U.S. government loses immigrant identity-theft case

[denem]

Source: Reuters

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - An illegal immigrant who uses false identification papers must know they belonged to another person to be convicted of identity theft, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled on Monday.

The high court's unanimous ruling was a victory for Ignacio Flores-Figueroa, a Mexican illegal immigrant who used false identification to get a job at a steel plant in Illinois.

He was convicted of aggravated identify theft, a law adopted in 2004 that carries a mandatory two-year prison term. The law has been increasingly used by the federal government to charge some of those arrested in raids at work sites that employ illegal immigrants.

In the high court's opinion, Justice Stephen Breyer said the law required that prosecutors show that the defendant knew the counterfeit identification belonged to another person.

Read more: http://www.reuters.com/article/domesticNews/idUSTRE54343K20090504

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High court removes tool for deporting illegals
SF Chronicle

The Supreme Court on Monday took away one of the government's legal tools for prosecuting and deporting workers who are in the United States illegally, ruling that the crime of identity theft is limited to those who knew they were using another actual person's Social Security number.

Persons who use false documents can be jailed for that crime, the court said. However, they cannot be convicted of the more serious crime of "aggravated identity theft" without proof the illegal worker knew the ID number was that of another person, the court ruled unanimously.

Deportation is usually a slow process if the illegal immigrant has not committed an aggravated felony. But a conviction for aggravated identity theft is a serious felony that would lead to a speedy deportation.

Last year, the Bush administration announced roundups of illegal workers at several work sites. Most of those were charged with possessing false documents and "aggravated identity theft." For example, 389 workers were arrested at a meat packing plant in Iowa, and two-thirds of them were charged with felony identity theft.

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2009/05/04/MND017EFS1.DTL

9-0? 2/3 of undocumented immigrants charged with 'aggravated' identity theft? "This novel use of the law prompted the Supreme Court to take up the issue." If it's aggravated you have to prove it? Doh.

[Alcibiades]

1. Your Supreme Court at work

Working to keep labor costs low.

Think there will be Freeper outrage? Will Lou Dobbs do a special report? Nah, because Alito and Scalia are never wrong.

[pampango]

4. Rest assured that Lou and the Minutemen will be going off on this. Coddling

How can "illegals" have rights? The government should have the ability to arrest them and charge them with any crime they want.

My guess is freepers (and repubs in general) will try to blame this on Pres. Obama somehow in spite of the fact that the SC was unanimous in its decision.

I didn't know this SC ever made unanimous decisions on anything. The fact that there was unanimity on this case tells me that the government (Bush and the repub-controlled Congress) went way overboard in 2004 with the "aggravated identity theft" law. Why should it surprise anyone that they would play the "anti-immigrant" hysteria card in 2004, a presidential election year?

on edit: Lou already went off on the SC decision last night.

Lou Dobbs Smarter Than SCOTUS Conservatives — Or He Just Doesn’t Understand the Law

http://washingtonindependent.com/41804/lou-dobbs-smarter-than-scotus-conservatives-or-he-just-doesnt-understand-the-law

"Well, CNN anchor Lou Dobbs is indignant .

“Do you feel better knowing that it’s legal for an illegal alien to steal your identity if he or she doesn’t know it’s yours?” he asked his audience Monday night."

"Here’s how Justice Samuel Alito – no flaming liberal – explained the problem with the contrary position, which Dobbs apparently supports:

Under that interpretation, if a defendant uses a made-up Social Security number without having any reason to know whether it belongs to a real person, the defendant’s liability under §1028A(a)(1) depends on chance: If it turns out that the number belongs to a real person, two years will be added to the defendant’s sentence, but if the defendant is lucky and the number does not belong to another person, the statute is not violated."

My guess is that Rush (and freepers and the rest of the RW talking heads) will be equally indignant later today.

[Xipe Totec]

6. Yes, let's not let a trivial thing like law get in the way n/t

[AlphaCentauri]

13. Immigrants will continue to contribute to the SS suspense file

In the current decade, the file is growing, on average, by more than $50 billion a year, generating $6 billion to $7 billion in Social Security tax revenue and about $1.5 billion in Medicare taxes.

In 2002 alone, the last year with figures released by the Social Security Administration, nine million W-2's with incorrect Social Security numbers landed in the suspense file, accounting for $56 billion in earnings, or about 1.5 percent of total reported wages.



http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=132x2891892

[madrchsod]

2. oh my god..... the talking heads will be exploding today

[mbperrin]

3. Actually makes sense. Prosecute for using false papers.

Go after the sellers of the papers for identity theft. They are the ones who actually did that crime.

[WriteDown]

7. Nearly impossible...

No way to know a false SS# is being used until its actually put into action by the buyer of said #. The seller is nearly impossible to find.

[Auggie]

5. Sounds like it makes it easier to get away with identity theft...

One could simply claim they didn't "know" an SS number or name could possibly belong to anyone else.

[WriteDown]

8. You nailed it...

But if a SS# works then by definition, don't you have to have some idea that it belongs to someone?

[pampango]

9. I think the whole point of "normal" ID theft is that it has to belong to a real person

in order for the thief to take financial advantage of that person. If making up fictional identities from scratch was feasible, ID thieves would probably prefer that since there would be no "real" victim to eventually complain and potentially cause trouble for them.

http://www.reuters.com/article/domesticNews/idUSTRE54343K20090504

"The ruling is not expected to affect prosecutions of non-immigration identity-theft cases. Defendants who steal Social Security number for financial gain know they are victimizing a real person."

[Auggie]

10. Yes, but how do you prove it? I could say that I "made up" a name and number

and they just happened to match someone real. It reminds me of fraud where the burden of proof falls on the Plaintiff to prove that the Defendant committed it. You can't prove it unless you have physical evidence or testimony.

Legal minds -- straighten me out here if I'm off base.

[pampango]

11. I certainly agree that legal minds are welcome here.

My take (non-legal mind) would be that, at least the way the repubs wrote this law, intent seems to matter. Your point is a good one. If a guy says "I made it up, I didn't steal the identity", how do you prove otherwise? How do you differentiate between those guys who make up or buy random SS numbers (some of which will end up being "real") from those who intentionally target real people and their information, in order to rip them off>

I don't know if it is analogous to the guy who's accused of murder and claims that he killed the other guy accidentally. "The gun went off while I was cleaning it." I suppose that the prosecutor has to prove intent in order to get a conviction for murder. If he can't prove intent then the guy just gets convicted of manslaughter, not murder. In our current discussion, if you can't prove intent to commit ID theft then you can only convict for using fraudulent documents.

[OhioChick]

14. Exactly. n/t

[Tempest]

12. Something to remember here

Most illegals get their documents from document mills (a group of people, usually family run who deal in illegal documents)and have no idea where the documents came from.

In the vast majority of cases, the government was charging the illegals with a crime they didn't commit.

As someone who works with ICE, this ruling is a long time in coming.

[MountainLaurel]

15. What's kind of funny

Is that this is the same reasoning used by employers trying to defend themselves against charges of knowingly hiring undocumented workers.