The Bush administration recently announced its renewal to crack down on US companies that hire undocumented immigrants by altering the conditions of "no-match" letters, an initiative stalled by a federal judge since last September.  According to The Washington Post, if the new proposal satisfies the court, the government could begin warning 140,000 employers in writing in early as June about suspect Social Security numbers used by their employees and force businesses to either solve questions about their employees’ identities or fire them within 90 days.  

The letters were enjoined by US district Judge Charles R. Breyer while he hears a lawsuit brought by a wide-ranging coalition of major American labor, business, farm and civil liberties groups.  The plaintiffs, including the AFL-CIO, the US Chamber of Commerce ant the ACLU, allege that the plan will cause major workplace disruptions and discriminate against legal workers, including native-born Americans.  

Critics have noted that the Social Security Administration’s inspector general has concluded the database used to cull suspicious numbers contains erroneous records on 17.8 million people, 70 percent of whom are native-born US citizens.  Even if the actual error rate of no-match letters is far lower, labor leaders say that unscrupulous employers will use the rule of burden or harass anyone who looks or sounds foreign.  "It’s an attempt to justify the fundamentally flawed database without actually fixing any of the problems," said Lucas Guttentag, director of the ACLU immigrants’ rights project.  

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A program that has rotated thousands of National Guardsmen along the Mexican border to augment US Border Patrol agents comes to a close in four months, despite calls by at least one border state governor to extend the Guard’s mission, The Associate Press reports.  Operation Jump Start, which began in mid-2006, deployed up to 6,000 troops at a time during the first 12 months in non-enforcement roles that freed up Border Patrol agents for front-line duty.  The mission will wind down to a July 15 finish, though some Guard personnel will remain to finish up paperwork and account for equipment.  

Arizona Gov. Janet Napolitano has expressed interest in the soldiers staying.  The Democratic governor wrote a letter this month to DHS Secretary Michael Chertoff, urging him to "reconsider the drawdown of Operation Jump Start, and instead retain National Guard personnel."  Chertoff’s spokesman said while DHS is sticking with the National Guard drawdown plan, they hope that the Border Patrol has 18,000 agents by the end of 2008 and has asked Congress to approve funding for an additional 2,000.  "We’ve been abundantly clear since Day One about the intent and timeline for Operation Jump Start," spokesman Russell Knocke said.  

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Department of Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff has denied a request by senators on both sides of the aisle to delay the deadline for states to comply with new federal regulations for state-issued driver’s licenses and identification cards.  According to The Washington Times, Chertoff rebuked the lawmakers for requesting that the congressionally mandated timeline be changed to implement Real ID, saying "this plain statutory language mandates the May 11 deadline.  You may disagree with the foregoing law, but I cannot ignore it," Mr. Chertoff said in a March 20 letter to the lawmakers.   

Lawmakers who called the deadline "arbitrary and ineffective" include Republican Sens. Susan Collins and Olympia J. Snowe of Main and John Sununu of New Hampshire; plus Democratic Sens. Patrick J. Leahy of Vermont, Daniel K. Akaka of Hawaii, and Max Baucus and Jon Tester of Montana.  "These regulations raise disturbing constitutional issues regarding the ability of some citizens to travel freely and access their federal government," the lawmakers wrote in a March 12 letter to Chertoff.  

States have until March 31 to request an extension to enroll in the program to set standards for determining which state-issued identifications are secure enough to be accepted by the federal government, which determines whether those IDs are good for such purposes as boarding commercial flights and entering federal buildings.