Bedal Provencia of Edinburg, Texas, was in jail on charges of receiving stolen property when he got word that one of the arrested Swift workers was using his Social Security number and birth date.
    In the year since, he says, he's found out this much: "That dude gots more rights than I got."
    Provencia, 25, says he has been working with a government advocate, but still doesn't know when he will be given a copy of his Social Security card so he can get a full-time job.
    The Texas native survives by working odd jobs two or three days a week.
    The trouble began, he says, when a friend of his mother's stole her papers and his, including his birth certificate and Social Security card.
    The woman apparently sold the papers and they were duplicated, because Provencia has had reports of others using his identity in other states than Utah.
    "They are burning us real bad," says Provencia. "I can't do nothing without my papers."
    While he waits for the IRS and Social Security to straighten out his records, Provencia jokes that the government ought to make the guy arrested in Utah pay his obligations: "Why don't they take out no child support on him?"
   
    Utah victim in prison: Terryl Warner, the victims advocate for Cache County, says that of the dozens of letters she sent to people whose Social Security numbers were being used illegally by Swift plant workers, she has heard back from only about 10.
    She sent police reports and court records to those who needed documentation to straighten out their IRS or Social Security records.
    But she says she didn't hear of a single case in which the immigrants were using false identities to gain credit, just access to a job.
    Those whose identities were used live throughout the United States and even Puerto Rico, but the bulk are in Texas and California.
    One victim, she says, was in a motorcycle accident and unable to collect disability payments from the Social Security Administration because the records showed him continuing to work - in Utah.
    Only one Utah resident, Francisco R. Martinez of Ogden, was listed in court documents as among the victims. Martinez was in the Weber County jail this fall and was recently transferred to the Utah State Prison in Draper on theft and burglary charges filed in Davis County.
   
    'I can't stop it': Adrian Flores says his identity was being used at some point by a Swift worker in 2006, but he does not know if the worker was arrested in the raid.
    A police training officer in Los Angeles County, Flores says he got a call from ICE after the raid telling him that his named "popped up" in the investigation.
    He already knew his identity was being used at the Hyrum plant because of a letter he'd received from the IRS the previous spring.
    "They wanted $60,000 yesterday," Flores said.
    Listed among his employers were the Swift plant in Hyrum and Icon Fitness in Logan. Flores, 42, has never left California.
    Flores' attempt to talk to someone at Swift was rebuffed until he had a detective make an inquiry, he says. The meatpacker then faxed over the employee's job application and a photo of their employee.
    "This person was using my name, birth date and Social," Flores says.
    And it wasn't the first time.
    Flores has been dealing with the consequences of identity theft for years.
    He believes it began in 1991, when he left his driver license as collateral while renting a stroller at a county fair in California. When he returned at the end of the day, the attendant couldn't find his license.
    The license was probably sold, and the buyer used it to create a fake driver license that he took to the Social Security Administration for a duplicate card.
    About seven years ago, Flores' attempt to buy a home was thwarted by bad credit. Someone using his identity owed money to a furniture store. Charges appeared on his record in the East and the West. There was even an unclaimed Merrill Lynch account at one point.
    Flores knows that as victims of identity theft goes, he's one of the lucky ones. As a police officer, he has the skills to straighten out the mess.
    "I knew what to do. Other people, regular civilians, they are left out in the cold," Flores said. "You have to basically bully your way around things."
    These days, Flores keeps a close eye on his credit report.
    And now that he has squared away the IRS and Social Security on the fact that he didn't earn money in Utah, he's monitoring their records.
    In Texas, Provencia says one person using his identity got a driver license in Arkansas. Another was wanted for murder in Washington, D.C.
    Instead of waiting for the feds to clear up the current income mess, he'd like a new Social Security number.
    Doug Smith, senior public affairs specialist with the Social Security Administration in Denver, said it is not impossible.
    "But obviously, we don't, on a regular basis, use new numbers because of the volume of cross referencing."
    In severe cases of identity theft, however, a new Social Security number can be issued, he says.
    Flores says that's not what he's been told.
    "You're stuck with it and they won't change it," Flores said.
    And that leaves him feeling wide open to fraud, even if he is a police officer.
    "Somewhere along the line, people are still using it and I can't stop it."
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    * TONY SEMERAD contributed to this story.