How Illegal Aliens are Bankrupting and Disenfranchising the American Middle and Working Classes

Legend has long held that illegal aliens give American citizens cheap lettuce and cheap child care. Excepting for agribusiness and the upper classes, that legend is, in reality, a nightmare, in which the American middle and working classes pay and pay and pay for illegal immigration, and get nothing but grief in return.

In states with heavy illegal alien populations, the budget of a middle-class family is full of hidden illegal alien surcharges. As a result, today’s middle-class American family with two full-time working parents has less discretionary income than its traditional forebear, in which the father alone was breadwinner. (Conditions are that much worse for families torn apart by divorce or the death of a parent.) And things are only getting worse. In California, for example, immigration writer Ed Rubenstein estimates that legal and illegal immigration combine to cost American-born California taxpayers $21.7 billion per year, for a 6.6% annual surcharge. And as Rubenstein points out, legal immigrants also have a voracious appetite for social services: “California immigrant households received a net subsidy from combined federal, state, and local programs averaging $6,145 in 1996.”

Compared to previous generations, middle-class Americans today pay outrageous prices, as a proportion of their incomes, for homes, in order to be able to protect their children from “bad schools.” So say the mother-daughter writing team of Elizabeth Warren and Amelia Warren Tyagi, and journalist Steve Sailer.

In Warren and Tyagi’s new book, The Two-Income Trap: Why Middle-Class Mothers and Fathers are Going Broke, they write that "The brunt of the price increases has fallen on families with children. Data from the Federal Reserve show that [after inflation] the median home value for the average childless individual increased by 23 percent between 1983 and 1998 … For married couples with children, however, housing prices shot up 79 percent—more than three times faster."

And yet, the white American working class can only dream of such headaches. For its members, home ownership - in any neighborhood - is increasingly an impossible dream. And when economists talk about what illegal immigration costs the typical American worker, the averages (see below) include millions of workers who have been locked out of entire industries by employers who refuse to hire Americans, or by illegal immigrant workers who will not tolerate Americans in their midst. This is the ugly truth behind the propaganda of immigration enthusiasts, who insist that illegal aliens are doing "Jobs that Americans won't do."

In 1968, Congress passed the Bilingual Education Act (aka Title VII), which mandated teaching Hispanic children in Spanish and English, which in practice has meant in Spanish only. (The BEA was officially “eliminated” by the 2002 No Child Left Behind Act, yet NCLB did not eliminate bilingual education, which radical U.S. Department of Education officials force more aggressively than ever on the public schools.)

In states buffeted by high levels of illegal immigration, including the entire American Southwest, Florida, New York, and Illinois, the public schools are being inundated by unassimilable, illegal immigrants and the children of illegal immigrants, including foreign street gangs. Such schools are typically dominated by incompetent, racist, Hispanic (in Florida, often by Haitian) nationalists at the staff, faculty, and administrative level, who increasingly dispense with the teaching of English. And the foreign nationalist “educators” get paid more than do their English-speaking counterparts!

In California, which has approximately four million illegal immigrants (out of 9 million-13 million nationally), illegal immigrants have destroyed a public school system that for generations was the envy of the nation. For middle-class, American parents to leave their children in such hostile environments would constitute neglect. And so, while some parents have placed their children in often expensive private schools, others have sought safe public school districts. Realtors have cashed in. Thus must middle-class Americans pay exorbitant taxes to maintain public schools from which they have been disenfranchised, or buy overpriced homes, while people who are here illegally use the schools for free.

Throughout the American Southwest, public and private hospitals alike face the prospect of shutting down, because of the onslaught of illegal immigrants. State and local laws prohibit hospital emergency rooms from turning away any patient, based on his inability to pay, or from inquiring into a patient’s citizenship status.

Exploiting such laws, illegal immigrants use emergency rooms for primary medical care, including for the common cold, so as to get out of paying for their care. Meanwhile, American patients with real medical emergencies, whose taxes maintain those hospitals and who pay for their own medical care, are turned away.

News reports tell of Californians with medical emergencies who are forced to drive from hospital to hospital, since facilities close their emergency rooms to new patients as early as noontime. Bizarrely, such reports never mention the role of illegal immigration in causing the medical crisis. Instead, one hears only of “uninsured” patients, amid suggestions that the system needs massive transfusions of tax dollars, and that America needs European or Canadian-style socialized (“universal”) health care. None of the stories this reporter has seen, has told of illegal aliens ever being turned away from medical facilities, no matter how trivial their complaint. Thus are Americans disenfranchised by the very medical system they pay so much to maintain.

And Americans pay higher auto insurance rates, to make up for illegal aliens who drive illegally and without insurance, and cause accidents.

Illegal immigrants’ defrauding of California’s generous welfare system has long been a scandal. Such welfare fraud is now a national scandal, as state and local governments operating stealth amnesty programs violate the Constitution, in negotiating directly with Mexico and other foreign governments, to accept the “matricula consular,” an insecure form of ID used exclusively by illegal aliens, and in issuing driver’s licenses to illegal aliens. Illegals may then use either the matricula consular or state driver’s licence to receive welfare benefits from officials who are not permitted to ask an applicant his citizenship status. Meanwhile, a driver’s license can be used to illegally register to vote.

Increasing numbers of states are following New York’s example, and granting in-state tuition to illegal aliens, at the same time that they charge law-abiding, American citizens from other states two and three times the in-state rate. And as illegal aliens are taking the initiative, suing colleges in Virginia for the right to break the law, illegals in the other states will surely follow suit. Thus do those who, as a matter of law, have no civil rights, demand and receive such rights at the expense of Americans, who are robbed of theirs. Meanwhile, Senator Orrin Hatch (R-Ut.) seeks to make the lawsuits moot, as his DREAM Act would repeal the federal law prohibiting the granting of in-state tuition to illegals.

Again, it is the citizens who must pay for the illegals. And via affirmative action, unqualified, illegal college applicants are admitted ahead of qualified Americans, foreclosing on the already limited opportunities for the children of the white, working poor to improve their lot. (A multitude of programs exist for such children's black and Hispanic counterparts.)

But that isn’t the half of it. As columnist Paul Craig Roberts has pointed out, unqualified immigrants – including illegals – enjoy affirmative action privileges, in getting jobs in place of qualified, American citizens.

It is no wonder that for years, Americans have been fleeing California, whose population has been buoyed exclusively through incoming illegal immigrants.

As economist George Borjas has shown, America’s immigration policy costs every American worker an average of $2,578 in annual income, in the form of depressed wages, in addition to all the hidden surcharges I listed above. And with every stealth amnesty, more illegals stream across America’s borders to all her states. And as the unfortunate American residents of far-flung Lewiston, Maine have learned, the federal government is inviting foreigners to come here LEGALLY, to partake of welfare programs that disenfranchised Americans must pay for.

Finally, as Steve Sailer has reported, illegal immigration is disenfranchising Americans through the unconstitutional creation of “rotten boroughs,” in which only a small portion of the populace may legally vote. Rotten boroughs arise because congressional districts are created based on numbers of “residents,” rather than citizens.

Unlike the wealthy liberals who support every sort of handout for immigrants, Middle Americans who actually have to work for a living, cannot afford an unlimited number of hidden, illegal immigration taxes and surcharges. Like the classic science fiction movie, the current situation could be called, Invasion of the Citizen Snatchers. Or simply, as in the title of Michelle Malkin’s book, Invasion.

If they use false soc.sec. numbers, it is only a short time before the Government kicks them back.

A short time? It's not so easy, I'm afraid:

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1032040/posts

WRONG NUMBERS: SOCIAL SECURITY DOESN'T MATCH UP (BECAUSE OF ILLEGAL ALIENS)

The Wall Street Journal | 28 November 2003 | Eduardo Porter

A government effort to distribute hundreds of billions of dollars of unallocated Social Security contributions is instead pushing many immigrants out of jobs, according to immigrant-rights groups. Furthermore, it isn’t solving the problem of where the money should end up. The Social Security Administration is trying to distribute money from its "Earnings Suspense File," comprising contributions that can’t be matched up with a proper Social Security number. That file mushroomed in the 1990s, fueled by a fast-growing work force of illegal immigrants using fake Social Security numbers to get jobs. By the end of the 2000 tax year, the file contained $374 billion.

In 1994, the agency began sending out "no match" letters warning employers that they had incorrect Social Security numbers on the payroll and should straighten out their files. Last year, the agency sent about 950,000 letters, each listing as many as 500 bad numbers. But according to a report by the University of Illinois at Chicago and several immigrants-rights groups, the agency has had little success in identifying owners of the misallocated funds. The suspense file has kept growing, by $30 billion in 1998, $40 billion in 1999 and $50 billion in 2000.

Instead, the report said, many employers have simply fired the workers targeted by a no-match letter. In other cases, unauthorized workers have quit after learning of the letters—fearful that immigration authorities are after them...

etc. [excerpted]

Try this one, go to any bank and open an account without Soc.Sec. number. You will find out that it is impossible. As far as employment is concerned, you can't legally get hired, because information on the federal forms are missing in that case. Without Soc. Sec. # what account would an employer use to pay payroll taxes into? Simple: No soc. Sec. # , no Bank account, No legal job, no payroll taxes.

Simple: Fake Social Security-->job--> paycheck--> payroll taxes, credit card, bank accounts, driver's licenses, etc. It happens all the time, and could potentially have disastrous results:

New York Times, 5/20/02

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/686118/posts

WASHINGTON, May 19 — Tens of thousands of foreigners are illegally obtaining Social Security numbers by using fake documents, a typical first step to identity theft and other crimes, but federal officials still have not found a way to search immigration records to prevent the practice, federal investigators say.

In a new report, the inspector general of the Social Security Administration, James G. Huse Jr., said that 1 in 12 foreigners receiving new Social Security numbers had done so using fake documents. Preliminary results from an investigation still under way show that 100,000 Social Security numbers were wrongly issued to noncitizens in 2000, Mr. Huse said.

The continuing problem is causing great concern among law enforcement and counterterrorism officials, because Social Security cards can be used to obtain credit cards and the security badges needed for jobs at airports or other vulnerable locations. Since Sept. 11, federal authorities have been conducting nationwide sweeps to arrest people on charges of using false Social Security numbers.

Some of the 19 hijackers on Sept. 11 had falsely obtained Social Security numbers, which allowed them to open bank accounts and get credit cards in this country.

Prosecutors said that Lotfi Raissi, an Algerian pilot initially suspected of training several hijackers, had used the Social Security number of a Jersey City woman who died in 1991.

For more than three years, Mr. Huse has recommended that the Social Security agency check the records of the Immigration and Naturalization Service before issuing Social Security numbers to noncitizens.

Before Sept. 11, the Social Security agency disagreed with this recommendation and did nothing to carry it out, fearing it would lead to unacceptable delays in issuing Social Security numbers to legitimate applicants.

The Social Security agency has since embraced the recommendation but has had little success in getting the necessary help from the immigration agency, Mr. Huse said in an interview. The immigration agency issues many of the documents that immigrants use to show they are eligible for Social Security cards.

The Social Security agency needs immediate help from the immigration agency because, Mr. Huse said, "Social Security service representatives are not trained in studying the authenticity of foreign identity documents."

Mr. Huse said the two agencies were still working out an arrangement to give Social Security officials access to electronic immigration files on noncitizens. Social Security is also waiting for the immigration agency to incorporate data on certain immigrants authorized to work in the United States.

Bill Strassberger, a spokesman for the immigration agency, said: "We are trying to work more closely with the Social Security Administration to reduce the use of fraudulent documents. It's one of our top priorities."

Senator Charles E. Grassley of Iowa, the senior Republican on the Senate Finance Committee, said Social Security number fraud was a domestic security issue.

"Audits by the inspector general show that the Social Security Administration has been much too loose with its control of Social Security numbers," Mr. Grassley said. "That's extremely dangerous when criminals and terrorists are able to use Social Security numbers to infiltrate American society."

Foreigners have obtained Social Security numbers by using counterfeit versions of visas, green cards and arrival-and-departure forms, among other documents. In some cases, the government has sent Social Security cards to nonexistent children and to dozens of noncitizens listed at the same address.

Mr. Huse said the events of Sept. 11 showed that "identity theft was a prime modus operandi of terrorists." Once a person obtains a Social Security number, through proper or improper means, he said, the government has little control over its use.

"The tragedies of Sept. 11 demonstrate that the misuse of Social Security numbers and identity theft are `breeder' offenses with the ability to facilitate crimes beyond our imagination," Mr. Huse said in his report.

"For at least several more months," he added, "the Social Security Administration will continue to issue Social Security numbers to noncitizens without obtaining independent verification of documents."

In the last year, the Social Security agency issued 5.8 million numbers, including 1.5 million to noncitizens.

The report comes during a nationwide crackdown that has already led to the arrest of hundreds of airport workers on charges that they used fraudulent Social Security numbers to obtain jobs providing access to airplanes, ramps, gates and other restricted areas...

After using counterfeit immigration papers to obtain Social Security numbers, many foreigners use the numbers to get airport security badges, Mr. Huse said.

Separately, federal officials are investigating hundreds of people believed to have used false Social Security numbers to obtain credit cards and steal money.

In some cases, people detained as terrorism suspects were held on Social Security fraud charges, which are easier to prove.

"These actions ensure that the suspected terrorists remain in the judicial process while the terrorist investigation is continuing," said Mr. Huse, who worked at the Secret Service for 25 years before joining the Social Security agency in 1996.

Before Sept. 11, it was unusual for the government to imprison anyone on a charge of having obtained a false Social Security number.

To illustrate the misuse of Social Security numbers, Mr. Huse cited the case of Malek M. Seif, a pilot arrested in Phoenix in October. Federal officials said Mr. Seif might have known a Sept. 11 hijacker, but he was not accused of terrorism. In February, he pleaded guilty to Social Security fraud, acknowledging that he had made false statements when he applied for a card.

Federal officials said Mr. Seif had obtained two Social Security numbers under different names, obtained driver's licenses in both names and used both identities on a variety of loan and credit card applications.

Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.