Thursday, June 21, 2012

Fiat Fraud?

David North looks into some of the possibilities for fraud in President Obama's immigration legalization by fiat:
In any such program the devil is both in the inevitable fraud, and in the governmental definitions, as I learned a quarter of a century ago when the Ford Foundation assigned me the task of evaluating the massive legalization program that came out of the Immigration Reform and Control Act of 1986 (IRCA).
Let's review the threat scenario in the Dream Scheme. In addition to those who genuinely meet the program's generous outline, there will be applicants who will try to beat the system. These are some of the inevitable problems:
  • Aliens claiming that they arrived prior to their 16th birthdays when, in fact, they came later.
  • Aliens claiming to be under 30 when they are older than that.
  • Aliens who are otherwise eligible, but who have not been here for five years.
  • Aliens who, in fact, have not graduated from high school, are not in school, and who do not have a GED, but who make such claims.
  • Aliens, otherwise eligible, who were not in the nation on June 15, 2012.
Another general problem — that an alien would lie about his police record — is less pressing because the government keeps pretty good records on whom it arrests, as opposed to those who entered the nation without inspection (EWI).
My basic worry is that an already overworked DHS staff will not press very hard to uncover fraud on such difficult areas as age at entry and that it will grant short-term legal status to some early fraudulent applicants, who will then tell their peers how easy it is to fool the government on issues such as age at entry and then the peers, in large numbers, will apply for status.
I am concerned about the flood of plausible-looking "documents" purporting to be diplomas, report cards, General Education Development (GED) certificates, and the like that will be submitted to the government; also, overseas birth certificates showing ages under 30.