A little reason from SCOTUS

9-0. Thank you.

The process of charging undocumented aliens who make up a fake SSN to get a job with felony identity theft has always been wrong. It's been a way to terrorize and browbeat people into pleading guilty to lesser charges, so they can be jailed. It makes a federal offense out of something that isn't meant to defraud the person whose SSN is, unwittingly on both sides, used.

Stephen H. Legomsky, a professor of immigration law at Washington University School of Law in St. Louis, said Monday’s decision would have a major impact on the strategy of Immigration and Customs Enforcement, making it more difficult for the agency to press criminal charges against immigrants with no other offenses but working illegally. (read the whole NYT article here)

I don't deny that undocumented aliens are a problem. But they come for jobs, not to steal people's identities (a crime which is now ridiculously over-applied; the guy who steals your credit card isn't stealing your "identity"). The administration's pledge to "shift the focus of immigration enforcement to employers who intentionally hire unauthorized immigrants in order to pay lower wages or otherwise lower costs" is the right way to start fighting this problem, not by tossing more people in jail.