Sunday - September 02, 2007

Federal Judge Blocks Use of Social Numbers to Weed Out Illegal Aliens

Hopefully today's ruling by liberal judge Maxine Chesney will be overturned rather quickly. And if there is any doubt about this judge's political leanings, she was appointed by the slickster himself in 1995. 

A federal judge in San Francisco on Friday temporarily blocked the U.S. government from starting its planned crackdown against employers who hired undocumented immigrant workers.

U.S. District Judge Maxine M. Chesney issued a temporary restraining order preventing the Social Security Administration from sending so-called no-match letters to companies whose employees' names do not match the Social Security numbers they used when they applied for their jobs.

It also prohibits the Department of Homeland Security from fining companies that don't act on those letters.

"This is a critical and important first step," said Lucas Guttentag, director of the ACLU Immigrants' Rights Project and one of the lawyers for the plaintiffs. "It means that workers will not be threatened as a result of an improper rule or inaccurate notices that were about to be sent out."

But Homeland Security spokeswoman Laura Keehner said she believed the government strategy would ultimately be implemented .

"We are disappointed by the delay and expect to prevail once the court has the benefit of full briefings and arguments," she said.

The letters were scheduled to be sent Tuesday to about 140,000 employers with at least 10 workers whose names and Social Security numbers don't match. Under the Homeland Security rule, the affected companies would have to resolve any discrepancies within 90 days or face sanctions.

The judge's ruling came two days after a coalition of labor and immigrant rights groups sued Social Security and the Department of Homeland Security.

In its lawsuit, the coalition argued that the new rule would lead to discrimination against documented and U.S. citizen workers and result in unfair firings.

The coalition, which included the AFL-CIO and the American Civil Liberties Union, also argued in the suit that the Social Security database was full of errors.  Read the rest of the story.

**This was a production of The Coalition Against Illegal Immigration (CAII). If you would like to participate, please go to the above link to learn more. Afterwards, email stiknstein-at-gmail-dot-com and let us know at what level you would like to participate.

Author: The Machiavellian
Technorati Tags:
Technorati Cosmos:
Technorati Watchlist:
Add this entry to: