As the government continues to address problems with immigration laws, the Supreme Court recently voted on a new rule that will limit the use of identity theft laws regarding immigration cases. Recently, the Supreme Court made a unanimous ruling that federal identity theft law may not be used against many illegal workers who used false social security numbers to get jobs. This ruling came as questions had arisen as to whether illegal workers who obtain false identification numbers must know that the identification they receive belongs to a real person to enforce a two-year sentence extension for “aggravated identity theft.”

 

In a recent article published by the New York Times, Chuck Roth, litigation director at the national Immigrant Justice Center in Chicago stated, “An immigrant who uses a false Social Security number to get a job doesn’t intend to harm anyone, and it makes no sense to spend our tax dollars to imprison them for two years.” http://www.nytimes.com/2009/05/05/us/05immig.html?scp=1&sq=justices%20limit%20use%20of%20identity&st=cse Does it make it okay however for illegal immigrants to obtain false identification and possibly steal someone’s identity and take away potential work from legal citizens who choose to follow the rules? In the article, Judge Alito states, “If it turns out that the number belongs to a real person, two years will be added to the defendant’s sentence, but if the defendant is lucky and the number does not belong to another person, the statute is not violated.” According to the Pew Hispanic Center in Washington, there are nearly 8 million illegal immigrants working in the United States.