Crews of illegal immigrants continue to sell fake documents along Columbia Road in Adams Morgan despite several federal raids on the illicit operations there, according to residents and District officials.
D.C. Council Member Jim Graham said that in the past two years immigration officials have knocked out fake ID mills operating in the neighborhood, but he’s received several reports that the crews have returned and are more aggressive and blatant about selling their illegal wares.
“They were thick as thieves and now it’s apparent they’re back,” Graham said.
The crews stand along the sidewalks and signal to passersby that they are open for business by flashing a C-sign with their hands and whispering “Mica,” Spanish slang for plastic or green card, authorities said.
The men sell green cards — slang for a federal government document issued that lets immigrants work legally in the United States — Social Security cards or fake driver’s licenses.
If a photo is needed, the buyer can duck into a nearby shop that sells passport photos.
A local ring sells its fake IDs on one side of the street while a national syndicate works the other side, Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents have told The Examiner.
One neighbor, who has lived on the street for more than a dozen years, said Friday he got into a confrontation with the men earlier this week after he tried to move them away from his doorstep near Champlain Street and Columbia Road Northwest.
The resident asked The Examiner not be identified for fear of retaliation.
Immigrations officials, who have been targeting the Washington area since two of the Sept. 11, 2001, hijackers were able to obtain fake IDs in Northern Virginia, have made about 200 arrests around Adams Morgan, officials said.
Under the project called Operations Card Shark, agents have wiped out one operation entirely and forced two other organizations to combine into one.
All but one of the people they’ve arrested were illegal immigrants.
Immigration and Customs Enforcement spokeswoman Ernestine Fobbs said Friday that the agents have made about two raids each year and the operation continues to monitor the neighborhoods.
The agency is putting together a case to go after the kingpins, she said.
