Lawsuit Halts DHS Crackdown on Unauthorized Workers

The Department of Homeland Security’s Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency (ICE) hit a roadblock on Friday, August 31, in its increasingly aggressive efforts to clamp down on the use of illegal workers. ICE had published a final rule to be effective on September 14 requiring employers who receive a “mismatch” letter from the Social Security Administration (SSA) to take specific steps to resolve the mismatch within a 93-day period. Under the rule, if the mismatch is not resolved and if the employer continues to employ the individual, then ICE could use the mismatch letter as the basis to find that the employer knowingly continued to employ an unauthorized worker in violation of Federal I-9 law. As a part of its enforcement strategy, ICE had arranged for SSA to send mismatch letters this week to more than 140,000 employers covering an estimated eight million workers.