Much has been written about the harm that illegal aliens cause to Americans, legal aliens, hospitals, governments, and others in the U.S. In this article, I will explain some of the ways in which the millions of illegal aliens in America hurt America’s senior citizens.
A large percentage of people in America’s prisons are illegal aliens. Illegal aliens who are wanted for crimes in other countries prefer to be in America where crime is more lucrative and prisons have nicer accommodations. Criminals prey upon the weak. In many cases, that means the young, the elderly, and the handicapped. Often, senior citizens are the targets of criminals who are illegal aliens.
One of the main ways that illegal aliens hurt senior citizens is through identity theft. Senior citizens live on their identity for retirement checks, social security funds, Medicare medical services, retirement funds, etc. Although everyone is at risk for identity theft, senior citizens are more exposed to the possibility of becoming victims.
Identity theft costs Americans billions of dollars per year. The presence of millions of illegal aliens in the U.S. is the chief engine that is driving the identity theft criminal activity.
Following are three paragraphs from an identity theft article in the August 2007 edition of Good Housekeeping magazine.
“In Utah and Houston, where many cases of Social Security ID theft are in the courts, prosecutors say that a majority of imposters are illegal immigrants. There are no national statistics.”
“‘Some immigrants cross the border, go to an ID mill, and say, “I need an SS card and this is the name I want on it,” explains Houston Assistant District Attorney John Brewer. ‘They get jobs, start working, and eventually—when they realize they’re not going to get caught—grow more comfortable with the number. Then they go the next step and sign up for a car loan or mortgage.’”
“And they usually get away with the crime because there are surprisingly few checks to stop this kind of theft, say prosecutors: Employers aren’t required by law to verify Social Security Numbers and some car salesmen and mortgage brokers are willing to overlook a fishy credit report in order to complete a sale.”
A news article which appeared on ABC7Chicago.com for July 11, 2005 stated, “An elderly woman on Chicago’s South Side may be the victim of identity theft and could lose her home because of it. Eighty-three-year-old Lillybella Peagram has lived in the 3500-block of West Van Buren for 45 years. Recently, she received notice from a bank that they will be foreclosing on her home due to an unpaid $150,000 loan taken out in 1990. Peagram says she never took out any loans. Her friends believe her identity was stolen.”
A woman in California who had not worked in years got a letter from the IRS demanding over $15,000 in back taxes from a job in Texas. She investigated and learned that her identity had been used at 81 jobs in 17 states from Florida to Washington State. Although it can not be proved, it is likely that her identity was used by illegal immigrants.
But, identity theft by illegal immigrants doesn’t just hurt senior citizens financially. It hurts senior citizens physically, too.
An insurance card or a Medicare ID number is like a credit card with a two million dollar credit limit.
A headline on the front page of the March 15, 2009 edition of the Chicago Tribune told readers, “In the U.S. illegally, Mariana de la Torre used a fake ID to get $530,000 worth of medical care. . . .”
When a fake ID is used to obtain medical care, the permanent medical record of the true person becomes POLLUTED with false information. This is very dangerous.
Imagine that your mother’s identity was stolen for medical services to an illegal alien. Then, imagine that your mother is in a car accident, that she is taken to a hospital, and her permanent medical records are polluted with false information because of ID theft by an illegal immigrant.
If hospital personnel believe that your mother is diabetic and needs insulin, but she does not, and they give her insulin, it could put your mother into a coma – or worse.
If hospital personnel believe that your mother needs two pints of blood, but they give her the wrong type of blood, your mother will die.
Senior citizens go to doctors, clinics, and hospitals more often than most people in our population. Senior citizens have Medicare ID cards, which means that the Medicare system pays most of the bill. A balance is left for the senior citizen or an insurance company to pay. In cases of senior citizens on Medicaid, another government entity pays the bill. If a senior citizen’s ID is stolen and used to get medical services, then our federal and/or state government is defrauded.
So, the presence of millions of illegal aliens is costing billions of dollars to our government treasuries and to victims of crimes by illegal aliens. But, the ID theft crimes that illegal aliens commit are especially harmful to senior citizens who are more likely to be victims who lose their identities, their life savings, their health, or their lives.
Note: Woodrow Wilcox has helped senior citizens to resolve Medicare bill problems for over seven years as the senior medical bill problem solver at the largest senior citizen oriented insurance agency in the Midwest. He has saved senior citizen clients of his insurance agency almost one million dollars by canceling false, fraudulent, or mistaken medical charges. For other articles by Wilcox, visit www.americanclarion.com/author/woodrow-wilcox
© 2013 Woodrow Wilcox