Four illegal aliens sentenced for falsely claiming U.S. citizenship

February 27, 2007

This case helped expose a major identity theft scheme to help illegal aliens gain employment

LOUISVILLE, Ky. - Four illegal aliens from Guatemala were sentenced yesterday in federal court here for falsely claiming to be U.S. citizens in an attempt to get hired at Swift & Company. The sentences resulted from an investigation conducted by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE).

An ICE investigation revealed that each defendant had unlawfully possessed and used a social security card, issued to another individual, with the intent to falsely claim U.S. citizenship when applying for a job at the Swift & Company plant in Louisville. Specifically, during the hiring process at Swift & Company, each defendant knowingly and intentionally checked the box on the I-9 employee verification form falsely indicating that they were a "citizen or national of the United States." The defendants checked this box knowing that they were not U.S. citizens, but rather citizens of Guatemala. Three of the defendants lived in Shelbyville and one lived in Taylorsville, KY. One defendant, Nicolas Ciprian-Cortez, had illegally entered the U.S. after being previously deported in June 2002, which is a felony.