Easy-to-Get Licenses Expose Md. to Fraud

Out-of-State Illegal Immigrants Exploit Rules

No. 5284 Randolph Rd., in a Rockville shopping center, is a modest Parcel Plus store where small businesses rent mailboxes by the month. It's also the address used by at least 42 undocumented immigrants living in states along the Eastern Seaboard to fake a Maryland residence so they could get a driver's license, records show.

Most of them got away with it, authorities say, evidence that Maryland -- the last holdout east of the Colorado Rockies in the nationwide effort to tighten rules on how states issue driver's licenses -- has become a magnet for illegal immigrants from Georgia to Delaware seeking driving privileges.

Along with New Mexico, Hawaii and Washington state, Maryland does not check the immigration status of drivers when they apply for a license. The policy has made the state vulnerable to widespread fraud by illegal immigrants living outside Maryland -- as well as to criminals seeking to create false identities -- according to court records and interviews with state officials.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/03/27/AR2009032703555.html

[Posted by Maricela Gutierrez]