Posted on 12/08/2005 6:54:56 AM PST by jackbenimble
(CNSNews.com) - Illegal aliens who work under borrowed, stolen or fraudulent Social Security numbers could collect retirement benefits based on their illegal earnings as the result of a Bush administration plan. Critics charge the federal government has grossly underestimated the cost of the proposal, which they believe could run be billions of dollars per year.
Congress is expected to vote on some combination of proposed changes to immigration laws as early as next week, according to sources working with the House Homeland Security and Judiciary committees. While members have not been able to reach agreement on the details of a temporary or "guest worker" program advocated by President Bush, the White House might use the legislative opportunity to seek approval for an International Social Security Agreement with Mexico, something it has wanted for more than two years.
Mark Kirkorian, executive director of the Center for Immigration Studies, told Cybercast News Service that the arrangements, usually called "totalization agreements," with industrialized countries like Canada, the United Kingdom and even France are beneficial. But those benefits, he argued, would not come from an agreement with Mexico.
"The point to a totalization agreement is for two advanced countries that occasionally send corporate transferees from one country to the next for a two or three year stint to be able to reconcile their respective retirement systems," Kirkorian said. "It's not for a third world country that sends millions of peasants into a developed country to take advantage of; there's a complete mismatch, an imbalance."
Kirkorian points out a number of differences between the U.S. and Mexican Social Security systems including:
Workers are vested in the U.S. system in 10 years versus 24 years in Mexico;
The U.S. pays greater benefits to lower income workers whereas Mexico pays out only the premiums paid in, plus accrued interest; and
Most Mexican workers avoid their country's Social Security system by working in the "underground economy," while most U.S. workers have Social Security taxes automatically collected from their wages.
The U.S. has entered into totalization agreements with 20 countries since 1978. The Social Security Administration (SSA) describes the arrangements on its website:
"[These] agreements have two main purposes. First, they eliminate dual Social Security taxation -- the situation that occurs when a worker from one country works in another country and is required to pay Social Security taxes to both countries on the same earnings," the SSA site explains. "Second, the agreements help fill gaps in benefit protection for workers who have divided their careers between the United States and another country."
Congress does not have to give approval for the totalization agreements, but lawmakers are given the opportunity to vote them down. SSA Commissioner Jo Anne Barnhart explained the benefits of totalization for U.S. employers and employees during her Sept. 11, 2003 testimony to the House Judiciary Subcommittee on Immigration, Border Security and Claims.
"Without totalization the combined Social Security tax rate that U.S. employers and employees working in foreign countries must pay often approaches 40 percent or more of total payroll," Barnhart testified.
In March of 2003, the SSA's Office of the Chief Actuary estimated that a totalization agreement with Mexico would cost the U.S. $78 million in the first year, growing to $650 million (in constant 2002 dollars) by 2050. That determination assumed that the initial number of newly eligible Mexican recipients would be equal to the 50,000 beneficiaries then living in Mexico, and that the eligible number would grow to only 300,000 over the next 48 years.
But the agency now known as the Government Accountability Office (GAO) GAO report disputed that estimate.
"[T]his proxy figure does not directly consider the estimated millions of current and former unauthorized workers and family members from Mexico and appears small in comparison with those estimates," the GAO determined. "The estimate also inherently assumes that the behavior of Mexican citizens would not change and does not recognize that an agreement could create an additional incentive for unauthorized workers to enter the United States to work and maintain documentation to claim their earnings under a false identity."
Kirkorian believes those would be the unintended consequences of the president's proposed "guest worker" program.
"If the president gets his way and [those illegal aliens are] legalized, and he submits this totalization agreement to Congress," Kirkorian warned, "then all of the illegal aliens who get this 'amnesty' that he wants, get to count all of their Social Security payments when they were illegal toward their eventual retirement."
Barnhart told the congressional subcommittee that such an outcome could not happen.
"As is the case with our existing agreements, a totalization agreement with Mexico would not alter current law on this issue," Barnhart testified. "Totalization agreements do not have any effect on the prohibition against payment of benefits to illegal aliens in the United States."
But if Congress approves the president's "guest worker" plan, the "adjusted" status of previously illegal employees would mean that they would no longer be excluded from eligibility for Social Security payments.
"What they want is for illegal aliens who 'adjust' to some kind of legal status to be able to count their illegal work toward Social Security," Kirkorian said. "That's not up for contention, that's just a fact. The Social Security Administration negotiated the agreement, already, with Mexico."
A March 2003 report by the Social Security Administration's Office of the Inspector General (SSA-OIG) validates Kirkorian's concern.
"SSA's practice allows non-citizens to work illegally in the U.S. economy for a number of years, eventually acquire a valid SSN and have these earnings posted to their valid SSNs, and then receive [Social Security] benefits as a result of those earnings," the inspector general reported. "SSA does not consider the work-authorization status of the individual when they earned the wages; it only considers whether the individual can prove he or she paid Federal Insurance Contribution Act (FICA) taxes as part of this work."
Data from the 2000 Census indicate that 9.1 million Mexican citizens are living in the United States, 4.8 million of them illegally. The SSA-OIG report speculated about the impact that those illegal aliens could have if they became eligible for U.S. Social Security benefits.
"If these Mexican non-citizens are also working in the United States illegally, and an amnesty and/or totalization agreement occurs," the report warned, "SSA potentially may need to reinstate a large volume of [Social Security taxes paid under false or fraudulent account numbers] based on earlier unauthorized work."
Marti Dinerstein, president of Immigration Matters, also criticized the SSA in a September 2004 report entitled "Social Security 'Totalization' - Examining a Lopsided Agreement with Mexico," for using Canada as the model for its Mexican totalization cost estimates.
"The estimated number of Canadians living in the United States is 820,000," Dinerstein wrote. "Given the fact that a totalization agreement would cover not just Mexican workers but also their spouses and dependents, it is highly likely that over time, potentially millions of people would receive U.S. Social Security benefits and the cost would be in the billions of dollars."
"It's pretty ludicrous, frankly," Kirkorian concluded. "Mexico is just not the kind of country that you should be having this kind of agreement with."
The White House did not return calls seeking comment for this article.
He is trying to create one country and we'll be the losers.
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With some exception, the American public is electing the WRONG KIND OF PEOPLE into Washington. These wealthy elitists with lofty, utopian agendas are the bane of this country. I hope we are all learning our lesson.
I am infuriated by this action. Both Bush's have had the ONE AMERICA, ONE WORLD agenda, but Bush Jr. sure kept it off the table during the first election -- the only real clue we had was from Bush Sr. publicly talking about his ONE WORLD agenda back in those days.
Clearly, as I have said before, Washington stopped working for the American people quite a while ago. I agree with you completely on what is happening here to US, the real American people, and worst, to those of us that worked hard to put this self-serving elitist in the White House, for two terms with a Congressional majority.
This is really bad.
your post is malarky try some facts to back it up as it is it isn't worth responding to.
Bush has betrayed us on immigration.
Semper Fi'
Jarhead
"You can't build a fence on the whole border because of property owners. At least half the land on the border is privately owned."
The first 300 feet of property on our borders is Federal PROPERTY. There is NO PRIVATE PROPERTY that would interfere with a fence!
Exactly! People should get no benefit from illegal activity. In fact, they should be punished.
Illegal, immoral, unbelievable. Come on President Bush and
the Republicans. Don't you know that creating semi-citizen is those things and was tried before in the Roman Empire. It didn't work.
your post is malarky try some facts to back it up as it is it isn't worth responding to.
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Wake up, or start speaking Mexican, but maybe you already do.
And THIS is what we wind up with.
The triumph of the mob is just as evil a thing as the triumph of the plutocracy, and to have escaped one danger avails nothing whatever if we succumb to the other. In the end the honest man, whether rich or poor, who earns his own living and tries to deal justly by his fellows, has as much to fear from the insincere and unworthy demagog, promising much and performing nothing, or else performing nothing but evil, who would set on the mob to plunder the rich, as from the crafty corruptionist, who, for his own ends, would permit the common people to be exploited by the very wealthy. If we ever let this Government fall into the hands of men of either of these two classes, we shall show ourselves false to America's past. Moreover, the demagog and the corruptionist often work hand in hand. There are at this moment wealthy reactionaries of such obtuse morality that they regard the public servant who prosecutes them when they violate the law, or who seeks to make them bear their proper share of the public burdens, as being even more objectionable than the violent agitator who hounds on the mob to plunder the rich. There is nothing to choose between such a reactionary and such an agitator; fundamentally they are alike in their selfish disregard of the rights of others; and it is natural that they should join in opposition to any movement of which the aim is fearlessly to do exact and even justice to all.
~ Theodore Roosevelt, 6th Annual Message to Congress, December 3, 1906
Constitution bars federal troops from having law enforcement power anywhere on u.s soil.
Posse Comitatus bars federal troops from having law enforcement power anywhere on u.s soil that is why federal troops couldn't go into new orleans.
It is up to the governors to deploy their national guard on the border. That is only an order the governor can do. If they want the border shut send the guard to the border. It isn't enough to just guard the border you need an large area north of the border to patrol too. They need to send the national guard to also patrol the highways from the border. Use the state police helicopters to track illegals in the border states. Also use the police to arrest illegals at day labor centers.
I always see the fence in israel posted here on what the u.s should do. The private property owners won't have any of that.
What is amazing to me the same people that argued against having federal troops with law enforcement power in New Orleans are arguing for federal troops with law enforcement on u.s soil to stop illegals and for taking private property. What about private property rights.
I'd say it's too late. The Dems and Pubbies, who are really both working towards the same sort of New World Order, have us so perfectly triangulated on social issues that they've guaranteed we'll always vote for one of the Big Two. Meanwhile, they both sell out America and a rapid pace.
Those ranchers in west texas will have no part of building an ugly fence in sight of their land. Some of them didn't even allow the minutemen to patrol their. You try to build a fence their they will take out their guns.
The fact is: Social Security (feds) already confiscated those funds. "Jose" can never draw that S.S. on a stolen or fraudulent card number. that card is used to get employment.
Is that true? That would really be great. I seem to remember driving through that hellhole of a city immediately South of San Diego and the way I remember it, the slum was built right up to the border. I don't remember even a 10' buffer let alone 300 feet. You could not tell where Mexico stopped and America started because it was just a huge barrio. But maybe my memory deceives me. That was 25 years ago.
I don't know how you can compare the republicans in the house on immigration to the dems.
Most republicans in the house want to crack down on illegals as opposed to the howard dean democrat party which accuses anyone as a racist that brings up cracking down on illegals.
People that hate the gop will get what they want with a pelosi/reid/hillary govt. Maybe Dean can be made Secretary of Homeland Security to top it off.
"The current immigration system isn’t “broken” or “failed;” it's just unenforced. Not unenforceable, mind you, just ignored. Americans don’t want so-called “immigration reform, they want strict enforcement of immigration laws, an end to illegal immigration and amnesties, and an end to the rampant lawlessness engendered by politically-correct refusal to enforce our civil laws.
There's free food, subsidized housing, reduced mortgages, food stamps, free medical and education, reduced tuition and suspension of out of state tuition fees--all of this is your reward for breaking the law, but only if you aren't already an American. If you're an American, forget about it; you have to pay your way through life. This is your reward for obeying the law.
Americans have to pay full price for their education, medical care, homes, and on top of that, our taxes go to pay for criminals--that is what illegal aliens are, make no mistake: they are criminals--who get all of that for little or even for nothing. This makes it possible--even easy--for them to work for $10 an hour or less. How many of us could afford to work for peanuts IF our homes, medical, food and education were all paid for? I know that the bulk of our bills are student loans and medical; take away those bills and you take away 90% of our debt. And I know too many people my age in the same boat...so calling it a national epidemic is probably an understatement.
After all, we're the real Americans...that means we have to pay for things that immigrants--including/especially illegals--get for free so long as they have a pulse and a sob story."
You hit the nail on the head there :)
Furthermore, this applies only to illegals from Mexico, not those from other Latin American countries and Asia.
Furthermore, this will benefit Americans working in Mexico much more than it will benefit Mexican illegals working in the US.
Furthermore, if this is so egregious, why does the US have similar agreements with other nations and why don't you advocate the discontinuing of these agreements that we have with other nations?
This nothing more than phony-balonly from the far right wingnuts.
Shootem with rocksalt, steal their money, and kick their butt across the border.
Just wait till the dems have the congress and the presidency.
Kerry wanted to make all illegals get permanent amnesty. He wanted to make that a federal law.
Hillary voted in the ag bill for illegals to have amnesty.
Look at every vote in the senate the last few years on immigration and then tell me the two parties are the same.
If it wasn't for the gop permanent amnesty for all current and future illegals would be law of the land. Almost all the dems voted for it.
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