Supreme Court to Hear Case on Illegal Immigrants' Use of Fake IDs

But federal officials say the charge is a key part of their arsenal because its penalties are substantially tougher than those of other immigration counts. Officials point out that terrorists use false identities, a sensitive issue since the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks. "Post 9/11, we also recognize that identity theft poses a security risk to all of us," Deborah J. Rhodes, senior associate deputy attorney general, said in July at a congressional hearing on the Iowa raid on an Agriprocessors plant in Postville. The raid was the largest criminal work-site enforcement operation in U.S. history.

U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, which led the raid, declined to comment on the pending Supreme Court case. Pat A. Reilly, an ICE spokeswoman, said the agency "is going to seek the highest-level charges it can get on anyone it encounters in a work-site operation or any other kind of illegal activity."

Congress created the aggravated identity theft charge as part of a 2004 law targeting identity theft broadly. The felony charge is defined as knowingly transferring, possessing or using "without lawful authority, a means of identification of another person."

The conviction of Flores-Figueroa in federal court in Iowa was upheld by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 8th Circuit.

"Someone who intends to steal another's identity is worthy of greater punishment than one who unintentionally picks an identification number out of thin air that happens to match one already issued to someone else," attorneys for Flores-Figueroa argued in a brief to the Supreme Court.

The Justice Department's solicitor general's office contends that the conviction should be upheld but asked the court to take up the matter because "there is now a clear and entrenched conflict among the courts of appeals."

Prosecutors also defend their actions in the Postville raid, in which 389 illegal immigrants were detained. About two-thirds of them were initially charged by criminal complaint with aggravated identity theft, but those charges were dropped. Most of the 302 defendants who pleaded guilty to lesser felony immigration charges were sentenced to five months in prison.

"We had evidence that supported the more severe charge," said Bob Teig, a spokesman for the U.S. attorney's office in Cedar Rapids. "I suppose it depends on what side you're on whether that's a carrot or a stick."