Lawmakers decry firewall limiting DHS agency's investigations

Stung by federal immigration raids on Swift and Company meat-packing plants in their states, a group of senators vowed Monday to tear down the legal wall limiting the Homeland Security Department's access to Social Security information.

Due to the wall, the department's "Basic Pilot" database for checking the employment eligibility of newly hired non-citizens allows employers to weed out only workers using false Social Security numbers, not actual numbers obtained through identification theft.

"The smokestacks of government are not cooperating with each other," said Sen. Charles Grassley, R-Iowa, after a meeting with Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff.

In the December raids, federal agents arrested 1,282 illegal immigrants at Swift plants in six states, including Grassley's as well as Texas, Colorado, Utah, Nebraska and Minnesota. The enforcement actions, which forced the temporary shutdown of the facilities, were part of a federal identity theft investigation.

Also attending the meeting were four other senators from the affected states -- Sens. Tom Harkin, D-Iowa, Norm Coleman, R-Minn., Wayne Allard, R-Colo., and John Cornyn, R-Texas.

Chertoff warned that his agency is prepared to launch similar raids on other plants, even those owned by companies that, like Swift, have complied with the voluntary Basic Pilot program to screen employees.

"The alternative is to let the illegal activity to continue, which would be an amnesty, and we are not in the business of granting amnesties," Chertoff told reporters in a briefing attended by all the senators except Harkin, who left the meeting early.

Noting that the temporary plant closings had cost Swift tens of millions of dollars, Allard, Coleman, Cornyn and Grassley agreed that the raids showed the need to authorize the Social Security Administration to provide more data to the department and its subdivision, the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services. "There are cracks in the system," said Allard.

"We have to change [the law] to allow the greater sharing of information," said Coleman. Commented Cornyn: "Obviously, just complying with Basic Pilot does not protect" employers.

Current law bars the Social Security Administration from giving information on applicants to the Social Security system who were rejected because their numbers might have been obtained through fraud. Since the information comes from tax returns, it is protected by IRS privacy rules, said SSA spokesman Mark Lassiter.