12,517 words

That how many words it took the Department of Homeland Security to explain its supplemental proposed rule on "Safe-Harbor Procedures for Employers Who Receive a No-Match Letter: Clarification; Initial Regulatory Flexibility Analysis AGENCY: U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, DHS"

Find the document, published today, here. Here is the positively terse summary graph:

The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) is proposing to amend its regulations that provide a ``safe harbor'' from liability under section 274A of the Immigration and Nationality Act for employers who follow certain procedures after receiving a notice--from the Social Security Administration (SSA), called a ``no-match letter,'' or from DHS, called a ``notice of suspect document''--that casts doubt on the employment eligibility of their employees. The prior final rule was published on August 15, 2007 (the August 2007 Final Rule). Implementation of that rule was preliminarily enjoined by the United States District Court for the Northern District of California on October 10, 2007. The district court based its preliminary injunction on three findings. This supplemental proposed rule clarifies certain aspects of the August 2007 Final Rule and responds to the three findings underlying the district court's injunction.


TK: Here is a decidedly more long-winded passage about how the DHS tried to evaluate the impact on small businesses. From the proposed rule:

DHS requested information from SSA to assist in better identifying the number of small entities that could be expected to establish safe- harbor procedures. Specifically, DHS requested that SSA provide the names and addresses of the companies already identified by SSA in its preparation to release no-match letters in September 2007. This raw data would have permitted DHS to conduct research to determine the North American Industry Classification System industry to which the specific companies belonged, to research the annual revenue and/or the number of employees of these companies through standard sources, and thus to apply the appropriate small business size standards. With these analyses, DHS anticipated that it would be able to provide a rough estimate of the number of employers expected to receive a no-match letter that met the SBA's definitions of small businesses. However, SSA informed DHS that it was unable to provide DHS with the names and addresses of the employers expected to receive a no-match letter, citing the general legal restrictions on disclosure of taxpayer return information under section 6103 of the Internal Revenue Code of 1986, 26 U.S.C. 6103. DHS also approached the Government Accountability Office (GAO) and the Small Business Administration, Office of Advocacy, to seek any data that these agencies might be able to provide, and to consult about the analysis to be included in this IRFA. GAO supplied some additional data, but SBA informed DHS that it had no data--other than general small business census data--that was relevant to this rulemaking and that could assist in our analysis for purposes of this IRFA. Consequently, DHS does not have the data necessary to determine the precise number of small entities expected to receive a no-match letter. Nevertheless, SSA was able to provide some general information. SSA provided a table showing a distribution of the number of employers that were slated to receive a no-match letter for Tax Year 2006, according to the number of Form W-2s filed by the employer.


TK: Whew! I'm glad we have that straight.