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"A federal appeals court ordered reinstatement Monday for 33 janitors in Los Angeles who were fired because their Social Security numbers did not match the government's database..." ("Janitors reinstated by appeals court" by Bob Egelko, San Francisco Chronicle staff writer, 17 June 2008). This suggests that maybe zombies are real, and bit by bit, they're infiltrating our government at every level.

Or maybe they're smoking (and inhaling) too many of those left-handed cigarettes. With all the wild stuff one hears about the state of California, one can never tell.

My first reaction was "Gee, how do I become an illegal alien?" Think about it; armies of lawyers and advocates just lining up if anyone so much as gives you the hairy eyeball.

Who says that crime doesn't pay?

The business, Aramark Facility Services at the Staples Center in Los Angeles, had received letters in 2003 from the government on 48 employees whose Social Security numbers did not match the federal database. The company gave the employees in question three days to resolve the problem of which fifteen did, but the others that didn't were fired.

"The employees, whose union contract protected them from being fired without good cause, won reinstatement and back pay from an arbitrator, who said Aramark had no convincing information that they were illegal immigrants. A federal judge disagreed but was overruled Monday by the three-judge appellate panel."

A mismatched Social Security number doesn't automatically equate illegal alien or that there had been a crime committed. When I married the first time, I had problems getting a name change on my Social Security card -- they kept misplacing or losing my paperwork -- and it wasn't until I was at a duty station that had an administrative office within reasonable driving distance that I could, in person, resolve the problem.

But there's a growing problem with identity theft in this country, and there are numbers of illegal aliens who secure Social Security numbers that belong to someone else. Some of these numbers do belong to deceased individuals, but more and more they are being culled from living citizens and from children.

A mismatched Social Security number should raise some eyebrows to say the least. While some would argue that three days isn't enough time to resolve such a problem, it is ample time to at least provide other documentation to an employer to show that the conflict is due to a typographical errors, a bookkeeping mistake, or a name change to clear up any questions of political status.

The inability or unwillingness to dig up even a simple birth certificate could suggest something amiss.

To my understanding, anyone who works in this country has to be either a US citizen with a Social Security number, or in the case of a foreigner, they have to provide some sort of working visa. It's against the law for an employer to hire a foreigner without proper documentation.

Job termination of an employee due to doubts of political status or suspicions of document fraud is reasonable. If this court's ruling is accepted as precedent for other future court cases, it puts employers in a bad position of having to chose to either observe federal immigration laws or side with the employee's civil rights.

This brings up additional problems and question such as an employer's access to federal databases, and the extent that an employer is responsible in determining the polictical status of an employee. The employee is obligated to provide true and verifiable identification and other information upon seeking a position with a business.

To my knowledge, the jurisdiction of enforcing immigration laws doesn't rest on the employers. Employers are prohibited from knowingly hiring illegal workers, and have an obligation to report suspicious individuals who present reasonable doubts about their political status.

Employers also have the right to terminate employment of workers who have committed fraudulent entries on contracts and applications.

What I don't see here is any focus being brought as to why the Social Security numbers of the 33 workers in question were mismatched or if any of the workers were born or naturalized US citizens. That seems to be an important point here, or am I missing something?