NMPF has been closely monitoring the status of the litigation regarding the Social Security no-match letters and the Dept. of Homeland Security's intentions to increase enforcement efforts related to those letters. There was some recent positive news related to continued delays in the implementation of these increased enforcement efforts.

The federal judge in the Social Security no-match litigation issued a preliminary injunction blocking implementation of the DHS rule until the Court has the chance to fully examine all the issues. Because the judge decided to issue the preliminary injunction, this could indicate that the plaintiffs challenging the DHS rule may have a higher than expected chance of succeeding on one or more of the four legal theories that underpin the lawsuit. Given this development, the DHS rule is likely to remain in limbo for at least the next several months until the court issues its final ruling.

While delay of the DHS rule implementation is certainly a very positive development, it certainly does not provide assurance that employers will not have to deal with this at a later date - potentially one not that far in the future. Therefore, NMPF continues its efforts to push strongly for passage of AgJOBS in order to bring about a comprehensive solution to this problem. We again urge you to contact your producers regarding the importance of sending letters or making calls to their Representative and Senators about the urgency of passing AgJOBS to avoid what could very likely be an impending crisis in our industry.