Illegal immigrant worked for 20 years at Newark airport

[TPARick]

An illegal immigrant worked at Newark Liberty International Airport for 20 years, using the name of a murder victim to hide his identity, authorities told several news outlets.
His co-workers knew him as Jerry Thomas, but according to authorities, his real name was Bimbo Olumuyiwa Oyewole, a Nigerian who entered the country illegally in 1989, the Associated Press reports.
According the New York Times, the real Jerry Thomas was shot to death in July 1992 in front of the Y.M.C.A. on Parsons Boulevard in Jamaica, Queens. No one was arrested for the murder, the Times reports, citing the Queen's district attorney's office. The AP reports that New York Police have not indicated whether or not Oyewole is a suspect in Thomas' death.
Oyewole, 54, was arrested at his home in Elizabeth, N.J., on Monday on charges that he stole Thomas' identity after authorities received an anonymous tip. On Monday afternoon, he was being held at the Essex County Jail, awaiting his arraignment.
The New York Times reports that Oyewole allegedly used Thomas' birth certificate, Social Security card and other documents, and that it was unclear how he managed to obtain them.

The Port Authority of New York and New Jersey said that he had passed several background checks.
Oyewole worked first as a security guard and then as a security supervisor, overseeing 30 guards, the AP reports. He had worked for several contractors at the airport, most recently FJC Security Services.
FJC Security told the AP that it conducted a background check on Oyewole. The New Jersey state police and U.S. Customs and Border Protection also conducted their own checks.

"In all cases, he passed the background checks," FJC spokesman Michael McKeon told the AP. "During his time with FJC, he had nothing in his record or his performance to indicate a cause for concern or a reason to question the state police and federal government's background checks."
The Transportation Security Administration is reviewing the Port Authority's procedures for validating documents, according to a statement quoted by the AP.
"This investigation indicates that the individual's identification documents were presented to the Port Authority for verification about a decade before TSA existed," the statement said.
On Monday, according to the Huffington Post, the Department of Homeland Security's inspector general released a report saying that only half of security breaches at six of the country's major airports were reported and corrected by the TSA from January 2010 to May 2011.
Newark had the worst record of the six airports, with 42% of security breaches reported to the TSA, according to the report.

http://travel.usatoday.com/flights/p...rport/693852/1

[Loonbeam]

I'm not surprised. Most states and the federal govt have no system in place to deactivate IDs when someone dies and make them unavailable for use, making this kind of thing easier than it should be.

I'm not sure there is much the local authorities could have done, especially 20-30 years ago.

[bodega]

Goes to show how difficult it is to really verify information on people. Lots of businesses have hired illegals, been fined even though the paperwork seems to be in order and now a governmental agency gets caught in this.