You are required to have a valid Social Security number that matches with your name in order to work. My wife found that out not long after we married, when her new employer found that the name on her card and the name on her employment records did not match. She was duly sent to the local Social Security office to do the paperwork to correct the situation.

The necessary time to correct the problem? One hour -- after which she left the office with paperwork indicating the problem was fixed. She received a new card within weeks, reflecting the change.

Similarly, the IRS began requiring matches of names and numbers during the Clinton administration.

So why is a federal judge saying that enforcement of the law is burdensome on workers and employers, who have three months to correct the problem -- and therefore allowing millions to work illegally?

A federal judge barred the Bush administration yesterday from launching a planned crackdown on U.S. companies that employ illegal immigrants, warning of its potentially "staggering" impact on law-abiding workers and companies.

In a firm rebuke of the White House, U.S. District Judge Charles R. Breyer of San Francisco granted a preliminary injunction against the president's plan to press employers to fire as many as 8.7 million workers with suspect Social Security numbers, starting this fall.

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In a 22-page ruling, Breyer said the plaintiffs -- an unusual coalition that included the AFL-CIO, the American Civil Liberties Union and the U.S. Chamber of Commerce -- had raised serious questions about the legality of the administration's plan to mail Social Security "no-match" letters to 140,000 U.S. employers.

"There can be no doubt that the effects of the rule's implementation will be severe," Breyer wrote, resulting in "irreparable harm to innocent workers and employers."

The government letters are intended to warn employers for the first time that they must resolve questions about their employees' identities or fire them within 90 days. If they do not, employers could face "stiff penalties," including fines and even criminal prosecution, for violating a federal law that bars knowingly employing illegal workers, Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff said when he announced the plan Aug. 10.

The plaintiffs convinced the judge that the Social Security Administration database includes so many errors -- incorporated in the records of about 9.5 million people in 2003 alone -- that its use in firings would unfairly discriminate against tens of thousands of legal workers, including native-born and naturalized U.S. citizens, and cause major workforce disruptions that would burden companies.

"The government's proposal to disseminate no-match letters affecting more than eight million workers will, under the mandated time line, result in the termination of employment to lawfully employed workers," the judge wrote. "Moreover the threat of criminal prosecution . . . reflects a major change in DHS policy."

The reality is that most of those errors are easily resolved, such as the one in my wife's records. All it takes is a little bit of time and good-faith effort to comply.

In the mean time, we have a federal judge ignoring the laws of the country to protect the lawless.

I agree with Congressman Brian Bilbray on this issue.

"What part of 'illegal' does Judge Breyer not understand?" he said. "At a time when the federal government is finally trying to enforce current immigration law, we cannot have activist judges stand in the way of doing what is right."

Right now, employers know about these problems. Letters informing them have been sent out since the Clinton Administration. They have, however, been ignored by employers and workers because there is no enforcement behind them. Now that there is an attempt to enforce the law, those who have ignored a dozen years of warnings are shouting "No Fair!"

I'm curious -- what time frame would be acceptable to those who challenged the new policy? 120 days? 180 days? One year? We know the answer -- no enforcement of our nation's immigration laws would ever be acceptable to the plaintiffs and the lawless judge who ruled for them.

I'd like to urge Congressman Bilbray to handle this matter via a two-track strategy -- first, with a legislative fix making this process statutorily mandated; and second, bey introducing a resolution for the impeachment of U.S. District Judge Charles R. Breyer.

H/T Captain's Quarters, Michelle Malkin. STACLU, Bookworm Room