{"id":1928,"date":"2008-11-17T12:39:32","date_gmt":"2008-11-17T16:39:32","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.thedustininmansociety.com\/blog\/?p=1928"},"modified":"2008-11-17T12:41:14","modified_gmt":"2008-11-17T16:41:14","slug":"illegal-aliens-stolen-social-security-numbers-and-home-loans","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.thedustininmansociety.org\/blog\/2008\/11\/17\/illegal-aliens-stolen-social-security-numbers-and-home-loans\/","title":{"rendered":"Illegal aliens, stolen Social Security numbers and home loans"},"content":{"rendered":"

Like all illegal immigrants, Lorenzo Jimenez knew the knock on the door from immigration agents could come at any time<\/strong>.<\/p>\n

[ Post your comments and rest of story HERE<\/a> ]<\/p>\n

VIDEO HERE…
\nhttp:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=dV2NiY1irRA <\/a>Part one<\/p>\n

http:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=WlOH_wTmcV0 <\/a>Part two<\/p>\n

( WSB TV – ATLANTA Nov 3 & 4 2008)<\/p>\n

Still, he had enough faith in the American dream to buy a house, even though signing the papers meant raising the risk: He put his 2-year-old, American-born daughter\u2019s name and Social Security number on the title.<\/p>\n

And it worked, for a while. Jimenez and his family lived happily enough for several years alongside \u201cregular\u201d metro Atlanta citizens in Roswell.<\/p>\n

Nicole Griffin\u2019s mom lived a few doors away, and when Griffin visited, she said, her kids played with the Jimenez children. When Jimenez put his four-bedroom, two-bathroom home up for sale last spring, wanting more space, Griffin was immediately interested.<\/p>\n

A contract was negotiated but when the sale appeared to go sour, Griffin raised a new issue: that she was a citizen and Jimenez wasn\u2019t. She told local media, immigration officials, his boss and others that he was here illegally. She even put signs in the yard of the house exposing his residency status.<\/p>\n

As a result, agents came knocking last month, and now Jimenez is fighting to keep from being deported. He also lost his job.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m very sad and very worried,\u201d said Jimenez, 32. \u201cI can\u2019t sleep because I\u2019m thinking about my family. What\u2019s going to happen? I don\u2019t know.\u201d<\/p>\n

Griffin insists her intent was to buy the house, nothing else. The 28-year-old single mother of two maintains she was wronged first, so she acted to protect her interests. She has no regrets.<\/p>\n

\u201cAt the end, do I feel bad the family got in trouble? No, not at all,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

Those who enter the U.S. illegally often say they\u2019re just striving for the same things that most American citizens want out of life \u2014 a good job, homeownership, maybe a chance to get a little bit ahead.<\/p>\n

But the ambitions of citizens and noncitizens can collide and, as the painful entanglement between Jimenez and Griffin shows, both sides can wind up feeling like victims.<\/p>\n

Daughter on title<\/p>\n

Jimenez, who is Mexican, has been in the U.S. for about a decade. When he bought the house four years ago, the real estate agent handling the sale told him he could get a better interest rate using his daughter\u2019s information on the closing documents than he could using the federal tax identification number he uses to pay income tax here.<\/p>\n

Jimenez later filed papers to have his own name added to the title, and that\u2019s how it stayed until Griffin spotted the \u201cfor sale\u201d sign and $164,500 list price this spring.<\/p>\n

With both sides enthusiastic about the sale, a deal was reached and the closing was set for May 15.<\/p>\n

Griffin, a payroll clerk and first-time homebuyer, asked to postpone the closing until June 1 because she had problems locking in her interest rate. Jimenez agreed but asked that she move into the house as planned and pay rent until the closing.<\/p>\n

Shortly after Griffin moved in, her attorney said there was a problem with the title on the house, namely that Jimenez\u2019s young daughter\u2019s name was on the title but her signature wasn\u2019t on the sale documents.<\/p>\n

Attorneys said some extra paperwork \u2014 establishing a conservatorship to watch out for the child\u2019s interest, the first step in getting the title transferred solely to her father \u2014 would clear the title, and everyone agreed to postpone again.<\/p>\n

Griffin didn\u2019t pay the rent, however, claiming she was promised three months free since the delay was Jimenez\u2019s fault. She has an e-mail from his real estate agent, Alina Carbonell, saying he\u2019d made the offer.<\/p>\n

Jimenez\u2019s lawyer, Erik Meder, told her that offer was never firm and insisted she pay rent or vacate the house.<\/p>\n

Locked in a letter war with Meder, Griffin escalated her actions. She contacted the FBI, the Roswell Police Department, local media, the state attorney general\u2019s office and the governor\u2019s office, among others. She asked her congressman, Rep. Tom Price, for help, saying she felt Jimenez and Meder had deceived her. Price\u2019s office, in turn, contacted U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, said Brendan Buck, a Price spokesman.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Like all illegal immigrants, Lorenzo Jimenez knew the knock on the door from immigration agents could come at any time. [ Post your comments and rest of story HERE ] VIDEO HERE… http:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=dV2NiY1irRA Part one http:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=WlOH_wTmcV0 Part two ( WSB TV – ATLANTA Nov 3 & 4 2008) Still, he had enough faith in the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thedustininmansociety.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1928"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thedustininmansociety.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thedustininmansociety.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thedustininmansociety.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thedustininmansociety.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1928"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.thedustininmansociety.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1928\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thedustininmansociety.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1928"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thedustininmansociety.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1928"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thedustininmansociety.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1928"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}