Supreme Court hears immigrant's ID theft case

 Supreme Court hears immigrant's ID theft case

By MARK SHERMAN
Associated Press Writer

WASHINGTON (AP) -- Ignacio Carlos Flores-Figueroa, an undocumented
worker from Mexico, made a curious and undeniably bad decision. After
working under an assumed name for six years, he decided to use his
real name and exchanged one set of phony identification numbers for
another.

The change made his employer suspicious and the authorities were
called in. The old numbers were made up, but the new ones he bought
happened to belong to real people. Federal prosecutors said that was
enough to label Flores-Figueroa an identity thief.

The Supreme Court will hear arguments Wednesday on prosecutors'
aggressive use of a new law that was intended to strengthen efforts to
combat identity theft. In at least hundreds of cases last year,
workers accused of immigration violations found themselves facing the
more serious identity theft charge as well, without any indication
they knew their counterfeit Social Security and other identification
numbers belonged to actual people and were not made up.

The government has used the charge, which carries a mandatory two-year
minimum prison term, to persuade people to plead guilty to the lesser
immigration charges and accept prompt deportation. Many of those
undocumented workers had been arrested in immigration raids.

The case hinges on how the justices resolve this question: Does it
matter whether someone using a phony ID knows that it belongs to
someone else?

The government, backed by victims' rights groups, says no. The "havoc
wrecked on the victim's life is the same either way," said Stephen
Masterson, a Los Angeles-based lawyer, in his brief for the victims'
rights groups.

On the other side, Flores-Figueroa and more than 20 immigrants' rights
groups, defense lawyers and privacy experts say that the law Congress
passed in 2004 was aimed at the identity thief who gains access to
people's private information to drain their accounts and run up bills
in their name. Surveys estimate that more than 8 million people in the
United States are victims of identity theft each year.

Flores-Figueroa acknowledges he used fraudulent documents to get and
keep his job at a steel plant in East Moline, Ill. But he "had no
intention of stealing anyone's identity," his lawyers said in their
brief to the court. He traveled to Chicago and bought numbers from
someone who trades in counterfeit IDs.

Had he been caught while using the fictitious name and numbers that
went with it, he could not have been charged with the more serious
offense.

Federal appeals courts in St. Louis, which ruled against Flores-
Figueroa, Atlanta and Richmond, Va., have come down on the
government's side. Appeals courts based in Boston, San Francisco and
Washington, D.C., have ruled for defendants.

The government's use of identity theft charges in immigration cases
was on full display in last year's raid on a kosher slaughterhouse in
Postville, Iowa. Authorities charged 270 undocumented workers with
identity theft, including its threat of two years in prison.

Chuck Roth, litigation director for the National Immigrant Justice
Center in Chicago, called the charge "a bludgeon" that was intended to
elicit guilty pleas to lesser charges. Roth's group joined one of the
briefs supporting Flores-Figueroa.

All 270 workers accepted plea deals in which they also agreed not to
contest deportation.

An additional 100 workers arrested in the same raid were using
unassigned numbers and faced charges with little prospect of prison
time.

The case is Flores-Figueroa v. U.S., 08-108.

 

The law was not written to be a bargaining chip for anarchists.
The law was written to be enforced.
All we have here is another massive display of government corruption.
I wonder how many "investigators" padded their retirement funds by using our
laws as their bargaining chips.


Indeed.  The fact remains that Flores-Figueroa knownigly engaged in criminal
activity in order to obtain what he knew were forged identity documents.
What he did was somewhat like playing the lottery, only the stakes included
criminal charges if he failed to win.  He didn't care if there was a victim
attached to the other end of his crime, he just bought a lottery ticket,
betting he would get away with his multitude of cimes against our socieity
and our nation.  It was a gamble whether the identity he purchased was
stolen or created, and he lost the bet.



Bullsh**.  If he uses any identity other than his own his intention is to
steal an identity not his own.
He went to the casino the first time and won a small jackpot.  He went to
the casino the second time in search of a bigger jackpot, and he lost.
So sad, too bad, Flores-Figueroa you lose.



So we just trot around the whole country until we get rulings that suit
us???


I agree.  Every damned one of them ought to be rotting in jail as we speak.
The officers and investigators who abused their positions of power should be
rotting alongside them.

 
I have to side with the illegal immigrant in this case.  Two problems:

a)Intent.  Why should a person just trying to hold a job illegally get hit
with identity theft charges?

b)Fairness.  If Joe and Bob (typical first names of illegal immigrants, I'm
sure) both buy fake ID from William, their illegal ID dealer, and Joe gets
fake ID for someone deceased and Bob gets fake ID for someone alive, why
should Bob get in more trouble than Joe.  The actions and intent of Joe and
Bob are identical.

The Lizard

 Jujitsu Lizard wrote:

Because they are here illegally, and using someone's social security number?


They both know they are committing a crime, and both should be charged
with a felony offense.  I think the Supreme Court will agree with me.

 
Incidental.  All they wanted to do was work illegally.  Obtaining a usable
social security number was incidental.


But ... Joe and Bob should be hit with THE SAME felony offense.

The Lizard