WASHINGTON – Religious and community leaders meeting in Baltimore County Thursday hailed a judge’s ruling that temporarily halts a crackdown on illegal immigrants that could inadvertently lead to the firing of even legal workers.
At issue is a Department of Homeland Security directive requiring employers to fire workers who can’t clean up problems with their Social Security documentation within a 90-day window, or face sanctions.
A U.S. District judge put the plan on hold Wednesday, but opponents said that move is only temporary. If the rule isn’t permanently stopped, U.S. citizens and legal residents stand to lose their jobs due to glitches in what’s called the “no-match” letter system.
Since 1994, the Social Security Administration has sent out no-match letters to employers with 10 or more employees whose Social Security numbers fail to match information in the agency’s database. Until August, when the new rule was announced, no legal restrictions were tied to the letters.
“In some ways the damage has been done. Some employers think the rule is already law and think that they can and should fire workers,” said Kristin Kumpf, a national organizer with Interfaith Worker Justice, the Chicago-based group responsible for yesterday’s meeting in Windsor Mill.
The group decided to meet in Baltimore County, Kumpf said, because the Social Security Administration’s headquarters are there, and her organization works locally with Casa de Maryland, an immigrant rights group.
A letter signed by immigration advocates and religious leaders protesting the agency’s involvement in the new rule was taken to Social Security following the morning meeting at St. Gabriel Church, she said.
Calls to the Social Security Administration were not returned, but a written statement on its Web site said “SSA is not currently changing its procedures for issuing ‘No-Match’ letters or its guidance on how to correct Social Security records.”
“In addition, SSA has no tax or immigration law enforcement role. However, DHS has advised, that the information provided in the ‘No-Match’ letter could expose the employer to potential liability under the immigration law.”
The Department of Homeland Security did not return calls seeking comment Thursday.
According to the Office of the Inspector General, the Social Security Administration’s databases contain 17.8 million discrepancies, 12.7 million of them attached to native-born U.S. citizens.
“Presumably thousands of legal residents of Maryland would lose their jobs as a result of the new rule,” said Monica Ramirez, a staff attorney for American Civil Liberties Union’s immigrants’ rights project, a member of the lawsuit.
“Employers around the nation would receive these letters if the names and numbers don’t match up,” she said.
Maryland Delegate Tom Hucker, D-Montgomery, who attended the meeting, said the no-match letters fail to serve their purpose. Under the current system, employers are supposed to inform workers they are not getting Social Security credit for their work, but he said very few letters result in changes.
The system, he said is “unfair, it’s ineffective and it should be brought to an end.”
Last year, the Social Security Administration sent out 2,456 no-match letters in Maryland, according to figures on its Web site, and more than 138,000 in the country.
In Wednesday’s ruling, U.S. District Judge Charles Breyer of San Francisco wrote the policy change would have “massive ramifications” for employers who would have to fire employees who cannot fix their paperwork.
“We’re putting really good, honest people in financial difficulty, and I’m talking about business owners and workers,” said Y. Maria Welch, Baltimore Hispanic Chamber of Commerce president, who attended the meeting Thursday.
Welch said it took her six months to clear her paperwork after she married and changed her name, which is why she said the 90-day limit is not enough time.
“They want us to — and this is quite offensive to me — give people 90 days to fix their issue,” she said.
“Ninety days in the government? It has to make me laugh,” Welch said.
The plan, part of a Bush administration crackdown on illegal immigration spawned after Congress voted down the president’s immigration reform policy, was supposed to go into effect Sept. 14.
The ACLU and the AFL-CIO brought the lawsuit against the Department of Homeland Security on Aug. 30, prompting the judge to bar the Social Security Administration from sending out 140,000 no-match letters to businesses across the country.
Kumpf said the response from the Social Security Administration has been that it has no choice but to follow orders.
“What they keep saying is that this is not all on us, this is from DHS; our hands are tied,” Kumpf said.
But Ramirez said if the temporary injunction on the rule was lifted, it would become a “bureaucratic nightmare” for the Social Security Administration.
“We believe that the Department of Homeland Security has the power to enforce immigration laws,” she said, “but it can’t hijack the (Social Security Administration) to do its work.”