The flood of nearly 180,000 migrants to New York City since the spring of 2022 has created a cottage industry for criminals with ties to MS-13 and other violent gangs.
In a report from The New York Post, criminals were observed openly and brazenly selling fake green cards and social security cards to illegals on street corners.
Forged documents can open a bank account, secure employment, and potentially obtain valid documents. They can even be used to avoid a trail of criminal offenses.
Bruce Foucart, a former special agent in charge of Homeland Security investigations in New England, told The Post that, armed with forged IDs, someone could “load up a truck with bombs … and bring it underneath the Holland Tunnel and create something major and disastrous.”
“For someone that wants to do terrorist activity or is a national security threat, it’s easy to establish this second life within the US,” said Foucart.
He added, “I guarantee right now, we’re just waiting for another 9/11.”
Roy Fenoff, an associate professor at the Department of Criminal Justice at the Citadel, South Carolina, said the fake documents give migrants access to a slew of services otherwise impossible without government identification.
“Once people have these fake cards, they can work, they can travel, they can access a lot of aspects and services in the United States,” he said. “There are people getting these cards that are not here just to get a job, that they have other intentions, and this helps them carry out criminal activity.”
He said the social security cards are fake, but the numbers are real, so U.S. citizens can be affected.
“If I’m using a social security number that’s of another person, and then I’m committing crimes, and I’m using [their] name, you potentially have warrants out there for innocent people’s arrest, because you don’t really know who this person was,” he said, citing a case he handled of a Denver woman whose ID was stolen.
Diego Ibarra, the brother of Jose Ibarra, the illegal who is accused of killing nursing student Laken Riley is currently in federal custody in a case involving the alleged possession of a fake green card.
