Your Government at Work! Sorta...
Apparently someone at the Social Security Administration figured out how to program a computer. They have just started broadsiding notices to employers whose employees have Social Security numbers that don't exist or don't match their names. Needless to to say, the usual suspects have their knickers in a twist:

Thousands of immigrants have been forced to leave their jobs in the last few months, the result of a little-publicized operation by the U.S. government to clean up Social Security records, immigration experts say.

Since early this year, the Social Security Administration has sent letters to more than 800,000 businesses -- about one in eight U.S. employers -- asking them to clear up cases in which their workers' names or Social Security numbers do not match the agency's files. The letters cover about 7 million employees.

...

But the crackdown has highlighted an open secret: A huge number of illegal immigrants work "on the books," providing stolen or made-up Social Security numbers to employers and having U.S. taxes deducted from their paychecks. Now, with those employers being confronted by Social Security, many in turn are confronting their workers, insisting that they clear up the problem.

7 million!!! Even subtracting some for clerical errors leaves an incredible number of illegal aliens in "on the books" jobs.

The impact is enormous," said Cecilia Munoz of the National Council of La Raza, which represents Hispanics. "We're hearing about it from all over the country."

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"It's devastating," said Laura Reiff, an immigration lawyer in Tysons Corner. One of her clients, a New York bakery, recently lost 200 employees, nearly half its staff, after getting a letter about their Social Security numbers. "You've got people fleeing. You've got people who have to be terminated," Reiff said.

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The U.S. Chamber of Commerce has had so many complaints from members receiving the letters that it has formed a task force. "It's a big enough issue that we're throwing significant resources at it, to figure a way out," said Randy Johnson, the chamber's vice president of labor policy.

Lyndsay Lowell, an immigration expert at the Pew Hispanic Center, estimated in a recent report that unauthorized workers account for less than 4 percent of the U.S. labor force but are concentrated in a few industries, including construction, hospitality, textiles, meatpacking and agriculture.

Employers in such industries, as well as immigrant advocates, argue that the government should find ways to give legal status to workers needed by U.S. firms.

Hot dang! The SSA, awakened by 9/11, is doing its part to enforce the law and help remove illegal aliens by simply cleaning up its records. Well, not quite.

Agency officials say that they are simply trying to tackle a bookkeeping problem and that the action is not related to the new get-tough approach on immigration stemming from the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks.

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The Social Security Administration has emphasized that its crackdown is not aimed at immigrants. In fact, the agency refuses to share its information with the Immigration and Naturalization Service because of privacy considerations.

"We were not out targeting anybody, any group. It was strictly to improve wage reporting," said Carolyn Cheezum, a Social Security spokeswoman.

Yee haw, that's really in-your-face aggression! And the tiger has no teeth.

Unlike the INS, the Social Security Administration has no enforcement powers. Knowing that, some businesses that have received no-match letters have ignored them. Still, they could eventually be penalized by the Internal Revenue Service for providing incorrect information on wage forms.

Stand by for the lawsuits from "immigrant advocates" for even sending out the letters in the first place.