Stop scapegoating immigrants!

Meanwhile, Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff announced that he is going ahead with plans to use the records of the Social Security Administration as an immigration enforcement tool. He intends to require employers to fire all employees who cannot clear up discrepancies involving their Social Security numbers within 90 days.

Chertoff’s announcement came as a federal judge was getting ready to hear arguments in a suit brought by the AFL-CIO, the ACLU and others aimed at stopping the Chertoff plan. They say such a use of Social Security files is not authorized by law and will do irreparable harm to millions.

The SAVE Act and the Chertoff policy will cost the jobs of not only countless immigrant workers, but also the huge numbers of U.S. citizens who, it is already recognized, have errors in their Social Security files.

Neither the GOP congressional leadership nor Chertoff or Bush plan to add a single government worker to deal with the vast extra burden that their policies would put on the Social Security system. Could it be that the inevitable chaos will be used to “prove” that it is necessary to privatize Social Security?