“Two Men. One Identity. They Both Paid the Price,” The New York Times’ Eli Saslow and Gabriela Bhaskar wrote Sunday.
But before you start thinking that perhaps there was a paperwork blunder in which the government erroneously handed out the same Social Security number to two Americans and chaos transpired, I’ll save you the suspense: Despite the Times’ insistence, this wasn’t some double-victim case. This was full-on identity theft by an illegal alien who had repeatedly broken into the country. Under the stolen identity of Dan Kluver, this illegal alien racked up DUIs, other offenses, giant tax bills (for the real Kluver), and fatally struck a grandfather with his vehicle.
And yet, Guatemalan national Romeo Pérez-Bravo is somehow also a victim, merely a sympathetic worker and father living under “borrowed identities” desperate to “fix” the mess he created.
Meanwhile the real Kluver — an American citizen from Minnesota — lived his life “without ever getting into trouble.” He coaches baseball, works at a factory, and teaches Sunday school. “He had never fired a gun, or smoked a cigarette, or missed a payment, or been arrested,” the Times details.
But according to the government, the IRS, and the law, Kluver had racked up debt, killed someone, and was driving with a suspended license.
“Over the years, there had been signs that something wasn’t right — stray letters about wages earned in unfamiliar towns and collection notices for debt that wasn’t his,” the Times explained. “Kluver had tried to untangle the mess several times by hiring tax specialists and driving to government offices across the state only to run into the same bureaucratic dead ends. But now the problem was bigger than unpaid taxes. Someone was impersonating him, moving through the world as Dan Kluver, building a life in his name with a government-issued ID.”
It wasn’t until Kluver was pulled over and informed his license was suspended that he began to put the pieces together that someone had stolen his identity.
But the damage had already been done. According to the Times, “some years” Pérez-Bravo “had earned more than [Kluver’s] own salary at a local sugar beet factory, which pushed the total income under his Social Security number into a higher tax bracket as the debt started to mount.”
Kluver tried to inform authorities, but his complaint “landed in a pile along with tens of thousands of similar reports filed each year.” And while Kluver “waited for relief … the I.R.S. docked his annual tax returns and garnished a few of his paychecks, costing him thousands.”
Kluver’s then-wife-to-be ended up “emptying her savings” to pay off the remaining debt around 2012, sending the government a check for $6,000. But the relief was short-lived, because in the next tax season, they received a new bill for $22,000 because of Pérez-Bravo.
The Kluvers “spent the next decade living with the consequences — annual tax audits, budgets that never added up, whispered arguments after the kids went to bed. Kluver kept calling government numbers and waiting on hold until he eventually resigned himself to a payment plan. He agreed to send the I.R.S. $150 each month, which he’d done more than 35 times.”
And, until a court stepped in, Kluver was told he’d have to keep paying the debt.
Meanwhile, states away, Pérez-Bravo was ruining Kluver’s life and didn’t care at all. For example, Pérez-Bravo lost control of his vehicle in 2022 and struck a grandfather and his 9-year-old granddaughter. The girl survived, but her grandfather “struck his head and died.” Pérez-Bravo gave police the license and registration for Kluver. And while “Kluver” was cleared of wrongdoing, the “victim’s family had filed a wrongful-death lawsuit — with Kluver listed as the defendant.”
But that’s just one of the many crimes and civil liabilities Pérez-Bravo racked up in his time illegally in the U.S.
Pérez-Bravo entered the country illegally at 16 years old, “enrolled in high school despite speaking almost no English,” and then stole someone’s identity.
“The first years were lonely and exhausting. He started to drink, which led to a string of D.U.I.s and other minor offenses,” the Times explains, as if emphasizing the personal struggles that Perez-Bravo brought on himself were more important to the story than the destruction he left in his wake.
Authorities deported Pérez-Bravo back to Guatemala in 2005, 2008, and 2009, but he always found a way to break back in and steal someone’s identity. Recently, Pérez-Bravo reportedly hoped to hire a lawyer and change his immigration status. But his lawyer informed him that, given his prior DUIs, deportations, and record, the path to legal residency was not clear.
“All I do is take care of my family and go to work,” he told his lawyer. “Is there no way to fix this?”
But that’s not “all” Pérez-Bravo does. In fact, perhaps it’s the least important thing he does, because the burden he’s placed on Kluver, on the community, on the country, and on the family of the man he killed far outweighs him doing the bare minimum to support his own children. He spent more than a decade exploiting another man’s identity, apparently committing crimes under that name, and leaving a trail of financial, legal, and emotional devastation.
Just as alarming is the Times noting that Kluver’s story is not unique. In fact, an estimated one million illegal aliens have stolen Social Security numbers, which the Times frames as a “survival tactic” rather than what it is — identity theft. In fact, The Federalist’s Mark Hemingway and Ben Weingarten wrote for RealClearInvestigations in 2022 just how pervasive the issue of identity theft by illegal aliens is.
After laying out in detail the years of chaos endured by Kluver and his family because a repeat-border crosser stole his identity, Saslow and Bhaskar still try to frame Pérez-Bravo’s story as one of sympathy and empathy. He, too, is a victim, the Times would have you believe. Merely a hardworking father who only “works” and takes care of his family, desperate to “fix” the situation he himself caused.
But every fact in the story underscores the massive cost and toll of illegal immigration — to Kluver, taxpayers, and public safety — and the media’s callous indifference to the harm caused to American citizens.
Brianna Lyman is an elections correspondent at The Federalist. Brianna graduated from Fordham University with a degree in International Political Economy. Her work has been featured on Newsmax, Fox News, Fox Business and RealClearPolitics. Follow Brianna on X: @briannalyman2
