Social Insecurity Numbers

It appears that fake documents with bogus Social Security numbers will not be good enough anymore, says this link from The Arizona Republic, passed on by Luis of the Fresh Produce Industry Discussion Group.

From the very long story:

The fake-document trade is booming in Arizona. It's about to get even bigger.Hundreds of operations around the Valley churn out fake green cards, Social Security cards and driver's licenses by the thousands, authorities say. Their chief customers: illegal immigrants. Some are trying to land jobs in Arizona. Some are passing through Phoenix, a major smuggling hub, on the way to other states. Most of the fake documents bought on the street by undocumented immigrants are made with bogus numbers.
But authorities fear the industry will grow as migrants look for ways to circumvent the state's new employer-sanctions law and a new Bush administration crackdown on illegal workers. The push for more documents, especially with authentic numbers, is expected to spur more identity theft. "It's growing, and it's pervasive," said Lt. Giles Tipsword of the Phoenix Police Department's property crimes bureau. "This is a multimillion-dollar industry." Arizona's new employer-sanctions law requires companies to verify worker eligibility through a federal database. Lawmakers in other states also are taking steps to make it more difficult for illegal immigrants to use fake documents to land jobs, hoping the crackdown will cut down on illegal immigration. And under new rules announced last week by the Bush administration, employers risk prosecution if they don't fire workers whose names and Social Security numbers don't match.But nobody thinks the fraudulent-document industry in Arizona will dry up and disappear. If anything, it's going to get bigger and more sophisticated as criminals who make fake documents adapt to meet demand. The database can't flag documents made with stolen identities, where the names and numbers match. As a result, a proliferation of fraudulent IDs, combined with identity theft, could undercut the employer-sanctions law. "There is a good potential for an increase in identity theft and also an increase in the manufacture and sale of fraudulent documents," said Leesa Berens Morrison, director of the Arizona Department of Homeland Security.

TK: The resourcefulness of the criminal mind shouldn't be underestimated,but I wonder if this story tends to soft pedal the very real troubles employers are facing.