Elevated
Significant Risk of Terrorist Attacks
March 1, 2007
Immigration fraud poses a severe threat to national security and public safety because it creates a vulnerability that may enable terrorists, criminals and illegal aliens to gain entry to and remain in the United States . ICE uproots the infrastructure of illegal immigration by detecting and deterring immigration fraud.
Individuals and criminal enterprises often use fraudulent documents to obtain drivers' licenses and social security cards. Traffickers and alien smugglers use these documents to facilitate movement into and within the United States and they are also used to shield illegal aliens from detection within our society. Fraudulent documents may be used to obtain financial benefits and entitlements intended for US citizens or lawful permanent residents and to obtain unauthorized employment.
Document and Benefit Fraud Task Forces (DBFTFs) were created in March 2006, to target, seize illicit proceeds of and dismantle the criminal organizations that threaten national security and public safety and address the vulnerabilities that currently exist in the immigration process. Through DBFTFs, ICE partners with other agencies such as the Department of Labor, the Social Security Administration, U.S. Postal Service, U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services, the Department of State and various state and local law enforcement agencies. These task forces focus their efforts on detecting, deterring and disrupting both benefit fraud and document fraud.
Based on a successful existing task force in the Washington, D.C./ Northern Virginia area, additional task forces are located in Atlanta, Boston, Dallas, Denver, Detroit, Los Angeles, New York, Newark, Philadelphia and St. Paul. Whether or not a formal DBFTF currently exists in an area, vigorous document and benefit fraud investigations are being conducted by ICE throughout the United States .
Recent successes include:
ICE agents in Denver dismantled the Castorena family organization, responsible for producing millions of fraudulent identification documents including resident alien cards, social security cards, driver's licenses and a host of other documents. This organization franchised their document producing facilities and documents produced by this organization have been seized in all 50 states.