This could be a dup?

Immigrants in false ID case strike deal
26 Latin Americans try to become legal
Wednesday, March 07, 2007
BY BRENDAN BERLS
Star-Ledger Staff

Twenty-six Latin American im migrants agreed yesterday to enroll in English classes and put their "best efforts" toward obtaining legal status in a case involving their use of false identification to obtain jobs at a manufacturing plant, authorities said.

The men were among 35 charged in December with using fake or stolen Social Security cards or resident alien cards while working at a plant in Montville owned by Dicar, Inc.

Seven cases are still pending in Superior Court in Morristown and two defendants have yet to be served with the complaints, authorities said. Most were either illegal immigrants or were legal immi grants whose visas had lapsed.

The case arose when a Florida man complained to the Montville Police Department that someone else was using his Social Security number. He had been denied health insurance coverage because someone else had insurance from that company under the Social Se curity number that he claimed was his, said Morris County Assistant Prosecutor Larry Whipple.

All 26 defendants, who had no prior convictions, will be enrolled in the Pretrial Intervention Program for one year and will emerge with clean records if they comply with the conditions.

The requirement for them to seek legal status, Whipple said, was something the prosecutor's office insisted on and the defendants' lawyers agreed to.

"We just thought it was the right thing to do," Whipple said. He added that the crimes caused little harm to the victims and that the defendants' motives were not nefarious, but simply to find work to support their families.

However, their efforts to seek legal status would not stop any illegal immigrants from possibly being deported by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, which the prosecutor's office has notified, Whipple said.

ICE generally places priority on illegal immigrants who commit crimes, but a PTI enrollment is not technically a criminal conviction.

It was unknown whether the defendants are still employed at Dicar or whether the company would help them in their efforts to seek legal status. A spokeswoman for the company and a defense at torney did not immediately respond to phone calls yesterday afternoon.

Brendan Berls may be reached at bberls@starledger.com or (973) 539-7910.

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