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More illegal immigrants in US use stolen IDs to get jobs
10/7/2007 16:09

Illegal immigrants in the United States are increasingly using stolen Social Security numbers to get jobs because employers are required to check workers' IDs by federal authorities, a Los Angeles Times report said yesterday.
According to the newspaper, undocumented immigrants who used to apply for jobs with fake documents are using more and more identity information stolen from real people.
Although US Immigration and Customs Enforcement does not break out identify theft statistics, officials said the agency is definitely seeing a trend.
To better protect their businesses, more US employers are using the Department of Homeland Security's Basic Pilot program, which enables them to check the validity of Social Security numbers online.
But the program could not detect identity theft. As long as the name and Social Security number are legitimate, the online system will indicate the person using them is authorized to work.
Word of this weakness in the system has spread quickly among illegal immigrants and the document theft rings, prompting thieves to dig through trash cans or scan the Internet looking for Social Security numbers.
Homeland Security authorities said sometimes criminals or homeless people are willing to sell their identity documents and there also have been cases in which employers provide their workers with stolen numbers.
Although most illegal immigrants using fake identification are just trying to find a way to get a job, for those victims of stolen IDs, lives could turn upside down, researchers said.
An ID theft victim often could not discover that his identity was stolen until he receives a demand for back taxes or when he tries to buy a house or a car and realizes his credit has been destroyed.
At the direction President George W. Bush, the Federal Trade Commission and Attorney General Alberto Gonzales this spring issued a report on identity theft in general and a strategic plan to attack it.
US immigration authorities launched 11 task forces last year and six this spring targeting immigrant-related ID fraud. Officials have opened more than 540 investigations, and 243 people have been convicted of various fraud and immigration violations since April 2006.
However, anti-illegal immigrant groups still criticized the federal government, saying that the recent actions do not go far enough and that millions of illegal immigrants using other people' s documents are ignored. They say the government should create a secure identification card.



Xinhua