FReepmail to be added to the Congress Watch Ping List.
"In the Beginning of a change, the patriot is a scarce man, and brave and hated and scorned. When his cause succeeds the timid join him, for then it costs nothing to be a patriot."- Mark Twain
Posted on 08/09/2007 6:29:19 PM PDT by GATOR NAVY
The Department of Homeland Security will issue new regulations that amount to the first step in a two step-process that — if completed — would put the government in position to shut down the illegal-immigration jobs magnet.
The second step will require a new, but very simple, law. As a consequence, we will soon see whether Congress and President Bush truly want to crack down on corporations systematically violating the immigration law.
The new regulations involve the so-called “no match” letters that the Social Security Administration sends each year to employers who hire illegal aliens.
One of the government’s dirty little secrets (which I have done my best to unveil) is that SSA already knows which employers habitually hire large numbers of illegal aliens, but refuses to give this information to DHS because it interprets Section 6103 of the Internal Revenue Code as forbidding it from doing so.
SSA knows the identity of these employers because it carefully tracks the “no-match” W-2 forms employers submit each year. These are W-2s on which the name and the Social Security number don’t match.
SSA Inspector General Patrick O’Carroll told Congress last year that illegal-alien workers were the “chief cause” of these W-2s. This is because illegal aliens routinely use someone else’s Social Security number or a fraudulent one when they apply for a job.
Every year, SSA sends out millions of letters to the employers and workers associated with no match W-2s. For starters, it sends a notification letter to every employer who files more than ten no-match W-2s if they account for more than 0.5 percent of the employer’s workforce. Secondly, it also sends no-match letters to the employees listed on no-match W-2s. Finally, if an employee’s address is incorrect or incomplete on a no-match W-2, SSA sends an additional no-match letter to the employer seeking its help in getting a correct name and Social Security number from the worker. As a result, employers who routinely hire massive numbers of illegal aliens, routinely receive massive numbers of no-match letters from SSA.
A September 2005 audit report from SSA’s Inspector General, for example, said there were 95 employers in tax year 2002 who received 1,001 or more no-match letters. A September 2006 audit report revealed that 6 employers in tax year 2002 filed between 15,001 and 36,000 no-match W-2s. Another 65 employers in that tax year filed between 5,001 and 15,000 no-match W-2s. These are the biggest scofflaw businesses powering the jobs magnet. They are ones that deserve to get busted first and most prominently if the government actually launches a serious campaign of worksite immigration enforcement.
What DHS will do this week to make such a campaign more plausible is lock the backdoor through which these businesses could escape legal accountability for knowingly hiring illegal aliens.
As the New York Times reported earlier this week, DHS will promulgate new regulations telling employers who receive no-match letters what they must do to protect themselves from prosecution for knowingly hiring illegal aliens.
Under current regulations, receipt of a no-match letter does not in and of itself demonstrate that an employer knew he was employing illegal aliens. Indeed, the text of the no-match letter SSA now sends employers says: “This letter does not imply that you or your employee intentionally provided incorrect information about the employee’s name or SSN. It is not a basis, in and of itself, for you to take any adverse action against the employee, such as laying off, suspending, firing, or discriminating against the individual.”
DHS Spokesman Russ Knocke told me this afternoon that he cannot talk about the details of the new regulations until they are officially released. But the draft regulations were published in the Federal Register last June. Basically, they require an employer to ask an employee with a no-match W-2 to correct the information on the W-2. After that, the employer must verify with SSA that the name and Social Security Number now match. If a match is not verified, say the proposed regulations, “then the employer must choose between taking action to terminate the employee or facing the risk that DHS may find that the employer had constructive knowledge that the employee was an unauthorized alien and therefore, by continuing to employ the alien, violated INA section 274A(a)(2), 8 U.S.C. 1324a(a)(2).”
So far, so good. But Knocke told me that the new regulations will not require SSA to hand over to DHS its list of employers who file no-match W-2s. As it stands, in other words, DHS would still need to track down scofflaw employers on its own — without help from SSA. Knocke noted that DHS would like to get the no-match list from SSA and that one element of the immigration bill that failed in Congress earlier this year would have made it available to the department.
In sum, DHS’s new regulations will close the back door through which scofflaw employers can escape accountability, but will not give DHS the road map to those employers’ front doors — namely, the SSA no-match list.
When Congress returns in September, President Bush should ask it immediately to pass a very simple bill mandating that SSA give this list to DHS.
— Terrence P. Jeffrey is editor-at-large of Human Events.
He won't ask, and in the event that I'm wrong and he does, the dems in Congress won't approve.
All the is needed, if we had a president that believed in enforcing the laws, would be an executive order changing the interpretation of section 6103. And congress could only act to change the executive order by law which would never happen.
SSA Inspectors General have been telling Congress this since at least 1996 if my memory of reading testimony is correct.
The information for the "no match" letters is in the Earnings Suspense File (ESF). The file's size started exploding during the the mid-to-late 1990s and became of great concern for SSA IT personnel. Numerous hearings were held in Congress about what to do about the ESF problem but not all hearings mentioned ILLEGAL aliens.
There is a companion problem, the "no work" SSN; to wit, people with SSNs but who are not allowed to work legally.
Ditto the taxpayer ID numbers issued by the IRS, I don't think they are authorizations to work here but people use them. They of course do not match SSA's Master Earnings File.
Now here's a BIG DIRTY SECRECT in my opinion: once the ILLEGAL worker has a valid SSN the SSA will transfer all his ILLEGAL work to the valid SSN and SSA's Master Earnings File. It helps a lot for the former ILLEGAL worker to have his old W-2s with the phony / stolen SSNs.
I'm thinking that this is what happened after the 1986 amnesty. The size of the Earnings Suspense File went down a little apparently because W-2 data were being transferred.
So, expect that to happen if another amnesty happens; all that talk about "they will never get credit for their ILLEGAL work" is B.S.
Then there's those pesky earned income tax credit checks to low-income folks. Sen McCain said no it will not happen with amnesty! I am sure he meant it but at least one news said the defeated amnesty bill did in fact authorize the checks when the ILLEGAL filed their back tax statements.
You’re probably right.
Wish he’d also send a letter to Chertoff to build the fence.
This is an interesting sub-plot. It gets darker all the time.
I'll wait and see how long -- if it ever happens -- we have to wait until violators are identified and prosecuted. I'm not holding my breath -- it's just more crumbs to try to appease the outraged voters, make them think some solutions are coming their way, and then hope they forget all about the issue until after the elections.
FReepmail to be added to the Congress Watch Ping List.
"In the Beginning of a change, the patriot is a scarce man, and brave and hated and scorned. When his cause succeeds the timid join him, for then it costs nothing to be a patriot."- Mark Twain
This is a repeat of Jamie Gorelick’s dangerous “wall of separation.” What a bunch of morons.
If we don't see the upper eschelons of these companies paying the price for all these ill-gotten profits, we'll know that the govt is once again, just going through the motions.
I agree. SHARE THE NOMATCH LETTERS WITH WHATEVER GOVT AGENCY REQUESTS THEM!!!
So far as I am concerned, the untouched SS money should go to the victims of identity theft and fraud. They should be compensated for the governments refusal to control the borders.
The fence is needed to stop the drug smugglers and terrorists, but taking the simple steps Jeffrey suggests would stop the illegal job seekers.
Sometimes the solutions to problems aren’t that complicated and it’s a shame this thread hasn’t gotten more attention than it has.
I’m so glad to see it is in the sidebar for more attention.
Many of us out here in Freeperland cannot be here as much as we want to be, and the sidebar is important to us as well being on the “Ping” list.
I’ve wondered about the “No Match”, and why the offenders ie; “scofflaws” have been able to dodge the bullet on this for so long. Very interesting.
What a load of crap.
It is a pointless dog and pony show.
DHS ‘going through the motions’ because they KNOW, in the end, there is STILL no way, except by chance, that the employer will be held accountable.
The OBL strikes again!
self ping for action . . .
Bump. Correct.
ping
Have you made your calls?
I called the White House, both my senators, and my representative.
I intend to call them Monday and harangue them about the Law of the Sea Treaty.
“One step down, one to go, to busting immigration scofflaws.”
Does that include the biggest border scofflaw of them all -Jorge El Segundo?
“All the is needed, if we had a president that believed in enforcing the laws, would be an executive order changing the interpretation of section 6103. And congress could only act to change the executive order by law which would never happen.”
We have a winner!
Bush won’t do it, though.
I just sent a general rant to the president about immigration, trade policy, manufacturing, the ACLU, CAIR and empty suits.
I’ve never done anything like this before, and I always refrained from doing it before, because when I think about these things long enough to write about them, I just get madder and madder and sound like a nutcase.
But who cares anymore? They need to know that we’re mad as hell and they should be looking out for US, not them.
I plan to write more letters and make more phone calls in the future. I just wish I was smart enough to write a really good one. I’ll have to keep on practicing, I guess! LOL!
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