No Match, No Sense

“The U.S. has tried many tactics in its campaign to thwart illegal immigration — border fences, additional Border Patrol agents, cameras, motion sensors, unmanned aerial vehicles. The focus on flashy technology and beefed-up manpower has ignored one little-known program: the Social Security Administrations SSA no-match letter program. But with new rules from the Bush administration due any day now, the program will require employers to fire undocumented workers, making it the weapon that could finally make a dent against illegal immigration. Unintended consequences of the program promise to also cause serious economic harm.

Every year, the SSA sends out more than 100,000 no-match letters to employers with at least 10 workers whose reported Social Security numbers either do not exist or do not match the names on the SSAs records. In a small number of cases, no-matches are legitimate clerical errors or instances where a worker has changed his or her name. But the majority of workers listed in no-match letters are undocumented immigrants working in the U.S. illegally.”

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