April 21, 2008 8:50AM # Cracking Down — on Legal Permanent Residents By [Jim Harper](https://www.cato.org/people/jim-harper) --- SHARE Prepare for more of [this](http://www.dallasnews.com/sharedcontent/dws/news/world/stories/DN-wrongman_19met.ART.State.Edition2.46bdb93.htm) if electronic employment eligibility verification goes national. Reports Dianne Solís of the *Dallas Morning News*: > Federal immigration agents executing arrest warrants for workers at the Pilgrim’s Pride poultry plant in Mount Pleasant arrested the wrong Jesus García at his home near the plant – despite his repeated assurances that he was a legal permanent resident. > > > Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents targeted workers at Pilgrim’s plants in Texas and four other states, and by Thursday, had arrested 311 workers on identity fraud charges or immigration violations. > > > … > > > “We think it is a case of mistaken identity,” said Fernando Dubove, Mr. García’s attorney. “It is the wrong Jesus García. It is really tough when you have a common name.” This is probably just coincidence, but were an electronic employment eligibility verification system in place, illegal immigrants would affirmatively pursue this as a strategy, deepening the simple identity frauds they commit now to get ‘legal’ employment. They would acquire proof of identification as good or better than the true holder of a given identity. In my recent paper, “[Electronic Employment Eligibility Verification: Franz Kafka’s Solution to Illegal Immigration](https://www.cato.org/pub_display.php?pub_id=9256),” I discussed what would happen when mistaken identity/​identity fraud situations arose in the [EEV](http://www.washingtonwatch.com/bills/show/110_HR_4088.html) [systems](http://www.washingtonwatch.com/bills/show/110_HR_5515.html) now being debated on Capitol Hill: > \[L\]aw-abiding citizens would regularly stand accused of identity fraud. The SSA and DHS would not know which user of a name-SSN pair was the genuine person and which was using a false identity. EEV would tentatively nonconfirm all users of that name-SSN pair. The “true” individuals attached to fraudulently used identities would learn of identity fraud in their names when they were refused work by EEV and plunged into a bureaucratic morass. Luckily, these victims of the system would just be denied employment and not arrested — if that’s your idea of luck … [![Creative Commons License](/build/cato_2020/images/creative-commons.svg)](http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0/) This work is licensed under a [Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License](https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0/).