Illegal Immigrants and Identity Theft

It’s often said that most illegal immigrants are decent, hardworking folks who only want to come to America to work. But what happens when they have to break the law in order to obtain employment? During a recent raid at Smithfield Foods in Tar Heel, North Carolina, investigators found that 86 percent of workers arrested for immigration violations had also stolen identities from American citizens. Likewise, during a raid conducted last month at a Fresh Del Monte plant in Portland, Oregon, authorities found that 78 percent of illegal alien workers were using a stolen Social Security number. But don’t expect the federal government to do anything about this problem anytime soon. Money collected from mismatched names and Social Security numbers goes into an Earnings Suspense File (ESF) administered by the Social Security Administration. Currently the fund contains more than $420 billion in uncollected earnings.