washingtonpost.com
Records Checks Displace Workers
Social Security Letters Cost Immigrants Jobs

By Mary Beth Sheridan
Washington Post Staff Writer
Tuesday, August 6, 2002; Page A01


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.

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. But the result
could be the most dramatic blow in years to undocumented workers on company
payrolls.

"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."

Social Security officials note that there may be innocent reasons for some
of the discrepancies, such as the misspelling of a worker's name, which can
easily be corrected.

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.

Workers who can't do so are often being fired or are quietly leaving. Josh
Bernstein of the Washington-based National Immigration Law Center, which is
attempting to track the impact of the letters, said as many as 100,000 may
have lost their jobs. He worries that legal as well as illegal immigrants
have been affected.

"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.

While immigrant advocates and some businesses are concerned, others say it's
about time authorities cracked down on abuse of the Social Security system.
The issue of identity fraud has taken on new urgency since the attacks
carried out by terrorists who acquired U.S. driver's licenses and other
identification.

"If someone's not authorized to work in the U.S., they're not authorized.
You can't sugarcoat that," said Bill Strassberger, a spokesman for the
Immigration and Naturalization Service.

In the Washington area, the Social Security letters have arrived at
businesses ranging from restaurants to janitorial companies to
manufacturers.

At Centex Construction Co. in Fairfax, the notice resulted in five or six of
the firm's 230 employees leaving, said Doug Turner, the company's vice
president of human relations. Centex now works with the government to verify
the Social Security numbers of job applicants before they are hired.

"It was good to know. We work at the airport, large construction sites,"
Turner said.

Washington has not been as seriously affected by the Social Security letters
as have some other areas of the country, according to lawyers, employers and
immigrant-service groups. They speculate that may be because some large
immigrant groups here, such as Salvadorans, have benefited from special
work-permit programs.

Still, workers from many countries have been affected, a reflection of
Washington's immigration rainbow. Immigration lawyer Dawn Lurie said she
knew of cases involving employees from Latin America, Egypt, Morocco and
Mongolia -- and even an Australian maitre d'.

Among those who lost jobs was a Venezuelan from the Maryland suburbs. The
30-year-old worker, who asked not to be identified because he lacks legal
papers, said his boss at a glass factory approached him in March with the
letter.

"He said, 'Look, this came from Social Security,' " the Venezuelan said. The
boss told him that "if I didn't have a [proper] Social Security [number], I
couldn't continue working there."

The worker, who said he had invented a number, left the company. He now does
odd jobs for cash, cutting grass or cleaning buildings, earning half the $12
an hour he received at the factory.

"It's depressing," said the man, who is married and has two children. He
said he and his family left a middle-class life in their homeland because of
the economic and political turmoil there and came to the United States on
tourist visas, staying on after they expired.

"We're not all criminals," he said. "We add to the economy of this country,
too. We pay taxes, too."

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.

In recent years, the agency has received a growing pile of money from
taxpayers whose names or Social Security numbers don't match its files. Such
contributions from workers and employers totaled $4.9 billion in 1999, the
most recent year for which data were available.

In response, agency officials said, they decided to ramp up their program of
contacting the employers of those workers. In the past, Social Security sent
out about 100,000 "no-match" letters a year, focusing on companies with the
biggest problems.

This year, it has sent out eight times as many letters, contacting every
company with an employee whose name or Social Security number did not
correspond to agency records.

Intentionally or not, the crackdown is having a powerful impact on illegal
immigrants and some of the companies that rely on them.

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.

But proponents of lower immigration argue that such amnesties would reward
people who have broken the law, lead to more illegal immigration and
ultimately harm U.S. workers.

David Ray, a spokesman for the Federation for American Immigration Reform,
which advocates lower levels of immigration, said the U.S. government had to
crack down on fake Social Security numbers as part of its anti-terrorism
campaign. He said the government couldn't announce measures to tighten the
border and increase tracking of visiting foreigners while ignoring the key
U.S. identity number.

"Either we want to stop it or we don't want to stop it," he said of illegal
immigration.

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.

Many immigrant advocates said they are concerned that the no-match letters
are harming legal as well as illegal workers.

Some employers are panicking and firing immigrants without determining
whether they are eligible to work, such advocates said. They noted that
unusual foreign names may frequently be misspelled in companies' records,
prompting a no-match letter.

The Social Security letters, written in English and Spanish, state that they
are not, in themselves, grounds to fire an employee and do not reflect a
worker's immigration status.

Illegal immigrants who are forced out of jobs often move on to other
positions, immigrant advocates said. But, like the Venezuelan, they may join
the underground economy, where they don't need a Social Security number and
may face more difficult conditions.

"They've got to work. They find something else," said Reiff, the immigration
lawyer.




© 2002 The Washington Post Company





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