Press Release: The Largest Business and Hispanic Civil Rights Groups In The Country Speak Out Against the Bush Administration’s Latest Attempt At No-Match Letters Which Hurt American Workers.

November 10, 2008

For more information contact:
Lizette Jenness Olmos, (202) 365-4553 mobile
Eric Wohlschlegel, (202) 463-5682

Washington, DC – The League of United Latin American Citizens and the United States Chamber of Commerce are joining forces after the Bush Administration announced to reissue the “no match” rule. This rule would use the already flawed Social Security Administration (SSA) database and force employers to fire workers if their names and social security numbers cannot be matched.

“Its adoption will lead to massive layoffs of both legal and undocumented workers whose records may not match,” said LULAC National President Rosa Rosales. “These heinous measures will lead to more discrimination cases, racial profiling and illegal firing of legitimate workers given that most no-match cases involve authorized employees and naturalized citizens.”

The measures will convert the Social Security Administration “No Match” letters into an immigration enforcement tool. This measure could put millions of jobs at risk. This constitutes at least over 1.4 million workers that will be affected.
Angelo Amador, the chamber's director of immigration policy, dismissed Chertoff's assertions that the groups that filed the lawsuit opposing this regulation merely want to protect illegal workers.  “The bottom line is this case has never been about illegal workers, it has been about the cost of a badly thought out rule and the cost on legitimate businesses following all the rules and complying with it,” Amador said.  “The department’s own analysis, which it was forced to do after the judge blocked the rule, shows that 35,000 to 167,000 legitimate workers would not be able to work because of the rule,” he concluded.

A study commissioned by the Department of Homeland Security estimates that 3.9 million workers will be the subject of a “no match” letter. An economic analysis commissioned by the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and authored by Richard B. Belzer, who holds a Ph.D. in public policy from Harvard University , found that more than 165,000 lawful U.S. workers could lose their jobs because of their inability to resolve discrepancies with the SSA. The cost to employers will be at least $1 billion per year.

The Social Security Administration says up to 4 percent of the 250 million wage reports it receives each year belong to employees whose names and corresponding Social Security numbers do not match which is a cause of concern.

The U.S. Chamber is the world's largest business federation representing more than 3 million businesses and organizations of every size, sector, and region. 

The League of United Latin American Citizen (www.lulac.org) advances the economic conditions, educational attainment, political influence, health, housing and civil rights of Hispanic Americans through community-based programs operating at more than 700 LULAC councils nationwide.

###