Free Republic

WICHITA, Kan. (AP) — For almost 12 years, a Houston elementary school teacher and an illegal immigrant living in Topeka have engaged in a tug of war to claim the identity of Candida L. Gutierrez in a case that has put a face on the growing crime of "total identity theft" in the United States. On Monday, the real Candida L. Gutierrez saw her identity thief, Benita Cardona-Gonzalez, for the first time. Their encounter came inside a federal courtroom in Wichita, where Cardona-Gonzalez, a Mexican national, was sentenced to 18 months in prison for possessing fraudulent identification documents. The plea...

Agents with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement have taken down a ring accused of providing fake identities for hundreds of people in San Antonio and Austin. After six months of investigation, ICE agents charged nine people in the case, and seven have been arrested. The other two, one of whom is one of the ringleaders, remain at large. At a hearing in federal court Monday in San Antonio for one of the suspects, ICE agent Timothy McElligott testified about a series of raids in San Antonio and Austin that turned up document-making equipment, blank identity cards stock and Social Security...