Thread: Sellers of fake immigration docs dismiss call for new IDs

http://www.contracostatimes.com/mld/cct ... 726119.htm

Sellers of fake immigration documents dismiss call for new IDs
PETER PRENGAMAN
Associated Press

LOS ANGELES - Luis Hernandez {a criminal cockroach who needs to be arrested} is laughing as he sells fake drivers licenses and Social Security cards to illegal immigrants near a park known for shady deals.

The joke, to him, is the government's promise to put people like him out of business with a tamperproof ID card.

"One way or another, we'll always find a way," said Hernandez, 35, a sidewalk pitchman who is part of a complex counterfeiting network operating around MacArthur Park, a teeming area near downtown.

No matter what the federal government does, sellers vow to keep providing authentic-looking IDs for as little as $150, to anyone who wants them.

Some coming to MacArthur Park are teens who want an ID for bars and buying booze. Others are ex-convicts whose criminal records make working under their real names difficult.

But most are illegal immigrants who need work documents - documents that employers looking for cheap labor rarely scrutinize.

As Congress struggles to reform laws that affect the nation's estimated 11 million illegal immigrants, one central question is how to crack down on fake documents and punish the employers who accept them.

President Bush has suggested foreign workers carry a single ID that includes a fingerprint. The House and Senate, meanwhile, passed bills that would force employers to verify job seekers' Social Security numbers with a phone call and immigration status through an electronic database.

"The key to controlling this situation is turning off the magnet of jobs that attracts illegal immigrants," said Mark Krikorian, head of the Center for Immigration Studies, a think tank that supports tighter immigration controls.

Many businesses with a long-standing "don't ask, don't tell" stance got a jolt in April when federal authorities arrested nearly 1,200 illegal immigrants and a handful of managers working at IFCO Systems plants from Southern California to New York. More than half of the 5,800 employees at the pallet and crate manufacturing company in 2005 had invalid or mismatched Social Security numbers, authorities said.

Despite that example, the raid was an exception. Work site arrests have fallen sharply in recent years, from 2,849 in fiscal year 1999 to 1,145 last year, according to U.S. Immigrations and Customs Enforcement.

Immigration officials said the fake document business has become increasingly difficult to stop.

In the past, authorities could often break up a network by raiding a central "document mill" where Social Security cards, passports and licenses might be drying on a large printing press, said Kevin Jeffery, deputy special agent in charge with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement in Los Angeles.

Now documents are made with illegal software on laptop computers. That mobility makes them harder to bust.

"With a computer and a printer, you are in business," Jeffery said.

Authorities can be stymied by complex delivery networks.

Sellers who openly pitch passers-by don't carry any documents. Instead, they negotiate prices ranging as high as $300 for a package containing a driver's license, Social Security card and "green card."

Next, they send the buyer to a less crowded area a few blocks away. A picture is taken, and a runner collects the money before the two contacts split in different directions.

The picture and cash change hands a few times before arriving at an apartment where a laptop, printer and laminating machine spit out the documents.

Within an hour, another runner, perhaps a young man dressed as a student or even an elderly woman, delivers the documents near the site of the original deal.

Hernandez, an illegal immigrant from Mexico, said it's not easy work. The biggest threats to his business are disgruntled customers, undercover agents who record deals with cameras the size of a button, and gang members demanding to be paid for protection. The international Salvadoran gang MS-13 was born in MacArthur Park's surrounding neighborhoods.

When Hernandez senses a customer might be a police officer, he calls out "7/11" in English, and his underlings disappear. If a seller is arrested, others collect money to bail him out of jail.

"We are not trying to do anything bad," said Sergio Guitierrez, 35, an illegal immigrant from Mexico who quietly says "IDs here" to people walking by the park. "Immigrants just need to work."

Sellers said they can charge Americans more money, but they are more likely to return and complain if unsatisfied.

An American woman who appeared to be in her 30s recently returned to the park holding an authentic-looking California driver's license with a split corner.

"This license you gave me is falling apart," she told a document seller.

Five men quickly shuffled her beneath the overhang of a nearby building and promised a new license.

Sellers said they'll never be stopped because their product will always be in demand.

"This is the government's fault," said Maria Zuniga, 55, an illegal immigrant from Honduras who sells and transports documents. "They won't even give us a number to work or a driver's license." {Yeah of course, committ an illegal act and just blame it on everyone else, no accountability whatsoever}

These people become more brazen every single day, and why not? Nothing ever happens to them.

They could probably set up shop selling counterfeit money and the government would still ignore them because they're so special.

Meanwhile, President Chucklehead babbles on that the way to solve the illegal immigration problem is for us to provide them with more jobs.

We are all living in an insane asylum these days, with the politicians being the biggest lunatics of all.

Unbelievable. They know they can do this with impunity as the senate has granted illegal aliens who use fraudulent documents immunity from prosecution and allows them to receive benefits even though it constitutes a felony. Why wouldn't officials say they can't shut down fraudulent documentation production rings? That would result in a significant reduction of payoffs to Bush and the Senate as they would have to rely on payoffs from only the Chamber of Commerce, drug cartels, illegal alien smugglers and fortune 500 CEO's.

We could get hit with a nuke and the perp could have come from the Mexican border and Bush would still babble on about how we can't defend our nation without a guest worker bill. This neocon facist is holding our nation hostage.

I don't think the terrorist threat is going to come from illegals anymore. I think it is going to come/has been from the bush administration. I found this quote and it is a little scary. Seems like whats been going on for a while.

"... voice or no voice, the people can always be brought to the bidding of the leaders. That is easy. All you have to do is to tell them they are being attacked, and denounce the pacifists for lack of patriotism and exposing the country to danger."
-Hermann Goering, Nazi Commander, April 18, 1946 (Nuremberg Diary, by Gustave Gilbert)