Thread: Law lets workers avoid detection

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Law lets workers avoid detection
Privacy rules bar the IRS from alerting immigration officials if it suspects a bogus Social Security number.


REGISTER STAFF WRITER

December 22, 2006
1 Comment


How can immigrants in the United States without permission work for years using someone else's Social Security number and not be detected?

The answer: Privacy laws.

Even when the Internal Revenue Service and Social Security Administration notice clues that suggest illegal workers - such as multiple people using the same Social Security number - privacy laws prevent them from passing along that information to U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement or other law enforcement agencies.

The Iowa Department of Revenue and Finance also is unlikely to question multiple uses of the same Social Security number, said Stuart Vos, administrator of revenue operations, because the department is charged with enforcing state tax law, not federal immigration laws.

But if the amount of taxes paid was less than what is due, that would be a problem, Vos said.

The confidentiality in the federal tax code encourages people - even those who are in the United States illegally - to file their tax returns, IRS officials said.

"The IRS isn't stupid. It wants to collect as much money as they can," said Dave Gorak, executive director of the Midwest Coalition to Reduce Immigration. "They're thinking, 'As long as we're not deporting these people, we might as well make them pay taxes.' "

Gorak is among those calling for government agencies to share tax information that would help enforce the nation's immigration laws.

So is U.S. Sen. Charles Grassley, R-Ia. Changes would need to be thoughtful - the IRS's top priority is enforcing tax laws, and there are cases where multiple uses of the same Social Security number in different places are legitimate, Grassley said.

"With millions of people holding down several jobs at once and millions more switching jobs throughout the year, there are real limits to what can be accomplished using tax data to enforce our nation's immigration laws," Grassley said.



After the Dec. 12 raids at Swift meatpacking plants in Iowa and five other states by Immigration and Customs Enforcement, Homeland Security Director Michael Chertoff said Congress should grant immigration officials greater access to Social Security Administration employment records so they could be searched for identity theft and fraud.

"The minute they share, it's over," said Darcy Tromanhauser, who works on immigration and integration issues for the Nebraska Appleseed Center for Law in the Public Interest. "People aren't going to pay their taxes."

Dozens of consumer advocates and immigrant rights advocates oppose data sharing - particularly the information about people who apply to the IRS for an individual tax identification number.

Undocumented immigrants cannot obtain a Social Security number.

But they can get a nine-digit number that the IRS issues without questioning their legal status.

With an individual tax identification number, undocumented workers can get tax refunds, open bank accounts and build a credit history. (Veridian Credit Union and Wells Fargo are two financial institutions in Iowa that offer interest-earning accounts to people with those individual tax identification numbers.) Other lenders offer home loans to these people.

Many immigrant rights advocates in Iowa encourage undocumented workers to register for the identification numbers, saying the IRS has shown no interest in deporting people with the ID numbers. But advocates warn that the government could change its policies.

It's worth the risk for some immigrants who hope to become legal residents. Establishing a history of income and paying taxes is important in showing self-sufficiency and good character, said Mary Achelpohl of the Institute for Social and Economic Development in Des Moines, which helps low-income families with tax services.

Although IRS officials could not say how many individual tax identification numbers have been granted to Iowa residents, officials said more than 9 million have been issued nationwide since 1996.

An individual tax identification number is not enough to get a job in Iowa. Workers must have other forms of identification, such as a Social Security number.

For that, undocumented workers tap into the cottage industry of genuine documents stolen or borrowed from U.S. citizens, said Brian Perryman, retired director of the regional immigration office in Chicago.

The government has a computerized system for screening workers' employment eligibility, called Basic Pilot. But it has weaknesses, according to the U.S. Government Accountability Office reports.

Swift has used the program since 1997. Yet all 1,282 undocumented workers arrested last week at Swift plants in six states used phony identities at the time they were hired - and were not flagged by the program, immigration officials said.

Dozens were charged with identity theft.

Tromanhauser, the Nebraska activist, bristles at the words "identity theft," saying that implies someone stole a Social Security number in order to rack up debt in someone else's name. It's another story when someone uses a number simply to get a job, she claimed.



Basic Pilot can weed out Social Security numbers that are completely made up and numbers that do not match the name provided by the job applicant.

But the program cannot tell whether a number has been stolen or is being used by someone else, according to a report by the Government Accountability Office. The database is often out of date, and it is not sophisticated enough to detect when an existing employee's work eligibility ends, such as when his or her visa expires.

In court documents Swift filed in November to block raids by federal officials, the company says the government has known since at least August 2005 that the Basic Pilot program cannot detect identify theft and would probably permit an unauthorized worker to be improperly verified as authorized to work in the United States.

The documents state the government has known that some Social Security numbers are widely used at multiple employment locations - over 200 workplaces for some numbers - but the government did not change the Basic Pilot program to flag such suspicious numbers.

The program, which is to expire in 2008, could be upgraded to be a helpful program, said John Keeley of the Center for Immigration Studies in Washington, D.C., which advocates for limiting immigration.

"It's not like putting a man on the moon," he said.

Reporter Jennifer Janeczko Jacobs can be reached at (515) 284-8127 or jejacobs@dmreg.com

Bush could change this with a stroke of a pen. All that is necessary is an executive order by Bush and our citizens are safer. I wonder what side he will come down on seeing he wants amnesty for every illegal invader here.

Tromanhauser, the Nebraska activist, bristles at the words "identity theft," saying that implies someone stole a Social Security number in order to rack up debt in someone else's name. It's another story when someone uses a number simply to get a job, she claimed.

Sheessh!! Yeah, wait until the IRS sends you a bill for 90,000 bucks, you dipwad!