In a 5-4 decision, the United States Supreme Court ruled that illegal aliens are not shielded from prosecution for the crime of identity theft solely because of their illegal status, according to Fox.
The controversy surrounded the Immigration Control and Reform Act, which says that information put down on an I-9 work authorization form cannot be used by law enforcement, for such purposes as evidence in a criminal case, unless otherwise specified on a case-by-case basis. Ultimately, the court ruled that such information can be used by law enforcement if the illegal alien in question puts down someone else’s information in the act of identity theft.
The court’s five conservative justices decided the outcome of the case, Kansas v. Garcia, with the court’s four liberal justices dissenting. In the case, three illegal aliens used someone else’s Social Security number on their I-9 forms, and tried to claim that state prosecutors were not permitted to use those I-9 forms as evidence in the criminal charges against them. Although the three were convicted and that ruling was upheld by the Kansas Court of Appeals, it was overturned by the Kansas Supreme Court.
Justice Samuel Alito, writing for the majority, pointed out that, by this logic, “no information placed on an I-9…could ever be used by any entity or person for any reason.”