A year ago, Attorney General Mark Shurtleff warned us about an unprecedented epidemic of illegal immigrant-driven identity theft targeting our children. In fact, according to the Attorney General's Office, the identities of thousands of Utah children have been stolen by illegal immigrants who need Social Security numbers in order to get jobs and credit.

"Identity thieves are no respecters of age. They will steal your children's ID, ruin their credit and hurt them in ways never thought possible, before they can graduate from grade school," says Shurtleff in a press release. "Children are vulnerable even if parents do everything right."

Earlier this year, KSL-TV carried a report about an illegal immigrant who had stolen the identity of a 2-year-old girl and run up thousands of dollars of debt. The child's family was left to recover the daughter's identity at a cost of hundreds of hours of work and thousands of dollars.

A month ago, at a symposium on identity theft, a state representative told how her son's identity had been stolen by an illegal immigrant. The theft was not discovered until years later when the son went to college. Clearing his credit history has been a long and frustrating process.

And, just several days ago, the Deseret Morning News carried a story about a 9-year-old girl whose identity had been stolen by an illegal immigrant. The theft only came to light when an application for Medicaid was submitted and denied because government records showed that she was already earning income on her Social Security number.