The Supreme Court has decided to hear a case dealing with illegal immigrants who have been charged with identity theft.  In 2004, Congress passed a law requiring a mandatory 2 year jail-term for those found guilty of aggravated identity theft.  Lately, the Government has been charging many illegal immigrants under the law since they often use stolen or made up social security numbers, and fraudulent documents.  The issue is whether illegal immigrants need to know whether the number they are using belongs to another person, or if just making up a number that may or may not belong to another person should also constitute identity theft.

     I'm hoping the Court sides with the Justice Department, who believes it is permissable to charge illegal immigrants with identity theft if they use a social security number which belongs to someone else.  In such a case, it's true that a specific person is not being targeted, but that does not change the fact that someone was victimized by the fraudulent activities of someone else.  Identity theft is a serious crime and it needs to be treated as such.


http://www.projo.com/opinion/editorials/content/ED_id14_11-14-08_VFC49LK_v9.3e2cd3e.html