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MPR has this story about the real Alianiss Nunez Morales. In it, there is some discussion of how illegal immigrants get fraudulent IDs. I also heard a reasonably diverse discussion of the issues on Saturday on NARN I as we were driving back from the Patriot studios.
Apparently there is a rich diversity of types of fraudulent IDs, depending on how much money you want to spend. You can get a reasonably good fake ID, sold out of the back of a van on Lake Street and near factories and strip malls all over greater MN. Or you can get a premium Puerto Rican ID for about a thousand bucks. You may even be able to buy an ID with the complicity of the owner, which means your fake ID will go uncontested unless it is discovered in some other way (like you commit a major crime like homicide).
In the case of Alianiss Nunez Moreles, investigators may in fact be looking into that possibility. I can't help but feel sorry for the real Alianiss if it turns out that she was completely innocent of any wrongdoing at all and is also a victim here, of ID fraud.
On the NARN, I heard a guy who was renting an apartment complain that a potential tenant came to him and pulled out an ID, which had a different name to the one he was using. The guy pulled it back and said something like, "Oh, sorry, wrong ID" and gave the prospective landlord another one. The caller's point was that both the "wrong" ID and the "correct" one looked like completely real IDs. He went on to rent to the guy because he could see no legal impediment to doing so. Later the issue was raised that if he denied the guy the rental, could he be accused of discrimination? A woman called in awhile after that, angry that this guy had allowed the guy to rent his apartment after showing him that he had fraudulent docs. In her view, this guy was part of the problem, just like the employer who accepts fraudulent docs.
Employers are in somewhat of a different position. I have filled out a few I-9s in my time (the immigration certification doc that all employees must fill out) and I have been the person to document the I-9 for employees. I am not an expert on fake IDs. I can tell you that some of the docs that pertain to me look like fakes. My Rice county marriage certificate looks like they bought the form at Office Max and I was married in the 90s. All you need for an I-9 is a drivers licence and a birth certificate. (Other combinations of docs are possible as well.) Reasonably good fakes of either of these are easy to come by. That makes the I-9 a pushover for the illegal getting hired. The real test is the Social Security number. If the number is bad (doesn't exist) it will be kicked back by Social Security, in a few months. The employer is supposed to get a correction from the employee. I do not know what the consequences are for the employer if this doesn't happen. If they aren't tough enough, then the employer probably just ignores it. The main problem for the employer seems to be when the ICE raid happens, illegals get discovered and the business is fined.
From a political standpoint this is a poor way of doing things. Rounding up people is what the gestapo did. I wouldn't want to live in a town that had regular raids on businesses. I don't care if it's for a good cause. I think having those kinds of tactics employed as a regular law enforcement tool is a bad idea and it's basically a failure to address the problem of illegal immigration at some other level. If we have to turn potential illegal immigrants away by the millions, they should still be turned away one at a time. And I think they can be, or at least we could do a much better job than we are doing now.
Here's a problem though, for conservatives. Since forever, conservatives, especially those of the libertarian stripe have resisted the idea of people being required to have a national ID card of some sort, a registration number etc. We grudgingly accept the drivers licence, the passport, the SSN because driving and travelling are "privileges" and when we accepted having an income tax and banking we agreed to the SSN. Only the most radical privacy activists seek to avoid those basic IDs. It's pretty clear though that we are moving into a period where ID fraud based upon those elements is too easy and the incentives to do it are too high. Ever more invasive IDs are being proposed based on DNA, fingerprints, retina scans and implanted chips.
I was at the Legislative Evaluation Association dinner last week, where the keynote speaker was Mary Kiffmeyer, the former Secretary of State. Kiffmeyer complained about one of the issues on the LEA scorecard and how it had gotten scored as the "conservative" vote. It was about IDs. The conservative position was opposed to a new ID program for privacy reasons. Kiffmeyer pointed out that this was one of the key challenges that she had while SOS--you can't even know if there is voter fraud with the present MN voter ID laws creating such a low standard of ID. Now at MN Majority, Kiffmeyer sees the same problem for the illegal immigration issue. Will some conservatives have to give up their opposition to stronger IDs and their more frequent requirement?
Cross-posted at Anti-Strib. Comments welcome.
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