The world according to Riff.

Scoured from NPR....I think Burns might have already covered this one but it's worth re-hashing....riff

Morning Edition, July 24, 2008 · For years, the chief punishment for immigrants caught working illegally in the United States has been deportation. But prosecutors are now bringing criminal charges that include aggravated identity theft, which can bring a hefty prison sentence. Immigrant rights groups and some members of Congress are challenging the practice. (Figures......it makes the prospect of sneaking in a little less tasty)

A congressional panel is meeting Thursday to look at the controversial fallout from an immigration raid on an Iowa meat-packing plant in May. Not long ago, illegal immigrants swept up in such raids faced administrative charges and swift deportation. But in recent years, the Bush administration has started bringing criminal charges against immigrants who use fake documents, including stolen Social Security numbers. (As well as they should...it is identity theft, it don't change because a "poor hard working " undocumented theif does it)

After the raid at the Agriprocessors plant in Postville, Iowa, more than 250 workers were sentenced to five months in prison. Rights groups, defense lawyers and even some judges are questioning the Bush administration's strategy. (Tough poo poo..they got caught...sucks to be you)  Iowa immigration attorney Dan Vondra says he was stunned to see immigrant workers from the plant charged with aggravated identity theft. (Hey Dan you moron.....stealing a identity IS a crime....you tool)  Congress created that law in 2004 to toughen penalties for the growing problem of identity theft.

Still, Vondra said, "When you think of identity theft, what you really want to target is somebody getting credit cards in your name, ruining your credit, using your name to commit crimes, things of that nature."...(Yeah thats right, and Bill Clinton did not have sex in the way he understood sex to be defined....or what the defination of "is" is.....it is theft of identity pure and simple....bookem)

The immigrants had bought stolen Social Security numbers to help them find work, Vondra said. In fact, one of the translators at the court proceedings has said the mainly Guatemalan immigrants he encountered had no idea what a Social Security card was — let alone that the numbers on it belonged to real people. (HORSE SHIT)

Challenges In The Courts

Last year, another Iowa attorney used that argument in court. Gary Koos' client had been arrested at a concrete company after buying an ID off the street in order to fill out employment forms. Koos didn't think that fit the crime of aggravated identity theft.( koos is a cooch)

"If you want to think of it in legal terms, it would be that a person has to be put upon notice of what the crime is," Koos said. "And in this case, it's knowingly to use someone else's identity. My client didn't know he had someone else's Social Security number, he just had a number." (Splitting hairs to make it ok ....eh?)

Koos lost the case on appeal, and his immigrant client is now serving five years in federal prison. But Koos' argument has been backed by other appeals courts — and he thinks the Supreme Court may need to resolve the dispute.(Good for the slimeball)

The issue is coming up more often because of another part of the Bush administration's immigration crackdown. More and more companies are using a federal computer program that can detect fake Social Security numbers. But it can't tell when real numbers are used by another person — which has fueled a growing market for stolen IDs.(sounds like he need to get the system more foolproof)

"The issue is whether people using false identifications should be held accountable for that," said Bob Teig, a spokesman for the U.S. Attorney's office in northern Iowa, which prosecuted the Agriprocessors case. (it's not an issue, bookem)

Teig said he didn't know whether any of the workers charged with aggravated ID theft had used Social Security numbers for anything but work. But that's not the point, he said.

"The point is, by the time it happens it's too late. The statute is not just designed to punish, the statute is designed to prevent," Teig said.(Thats right dammit)

A Stiff Mandatory Sentence

To be clear, the Agriprocessors employees did not plead guilty to aggravated ID theft. But because the charge carries a two-year prison sentence as its mandatory minimum, it put pressure on them to accept a plea deal on lesser charges.

Rep. Zoe Lofgren (D-CA) has called for a hearing to look at that procedure. She's also an immigration attorney, and she questions whether due process was upheld.

"Hundreds of people were convinced to plead guilty to a crime without really an adequate opportunity to see if they had any remedy under immigration law," Lofgren said. "And of course, now that they've pled guilty to a crime, they have no remedies that they might otherwise have had."....(Those poor ...theiving illegals didn't get the chance to weasel out of the system...my heart breaks.......not)

Not all arrested immigrant workers are being sentenced to jail time. But federal immigration officials say incarceration can be an important deterrent. And Julie Myers, head of Immigration and Customs Enforcement, says that some victims of this kind of ID theft suffer financial and legal hardships.(So what, they should go home and fix their problems there, and not bring them here)  "We think it's tragic and unfortunate when people break the law by coming here," Myers said, "and then break the law again by actually stealing the identity of U.S. citizens."

Whats tragic is that we have to spend our tax dollars paying the lawers to defend them, for coming here and breaking the law in the first place....riff

So far this year, the immigration agency has made more than 900 criminal arrests.