For illegals, false IDs are easy to find, hard to track

The New Jersey Star-Ledger ^ | July 1, 2007 | JON GAMBRELL

[2ndDivisionVet]

LITTLE ROCK, Ark. -- To his bosses at Pilgrim's Pride, he was Juan Jose Rodriguez -- it said so on the birth certificate and Social Security card he presented when the southwestern Arkansas chicken plant hired him six years ago.

At his De Queen, Ark., home, he was Joel Garibay-Urbina -- with a wife, three kids and a mortgage under his own name.

And to police officers responding to a domestic violence call, he was just the latest illegal immigrant to have two identities after an arrest.

"We've arrested them and they offer an Arkansas identification card, and they give us a ... work badge and it's a different name," said De Queen police investigator Sean Martin. "There's no real way to tell."

It turns out that for $800, Garibay-Urbina had rented the American dream. Though local police, prosecutors and immigration agents say they don't know how widespread the practice is, federal watchdog reports dating back to 1988 have warned of the relative ease of obtaining a fraudulent birth certificate.

Assuming the identity of a U.S. citizen -- keeping the documents just long enough to convince Pilgrim's Pride he was a U.S. citizen -- Garibay-Urbina was able to get a job, buy a gun and live undetected until police arrested him after he fought with his wife in January.

[Tolerance Sucks Rocks]

A better way, that preserves liberty (or its residual remains at least) is this: eliminate the system of entitlement programs that draw non-productive people and their many relatives here.

At least with your plan, only the hardworking illegals would be in the US.