Evidence of work fraud untapped
If the USG wants to really get serious on enforcing the employment laws relating to illegal aliens, all it needs to do is for the right hand to start communicating with the left hand.
Two federal agencies are refusing to turn over a mountain of evidence that investigators could use to indict the nation’s burgeoning work force of illegal immigrants and the firms that employ them.
The Internal Revenue Service and the Social Security Administration routinely collect strong evidence of potential workplace crimes, including the names and addresses of millions of people who are using bogus Social Security numbers, their wage records and the identities of those who hire them. But they keep those facts secret.
So much for interagency cooperation in the post-911 environment.
“If the government bothered to look, it could find abundant evidence of illegal aliens gaming our system and the unscrupulous employers who are aiding and abetting them,” said Rep. J.D. Hayworth, R-Ariz. The two agencies don’t analyze their data to root out likely immigration fraud — and law enforcement authorities can’t do so because the agencies won’t share their data. Privacy laws prohibit that, they say.
The agencies also don’t use the power that they have. The IRS doesn’t fine employers who repeatedly submit inaccurate data on workers. Social Security does virtually nothing to alert citizens whose Social Security numbers are being used by others.
Evidence abounds within their files, according to an analysis by Knight Ridder Newspapers and The Charlotte Observer. One internal study found that a restaurant company had submitted 4,100 duplicate Social Security numbers for workers. Other firms submit inaccurate names or numbers for nearly all their employees. One child’s Social Security number was used 742 times by workers in 42 states.
“That’s the kind of evidence we want,” says Paul Charlton, the U.S. attorney in Arizona. “If you see the same Social Security number a thousand times, it’s kind of hard for them to argue they didn’t know.”
Duh! Even bureaucrats are not THAT stupid. But what they do know how to do with consumate skill is to carry out policy, and to obfuscate where the policy actually originated from.
The potential crimes are so obvious that the failure to provide such information to investigators raises questions about Washington’s determination to end the widespread hiring of illegal immigrants.
No shit, Sherlock! The game’s afoot! The feckless bureaucratic weasels are beginning to be spotlighted. Time to unlimber the varmint gun & let ’em have it!
H/T to Signal94.