Castorena Crime Family: Intersection of Immigration Fraud, Identity Theft, & Terrorism

By Michael Cutler

I recently received an article about the Castorena Family Criminal Organization that appeared in an Arizona Newspaper. In checking through ICE press releases I came upon the fact sheet that was published by ICE about this organization. Undoubtedly ICE is targeting an organization that is worthy of scrutiny. The article in the Newspaper and the press release from ICE show just how insidious this organization is and how it threatens our nation's security.

Identity theft is identified as America's fastest growing white collar crime. The production of false identity documents is of concern in other areas as well. The most basic question we ask someone who we meet is, "Who are you?" To the law enforcement officer, this most basic of questions takes on an additional dimension. The identity of an individual may cause a law enforcement officer to take the person in question into custody because of an outstanding warrant. When a criminal is able to conceal his true identity, he may escape arrest by concealing his identity and criminal history. Name-based watch lists and no-fly lists help security officers to determine whether or not an individual should be permitted to board an airplane, or a train or enter a secure building or facility. Finally, the determination of an individual's identity also has a bearing on whether or not that person should be permitted to work in the United States. The 19 terrorists who did so much damage to our nation and to so many families around the country who lost loved ones, friends and business associates understood the need to conceal their true identities. According to the 911 Commission Staff Report on Terrorist Travel, the 19 terrorists used, in the aggregate, some 364 aliases.

The success in identifying, investigating, and subsequently arresting and successfully prosecuting members of this organization is truly a worthwhile accomplishment. However (and you know, there usually is a "however" ) with so few special agents available to conduct these critical investigations, how many other organizations are "out there" as we speak, furnishing false identity documents to those who pose a threat to our nation and our people? As members of this criminal organization are arrested, how many new "employees" will succeed in making their way into the United States to replace those who have been arrested?

Additionally, fraud schemes are equally troubling and dangerous. As I have testified before Congress, if it is the prospect of employment that draws the majority of illegal aliens across our nation's borders, it is by immigration benefit fraud that they are able to remain here and "hide in plain sight." Indeed, through immigration benefit fraud they are able to gain free access to not only to nation's borders, but to borders of many other countries around the world. Again, to refer to the Staff Report on Terrorist Travel, the terrorists needed to travel often and extensively as they prepared to attack our nation. While we focus on our porous borders, our nation has also failed to focus on the lack of integrity of the immigration benefits program which according to a GAO report that was published in January 2002, fraud was a pervasive problem that permeated the process by which applications for various immigration benefits are adjudicated. These benefits range from granting a nonimmigrant student authorization to change schools, to aliens applying for lawful residency in the United States to the conferring of United States citizenship upon an alien.

The fact that the organization was also able to furnish a complete document "package" including utility bills is especially troubling because this enables an individual, especially a terrorist, drug trafficker or gang member to create a whole new identify for himself. This is virtually the same way that the "Witness Protection Program" works except the Witness Protection Program uses authentic documents whereas the criminals use apparently high-quality counterfeit documents. If our nation is foolish enough to create another amnesty program, even if it called a "Guest Worker" program, document vendors and their parent organizations, such as the one described in these articles will be working overtime to crank out new identities for aliens seeking to prove they meet the requirements to be eligible to participate in such a program, such as evidence that they have been physically present in the United States for the requisite period of time. Lacking the investigative resources, such aliens will have a high probability of succeeding in defrauding our government. This is yet another reason to not only provide better training to ICE, CBP and USCIS officials to identify fraudulent documents, but to require that any alien who wishes to remain in the United States under the auspices of any such guest worker program, should Congress approve it, must first return to his/her country of citizenship and return with a valid passport from that country with an appropriate visa issued by the United States.

The linked article and fact sheet shows just how sophisticated the bad guys can be. It is time that our government committed the resources to successfully battle these criminals to improve the security of our nation. Our government needs to hire many new special agents, provide them with proper funding, training and leadership so they can go after this insidious threat to our well-being and survival.

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