Illegal Aliens and Identity Theft

I was struck by the relationship between two Jan. 16 articles. The first article, prominently displayed on the front page, lamented the plight of illegal alien workers who fear or have suffered the consequences of attempting to unionize: being turned over to the INS and deported. On the front page of the Metro section was another article discussing the epidemic of identity theft and how the victims suffer and how difficult such crimes are to solve.

The connection between these two articles is the simple fact that every illegal alien who is working in the United States had to show proof of legal residency and provide a Social Security number for payroll purposes. This means that each such illegal alien has not only violated federal immigration law, each has been involved in the purchasing and passing of forged documents and the theft of a portion of someone’s identity in order to obtain a Social Security number.

Between the home-grown criminals and the hundreds of thousands of illegal aliens working in the United States, it is no wonder that identity theft is rampant. It’s time for the Social Security Administration to start investigating multiple uses of Social Security numbers.

STEPHEN KIRBY

Chino

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Since resources are said to be insufficient to fight identity theft, why not fingerprint (or use new DNA technology for) all credit cardholders and credit applicants, which should solve the theft problem by checking the identity of the fingerprints.

If anyone objects to being fingerprinted, the fingerprinting is far less objectionable than having an identity stolen and no resources to track the culprits. Fingerprinting would immediately let stores, banks and credit bureaus know who is who.

Now the only problem would be laziness in checking the identities of persons buying anything in any store or applying for anything with credit cards or with a credit basis.

SAMUEL HAHN

Malibu