Busted identity fraud while Immigration upgrades policies

Godwin Hulse

A week ago a woman with two aliases was busted in Independence Village in the south. Reports are that Jessica Olivencia obtained a fraudulent birth certificate in the name of Jessica Molina. She allegedly used the certificate to also obtain a Social Security card in the name of Jessica Molina. The police department has not issued any information about the woman who also claimed to be a U.S. citizen though no evidence has been brought forward to support her claim. While he was not aware of the specific incident, Minister of Immigration Godwin Hulse spoke to News Five about the changes to the Immigration Department and new passport regulations which come into effect on March first.

Jose Sanchez

“Are you aware of that particular incident or other similar incidences?”

Godwin Hulse, Immigration Minister

“Yeah, there are many incidents like that and we have as you know signed an SI that is greatly enhanced and will hopefully stem that practice—we can’t guarantee a hundred percent but it will definitely slow it down. That SI comes into effect the first of March. So we will use the month of February to educate the public on what is required in order to get a passport. Remember, Mister Sanchez, the aim is to ensure that when the state issues you with that document, the state will certify that you are who you say you are and you are a Belizean. And we must do everything in our power to ensure that because if you don’t, it violates the document and it makes the state’s statement read the passport a fraudulent one. And of course it disenfranchises all of us who hold a Belizean passport. So we will do whatever is in our power to ensure that when you get a passport you are who you say you are and you are a Belizean. In that regard, we’ve tightened up on social security; we’ve tightened up on the whole identification process. The new process requires two identifiers—one from what we call category A and one from B with serious certificates also highlighting the penalties for fraudulent representation. And it requires all sorts of other security features for you to get a passport. So it will be a little—not cumbersome—delayed, but we ask the public to bear with us because this is what we are doing to enhance; that we bring back credibility and dignity to this document.”

The Department of Immigration and Nationality will be conducting a country-wide campaign to introduce the new application process to the public. The statutory instrument introducing the changes was signed on January seventeenth and gazetted on the nineteenth.