“Employers across the country are preparing to fire workers with questionable Social Security numbers to avoid getting snagged in a Bush administration crackdown on illegal immigrants…The Department of Homeland Security is expected to make public soon new rules for employers notified when their worker’s name or Social Security number was flagged by the Social Security Administration.” (Source)

So George Bush’s mega-billion-dollar agency is, at long last, doing something useful.

According to the article, employees with “questionable” Social Security numbers will have 60 days after notification to resolve the issue. If they can’t, employers must fire them or face fines ranging from $250 to $10,000 per illegal.

To get a handle on illegal “immigration,” we must go to the main source of the problem. I’ve ranted often enough about illegal aliens on this blog, but now’s the time to focus on businesses and individuals who hire illegal aliens.

If the executive branch does its job and actually enforces immigration laws, it would go a long way toward stemming the tide of foreigners crossing the border or overstaying visas, if the effort is combined with cutting off welfare to non-citizens. (No welfare for legal residents, either.) With no means of support, perhaps they’ll go home and try to return the legal way.

One can only hope.

Related posts:

• Social Security Administration Won’t Report Illegal Aliens
• It’s Time To Go After Illegal Alien-Hiring Employers

Check out The Stein Report.

Update (10:13 a.m.): Michelle Malkin reports: “One of the victims [of the raid identity theft] was a Border Patrol agent!”
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Yesterday, federal agents arrested a bunch of illegal aliens working for meat-packing plants owned by Swift & Company after an 11-month identity theft investigation.

(I contacted their media person for comment. I don’t expect to hear back, though.)

But it’s all for show. Why? Unless the government “cracks down” on employers and give them heavy disincentives to hiring illegal aliens, the whole thing’s meaningless.

Whoever does the hiring at these plants has to know by now that non-English speaking, Spanish-speaking people seeking jobs there likely are illegal aliens. At the very least, they need to be trained to spot fake Social Security cards and other documents.

The federal government must change the way it operates, too. There is no coordination between the various agencies, and that makes tracking down illegal aliens more difficult. From the article:

The sweep also highlighted flaws in the main program through which the government helps employers authenticate workers’ identification documents, underscoring how weak government ID requirements and poor coordination with the Social Security Administration have frustrated enforcers for decades. Swift has been participating in the program for years.
…
Although many illegal workers by definition commit document fraud to get jobs, the government’s use of identity theft charges could reframe the immigration debate for the public and spotlight how sharing Social Security data could fight such abuses, she said.

Last summer I linked to an Inspector General’s audit report about the Social Security Administration (SSA). SSA issues nonwork cards to illegal aliens so they can receive welfare, and too many of them are using the nonwork cards to obtain employment. But the people who hire them bear most of the responsibility. The cards display “nonwork” on them.

But that’s not the worst part. Because of the Privacy Act, the SSA is not allowed to tell companies which of their employees are not authorized to work. The Inspector General concluded: “We believe SSA should consider examining its interpretation of existing disclosure laws and, if necessary, seek legislative authority that would allow the Agency to disclose nonwork status to employers.”

So the feds made a big show of “raiding” plants and handcuffing illegal aliens. Big deal. Identity theft is one way to tackle the problem, yes, but yesterday’s raid will mean absolutely nothing if those same illegal aliens end up at other meat-packing plants. DEPORT THEM. HEAVILY FINE THE COMPANIES. Train hiring managers to spot fake documents. Learn how to use employment verification systems already in place.

Links: Michelle Malkin (Also see her latest column, Beware of illegal aliens seeking hazmat licenses), Iowa Voice, Blogs for Bush, Talk Left (makes a good point!), Gun Toting Liberal, Captain’s Quarters, Lonewacko…

Big government is expensive, wasteful, and inefficient, and most social programs are vulnerable to fraud and abuse. That’s my off-the-cuff opinion, and I’m sure many intelligent people would agree.

I stumbled upon a story in the Washington Times about a recent audit report issued by the Office of the Inspector General of the Social Security Administration, Employers With The Most Wage Items In The NonWork Alien File (PDF).

Since 2003, the Social Security Administration (SSA) has issued “nonwork” Social Security numbers (SSN) to foreigners who aren’t allowed to work in the United States but need to collect welfare(?). According to the audit report, a nonwork SSN card indicates on its face that the holder may not use the card for employment purposes.

Each year the SSA is required to send the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) a NonWork Alien File (NWALIEN), which contains names, address, amounts earned, etc., of people working under nonwork SSNs. For the audit, the Inspector General randomly selected 275 noncitizens who worked for 100 employers that reported the most wage items in the NWALIEN. Sixty-one percent were not authorized to work in the U.S. The rest were incorrectly classified as noncitizens working under nonwork SSNs. Their records had not been updated to reflect a change in status.

The employers with the highest percentage of illegal aliens — I mean noncitizens — working without authorization were staffing (employment agencies), hotel and services, and health care services.

Employers either ignore the nonwork designation on the SSNs, see it and don’t care, or illegal aliens don’t present the cards when hired for a job. Incidentally, the Privacy Act prohibits the SSA from telling employers which of its employees are working under nonwork SSNs! Government agencies are not coordinating their efforts to combat fraud.

According to the audit report, noncitizens working under nonwork SSNs is “widespread.” Mind the bureaucratese:

Unauthorized work by noncitizens weakens SSN integrity and may require that the agency pay benefits to these individuals. In addition, noncitizens who work without DHS authorization could affect homeland security because they may obtain employment in sensitive areas. To help ensure the integrity of SSA’s records and the accuracy of the NWALIEN file, we believe the Agency should consider informing numberholders it has recorded their wages under a nonwork SSN. In addition, to reduce the number of noncitizens who work without authorization, we believe SSA should consider examining its interpretation of existing disclosure laws and, if necessary, seek legislative authority that would allow the Agency to disclose nonwork status to employers. We also believe the Agency should encourage employers who file large numbers or percentages of wage statements with nonwork SSNs to use the Basic Pilot when hiring new employees. For example, we believe the Agency should consider coordinating with employer associations and participating in conferences to discuss steps employers can take to reduce unauthorized work by noncitizens.

Emphases added. Employer verification systems are already in place, but employers apparently don’t have much use for them. This is one reason why I said big government is inefficient. (Also see Internet-Based Pilot Program).

As you know, Congress is attempting to “reform” our immigration laws. The Federation for American Immigration Reform has done a great job summarizing the differences bewteen the House of Representative’s and Senate’s versions of the immigration bills (PDF), and I encourage you to check out the chart.

Here’s a common sense solution to SSN fraud: Why not bar foreigners from collecting welfare? That way, they won’t need a “nonwork SSN.” Also, if foreigners are not allowed to work in the U.S. and have no means of support, send them back to their home countries. Just a few ideas…

The current “immigration” problem has been in the making for at least 20 years, with the complicity of federal and local governments, business owners, hiring managers, and private citizens too cheap to hire legal aliens and citizens. It won’t be solved overnight, but a little common sense, as the cliché goes…

I will keep you updated about our homeland security mess with frequent reports. I must warn you about my bias, though. Pro-America sentiment will be sprinkled throughout.

Addendum: I predict that if George Bush’s amnesty-for-illegal-aliens plan succeeds, the “privatize Social Security” movement will re-emerge from its slumber.

Where the state’s power is most effective for itself but least effective for us is in exerting control over our ownership rights in the form of excessive regulation (land use, for example), burdensome taxes and gun control.

An argument can be made that the social security system is burdensome and broken and infringes on our freedom and ownership rights. Slavery was burdensome (to the slave) and broken and infringed on people’s freedom and “self-ownership” rights. Just as slavery was abolished, social security should be abolished. Is that line of reasoning a stretch?

Abolishing social security would be radical, wouldn’t it? The idea of outlawing slavery was once radical, too. Imagine that. Free Negroes walking around. There are so many ways we can go with this, but I’ll let you do that in the comments. Read Star Parker’s take on the issue:

Am I pushing the envelope too far to suggest that there is common ground between the politics of slavery and the politics of Social Security?

When moral problems are transformed into politics, we can find surprising similarities in issues that otherwise might seem worlds apart….

Listening to the case for transforming Social Security to a regime of personal ownership is simple and compelling. The numbers no longer add up in our current system. Personal accounts would allow ownership and wealth creation. If we had to start from scratch, no one would want the system we now have. If the case is so clear, why isn’t it simple to change?

Good question. Anybody know the answer?

Star’s book, Uncle Sam’s Plantation: How Big Government Enslaves America’s Poor and What We Can Do About It, is a good read. I’ve blogged it (and Star) several times here and here.

Update (1:52 p.m.): I just got off the phone with Kevin McCullough, and we talked about this post (That’s what I like about radio interviews. The discussion at hand always leads to other topics. We talked briefly about Easongate and mostly about social security.) I was writing this post while I was on hold.

As we talked about social security, I realized that many people don’t want the system overhauled because it’s scary. With private accounts, we’ll assume control over our own retirement. I’m sure President Bush’s plan includes an option to keep the money safe in government bonds and such, as well as an option to invest in risky ventures, like the stock market.

If you have a 401(k) account, you already have an idea of what it takes to keep your nest egg relatively safe, so reforming social security shouldn’t be viewed as radical.

Unrelated Update II (3:23 p.m.): Visit the new CPAC Bloggers site.

Update III (5:25 p.m.): Kevin McCullough is interviewed on a show called ReachOUT.org. He talks about his faith, his radio show, blog, etc. It’s very good.

Professor Bainbridge on social security.

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“Would liberals support Social Security reform if they thought of it as reparations for blacks?”

Rich Lowry, editor of National Review, asks a question I’d never thought of asking white liberals. Yet it seems so obvious. Liberals support “reparations” and any other idiotic idea complaining blacks come up with. I’ve always argued that blacks are receiving reparations: welfare, entitlements and all manner of skin color preferences.

As we all know, if the old baby boomers aren’t breaking us now, they will be very soon. President Bush is trying to help us out. Under his plan, we’d get to invest part of our wages instead of throwing it down the black hole that is the government. In fact, it is a conservative trait to advocate that people keep more of their earnings. It’s a liberal trait to advocate that government not only take more of your money but force you to give it to people who have less, whether they have a job or not.

Lowry offers a rationale for social security reform that I’ve heard before: blacks, especially black men, don’t live long enough to collect the money that is owed them by the government, so they, of all people, should support reform of the broken system:

There is a direct correlation between economic status and average life span. This means that blacks, who are disproportionately poor, partly for historic reasons, tend to have shorter life spans, especially black males. The average life expectancy of a black male is roughly 68.6. The retirement age of Social Security is set under current law to eventually rise to 67. You do the math — this cannot be a good deal.

According to Social Security expert David John of the Heritage Foundation, one-fifth of white males die between the ages of 50 and 70. But one-third of black males die between those ages. If you die before you reach the age of 62, you have no chance of collecting benefits, and if you die shortly thereafter, you will not recoup the payroll taxes you paid into the system.

John ran the numbers for persons roughly age 20 to 25 living in the ZIP code for liberal New York Rep. Charlie Rangel’s district office. The average rate of return from Social Security for these young people will be negative 8 percent. If young blacks were being fleeced in this way by, say, “predatory lenders,” the likes of Rangel would scream racism and demand change. But if they are financially abused by a liberal sacred cow, the implicit message is: Don’t get uppity.

How white liberals have convinced most blacks that social security reform is “racist” and will hurt old people isn’t physics. I’ll keep it simple. As someone who used to be a liberal, it didn’t matter if a conservative was offering something better for me and my family. As long as I believed the person doing the offering was a racist, I didn’t want it and tried to convince others not to take it, either. Irrational? Darn right it is.

When I find the time, I’ll read up on the history of social security (Thanks a lot, FDR), it’s evolution and what reform would mean for me. I’m talking policy. Right now, I’m kind of ignorant. All I know is that I’d keep more of my salary. That’s good enough for me.

I want the power to use my own initiative, motivation and creativity in choosing how, when and where to invest the money I earn. But we live in an era where the government knows what’s best for us, right?

Attention Washington: Keep the criminals out of my neighborhood and away from me and family, protect us from terrorists and illegal aliens bankrupting the system, and I’ll be just fine. Jack part of my salary for various state duties, if you must, but let me and my brain come up with our retirement plan.

Get off my back and out of my pocket.

Update: A reader sends links. From the Heritage Foundation:

• The Top 10 Myths About Social Security Reform
• How to Fix Social Security
• Why Not Read Them All?

(FYI, the link text on the new blog will be the same size as the regular text.)

Update: Rob says: “Social Security Doesn’t Work.”

Chris says: “Personal Accounts Work.”

Have you written a post on social security reform? Send me the link.

Update III (1/10): Here’s something besides Williams or Rathergate. See JustOneMinute for the latest on social security reform.