Use of False Social Security Card Ruled No Bar to U.S. Residency

A federal appeals court ruled that illegal immigrants seeking to stay in the United States can’t be disqualified simply because they used fake Social Security cards to work.

In a 2-1 ruling issued Wednesday, a panel of the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco ruled a San Diego woman who came to the country illegally in 1968 was eligible to apply for legal residency under a 1986 amnesty, despite her conviction for using someone else’s Social Security card.

The appellate court overturned an immigration judge’s ruling by finding that Octavia Beltran Tirado, 50, had not committed a so-called “crime of moral turpitude” because she used the Social Security card only to work.

appellate court distinguished her use of the false Social Security number from use of such a number to commit fraud or some other crime.

Jonathan Montag, a lawyer who represented the woman, said the ruling could affect thousands of illegal immigrants because the use of false Social Security cards is widespread.

“Most people who come here illegally come here to work and if you are doing anything in the real economy you have to be using a Social Security card,” Montag said.

The lawyer for the Department of Justice who argued the case did not immediately return a phone call seeking comment so it was unknown whether the government would appeal the decision.

But Judge John T. Noonan, who wrote the dissent, said the other judges were interpreting the law in a way Congress did not intend.

“The court reaches very far to perform a kindly deed,” Noonan wrote.

Beltran came to the United States illegally in 1968 from the Mexican state of Sinaloa. She found a Social Security card on a bus and used the number as her own from 1972 to 1991, according to court records.

She was convicted and sentenced to three months in prison and three months in a halfway house. The Immigration and Naturalization Service sought to deport her in 1993, but she applied for legal residency under the 1986 law that granted amnesty to people able to show they were living in the United States before 1972.

Beltran, who works as a manager in a fast-food restaurant, has remained in the country while her case was pending.

The majority opinion was written by Judge William C. Canby, who was joined by Judge William A. Fletcher. The case is United States of America vs. Octavia Beltran Tirado, 98-70783.