The Department of Homeland Security watchdog, as well as North Carolina’s attorney general, have issued warnings regarding scammers who are using so-called “spoofing” technology to pose as a government office in telephone calls and target immigrant communities in an effort to swindle them out of cash and personal information.
“Spoofing,” states the DHS Office of the Inspector General, “is the deliberate falsifying of information transmitted to a caller ID display to disguise an identity.” After faking caller ID information, these scammers then “pose as law enforcement or immigration officials and threaten victims with arrest unless they make payments to the scammers using a variety of methods.” Scammers, the North Carolina attorney general Josh Stein’s office said, “may even threaten you with arrest or deportation if you refuse to share this information.”
What makes this all the more devious, the DHS OIG warns, is that scammers are able to manipulate caller ID to make it look like the call’s coming from the DHS HQ Operator number or the DHS Civil Rights and Civil Liberties. “DHS OIG takes this matter very seriously,” the alert said. “While we investigate the situation, we would like to remind the public that DHS never uses its HQ Operator or CRCL number to make outgoing calls of this nature.” DHS OIG is asking victims and others with information to make a report here.
Immigration scams are not new but terrible people have been taking advantage of the heightened fear around the administration’s anti-immigrant policies. In the weeks following Donald Trump’s inauguration, a group of men wearing official-looking jackets and posing as ICE agents threatened a Queens man with deportation unless he forked over cash, which he did. “The man, who officials did not name in order to protect his family, handed over $250 before fleeing.”
Sometimes it’s not even about getting money, sometimes it’s just about inflicting terror. In another incident in June 2017, a man wearing a fake ICE jacket entered a predominately Spanish-speaking church to record the congregation. But apparently because the jacket was such a bad knock-off, no charges were pressed against Peter Acton, a facilities director San Francisco International Airport. He was, however, fired.