EckerNet.Com

It\’s not uncommon for Navarrette to put quite a spin on reality in his columns on immigration, but sometimes the density reaches gravitational proportions. In an article partly consisting of condemnation towards the utter lack of immigration enforcement on employers (with which I agree), there is this gem

The worry used to be that illegal immigrants were stealing welfare. Then it was jobs. Now, we\’re told, they\’re stealing people\’s identities.

[...]

Why spin this as a crackdown on identity theft? That has a sinister ring to it, as if illegal immigrants were using stolen credit cards and withdrawing money from ATMs. More than likely, the extent of it was that people were using Social Security numbers that didn\’t belong to them so they could work at dirty jobs that Americans wouldn\’t do — just as they have for generations, before the phrase \”identity theft\” entered the national lexicon.

First of all, it\’s all three. Stolen welfare, jobs and identity. Reality hasn\’t changed. You\’ve just been spinning different parts of it…which leads me to your next paragraph.

Why spin this as identity theft. Well probably because IT IS. People using SS numbers that don\’t belong to them IS identity theft. Just because they aren\’t raiding ATMs doesn\’t mean the victims of the identity theft aren\’t being harmed. Imagine the IRS showing up at your door telling you owe more in taxes because according to records, you\’ve also been working at a meat-packing plant in Texas

A woman claiming to be Theresa Sanchez provided Swift with a Social Security card and Colorado I.D. on April 8, 2005. The FTC shows Sanchez actually lives in Texas and filed a complaint after she got a letter from the IRS. The letter said the agency was holding her $5,400 refund because she had failed to report $120,000 in wages since 1996. Sanchez told ICE she had never lived in Colorado. The FTC said someone used her information for jobs, college and to receive unemployment benefits.

Suddenly simply raiding an ATM doesn\’t sound as bad does it??

Oh and jobs that Americans won\’t do?? Cut the bullshit Navarette, you\’re not that smooth. Illegal immigrants don\’t count for a majority of any industry with which they are usually associated except prison inmates. And in that field they appear to be especially well-skilled, one only has to take a glance at the FBI\’s Ten Most Wanted List or any of their Featured Fugitives Lists for that.

Try again Navarette…again.