Judge Blocks Crackdown on Immigrant Workers

In a major blow to the Bush Administration, a federal judge has blocked a controversial program to find illegal immigrants in the workplace by tracking discrepancies in their Social Security data. A US district judge ruled the crackdown by the Department of Homeland Security would "subject employers to greater compliance costs and employees to an increased risk of termination," the Los Angeles Times reports.

An injunction will stand until the judge holds further hearings to decide whether to kill the law. "It's a signal to the government that they can't do anything they want simply by calling it enforcement," said a US Chamber of Commerce spokesman. Both labor and business organizations opposed the program, which could have affected 8 million workers. (More Social Security stories.)