Business/Immigration Update

Click the below link for snippets about (1) a key immigration enforcement measure and its potential costs to employers, and (2) the government’s quest to hire more prosecutors to handle criminal cases — including alien smuggling — along the Southern border.

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The Business Costs of Immigration Enforcement

Here’s a link to a very interesting article — especially by media standards — regarding a Chamber of Commerce study on the prospective costs to employers of a key element of the Bush administration’s five-year-old and ongoing crackdown on illegal workers and black market employers.

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The crux of the matter and the heart of the story (as edited by yours truly):

The employer cost estimates by independent consultant Richard Belzer, a former economist from 1988-1998 with the Office of Management and Budget’s regulatory oversight unit, are based upon the Department of Homeland Security’s now-suspended plan to enforce its ‘no-match rule’ against 140,000 employers to which no-match letters were sent last summer and fall. The no-match rule mandates employers dismiss workers whose Social Security numbers cannot be verified with a government database. A Clinton-nominated U.S. district judge blocked the enforcement plan last October after business groups opposed to it sued for an injunction. DHS is appealing that ruling.

Belzer said the crackdown if implemented could cost employers more than $1 billion per year in administrative tasks and paperwork. Employees can be flagged as no-match workers not only in cases where they are working in the country illegally but also because of typos, misspellings and name changes, among other benign reasons.

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As they say, read the whole thing.

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More Federal Prosecutors Earmarked for Southern Border

Here’s a link to a good Reuters article — surprisingly devoid of any obvious agenda — regarding the Justice Department’s efforts to beef up its prosecutorial abilities on the Southern border.

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The key nuggets of info (as edited by yours truly):

Deputy Attorney General Mark Filip said the Justice Department would provide funding for an additional 64 assistant U.S. attorneys to target crime along the nearly 2,000-mile Southern border.

The new prosecutors, together with 35 additional contract support staff, are to be allocated from Southern California to Texas and will work to curb both human and contraband smuggling.

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Last year, federal agents arrested more than 870,000 illegal immigrants crossing over the border from Mexico and seized thousands of tons of narcotics.

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As they say, read the whole thing.