What to do after receiving a ‘no-match’ letter

Have you recently received a letter from the Social Security Administration, or SSA, notifying you that an employee’s name and social security number doesn’t match agency records?

Earlier this year, the SSA announced it would revive its “no-match” letter program, which was in place for nearly two decades beginning in 1993.  In 2012, however, the no-match letter program was stopped, due to various complaints and lawsuits from labor unions, immigrant advocates, and the business community ...

While a no-match letter alone is not evidence that an employee is not authorized to work in the United States, it creates a duty on the employer to take action.

Further, Immigration and Customs Enforcement, or ICE, routinely asks for no-match letters in the context of an I-9 audit.  And such letters have been used against employers in the past in immigration-related lawsuits to establish that employers had constructive knowledge they were employing unauthorized workers ..