http://www.realcities.com/mld/krwashington/11969212.htm

Thu, Jun. 23, 2005

Illegal immigrants got licenses to transport hazardous materials

By Shannon McCaffrey

Knight Ridder Newspapers

WASHINGTON - A federal crackdown on fraud at state motor vehicle
departments across the country has nabbed dozens of illegal immigrants
licensed to transport hazardous materials.

While none of those apprehended has any known links to terrorism,
federal agents said Thursday that the recent busts have revealed a
significant threat to homeland security. In one case, a Pakistani man
ordered to leave the United States nine years ago was instead driving
a tanker truck filled with gasoline for Exxon.

"This is a national security issue," said Elissa Brown, the special
agent in charge of the Bureau of Immigration and Customs Enforcement's
office in Chicago, where six men were taken into custody.

"Illegal aliens should not have the freedom to transport hazardous
materials throughout the United States."

The Justice Department has begun deportation proceedings against the
six illegal immigrants in Chicago, who'd obtained commercial drivers'
licenses that allowed them to carry hazardous materials. The men are
from Belize, Jordan, Mexico, Mongolia and the Philippines.

In Baltimore, a federal grand jury this week indicted Mansoor Hassan
on six counts of making false statements about his citizenship,
according to court documents. In 1996, a U.S. immigration judge
ordered Hassan to leave the country. He didn't and later got a
Maryland commercial driver's license. Hassan drove tanker trucks for
three different oil companies before federal authorities caught up
with him, they said.

In Florida, 52 people were arrested in late April - including three
Florida motor vehicle department employees - for distributing some
2,000 drivers' licenses to illegal immigrants as part of massive fraud
ring. Thirty-six of them were hazardous material commercial drivers'
licenses, officials said. Some of those arrested had been convicted on
weapons or drug charges or for reckless driving.

Many states have strengthened their hazardous materials license
screening since the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks. However, state
laws remain inconsistent, and Customs says it remains relatively easy
to obtain fraudulent documents that can be used to get a driver's
license. It's unknown how many illegal immigrants obtained such
licenses prior to Sept. 11.

The bipartisan commission investigating the Sept. 11 attacks
criticized sometimes lax state standards for obtaining drivers'
licenses. Eighteen of the 19 hijackers in those attacks had valid
drivers' licenses or state-issued identification cards.

Earlier this year, President Bush signed a law that requires all
driver's license applicants to provide proof of citizenship or legal
residency. States have three years to comply.

Dean Boyd, a spokesman for the Immigration and Customs Enforcement
bureau, said other driver's license fraud investigations are ongoing.


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Fed up with illegal immigration?
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http://www.stoptheinvasion.com/links/
http://fairus.org/
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"Cosmic upheaval is not so moving as a little child pondering the death
of a sparrow in the corner of a barn." -Anouk Aimee, French Actor  
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"Death is better, a milder fate than tyranny", Aeschylus (525BC-456BC),
Agamemnon
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"I wear no Burka." - Mother Nature
   
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