Advocates for illegal immigrants often argue that working in this country is not a crime. But it is when you steal someone’s identity to find a job.

Federal and state laws are making it more difficult to hire people with forged identities — pushing many illegal immigrants to buy real identities from brokers. Even if those who steal identities do not use them to raid bank accounts, they create a nightmare for the people they violated in the form of IRS audits, bad credit scores and legal fees.

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