this post was submitted on 24 Jan 2025
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What if someone in a government agency just started printing birth certificates and social security cards for everyone? How would anyone know the difference? Like fake IDs on a mass scale.

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[–] spankmonkey 48 points 2 days ago (1 children)

Oh, I thought you were pointing out that funding the process so they can get their documents would be the solution, which is true. The whole 'border crisis' is a manufactured problem caused by defunding the immigration process, especially for asylum seekers, and capping the number that can immigrate to a ridiculously low number.

The solution is improving the process so they can be documented.

[–] Dadifer 14 points 2 days ago (1 children)

Yeah, but in lieu of that, printer go brrrrrrr

[–] BeatTakeshi 3 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago)

Given how the US is detaching itself from the concepts of truth or facts or rules, why not. "Hey is your ID fake"? "Fuck you police officer". "My bad, have a nice day sir"

[–] [email protected] 24 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago)

When they talk about illegal immigrants they actually mean brown people.

[–] [email protected] 18 points 1 day ago

They don't care about documents. Real or fake.

https://midmichigannow.com/news/nation-world/ice-immigration-and-customs-enforcement-raid-in-newark-new-jersey-ocean-seafood-depot-detains-undocumented-residents-citizens-and-veteran-mayor-decries-lack-of-warrant-president-donald-trump-executive-orders-immigrants

"Today, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents raided a local establishment in the City of Newark, detaining undocumented residents as well as citizens, without producing a warrant. One of the detainees is a U.S. military veteran who suffered the indignity of having the legitimacy of his military documentation questioned,"

[–] slazer2au 26 points 2 days ago (1 children)
[–] lemmy_user_838586 37 points 2 days ago (2 children)

...not with this administration...

[–] slazer2au 11 points 2 days ago (1 children)

There will be as people cover their own asses when asked to do dodgy things.

[–] SynonymousStoat 4 points 2 days ago* (last edited 1 day ago)

In the past, maybe, but I feel like with the current ruling party having all branches of government under their control that they will become more and more blatant and just expect pardons or the USSC to let them off. It's not like Republicans would actually impeach and remove anyone on their own team.

Edit: grammar

[–] [email protected] 2 points 2 days ago

The trail will last to the next. For that matter in this case the administration would investigate if they suspect something and thus follow the trail.

[–] [email protected] 9 points 2 days ago (4 children)

They'll come to an agreement to keep undocumented immigrants real fast once they learn that communities will suffer a large tax shortage and labor shortage without them.

[–] SynonymousStoat 6 points 2 days ago

Bad part about this is the damage will have already been done by the time they realize it.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 day ago

They will just start mass incarcerations and backstop everything with slave labour. With the side effect of squashing wages even further.

[–] thenextguy 3 points 1 day ago

After the leopards are done eating their faces.

[–] Dadifer 3 points 2 days ago

One can only assume

[–] [email protected] 9 points 2 days ago

The biggest issue is that the birth certificate is typically done at a very local level, usually the county, and not anyone can file one. It's often the case that a particular person at a hospital or a registered midwife needs to file the application. Parents can report a live birth outside of an institution but you need to physically go to a courthouse with the baby.
A different group of people is responsible for social security cards.

If one county clerk files a huge number of birth certificates and uses them to back social security card requests, it'll be noticed.

There's always a way around the paper trail, usually by just making sure no one bothers to look at it, but they all involve adding more people to the conspiracy, which adds more risk.
No one will notice that one doctor delivered 500 babies in one day if no one looks at the paperwork, but each person involved increases the likelihood of a mistake causing people to look, which almost certainly will cause those details to be noticed.

It's similar to how people do a huge amount of any fraud, and then once a thread of detail gets noticed the entire thing is unraveled.

Your best bet is to minimize the number of forged documents. I would predict that a single person could most easily get a non-citizen us national passport for someone to assume an American somoan identity. Since there's comparatively few non-citizen us nationals, a passport is the federally preferred method of identification. Since the territory is an edge case, there's more room for slipups, and since you're not posing as a citizen, you have an excuse not to have some records.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 2 days ago (1 children)

Why would the government serving the rich help the migrant worker obtain stronger bargaining position?

Sometimes it feels like people don't understand these basic concepts.

Migrant labour is used to suppress domestic wages.

H1b for white collar and illegals for blue collar and farm. The moment you give either of them same legal standing as the indigenous population, they will ask for market rate. Literally defeats the purpose of importing them.

[–] Dadifer 1 points 2 days ago (1 children)

Work visas aren't exactly the same as "the indigenous populations".

[–] [email protected] 3 points 2 days ago (1 children)

Exactly, work visa give employer more bargaining power over the wage slave. That's the key feature of the system.

[–] Dadifer 1 points 2 days ago

But also keeps them from being deported.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 2 days ago (1 children)

A county administrator could go rogue and start issuing birth certificates to random adults, but they’d quickly be found out. Then it’s easy to spot the fakes like “All Hazard County birth certs issued between 2025-04-01 and 2025-04-20 are sus.“

[–] Dadifer 0 points 2 days ago (1 children)

How would they be found out, though? When was the last time someone asked for your birth certificate?

[–] [email protected] 5 points 2 days ago* (last edited 2 days ago) (3 children)

When was the last time someone asked for your birth certificate?

  • Just renewed my driver's licensed and it was required
  • For some reason, I needed it to request a transcript from my college
  • Signing the closing papers on my damn house? Believe it or not (I didn't), birth certificate. No idea why.

Are other countries this obsessed with birth certificates?

[–] wide_eyed_stupid 2 points 1 day ago

I have only ever needed my birth certficate once. When I got married. I was living in a foreign (but still EU-) country at the time; I have no idea if I would have needed it to marry in my own country. It's possible my mom might have needed it when I was little, to get me into elementary school or something, no idea about that. It's definitely not needed for a driver's license or a house. That's ridiculous.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 day ago

I didn't need a birth certificate when buying a house. That seems odd.

I also needed one to renew my license. They made it really awesome by rejecting my original birth certificate from the hospital and told me I'd need to pay $70 to get a replacement from some government records office. This isn't even for a real ID or anything.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 2 days ago

Someone will get caught trying to do something illegal with their fraudulent docs, and eventually it will all unravel.

[–] PP_BOY_ 6 points 2 days ago (1 children)

For "everyone" meaning...? Part of the whole "undocumented" problem is that theyre un-documented. How can we issue forms for people we don't even know?

[–] TootSweet 2 points 2 days ago

Advertising? Even if only word-of-mouth.

It would have to be pretty secretive. But it's not like there aren't other services out there that do similar things illegally under cover of anonymity. (Silk Road, anyone?)

[–] [email protected] 3 points 2 days ago (2 children)

so now I can get 7 difierent names with different birthdates. Then I use one to do some fraud under a new name. when the police investigate I have an id of someone else and can throw the old name away.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 day ago

That's always been a possibility.

[–] Dadifer 1 points 2 days ago

That is also true