Posted on 03/25/2005 8:46:21 AM PST by txdoda
Editor's Note: While President Bush talks about immigration reform, but makes no promises, those here legally face hard choices when their less-fortunate compatriots ask for help.
SAN JOSE, Calif.--I was glad to hear that President Bush and Mexican President Vicente Fox met yesterday to discuss immigration, and that Bush is pushing for a guest worker program and amnesty for illegal immigrants. But immigration reform has been stalled for years in Washington, and no one was making any promises that things would actually change.
In the meantime, some of us who are in this country legally, but have immigrant roots, are finding the issue landing right in our own laps.
A few years ago someone asked me if his friend could use my social security number to work. I was mad. How could he ask me about such a sensitive subject over the phone! On the other hand, how could I say no?
"Well, I don't know anything if you do use it," I said, and hung up.
I hadn't thought of it since, until a few weeks ago when this same friend dropped off some tax returns to me. They had my name and social security number on them, and he thought maybe I could get the tax refund.
I carelessly left the documents on the kitchen table for my dad to find. He looked them over and said, "You never worked at this store. Who is this?"
"My other me," I said, trying to act like I had no clue.
"Well, you better fix this right away. It can mess you up."
I still haven't filed my own tax return, but I don't plan on using the "other me's" returns, even if later I have some complication for not filing. At the same time, I don't think it is such a bad thing that I let a stranger use my identity.
Why not give up my number to someone who is just searching for work in a country that needs her here but isn't willing to admit it? Half of my family are recent immigrants, and some didn't take official measures to get here, but they have made their lives here, raised families here, and have to live with the constant worry that they are going to be found out and deported. Those of us who do have our legal situation in place wish we could do more for those who have been here for years and have no legal status.
A new report says that there are now 10.3 million undocumented workers in the United States, more than half of them from Mexico. I have never believed that immigrants take U.S. citizens' jobs. They take the jobs that "Americans" think they are overqualified and underpaid for. Undocumented workers have an urgency about work. They don't have the luxury of waiting around until someone offers them more than $12 an hour.
At my job, I work with people who are obviously using someone else's identity -- the business constantly gets notices about certain people's social security numbers needing to be checked. A lot of those people move on quickly, but others have remained, and I know they don't have other options besides working long hours and clocking as much overtime as they can.
One of my co-workers is 19 and works more than full time. I know he would love to do more than work a service job, but getting an education is a challenge because of his immigration status.
People like my co-worker and my "other me" have such a messed-up deal that I don't know how much it helps to lend them a social. Having no documentation means working hard and paying taxes that they will never see come back to them as benefits. And it only helps for a job; it's not like a free pass in the country.
My alter ego will still have to live outside the system, using someone else's numerical identity so that her own identity isn't revealed. If it were discovered that she'd committed the crime of working hard at a low-wage job, there would be no hesitation about deporting her, regardless of all she has done and contributed.
The United States should focus less on trying to catch people like her, who are just trying to make a living, and be more concerned about restoring the dignity to work, by creating jobs with living wages that allow people to do more than just survive.
PNS contributor Elizabeth Rodriguez, 24, is a writer for www.siliconvalleydebug.org, the voice of young workers, writers and artists in Silicon Valley and a PNS project. Her name has been changed for her protection.
Obviously my "thunderous applause" is reserved for Mayor Pro Tem Monahan:
"Monahan, however, said it's not a matter of immigration or race, but of holding the city accountable to the same standards as any business."
Here's some immigrant-related fraud. Billions here and billions there pretty soon it adds up to a trillion. A little US Senator Everett Dirksen talk there.
"The checks are in the mail - illegal aliens benefit from Earned Income Tax Credit," National Review, April 17, 1995 by Roy Beck
This old article shows that fraud (IMO) is persistent and it ain't just ILLEGAL immigrants.
"As usual, the cumulative costs from legal immigration tower over those from illegal . . .IRS records indicate some $250 million in EIC subsidies for illegal aliens in 1990 . . . But . . . five times that amount [is] going to legal immigrants. . . . Why should the government continue to allow legal entry of hundreds of thousands of low-skilled foreign workers when U.S. taxpayers end up subsidizing them (and their employers) . . . ."
Another source says, "Between 1997 and 1999, the IRS issued some $2 billion in erroneous Earned Income Credit payments to illegal aliens." (Those are the years when the size of the SSA's Earnings Suspense File, ESF, began to explode indicating a huge increase in the use of bogus SSNs)
What about today and "regularization" (guest worker amnesty)? A CIS study says, "Illegals currently account for only 1.5 percent of the program’s [EIC] total costs, but if they were legalized their use of the program would grow tenfold because with legal status they would no longer need stolen or bogus Social Security numbers to get the credit. This dramatic rise in costs is not due to laziness on the part of immigrants. In fact, only those who work receive the EITC. The dramatic rise in costs simply reflects the low educational attainment of illegals and their resulting low incomes."
A news item on that study is at
http://deseretnews.com/dn/view/0,1249,595086893,00.html
If we could eliminate just some of the fraud (subsidizing employers, for example) we could balance the budget and split a trillion dollars, I bet. Let's see a trillion divided by. . . .
We're paying high prices anyway when you include taxpayer-funded employer subsidies and other social costs paid by taxes and "fees".
The Rush Limbaughs meanwhile say, "I am tired of carrying you people on my back." You people meaning those collecting unemployment insurance and transfer payments such as EITC.
I've had an awakening though. Maybe those Republicans are not so silly?
Now that many conservatives enthusiastically join the secularist "progressives" and support ridding the U.S. of our "sub-humans" it's nothing for them to end the need for employer subsidies and end minimum wages as well.
Enter the era of labor camps to house and feed "cheap" labor and their (our?) wretched families. A mixture of citizens and ILLEGALs, it matters not.
It's kind of like what new Democrat Third Way "progressive" enviro-nut wackos want too.
(Another reason for the mainline Republicans and the progressives to partner, first reason being "free trade" transfer of technology, wealth, and production to developing nations like Red China.)
Centrally located labor near transportation hubs thus freeing near 99% of the continent that is to be restored to its 1492 beauty. Only the anointed ones, Rockefeller Republicans and Clinton progressives, are worthy of access to that paradise. What a deal!
Just a mite bit of sarcasm? -- but after the killing of Terri Schiavo I am not so sure. What's next?
I don't find this sarcastic in the least. A number of our illegal alien job center supporters express the fear that "they'll be all over the place" if the city doesn't sacrifice a portion of it's land and budget. So the message is not entirely one of support but one of containment. And their ad hoc solution in creating the center in the first place only appears to their intended audience as nod of approval and encourages further disregard for our laws.
If the council members that voted against closure of the job center (vote was 3-2 to close the center) had this "resource" in their neighborhoods, they'd vote to close it faster than you can say "matricula consular."
Impressive links...BTTT
Thank you for your reply. While rank and file taxpayers are getting reamed every payday, everyone else and their brother skates. Look I know how, but HOW can illegals get an earned income tax credit, if they aren't supposed to be here in the first place???? Don't bother answering :(
How can they verfy a SS# beyond the current ability to determine that the number is part of a valid sequence of issued numbers?
When you think about it, anything beyond that could open a path for illegals or individuals assisting them to use. The fact that SS workers have sold numbers and associated data in the past explains that nothing is secure.
Yes. My congressman was able to get my VA disability restored within about three days after the VA told me it would take six months. The problem with the AF Retirement was cleared up within about a week with no intervention from the congressman. Unfortunately, there's still some paperwork floating around saying I'm dead, so every once in awhile something strange will happen and my insurance got cancelled and my mortgage company needed proof that I was still kicking.
The next time they say you are dead, go down to your local police station and ask to have yourself fingerprinted. Then have them write you a letter saying you are who you say you are and that on this date you are alive and well.
All PD's have people who are notary's. Get it notarized and then make half a dozen copies for the companies who think you are dead.
I'm trying to think of the common title for the person in a PD who assists the community with things like this but I can't.
My latest adventure is that my health insurance was cancelled yesterday because I'm dead. So far my Disability has been stopped, my retirement was stopped, my home owner's insurance cancelled, my mortgage application was denied, and now my health insurance is cancelled. I've concluded that the easiest way out of this whole mess is to actually die. I'M IN HELL!!!!
Go to the PD and get the docs saying you are alive, then go to your Congressman and get them distributed.
You can bet the IRS isn't going to admit you are dead, so pay those taxes before 4/15 !
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