http://www.boston.com/news/local/ver...have_fake_ids/

Illegal immigrants often have fake IDs
February 25, 2007

MIDDLEBURY, Vt. --Vermont farmers knowingly take fake identification documents when hiring illegal Mexican immigrants, but have no authority to challenge the papers' veracity, an advocate for migrant workers says.

"They have fake IDs," said Cheryl Mitchell of the Addison County Migrant Workers Coalition. "The reality is that everyone knows these folks are undocumented."

Immigration experts say fake Social Security cards and other documents are routinely sold in immigrant neighborhoods along the U.S.-Mexican border, often using made up or stolen Social Security numbers.

The result is that farmers pay the employer's share of Social Security taxes, even though their employees won't be able to collect benefits when they retire, Mitchell said.

"These workers are actually helping to shore up the Social Security system," Mitchell said.

The federal Social Security Administration took in $7 billion in 2003 and $9.5 billion in 2004 in payments based on Social Security cards on which numbers and names didn't match, said spokesman Michael Lassiter.

"We can't account for how much of that is from people who are here illegally or the result of a mix-up because of a change of name after a marriage or a typographical error in spelling a person's name," he said.

It's believed that most of the estimated 2,000 Mexicans who work on Vermont dairy farms are in the U.S. illegally, placing them among 12 million illegal aliens, half of them from Mexico.

Peter Conlon, a dairy labor support specialist for Agri-Placement Services Inc., said the Mexican workers he places in jobs have both Social Security cards and "green cards" making it legal for them to work. He said he has to assume the paperwork is good.

"Only the federal government can investigate the legitimacy of a green card," he said. "If the documents presented to you look legitimate, as an employer you don't have a choice but to accept them."