It's called a statement against interest. It's saying something that a person who didn't commit that act woud not normally say.
A person here legally would not normally lie about their identity giving a name closely associated with a class of persons known to be here illegally. The difference is, someone might lie about their identity to get a benefit but would not lie about their identity to get a detriment when they are entitled to the benefit. The state of the law is, and it's the real state of the law, not what we wish it to be. People to be deported will be asked their names. Whatever name they provide will be accepted as their true name. They will be deported under that name. If they claim to be legal citizens they will be required to produce identification to prove that. They are not asked to produce identification to prove they are here illegally. If they admit to being here illegally, that will not be questioned further.
The girl didn't admit to being here illegally, she used the name of a person she did not know was illegal. Her actions were stupid, but deporting an American citizen to Colombia is just reckless. You need to be 100% sure the person you are deporting is not an American citizen, are you seriously disagreeing with me on this?
I have to! The onus is not on the authorities to prove that a deportee is not a citizen. It just isn't. That's a fact. At what point did this girl say "Hey I was lying before. Don't deport me, this is who I really am." There are hundreds of deportees every day. Most of whom self-identify. No one argues with them. No one says "No you're not".
I think that what you are trying to say is that the authorities SHOULD be required to independently verify that someone who self-identifies as an illegal isn't really illegal. They aren't. Numerically speaking alone, it would be impossible to conduct that kind of negative investigation IF it could be done. I don't think it can be done. At least not with ordinary reasonable efforts. Think about it. Someone gives their name as Selena Gomez, any investigation is going to be about Selena Gomez. It's going to prove that Selena Gomez is an illegal alien under a deportation order. No one is going to do any investigation to prove that Selena Gomez is really La Shonda Jackson a runaway. Not unless someone comes forward, including La Shonda herself to say so.
There are only two ways to resolve this, both required the action of the girl herself. One is to say "I was lying. I'm not Selena Gomez. Here's my name and address." The other one is to say "I'm Selena Gomez, but not that Selena Gomez. Here's my address, my mother's name and where I go to school". In EITHER of those cases, either one, once the girl told the truth her identification would be able to be run through the National Databse of Missing Children and she woud have been on her way home. There's no national data base of American citizens.
So I have to disagree with you.