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The Honolulu Advertiser

Posted on: Tuesday, August 6, 2002

Social Security crackdown hits immigrants hard

By Mary Beth Sheridan
Washington Post

WASHINGTON — Thousands of immigrants have been forced to leave their jobs in the past 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 workers' names or Social Security numbers do not match its files. The letters cover about 7 million employees.

Agency officials say that they are 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 attacks. But the result may be the most dramatic blow in years to undocumented workers.

"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, like 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 they clear up the problem.

Workers who cannot do so often are 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, Va. 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."

The crackdown hasn't had a large impact in Hawai'i, although exact numbers were not available yesterday, said Social Security Administration spokesman Tim Walsh. He said states with a large agricultural industry, such as California, have been affected more.

The Social Security Administration has emphasized that its policy 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.

Walsh said the administration has been asking employers to correct their records for several years.

"This is just the ongoing process we've had for years, to put the right earnings to the right record so when it comes to retire we pay the people correctly," Walsh said.

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 work harder at 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.

The U.S. Chamber of Commerce has had so many complaints from members receiving the letters that it has formed a task force.

Lyndsay Lowell, of the Pew Hispanic Center, has estimated that unauthorized workers account for less than 4 percent of the U.S. labor force and are concentrated in construction, hospitality, textiles, meatpacking and agriculture.