Thread: Texas agencies blame archaic systems in immig. license scam

Texas agencies blame archaic systems in immigrant license scam

12:09 AM CDT on Tuesday, September 4, 2007
By EMILY RAMSHAW / The Dallas Morning News
eramshaw@dallasnews.com
http://www.dallasnews.com/sharedcontent ... aa8c6.html

AUSTIN – State officials and federal investigators are well aware that a driver's license scam also allowed illegal immigrants to create falsified identities, with Texas car insurance, vehicle registrations and inspection stickers. But none appears to have a concrete plan to prevent it from happening again.

Instead, state and county agencies are blaming an archaic system of paper record-keeping and a scattered and decentralized auto licensing process – and, in some cases, pointing the finger at each other.

The Dallas County Tax Office, where the immigrants apparently obtained registrations, says it can't investigate without more details from the Department of Public Safety. DPS says it can't take action without specific information from federal authorities. Federal agents won't say whether they're following the new leads. And Gov. Rick Perry has ordered DPS to work with federal authorities to get to the bottom of the scheme but hasn't laid out specific remedies.

As the agencies pass the buck, there's evidence that immigrants tried to renew some of their documentation as recently as this summer, an official familiar with the case said. That may mean others have figured how to exploit the system, the official said.

"We're pulling our hair out here," said the official, who declined to offer details and spoke only on condition of anonymity. "I have a feeling we don't know what we ought to know about the cars or the rest of the operation."

Where's the plan?

At least one lawmaker who oversees key agencies involved says the system must be fixed now.

"It is inconceivable to me there wouldn't already be a plan in place coordinated over multiple agencies," said Sen. John Carona, R-Dallas, who chairs the Senate Transportation and Homeland Security Committee and intends to make the scam "the No.1 topic" at the committee's next meeting this fall. "But based on what's been provided to me thus far, there isn't one."

The scam was first revealed with federal charges against Isaac Banai, a 44-year-old Dallas taxi driver accused of helping illegal immigrants living on the East Coast come to Dallas to get driver's licenses. Officials believe the ploy was meant to facilitate a fake accident ring or insurance rate scam, or to simply help the immigrants overstay their expired visas, but was not linked to terrorism. Mr. Banai, who pleaded not guilty, is set to be tried in October in connection with the driver's license fraud – not the vehicle registration, insurance or inspection portion of the scam.

Nearly 400 immigrants got falsified driver's licenses between 2003 and 2005, and after an initial delay, DPS closed the loophole that allowed it to happen. But investigators soon found similar problems with registrations, inspections and insurance. There's been little coordination of efforts to fix the problems, despite concerns that terrorists could exploit the same holes.

"You've got multiple agencies all doing different aspects of the same transaction, with no linked, automated process," said James Taylor, an operations supervisor in the Texas Department of Transportation's Dallas regional office. "In the age of technology, when we're still working off of hard copies and microfilm, it's almost impossible logistics-wise" to have a foolproof system.

The Dallas County Tax Office, which issues vehicle registration and plates on behalf of the state Transportation Department, says the problems appear to be rooted in auto inspections, which are overseen by the Department of Public Safety. Inspection certificates were issued without the immigrants' cars ever entering the state, investigators said.

Blame flows upstream

But county officials say they can't address phony inspections until DPS investigators tell them which service stations may have performed them.

"The unethical behavior was occurring farther upstream," said Tax Assessor-Collector David Childs. "By the time it got to us, [the immigrants] were actually bringing us valid documents."

Debbie Jones, director of motor vehicles at the tax office, said her auto registration staff has the capability to examine inspection certificates and check for addresses with more than 100 people registered to them. But she said the state's reliance on reams of official paperwork, as opposed to a comprehensive computer system, makes weeding out the most advanced fraud next to impossible.

"If we had a system to enter an inspection number, a station number, a [vehicle identification] number, and be able to verify an inspection, and proof of insurance ..." Ms. Jones said. "Right now, it's such a muddy area."

And beyond giving inspection forms the once-over to make sure they're not forged, Ms. Jones said, her office can do little to stop falsification at inspection stations, which are monitored by DPS.

DPS officials, who have been accused of not responding with enough urgency to the driver's license fiasco, say they've changed their policies to ensure unauthorized people no longer get state ID cards. But they can't do anything to investigate potential auto inspection breaches until federal authorities tell them which service stations to look at, said Tela Mange, spokeswoman for the agency. Nearly 10,000 stations are licensed to conduct state inspections.

Ms. Mange declined to say whether DPS had opened an internal investigation or asked federal authorities for the names of the inspection stations. She said only that the agency has a vigorous investigative program to monitor its inspection stations and suspends inspection licenses when there's any evidence of transgression.

Aides to Mr. Perry, who have criticized DPS' handling of what they call a grave security threat, say he has given the agency a single order: Do whatever it takes to "remedy this vulnerability."

"There is no room to fumble when it comes to homeland security," said Robert Black, the governor's spokesman.

Mr. Black said the governor's office has asked DPS officials to work closely with federal immigration agents to follow all possible leads in the security breach, but he didn't offer specifics. Federal authorities prosecuting the driver's license side of the scheme have declined to comment on new developments in the case.

As for improving the inspection system, all stations are going online with the DPS this summer, Ms. Mange said, allowing vehicle check-up records to be sent directly from a service station to the agency.

But the change probably won't reduce fraud, other state officials said: The information will be available only to DPS officials, not, for example, county tax offices.

Why is it that every time we find something being done by our agencies to facilitate the illegals, it's like mass chicken clacking around the barnyard. Everyone goes into a tizzy and starts pointing fingers at everyone else and the "system" and/or "the equipment." There's something rotten in the barn and it stinks to high heaven.

Setting Texas up for the Speed Pass ID.

Dixie