now Homeland Security has reissued the no-match rule with some slight technical changes.

It hopes to persuade U.S. District Court Judge Charles Breyer, who blocked the proposal as part of an ongoing lawsuit, to let it be applied.

Yet the very real problems that prompted Breyer to block the rule remain untouched.

"The [new] supplemental rule does not change the 2007 rule," the national Low-Wage Immigrant Worker Coalition said in a written statement, expressing its frustration at the administration's failure to address the plan's deep flaws.

The plan's regulations give business owners 90 days to explain a discrepancy once they find out that an employee's Social Security number is not valid.

After that time, employers would be forced to fire workers without proper Social Security cards. The Department of Homeland Security warned of stern sanctions against employers who ignored the letter.

The AFL-CIO, the American Civil Liberties Union, the National Immigration Law Center and other groups filed a lawsuit against the SSA and DHS and are now asking for a permanent suspension of the rule.

The groups said that the legal action was prompted by the unfairness of sending out the letters based on a backlogged system full of discrepancies.

"[It] will lead to unfair firings and wrongful deportations," said Héctor Figueroa, secretary treasurer of Local 32BJ of the Service Employees International Union, which represents more than 85,000 property service workers.

In December 2006, the office of the inspector general of the Social Security Administration issued a report virtually agreeing with Figueroa.

Most mismatches, the report said, are the result of clerical errors, misspellings and other mistakes, rather than fraud. More than 70% of the discrepancies involved U.S. citizens.

There is little doubt that the letters, if sent out, will lead to unprecedented mass layoffs of millions of hardworking employees - many of them U.S. citizens or legal residents - and will wreak havoc on thousands of businesses. In the current economic downturn, the damage would be even more devastating.

The Social Security no-match letters themselves are nothing new. They are sent every year to workers and employers with the purpose of correcting discrepancies in the records that can prevent workers from receiving credit for their earnings. But they have never been an immigration-enforcement tool before. Now the DHS is trying to use them to weed out unauthorized workers.

Ironically, though, even if they managed to accomplish that in a reliable manner, it probably would do more harm than good.

According to the Social Security Administration's own estimates, 75% of undocumented workers pay Social Security, Medicare and other federal payroll taxes. It is calculated that undocumented workers have paid a total of $585 billion in taxes over time - money to which they have no access because of their legal status.

No-match letters were a terrible idea in 2007. And this year, they have not improved one bit.

aruiz@nydailynews.com

http://www.nydailynews.com/ny_local/col ... #community
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This A-hole makes my blood BOIL!
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There is little doubt that the letters, if sent out, will lead to unprecedented mass layoffs of millions of hardworking employees - many of them U.S. citizens or legal residents - and will wreak havoc on thousands of businesses. In the current economic downturn, the damage would be even more devastating.

mass layoffs of HARDWORKING employees--where have I heard the term hardworking before?

Any U.S. citizen or legal resident that was a no match would want it corrected immediately so he/she wouldn't encounter any later problems, assure they are properly credited and also to determine if they are a victim of idenity theft.

Low-Wage Immigrant Worker Coalition


There's a group for everybody...


When is a ruling expected with the changes DHS made?