Posted on 04/23/2006 8:07:30 AM PDT by AmericaOne
WASHINGTON -- Two federal agencies are refusing to turn over a mountain of evidence that investigators could use to indict the nation's burgeoning work force of illegal immigrants and the firms that employ them.
Last week, immigration authorities trumpeted the arrests of nearly 1,200 illegal workers in a massive sting on a single company, but they acknowledge that they relied on confidential informants and an unsolicited tip.
It didn't have to be that hard.
The Internal Revenue Service and the Social Security Administration routinely collect strong evidence of potential workplace crimes, including the names and addresses of millions of people who are using bogus Social Security numbers, their wage records and the identities of those who hire them.
But they keep those facts secret.
"If the government bothered to look, it could find abundant evidence of illegal aliens gaming our system and the unscrupulous employers who are aiding and abetting them," said Rep. J.D. Hayworth, R-Ariz.
The two agencies don't analyze their data to root out likely immigration fraud -- and law enforcement authorities can't do so because the agencies won't share their data.
Privacy laws prohibit that, they say.
The agencies also don't use the power that they have.
The IRS doesn't fine employers who repeatedly submit inaccurate data on workers. Social Security does virtually nothing to alert citizens whose Social Security numbers are being used by others.
Evidence abounds within their files, according to an analysis by Knight Ridder Newspapers and The Charlotte Observer.
One internal study found that a restaurant company had submitted 4,100 duplicate Social Security numbers for workers. Other firms submit inaccurate names or numbers for nearly all their employees. One child's Social Security number was used 742 times by workers in 42 states.
"That's the kind of evidence we want," says Paul Charlton, the U.S. attorney in Arizona. "If you see the same Social Security number a thousand times, it's kind of hard for them to argue they didn't know."
The potential crimes are so obvious that the failure to provide such information to investigators raises questions about Washington's determination to end the widespread hiring of illegal immigrants.
An estimated 7 million unauthorized workers are employed in the United States. They're picking crops, building homes and tending yards. In some cases, they work for the government on public projects that pay them with taxpayer money.
They've built roads in North Carolina and military housing in California and even helped rebuild the Pentagon after 9-11, until law enforcement found out.
They also work at airports, seaports and nuclear plants.
Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff has asked Congress for access to earnings reports, sent by employers with money withheld for taxes and Social Security.
The reports contain workers' names and Social Security numbers, and when they don't match Social Security records, the information is set aside in what's called the Earnings Suspense File.
Created in 1937, the file contains about 255 million unmatched wage reports representing $520 billion paid to workers but not credited to their Social Security earnings records.
The incorrect worker files mushroomed during the 1990s as immigrants poured into the United States. Almost half the inaccurate reports come from industries such as agriculture, construction and restaurants.
"We believe the chief cause of [unmatched] wage items ... is unauthorized work by noncitizens," Social Security Inspector General Patrick O'Carroll told Congress in February.
The IRS also receives the mismatch information.
Particularly disturbing is that possibly millions of the Social Security numbers belong to other people.
In Utah, after Social Security provided data for one criminal inquiry, investigators discovered that the Social Security numbers of 2,000 children were being used by other people.
"What do you think we'd find if we had the ability to analyze all of their information?" said Kirk Torgensen, Utah's chief deputy attorney general. "It would be invaluable. How shortsighted is it that the government doesn't follow this trail?"
Where have all the whistle-blowers gone?
That is how the link appears on the Drudge Report site.
I agree.
There might be one still around. Maybe that is where this reporter got at least some of her information. She did report on internal "audits" (if that is the right term), showing how the one restaurant chain had over 4,000 employees using bogus or stolen SSN's, along with the child from Utah whose SSN was fraudulently used as employee SSN's over 700 times in 42 states.
The details could just as well have come from Congressional hearings.
Washington knows but simply does not care to act -- or more likely Washington fears to act.
The annual "no match" letters sent out by SSA to the millions of miscreants create a cat 5 fire storm.
Unions and such immigrant "rights" organizations as National Immigration Law Center (NILC) go ballistic -- Administration and Congress critters cringe and run.
The critters fear the wrath and retributions -- could be a suspension of contributions.
The NILC others in the immigrant "rights" industry are supported by
The California Endowment
Ford Foundation
Four Freedoms Fund
Evelyn & Walter Haas, Jr. Fund
Open Society Institute
David & Lucile Packard Foundation
Rockefeller Foundation
Rosenberg Foundation
State Bar of California – Legal Services Trust Fund Program
U.S. Dept. of Justice – Office of Special Counsel for Immigration-Related Unfair Employment Practices.
Big business gives big too and the Washington critters know they won't get their share if Washington makes law breakers beware.
Ping!
This broke last year, there was Congressional testimony regarding the 'privacy' issues of the Master Suspense File.
Glad to see it's being reported on again, I wish it was reported on weekly!
True, the IRS is the collection agency for the International Bankers,(The Federal Reserve Bank.)
<< With minuscule exceptions ...... >>
Please list three of those?
<< Scare off the employers and you cut off a main attraction for illegals to want to come here or stay here.
As G. Gordon Liddy calls it: "the electromagent of jobs" that draws [Criminal aliens] into the country >>
On this one Mr Liddy is so far off the mark as to be effectively not even hearing let alone answering the question.
The criminal alien invasion is incited, organized, aided, abetted and facilitated, for the purpose of disposessing Americans of ownership of either our country or its government, by the United States feral gummint. Specifically by the activist "Democrats" who comprise more than 90% of the permanent bureaucracy.
Most of the "farm work" done by criminal aliens is directly subsidised, at the cost, annually, of Scores of Billions of Dollars, by the feral gummint and produces the humungous mountains of unwanted and unsaleable agricultural produce of every description that bankrupts friendly nation's farmers and by being dumped by USAID and other redundant agencies has completely wiped several previously net-exporting agrarian countries, Somalia, for example, out of existence.
Most of us, every darned day, meet at least one of the incompetent former workers in a wide variety of low-demand fields who've been displaced by criminal aliens. They now pick up checks for attending at make-work positions created for them by the Post Office, INS/ICE -- or at the DMV.
And the unemployment rate among work-seeking American youth is far in excess of 50%. Criminal aliens have been used to deprive several generations of America's youth of first, after school, part-time and/or college-supporting jobs.
Employers are only required to match the name used with the SS#. They are not required, nor do they have the capacity, to check if the name and SS# are being used by someone else somewhere else. That is the purview of the govt.
The fact that the govt. doesn't care that the same SS# is being used in several different places is evidence of two things: A. They know about the problem and want the money. B. They are the entity that is guilty of the ilegal immigration problem and they are allowing it to happen on purpose.
I don't blame the employer who should not be required to do extensive background checks (although some now go so far as to check your credit). We should all be expecting the feds to follow the laws they have written but it means too much money to too many politicians.
Looks like both Houses of our Government lack the guts to deal with this problem. Seems the entire DEM party plus 15 REPS think their jobs are in the hands of this group of radicals. How does one break a law and then become legal? Have we lost our minds?
Yes it damn sure is.
=======================
Summary of The Identity Theft Penalty Enhancement Act:
The Identity Theft Penalty Enhancement Act as outlined by the Library of Congress.
Section two of The Identity Theft Penalty Enhancement Act - Amends the Federal criminal code to establish penalties for aggravated identity theft. Further it prescribes sentences, to be imposed in addition to the punishments provided for the related felonies. These additional punishments are: 1. Two years' imprisonment for knowingly transferring, possessing, or using, without lawful authority, a means of identification of another person during and in relation to specified felony violations (including theft of public property, theft by a bank officer or employee, theft from employee benefit plans, various fraud and immigration offenses, and false statements regarding Social Security and Medicare benefits)
AND
* Reducing any sentence for the related felony to take into account the sentence imposed for such a violation.
* Providing for concurrent terms of imprisonment for a violation of this Act and a violation under any other Act.
Section three of The Identity Theft Penalty Enhancement Act - Expands the existing identify theft prohibition to cover;
* Possession of a means of identification of another with intent to commit specified unlawful activity.
* Increase penalties for violations to include acts of domestic terrorism within the scope of a prohibition against facilitating an act of international terrorism.
But hey, it is just the cute fuzzy `lil border bunnies that are our economice "miracle" that will save our nation therefor they can march in our streets demanding the vote and ordering us Gringos off the northern continent blah blah blah.
Do we have to hang the lawers first or can we start with the politicans in Congress?
The open borders traitors don't want to cut off the main attraction for illegals to come here and stay. Americans have been royally screwed by George Bush, Bill Frist, John McCain, conservative talk show hosts, like Tony Snow who wrote an article in our newspaper calling for citizenship for every illegal here - what a traitor! Along with many others. When greed overtakes one's patriotism, and desire to leave your country better than you found it, there is not much we citizens can do to counter act it. Greed rules!
I couldn't agree more. What conservative radio hosts are signing on to this TREASON? I know Tony Snow and Michael Medved are on the side of the Open Borders Crowd. I'm pretty sure Rush and Hannity are against this sellout. I don't know about the others nationally. This is a very big issue, so I'm sure that those "conservative" radio talk show hosts who back this shamnesty will lose a significant amount of listeners. Maybe in Snow's case, he is just trying to follow the company line so he can ice getting the White House Press Secretary job.
BTW, Tony Snow is a FREEPER, complete with a FREEP Mail Address. His Screen Name is plain old "Tony Snow". You can send him a FREEP mail telling him about your feelings about his position. Since it is a FREEP Mail, he will be sure to read it :-)
"In the first place we should insist that if the immigrant who comes here in good faith becomes an American and assimilates himself to us, he shall be treated on an exact equality with everyone else, for it is an outrage to discriminate against any such man because of creed, or birthplace, or origin. But this is predicated upon the man's becoming in very fact an American and nothing but an American...There can be no divided allegiance here. Any man who says he is an American, but something else also, isn't an American at all. We have room for but one flag, the American flag, and this excludes the red flag, which symbolizes all wars against liberty and civilization, just as much as it excludes any foreign flag of a nation to which we are hostile...We have room for but one language here, and that is the English language...and we have room for but one sole loyalty and that is a loyalty to the American people." - Theodore Roosevelt
The SSA IG report, Department of Defense Wage Items in the Earnings Suspense File (A-03-04-14041), had this:
"Between TYs 1997 through 2002, we found that the DOD components submitted nearly 6,400 wage items representing about $30 million in wages to SSA that were placed in the ESF. . .
"Our analysis of the 6,358 wage items determined that SSA placed these items in the ESF because:
• 59 percent of the reported names and/or SSNs did not match SSA records;
• 28 percent were assigned a special indicator when the NH appeared to be deceased in SSA records, a child who was under the age of 7, or the NH disclaimed the wages; or
• 13 percent were reported with invalid SSNs. . . ."
More..
Suspended and Nonwork Wages in the Social Security Administration’s Payroll (A-03-05-15087)
The Department of Interior’s (DOI) National Business Center (NBC) processes SSA’s payroll through its Federal Personnel Payroll System. Ditto other Federal agencies. SSA has about 64,000 full and part-time employees.
The report states:
"Of the 62,000 employees who worked at SSA during TYs 1999 through 2002, we found 94 employees had wages posted to SSA’s NWALIEN file and ESF. Specifically, 33 employees with about $2.6 million in wages10 had worked during the 4-year period with nonwork SSNs that were assigned in TYs 1974 to 1991. As of July 2005, 17 were current employees whose work-authorization status still appeared to be unauthorized to work in SSA records (whereas the other 16 either had SSNs indicating authorization to work or were no longer working at SSA). In addition, we identified 61 employees, representing about $184,000 in wages,11 whose wages were placed in the ESF because (1) the employees appeared to be deceased in SSA’s records, (2) the employees disclaimed the wages, or (3) the reported names and/or SSNs did not match SSA’s records. . . ."
In other words, the SSA did [does?] not use its own verification system, it seems. One Recommendation of the report was, "Consider using the verification programs as appropriate in the: 1) hiring process to verify employees’ identities and work-authorization status; and 2) wage reporting process to ensure employees receive proper credit for their earnings."
The NWALIEN file and ESF (Earnings Suspense File) contain SSNs issued but prohibit working here and SSNs that do not match SSA's records, respectively.
Why would a SSN not match SSA's records and W-2 earnings data be put into the ESF? I think we all know.
Why would there be SSNs issued (NWALIEN) but no authority to work? Well, the alien just might need a SSN to get some type of public assistance or a drivers license.
Where were the DEMS on the House and Senate Vote? Yes,we know who the 15 REP traitors are.
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