Amateur Con Man's Windfall--Fake Social Security Cards

--June, 2007, raid of Del Monte food processing affiliate scores enormityof illegal immigrant social security problem.

Magalia, California--More than 165 undocumented workers were scooped up in the June, 2007, Portland, Oregon raid of a Del Monte food processing plant. The motivation? A previous check of employee records at the Del Monte plant had shown that only 48 of nearly 600 workers had valid social security numbers. The raid's result? It was found that some 90 employees had fraudulent SS numbers, which included those of juveniles, the elderly, and deceased. Others had fake green cards, residency cards, and 3 were convicted felons.

Angry comments were immediately vented. Portland Mayor, Tom Potter, complained about the bad policy of federal officials to "go after" local workers trying to support their families, referring to the apprehended as Portland residents. At the other extreme, were such sarcastic internet utterances as, "Just doing the fraud Americans refuse to do."

Legal thriller author, Jack Payne, whose recent article, Social Security Disaster, had wide play across the internet, has his observations:

"Generally overlooked is the compounding factor: social security numbers now being used as the universal identifier in our society. These numbers must be produced by anyone seeking to acquire a broad range of taxpayer-supported benefits--everything from welfare, unemployment insurance, school admittance, health and hospital benefits, grants, and student loans.

"Think of it. It's staggering in its totality.
In addition to the 9,000,000 SS cards out there, with no matching records of legality (as recorded by IRS at tax time), we now have all this above-and-beyond fraud dumped on the American taxpayer. In total, the fraud--mostly perpetrated by illegal immigrant amateurs--is so massive, so far reaching, that it boggles the mind.

"Remember when we were kids and oly-oly-oxen-free made perfect sense? Maybe that's the kind of infinite wisdom we need now."

You can get dizzy just trying to look at all the seemingly insurmountable barriers to solving this illegal immigrant problem--much less the finality of actually solving it. With 350,000 convicted illegal immigrant felons wandering about the country--with 600,000 cases backed up in the immigration court system--with the burden on our prison system of 29% occupancy by illegals--with so many cities proclaiming themselves 'sanctuaries'"--how can the Feds possibly hope to get a handle on this immense mess?

"Confidence is that feeling you have before you understand the situation. It's probably best the politicians hesitated, rather than trying to solve all facets of this complex problem, all at once."

Payne ends with a sigh, "Even Confucius had no answer for this one. When I looked, the only Confucius witticism I could find was one that is fitting indeed for this particular problem: Those who quote me are fools."