Known Fraud, Little Enforcement
The story below is Part Two of Two Parts, which appeared publicly due to incredible investigative research by Mark Hemingway and Ben Weingarten of RealClearInvestigations. The release day was June 30, 2022.
As you remember, we were in the beginning stages of the massive flood of illegals into the U.S. at the hands of President Biden and his Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas. The details and massive numbers of illegal aliens flooding into our nation were kept under wraps by the Biden Administration to keep the public from knowing what was happening. Biden, VP Harris, and Mayorkas, whenever appearing before the news media, were each consistent with their answers to the persistent question asked by all U.S. Media: “Is the southern border under control?”
Their unanimous answer was consistent: “Our southern border is secure.”
That was a lie.
Elon Musk
Musk and DOGE’s research to obtain facts on economic waste and fraud in U.S. government spending obviously includes analyzing the entity that spends the most taxpayer money: Social Security. In that investigation, DOGE discovered massive waste, fraud, and corruption in various parts of that agency.
Democrats and the Legacy Media have exploded as DOGE’s research continues. As is always typical when investigations are launched by various conservative administrations, Democrats and their media partners immediately ramp up this one allegation against Republicans: Republicans are going to takeover Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid! They’re going to cancel it!
This story (as I stated above) was first published in 2022. Musk reposted it himself last month! Why? Because of the continual uncovering of the massive illegal use of social security numbers stolen or made up!
What does that mean for Social Security?
As Democrats continue to howl their lies, DOGE is gathering details of all the irregularities discovered in Social Security. This first part of this story introduces facts uncovered during the Biden Administration and helps readers understand what constitutes an accurate assessment of Social Security, even with the identified waste and corruption in this critical program.
Make no mistake: SOCIAL SECURITY, MEDICARE, and MEDICAID ARE NOT GOING AWAY!
Part Two Of This Saga: “The Rest Of The Story!”
The existence of the ESF means the Social Security Administration and the IRS, with which it coordinates, are sitting on a database containing a substantial population of fraudsters against American citizens. For the better part of two decades, government watchdogs have encouraged these agencies to put the data to use, but they have been reticent.
A 2005 Social Security Administration IG report stated: “Although SSA continues to coordinate with DHS on immigration issues, it does not routinely share information regarding egregious employers who submit inaccurate SSNs. In our opinion, any serious plan to address SSN misuse and growth of the ESF must allow SSA to share such information with DHS,” reads the report.
A 2006 GAO report similarly recommended that the SSA, IRS, and DHS share data to address this problem. However, federal law severely limits the SSA and IRS from sharing information from tax forms, in part on privacy grounds. The ACLU called attempts to coordinate information-sharing between the SSA and immigration enforcement authorities during the Trump administration an “all-out assault on our legal rights and our immigrant communities.”
Since SSA lacks enforcement authority, the George W. Bush-led Immigrations and Customs Enforcement agency proposed a rule setting forth potential penalties for employers who did not respond to SSA “no match letters” – notifications sent to employers informing them of employees whose SSNs don’t match government records.
The proposed rule kicked off a firestorm of opposition from immigrant advocates. In 2008, U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit reinstated 33 employees who had been fired by their employer after receiving a no match letter. The court ruled a no match letter alone wasn’t sufficient to determine whether employees were in violation of the law.
The Obama administration put an end to no match letters altogether. Jason Hopkins, the investigations manager for the IRLI, told RCI that the Obama administration did so in service of its Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (“Dreamers”) program, which allowed illegal immigrants brought to the U.S. as children exemption from deportation and eligibility for work permits.
“If they went in [and] applied for a DACA application, and they had to actually admit they put in fake social security numbers, they’d be essentially admitting to perjury,” Hopkins says. “So that would have scared them off, and Obama wanted them to apply for this program.”
In 2019, the Trump administration-led Social Security Administration resumed sending out no-match letters, delivering 1.6 million notices across 2019 and 2020. The Biden administration again discontinued the practice.
The SSA did not respond to multiple attempts to contact it regarding related policies.
The IRS has enforcement powers the SSA lacks but has historically disavowed responsibility for dealing with illegal alien ID theft. In 2016, then-IRS Commissioner John Koskinen, who faced impeachment hearings for defying congressional subpoenas and the destruction of evidence, told Congress, “We have Social Security and immigration authorities and others who enforce that part of the law, and if we start looking behind the system and doing their job for them, we’re going to discourage a lot of people from paying the taxes they owe.”
Consistent with this view, a 2020 GAO report on employment-related identity fraud found that the IRS was not tracking numerous forms of employment-related identity fraud.
The IRS’ Internal Revenue Manual, which governs employees’ policies and practices, refers to those engaged in ID fraud as “borrowers,” defending this language as neutral, given that some may be “borrowing” an SSN from another family member to work, rather than engaging in “actual identity theft.”
When CNS News asked the IRS in 2018 how many taxpayer accounts it had referred for criminal prosecution, of the 1.3 million Treasury’s inspector general had flagged for identity fraud, the agency said, “We do not have this information.” Similarly, the IG report recommended that the IRS notify the 458,658 victims of ID theft identified in 2017 – and the IRS does not appear to have notified anyone.
When asked about its policies for handling ID theft, the IRS did not confirm it had done anything in response to the IG’s findings or identity fraud specifically related to illegal immigration. A spokesman said that “in recent years, we’ve referred people” – that is, from the general U.S. population – “for prosecution all the time, and where appropriate, we work with other law-enforcement agencies.”
The IRS’s guide to employment-related identity theft highlights notices it might send to taxpayers indicating potential fraud, but it is not clear how many such letters it sends out, and the burden overwhelmingly falls on the victims to be vigilant and take steps to clear their names.
Meanwhile, DHS Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas has curtailed worksite enforcement. Between halting no match letters and DHS’ leniency, Spencer Raley, a researcher with FAIR, told RCI, “From a strictly immigration-enforcement standpoint, nothing is being done to combat the issue of illegal aliens committing document fraud in order to obtain employment.”
RCI asked a series of questions of ICE, which leads criminal investigations into both document fraud and worksite enforcement, on the nature and extent of its targeting of those engaging in ID theft/fraud in employment, and whether and to what end it coordinated with other agencies on identifying such individuals for investigation. As of the time of publication, it had not responded to the questions.
Law enforcement agencies have periodically made illegal alien ID fraud busts in recent years, but not at meaningful levels relative to the previously reported number of fraudsters.
Given that Medicare is a beneficiary of the fraud, RCI posed a series of questions to the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services pertaining to ESF, and whether it was aware of, or did anything to contact those whose SSNs might have been fraudulently used associated with Medicare contributions. A CMS spokesperson referred RCI to the Social Security Administration.
RCI posed similar questions to tax authorities in both California and Texas – states dominated by opposing political parties but each with substantial illegal alien populations – to ascertain whether they, like the federal government, were tracking taxes paid by those potentially using fraudulent IDs, including illegal aliens, and doing anything to pursue them.
California’s Franchise Tax Board told RCI that it does not have a state Earnings Suspense File, nor does it track how much tax revenue annually is attributable to individuals misrepresenting themselves on filings. It did note, “If we suspect identity theft on an individual tax return, we send a notice to the taxpayer to let them know they may be a victim and how to verify the authenticity of the tax return on file.” With respect to enforcement, the board indicated “Fraudulent claims and suspected ID theft cases may be sent to” its Criminal Investigations Bureau, which partners with other state law enforcement authorities. The board emphasized that California further partners with “state, city, federal and industry partners” to “protect the entire tax ecosystem,” with a focus on “widespread fraudulent schemes and threat groups,” rather than those filing and paying taxes.
As of the time of publication, Texas had not responded to RCI’s inquiries.
Banks and credit agencies also have their own extensive “sub-files” for people who share the same Social Security number, but privacy laws make it impossible to get information on someone who has stolen one’s SSN from a third party, even though the behavior of the person stealing one’s number may end up affecting one’s ability to get government benefits or credit.
Credit rating agencies Equifax, Experian, and Transunion did not respond to queries about illegal alien identity fraud.
What Victims Face
Marcus Calvillo, a father of six from Grand Prairie, Texas, experienced one of the more harrowing episodes of identity fraud on record, at least in the eyes of the prosecutor who helped bring him justice. Calvillo’s life was upended after an illegal immigrant named Fernando Neave-Ceniceros was first arrested on drug trafficking charges in Kansas in 1993, then a slew of other ones, including a sex crime involving a minor, and his twice failing to register as a sex offender.
The criminal activity was recorded under Calvillo’s stolen identity – Neave-Ceniceros’ fingerprints were linked to Calvillo’s name in national criminal databases – making it difficult for the innocent Calvillo to pass the cursory background checks required to hold a job and support his family.
At one point, Calvillo was working as a cable installer when he was abruptly fired. When asked why, he told the Associated Press he was only told, “You know what you did.” Calvillo also had disputes with the IRS over taxes on wages that had been paid to Neave-Ceniceros but recorded under his name.
After years of struggling to get help – a struggle similarly encountered by other victims – Calvillo contacted Assistant U.S. Attorney Brent Anderson, who had been pursuing another identity theft case, who helped him get justice. In 2016, Neave-Ceniceros was convicted on a series of charges including aggravated identity theft and misuse of a Social Security number. “I don’t know of a case where the theft of an identity had a more devastating impact than this one,” Anderson told the Associated Press.
Despite wreaking havoc on Calvillo’s life, Neave-Ceniceros was only sentenced to one year and a day in prison for his crimes.
Horror stories such as Calvillo’s still abound. “I’ve been fired from jobs and have been accused of crimes I didn’t commit because my identity was stolen,” identity theft victim Adrian Gonzalez told the Fort Worth Star-Telegram last year. “I don’t know what to do anymore, I think I might need to change my name.”
Linda Trevino, a Chicago suburb resident, was another victim, one of the hundreds of thousands NBC News cited in a report from over a decade ago. She had been denied a job at a local Target because someone using her SSN also worked there. Her number, in fact, had been used to obtain employment at 37 other employers, leaving her haunted by the IRS with letters asking her to pay others’ taxes and facing creditors.
Children are victims of fraud too, and in fact, may be prime targets given the clean records their IDs provide for thieves, and that conduct engaged in in their names may go undetected for years. Former California congressman Elton Gallegly wrote in The Hill in 2012 of a number of child victims of illegal immigrant fraud, including among them:
- A 3-year-old issued an SSN already in use for years by a twice-arrested illegal alien, impacting the child’s credit, medical, and work history.
- A 9-year-old denied Medicaid due to wages reported on his SSN.
- A 13-year-old denied being dependent on her family’s return for supposedly making too much money.
Immigration advocates downplay the criminality involved. “Most workers are buying documents they believe to be false,” a representative of the National Immigration Law Center told the Los Angeles Times. “There isn’t really any intention of stealing someone’s identity.” But even when immigration-related identity theft lacks specific criminal intent, the confusion that ID theft creates when dealing with tax bills, receiving government benefits, facing ruined credit, and other problems can upend a person’s life.
Citizens who discover someone else is using their Social Security number will quickly learn there’s little they can do about it. According to the Social Security Administration, proof that one’s SSN has been stolen and is being used by someone else isn’t sufficient reason to change one’s Social Security number. One must prove significant harm as a result, and the process is onerous – in 2014, the agency only permitted a total of 250 people to change their Social Security number. The Federal Trade Commission details the numerous steps those who believe they might have been defrauded should take to get their lives back.
The problem is so extensive that Mike Chapple, a professor of information technology at the University of Notre Dame’s Mendoza College of Business, told Forbes, “It’s totally reasonable to assume that your Social Security number has been compromised at least once, if not many times.”
Little Legislative Relief
One of the seminal victories for proponents of ID integrity in the workplace was the passage of the Illegal Immigration Reform and Immigrant Responsibility Act in 1996, which launched the E-Verify system.
That its author, Rep. Ken Calvert, another California Republican, was still struggling 15 years later to move legislation making the program mandatory, illustrates the uphill battle the limited number of immigration hawks in Washington face.
The DHS-run program, which compares employment eligibility information from I-9 forms to government records, remains required solely of federal contractors. Only a small minority of states have mandated its use by employers. Republican senators Mitt Romney and Tom Cotton tried to pass a federal law that would simultaneously mandate E-Verify and raise the federal minimum wage to $10 an hour, but with the Senate controlled by Democrats, that legislation died.
On the House side, Georgia Republican Buddy Carter has sought to pass legislation multiple times that would require the IRS to produce a report on whether it could use proprietary information to identify illegal aliens fraudulently working in the U.S., to no avail.
At the state level, even Republican-red Texas, mired in problems pertaining to illegal immigration, has had difficulty finding the political will to police the workplace. “At least 30 bills mandating E-Verify have been introduced in Texas in the past decade,” the Fort Worth Star-Telegram reported last year. “Only one has passed, and none addressed undocumented workers, employers or temporary employment agencies using fraudulently obtained identities.”
Until recently, it wasn’t clear whether states even had the authority to prosecute identity theft by illegal immigrants. In March of 2020, the Supreme Court ruled in a 5-4 decision that at least in some circumstances, they do, overturning a Kansas Supreme Court ruling that had voided the convictions of three illegal immigrants under the state’s identity theft law who had used stolen SSNs to obtain jobs.
The rapidly changing political landscape may be the only thing that could impact the broader trajectory of illegal immigration from which the fraud springs. The populist turn of the post-Donald Trump Republican Party is appealing to working class voters with a strong interest curbing illegal immigration to put upward pressure on wages.
Recent elections also show Hispanics voting for Republicans in significantly higher numbers, in part because of the Democrats’ more liberal border policies.
In the meantime, the illegal immigrant population continues to swell. The Biden administration has released over one million illegal immigrants into the U.S., in addition to the more than 700,000 “got-aways” who evaded apprehension, and over 190,000 unaccompanied minors released into the interior – for a total of nearly two million people. “To put it bluntly, the Biden administration and other Democratic administrations, they just don’t care,” says Jason Hopkins.
