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Social Security numbers offered for rent
Mexicans back home find willing customers in illegal immigrants

By Eduardo Porter
NEW YORK TIMES NEWS SERVICE

June 7, 2005


The New York Times
Mexican teacher Gerardo Luviano said letting an illegal immigrant in the United States use his Social Security number could provide him with retirement income down the line.
TLALCHAPA, Mexico – Gerardo Luviano is looking for somebody to rent his U.S. Social Security number.

Luviano, 39, obtained legal residence in the United States almost 20 years ago. But these days, teaching beekeeping at the high school in this hot, dusty town in Guerrero state, Luviano is not using his Social Security number.

So he is looking for an illegal immigrant in the United States to use it for him – providing a little cash along the way.

A secondary trade in identities has emerged and it straddles both sides of the border, virtually undetected by U.S. authorities.

"It is seen as a normal thing to do," said Luis Magana, an immigrant rights activist assisting farm workers in the San Joaquin Valley.

"I've almost managed to contact somebody to lend my number to," Luviano said. "My brother in California has a friend who has crops and has people that need one."

In Torrance, a 49-year-old illegal immigrant from Michoacán state who earns $8.16 an hour at a waffle factory, says she has been using a Social Security number she borrowed from a friend in Mexico since she crossed illegally into the United States 15 years ago. "She hasn't come back," said the woman, who did not want to be identified.

The number of people participating in the illegal deals is impossible to determine accurately.

Hundreds of thousands of immigrants who cross the border from Mexico illegally each year need to procure a legal identity that will allow them to work in the United States. Many legal immigrants, whether living in the United States or back in Mexico, are happy to provide them: As they pad their earnings by letting illegal immigrants work under their name and number, they also enhance their unemployment and pension benefits. And sometimes they charge for the favor.

Martín Mora, a former migrant to the United States who these days is a prominent local politician preparing to run for a seat in the state legislature in October's elections, said that in just one town in the Tlalchapa municipality, "of about 1,000 that fixed their papers in the United States, there might be 50 that are here and lending their number."

Demand for U.S. identities has blossomed in the cracks between the nation's immigration laws and businesses' demand for low-wage labor.

In 1986, when the Immigration Reform and Control Act started penalizing employers who knowingly hired illegal immigrants, most employers started requiring immigrants to provide the paperwork – including a Social Security number – to prove their eligibility to work.

The new law did not stop unauthorized immigrant work, of course. An estimated 10 million illegal immigrants live in the United States, an increase from 4 million before the immigration law went into effect. But it did create a thriving market for fake documents.

These days, most immigrants working unlawfully buy a document combo for $100 to $200 that includes a fake green card and fake Social Security card sporting a number plucked out of thin air. "They'll make it for you right there at the flea market," said David Blanco, an illegal immigrant from Costa Rica who works as an auto mechanic in Stockton.

This process has a big drawback, however. Each year, Social Security receives millions of W-2 earning statements in which the name or number don't match its records.

Nine million poured in for 2002, many of them just simple mistakes. In response, the agency sends hundreds of thousands of letters asking employers to correct the information. These letters can provoke the firing of the offending worker.

Working with a name linked to a number recognized by Social Security – even if it is just borrowed or leased – avoids these pitfalls.

Since legal U.S. residents can lose their green cards if they stay outside the country too long, for those who have returned to Mexico, it is useful to have somebody working under their identity north of the border.

"There are people who live in Mexico who take $4,000 or $5,000 in unemployment in the off season," said Jorge Eguiluz, a labor contractor working in the fields around Stockton. "They just lend the number during the season."

The deals also generate cash in other ways. Most identity lending happens within an extended family, or among immigrants from the same hometown.

But it is still a hard-nosed transaction. Illegal immigrant workers usually earn so little money that they are owed an income tax refund. The illegal immigrant "working the number" will usually pay the real owner by sharing the refund.

"Sometimes the one who is working doesn't mind giving all the refund, he just wants to work," said Fernando Rosales, who runs a shop preparing income taxes in the immigrant-rich enclave of Huntington Park. "But others don't and sometimes they fight over it. We see that all the time. It's the talk of the place during income tax time."


Find this article at:
http://www.signonsandiego.com/uniontrib/20050607/news_1n7socsec.html

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