Stronger Work Place Enforcement: The Administration Finally Does Something Right
Finally, what took so long for the White House to wake up and do something right about Illegal Immigration. Michael Chertoff, Director of Homeland Security announced on Wednesday that ICE is planning a workplace crackdown on illegal immigrants after Congress failed to overhaul immigration laws. The new rule would require employers to fire workers who falsify identity documents. Those employers that don’t comply would face fines of up to $10,000 per worker.
Employers are currently required to verify that their workers are in the United States legally by collecting their Social Security numbers and immigration documents. Those numbers are checked against the U.S. government’s database, and employers are notified of those that don’t match up. Up to 10 percent (25 million) of the 250 million wage reports sent to the Social Security Administration each year don’t match up, according to the Homeland Security Department, though many of those are due to record-keeping errors.
Under the proposed rule, employers would have to respond promptly when notified of a mismatch — either by clearing up any clerical error or firing those found to be in the country illegally. Unless they can reconcile discrepancies, employers will have to fire workers, or face fines, when notified that the employees’ names and Social Security numbers don’t match. Many illegal immigrants have used false numbers to get jobs.
The Open Borders and Illegal Alien Rights Groups are all indignant, warning of huge work place vacancies. NumbersUSA begs to differ: “There are 10 unemployed Americans for every illegal worker. This is a statistic which should both startle and enrage any American.”
Laura Reiff, co-chair of a business coalition that lobbied Congress for a temporary worker program and legalization for millions of illegal immigrants, predicted it’s more likely that employees will walk off the job when informed of a no-match letter. “I don’t want to say it’s mass layoffs because it’s probably going to be caused more by people just walking out the door,” she said.
So that means there will either be more “day laborers” standing outside Home Depot or many who can’t find easy illegal work will go back south. Imagine the freeways being slightly less congested in Los Angeles. I dream of the day that an automated phone system doesn’t ask me to “Press 1 for English”!
Let’s see if the DHS walks the talk.
Posted: 1550PT 08/12/07
autone.wordpress.com
An Angeleno's View of the World 
I totally agree with the workplace employee verification.
I want to know when we are going to start the long road to changing the constitution to rid ourselves of anchor babies. At least one parent should be a U.S. citizen, legalized or not. No green cards or temp visas. You can have the baby but the baby goes with you when you go. Maybe some illegals will hesitate before getting pregnant to stay in this country if we also had a presumption that the baby should stay in this country with the legal parent as custodian and the other goes back without the baby.
Donna G.
Yes! About bloody time!
I agree it is about time the government began enforcing those laws already on the books. BUT… I fear this is another ruse. Social Security cannot by law share info about corrupted SS numbers. That means ICE will not know who SS is warning to get their act together. That is the way the system has been for years. So, what’s different now?
The answer is nothing really. ICE “could” seek to prosecute employers they catch with illegals for more serious violations because they would have been warned & still did nothing. But, ICE must still conduct “blind” raids. They have no idea which are the most egregious violators, so they really do not know where to turn beyond the already obvious violators like the poultry industry, or some Ag industries.
I fear we have been duped by another government PR campaign.