Feds take aim at illegals' fake IDs

Atlanta among 10 cities cited in crackdown
Julia Malone - Cox Washington Bureau
Thursday, April 6, 2006

Washington --- Acknowledging widespread security lapses within the nation's immigration system, the Bush administration announced Wednesday it is opening anti-fraud task forces in 10 cities, including Atlanta, to crack down on fake driver's licenses, passports and other methods used to obtain immigration benefits.

"Millions have used fraudulent documents" to obtain work permits or to provide cover for criminal or terrorist activities, said Julie Myers, assistant Homeland Security secretary for Immigration and Customs Enforcement, who cited "an epidemic" of bogus identification documents generated by highly sophisticated crime networks.

The enforcement initiative, which combines Homeland Security immigration agencies, the U.S. Department of Justice and other federal and local agencies, is to operate in Atlanta; Boston; Dallas; Denver; Detroit; Los Angeles; New York; Newark, N.J.; Philadelphia; and St. Paul, Minn.

Many agencies involved

Details about the initiative were sketchy. But, led by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, the task forces build on existing partnerships to bring investigators together from a variety of agencies with expertise in different aspects of document and benefit fraud, a news release announcing the task forces said.

Some of the participants in the task forces include the Department of Justice, U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services, the Department of Labor Office of Inspector General, the Social Security Administration Office of Inspector General, the State Department Office of Inspector General, the State Department Bureau of Diplomatic Security, the U.S. Postal Inspection Service, the Secret Service, and numerous state and local law enforcement agencies.

The announcement came the day before a former Homeland Security official was scheduled to tell Congress that the department was now awarding immigrant benefits, including citizenship, without proper background checks and has failed to investigate nearly 600 cases of alleged bribery, money laundering and other criminal activities by its own employees.

Just last week in Georgia, supporters and critics of the newly approved Georgia Security and Immigration Compliance Act agreed the state law could be undermined by bogus documents.

A key provision of the act, which passed both houses of the state Legislature last week by big margins, is the section dealing with private employers' verifying that their workers are legally in the country. Some say the proliferation of fake documents makes that section of the law, and possibly others, difficult if not impossible to enforce.

Security concerns cited

Michael J. Maxwell, who quit in February as director of the U.S. Office of Security and Investigations for immigration services, is scheduled to testify today to the House subcommittee on international terrorism.

"The integrity of the United States immigration system has been corrupted, and the system is incapable of ensuring the security of our homeland," Maxwell said in a statement prepared for the hearing.

That statement is accompanied by more than 70 pages of documentation, internal e-mails and memos he said show an agency awash in security problems and lacking the resources "to open investigations into even the relatively small number of national security cases."

Maxwell's written testimony describes increasing vulnerabilities in the Citizenship and Immigration Services division, which oversees the distribution of work visas, permanent "green card" residency permits and citizenship.

The former official quit in a dispute with his bosses after he briefed members of Congress about security problems.

Among the complaints prepared for his testimony, Maxwell says that employees assigned to perform checks on would-be citizens or permanent residents were increasingly denied access to FBI crime and terrorism databases that record allegations of criminal behavior or security problems.

Case backlog

Maxwell's documentation also indicates that regional immigration offices, including those in Atlanta and Philadelphia, have a backlog of cases of applicants who have been denied residency because of ineligibility or criminal prosecutions. Although these applicants should have been notified and put into removal procedures, their cases are "in limbo" and their official "notices to appear" in immigration court have not gone out, Maxwell says.

Asked about the backlogs, the director of Citizenship and Immigration Services, Emilio Gonzalez, said the caseload was so large that his agency had to take care so they "don't clog up the court system."

"We have to prioritize" the cases, Gonzalez said.

The immigration services director brushed off Maxwell's criticism of security at the agency. "He has his opinions, and I have mine," said Gonzalez, who joined in the announcement of the task forces.

Paul L. Jones, director of homeland security and justice investigations for the Government Accountability Office, a nonpartisan arm of Congress, said the new anti-fraud effort is a response to a recent GAO report that found extensive fraud in the granting of immigrant benefits.

The government's anti-fraud task forces do not go far enough, Jones said, adding that the system does not penalize the people who use fake IDs and other illegal schemes to obtain immigration permits and visas. Under current practices, a person can lie on an immigration benefit application, be turned down, and later try again and again, Jones said.

The GAO official said that his agency reviewed Maxwell's allegations and found them to be serious. "Our folks say there's enough smoke there," Jones said, adding that the GAO has referred his complaints to the FBI.

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Watch how this grows into a "reason" why the already passed National ID bill turns into a "good thing"... can you say spoon fed .... - Az