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Federal Judge Blocks Disputed 'No Match' Rule for Workers
A federal judge on Oct. 10 issued a preliminary injunction blocking the Bush Administration from instituting a controversial immigration rule that could force employers to fire workers if their Social Security numbers don’t match federal records.
At issue is a final rule announced in August by the Department of Homeland Security on Social Security non-match letters. The rule advises employers on how they should respond if they receive a no-match letter (“Employment Correction Request”) from the Social Security Administration (SSA) indicating that the employee’s name and Social Security number do not match agency records.
SSA had intended to mail out approximately 140,000 employer no-match letters this year affecting more than 8 million workers. Many of these letters are the result of clerical and other errors, and involve the records of U.S. citizens and legal residents. The letters do not necessarily mean that the employee is an illegal alien. However, under the rule if the no-match situation is not resolved within 93 days, the employer must either fire the worker, or risk being charged with an illegal hiring violation if it is ultimately determined that the employee is in fact an illegal alien.
A coalition of civil rights, business and labor groups and the U.S Chamber of Commerce sued to block the implementation of the rule because SSA records are riddled with errors and the initiative would ultimately result in the mass termination of legal workers.
U.S. District Court Judge Charles Breyer of San Francisco said that the coalition had demonstrated a high probability that the Department of Homeland Security had failed to follow proper administrative procedures in promulgating the rule, including a failure to assess the economic impact on small businesses required under the Regulatory Flexibility Act.
Breyer found that small businesses could expect to incur significant costs to comply with the rule, and, as asserted by the coalition, the “government’s proposal to disseminate no-match letters affecting more than 8 million workers will, under the mandated timeline, result in the termination of employment to lawfully employed workers.”
Issuing the preliminary injunction would, according to the judge, cause the federal government far less harm than the rule would cause innocent employers and workers if it were to take effect.
Under the terms of the preliminary injunction, the Department of Homeland Security is barred from implementing the no-match rule pending the court's final decision on the rule's legality, a process that could take many months.
For more information, e-mail David Crump at NAHB, or call him at 800-368-5242 x8491.
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