Illegal Immigrants Steal Social Securities Of Elderly, Dead

Judicial Watch ^ | 13 JUNE 2007 | Tom Fitton

[radar101]

The favorable portrait of honest and hard-working illegal immigrants who simply want to feed their families was shattered when federal agents arrested dozens of undocumented workers using dead and elderly Americans’ Social Security numbers along with previously deported criminals at an Oregon food processing plant.

More than 165 undocumented workers were arrested in the raid at a major Portland fruit and vegetable processing plant for food giant Del Monte. At least 90 employees had fraudulent Social Security cards and many used the real Social Securities of juveniles, the elderly and the deceased. Others had fake green, or residency, cards and at least three are convicted felons who had been previously deported.

The previously deported criminal illegal immigrants had been convicted in U.S. courts with crimes ranging from possession of heroin to identity theft and possession of counterfeit alien registration documents.

Immigration authorities launched an investigation into the plant a few months ago when a check of employee records pointed that only 48 of the nearly 600 plant workers had valid Social Security numbers. Because the plant staff varies according to seasonal employment changes, only 165 illegal aliens were arrested in this week’s raid.

Portland Mayor Tom Potter was outraged by the immigration raid, saying that it is bad policy for federal officials to go after local workers who are in his city to support their families while filling the demands of local businesses. He immediately issued a written statement expressing his anger and referring to the illegal immigrants as “Portland residents.”

[fr_freak]

1) The majority of illegals are young working males without family here

and

2) Some significant portion of the children of illegals are U.S. citizens and should not be lumped with the rest any more then I would lump the cost of your education in there

My second education cost estimate, where I used 1/10 of the original estimate of numbers of kids, would yield only 17,500 kids, which is an average of only one child per every 10 illegal workers. So when you say "The majority of illegals are young working males without family here", you are actually in complete agreement with that second estimate (10% of illegals have a child, and then only one), which had already reached your 130 million figure.

Here is a link to education cost estimates from an immigration reform site, so take it for what its worth:
fairus

It's rather difficult to find any real stats on the subject. I suspect that the involved agencies don't want us to know. Here is an interesting quote from another site: "The Federation for American Immigration Reform estimated that educating undocumented children in Oregon in 2004 cost $167 million. But the state Department of Education cannot confirm that number. Officials say they do not know how many undocumented children attend public schools, and it's unconstitutional to deny any child access."

They seem to be all but admitting that they purposely don't track illegal children.

As for your statement #2, it is silly to discount the cost of children born to illegal immigrants while here illegally. The fact of the matter is, according to current interpretation of Constitutional law, any child born to them on this soil is a US citizen. However, if they had not been here, their children born later would not be US citizens, and so we would not be paying for them. That is part of the draw for illegals - to get their children born here. Having said that, the first link I gave you adds an additional $200 million to my figure for the children of illegals born here.

Also, once an illegal family has managed to have a child here, they become eligible to receive all social services benefits to include public housing, welfare, etc. They may receive those benefits at a reduced rate, but they receive them nonetheless. HUD, for instance, only mandates that a household have one legal resident in order to qualify for public housing. So, a family of 10 illegals, once a baby is born here, can then move into one of our generously maintained units at well below market rate with Uncle Sam as the landlord, and US taxpayers funding the difference.

[LowOiL]

"Illegal immigrants paying social security taxes into accounts they will never be able to collect, thereby subsidizing a system that is in danger of collapsing"

Except you forgot to mention that it goes in a totally seperate account... wonder why you forgot that tidbit? The money sits there doing nothing but waiting for the lawyers to prove illegals should reclaim it.

[ndt]

I'll look over these in more detail tomorrow as it is getting late but at first glance fairus.org link seems pretty well researched and appears to provide reasonable estimates.

"My second education cost estimate, where I used 1/10 of the original estimate"

The fairus data uses 141,000 as their number so lets go with that for the sake of comparing the cost benefit ratio for a second.

They claim that $167.4 million is spent on undocumented children and $234.4 million on their U.S. Citizen siblings.

Using your previous $7557 per child estimate, that would mean there are 53 thousand total children, 22 thousand undocumented and 31 thousand who are U.S. citizens by birth.

Assuming they mean for that 22 thousand undocumented children to be counted as part of the 141,000 total illegals, then the adult to child ratio is something like 6/1. Higher then I would have guessed but reasonable enough that I have no reason to doubt it.

"it is silly to discount the cost of children born to illegal immigrants while here illegally"

I utterly and totally disagree. Citizenship is almost sacred to me and I will never accept the view that another citizen is anything but fully deserving of all the rights and privileges of citizenship based on the circumstances of their birth.

OK, so a quicky ballpark is that there is a gross gain of roughly 140 million dollars broken down in post 151. Offset by losses of (according to your link)

• $7,629,422 incarceration of criminals (I'm using the highest total listed dues to reporting problems, see link for explanation)
• $2,055,490 medical costs (again I'm using the highest number available since they do not otherwise specify)
• $167,400,000 million education costs for undocumented children

For a total cost of about 177 million dollars with a net loss of 37 million dollars.

A net loss of 37 million dollars translates into a net loss of $262 dollars per illegal alien. Just to be clear, that is $262 dollars, not thousands dollars.

Now I'm sure this is not totally comprehensive as we have not tried to calculate for example the wear and tear on the roads (negative) nor have we tried to add in the increase in domestic sales (positive) but I think we are getting pretty close. $262 dollars per illegal alien

[ndt]

"The money sits there doing nothing but waiting for the lawyers to prove illegals should reclaim it."

You're kidding right? SS money not get spent as part of the general fund? When did congress start doing that?

[Navy Patriot]

Nice example of dishonest wording.

Describes your post more accurately than the article.

There are huge negative consequences to victims of SS# theft and use, even the dead, including confiscation of bank accounts, trashing of credit, liens on real estate, astronomical lawyers fees, arrest and incarceration of living relatives. An illegals use of your SS# will make your life a living hell.

[ndt]

"An illegals use of your SS# will make your life a living hell."

Thats why you should be all for a guest worker program on the order of 10 million workers who are vetted and can pay taxes under their own tax id numbers.

[Navy Patriot]

Thats why you should be all for a guest worker program on the order of 10 million workers who are vetted and can pay taxes under their own tax id numbers.

Right after the borders are secured, ICE and BP are fully staffed and authorized, the present illegals are deported and never allowed to return and available slots are filled by those legally in line, if we need any more.

[ndt]

"Right after the borders are secured, ICE and BP are fully staffed and authorized..."

It won't help anymore then it has managed to stop the flow of drugs. The source of the problem is too many jobs (there are worse problems to have). Until the jobs are filled, they will come.

[fr_freak]

A net loss of 37 million dollars translates into a net loss of $262 dollars per illegal alien. Just to be clear, that is $262 dollars, not thousands dollars.

If I were to accept these low estimates, which I don't completely, you would still have to explain to me why we are in any way obligated to allow people to come in and steal $262 per person. Even if it were only a net loss of $1, explain to me why we wouldn't be fully motivated to stop the theft. The main argument of the pro-illegal crowd is that illegals are an economic benefit and so are worth all of the trouble they cause. If the net loss were even $1 per person, that fact completely removes that argument. If we accept your numbers, then illegals are still breaking into our house and stealing $262 per person per year. Would you allow someone to come into your house and steal even that amount?

Let's not forget all of the costs of illegals that I have been unable to find stats for. For instance, in the case of uninsured illegal drivers, every time one gets in an accident, all of our insurance premiums go up. The insurance companies simply pass the added cost to the paying customers. Since insurance is mandatory in most states, that means all of us. It is a hidden tax to pay for illegals. There are many other examples of costs that I outlined earlier, so the $262 figure is low, considering it only includes the three areas we listed - education, incarceration, and direct medical costs.

Also another reminder: we have kept the discussion limited to Oregon, since that is the area of interest listed in the article, but Oregon has a very low number of illegals compared to the border states. The number of illegals in California, for instance, is anywhere from 2-3 million, depending on who you ask. I am not able to research stats for California right now, but I am willing to bet that the increase in associated costs is not a one-to-one increase, but probably more of an exponential increase, in much the same way that criem rates tend to increase exponentially as a function of population density.

The end result is that Oregon's costs for illegals are probably trivial compared to states with higher illegal population densities, and we have determined that the net loss per illegal is, at least, $262. It only gets worse from there.

As for the anchor babies, you are dead set on discounting any costs they may incur, but what you fail to realize is that, even if we accept that the baby is entitled to all priveleges of citizenship, the baby's family who are illegal benefit just as much from that citizenship as the baby. If some sort of welfare/food stamp/other social security benefit is issued on behalf of the baby, it is not the baby who chooses how it is spent. If a family of 6 illegals and 1 anchor baby moves into a public housing unit because of the entitlement that the anchor baby creates, then that would still be a 4 bedroom or so unit rented to 6 illegals, with all the associated costs of maintenance, administration, and loss rent due to below-market charges, that the 6 illegals benefit from as well as the anchor baby. So, 1 anchor baby in a family entitles the whole family to assistance, albeit at a reduced rate. To discount that cost is to be dishonest.

[alexander_busek]

Please divulge to us right now YOUR Social Security Number. I promise I’ll pass it on to some of these people whom you so dearly love. They’ll then use it to pay taxes into your account.

They’ll also use it to open a few bank accounts (for the purpose of e.g. laundering drug money), to establish a line of credit with various different money lenders, to apply for credit cards, etc.

Get the idea, now?

[ndt]

"If I were to accept these low estimates, which I don't completely, you would still have to explain to me why we are in any way obligated to allow people to come in and steal $262 per person."

You don't have to accept them, that's why I listed every step in the estimate. You are free to disagree with any of it.

I'm not saying we should be obligated to pay for them.

The point is that 262 is such a low number that unless there is something to push it significantly one way or another, such such as increased domestic consumption (benefit) or increased wear and tear of parks and roads (cost), then $262 is essentially a wash. It is not big enough to overcome the margin of error in the calculations.

"Let's not forget all of the costs of illegals that I have been unable to find stats.."

Of course we have not counted everything, but that goes for the benefit side too.

Lets say that the typical household makes $25k per year and there are 50k households and they save (send back to Mexico) 10% of their income. That would result in an increased domestic consumption of around 1.1 billion dollars per year.

A 1.1 billion dollars increase in domestic consumption. How do you work that into a cost benefit calculation? Domestic consumption is generally counted as a positive in economics so it goes in the plus column but at what percentage to the total?

"Also another reminder: we have kept the discussion limited to Oregon, since that is the area of interest listed in the article, but Oregon has a very low number of illegals compared to the border states."

True, but unless there is something inherent about being in large groups that makes an illegal cost more I think Oregon is a good example for ease of calculation.

While your crime rate increase statement is correct I'm not sure that that is illegal specific, just population density specific. But It's worth consideration.

"As for the anchor babies, you are dead set on discounting any costs they may incur,"

Yes, because they are citizens of the united states and using them in a calculation of illegal aliens is by definition wrong.

[ndt]

"Please divulge to us right now YOUR Social Security Number. I promise I’ll pass it on to some of these people whom you so dearly love."

That would be illegal. And who said I loved anyone?

"They’ll also use it to open a few bank accounts (for the purpose of e.g. laundering drug money)"

Yes, that's what it said in the article. Oh, no wait, no it isn't. The article is about people working and hence paying taxes with the SS#.

"Get the idea, now?"

Ya, I do. You have no intention of sticking to the facts of the case.