An illegal immigration link to identity theft

If that won't work, David adds, he drives to the nearest Food City, a chain that specializes in Hispanic goods. There, he says, he just asks around. "There are even guys there who'll hand you business cards – they're in the business of providing fake documents."

Raul, who works in construction, says it's not uncommon to get a call from a coyote in the morning and, by afternoon, have jobs and fake documents for the newly arrived illegals. The two won't tell how many illegal immigrants they help, but say they get called at least weekly.

All of the arrests at the Swift plants Tuesday targeted illegal immigrants who held actual – not fake – Social Security numbers. Many businesses that make use of immigrant labor participate in a national test program for employers called Basic Pilot, an online system to verify employees' Social Security numbers.

But the fake-documents manufacturers are wise to this, say David and Raul. In Arizona, they assign Social Security numbers that begin with 601 – numbers the government apparently assigns people from Arizona. Employers then don't readily recognize a fake document, and, the men say, it takes at least a year for the government to recognize a duplicate number. That means the illegal immigrant can work in the US for up to a year before being sent home.

Arizona Gov. Janet Napolitano set up an Arizona Fraudulent Identification Task Force in July 2005 as part of a crackdown on crime related to illegal immigration. Since then, the task force has focused in part on fraudulent documents. In doing so, it has issued more than 100 search warrants resulting in 178 defendants charged with 1,400 crimes, says Leesa Morrison, director of the Arizona Department of Liquor Licenses and Control.

"Most astounding," adds Ms. Morrison, "is that in this short period our undercover agents have purchased over 1,000 fraudulent immigration documents. What's frightening is that [they] are able to purchase a three-pack – a driver's license, a Social Security card, and a permanent-resident card – for about $160 on the street."

April 2005: In Florida, immigration agents arrested 52, including several state Department of Motor Vehicles officials, alleged to be part of a scheme to make and sell fake driver's licenses and hazmat licenses to more than 2,000 illegal immigrants. The same month, other sweeps revealed fraudulent license schemes in Michigan and Maryland.

May 2005: In Mississippi, Cedric Carpenter and Lamont Ranson pleaded guilty to conspiring to sell fake documents to members of Abu Sayyaf, a Philippines-based Islamist terrorist group.

February 2006: A lieutenant in the Mexican-based Castorena family organization, a fraudulent document outfit that controls cells in 33 states, was sentenced in Denver to 11 years in prison. More than 50 members of this international counterfeit operation have been prosecuted in Denver alone. Its leader, Pedro Castorena-Ibarra, was arrested in June by Mexican officers and is awaiting extradition to the US.

March 2006: Agents busted seven counterfeit-document labs in Los Angeles and charged 11 people with supplying fraudulent immigration and identity documents.

June 2006: In Boston, immigration agents arrested nine people accused of running a phony document ring. They seized document-forging tools and six computers at five homes. The sweeps led to the arrests of 13 undocumented Brazilian and Guatemalan nationals.

Sources: US Immigration and Customs Enforcement, Associated Press

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