...more than 70 percent of the state’s voters have asked for mail ballots in recent elections... Under House Bill 1303, now on Gov. John Hickenlooper’s desk, everyone would be sent a ballot by mail. Ballots would go even to those inactive voters who haven’t voted in an election or three and who may well have died or moved away...

...you have to sign your ballot when you return it. Since signatures are supposed to be checked, wouldn’t that discourage the person tempted to vote a ballot that isn’t his?

“It’s as much an art as a science,” said Secretary of State Scott Gessler of signature checking, even when it’s done by representatives of both parties...

Not reasonable is a provision that would also allow you to go to a “vote center” up to and including election day to register and vote. You have to produce some sort of document, but it wouldn’t have to be a photo ID. You could show something as insignificant as a utility bill. One committee witness demonstrated how easy it is to forge such a bill.

A quarter of the population still prefers voting at a polling place...

... the bill requires counties to establish vote centers... Anyone could vote at any center, because each would be connected electronically to the statewide voter base...

But the bill... gives the counties only 3 1/2 months to make sure the system works by the time early voting begins in mid-October.

Which brings back the unhappy memory of the 2006 general election in Denver. The city used vote centers, but the computers didn’t work and the long lines kept many from voting. It was described in the papers as a fiasco.

There’s a small possibility the memory of that might make Hickenlooper (mayor of Denver in 2006) veto the elections bill. “Maybe we shouldn’t double down on the mistakes we made six years ago,” said Gessler...

The unions and other Democratic interests like the same-day voting provision because, they say, it will get more people out to vote. Republicans are naturally suspicious of voters who can’t be bothered to register until election day. The bill was drafted without the input of Gessler or any Republican lawmaker. Sen. Ted Harvey, R-Highlands Ranch, tried to delay inevitable passage by asking that the 132-page bill be read at length by the clerk — a process that took over two hours. Sen. Kevin Lundberg, R-Berthoud, moved to rename the bill “The Same-Day Voter Fraud Act.”

This, as well as more serious GOP amendments, like requiring photo ID to register, all failed on party-line votes during a debate that lasted past midnight last week. The bill itself passed on a 20-15 party-line vote.

Media Trackers, a conservative blog, recently quoted Gessler as saying that statistics show that states with all-mail ballots suffer a decline in voter turnout. The Republicans can only hope that is true. But obviously the Democrats don’t believe it. The implementation of SB 1303 might make it possible for them to get the extra votes they need. Read more about Laundry list of problems with Democrat’s voting bill

  Read more about More than $91.6 million in Medicare payments went to services for illegal aliens in recent years

An illegal immigrant accused of assuming the persona of a Texas teacher pleaded guilty Monday in a case that put a face on the growing crime of “total identity theft” in the United States.

Benita Cardona-Gonzalez, a Mexican national living in Topeka, pleaded guilty to a reduced charge of possessing fraudulent identification documents in a deal with prosecutors that calls for an 18-month prison term ...

(Houston elementary school teacher Candida Gutierrez) Gutierrez recounted how the thief not only opened bank and credit accounts, but assumed her entire persona — using it to get a job, a driver’s license, a mortgage, food stamps and even medical care for the birth of two children. All the while, the crook claimed the real Gutierrez was the one who had stolen her identity ...

Defense lawyer Matthew Works said after Monday’s hearing in Wichita that his client was sorry and didn’t intend to harm Gutierrez.

“She wanted to give her children a better life. That is what this is all about,” Works said ...

Gutierrez said she would have liked to see Cardona-Gonzalez spend a more than 18 months in prison after everything she put her through. Still, she said she was satisfied with the plea deal because she and her husband want to get the case over with and move on with their lives.

She praised the U.S. attorney’s office in Kansas and said   Assistant U.S. Attorney Brent Anderson even came to Houston to talk to her about the deal. He returned her original Social Security card and birth certificate, she said.

Gutierrez first learned her identity had been hijacked when she was turned down for a mortgage nearly 12 years ago. Both women claimed they were identity theft victims and sought new Social Security numbers. The Social Security Administration turned down the request from Gutierrez, instead issuing a new number to the woman impersonating her. In another twist, Gutierrez was forced to file her federal income tax forms using a special identification number usually reserved for illegal immigrants.

CAIRCO Research

Carlos Portillo-Tobar had a lot to worry about as he waited to be deported to El Salvador. High on the list was how to pay the men who helped him sneak into the United States.

"The coming over is a very dangerous trip," he said, through an interpreter, as he sat in a holding cell in early November. "You have to pay to get across from Mexico to the U.S. I still owe money from the crossing."

Sentenced to time served for illegal re-entry into the U.S., Portillo-Tobar, 34, was one of 51 people charged federally in Western Pennsylvania in 2012 for immigration-related crimes. That's a tiny fraction of the volume of cases seen in southern border districts. But on top of 2011's local record of 85 immigration-related federal cases, it suggests that the revolving door of immigrant justice has come to Pittsburgh.

The Obama administration has said that the nation's apparatus for detecting, prosecuting and deporting illegal immigrants is busy rooting out dangerous elements ...

Hailing from the agricultural town of Caserio los Conacastes, and the father of a now-11-year-old girl, Portillo-Tobar could find no work in his hometown. He didn't want any part of the criminal mega-gangs, with tens of thousands of members, that dominate Salvadoran cities.

Around 2006, he sneaked into the U.S. and found work in Texas, first chasing storms for the resulting roofing work, then learning masonry. "I was able to support my family while I was working," he said.

In 2009, he was caught and deported. Back home, he tried to make a go of the farming life.

"I had saved some money, so I just worked in the fields, growing corn," he said. He added a boy, now 1, to his family ...

Because he had little money, he and a friend sneaked from El Salvador to the Mexican border on their own, but there's only so far you can go sitting on top of trains. Smugglers got them across the border ...

CAIRCO Research/Background

U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS)

The wife of a man already indicted by a Denver grand jury for violating Colorado's racketeering law now faces similar charges for her role in a scheme where the couple falsely bought and sold homes that didn't belong to them.

Maria Carrillo, 50, is now charged with violating the Colorado Organized Crime Control Act and faces other felony counts of forgery, conspiracy to commit forgery and attempt to influence a public servant.

Her husband Alfonso Carrillo, 50, now faces seven new counts for a total of 25 counts of theft, burglary and criminal trespass among others, according to the District Attorney's Office.

The indictment alleges that Alfonso Carrillo found homeowners facing foreclosure and convinced them to relinquish their property for a fee, misrepresenting it as a way to avoid foreclosure.

Then he and Rudy Breda, 54, would falsify a sale of the properties to others, taking their money for the "purchase" even though later those "buyers" were forced to vacate the properties when mortgage lenders or actual property owners found them living in the homes.

The scheme was targeting Spanish-speaking home buyers, often undocumented and reluctant to work with investigators out of fear.

Jose Caraveo and Veronica Fernandez-Beleta were originally named as co-defendants in the indictment, but charges have been dropped and they are now listed as victims of theft.

Breda remains at large.

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CAIRCO research

Scammers sold homes they didn't own, Denver Grand Jury charges

August 2, 2012, Carrillo and Breda allegedly targeted Spanish-speaking home buyers who were often undocumented, according to the indictment.

Victim Of House Theft To Get His Home Back

Dec, 21,2011 - While Larry Asbery was in the hospital fighting a potentially deadly disease another family moved in to his home. He finally got help from a judge on Wednesday.

Homeowner Troy Donovan Still Can't Get The Squatters Out ...

  Read more about Wife of man accused in real estate scam is indicted as well

Gessler made headlines almost immediately after taking office, saying he wanted to moonlight at his old elections law firm to help supplement his $68,500 salary. 

His efforts to cull noncitizen voters from registration rolls embroiled him in controversy after more than 11,000 noncitizens he suspected were on voter rolls turned out to be a few hundred at best. And some of those have been confirmed as citizens.

  Read more about Poll: 31% approve of Gessler, 47% unsure

Federal immigration officials are investigating a widespread illegal operation involving the mailing of genuine Puerto Rican birth certificates and other forms of identification to undocumented immigrants living in Tennessee and throughout the U.S.
A federal magistrate judge in Nashville ruled in a preliminary hearing Thursday that there was probable cause for a grand jury to pursue an indictment against Andy Javier Torrez-Martinez, also known as Ezekial Rico-Mendez, an illegal immigrant living in Smyrna.

There have been other, and some larger, arrests involving illegal documents in at least 14 states and Puerto Rico, indicating extensive and organized illegal operations from Nebraska to Rhode Island to Florida.

The three criminal complaints brought against Rico-Mendez include conspiracy to unlawfully possess and transfer five or more identification documents, sale of United States citizenship documents and sale of Social Security cards.

The complaint, written by Perez, describes the investigation, which began in July 2011 and involved two cooperating defendants. In April 2012, agents arrested the first unnamed defendant based on the purchase of a genuine Puerto Rican birth certificate and a matching Social Security card.

A widespread problem

Though this case occurred in Middle Tennessee, identity theft using Puerto Rican documents appears to be increasingly widespread, at least throughout the United States.

The indictment says that brokers were operating in 14 states, making coded telephone calls using terms such as "shirts," "uniforms" or "clothes" to identify documents.

On Sept. 19, U.S. attorney Paul Fisher announced that a New Jersey-based task force had shut down one of the nation's largest and longest-running stolen identity tax refund fraud schemes ...

  Read more about Immigration fraud ring hits Tennessee

The 9Wants to Know investigators have learned U.S. Federal agents arrested a man who they believe is a war criminal from Ethiopia convicted of killing 101 people and torturing many others.  Kefelegn Alemu Worku went by the name Tufa or Habteab Berhe Temanu, according to federal agents and federal court documents reviewed by 9Wants to Know.

ICE agents allege Worku stole an identity and forged his citizenship application to be able to get into the United States.

Customs agents discovered Worku used a fraudulent name to immigrate to the United States on July 12, 2004 as a refugee along with four children to live with a fifth child already in the United States.

 When agents interviewed the unnamed, fifth child they say he admitted his real father wasn't mentally or physically able to immigrate to the United States. The children were worried their father's health would jeopardize their changes of immigrating to the United States so they recruited Worku to assume the identity of their father in the refugee process.


  Read more about Man responsible for murder, torture caught in Denver area

A recently released report shows widespread tax fraud in connection with the federal government’s Individual Taxpayer Identification Number program.

The inspector general specifically said there were 154 mailing addresses that were used 1,000 or more times on applications, including 15,795 numbers assigned to a Phoenix address.

The inspector general also found 10 individual addresses were used for filing 53,994 tax returns and receiving $86.4 million in fraudulent tax refunds.

In addition, the Treasury’s Inspector General for Tax Administration reports found 10 bank accounts received 23,560 tax refunds totaling more than $16 million -- including: 2,706 tax refunds issued to a single account totaling $7.3 million.

The IRS issued a statement in response to the report that said in part the agency has recognized issues with the ITIN process ...

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April 26, 2012
Report: Tax loophole costs billions
Millions of illegal immigrants are getting a bigger tax refund than you. Eyewitness News shows a massive tax loophole that provides billions of dollars in tax credits to undocumented workers   ...  undocumented workers are not supposed to have a social security number. So for them to pay taxes, the IRS created what's called an ITIN, an Individual Taxpayer Identification Number ...
  Read more about Report finds widespread fraud in taxpayer ID program

Investigators say the Internal Revenue Service may have delivered more than $5 billion in refund checks to identity thieves who filed fraudulent tax returns for 2011.

They estimate that another $21 billion could make its way to ID thieves' pockets over the next five years.

The Treasury Department's inspector general for tax administration says the IRS is detecting far fewer fraudulent tax refund claims than actually occur ...

  Read more about IRS may have sent more than $5B to identity thieves