Sunday, October 07, 2007

"Riddled with Errors"?   [Mark Krikorian]

Mickey Kaus points to an NPR story that claimed the DHS verification system to check the legal status of new hires shouldn't be used because of faulty government databases. The story features a naturalized citizen (who seems to have been legalized under the 1986 amnesty) who lost his job due to a error in Social Security Administration records, but who ended up fixing the problem and getting his job back (interestingly, this same guy was already the subject of a WaPo story in May). Mickey's point is that the database issue can't be much of a problem if the open-borders groups couldn't come up with a better anti-enforcement poster boy, and that, anyway, honest people encounter database problems with, say, credit cards all the time and that's not an argument against the system in question.

But I would go further — there are no "mistakes" when an employer electronically checks a new hire's legal status. This is because in the small number of instances when the web-based check kicks back a "tentative non-confirmation" that means that the Social Security Administration doesn't have your information right. Isn't that something you'd want to now now, rather than when you turn 65? The fact that you are alerted to problems that could affect your future retirement benefits isn't a "mistake," it's a public service, and an essential one at that.

10/07 06:37 PMShare