Intergovernmental Affairs Committee of the House of Representatives of the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania: May 22, 2008
Introduction
Hello. My name is Neil Berro and I am the Spokesman for the Coalition for a Secure Driver’s License, also known as CSDL. We are a not for profit and non partisan organization with offices in New York City and in Washington, DC. Our central objective is to educate the public, as well as state and local government officials, about the importance of establishing and maintaining high security standards for drivers’ licenses and other identity documents.
This is our third opportunity to testify before the Intergovernmental Affairs Committee on this important subject. Our primary presentation in Pittsburgh on March 13th dealt with the anti-fraud components of federal regulations implementing PL 109-13 that combat identity fraud. Our May 8th testimony in Scranton focused primarily on combating the long-established myths in regard to REAL ID and offered factual support as to how Pennsylvania has seen identity fraud tied to driver’s license processes that facilitated the crimes of a very large cocaine distribution gang.
In that earlier testimony, I explained how REAL ID compliant drivers’ licenses are a key public safety component for airport inspections, shown how insufficient document validation by state DMVs facilitate violent crimes by crooks hiding under assumed identities, and explained that the infrastructure and data protection requirements of the federal driver’s license regulations will require the states to close security loopholes that today facilitate criminals and illegal immigrants.
Today, I want to take time to attempt to help people overcome the large volume of disinformation about the federal driver’s license regulations in PL109-13.
First, the purpose of the REAL ID Act, which is now Public Law 109-13, was to strengthen the state system of drivers’ licenses so that federal inspectors and law enforcement officers would be better able to identify people who may pose a risk to the rest of us. The law and accompanying Congressional explanations emphasized the need to strengthen the state driver’s license regime so that the state driver’s license would provide reasonable certainty that the states had confirmed the actual identity of a person before issuing a driver’s license.
At the time Members of Congress were concerned about the inability of the United States to tell with any accuracy whether an individual possessing a driver’s license was lawfully present in the United States. Let me say that this risk to public safety continues, because the REAL ID Act is a very long way from being implemented or enforced by the federal government. Let me also say that there is a very substantial and continuing risk to United States residents from foreign terrorists.
The major weakness among state driver’s license systems today include:
· Insufficient training for processing clerks combined with an absence of 3rd party validation of documents that results in limited protection against fraudulent documents. This vulnerability is the means by which the cocaine distribution gang members indicted by Pennsylvania’s Attorney General were able to obtain valid drivers’ licenses through the use of stolen identities. It is also why research data shows that fraudulent drivers’ licenses are a factor in 35% of federal investigations of identity theft and fraud.
· No requirement for proof of lawful presence, or alternatively such a low standard for documentary proof that there is little barrier against those not lawfully present in this country.
· Undue reliance on identity documents that can be easily forged or counterfeited.
· An unwillingness to spend money on physical security features embedded in the card to prevent counterfeiting. The result of this vulnerability is an inability by law enforcement officials to visually differentiate between real and fake drivers’ licenses, and a consequent high level of safety risk for the police, as well as the public.
· No background investigations of DMV employees. Failing to check out key employees creates an environment where there is no barrier to collusion between criminals and state employees. While most DMV employees are honest, there are always a few bad apples. And those crooks looking for inside contacts to facilitate fraud will find those bad apples. Over the past five years, there have been large scale prosecutions of corrupt DMV employees in Virginia, New Jersey and Tennessee. Earlier this week, on May 19th, a former DMV employee in the District of Columbia was sentenced a multi-year prison sentence for soliciting and accepting bribes in the sale of over 200 drivers’ licenses there. For those who assume that this was just about immigration, Ms. Gonzalez not only fraudulently reported immigration status, but she also falsified records about driving exams. Essentially, her illegal alien customers were able to avoid all the rules of the District of Columbia DMV by paying her $500 or more per license, and that means unsafe drivers are on the road. [1] Ms. Gonzalez’s customers are almost all still out there on the roads, as most were living in Virginia and other states and police are unable to locate them. Even though the DMV has canceled the fraudulently issued licenses, the people who obtained them are still out there and using those licenses to drive. This is a serious public safety issue throughout the country.
Those same problems exist here in Pennsylvania as demonstrated by the 40 plus members of the cocaine gang indicted recently by the state Attorney General. The Gonzalez case illustrates how a valid driver’s license issued through fraud is worth hundreds or perhaps thousands of dollars to the person who needs it. That is because a driver’s license in an assumed name allows an illegal alien, or a criminal or a foreign terrorist to hide in plain site.
Believe me when I say that I understand your concerns about the federal government having access to the private identity information. But you should know that you are attacking the wrong law when you protest the REAL ID Act. The REAL ID Act, and Public Law 109-13 don’t actually increase any federal access to your identity information. Federal law enforcement agents have had access to state driver’s license data well before the REAL ID Act was passed. They have access to state driver’s license records under provisions of the Social Security Act, and under various Internal Revenue Acts, under certain Banking laws, and under a whole variety of federal criminal statutes. What the REAL ID Act accomplishes is to authorize individual states to confirm driver’s license data with other states. It does that so that a state like Pennsylvania can confirm that the driver’s license issued in another state such as New York which is being presented by an applicant for a Pennsylvania license was validly issued to that same person. In other words, a clerk at the Pennsylvania DMV can quickly validate that the person standing in front of the counter is the same person to which the New York license was issued. Or, in some cases, the clerk can determine that the person standing at the counter is an identity thief and that the thief is attempting to build a new and false identity records and is, in fact, attempting to perpetrate fraud on the Pennsylvania DMV.
Now there may some people who don’t want the Pennsylvania DMV to have the option of confirming an out of state license quickly and securely, but most of our citizens do. Why don’t some people want an out of state license confirmed? It’s because those same people have lost their license in another state.
On Tuesday morning of this week, a driver who obtained a New Jersey driver’s license by fraud after New York suspended his license for drunk driving critically injured a police officer by crashing into his police cruiser.[2] You need to understand that the interstate connectivity which will be established under the REAL ID implementation will address those problems.
I know that many Americans have lost faith in the federal government. That lack of trust has contributed to opposition to efforts to improve the security of identity documents, and that’s very unfortunate.
There’s also a very large number of lobbyists for organizations which oppose REAL ID primarily because they see it as a negative impact on the twelve to twenty million illegal aliens residing in the United States. And there’s no doubt that the organizations and employers who benefit from the current immigration mess are putting their money behind opposition to REAL ID. The question is, does the public benefit when states are encouraged to allow people to cheat the system? I don’t think a case can be made for that.
It doesn’t matter whether the fraud is undertaken by terrorists or by identity thieves or by illegal aliens, the threat and risk to the safety of Americans posed by the current fragmented situation needs to be corrected. And that correction will need to be undertaken by the states themselves.
For many years, the states have worked together to police commercial drivers’ licenses to prevent bad drivers and criminals from exploiting interstate opportunities. There are federal regulations for commercial drivers’ licenses enforced by both the Department of Transportation and the Department of Homeland Security, but the principal duties of the federal government have been to provide federal funding and to ensure that the central data exchange owned and operated by the states, functions effectively. The exchange of information about commercial drivers among the states operates through the Commercial Driver’s License System, known by its acronym CDLIS. Operating for nearly 20 years, CDLIS has never once experienced a data loss or had its security compromised. A large part of that security success lies in the design of CDLIS, which is a pointer system that substantially confirms data, and severely limits query capability.
CDLIS is an excellent example of how all the states can work together to protect the public safety. Law enforcement officers have a high degree of certainty that when a person presents a commercial driver’s license as proof of identity, that person is exactly who he or she claims to be.
As I’ve explained at earlier hearings, it’s critical that the states step up and accept their responsibility to substantially improve the identity systems they operate for their state residents. The dramatic changes in world economics and modes of transportation have led us to a point where our former physical isolation is no longer a factor, and
I recognize that many Americans today, and certainly some of those present at the two past hearings have forgotten 9-11 or have fallen victim to urban myths and conspiracy theorists, and don’t believe that they or their families are at risk from foreign terrorists.
It’s probably understandable that Americans now discount the threat because they live far from New York and Washington, where the largest impact of 9/11 took place. But I am surprised that would be the case here in Pennsylvania.
On my way to this hearing by car, I detoured from the most direct route because I wanted to visit the Flight 93 National Memorial. I was deeply moved by the temporary memorial that protects the site of the crash of the United Airlines airliner brought down by foreign terrorists.
Of the four aircraft hijacked on September 11, Flight 93 is the only one that did not reach its intended target. There is evidence that the foreign terrorists intended that plane to crash into the United States Capitol in Washington, D.C.. As vividly presented by a semi-documentary movie, the passengers had learned about the attacks on the World Trade Center through cellular telephone calls to family. Two flight attendants and six passengers fought the hijackers and thereby potentially prevented the death of thousands. The bravery of the passengers and the crew almost certainly brought about the plane crashing into the Pennsylvania field shortly after 10 a.m., killing all on board.
As today’s testimony will likely be the last I will present to the Intergovernmental Affairs Committee here, I want to tell you that we should not forget the example set by the heroes of Flight 93. Foreign terrorists will strike again if we do not maintain our vigilance and forcefully oppose them.
Those heroes “got it” and I “get it,” even if some in this audience and at the earlier hearings at which I testified do not.
The threat from foreign terrorists has not diminished. In fact, the evidence collected by foreign governments as well as that of most experts who are not part of our federal government is that the threat has increased. There is considerable evidence that the current war in Iraq is being used as a training ground for the use of improvised explosive devices and terrorist recruiting techniques by Al Qaida and other Islamic extremist groups. While mainstream Muslims in this country and across the world are critical of the extremists, their rejection of terrorism does not change the empirical evidence that the number of foreign terrorists has grown, as well as their determination to inflict more destruction on this country.
There have been missteps by our federal government in working with the states on REAL ID, and there is a continued lack of federal funding to support state efforts to improve driver’s license security. At the same time, the vast majority of the American people continue to support higher standards of driver license identification requirements. They do so because, in fact, the safety and security of three hundred million Americans will prevail against the misguided opposition.
Now I want to talk about the particular problem caused by issuing full term drivers’ licenses to foreign visitors. The problem that often derives from issuing full term drivers’ licenses to non immigrants with one year or two year visas is generically described as “visa overstays.” At present, thousands of foreign visitors obtain drivers’ licenses while lawfully present, then overstay the terms of their visas and use the five to eight year term drivers’ licenses as valid IDs for work purposes. They can do that because under federal law, a driver’s license or state issued ID card is sufficient evidence of lawful presence, together with a valid Social Security Number, for an employer to complete a W-9 federal employment form. Since the foreign worker received a social security number and a driver’s license while he was lawfully present, he can stay and work illegally because his identity documents do not reflect the terms of this visa. In the case of the 9/11 terrorists, several had overstayed their visa terms, but were still able to obtain drivers’ licenses. It is because of this current loophole exploited by the 9/11 terrorists that the REAL ID act regulations stipulate that states must require proof of lawful presence.
We at CSDL urge states to restrict driver’s license terms to the term on the visa, and to refuse driver’s license applicants who are foreign visitors without valid visas. The United States is a signatory to the 1949 Geneva Convention on Road Traffic, under which the citizens of more than a hundred countries can drive in the United States for a year using the driver’s license of their native country. The United States is also a signatory to the Inter-American Convention on the Regulation of Inter-American Automotive Traffic, which allows driver’s license holders from Mexico and 8 other Latin American countries to freely drive about the United States without obtaining a license from one of our own states for up to a year. Together, these agreements eliminate the need for a state to issue a driver’s license to a short term foreign visitor.
Given that there is little need to do so, why do states issue drivers’ licenses to foreign visitors? It’s economics. States have seen such policies as facilitating tourism and business travel. And frankly, until the past twenty years there was fairly vigorous enforcement of immigration laws by the federal government that were generally reinforced by state governments. That enforcement limited the risk of illegal aliens exploiting the state driver’s license systems. Also over the past twenty years, a series of court decisions combined with massive legal immigration have compelled many states to offer driver’s license applications and proficiency tests in a multiple languages, so there is no longer a language barrier for foreign visitors to overcome to obtain a driver’s license in the United States. And, of course, there is pressure on state officials from unscrupulous employers who see an opportunity to reduce their wage cost by hiring illegal aliens as workers, provided those same workers can get cover identity documents such as drivers’ licenses.
Each year, millions of foreign nationals are admitted into the United States. Those who are admitted temporarily and for a specific purpose are referred to as non immigrants. Most non immigrants enter as tourists or business travelers on short-term trips while others, such as students, temporary workers, and foreign diplomats, stay for longer periods of time, ranging from a few months to several years.
Let me offer you some hard numbers, so you can see why states need to stop issuing drivers’ licenses to non-immigrants here on short term visas. Excluding Canadian and most Mexican visitors, when a foreign visitor legally enters the United States, he or she is issued an I-94 form that is proof of legal entry. The visitor is required to hold onto that I—94 form until leaving the United States.
At present, Canadians and roughly 8 million Mexican citizens who have obtained B1/ B2 border crossing cards are not issued I-94 form. Noting that exclusion, in 2006 approximately 34 million foreign visitors were issued I-94 forms. According to the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), the majority of these 34 million visitors, roughly ninety per cent (89%) were here for short term visits, with three fourths here as tourists and about 15 per cent here on business trips.
According to DHS, one-half of all arrivals were by citizens of just four countries: Mexico (18 percent), the United Kingdom (15 percent), Japan (13 percent), and Germany (5.1 percent). Over half of all non immigrants reported California (17 percent), Florida (15 percent), New York (13 percent), or Texas (7.3 percent) as their state of destination.[3]
So who makes up the 10 per cent of foreign visitors that are not here for short term visits? In 2006, there were 1.7 million temporary workers. That’s correct, the United States brings in nearly two million guest workers every year, many of them on visas of two years or more. Only 180,000 of the temporary workers enter as seasonal workers.
The other large components of 2006 foreign visitors were foreign students and their families, which made up about 1.2 million non-immigrant foreign visitors in 2006. In total, in 2006 there were about 3 million foreign visitors for which a case can be made that states might issue them drivers’ licenses, provided they can pass driving proficiency tests.
And, by the way, about half of these foreign visitors will have applied for and obtained social security numbers in order to work while they are here in the United States. Consequently, unless states also use the federal SAVE[4] information system to verify immigration status, there is a considerable risk that a state will issue drivers’ licenses and ID cards to illegal aliens who had been lawfully present in the United States at an earlier time, and obtained a social security number at that time.
The fact is well known to most Americans. Because there is little or no internal enforcement of federal immigration laws, it is relatively easy for a foreign visitor to illegally remain indefinitely in the United States, provided he has two things: a social security number and a driver’s license. Unless a state verifies that a valid Social Security Number was issued to the person standing at the counter, and also verifies that person has immigrant status or a valid visa, that state is likely to become a haven for illegal aliens.
In conclusion, weak driver’s license procedures were a contributing factor to the terrorist attacks of September 11th, 2001. Weak procedures for document verification and indifference to requiring proof of lawful presence encourage illegal visa overstay and facilitate employer violation of the labor laws that protect American workers. Criminals will continue to attack any vulnerability in state identity document processes, and existing loose practices contribute to identity theft and multiple forms of fraud. Until there is a disciplined and consistent approach by both state and federal government to provide reliable identity documents to our lawful citizens and legal immigrants, the United States will remain at substantial risk from foreign and domestic terrorists, from unfriendly foreign governments, and from both organized crime and the identity thief next door. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, for allowing me to provide this testimony.
[1]nbc4.com Former D.C. DMV Worker Admits Issuing Fraudulent Licenses Prosecutors Say Woman Overrode DMV Computer System, Changed Applicants' Immigration Status POSTED: 4:38 pm EDT May 19, 2008; UPDATED: 6:18 pm EDT May 19, 2008; WASHINGTON -- A former D.C. Department of Motor Vehicles employee on Monday admitted to issuing fraudulent driver's licenses to foreign nationals. Patricia E. Gonzalez, 39, of Takoma Park, pleaded guilty Monday to a charge of receipt of a bribe by a public official. She said she issued about 200 driver's licenses between October 2005 and January 2008, according to the terms of her plea deal. Gonzalez accepted between $500 and $1,000 for the fraudulent licenses. Salvador Diaz, Gloria Gonzalez-Paz and a third unidentified person brought foreign nationals to Gonzalez at either the Brentwood or Georgetown DMV branches. D.C. permits foreign nationals who are legally in the United States there to get driver’s licenses, but they must complete paperwork and pass vision and possibly written and road skills tests. Gonzalez admitted entering false information into DMV’s computer system and using her override authority when the computer system’s internal controls rejected the data, prosecutors said. She also falsely claimed many of the individuals to whom she issued licenses were U.S. citizens. She lied about their legal status to get around requirements, prosecutors said. She also faked written and road test results, prosecutors said. Gonzalez was hired by the D.C. DMV in June 2002 and was assigned to the Georgetown Service Center in May 2007.She is scheduled to be sentenced on Aug. 14. She faces a maximum sentence of 15 years and a fine of $250,000 and a likely sentenced of 37 to 46 months in prison under the federal sentencing guidelines. Gonzalez-Paz on May 13 admitted bringing dozens of other people to Gonzalez to obtain driver’s licenses, for which she received between $1,000 and $1,700, prosecutors said. Gonzalez-Paz admitted paying Gonzalez between $500 and $700 for each fraudulent license that Gonzalez issued. She is set to be sentenced on Aug. 12. Four people have pleaded guilty to misdemeanor fraud in connection with the scheme: Dora Morales of Vienna, Jose Leonades Andrades of Riverdale, Marina Montiel of Hyattsville, and Violeta Del Orbe Mercedes of Hyattsville. Each admitted paying Gonzalez-Paz for licenses. Copyright 2008 by nbc4.com
[2] Suspect's N.Y. License Was Suspended; MELVILLE, N.Y. (Associated Press)―Police said a drunk driver with a suspended New York driver's license who crashed into a police cruiser and injured an officer "beat the system" by obtaining a license out of state. Nassau County Police Officer Kenneth Baribault remained in critical condition Monday at Nassau University Medical Center. The 30-year-old was injured when a car plowed into his police cruiser Sunday on the Long Island Expressway near Plainview. Police said that driver Rahiem Griffin had a suspended New Yorkdriver's license, but that he was able to obtain a license in New Jersey. Griffin faces charges including vehicular assault and reckless driving. His attorney argued that bail be set at $2,500, saying his client "has never been in trouble before." The judge set bail at $200,000 bond or $100,000 cash. May 20, 2008.
[3] Temporary Admissions of Nonimmigrants to the United States: 2006, July, 2007, Department of Homeland Security Office of Immigration Statistics.
[4] The Systematic Alien Verification for Entitlements (SAVE) Program is maintained by the United States Citizenship and Immigration Service of the Department of Homeland Security, and access is provided to the states on a cost recovery basis, amounting to pennies per inquiry.
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