For $800, illegal immigrant rents fake IDs in Arkansas

Last updated Saturday, June 23, 2007 10:10 PM CDT in News

By Jon Gambrell
The Associated Press

After crossing the border at Laredo, Texas, with a six-month visitor visa in 1995, Garibay-Urbina is slated for deportation to his native Mexico after a one-year prison term. Had Garibay-Urbina not been accused of domestic battery, it's unlikely police would have ever suspected a crime. Reports from the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services' Office of Inspector General say cases are rarely pursued.

"Birth certificate fraud is seldom prosecuted unless it can be linked to large dollar losses or other punishable crimes," said a 2000 report from the inspector general, its second report on such identificaton theft in 12 years.

Garibay-Urbina was not making big money as a supervisor at Pilgrim's Pride, where starting jobs on the line pay about $20,000 a year. He was sent to prison after admitting he lied to Pilgrim's Pride about his residency and violated a law prohibiting illegal immigrants from owning guns.

When Garibay-Urbina arrived in De Queen, he met with an "unknown individual" to rent a birth certificate and Social Security number before his job search, according to an affidavit filed with the federal court in Texarkana. With Rodriguez's documents in hand, he started at the chicken plant in January 2001.

Garibay-Urbina worked until Jan. 22, when his wife Guillermina Avila went to the Sevier County Courthouse to tell police he had beaten her and was threatening to kill himself. During an interrogation, Garibay-Urbina told police and immigration agents of the identification ruse.

Darren Anderson, Garibay-Urbina's lawyer, said his client "indicated it wasn't that difficult" to rent the birth certificate, but wouldn't describe the transaction specifically. Prosecutors and immigration officials have no idea how many times Rodriguez's identification cards have been used. A spokesman for Immigration and Customs Enforcement said there were not estimates on how widespread the problem is.

The Department of Health and Human Services has been warning about document fraud since 1988, when it published concerns about criminals and illegal immigrants obtaining genuine documents. Warnings about terrorists emerged in the 1990s and in 2000 a follow-up report bemoaned the continued access to birth certificates.

According to the 2000 report, birth certificates were available at 6,422 public offices nationwide, including 1,506 in New York state, 866 in Texas and 566 in New Jersey. Only nine states, including Arkansas, control access to the documents at the state level.

Tracking people named Juan Rodriguez can be especially difficult as it's a Spanish equivalent of John Smith. Arkansas' Hispanic population is growing at one of the fastest rates in the nation and De Queen's is growing at one of the fastest rates in Arkansas. Since 1990, De Queen's population climbed from 4,600 to 5,700 -- and the number of Hispanics has climbed from 509 (11 percent) to more than 2,200 (39 percent).

Martin, who initially interviewed Garibay-Urbina after his arrest, said an illegal immigrant's real name only comes up after federal immigration agents become involved in an arrest or if an officer with the 14-member police department recognizes someone giving a different name in a second arrest. De Queen police don't have access to databases to check Social Security numbers to see if a person's working different jobs simultaneously across the nation, he said.

"I'm sure there are people that live in De Queen that have been arrested numerous times or cited on a traffic stop that have given false names, but have given the same false name every time," Martin said. "They've appeared in court or paid a fine under this false name and we still don't know who they are."

Employers face the same problem in using birth certificates, Social Security cards and other identifying documents to check their employee's residency status. Cliff Brown, the Pilgrim's Pride employee who handled Garibay-Urbina's paperwork, told immigration agents he had a federal form showing that "Juan Jose Rodriguez" checked off that he was a U.S. citizen.

An agent's affidavit says Garibay-Urbina thought he had done the right thing, as the real Rodriguez was a citizen.

Brown declined to comment to The Associated Press, referring questions to Ray Atkinson, a spokesman for Pilgrim's Pride. Atkinson said an employee with Rodriguez's name was fired from the De Queen plant in February -- weeks after Garibay-Urbina's arrest -- for "attendance issues" but would not elaborate.

Ed Barham, a spokesman with the state Department of Health and Human Services, said its employees are aware of a number of scams involving birth certificates, often viewed as a springboard to criminal activity. However, he said, renting a birth certificate temporarily was new to him.

And Anderson, Garibay-Urbina's lawyer, also is left with some questions about Garibay-Urbina.

"He did leave a wife, three children and home mortgage," Anderson said. "He indicated to me the home mortgage is in his real name. I don't how he did that."

A 1988 inspector general report identified birth certificates as "key to creating a false identity and thus has great value for undocumented aliens who seek fraudulent citizenship." Later, the report noted testimony by one employee in a western state as saying "birth certificate fraud is mainly question of 'green."'

"The problem will exist as long as there is money to be made," the report reads.

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