Identity theft from illegal immigrants unauthorized to work in the United States has reached the Supreme Court with a new ruling to prosecute said individuals... FINALLY.
This follows a case from 2017 when a Kansas Supreme Court decision voided prosecuting three restaurant workers due to a 1986 federal law called the Immigration Reform and Control Act. The Act keeps states from such prosecutions.
However, President Trump's administration has backed Kansas in an identity theft case where three men used social security numbers that were not theirs.
Furthermore, Kansas has not been found to have encroached on federal authority over the immigration policy. Kansas is one of several conservative states to crack down on illegal immigrants.
More from to IJR:
The three men – Ramiro Garcia, Donaldo Morales and Guadalupe Ochoa-Lara – were not authorized to work in the United States and provided their employers Social Security numbers that were not their own.
A Social Security number is used to identify people for employment and tax purposes. People who enter the country illegally do not get assigned Social Security numbers, which are given by the U.S. government to all legal residents.
The case focused on the employment verification process under federal immigration law requiring employers, on a form known as the I-9, to attest that an employee is authorized to work. The law also states that the form “may not be used for purposes other than for enforcement of this act.”
While the federal government has the sole authority to prosecute individuals for providing fraudulent information during the I-9 employment verification process, the state prosecuted the three men for using the same false information on different forms used to withhold wages for tax purposes.
I completely agree with this new law.
If you steal (or worse steal someone's identity) you need to be prosecuted and held accountable. It is a pain in the @ss to have your identity stolen and to deal with the aftermath to get things back to normal.