Management and labor are rarely on the same side of an issue. But if a panel discussion this morning is any judge, both sides agree that implementing changes to the Social Security Administration's so-called “No-Match Rule” and the Homeland Security Department’s E-Verify program will create more problems for immigrant workers and the companies that employ them than they solve.
Maggio & Kattar hosted the discussion titled “E-Verify and No-Match Letters: Practical Strategies for Practitioners and Employers from Three Perspectives” at its office this morning, offering representatives on both sides to discuss what proposed changes to those programs might mean. Gregory Ossi, a labor and employment partner at Venble who focuses on immigration issues, spoke from the employers’ perspective, and Ana Avendaño, director of immigrant worker programs in the AFL-CIO Office of General Counsel, offered the perspective of employees. Maggio & Kattar managing partner Jim Alexander, an immigration attorney himself, moderated.
The No-Match Rule is part of an SSA program in which letters are sent to employers, informing them that Social Security numbers they've submitted for withholding purposes do not match the names the agency has on file for them. The program is designed to clean up the data the SSA has on file and potentially to weed out employees who are not authorized to work in the U.S. That’s all good in theory, Avendaño says, but in practice, the program is “fraught with problems.”
“This information has a lot of human errors,” she says. “The program can unfairly target foreign-born workers because Asian workers may reverse their names, or married women might not have updated their new name with the agency.” She adds that sending out letters even in cases were mistakes are made in good faith can open the door for employers to unfairly target foreign-born workers.
Ossi added that problems can arise on the management side because employers who try to comply with laws against employing illegal immigrants might “overreact” and terminate employees who receive a letter, even though no-match letters are not sufficient cause for firing someone. He says he would advise clients to take steps designed to find out whether the letter was received in error or because of some honest mistake before acting upon it. “I tell my clients to react, but don’t panic,” Ossi says.
Changes to the E-Verify program, which require employers who work on government contracts over $100,000 to use an electronic program to determine whether all employees who work on the project are eligible to do so. Again, Ossi and Avendaño agreed that the government’s effort to address the issue of illegal immigrants working on federally funded projects creates more problems than it solves. “The problem is that they’re using the SSA’s data in a way that it was never designed for,” Avendaño says. “The Social Security system was never set up to be a mechanism for immigration enforcement.”
Alexander adds that he doubts the SSA’s top priority right now is how its data are being used, especially as unprecedented numbers of retirees add to the already strained agency’s burden.
The changes to the programs are currently on hold as litigation involving them moves forward, but with a new administration in control, both Ossi and Avendaño say they would like to see the government make an effort at comprehensive immigration reform instead of fixing things in a “piecemeal” fashion.
“The broken federal system needs to be fixed on a federal level. Without comprehensive reform, none of these changes are going to address the problem,” Avendaño says.
It's fairly absurd to characterize this as a discussion with representatives from "both sides" of the illegal employment/immigration enforcement question. Both of these folks' clients oppose enforcement of federal law, on one hand because certain industries depend on cheap illegal labor, and on the other because some labor unions count large numbers of undocumented workers among their membership. Recall that the AFL-CIO and the Chamber of Commerce are joint plaintiffs in the lawsuit that has stalled the No-Match Rule, and both have come out opposing E-Verify.
A real discussion of the merits of these programs would have involved someone who believes INA sec. 274a should actually be enforced. What you describe was not a debate but a conference of co-conspirators.
Posted by: Mark Patton | April 23, 2009 at 04:34 PM
If America is expected to sustaining its living standards, we must start to conserve our environment and address the use of oil, water and energy. In these current decades we have all observed the deterioration of our highways, infrastructure with clogged traffic lanes that never seem to abate? The continuous requisite for land to build homes, and stretching, concrete pavement that once was farmland. Border states where water supplies are being rationed, because of years of drought. The desperate need for refineries, because of constant production, cannot keep up with demand. Our ailing national electrical grid that is unable to keep up with requirements, owing to the millions of illegal people who slip across our uneasy border and need services. America is growing smaller each day, just like the Amazon rain forests. We are daily encroaching on the wild animals of our lands, who we now find foraging for food in community suburbs--that was once a wilderness. Our President should not be contemplating Amnesty for an unknown number of illegal immigrants. Such would be the forthcoming harbinger of Overpopulation for future generations. According to the Census Bureau with the current immigration level our population will touch close to a half a billion by 2050.
More than 65 percent of that growth can be attributed to our current immigration rate and irrational polices. Without changing the direction of our current immigration policies, our population by the year 2100 and 2120 will attain the one billion mark. Is this what we want for our own?
If President Obama introduces a new Immigration policy, this would be a disaster for the new generations of our children? We already settle over 1.5 million new legal immigrants each year in this nation. This is more people than any other country in the world? What we need is an amendment to the 1986 Immigration Control and Reform Act. This would allow highly professional and skilled people, who would contribute in Engineering, Computer and Science technologies. Giving Potential legal newcomers that has something special to offer the American workplace, including education and other layers of future industry. We already have millions of low skilled, many uneducated American workers who remain jobless in this economic morass. If our politicians will restore funding for E-Verify now before it terminates. We can revise it, modify and append to its function, in removing foreign workers from the workplace. As illegal immigrants start their movement from our nation, wages, benefits should slowly start to rise, as employers will have no choice but to hire American workers, instead of cheap labor from foreign lands.
Posted by: Brittanicus | April 23, 2009 at 04:16 PM