Phony papers bury state DMV offices - 1,700 illegals tried to pass fake documents in the past month

By April M. Washington, Rocky Mountain News

September 5, 2006

http://www.rockymountainnews.com/drmn/government/article/0,2777,DRMN_23906_4969012,00.html

More than 1,700 illegal immigrants have been caught attempting to pass fake documents at state driver's licenses offices in the first month after a tough immigration law went into effect, according to a state official.

"We're seeing evidence of individuals trying to slip through the cracks," said Michael Cooke, executive director of the Colorado Department of Revenue.

Colorado's new anti-illegal immigration laws passed by the legislature this summer set up a strict identification check meant to deny most public services to undocumented adult immigrants [criminal illegal aliens]....

The Division of Motor Vehicles is on the front line of those checks.

As residents come into DMV offices to get state ID cards or driver's licenses, they're asked to present birth certificates and immigration papers such as passports and "green cards" to prove they are in the United States legally.

Those documents are then run through the federal SAVE (Systematic Alien Verification of Entitlements) system to verify the applicant's legal immigration status.

In the past month, about 2,100 applicants at DMV were told their documents needed further investigation. Of those, 177 met with investigators and were cleared as legal residents of Colorado. But more than 1,700 cases are pending.

Cooke believes DMV will never see those applicants again because they know their documents are phony....

The 1,700-plus names have been sent to U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials, she said.

Market for birth certificates

So far, DMV offices have also caught about 150 people attempting to use fraudulent birth certificates, and that number is climbing....

Most of the certificates were authentic, but the person presenting the document was not the individual named on the certificate, Cooke said.

Because of the prevalence of fraudulent birth certificates, Cooke last week issued a ruling that local and state agencies no longer will accept birth certificates as proof of citizenship when a person comes in seeking benefits. (DMV, however, still accepts birth certificates.)...

It was the third time in a month the ID requirements were changed.

When the new law was enacted, it said anyone who wanted to get public benefits had to have one of four required forms of identification: a Colorado driver's license or state ID, a Merchant Mariner card or an American Indian tribal document.

But soon after, Cooke relaxed those requirements and issued new temporary ones that were supposed to be effective until March. Under them, people could get benefits by showing any number of documents, including a birth certificate, a valid naturalization certificate or citizenship certificate, a court-issued adoption order, or a valid driver's license or ID with the applicant's photo issued by one of 34 states.

Last week, Cooke excluded birth certificates....

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