AFL-CIO sues to block new rules forcing employers to fire illegals

Labor unions went to court on Aug. 29 to block Bush administration rules designed to force employers to fire illegal workers, saying the regulations will sweep up innocent immigrants and US citizens because of flaws in government record-keeping. The rules, set to take effect next week, "would place millions of US citizens and [legal] noncitizens... at risk of losing their jobs" because of government errors and employers' fears of prosecution, the AFL-CIO and its affiliates in San Francisco and Alameda County argued in a US District Court lawsuit. The unions asked a federal judge in San Francisco for a restraining order that would block the rules from taking effect before Aug. 28, when federal officials are scheduled to mail the first warning letters to employers. Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff announced the rules on Aug. 10 as a means of toughening the little-enforced 1986 law that subjects employers to criminal prosecution or civil penalties for knowingly employing illegal immigrants. Employers now can satisfy the law if they obtain specified identification documents from newly hired workers. After that, the government notifies employers if the Social Security number provided by a worker doesn't match the number in the federal database. That employee may not have earnings credited for Social Security benefits, but no action is taken against the employer. Under the new rules, employers receiving such a "no-match" letter will have to fire the worker, or face a fine of at least $2,200, if the discrepancy isn't cleared up within 90 days. The lawsuit portrays the new system as an invitation to chaos. Past experience with no-match letters, borne out by a Government Accountability Office study, shows that they are often sent mistakenly because of clerical errors by employers or the government in recording numbers, the union's lawyers said. Workers get married or divorced and change their names, employees Americanize names for work purposes, and foreign surnames are easily confused -- all of which can lead to a mistaken red flag, the suit says. The AFL-CIO said Social Security was never intended to be a means of tracking down illegal immigrants, and is so cumbersome that legal employees will be unable to clear up discrepancies in 90 days. "This will wreak havoc with workers and businesses and will cause massive discrimination against anyone who looks or sounds foreign," said one of the plaintiffs' lawyers, Lucas Guttentag, chief immigrants' rights attorney for the American Civil Liberties Union. The US Chamber of Commerce also appealed to the Department of Homeland Security and the Social Security Administration to postpone the plan's implementation for six months. Raising the possibility of plant closings, autumn-harvest interruptions and other destabilizing consequences for the US economy, 50 business organization members of the Essential Worker Immigration Coalition signed a letter warning of "uncertainties, disruptions, and dislocations throughout broad swaths of the workforce," as well as discrimination against Hispanic and immigrant workers.