What is social security fraud immigration

| by Max Soni

Thanks for visiting Spodek Law Group – a second-generation law firm managed by Todd Spodek, who has over 40 years of combined experience handling cases that other lawyers won’t touch. We’ve represented clients in cases that grabbed national attention, including the Anna Delvey Netflix series, the Ghislaine Maxwell juror misconduct case, and federal prosecutions that ended careers. If you’re facing social security fraud charges tied to immigration issues, you already know the federal government doesn’t play around with this – and neither do we.

Social security fraud in the immigration context means you’re accused of using a Social Security number that doesn’t belong to you, or that you obtained through false pretenses, usually to work illegally or access benefits you’re not entitled to receive. This isn’t some administrative hiccup. Federal prosecutors treat SSN fraud as a felony with prison time – and Immigration and Customs Enforcement uses these convictions to deport people permanently. You’re looking at overlapping criminal and immigration consequences that can destroy your ability to stay in the United States, even if you’ve been here for decades.

The charges hit from two directions. First, there’s the criminal prosecution under federal law – typically 42 U.S.C. § 408 for false representation of a Social Security number, which carries up to five years in federal prison. Second, if you used someone else’s actual SSN (not just a made-up number), prosecutors stack on aggravated identity theft under 18 U.S.C. § 1028A, which adds a mandatory two years in prison that runs consecutive to whatever other sentence you receive. That mandatory minimum can’t be reduced – judges have no discretion, no matter how sympathetic your situation is.

Then immigration enforcement gets involved. Any conviction for SSN fraud – even a plea deal – subjects you to removal proceedings in immigration court. You don’t get to argue hardship or family ties when there’s fraud on your record. And if you used that fake SSN to claim U.S. citizenship on an I-9 form or any other government document, you’re facing a permanent bar from reentry. Not ten years. Not five years. Permanent. You can’t waive it, you can’t overcome it with a citizen spouse, you can’t fix it later. It’s done.

What makes SSN fraud cases particularly dangerous is how the government discovers them. Sometimes it’s through ICE worksite enforcement operations where agents show up at your job and compare SSNs to Social Security Administration records. Other times the SSA flags your number because the actual owner is collecting benefits or someone else is also using it. In 2025, the federal government expanded fraud prosecution programs to at least 50 U.S. Attorney Offices, with prosecutors specifically focusing on identity theft and SSN misuse tied to immigration violations. This is part of what they’re calling Operation Take Back America – a coordinated effort between the Department of Justice, ICE, and the Social Security Administration Office of Inspector General to go after SSN fraud aggressively.

Federal agents now have access to databases that cross-reference employment records with actual SSN holders – and when those don’t match, they build criminal cases. You’re not flying under the radar anymore, even if you’ve been using the same number for years without problems.

People think if they didn’t steal someone’s identity – if they just bought a number or made one up – they’re not committing fraud. Wrong. Any fraudulent use of an SSN is a felony under federal law, whether the number is real or fake, whether you know whose number it is or not. The statute says you can’t “with intent to deceive, falsely represent a number to be the social security account number” assigned to you. If you put a number on an I-9 form that isn’t yours, you committed the crime. Intent to deceive is easy to prove – you needed a number to work, you didn’t have one legally, you used someone else’s. That’s intent.

The immigration consequences don’t stop at deportation. If you’re removed based on fraud, you’re inadmissible for life. You can’t apply for a visa. You can’t adjust status through marriage. You can’t get a waiver unless you can prove “extreme hardship” to a U.S. citizen spouse or parent – and even then, waivers are discretionary and rarely granted when fraud is involved.

Recent cases show how federal prosecutors handle these charges in 2025. A Honduras citizen was sentenced in August 2025 after pleading guilty to illegal re-entry and making false statements to the Social Security Administration by possessing and using another person’s ID. Another defendant was sentenced to three months in prison for naturalization fraud, and his U.S. citizenship was revoked. These aren’t outlier cases – they’re the new normal. The government is prosecuting SSN fraud tied to immigration violations more aggressively than at any point in the last decade.

Defense in these cases requires understanding both criminal and immigration law simultaneously. A criminal defense attorney who doesn’t understand immigration consequences might negotiate a plea deal that gets you deported. An immigration attorney who doesn’t understand federal sentencing might not fight the criminal charges hard enough, leaving you with a conviction that’s impossible to overcome in removal proceedings. You need lawyers who understand how the charges interact – how a conviction under 408(a)(7)(B) affects your deportability, whether you can avoid an aggravated felony designation, whether there’s any path to relief if you’re convicted.

Federal prosecutors will charge you with false representation of an SSN, and if they can prove you used someone else’s real number, they add aggravated identity theft. They’ll offer plea deals – usually time served or a few months in prison. But that plea agreement doesn’t address immigration court. Once you’re convicted, ICE issues a detainer and starts removal proceedings. There’s no discretionary relief, no cancellation of removal, no asylum – fraud disqualifies you from nearly every form of relief.

Some defendants think they can avoid prosecution by leaving the country voluntarily. That doesn’t work. If there’s already a criminal investigation, leaving makes you a fugitive. If you come back later – even decades later – they can charge you with illegal reentry on top of the original SSN fraud charges. Running from federal charges multiplies your problems.

At Spodek Law Group, we handle these cases by attacking the government’s evidence at every stage. Did they prove you knew the SSN wasn’t yours? Did they prove intent to deceive, or did you rely on an employer who provided the number? Was the search that uncovered the fraud lawful? Are there Fourth Amendment issues with how ICE obtained your documents? Can we negotiate a plea to a lesser offense that doesn’t trigger automatic removal? These aren’t cases where you just plead guilty and hope for the best – you fight, or you lose everything.

The stakes are too high to trust a lawyer who hasn’t defended federal SSN fraud cases tied to immigration. This is our work. We’ve defended clients against federal prosecutors in cases where others said there was no defense – and we’ve won. We know how the government builds these cases because we’ve taken them apart. If you’re under investigation, if ICE executed a search warrant at your workplace, if the SSA sent you a letter about mismatched earnings – don’t wait. Call us now. Every day you delay is a day the government uses to strengthen their case against you.