Sunday, May 29, 2005
Copyright © Las Vegas Review-Journal

Success with phony IDs not assured

From left, Detective Gene Olewinski, Sgt. Ed Kravetz and Lt. Steve Franks of the Las Vegas police Financial Crimes Section examine fake ID cards. Photo by Gary Thompson.

The stakes are high when illegal immigrants venture into the black market in search of a fake ID.

For some, the cards open the door of opportunity.

Consider Juan Guerrero, an immigrant from Mexico City who has worked 10 years on Las Vegas construction sites, building houses and public works projects. No one ever questioned the fake green card and Social Security card he bought in California.

"In construction, using fake documents is the most common thing," Guerrero said in Spanish from his home in east Las Vegas. "You show them a Social Security card and your mica and it's automatic. I think most bosses know we're illegals, but they want to see some documents so they can say they comply with the law."

Others derive no benefit from the steep prices they pay for the cards.

Lupe Munoz, 31, a recent illegal immigrant from a small village in the Mexican state of Zacatecas, bought a fake green card in Texas. He's showed it at construction sites throughout Las Vegas, with no success.

"They told me to leave and come back when I get a real one," said Munoz, who plans to buy a new fake ID if his luck doesn't improve.

Still others bring misfortune on themselves and others when they secure work with false documents.

One recent case involved a Strip resort maid who used what she thought was a fake Social Security number to get hired. But the number belonged to a California woman, who filed a police report when the Internal Revenue Service accused her of not reporting all her income.

"We booked the maid for one count of impersonating someone else," Las Vegas police Detective Kim Thomas said. "INS took her and she ended up being deported, so we dropped the charge. It was sad because she was just trying to make a living. The head maid at the hotel was crying when we took her out. She had been employee of the month and everything."

Each day, some of the more than 100,000 illegal immigrants in Southern Nevada head to the Bonanza Indoor Swap Meet, where men with nicknames such as El Moreno (the Dark One) and El Elotes (Corn Cobs) pitch their wares.

"Mica? Mica?" they ask passers-by, using the slang term for the cards issued to permanent resident aliens.

Prices range from $100 to $220 for a resident alien card, commonly called a green card, while a fake Social Security card costs $40 to $80.

A replica of the health card issued by the Clark County Health District can fetch $200. The Health District charges $35 for a legitimate card, which signifies a food handler has been immunized for hepatitis A and screened for tuberculosis.

"I'm not against the sale of fake documents, I'm against the elevated prices," a man who identified himself as Juan Diego said after an intense haggling session with El Elotes.

Diego, who said he was shopping for a fake mica and health card to help a friend land a restaurant job, sees nothing wrong with the black market business.

"Everybody has to work, everybody has to eat. If you want to work or eat, you have to have something to show the boss to get the job," he said.

Juan Gonzalez, a workers advocate with the Carpenters/Contractors Cooperation Committee, said most construction companies know when they are dealing with illegal immigrants. Employers, he said, are willing to hire workers even if they present bogus identification and Social Security cards because they need to fill jobs fast.

"I've seen cases where a worker will come in with a fake ID, and the employer tells the worker he has to fix the problem," Gonzalez said. "The worker simply goes out and comes back with a different false ID. He'll come back three times and still, the employer will keep him on the job or let him stay on the crew."

Marti Dinerstein, a fellow at the Center for Immigration Studies in Washington, D.C., said many employers obey the letter but not the spirit of law. They ask for a Social Security number and other ID, make and keep a copy, but don't verify them.

"Verifying Social Security numbers through the Social Security Administration is optional," she said. "Employers are compliant in this process. Congress gives them a way out by not requiring that they check the number."

Several local building contractors said they don't scrutinize employees' identification or immigration documents because they fear they'll be reprimanded for discrimination.

They do, however, keep photocopies of the documents in employee files. The contractors say they don't verify Social Security numbers because they aren't required to do so by law.

One contractor, who employs about 800 workers a year, said federal officials gave his staff a seminar on how to detect fake immigration and Social Security documents. A month later, his staff spotted a card they suspected was bogus and rejected the worker's application.

"Then, we got a nice letter from the Labor Department, saying we violated that guy's rights of employment," said the contractor who asked to remain anonymous to avoid undue scrutiny by the U.S. Department of Labor. "It turns out that worker's documents were legit. What we found out was that the Department of Labor has teeth much sharper and fiercer than INS has."

Stephen Usiak, the resident agent in charge of Immigration and Customs Enforcement in Las Vegas, said employers who knowingly hire illegal immigrants can be fined. Those who use false identification documents can be fined or even imprisoned.

But Usiak said federal officials do not focus on such crimes. Their priorities instead include anti-terrorism measures, netting drug or human smuggling rings, intercepting counterfeit products and prosecuting deported immigrants who come back.

"It's not that we don't care about work site enforcement," Usiak said. "It's that we've had to shift our priorities and resources."

Dinerstein said much of the burden falls to local law enforcement authorities, who fight the problem "with one arm tied behind their back. They don't have the authority to enforce immigration law and are left to find their own solutions, bearing the brunt of the cost by being overwhelmed."

Las Vegas police Lt. Steve Franks, who oversees document forgery and identity theft investigations, said officers sometimes use surveillance tactics. But vendors thwart those efforts, using rented or stolen cell phones that can't be tapped, or by running operations that require customers to pick up the product somewhere other than the point of sale. The customer never goes where the cards are made.

"It's almost impossible to catch them," Franks said.

Franks said the production of fake documents for illegal immigrants has become sophisticated and "very customer friendly."

Criminals have perfected forgeries primarily through the use of high quality scanners and computers, he said. Many employers accept them because they don't know what security features to look for, he said.

Genuine Social Security cards, for example, are light blue with slightly raised lettering. Resident alien cards have numerous security features, such as laser printed photos, a fingerprint and magnetic strip. But many of those features have been forged well enough to pass the untrained eye, Franks said.

Las Vegas police recently cracked a few cases through means other than surveillance.

Thomas recalled a case about two years ago in which a tipster called police about a man sneaking into an apartment window. When police responded, they caught three men in the apartment, which had been used as "a large ID-making plant for the swap meet," Thomas said.

"We recovered 1,400 IDs and blank Social Security cards and immigration cards," Thomas said.

Decades ago, Franks said, police who nabbed an illegal immigrant with a fake ID would confiscate the card and report the incident to immigration officials. Usually, the suspect would be deported.

"Now, we might hold them and try to ascertain who they truly are and try to find out how they can be contacted later by (federal officials) and they're turned loose," Franks said. "Immigration now won't pick them up like they used to."

That fact hasn't escaped the manager of the Bonanza Indoor Swap Meet.

The slender Asian woman, who declined to give her name, said that over the past 10 years police have made countless arrests of the black market vendors in front of her market.

"They keep coming back," she said from the snack bar, where she was removing stems from jalapeno peppers. "Sometimes new ones come right away, sometimes the old ones. Sometimes it's just five of them, sometimes a whole bunch. It's a never-ending story."

She said she used to call police when the vendors bothered customers going to the swap meet, where a variety of Mexican products and inexpensive clothes, tools, food and music are sold.

Now, she relies on security to call police.

"I can't handle them," she said of the fake document dealers. "There's just too many."