Immigration Crackdown Halted

A second federal judge blocked the Bush administration today from notifying the nation's employers that they face possible prosecution for knowingly employing illegal immigrants unless they fire workers whose Social Security numbers do not match federal records.

U.S. District Judge Charles Breyer extended for up to 10 days a temporary restraining order issued Aug. 31 by another federal judge in San Francisco, preventing the rule from taking effect. Breyer said he would rule within those 10 days on whether to issue a preliminary injunction, sought by labor unions and business groups, that would suspend the administration's plan indefinitely.

His comments during a two-hour hearing in San Francisco suggested that he was likely to issue the injunction.

"There would be irreparable harm, serious irreparable injury," to legally employed workers if the government went ahead with its plan to send 140,000 letters to employers of 8 million workers in the next few months, Breyer said.

At another point, he told a government lawyer that the advice the letter contains for employers is "not an accurate statement of the law."

Justice Department attorney Thomas Dupre said the government objected to the extension of the restraining order, which was scheduled to expire today. Breyer replied that the government could ask a higher court to intervene. Dupre did not indicate his intentions.

Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff announced the rule Aug. 10 as a means of toughening the little-enforced 1986 law that subjects employers to criminal prosecution or civil penalties for knowingly employing illegal immigrants.

Employers can satisfy the law under current rules if they obtain specified documents from newly hired workers. After that, the government notifies employers if the Social Security number of a worker's W-2 tax form doesn't match the number in the Social Security database. That worker does not have earnings credited for Social Security benefits, but no action is taken against the employer.

Under the new rule, employers receiving such a "no-match" letter would have to fire the worker or face possible civil fines and criminal penalties if the discrepancy isn't cleared up within 93 days.

Unions that filed the suit argued that the rule would lead to firings of thousands of legal employees who couldn't navigate government bureaucracies to resolve differences in Social Security numbers in the required time, and would also give rise to wholesale discrimination against workers with foreign names or appearances.

They said employers or the government commonly make clerical errors in recording Social Security numbers, and that name changes after marriages or divorces can also result in "no-match" letters.

The unions also argued that the 1986 law required only a document check of newly hired workers' immigration status, and did not authorize the government to order additional verification or use Social Security records for immigration enforcement. But the government said the new rule merely gives employers one option to resolve uncertainties about their employees' status and avoid liability.