Recent actions in Albemarle and Concord demonstrate how the crackdown on illegal immigration goes beyond scrutinizing the immigrants themselves. There are U.S. citizens who aid them. Some may even be government employees.
Last week federal authorities arrested an Albemarle Department of Motor Vehicles license examiner, Susan Honeycutt, on charges of attempting to defraud the government by issuing false IDs to illegal immigrants. That came just weeks after police raided a Concord license plate office searching for evidence that license plates and titles had been issued fraudulently. The Concord office has closed.
If investigators are correct, the Albemarle case reaches far beyond North Carolina. Authorities also charged two other people — men by the names of Vijendra Gangadeen and Richie Seupersad — who allegedly arranged for the fake IDs and transported them to New York.
Federal Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials are all too aware of the lengths to which people will go to make and sell fake identification cards, a trade that has picked up since the government started pressuring employers to be more insistent about proper documentation. Last fiscal year, ICE made nearly 3,000 arrests for document and benefit fraud across the country, thanks in large part to task forces it created in 2006 to focus on those crimes.
According to newspaper and online reports, among the operations busted have been a fraudulent labor-certification ring involving Indian and Pakistani nationals in Newark, N.J.; a marriage-fraud ring involving Chinese and Vietnamese nationals in Los Angeles; and a family organization in Denver responsible for producing millions of fake identification documents, including green cards, Social Security cards and driver's licenses that since have been seized in all 50 states. Authorities even discovered that U.S. citizens in Puerto Rico were selling their identification papers to go on the black market in the United States.
Locally, Rowan County deputies busted a couple in March 2006 who were producing North Carolina ID cards, Mexican driver's licenses and Mexican ID cards and selling them for $30 to $200.
Most of these cases do not involve public employees such as the license examiner with the DMV. But the possibility that such a crime could happen in a government agency sounds an alarm. It's one thing for a DMV worker to be fooled by fake IDs, and quite another to deliberately produce them.
Ravi
Does No one look at the other side : Monday, July 21, 2008 8:06 PM
I understand a crim is a crime, but not all immigrants are like that, people work very hard to provide the best for thier family, I know illegal inmmigrants, they try very hard th help make this country work, in NYC if it isnt for them we would'nt have those gourmet deli services that we have, America needs to wake up, STOP Being RACIST, and needs to view the real picture, it is because of Immigrants AMERICA WAS BUILT, If we welcome them for a better life, They would prob help more than hurt, at least they dont life on umemployment checks, America STOP Bieng lazy and smell the coffee, get real this is reality life
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: Saturday, July 05, 2008 3:51 PM
HELP STOP ILLEGAL IMMIGRATION.......MAKE YOUR VOICE HEARD: http://www.numbersusa.com/dfax?series=vdggl1&gclid=COO0gcLGx5MCFSgtagodA3cbCA
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Sick and tired of the unwarrented debate and accusations!
: Saturday, July 05, 2008 1:26 PM
The intensity and sense of urgency around the immigration discussion seems disproportionately overwhelming. Even if you have been awake, but just not paying much attention, this ferocity is disconcerting. What catastrophic incident has caused this issue to be moved to the front burner, with the maximum possible heat? Have terrorists been caught crossing our southern border? Has the drain of that population bankrupted and shredded our already shrinking, ever more flimsy social safety net? Have illegal immigrants gone on a Days of Rage-style urban rampage, leaving cities aflame? Are their numbers reaching epidemic proportions? Some would say “yes” to all of those. They claim that illegal immigrants are “invading” the U.S., parasitically devouring public-education and health-service funds with the intent of subverting and destroying Western civilization and the American lifestyle. Illegal immigration is a complex issue, one for which with any kind of movement is almost impossible because of the intensely concerned constituencies’ radically different agendas. Yet those opposed to open borders offer only easy answers: Implement strict border enforcement and build a wall between the U.S. and Mexico now. Drive those already here home by denying them employment (by outrageously fining any American employer hiring them), education, driver’s licenses, and any public services. Concurrently, round them up to send them back home, with no possibility of returning. There are any number of logical refutations of the above positions. It is estimated that illegal workers contribute about $10 billion to Social Security that they never collect, though they cost about $2.2 billion a year in government health services. They are crucial to the marketplace’s filling many low-level labor and service jobs Americans won’t. (Note: This is not to argue that there are no Americans who will take these jobs or even that they won’t take them at the same pay. Those are straw-man arguments – there is not a large enough American work force to do the jobs, especially at prevailing wages.) But even this brief discussion dignifies the current immigration debate. Being that I believe our focus on illegal immigration takes us away, as a nation, from more serious crisis’, I thought this article was very appropriate. The full article can be found here: http://www.austinchronicle.com/gyrobase/Issue/column?oid=oid:356664 Page Two: The Politics of Distraction In the face of failure at home and abroad, the right turns on immigrants BY LOUIS BLACK Thank God we have some people in the US that are willing to tell the TRUTH about "illegal immigrants...get your facts straight about how much they drain the economy before you speak. "Sick and Tired", are you down at the health department draining our economy and wasting our tax dollars?
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Jimi
With Illegals comes the corruption : Saturday, July 05, 2008 7:58 AM
Our systems and cuture is being affected by illegal immigration. The increasing and spreading corruption from third world countries is now infected our institutions. Los Angeles is corrupt Mexican town. This is your future, unless you remove all incumbents from office, you know, the one's that brought us to this situation. Re-elect them and you sign your own death certificate.
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Edward
Crack down on illegal alien crime : Saturday, July 05, 2008 5:40 AM
Good job to NC authorities. I have seen many NC plates in Middlesex County, NJ. Are these all valid?
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Donny
selling phony ID's is nothing less than treason : Friday, July 04, 2008 5:50 PM
Give the bad guys like Susan Honeycutt a minimum of ten years in prison and confiscate their homes and bank accounts and I guarantee it will send a chilling message to anyone in the DMV or any government office not to do the crime. There should be no plea deals accepted!! Prison time and seizing personal assets Is a great deterrent to immigration/ID related crimes.
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buster
Illegal aliens : Friday, July 04, 2008 8:56 AM
Illegal aliens should be deported, and those who hire them should be severely fined or have their business license revoked. If you hire an illegal, you are only hurting your country. I personally won't do any business with those who hire illegals.
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No Respect at all for the law : Friday, July 04, 2008 5:57 AM
Its been a living hell being in the same block next to these criminals Seupersad and Gangadeen. Parties til 4 in the morning. Don't know why Seupersads cars still have NC tags after being busted and its known that he lives and owns a house in NY. Its been total peace in the block since his arrest, til last night. His crowd hung out on the front portion of his property again to 4 in the morning with his music blaring, and laughing most likely about what a joke American legal system is. He is also a repeat violator of NYC quality of life noise codes and needs to be shipped back to his native home.
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Stop Illegals
Let's Deport Them : Thursday, July 03, 2008 8:40 PM
Why don't we deport those helping the illegals with illegal documentation to Mexico (or where ever) along with the illegals - after they service a lng sentence and pay a heavy fine. Of course, a better idea would to put the illegals and those that help them to work building the much needed fence to keep'em out.
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SICK AND TAXED TIRED OF ILLEGALS!
Why do the even need and ID? : Thursday, July 03, 2008 9:58 AM
Go hang out at the Rowan County Health Department and see how many illegals are receiving services for free on the back of the NC taxpayer. I doubt they have to show anything in the form of an id. It about time law enforcement starts yanking the business licenses of those who employ illegals.
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DS
It's the Almighty Dollar : Thursday, July 03, 2008 7:15 AM
Love of money.... Don't we have enough problems with illegal immigration? These people could care less about the people who bought these fake documents or anyone else. They only wanted the money. I hope the justice system puts them UNDER the jail...How long has this been going on in Concord?
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Letters to the editor - Mondy (10-6-08)
