Diogenes
Nemo me impune lacessit
WE ARE THE TIRED, THE POOR, YEARNING FOR YANQUI DOLLARS - GIVE US YOUR SOCIAL SECURITY NUMBERS
The historic surge of illegal immigrants across America’s southern border fueled a hidden crime spree few in Washington seemed willing or able to address until now: widespread identity theft victimizing unwitting Americans perpetrated by illegal immigrants who needed U.S. credentials to work.
An extensive review of government reports, think-tank research, news accounts, and interviews with policymakers and scholars suggests the problem involves millions of people – though measuring it with precision is difficult because of the lack of data provided by oppositional authorities.
A telling indication of the scope of the criminality is provided by a little-known government accounting book, the Social Security Administration’s Earnings Suspense File (ESF).
It reflects the earnings of employees whose W-2 wage and tax statements have names and Social Security numbers that do not match official records.
The total logged in the file had increased tenfold from $188.9 billion at the dawn of the millennium to $1.9 trillion by 2021.
Officials have historically ascribed a "high proportion" of the file’s growth to wages reported by illegal immigrants, and it has swelled alongside their population, which stood at a conservatively estimated 11.5 million by 2022, 7 million of whom are employed.
Among those doing so "on the books", federal authorities found that well over 1 million are using Social Security numbers belonging to someone else – i.e. stolen or "shared" with a relative or acquaintance – or numbers that are fabricated.
The data held in the ESF would enable authorities to pursue many of the fraudsters, but in the past, the IRS and other agencies responsible for enforcing the law were reluctant to investigate, and regulations put in place by unelected activist bureaucrats prevented meaningful information-sharing.
Willful Blindness: Feds Ignore Illegal Alien ID Theft Plaguing Americans as U.S. Coffers Fill
By Mark Hemingway and Ben Weingarten, RealClearInvestigationsJune 30, 2022 The historic surge of illegal immigrants across America’s southern border is fueling a hidden crime spree few in Washin