U.S. officials seek to avoid a boon in document fraud; but forgers say “We'll always find a way”

June 2, 2006

Need a copy of a utility bill in your name more than two years old? Need a five yard old rent receipt made out to you? The immigration bill passed by the U.S. Senate could create a huge market for fraudulent documents such as these.

'Any guest-worker or amnesty program would lead to fraud on a scale unheard of in American history,' says Mark Krikorian of the Center for Immigration Studies, a think tank in Washington that supports tighter immigration controls. 'The likelihood is that demonstrating you've been here will be done by pay stub or utility bill or phone bill. ... If you think a driver's license is easy to forge, think how easy it would be to forge a telephone bill.'

As a result, U.S. officials are beefing up efforts to stop immigration fraud. Immigration and Customs Enforcement has created 10 anti-fraud task forces across the nation in addition to the existing unit in Washington, D.C. The task forces have opened 250 probes since they started working in April, according to Special Agent Scott Weber, chief of identity and benefit fraud for ICE.

Immigration fraud is 'a problem of epidemic proportions,' says ICE Assistant Secretary Julie Myers. 'There's no question it will be a tremendous increase in workload.'

Conterfeiters reply “One way or another, we'll always find a way.”

A 35-year-old a sidewalk operator who is part of a complex counterfeiting network around MacArthur Park in Los Angeles sells authentic-looking IDs for as little as $150. Drivers licenses, Social Security cards, he’s got them. He sees the government's promise to put people like him out of business with a tamperproof national ID card as a joke.

One central question as Congress struggles to reform immigration laws is how to crack down on fake documents and how 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, have passed bills that would force employers to verify job seekers' Social Security numbers with a phone call and immigration status through an electronic database.

Midweek, ICE agents arrested 27 people and shut down a Queens, N.Y.-based immigration agency called Help Preparers Professional Services. An indictment unsealed alleges that the agency arranged more than 200 fake marriages and sold more than $1 million in bogus 'green cards,' marriage and birth certificates, bank letters and employment records.

Many employers, eager for cheap labor, have a 'don't ask, don't tell' attitude toward their employees' immigration status and do not check their papers.

Immigration officials say the fake document business has become increasingly difficult to stop. ICE conducted 2,334 fraud probes in 2004 and 3,591 in 2005.

Some of the most sophisticated operations are run by smuggling rings, Weber says. 'There's clearly an organized criminal element,' says Assistant U.S. Attorney Joseph Mackey in Denver. He prosecuted the leader of a Mexico-based document mill that had outlets across the USA and that he says had become increasingly adept.

'They produced very impressive Social Security cards, driver's licenses from all 50 states,' he says.

Authorities can also be stymied by complex delivery networks.

At Los Angeles’ MacArthur Park, sellers openly offer fake Ids, but do not actually carry any of the documents. Instead, they negotiate prices 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, where a picture is taken and the customer pays up.

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, a runner, perhaps a young man or an elderly woman, delivers the documents near the site of the original deal.