Immigrants had counterfeit ID, police say (The Carlisle Sentinel)

Immigrants had counterfeit ID, police say

By staff reports, March 18, 2008

Last updated: Tuesday, March 18, 2008 12:24 PM EDT

Three illegal immigrants from El Salvadoran who tried to use counterfeit Social Security and immigration cards to get jobs at a local hotel were discovered by a sharp-eyed manager, according to Middlesex Township police.

“The only thing we could get out of them is that they received the cards from a friend,” said Detective Keith Seibert, noting that the three women spoke Spanish and were not cooperative when police arrested them. Two of the sets of cards were “decent” counterfeits, Seibert said, but one looked suspicious enough to raise questions.

“They were actually counterfeit cards using valid numbers,” Seibert said, explaining that one of the numbers belonged to a man. Police aren’t sure of the extent of the counterfeiting at this point, he said, but the issue is serious because it will eventually cause problems for the people those numbers really belong to.

The hotel was in the 1800 block of Harrisburg Pike, police said, and they were alerted at 7:15 a.m. Tuesday. Deysi Lopez, 21, Estela Henriquez, 31, and Canas Ruiz, 27, were charged with forgery and tampering with public records, police said. They are in Cumberland County Prison on $25,000 bail and will be detained by Immigration and Customs enforcement.

“It appears from what we found that they came into Texas, worked in Houston, then migrated to the Pennsylvania area,” Seibert said. The hotel manager thought the three had worked at another area hotel before applying to that one, he said.

“We get a lot of immigrants working here,” said Seibert, explaining that the township’s many trucking and hotel businesses tend to attract them. Despite that, he said, the department doesn’t get many calls on suspected forged documentation.

“It was only because the hotel management took the initiative and contacted us on the suspicious-looking cards” that this case came to light, Seibert said. It appears likely that the women will be deported before they face the charges, he said.

Assisting in the investigation were the Inspector General’s ofice and the Department of Homeland Security, Immigrantions and Customs Enforcement.