Supreme Court Limits Penalty For Using False Social Security Numbers
Aggravated Identity Theft: This week the US Supreme Court limited the government’s ability to prosecute and deport workers in this country illegally. While the use of false documents can result in being jailed, the court ruled a charge of the more serious crime of “aggravated identity theft” cannot be made without proof that they knew the identification number belonged to someone else.
Removal from the United States through the Immigration Courts takes time, and the crime for which a person is convicted can have dramatic effects. Aggravated felonies can seriously limit the ability of a person to remain in the United States and for his or her ability to return at some later date.
During the Bush administration, a number of workplaces were targeted with some of those arrested being charged with possessing false documents and aggravated identity theft. One of the most publicized raids took place at a meatpacking plant in Iowa. Agents of Immigration and Customs Enforcement arrested almost 400 undocumented immigrants in what government officials billed as the nation’s largest immigration raid ever. Agents stormed the meatpacking plant, rounding up mostly Guatemalan and Mexican immigrants.
As posted on our website and recent broadcast on ICE worksite arrests, in over 6,000 worksite arrests made by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) last year only 135 were employers. The rest targeted were all illegal aliens.
The Obama administration is currently focusing on employers who knowingly violate the law by hiring illegals, and criminal aliens, rather than individual illegal workers.
Now, unless “knowledge” is established, an illegal worker may face civil charges related to illegally entering the United States or overstaying a visa, criminal charges of illegally reentering the country after being deported, or a combination of these.
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