President Bush's plan to press employers to fire as many as 8.7 million workers with suspect Social Security numbers starting this fall is now on hold.

U.S. District Judge Charles R. Breyer of the Northern District of California barred the Bush administration from launching a planned crackdown on U.S. companies that employ illegal immigrants, warning of its potentially overwhelming impact on law-abiding workers and companies.

Breyer granted a government motion seeking to halt the court proceedings while DHS revises and rewrites the regulations, finding there was an immediate threat of harm to the coalition of labor and business groups challenging the rules.

The stricter rules would require employers who receive notices from the Social Security Administration about non-matching records between an employee's name and Social Security number to resolve discrepancies within 90 days, dismiss the employee or face up to $10,000 in fines for knowingly hiring illegal immigrants.

The lawsuit, brought by employers, unions and the ACLU, argues the rules impose a substantial burden on employers and that errors in the SSA's database may cause legally employed persons to lose their jobs. The ACLU issued a statement arguing that revised DHS rules, which still rely on an allegedly flawed SSA database, will pose additional concerns.

In August, U.S. District Judge Maxine M. Chesney said the lawsuit highlighted the fact that there was “serious question” about whether DHS overreached in making the rules, and directed the SSA not to send out a mailing to approximately 140,000 employers advising them that there were discrepancies in their particular employment records.

President Bush's plan to press employers to fire as many as 8.7 million workers with suspect Social Security numbers starting this fall is now on hold.

U.S. District Judge Charles R. Breyer of the Northern District of California barred the Bush administration from launching a planned crackdown on U.S. companies that employ illegal immigrants, warning of its potentially overwhelming impact on law-abiding workers and companies.

Breyer granted a government motion seeking to halt the court proceedings while DHS revises and rewrites the regulations, finding there was an immediate threat of harm to the coalition of labor and business groups challenging the rules.

The stricter rules would require employers who receive notices from the Social Security Administration about non-matching records between an employee's name and Social Security number to resolve discrepancies within 90 days, dismiss the employee or face up to $10,000 in fines for knowingly hiring illegal immigrants.

The lawsuit, brought by employers, unions and the ACLU, argues the rules impose a substantial burden on employers and that errors in the SSA's database may cause legally employed persons to lose their jobs. The ACLU issued a statement arguing that revised DHS rules, which still rely on an allegedly flawed SSA database, will pose additional concerns.

In August, U.S. District Judge Maxine M. Chesney said the lawsuit highlighted the fact that there was “serious question” about whether DHS overreached in making the rules, and directed the SSA not to send out a mailing to approximately 140,000 employers advising them that there were discrepancies in their particular employment records.