Immunity Offered in Use of Fake ID Cards : Social Security: The estimated 2 1/2 million aliens who have used them can avoid prosecution and recover eligibility for benefits.

Using an obscure amendment added earlier this month to the controversial budget deficit reduction bill, federal authorities are offering immunity from prosecution to recently legalized aliens who used fake Social Security cards to work illegally in this country.

The action exempts not only aliens who used fraudulent Social Security cards, but also those who are still using them. But to be eligible, the latter group must stop using their fraudulent cards by Jan. 3, 1991, 60 days after President Bush signed the bill into law.

The action is expected to ultimately affect an estimated 2.5 million of the 3.1 million people who applied for amnesty under the historic Immigration Reform and Control Act of 1986. Officials at the Social Security Administration said that, to their recollection, it marks the first time that the agency will allow fraudulent use of Social Security cards to go unpunished.

“We’ve never done this before,” acknowledged Social Security spokesman Scott Rose in San Francisco.

He added, however, that people suspected of trafficking for profit in counterfeit cards will continue to be prosecuted by federal authorities.

Aliens who qualified for legal U.S. residency under the 1986 law received a valid Social Security card, allowing them to work legally in the United States.

But civil libertarians and advocates of immigrants’ rights contended that this did little to help correct the employment record and benefits eligibility of someone who worked for many years under either a false name or a fake Social Security card.

The immunity from prosecution should rectify that, said Charles Wheeler, director of the Los Angeles-based National Immigration Law Center.

“These people essentially have the green light to amend their (work) records . . . to get credit for their earnings posted (with federal authorities),” Wheeler said. “It’s important to adjust all of this now because their work history is still fresh in their minds--people they worked for and when.”

He said that if an alien worker dies before amending his work record, the worker’s family will be denied survivors’ benefits.

Social Security officials said legalized aliens can adjust their work records at any time so long as they are not using any fake cards after Jan. 3. If they continue to use fake cards, the officials warned, their eligibility might be threatened.

Wheeler said some aliens are likely to be hesitant about approaching employers to correct work records since some firms could use lying on an application form as a reason for dismissal.

“I would urge a little caution in approaching some of these employers,” Wheeler said.

Use of a fraudulent Social Security card is punishable by a maximum of five years in prison and a $250,000 fine, but Social Security officials admitted that they were swamped by rampant fraudulent use of cards as millions of illegal immigrants entered the country in the 1970s and early 1980s.

The ease with which a fake Social Security card could be obtained made it one of the surest ways for an illegal alien to become a documented worker in this country.

When former President Ronald Reagan signed the amnesty measure, it lacked a provision to grant immunity from prosecution for the illegal use of fake Social Security cards.

Civil libertarian groups, such as the Washington Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights under Law, pushed for such a measure, but Congress balked during last year’s negotiations over the federal budget.

“We became concerned by the absence of (Social Security) immunity when the legalization law passed,” said attorney Deborah Sanders of the Washington Lawyers’ Committee. “In talking with Social Security, they obviously weren’t interesting in prosecuting people. We needed the law to make everything legal.”

During this year’s budget debate, Bush and Democratic leaders on Capitol Hill sparred over spending cuts of $325 billion and tax increases of $164 billion over five years.

Sanders and others quietly approached conference committee members--who were trying to resolve the House and Senate versions of the budget--and persuaded them to include the immunity provision in the final measure that was signed into law by Bush.

The provision went unnoticed for several weeks until the lawyers’ committee, a public interest organization, began to publicize the upcoming Jan. 3 deadline to stop using fake Social Security cards.