Sacbee — A Stockton resident has filed a federal discrimination lawsuit against the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation for rejecting his job applications after he admitted using a stolen Social Security number given to him at the age of 15.
The Record reports that Victor Guerrero, who is now in his mid-30s and a U.S. citizen since 2010, alleges in a complaint filed in San Francisco on Monday that CDCR twice rejected him for a correctional-officer job because of his former illegal status. In 2011 and again this year he passed written and physical agility tests and truthfully answered “yes” to Question No. 75 of the job questionnaire that asks whether he “had or used a social security number other than the one you used on this questionnaire.”
Guerrero also attached an explanation: He was given the Social Security number as a teenager so he could start working in 1995. He didn’t know he was undocumented and that the number was not his own until 1997. Guerrero continued to use the Social Security number to find work, but paid taxes from 1997 to 2007 with an Individual Taxpayer Identification Number. The IRS issues the ID numbers to people who are ineligible for Social Security numbers so that they can pay taxes.
The government issued a Social Security number to Guerrero in 2007 when he became a legal permanent resident, according to the lawsuit. In 2010 he became a U.S. citizen.
Corrections rejected his applications, Guerrero says, with a letter that said his prior use of another person’s Social Security number “shows a lack of honesty, integrity, and good judgment” that are prerequisites for the correctional officer position. continue reading...
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