Just what we would expect from this administration on illegal immigration:

The Bush administration said Friday it will modify its planned crackdown on U.S. companies that employ illegal immigrants, asking a federal judge to delay hearing a lawsuit brought by major U.S. labor, business and farm organizations until the new strategy is completed.

In papers filed in San Francisco, Acting Assistant Attorney General Jeffrey Bucholtz told U.S. District Judge Charles Breyer that the Homeland Security Department (DHS) is making unspecified changes to its plan to pressure employers to fire up to 8.7 million workers with suspect Social Security numbers.

A DHS spokesman declined to comment, but court papers asked the judge to delay the case until March 24 or until a new program is ready.

On Oct. 10, Breyer barred the government from mailing Social Security “no-match” letters to 140,000 U.S. employers, citing serious legal questions about requiring companies to resolve questions about their employees’ identities, fire them within 90 days or face potential fines and criminal prosecution.

President Bush made the initiative a priority in August after the Senate killed his proposed overhaul of immigration laws.

In issuing a preliminary injunction, however, the judge cited plaintiffs’ arguments that the Social Security Administration database includes so many errors that using it to enforce immigration laws would cause “staggering” disruptions at workplaces and discriminate against tens of thousands of legal workers.

Hmmm. The case is delayed until March or until “a new program is ready.” That program is dead.

Ironic isn’t it? The government wants to pressure employers to fire up to 8.7 million(!) workers with suspect Social Security numbers. The plaintiffs, those great Americans at the ACLU, argued with a straight face, that the illegals screwed up the Social Security Database so badly that to use it to enforce the employment laws would be unfair.