Last Friday, we notified you about something that caught our attention: "no-match letters." "No-match letters" are official notifications sent by SSA to employers when employee names and Social Security numbers on W-2 tax forms don't match the agency's records. Although these letters can be generated for innocuous reasons, such as spelling errors or an unreported name change following a marriage or divorce, they also have obvious significance as an immigration enforcement tool.

The use of no-match letters was discontinued by the Obama Administration (what a surprise), but (as we notified you) recently revived by the Trump Administration. The Center for Immigration Studies has a very useful report on the appeal of reviving this practice.

Under their proposed approach, DHS would repromulgate regulations from 2008, creating a system where employers who receive no-match letters and fail to take reasonable steps to resolve discrepancies could face findings of "constructive knowledge" that they are employing unauthorized workers. This would make them subject to significant civil and criminal penalties under the Immigration Reform and Control Act of 1986, including fines ranging from $250 to $10,000 per unauthorized worker, depending on the employer's violation history. Although the Trump Administration has begun sending no-match letters, it's unclear whether they're going for this specific approach.

The policy impact of systematically reviving no-match letters would be far-reaching, as they would essentially transform what are technically administrative letters about tax record discrepancies into a nationwide workforce verification system. The regulations wouldn't create too much risk for employers: they would include "safe harbor" procedures that employers could follow to avoid liability, including requiring employees to resolve discrepancies with the SSA, verifying employment authorization through new I-9 forms, and terminating workers who cannot establish their legal work status.

The appeal is obvious: such broad use of no-match letters would, as the CIS report puts it, "demagnetize the job magnet for illegal immigration" and "encourage illegal aliens’ voluntary departure from the US." This, in effect, be very similar to a nationwide E-Verify mandate. We will keep this on our radar screen and keep you updated.

Policy News You Need To Know

#ThePolitics — "Schumer vows to fight GOP megabill ‘with everything we’ve got’" Now you're warned.

#TheEconomyStupid — Meanwhile, since we all remember the market crash associated with Liberation Day, it's fair to point out that the S&P 500 just posted its best May since 1990.

#Vax — RFK Jr. canceled contracts with Moderna worth over $750 million to develop and produce mRNA-based bird flu vaccines. American Action Forum's Douglas Holtz-Eakin is not happy, and we can relate: "What is the breadth of this decision? There have been concerns over, for example, myocarditis as a side effect of the existing COVID-19 vaccine. Is it the COVID-19 and trial H5 avian flu vaccines? Or is it all potential mRNA-developed vaccines?" What's more, "You can be sure not everyone agrees with the decision. Reuters, for example, quoted Senior Scholar at the Johns Hopkins Center for Health Security Amesh Adalja as saying: 'The cancellation means that the government is discarding what could be one of the most effective and rapid tools to combat an avian influenza outbreak.'" Adds Holtz-Eakin, justifiably: "The decision is important and controversial. It deserves a clear explanation."

#Fertility — We'll have more to say about this, but for now: Jesús Fernández-Villaverde, a professor at Penn and a Visiting Scholar at AEI, has put together a series of slides and talks that make the best, data-driven case we have seen for taking the fertility crisis very seriously.

#Fertility — …And yet, the looming disaster has not percolated to public consciousness. According to a new survey by the fine people at the Institute for Family Studies, "less than 1 in 10" Americans declare themselves "very worried" about declining fertility.

#HigherEd — Manhattan Institute's John D. Sailer has done the Lord's work again, using public record requests to acquire evidence that the University of Michigan has gone on a hiring spree of social justice activists. Again, everything the Federal government does to stop this stuff is good.

#Reg — Such a different landscape from the Biden Administration: "Across all rulemakings, agencies published $20.3 million in total cost savings and had no change in paperwork burden hours," the excellent Dan Goldbeck at American Action Forum informs us.

#Reg #Healthcare — Reason with the case for making GLP-1 drugs such as Ozempic over-the-counter. We tend to agree—the risks are mild and well-known at this point.

#ToMars — Right after leaving his gig as a Special Government Employee and handing over the reins of DOGE to OMB Director Russ Vought, Elon Musk gave the biggest presentation he has done in years on SpaceX's plans for Mars colonization, with much more detail than has been previously released. This does seem like a better avenue for his titanic talents. Musk for the first time said that he hopes to make the 2026 launch window to Mars, contingent on successfully mastering orbital refueling, which is critical for carrying enough fuel for the trip. He said there is a "50/50 chance," which is more optimistic than his previous forecasts. The next major version of Starship, called Version 3 or Block 3, will be larger (about 408 feet tall) and more powerful, with structural upgrades to enable full and rapid reusability, including hot staging where the upper stage ignites while the booster is still firing. SpaceX aims to mass-produce up to 1,000 Starships per year at facilities in Texas and Florida. The plan includes sending multiple uncrewed Starship missions to Mars in the late 2020s to prove the technology, followed by crewed missions in the early 2030s to start building infrastructure for human settlement. Musk also highlighted the use of Tesla's Optimus humanoid robots on Mars missions for initial exploration and setup. Is this policy news? Not really. Is it awesome? Yes.