When the President signed the Homeland Security funding bill, he vowed to track down illegal aliens inside the US and enforce the law against employers who hire them. "If somebody's here illegally, we've got to find them, said Bush, "We've got to crack down on employers who flout our laws."
The Social Security Administration has some helpful information. Specifically, I am referring to two lists. First, according to the SSA inspector general, there is a list developed each year of all employees who submit 100 or more W-2 forms that SSA cannot credit to known taxpayers because the SS numbers on the forms are fake or don't belong to hte pereson named on the form. Secondly, the IG completed a more elite list, that ranks the top 100 employers who filed the largest number of bad W2s from 1997-2001. The publicly released version of this list does not name the employers, IDing them only by state, number of bad W2s and other payroll data.
These two lists would be a goldmine for DHS agents to nail illegal workers and employers. I think a staet government is involved because the October 2004 IG report said a state government was one of the top 100 filers. Quoting the IG's report:
43 filers were in the service industry, 32 were in the restaurant industry, 20 were in the agriculture industry. Four of the remaining employers were in hte hotel/retail industry, and one was a state agency.
Which State could this be? California led with 25 bad filers. TExas had 15. Illinois had 14, and Ohio and Florida each had four.
According to the SSA, the names of these agencies are protected by law.
"The state location and name of hte stat agency is protected under Section 6103 of the Internal Revenue code...With the exception of an ongoing criminal investigation, the same disclosure restrictions under Section 6103 of the IRC apply to sharing this information with outside parties, like the Department of Homeland Security."
The IG has been recommending SSA take action. The IG suggested that SSA sek approval to remove disclosure barriers. I agree with that. The Taxpayers ahve a right to know if their state govenrment is filing bad W2s. Stockholders have a right to know if companies they invest are filing bad reports. All Americans need secure borders.
