In the Late Breaking News section, there is a post about a federal judge who struck down an attempt to crack down on illegal immigrants by mailing out letters to employers about mismatches on Social Security numbers.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/10/10/AR2007101001536.html?nav=rss_email/components Issuing a firm rebuke of the White House, U.S. District Judge Charles R. Breyer of San Francisco granted a preliminary injunction against the government's plan to pressure employers to fire up to 8.7 million workers with suspect Social Security numbers starting this fall.
<snip>
Breyer said the plaintiffs, an unusual coalition that included the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, the AFL-CIO and the American Civil Liberties Union, had raised such serious questions about the plan to mail Social Security "no-match" letters to 140,000 U.S. employers that it should be blocked from proceeding.
"There can be no doubt that the effects of the rule's implementation will be severe," Breyer wrote, resulting in "irreparable harm to innocent workers and employers."
The government letters were intended to warn employers that they must resolve questions about their employees' identities or fire them within 90 days. If they did not, employers could face "stiff penalties," including fines and even criminal prosecutions for violating a federal law that bars knowingly employing illegal workers, Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff said in announcing the plan Aug. 10.
The problem is that Social Security's data base is riddle with flaws. They admit it themselves. So, everyone expects there will be letters sent in error. Maybe lots of letters sent in error.
Several DU posters objected that this ruling was biased in favor of business owners, however look at the ramifications of the administration's actions. In most cases, a business will simply fire an employee rather than risk a fine. It will be up to the employee to prove that he or she is who he/she claims to be. With millions of letters sent out, Social Security will have a backlog of months to years, so good luck getting your case sorted out. Once you go on the "do not hire list" you are black balled forever. So, it is people who will be hurt more than employers. A lot of American citizens could lose their jobs, and meanwhile illegal immigrants will get new forged documents and new jobs. They have the connections. They know how.
What a great way for the administration to punish its political enemies. Even "American" sounding names can be slipped in, since people from Europe can be illegals. Take away people's right to work, and they will have other things on their mind that political activity.
However, there is a worse possibility that people need to be aware of. This kind of massive disregard for people's rights can be abused for election year political gain. Remember how Katherine Harris created the phony felons list in Florida? The one that had the name of a bunch of Black men whose names sort of sounded like felons in different states (not just Florida)? They were stripped from voter rolls in Florida and cost Al Gore the election.
It would be an easy thing for the administration to insert the name of lawful, registered citizen Latinos in the list as next fall's election neared. The Social Security Administration would be so swamped that these voters would be unable to prove who they were for months. If they were born in Mexico, they would not have a US birth certificate. They would likely be fired and might have to move to find work--which would mean that they would not be registered to vote in their new homes. The Republicans could even coordinate some kind of voter disenfranchisement campaign. If you are on the Social Security no match list, then you are stripped from voting rolls, too. The citizen Hispanics who receive this special intervention would be chosen for being in key battleground states like New Mexico or Florida (just not Cuban).
It would be as easy as pie for the people who created the Phony Black Felons List in Florida 2000 to create a Phony Hispanic Illegal List for the USA in 2008. They could even hire ChoicePoint/DataBase to put this one together, too, since the company did such a good job with the last one. We are talking millions of letters, here. That could represent tens to hundreds of thousands of votes in some states where the margin is going to be razor thin.
So, don't ever get sloppy about anyone's civil rights, and do not ever give the Bush administration an inch when it comes to taking advantage of a US citizen's liberty, because they will take that inch all the way to the moon and back.
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