Not old enough to get into a bar? Get a fake.
It's advice students give to each other, or that they might even get from friends or relatives.
But fake IDs are more than just a way to get into The Library Bar and Grill on a Friday night. They can be used by illegal immigrants or even terrorists to obtain employment and services in the United States.
Law and order
Fake IDs are under state officials' radar as a way to bolster the security of Arizona's borders.
Gov. Janet Napolitano announced last week that Arizona officials were going to begin several programs to crack down on illegal immigration. Among these initiatives is the expansion of the state's Fraudulent ID Task Force to include more state departments and to make a greater effort to use sting operations to catch people who make the cards.
A $500,000 Arizona Department of Homeland Security grant will fund the operation.
The people who make fake IDs don't necessarily discriminate when they sell their wares.
Sgt. Wes Kuhl, a spokesman for the Arizona Department of Liquor, said officials from the department have posed as people with Middle Eastern or Hispanic names and tried to imply that they could use the ID for potentially destructive purposes.
"In knowing that, [fake ID makers] still produce this fraudulent form of identification," Kuhl said.
The department will try harder to find the people making these cards, Kuhl said.
"When we stumble across someone with a [fake ID], we're going to try to find out where they got it," Kuhl said. "We're going to trace it back to the manufacturer."
People who make fake IDs could make between $100 and $200 per card or other form of identification, he said.
Some of the cards are sophisticated enough to be read by scanning machines.
"You have to be trained to look for some of the security features," Kuhl said. "They are getting better and better."
A common problem
Sgt. Dan Masters, a Tempe police spokesman, said he has seen the most fake IDs from college-age adults trying to get into bars.
"I feel very comfortable saying that every weekend in downtown Tempe, we arrest people who are trying to use a fake ID," Masters said.
Masters said in the last year, Tempe police found a house in North Tempe being used to make fake identification cards. Officers seized computers and laminating equipment, he said.
Police "seize hundreds, if not thousands, of fake IDs" every year, Masters said.
Fake IDs aren't always driver's licenses. Military IDs and Park-and-Swap cards sometimes are fair game for the underground manufacturers.
"People try to use those as ways to get into a bar," Masters said.
Friday night fun
Encounters with falsified or incorrect identification cards are a common occurrence at many downtown Tempe bars and clubs.
Brian Yngstrom, the security manager at The Tavern, a bar located near the intersection of Mill Avenue and Fourth Street, said he runs into them "about 10 or 12 times a week."
At Margarita Rocks Beach Club, located just off Mill Avenue and Fourth Street, students gather every night to dance and drink with friends.
The head of security at the club, who said patrons and locals know him as RJ, said he usually confiscates the fake IDs and students leave without causing trouble. But he said students sometimes resist and want the police to confirm that the cards are fake, believing that the IDs have been so well produced, they can fool authorities.
This action can backfire if the students aren't careful, RJ said. If they're caught, they get a ticket. If the students continue to lie, they can wind up in jail for a night.
Nick Kelly, assistant general manager at The Library Bar & Grill, located at the intersection of Mill Avenue and Fifth Street, said security staff look for specific visual clues to help them determine what could have been altered. He said on some Arizona ID cards, there's a "very definitive bump" on their backs and that the holograms on the front of the cards are difficult to reproduce.
RJ said experience also helps identify the fakes. He said he can easily tell whether a card is real or not after just a "couple of seconds."
"It's repetition," he said. "The more you look at something, the more you know what's real [and] what's not."
There are many different sources for these cards. Yngstrom said that some students use their siblings' ID cards if they look similar enough to their brothers or sisters. Others get them from fraternities, sororities and other clubs that have access to the connections and funds required to make them.
A 25-year-old Tempe man, who spoke to The State Press only on the condition of anonymity for fear of getting caught, said he used a fake ID when he was under 21 and confirmed this assertion.
"I got it through a guy in my fraternity," he said.
Yngstrom said he believes most of the people making these cards are individuals working alone.
"I wouldn't say it's a major underground network that lots of people have access to," he said.
But RJ said that he has encountered larger ID rings where several people were involved in making and distributing them.
"I ... busted one through taking this one girl's ID," he said. "It was a fake ID and ... I called the police over and it turned out she got it from a guy who work[ed] at the dorms who basically work[ed] with another group of people and they ended up busting them all for it."
People who manufacture fake IDs can make a lot of money selling them to students, Kelly said.
"Just about every college student is going to want a fake ID for obvious reasons," he said. "Especially on a campus of ... this size, there's obviously a lot of money to be made."
But Yngstrom said when the police have busted big-time ID producers, usually it has been found that they made "only a couple of thousand" dollars. He said that the cost of the printed material and the machines required to make the IDs look realistic reduce their chances for substantial profit.
"Your costs and your overhead will probably negate anything you're making back," he said.
Homegrown problems
On the other hand, encounters with fake IDs from illegal immigrants were much less common at these bars for the most part.
"From time to time we'll see the occasional altered immigration ID, but for the most part, it's not really an issue here," Kelly said.
However, RJ said he has to deal with such IDs a great deal at Margarita Rocks Beach Club. He often encounters falsified federal electoral cards, he said.
Yngstrom said it is sometimes difficult to catch people when such IDs are found because the authorities don't have the ability to search the Mexican information systems.
"I took a fake Mexican border crossing card the other day. It was a motor ID and when the cops came to check it, they had no access to the Mexican systems, so they couldn't check it," he said. "So they just gave it back to him and told him to go on his merry way."
Even with recent efforts by the state to crack down on the use of fake IDs by illegal immigrants, the bars all felt that such efforts would have little or no effect on student abilities to acquire and use them. The student desire to drink likely would negate such considerations, RJ said.
"Where there's a will, there's a way," RJ said. "They're not going to get a fake ID, they're going to find somebody who looks like them and get their ID...You can't stop [it]."
Reach the reporters at grayson.steinberg@asu.edu and nicole.saidi@asu.edu.
