Late today, The New York Times reported that the U.S. Supreme Court will hear arguments in the case Flores-Figueroa v. U.S., some time next year. The main issue the Justices will opine is "whether the defendant must know that the counterfeit identification belongs to some one else?" Federal prosecutors have increasingly brought more serious identity theft charges against undocumented workers to persuade them to plead guilty to lesser immigration violations. Defense lawyers argue that the undocumented workers were only trying to get a hold of some sort of identification number which would allow them to work here in the United States, and that they did not "knowingly" use it as a means of identification.
Mr. Flores-Figueroa worked under an assumed name, false Social Security and alien registration numbers, at a steel plant in East Moline, IL, since 2000. The Department of Justice filed a five count indictment against him which included two counts of aggravated identity theft. The 8th Circuit Court of Appeals, based in St. Louis, MO, ruled in favor of the government and upheld the defendant’s conviction. However, many of the other Circuit Court of Appeal’s across the U.S. are divided on this very same issue, prompting the U.S. Supreme Court to hear the case. The Federal appeals courts based in Richmond and Atlanta have ruled in favor of the government in similar cases, but the courts located in Boston, San Francisco, and Washington D.C., ruled in favor of the defendants.
Undoubtedly, this case will only fuel the "immigration debate" going on in this country, and force the next administration to take a side in bringing our immigration laws to a suitable position within American workers. The outcome of the case, most likely will fuel a firestorm debate that will crossover into the Congress and Oval Office. Identity Theft, Privacy Laws, and Immmigration reform are headed on a collision course that will be addressed some time during the mid-term of the new administration. The issues are complicated and likely won’t be solved by the politicians. The voting citizens’ of this country will want to protect their identity at all costs, but will that cost be at the expense of immigration reform, something Democrats want to champion if they win a majority in both houses of Congress. My prediction is that the mid-term elections in 2010 will be all about this topic – immigration reform. And so it begins…
To read the article, please click here: Justices Will Hear Identity-Theft Case