Fake documents.  For illegal immigrants coming into the United States their ability to live, work and function here depends upon fake documents.

There is an interesting dichotomy for people who have had a lifelong dream to come to the United States.  My wife is from Brazil.  She determined as a little girl that she would get to the U.S. no matter what it took.  Of course, the price of being married to me may not have been worth it J.K.  She taught herself English, finished school, and dreamed of coming to the United States.  Because of the difficutly of getting here, she eventually went to Switzerland instead because she had a cousin there.  She stayed there for 12 years before she had the opportunity to come to the USA. 

There are milliions of people around the world who still look to the USA as the ultimate dream.  They work their whole lives and sacrifice everything just for the outside chance to come here.  They look at the USA as the land where anything is possible.  Really, it is.  The United States is still the land of unlimited possibilites.  There are many problems here to be sure, but even the most disadvantaged US citizen has orders of magnitude more opportunity than any average citizen of, say, Zimbabwe, Nigeria, Peru, or Bolivia (just to name a few).  People will take enormous risks to get here.

Their ability to stay here depends on their ability to generate the necessary fake documents to get work.  The immigration  reform act of 1986 specified that employers needed to verify that prospective employees were authorized to work.  Acceptable proof included the prospective employee showing a Social Security Card.  Not suprisingly, this led to millions of fake Social Security Cards which, it turns out, is an easy document to forge.  Most forgers simply make up a number and put it on the fake card with the real name of the illegal immimgrant.  The illegal immigrant then simply presents this card to the employer and viola, they are hired.  There is no requirment by the federal goverment to actually verify whether this number actually is 1) an actually valid assigned number and 2) whether, if the number is an actual assigned number, it matches the name of the person presenting the card.  There is currently a voluntary check, but it is not mandatory.

Once they are hired, the immigrant still has the challenge of being able to cash checks made out to them.  If they have managed to obtain other identification they can open a bank account.  Otherwise, they can cash checks at most payday loan stores who are only too happy to take these good checks made out from businesses, cash them and take a nice profit off the top.  The identification standards of payday loan stores are way lower than banks.

By now, many of you know that the most recently proposed immigration reform measure has been virtually killed in the US senate.  One of the key provisions of this measure was actually forcing all employers to verify the eligibility of prospective employees to work in the US.  This would have most likely entailed a large database with online access for employers to check Social Security Numbers and names against eligibility in the database.  Coupled with this would be large fines for employers who knowingly hired people who did not come back as eligible from the database check.