The Utah Highway Patrol, Utah attorney general and numerous other senior law enforcement officials throughout Utah are determined to maintain good relations with Utah’s rapidly growing illegal immigrant community. This might be good for the illegal immigrants but it is bad for Utah citizens because illegal immigration and identity theft go hand-in-hand.
According to a senior Social Security Administration official, 75 percent of illegal immigrants use fraudulent Social Security numbers to get jobs.
In 2008, 16 percent of all identity theft in Utah was employment-related. This is an increase of 14 percent in 2007 and reflects the growth in the state’s illegal immigrant population.
When illegal immigrants use fraudulent documents to get jobs, they commit major felonies including document fraud, perjury on I-9 forms and identity theft. In spite of this, Utah’s law enforcement leaders ignore these crimes in order to build trust in the illegal immigrant community.
They ignore the fact that an estimated 50,000 Utah children are already victims of an epidemic of illegal immigrant-driven identity theft and that 1,626 employers were found to be paying salaries to the Social Security numbers of Utah children on public assistance under the age of 13.
They refuse to acknowledge that their failure to aggressively pursue and arrest illegal immigrants using fake documents fuels employment-related, child identity theft in Utah, despite the fact that in Arizona, an estimated one million children’s Social Security numbers are being used mainly by illegal immigrants for employment purposes.
Perhaps even worse, Utah’s attorney general, police chiefs and other senior law enforcement officials refuse to even acknowledge the devastating consequences suffered by the victims of rampant, illegal immigrant-driven, felony identity theft.
They ignore illegal immigrants who continue to unlawfully hold jobs using Social Security numbers belonging to Americans at the same time American citizens doing the same jobs are being laid off.
They ignore the plight of American citizens who are denied unemployment insurance because an illegal immigrant is either already collecting unemployment benefits under the American’s Stolen Social security number or because income earned by the illegal immigrant is credited to the American’s stolen Social Security number, thereby making it appear that the unemployed citizen is still working.
They ignore the desperation felt by parents of Utah children who are denied badly needed, means-tested public benefits because the earnings of illegal immigrants have been credited to their children’s stolen Social Security numbers.
They ignore the plight of American citizens when the IRS goes after them for the payment of back taxes on income earned by illegal immigrants using their stolen Social Security numbers.
They ignore the injustices that occur when American citizens are arrested or when they are denied jobs because the criminal records of illegal immigrants using their stolen Social Security numbers are attached to their names.
They ignore the damage done to Americans who suffer potentially life-threatening consequences when their medical records are corrupted with the personal information of illegal immigrants using their stolen Social Security numbers to obtain medical care.
This policy of ignoring massive illegal immigrant identity theft and the impact that it has on its victims is mean-spirited and cruel. If this is the price that it takes to maintain good relations with the illegal immigrant community, then the price is too high and the policy must be changed immediately.
It is time for Utah’s law enforcement community to focus on the citizens that they are sworn to serve and to protect rather than on making Utah a sanctuary state for illegal immigrant identity thieves.
Editor’s Note8212;Ronald Mortensen is a U alumnus and retired Foreign Service Officer who continues to serve the United States by responding to international humanitarian crises on its behalf. Mortensen has written and lectured extensively on illegal immigrant identity theft and is a co-founder of the Utah Coalition on Illegal Immigration.