Dr. Jones's Journal - The Hidden Cost of Illegal Immigration: ID THEFT -->

Identity theft is yet another ramification of illegal immigration. It is particularly a problem in the border states. A good friend of mine had his own identity stolen after a car accident with an illegal, and it caused all manner of headaches. Once you've had your ID stolen, it's difficult to recover.

This is not to demean illegals - I believe that the majority are indeed here to work hard and raise their families. However, there are in fact a number of them who have engaged in this kind of identity theft, just as there are a number of American citizens who have engaged in the same - and the idea is to figure out how to prevent this kind of thing from happening.

If you've ever had your identity stolen, you know exactly what I'm talking about. It's a total nightmare - a time-consuming, endless exercise in frustration and heartache.

Note: The word "illegals" does not carry with it any implication of race or ethnicity. The fact is, individuals from a vareity of ethnicities and races have crossed the border into our country illegally.

In the noisy immigration debate raging in Washington, there is one voice NOT being heard. The voice of identity theft victims.

Behind many of the nation's millions of undocumented workers are someone else's documents. To get a job, illegal immigrants need a Social Security number and they often borrow one. As victim Melody Millet is fond of saying, U.S. citizens are being forced to share their identities with undocumented immigrants to give corporate America a steady supply of cheap labor.

Thousands, perhaps hundreds of thousands of Americans are right now sharing their identities with immigrants and don't know it. It is the dirty little secret of the immigration issue: By not dealing directly with the undocumented worker situation, the U.S. government is actually encouraging identity theft. In fact, one can argue that the origins of the identity theft epidemic can be traced to the immigration issue.

Source: http://redtape.msnbc.com/2006/03/hidden_co...