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August 31, 2007
SSA No-Match Letter Rule Temporarily Halted
Judge Issues Order After Lawsuit Is Filed by AFL-CIO, ACLU, and National Immigration Law Center
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
August 31, 2007
CONTACT: Ana Avendaño, AFL-CIO, (202) 431-9743; aavendan@aflcio.org Maria Archuleta, ACLU, (917) 892-9180; media@aclu.org Stella Richardson, ACLU-NC, (415) 845-3042; srichardson@aclunc.org Marielena Hincapié, NILC, (415) 845-3403; hincapie@nilc.org
SAN FRANCISCO - A federal judge today issued an order temporarily blocking the government from implementing a new Department of Homeland Security (DHS) rule that would cause U.S. citizens and other authorized workers to lose their jobs, and which would illegally use error-prone social security records as a tool for immigration enforcement. The judge's order also stops the Social Security Administration (SSA) from beginning to send notices on Tuesday to approximately 140,000 employers across the country notifying them of the new rule, which would impact approximately eight million workers.
The order comes as a result of a lawsuit filed on Wednesday by the American Federation of Labor and Congress of Industrial Organizations (AFL-CIO), the American Civil Liberties Union, the National Immigration Law Center (NILC) and the Central Labor Council of Alameda County along with other local labor movements. A hearing on the groups' request to permanently bar the implementation of the DHS rule is scheduled for October 1 before U.S. District Court Judge Charles Breyer.
"We are very pleased that the judge recognized the need to halt the implementation of this ill-advised DHS rule," said John Sweeney, President of the AFL-CIO. "Employers have historically used SSA 'no-match' letters to exploit workers and this rule would only give them a stronger pretext for doing more of the same."
In the lawsuit, the groups charge that the misguided rule violates the law and workers' rights and imposes burdensome obligations on employers who receive SSA "no-match" letters that inform them of alleged discrepancies between employee records and the SSA database.
U.S. District Judge Maxine M. Chesney found that the groups "raised serious questions as to whether the new Department of Homeland Security rule is inconsistent with statute and beyond the statutory authority of the Department of Homeland Security and the Social Security Administration."
"The court found the balance of hardships tips sharply in favor of staying the rule while it is being challenged," said Scott A. Kronland of Altshuler Berzon LLP, who argued at today's hearing. "We are confident we will prevail when the court hears the case on the merits."
Currently, employers who receive "no-match" letters stating that their employees' identification documents don't match SSA records are not required to take any action. The new DHS rule would impose liability on employers based on failure to respond to an SSA "no-match" letter, even though SSA errors are caused by many innocent factors such as typographical errors and name changes due to marriage or divorce, and the use of multiple surnames, which is common in many parts of the world. According to the Office of the Inspector General in SSA, 12.7 million of the 17.8 million discrepancies in SSA's database - more than 70% - belong to native-born U.S. citizens. Under the DHS rule, employers might be required to fire employees whose erroneous SSA records are not fixed within 90 days after the "no-match" letter is sent. The DHS rule would threaten jobs of U.S. citizens and other legally authorized workers simply because of errors in the government's inaccurate social security earnings database.
"This is a crucial and significant first step in challenging this rule, which would be a bureaucratic and costly nightmare for employers and many U.S. citizens and other legally authorized workers," said Lucas Guttantag, Director of the ACLU's Immigrants' Rights Project.
"Today's ruling takes us one step closer to an eventual finding that the DHS rule is unlawful. This is a great Labor Day victory for the millions of workers who would have been affected by no-match notice letters being sent out next week," said Marielena Hincapié, Staff Attorney and Director of Programs at NILC.
Today's order was handed down in the United States District Court for the Northern District of California.
In addition to the AFL-CIO, which is represented by the law firm of Altshuler Berzon, LLP, other parties bringing the lawsuit include the Central Labor Council of Alameda County, represented by the ACLU, the ACLU of Northern California, and NILC, as well as the San Francisco Labor Council and the San Francisco Building and Construction Trades Council, represented by Weinberg, Roger and Rosenfeld.
In addition to Guttentag and Hincapié, lawyers on the case include Stephen Berzon, Scott Kronland, Jonathan Weissglass, Linda Lye and Danielle Leonard of Altshuler, Berzon; Jonathan Hiatt, James Copess and Ana Avendaño of the AFL-CIO; Jennifer Chang, Mόnica M. Ramírez, and Omar Jadwat of the ACLU Immigrants' Rights Project; Alan Schlosser and Julia Mass of the ACLU of Northern California; Linton Joaquin and Monica Guizar of NILC; and David Rosenfeld and Manjari Chawla of Weinberg, Roger and Rosenfeld.
The complaint can be found at: http://www.nilc.org/immsemplymnt/SSA_Related_Info/suit_complaint.pdf
The order issued today can be found at:
http://www.nilc.org/immsemplymnt/SSA_Related_Info/Chesney_Order_TRO.pdf
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Comments
For a news story on this order, see http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2007/09/01/MN3RRTFO5.DTL
Posted by: KJ | Sep 1, 2007 9:30:20 AM
If these judges take this tack, our country will be unable to enact any law in the future, in the off chance that someone may be erroneously inconvenienced by it. Searches for probably cause may be objected to as being unfair to the suspect, as there is a possibility that the person may not be guilty. Eliminate the arrest powers of the police and arrest warrants, as there is a possibility that the person picked up as a suspect is not guilty. Eliminate fines for driving without a license, as there is a possibility that the person may indeed have a driver's license, but just not with him. Wouldn't want to inconvenience the driver by requiring him to obtain his license and present it to the court at a later date.
These rulings are absolutely idiotic, as no due process is perfect, but that's what these courts appear to be requiring. It is a wonder that the courts would intervene in the matter of misdemeanor and hogtie our nation in its efforts to enforce immigration law on this basis. The government gave the employee three months to rectify an error that he/she should have done before applying for employment. Most citizen problems with incorrect SSNs are no doubt due to the negligence of the citizen to correct his data. The judge should err on the side of the government, as there is a national urgency to combat identity theft, anti-terrorism and illegal employment. It's pure speculation at this point that an appreciable number of citizens will be affected by the inaccuracies in the government's database. Due process as pure as Caesar's wife is not possible, and to demand nothing less is to destroy our legal system.
Posted by: Horace | Sep 6, 2007 3:23:26 PM
