Arizona Republic (Phoenix), April 23, 2008
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Though illegal immigrants aren’t the only ones stealing identities, cases like Bien’s illustrate the inability of disparate government agencies to tackle the problem.
While lawmakers in Washington debate ways to crack down on illegal immigration, the market for false documents and stolen Social Security numbers is booming.
Particularly vulnerable, authorities say, are legal residents with Hispanic last names. Or, as in Bien’s case, names that could sound Hispanic.
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The IRS may suspect that multiple people are using the same Social Security number, but the agency doesn’t investigate ID theft. Local police and prosecutors cannot deport illegal immigrants they arrest.
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Federal estimates indicate that nearly 10 million Americans become victims of identity theft each year. Officials can’t say how many of those identities are being used by illegal workers, but prosecutors in Kansas say they see more cases of illegal immigrants using fake credentials every year.
It mirrors an increase in overall cases related to illegal immigration. The Kansas U.S. attorney’s office received 18 such cases in 1997; in 2007, the number was 106.
Experts expect the trend to continue, and they’re finding ID theft in surprising places. Last fall, U.S. prosecutors in Missouri charged five noncitizens with ID theft after they were found working in the Kansas City Federal Building’s cafeteria.
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Hackers steal databases. Workers with access to records sell them illegally. Sometimes, it’s as simple as someone rifling through your mail or garbage for sensitive documents.
And illegal immigrants are hardly the only perpetrators. Americans avoiding warrants or child support payments steal identities, too. Scam artists use the information to drain bank accounts or get credit cards.
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Judy Ancel, director of the University of Missouri-Kansas City’s Institute for Labor Studies, said it’s wrong to compare immigrant workers to criminals who take out fraudulent credit cards.
“Identity theft is when you steal someone’s identity in order to profit from them,” she said. “The crime they (illegal immigrants with fake identities) have committed is working under somebody else’s Social Security number. The attempt to criminalize immigration is the wrong path. . . . It’s just going to make a bunch of families suffer.”
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Prosecutors say the decision to file charges and deport comes down to manpower, resources and evidence. When local police make an arrest, the case often falls to the county prosecutor. Federal authorities say they must focus on the most serious crimes.
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Deportation, too, is a federal matter. And ID thieves prosecuted locally are likely to get probation if they have no prior record.
“You can have an illegal (immigrant) commit a felony with presumptive probation and they’ll be right back on the street and not deported,” Kline said. “We’re left with no options.”
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Original article
(Posted on April 25, 2008)
Comments
Over and over again, we hear the politically correct talking heads fret about identity theft (and a lot of commercials selling you identity theft insurance and other measures), but it’s taboo to link the problem to Mexico and Nigeria.
I read an article a few weeks ago, whose thesis was that banks and other financial institutions are dragging their heels on real ID theft security. The reason is that actual ID theft costs them nothing, but the public fear of ID theft means that they have a lot to gain from hawking ID theft insurance. My bank hawks it to me about once a week in the snail mail, once every three times using the telephone banking system, and once every fifth time or so I use a human teller, and occasionally on the ATM.
Posted by Question Diversity at 6:49 PM on April 25
Hispanics hate immigrants because they are here to victimize Americans. Because they can’t speak English, their crimes are mostly concentrated in the hispanic communities.
Posted by at 8:37 PM on April 25
Well, DUH! Kind of funny for a Mextizo to have a last name of Jones, Smith, or Bush, isn’t it? A dead give-away I would say.
Posted by at 9:39 PM on April 25
This is the reason more Hispanic Americans should be working with us to get rid of the illegals — they’re the ones being victimized by “these poor people who just want to work”.
Posted by at 8:04 AM on April 26
“Though illegal immigrants aren’t the only ones stealing identities, cases like Bien’s illustrate the inability of disparate government agencies to tackle the problem.”
With 20 million illegals in this country and 6 million I.D. thefts per year, it isn’t hard to determine that the bulk of thefts come from the alien sector.
Posted by w.r. at 12:03 PM on April 26
The problem of identity theft is going to get a lot worse. My boss is a bankruptcy trustee/attorney who had 2 cases dismissed against 2 hispanic debtors (husband and wife) who filed 2 separate petitions. Under the new bankruptcy laws, you are required to provide proof of your social security number and copies of your tax returns. They listed social security numbers on their petition but told the trustee that they didn’t have to file tax returns. When the trustee asked them if they were legal residents, they testified that they were but they weren’t required to file a tax return (That’s a lie). So we checked with our accountant who confirmed that legal residents must file a return.
It turns out that the social security number they were using belong to a woman in Virginia and they had been using it for 5 years. Their creditor meetings were continued and guess what - they never showed up for it. The U.S. Trustee’s Office dismissed their cases and chances are that Mr. and Mrs. Illegal Aliens have now taken up residence in another state and are using somebody elses ss numbers.
Posted by Gayle Sollenberger at 11:06 AM on April 27
Identity theft can be a real nightmare. It can wreck your credit rating and cause you all sorts of problems. Educate yourself and do all you can to defend yourself from it. As a starting point I suggest getting a good shredder, one that does a ‘confetti cut’ not a simple ‘line cut’ and shred all your documents, bills etc; anything that has your name, address etc.
Posted by at 1:59 PM on April 27
Identity theft is a big problem. The numbers are going down but seem to be between 8 million and 10 million cases a year right now. That’s a lot.
In addition to illegal aliens and street criminals and streetgangs, you even have organized crime and white collar criminal rings and even prison gangs are in on the action.
In CA we have a street/prison gang called Peni1 that keeps making the news as heavily into identity theft.
Posted by Unemployed WASP at 12:37 PM on April 28
