Posted on 12/14/2004 6:02:37 AM PST by OESY
...Think about the Kerik example: The man and his wife have two small kids.... A nanny offers that help, and she seems both nice enough and gets along with kids. Whether or not she's "legal" seems less important to most American parents than whether she's trustworthy and hard-working.
As for the nanny, she's traveled hundreds, if not thousands, of miles from home to make some money and get ahead. Her primary concern isn't running some Immigration Service gantlet but is to find a good family that pays decently and treats her well. Are we really supposed to believe that this kind of transaction between consenting adults jeopardizes our national security?
...Congress made some progress on the so-called nanny tax issue back in 1994, raising the threshold for complying and simplifying the process by which employers file taxes for their domestic help.
...Most Americans calculate the costs -- in time, legal advice and hassle -- of filling out all the forms, and they simply pay cash instead. The wage threshold should long ago have been raised far higher.
As for immigration law, the Bush Administration is headed down the right path with its guest-worker program. That proposal acknowledges that immigrants fill vital jobs, that movement across borders is inevitable as long as there is the lure of opportunity, and that merely adding more border guards won't stop migrants in any case.
The Bush plan would provide a legal means -- a three-year work visa -- for new immigrants to enter the country and take jobs Americans don't want. Some of them could even be nannies. That system would make it easier to track all foreigners, freeing up our homeland security forces to concentrate on terror threats, rather than rounding up the usual nanny suspects....
(Excerpt) Read more at online.wsj.com ...
Yes, because if some nanny can sneak across the border undetected, what makes you believe a trained terrorist can't.
Now there's some critical analysis! The reason the border is insecure is because so many are willing to cross it, and they're willing to cross it because they know that nothing happens to them once they get three days past the border. Illegal aliens are free to roam the country until the next poltical snake oil salesman says, "we better legalize 'em, no other choice."
Rinse and repeat.
We can make the border more secure, but we won't ever have the manpower to lock it down tight. That's as unrealistic as saying we'll deport them all.
Are you a doctor, a lawyer, or both? Ever hire a nanny?
This is exactly how it's gonna play out: (1) secure the borders; (2) 'legalize' illegals already here through a guest worker visa to get them paying into the system; (3) set up an ongoing guest worker program.
Once it's not illegal to hire an illegal, but illegal not to pay into the tax witholding system, you'll see businesses fall into line. The tax man has a lot more power than the police, and it ain't go nothing to do with legal status - it's all about compliance.
The WSJ sucks. Globalism at work here.
An aside - the number of illegals currently here amounts to 10 million (conservatively), this will multiply to 30 or 40 million within 10 years - not counting additional illegal immigration during that same period. Perhaps as much as 15% increase in our population within a decade as a consequence.
Good or bad, this needs to be considered at the same time as the president's plan.
Solution: Hire illegals to guard the border - they know the ropes and they speak the language!
No problema!
This is so frustrating. As long as rich and middle class Americans desire cheap docile labor around the house and think poor and working-class Americans be damned illegal immigration will roll merrily along.
I know a man who mentioned that he's paying for his part time nanny to be treated for TB. This idiot exposed his kids to TB becuase he was too cheap let his wife stay home and too cheap to pay a legal immigrant or heck even an American to take care of the kids. How do you reason with someone like this?
Yup. The guy is worth over 6 million dollars, and he couldn't find a legal citizen to be his nanny.
Perfect candidate for Homeland security.
Illegals already make pretty good money - you can't find anyone willing to work for less than $10/hr (cash). So, once they're part of the system, their rates will go up to around $14/hr with approx 4/hr taken away in the form of taxes.
The net effect to them will be about the same, but at least this way they will begin paying for all the free health care and school services currently provided by taxpayers.
Walls are not the answer. We wouldn't be in this mess if the gubmint would prosecute employers hiring the cheap labor of illigal migrants. Very easy fix, very unpopular with big bidness.
You need to try again with your broken HS Espanol.
In any case, we're not impressed.
But I guess broken HS Espanol is handy for communicating with your illegal alien help.
Conyo, spelled on my machine 'cono' minus the 'ene' symbol above the n. Try again.
Amen. Or even San Diego, with schools swamped with illegals, where 20 out of the 40 students in class barely speak English, so that all of the kids move at the pace of the laggards, 2-3 years behind their grade level. Sixth grade is "See Jane run." This is a very real cost of rampant illegal immigration.
Tax-free? 10$/hr sounds like a living wage (though it's lousy compensation for being a nanny), but it's true that her employer makes no provision for the collection of social security, Medicare, unemployment taxes etc.; and provides no health care, or benefits of any other kind. What happens if this "employee" falls seriously ill? Does she hie herself over the Mexican border for medical care, or just further burden our emergency medical care system, which is already on the verge of collapse? Shifting the burden to other taxpayers in that fashion is dishonest and a form of thievery. Maybe Massa isn't in de cold, cold ground after all.
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