COP: GOV ‘TALKS A GOOD GAME’
‘ID the Imposter’ officer rips Baker on immigration
A Bay State police officer who is leading the charge against drug-dealing identity thieves is slamming Gov. Charlie Baker as soft on illegal immigration yesterday, joining a growing chorus of critics who say the GOP governor has backtracked from his tough stance on the issue. “He talks a good game. He says he wants to do something about the heroin epidemic, but in the end he doesn’t make any changes,” said Saugus police officer James Scott. Scott is being credited by police officers with training them to detect illegal immigrants — many when they are busted on drug-dealing charges — who’ve obtained Massachusetts driver’s licenses by stealing other people’s identities. He said database searches showing duplicate documentation suggest there could be tens of thousands of fraudulent IDs in Massachusetts alone.
Scott said his program, which trains cops to compare the applicant’s date of birth and Social Security number to an FBI database, could help Registry of Motor Vehicles officials identify illegal immigrants when they are seeking licenses with fraudulent information.
“I think the fraud starts at the registry,” Scott said.
But he said he found a lack of interest in the Baker administration when he sat down for nearly two hours with high-ranking policy officials in March.
“He seemed interested, but then they just shut right down,” Scott said of Baker and his administration. The Republican governor was blasted as “wishy-washy” on immigration last week when his opposition to making Massachusetts a sanctuary state wavered. A Baker spokeswoman deferred comment to the state Department of Transportation, where spokeswoman Jacquelyn Goddard cited
two new federal regulations that require applicants to fill out an affidavit stating they are legal citizens.
“As this law is implemented, the RMV and Massachusetts State Police continue to collaborate on detecting and preventing license and identification fraud, including training front line staff on the use of facial recognition and document authentication technology, and will continue to refine and enhance policies to improve efforts to catch fraud and administer administrative sanctions and criminal penalties in accordance with partners in law enforcement,” Goddard said in a statement.
Even Baker ally state Rep. Shaunna O’Connell (R-Taunton) is baffled by the administration’s resistance to Scott’s program.
“Officer Scott’s program has proven to work. It catches illegals and drug dealers,” said O’Connell, who stopped short of criticizing Baker directly. “I would love to see all the employees at the RMV trained in his program.”
Meanwhile, Scott said hundreds of police officers around the region who’ve been trained in his “Identifying the Impostor” class are nabbing illegal immigrants with fraudulently obtained Massachusetts driving licenses.
“It should be noted that I have attended a class called ‘Identifying the imposter’ taught by Officer James Scott,” wrote Tewksbury police Detective Patrick Connor in a June 27 report detailing his arrest of an alleged crack-dealing illegal immigrant. Connor said the suspect obtained a Massachusetts license using a Puerto Rican citizen’s identity.
“In addition to his fraudulent license, I also located a Mass. Health I.D.,” Connor wrote. “It is my belief these health benefits, which are valued over $250, were obtained fraudulently under the stolen identity.”
Douglas police Sgt. Travis Gould, in a February drug arrest report, noted, “Upon receipt of their fraudulently obtained driver’s licenses, the imposter may now drive legally, register vehicles, travel by air, vote, receive state and federal benefits, be arrested and fingerprinted under their assumed identity.”
The issue was highlighted by two arrests in the last two weeks by Framingham police officer Francis Torres. At least 700 officers across Massachusetts, New Hampshire, and Rhode Island have taken the class, Scott said.