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County Attorney Darin Raymond shared this news with the county supervisors Tuesday.
"Identity theft and that business of working somewhere and not having proper identification and being an illegal worker in this country is creeping in," Raymond told the supervisors.
He used to only have a few identity theft cases open at one time.
"Now when we're catching them, it's a whole group ... six, 10, 12 or more people," he said. "It's a real spike, and it takes several weeks to work through all that."
The type of identity theft Raymond spoke of involves people illegally obtaining a Social Security number so they can be hired for a job.
People used to simply make up a Social Security number. That doesn't fly anymore.
When businesses hire someone, they run the new hire's Social Security number through a computer to verify that it is actually a real Social Security number.
"It's a small step," Raymond said.
The program doesn't verify who the number belongs to, however.
That means people who want a legitimate Social Security number end up stealing someone else's existing number.
For immigrants who have illegally crossed into the United States, that may mean buying a Social Security number and identity from someone who has already acquired those identities and is offering them for sale
"The people that come here that we've talked to and debriefed say, basically, they know where they can go and get an ID," Raymond said. "There's a market out there."
In Bear County, Texas, he said, it's a real business.
People in prison there readily sell their own identities to make money, since they don't have much use for it while serving time.
"I'd say 1 in 3 I've found have been some prison inmates," Raymond said.
The real victims of identity theft, Raymond said, are often the other people whose identity is being stolen.
"Sometimes they're real people here that are Hispanic immigrants," he said.
Many stolen identity victims have Hispanic sounding names because many of the people buying illegal identities are Hispanic, he explained.
"It's not like they're victimizing (Supervisor) Don Kass, because they're not going to pass as Don Kass," Raymond explained. "They're victimizing each other."
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This goes back to employers needing to have something that they can safely rely upon for all of their employees. Social Security was not intended to be an identifier as we use it today. This database needs to be more comprehensive and have a system that employers can verify that the idividual hired is legal to be hired. Employers knowingly hiring illegals should be shut down completely and immediately with all assets liquidated, profits of which turned over to the program. Identity theft should be prosecuted to the full extent of the law. Harsh? well do WE have an illegal immigration problem that we think a simple fence will prevent? I have absolutely no problem with someone legally working here from where ever. There are channels to use to make it happen. people providing illegal paperwork/permits/identification should be prosecuted with identity theft. Most of the laws needed are already in place.