Posted on 08/17/2007 7:28:22 AM PDT by truthkeeper
WASHINGTON - Days after unveiling a major crackdown on businesses that hire illegal immigrants, the Bush administration is now quietly admitting that its most heavily touted weapon in pursuing employers will be virtually useless.
At the heart of the new rules announced last week is toughened Homeland Security enforcement of so-called "no match" letters - which the Social Security Administration sends to companies when employees have questionable identification numbers.
But Homeland Security officials acknowledged this week that because of a privacy provision in the IRS code, immigration officials will actually have no way of knowing which employers have received "no-match" letters, which have complied and which have not.
"While we don't get information directly from the Social Security Administration, we do see that we get a lot of tips," DHS spokeswoman Veronica Nun Valdez said. "There are number of people that do come forward and tell us an employer is not conforming with the law."
In addition to working with informants, Valdez said immigration officials plan to step up investigations and raids, which will likely yield sanctions against violating companies.
But illegal-immigration hardliners said they feel bamboozled.
Many noted that working with tips and increasing raids is nothing new, and they said they had assumed that the government had resolved the long-standing data-sharing issue.
Bob Dane said that without Homeland Security being able to get information directly from the Social Security Administration, the new rules are just "empty threats."
"Good God, if they're going to spend money on postage and send out threatening letters, which are long overdue, they need to have some practical enforcement at the end," he said.
(Excerpt) Read more at whittierdailynews.com ...
The emasculation of the '86 Amnesty have been well known all along.
Is homeland Security entirely composed of idiots?
Probably true, but there is nothing to prevent him from getting a [thorough] credit report before renting or selling.
I just wish Social Security or Homeland Security officially requested clarifying legislation from Congress...
And watch the cockroaches all rush to the darkest corners of the room!
Part of the government doesn’t WANT the illegals to be deported. One reason.
They are contributing huge amounts of money to the SS system without the SSA being obligated to give them benefits. As of now anyway.
From a Washington Times article, March 29, 2007
..In 2004, “uncredited earnings” — Social Security tax payments that can’t be matched to valid Social Security numbers — totaled $65 billion — about 10 percent of the program’s total income. The amount of uncredited earnings stood at $301.8 billion in 1999, but had grown to $585 billion by 2004, according to the Senior Citizens League report. ...
“They are contributing huge amounts of money to the SS system without the SSA being obligated to give them benefits.”
A LOT of them are in the “underground economy” as day laborers, masons, carpenters, etc. and the employers give them cash.
Their fessing up.....Jeffrey over at Human Events exposed this scheme 10 days ago:
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1879028/posts
“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.”
True
"It's aggressive and effective," says a high government official.
"We plan to send the annual employer "no match" letters with postage due," said the official. "And we'll continue do that until the employers have complied."
"That's not surprising," [Steven Camarota, research director for the Center of Immigration Studies] said. "The administration has never shown a great desire to enforce the law."
The SSA told administrations and Congress every year for the past ten years at least that this information was available but a privacy provision made it impossible to share with immigration enforcement.
The Congressional testimony was in the context of hearings about the explosion of the Earnings Suspense File which holds the bogus / stolen SSNs unmatched to SSA master earnings files. The sudden, great increase of mismatches started during the second Clinton term and it got worse through the Bush Administration.
The Washington clowns have known it and refused to do anything. Lots of business folks like that taxpayer-subsidized, "cheap" labor and happily pay big bucks to Washington whores (no offense meant to sex workers) for it.
Now, as a quote from the article states, the plan seems to be to scare the hell out of the public to get us to demand amnesty lest we have no food; to wit:
"I think they want the public to be so damaged and so fearful that they raise a clamor."
Well, as Jim Eason retired San Francisco radio talk show host used to say, "Drip on them. Don't Return Incumbent Politicians to office."
“Modify that provision of the IRS code.”
I’m curious, is this in IRS code passed by Congress, or is this in IRS made code? If the former, get Congress in session until they fix this problem; if the latter, just make the commissioner change the IRS code under threat of prison if he doesn’t.
as of a year ago, the SS system for checking SSNs had big cautions that the largest number of civil rights complaints was due to documentation issues and employers shouldn’t fire or not hir people just because they didn’t prove out on their on-line system
Some clarification from another article:
“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.”
http://article.nationalreview.com/?q=NzY3OThiODBmMThiZWEyMjI0ZjkyZmVjZTI1ODQxNjQ=
Your almost to the right question: If we, the citizens, are handed a circular butt-covering load of excuses as to why one agency can not give another one information that is necessary for proper and duly passed law enforcement shouldn't we citizens conduct our affairs along the same lines?
Seriously though, many posters have noted the President, Congress, heads of the respective IRS and Social Security Administration, the Supreme Court and ultimately US possess the power to make these agencies cough it up and provide this information to the FBI (note I omitted Homeland Security - too rife with corruption and agendas). No agency has immunity from the citizens they supposedly serve except those handling critical national security information. The last I heard the SSA and the IRS are not remotely dealing with business that's in the CIA and NSA domain.
Does this make the IRS a “sanctuary agency?”
“...note I omitted Homeland Security - too rife with corruption and agendas...”
Homeland (In)Security should be abolished. As fas as US is concerned, it may not be too soon for US to use the power that US has. Complacency makes US forget who US is and what power US really has.
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