November 25, 2007

Bush admin to submit new no-match rule... in March 2008

In October, U.S. District Judge Charles Breyer blocked the Bush administration from enforcing a new "no-match" rule that they'd announced in August. Under "no-match", letters are sent to companies warning them that an employees' name doesn't match the Social Security number they provided. The letters have been sent out - and then ignored - for years, but the DHS was supposedly going to finally start targeting some firms for enforcement.

On Friday, the Bush administration announced that, while they still might appeal, their main course of action will be to try to come up a revised rule to meet the judge's objections, specifically relating to a survey of small businesses to determine the impact the rule would have (link). They'll try to have the survey done and issue the new rule by the end of March.

The restraining order was brought to us courtesy of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, the AFL-CIO, the American Civil Liberties Union, the San Francisco Labor Council, among others. And, expect those groups to continue enabling illegal immigration by suing over the revised rule:

"It's clear the government has given up defending an indefensible rule," said Lucas Guttentag, a lawyer for the American Civil Liberties Union, another group bringing the lawsuit. "But now they're hoping to rush through another half-baked rule without addressing the fundamental flaws. It's like putting lipstick on Frankenstein."

There's certainly the possibility that the Bush administration knows all this and wants the ACLU and those who profit from illegal activity to keep suing.

Posted to Immigration2007b at November 25, 2007 01:09 PM