The Bush administration has asked a federal judge to delay hearings in a lawsuit challenging the legality of their plan to crackdown on immigration via their "no-match" rule (see this piece for some background) that would require employers to fire employees within 90 days if they can't produce a valid Social Security number, or else face fines and criminal prosecution. The Department of Homeland Security Department has agreed to make as yet unspecified changes to its plan, which was prevented from going into effect in October when the federal judge handling the case issued an injunction, citing the arguments of the labor, business, and agricultural organizations who had filed the lawsuit that claimed that the Social Security Administration's database contains too many errors and would cause disruptions at workplaces and unlawfully discriminate against thousands of legal workers. DHS has asked the judge to delay the case until they can come up with a new program, or until March 24 (whichever comes first).
Pretty much any incantation of the "no-match" rule would have a hard time holding up in court, short of overhauling all the problems with the Social Security database. And that doesn't even begin to get into the problems this would cause in the workforce, for the immigrant workers, employers, and the economy in general. I was watching a segment on "Lou Dobbs Tonight" last night in which they accused DHS of caving to "special interests" on this one. Meaning, I guess, special interests like all of the elements of the American economy that rely on immigrant labor -- agriculture, construction, restaurants, and hotels, just to get started. So it will be interesting to see what DHS will propose as an alternative plan.
All of this -- decent ideas like licenses and bad ideas like the "no-match" rule -- are born of desperation and frustration at all levels of government. So I'd like to know from the candidates in both parties what their immediate steps for addressing immigration concerns in the United States would be, in addition to the big-picture plans for comprehensive immigration reform. Unlike the licenses question that keeps coming up in debates, this would be a question on an immigration issue that would actually be important for the candidates to weigh in on, since the president actually gets some say in what DHS does.
--Kate Sheppard
