Identity Fraud and Theft: Trampling Law for Cheap Labor

Mike Scruggs

      According to a Center for Immigration Studies Backgrounder released in 2009, seventy-five percent of working age illegal immigrants use false social security numbers to get a job. The study's author, Ronald W. Moretnsen, Ph.D., recently pointed out in regard to the current amnesty debate that most so-called “undocumented” immigrant workers have documents, but their documents are fraudulent. For most Americans, using a false or stolen social card is a felony. The most recent amnesty thinking of Schumer-Rubio, and presumably the proposed Boehner-Cantor “Children's Amnesty,” is to let illegal immigrants off by calling about $1,000 dollars in waivable administrative fees--spread over several years--“fines.” American citizens convicted of identity fraud might get a couple of years in prison and a substantial financial penalty.

     According to the Consumer Sentinel National Data Base, identity fraud increased 19 percent from 2011 to 2012. Stealing the social security number of babies and small children is becoming a thriving industry connected to illegal immigration. Stealing from babies and children lessens the chance of immediate discovery. In the future, many innocent children entering the workforce will find that they have a terrible credit rating and huge debts incurred by an identity thief. Arizona, being a border state with considerable illegal immigrant passage to other parts of the United States, has seen identity theft involving the social security numbers of children under 5-years-old increase 105 percent in the last year. The current national rate of child identity theft is about 2.5 percent. In Arizona, it escalated from 7.0 percent in 2010 to 8.6 percent in 2011. About 14 percent of Arizona's 600,000 military veterans have had their identities stolen. Typically, the social security number is taken, but the birth date, and name are changed. Identity and social security theft are by no means victimless crimes. Many of these thefts cause financial loss and considerable inconvenience to the victims. Moreover, most American workers, taxpayers, and their families have been indirectly but substantially victimized by illegal immigrant social security fraud and the politicians who turn a blind eye to these crimes.

     To find gainful employment, an illegal immigrant worker must either have a false or stolen social security number or work “outside the system,” not reporting their earnings to the IRS. About 25 percent of illegal immigrant workers work outside the system. Hence nearly 100 percent of illegal immigrant workers are either guilty of social security number fraud or tax evasion. This is in addition to either illegal entry or visa violations.

     It is worth repeating that at least 40 percent of illegal immigrants do not sneak over the border. They simply get a legal work, student, tourist, or other visa type, and once in the country ignore the visa limitations and expiration and go wherever and do whatever they please in the United States. Our current de facto policy for these visa violators, is something like “don't ask don't tell.” No matter how secure the border, unmonitored visa holders can abuse our immigration system without penalty or fear. Few illegal immigrants are hiding in the shadows. Why should they? The United States has abandoned immigration enforcement. I asked a recent legal Mexican immigrant why people bother to sneak across the border. He just laughed and agreed that sneaking across the border was becoming increasingly unnecessary. Currently, the Obama Administration prohibits Immigration & Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents from arresting immigrants for illegal entry or visa overstays.

      It is important to secure the border, but it is far from sufficient to stop illegal immigration. I suspect that as we secure the border, more people will take advantage of our refusal to monitor visas, especially at the workplace. Most illegal immigration could be stopped by using the E-Verify system to quickly identify social security number fraud. Most of the unlawful immigrants already here would go home on their own accord, if we did not make getting a job so easy for them. But most employers of cheap illegal labor do not want immigration laws enforced, especially at the workplace, and these employers have considerable influence in Congress.

     Most of our illegal immigration problems would disappear over a few years, if we only enforced the immigration laws we already have on the books. The three most important corrections in policy would be: 1.To enforce E-Verify at every workplace. 2. To repeal the provisions of the 1965 Immigration Law that changed Family Reunification priorities from spouse and minor children to include parents, siblings, and an ever-expanding chain of in-laws, and 3. To maintain rigorous enforcement of our borders, including air and sea entry points.

     Eliminating birthright citizenship would also be a high priority. Few other nations are foolish enough to permit birthright citizenship, but it is well-entrenched political insanity in the U.S. A “Children's Amnesty,” legalizing unlawful immigrants under age 30 or so, could set an even more damaging precedent. It would be an easy-fraud bonanza making future immigration control almost impossible. According to the Heritage Foundation, a “Children's Amnesty” would legalize 75 percent of all unlawful immigrants now here, because of family reunification provisions of the1965 Immigration Law. A “Children's Amnesty” would essentially be a stealth mass family amnesty. 

     Politicians who only talk about securing the borders, however tough-sounding, and not addressing enforcement at the workplace are probably not friends of American workers and their families. Railing about border enforcement alone is a frequent ruse to hide massive increases in legal immigration that profit big corporations but hurt American workers, taxpayers, and their families. It currently profits foreign labor users $435 billion per year, while costing American workers $2,800 per worker per year in depressed wages. The Schumer-Rubio gang wants to triple the number of foreign workers, but the mainstream media is blind to the audacious greed of their powerful backers.

     We need an immigration system that is good for all Americans. That would not include embracing fraud, amnesties, and limitless cheap foreign labor.