Today’s commentary could be categorized as another “Good news / Bad News” story and was predicated on a news release that was posted on the ICE (Immigration and Customs Enforcement) website on January 11, 2012.

First the good news:

Certainly the fact that special agents of ICE were able to identify
and dismantle a massive identity theft ring marks an Important success
in combating an increasingly serious criminal problem that impacts the
people whose identities were stolen and also has all sorts of other
potential ramifications on a host of issues that could involve criminal
justice and even national security.

The fact that the successful investigation involved personnel from a
number of federal law enforcement agencies as well as local police
departments, working in close cooperation with ICE, also shows how
important this sort of “task force” approach to law enforcement can have
a synergistic affect where the sum of the component agencies are
greater than such agencies working alone.  Score another success for the
“Good Guys.”

The fact that these agencies all worked cooperatively, including
local police agencies, shows, however that the claims that when local
police work at enforcing immigration laws community policing suffers are
not only unfounded, but that such cooperative investigations are
essential.

Something else to consider, while not all cases of identity theft
relate specifically to the issue of immigration- the explosion of the
number of illegal aliens in our country has generated an exponential
increase in the demand for stolen identities- yet another crime related
to illegal immigration that does serious harm to law abiding citizens
and lawful immigrants.  Just another example of how illegal immigration
is not a victimless crime!

Now we get to that which I find disturbing:

There was not a single word in the entire news release that addressed
the nationalities of either the bad guys who were indicted or the
customers for whom the documents were being procured either to say that
these customers were “undocumented aliens” and other residing in the
United States.  The news release also noted that some of the ring
members used purloined Puerto Rican identification documents for
themselves.

The issue here is that it is entirely possible that United States
citizens may certainly have availed themselves of this opportunity to
acquire a new identity to obfuscate their true identities to commit
crimes or, in some cases, to evade law enforcement authorities who may
have been searching for them because they are fugitives from justice. 
It must, however, be presumed that at least some of the customers are,
in fact illegal aliens.  The same sort of suppositions must be made
about those who have been indicted in this case.

It is essential for a number of reasons that when aliens are indicted
for crimes they commit in the United States that their immigration
status be taken into account for a couple of fundamental reasons.  First
of all, when these defendants are arrested, once they are processed
(photographed, fingerprinted and interviewed), they will next be taken
before a federal magistrate who will decide on the appropriate bail for
these defendants.  A detention (bail) hearing focuses on two issues-
danger to the community and risk of flight.  In a case where there was
no evidence of violence, which would seem to be the case here, it is
entirely likely that a magistrate would be amenable to providing the
defendants with the opportunity to post bail.  Since danger to the
community is not extreme, the issue of risk of flight takes on
particular significance.  If a defendant is an illegal alien, the risk
of flight leaps dramatically.  Aliens have an “escape hatch” through
which they can and, in fact, often utilize- they can flee the United
States and head for their home countries where extradition may be
difficult if not impossible.

Certainly a news release should not be expected to lay out all of the
issues of an investigation, especially one in which the case is in its
formative stages- the defendants are indicted at this point and not
convicted, however, my concern is with the fact that all too often,
immigration-related factors in cases pursued by ICE are not highlighted
or given the weight that they should be given.

I am also concerned about the clientele of this massive fraud ring. 
We know that the 19 terrorists who attacked our nation on September 11,
2001 used 364 false identities or variations of false identities.  While
the news release did not delve into all of these issues, I hope that
the agents and prosecutors will do everything possible to not only
arrest the alleged members of the massive fraud ring- but go after those
who purchased the documents.  These “clients” have acquired a potential
legal title- that title is “Co-conspirator!”

Here is a final thought that may not help you to sleep, but as I have
told members of Congress when I conducted discussions with them about
my many concerns about the vulnerabilities that threaten us from so many
directions, “If I cannot sleep at night, I do not want you to be able
to sleep at night, either!”

We know that there are a number of elite Iranian shock troops known
as “Qods” who are currently stationed in Venezuela.  We also know that
there are terrorist training camps located in the Tri-Border region of
Brazil, Argentina and Paraguay who belong to Hezbollah, Hammas and,
likely, al-Qaeda.  Such individuals who would reside in Latin America
for a significant period of time could easily pass themselves off as
citizens of Latin America.  If they attempted to enter our country and
embed themselves in our country, they would want to have the sort of
documentation that these identity thieves could sell them in furtherance
of their objectives to hide in plain sight.

With the extremely limited resources ICE has and with the current
mindset that illegal aliens who have no criminal convictions should not
be arrested and deported but provided with employment authorization, I
have some serious misgivings about what may get overlooked.

I would hate to see defeat snatched from the jaws of victory!