Free Republic

Investigating the IRS: Why it gives billions to illegal immigrants INDIANAPOLIS - Why are many illegal immigrants getting a bigger tax refund than you? Blame it on the IRS and a massive tax loophole that's now being exposed by Eyewitness News. 13 Investigates has found the IRS is giving away your tax dollars to illegal workers and people who don't even live in the United States - and the problem is costing billions! We want you to see exactly where your money is going and why the IRS is allowing it to happen. From the homes of illegal workers in...

Alabama farmers frantically looking for workers to replace those that have fled the state in the wake of its tough new immigration law should just stop by their local prison, according to the head of Alabama’s agriculture department. John McMillan, commissioner of the Alabama Department of Agriculture and Industries, told the Montgomery Advertiser on Thursday that inmate labor through the state’s work-release program offers a short-term solution to the sudden labor shortage that has hit Alabama since enforcement of its illegal immigration law kicked in. Some farmers have said the state’s new law has driven away Hispanic migrant farm workers...

The Supreme Court on Thursday gave Arizona and other states more authority to take action against illegal immigrants and the companies that hire them, ruling that employers who knowingly hire illegal workers can lose their license to do business. The 5-3 decision upholds the Legal Arizona Workers Act of 2007 and its so-called business death penalty for employers who are caught repeatedly hiring illegal immigrants. The state law also requires employers to check the federal E-Verify system before hiring new workers, a provision that was also upheld Thursday. The court's decision did not deal with the more controversial Arizona law...

Harvard Maintenance Inc., a national janitorial company, will lose over half its Minnesota work force after an immigration audit, making it the second major business in that state to be hit by an Obama administration crackdown on employers of illegal immigrants. The audit by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement will result in about 240 workers losing their jobs, the Service Employees International Union said on Monday. J. Daniel Duffy, an executive vice president of the closely held New York-based janitorial company, declined to comment. Harvard Maintenance began issuing dismissal letters to employees in early March and is in the process...

A hailstorm brought the useful life of my mother's roof to an end this summer. An acquaintance of mine came to the house, gave Mom a bid, and left with a deposit check. When his crew arrived a few days later, their appearance shocked my mother. Apparently, she had expected the 2010 counterparts of Archie Bunker and Ralph Kramden. Instead, she had six workers, one of whom could speak English...sort of. In a recent American Thinker essay, Christopher Chantrill explored the motivations that might lead a new contractor to hire "undocumented" workers rather than tax-paying, on-the-books, legal workers. By tacking...

BREWSTER, Wash. — The Obama administration has replaced immigration raids at factories and farms with a quieter enforcement strategy: sending federal agents to scour companies’ records for illegal immigrant workers. Guest workers, like those above, have replaced more than 500 undocumented workers fired in December from Gebbers Farms in Brewster, Wash. While the sweeps of the past commonly led to the deportation of such workers, the “silent raids,” as employers call the audits, usually result in the workers being fired, but in many cases they are not deported. Over the past year, Immigration and Customs Enforcement has conducted audits of...

Two months after the Department of Labor launched a special program to assist and protect illegal immigrants in the U.S. the Obama cabinet official who heads the agency is personally encouraging undocumented workers to report employers that don’t pay them fairly. In a Spanish-language public service announcement, Labor Secretary Hilda Solis assures that “every worker in America has a right to be paid fairly, whether documented or not.” Illegal aliens who are not getting fair wages are encouraged to call a new hotline set up by the agency on a new “Podemos Ayudar” (We Can Help) web page designed to...

Dobbs: This government might be as well the largest employer of illegal workers in this country. It's just another of many and mounting reasons why the Bush administration and the one before it have so little credibility on the issue of illegal immigration and border security. Christine Romans has our report. The biggest employer of people not authorized to work in this country, the government. A little noticed audit last year of so-called non-work Social Security numbers showed the government, retail and universities are top employers of non-citizens who are not authorized to work here. From 2001 to 2003, seven...

ALBANY, N.Y. - Five former managers from a major crate and pallet manufacturer that employed illegal immigrants pleaded guilty Tuesday, 10 months after federal agents staged sweeping raids at company sites in 26 states. James Rice, 37, of Houston, an executive regional general manager of IFCO Systems, pleaded guilty to conspiring to employ illegal workers. Robert Belvin, 43, of Stuart, Fla., a former general manager of the Albany IFCO plant, pleaded guilty to two felony conspiracy charges. The two executives could face up to two years in prison and a $250,000 fine, Assistant U.S. Attorney Tina Sciocchetti said. Netherlands-based IFCO...

MOSCOW - Russia launched a crackdown on millions of illegal workers as tough new migration rules came into effect Monday amid a rising tide of anti-immigrant sentiment. But with Russia's population plummeting, there is concern the country could face serious shortages of low-wage laborers. "They don't like the color of our skin here," said a 26-year-old Azerbaijani produce seller at a Moscow food market who gave his name as Alek. He predicted that he and many of his fellow migrants would have to leave Russia. Under the new rules, which set a quota of 6 million foreign workers for 2007,...

First it was the chaos. Then it was the confusion as to who was arrested and where they would be taken. Now, the Spanish-speaking residents of Cactus, Dumas and other neighboring communities who escaped Tuesday's raid because they either are here legally or do not work at the Swift meat plant, face an even bigger problem: what is going to happen to the more than 100 children whose parents were rounded up and arrested? "Right now the children are being taken care of by relatives or friends of those who were deported," said Orlando Gajardo, spokesman for the St. Peter...

Stricter immigration enforcement hits builders in the wallet One outcome of both the legislative and enforcement attention being focused on the immigration issue could be an unintended one: higher wages. After nearly a decade of relatively few arrests of undocumented workers, thousands have been rounded up in the last two months, with the largest action netting more than 1,000 people. That already is making some employers think twice about hiring undocumented workers and it is making some job seekers nervous about work in highly scrutinized trades, such as construction. The potential in Florida for wage pressure is enormous for two...

THESE ARE THE SENATORS WHO VOTED TO GIVE SOCIAL SECURITY BENEFITS TO ILLEGAL ALIENS REGARDLESS OF POLITICAL PARTY, THESE POLITICIANS NEED TO BE DEFEATED IN 2006, 2008 OR 2010, WHENEVER THEY NEXT COME UP FOR OFFICE. SEND THIS TO EVERYONE YOU KNOW; THE ENTIRE POPULATION OF THE UNITED STATES NEEDS TO KNOW THIS INFORMATION -- THAT IS, UNLESS THEY DO NOT MIND SHARING THEIR SOCIAL SECURITY WITH FOREIGN WORKERS WHO NEVER PAID INTO IT AND AMERICAN CITIZENS ARE BEING LEFT OUT. Grouped by Home State Alabama: Alaska: Stevens (R-AK), Yea Arizona: McCain (R-AZ), Yea Arkansas: Lincoln (D-AR), Yea Pryor (D-AR),...

Call the president. I have an answer to the illegal immigration problem. The federal government uses businesses to collect taxes, right? So why not use the IRS template to control undocumented workers. It's simple. If an employer knowingly hires an illegal, said undocumented worker could report the employer to the INS and he would get immediate citizenship and a $2,000 bounty and the employer would be fined $5,000. If the illegal worker used forged documents, he would be deported with a felony on his record. If he is caught again using forged document he would be jailed. Employers already ask...

controversial measure under the Gold Dome, dealing with illegal workers in Georgia, is causing an huge uproar after a local Hispanic newspaper published a story about the bill’s author on Wednesday. Senate Bill 529 has no shortage of angry critics, who feel the measures unfairly targets members of the state’s rapidly growing Hispanic community -- many of whom are now afraid to send their children to school or to seek medical attention. Senator Chip Rogers (R-Woodstock) is the lawmaker behind the bill, which would penalize companies using illegal workers. “They've called me a racist, they call me anti-Christian, they say...

Hundreds of people gathered along 40 miles of state Highway 111 in the Coachella Valley Sunday to protest a proposed federal law that would heighten enforcement targeting undocumented immigrants. In groups ranging from a few dozen to more than 150, the mostly Latino crowds of demonstrators cheered honking autos in Coachella and Indio; waved farmworker union, American and Mexican flags at a ritzy resort in Indian Wells; and held hands before a strip mall in Cathedral City. About 75 picketed the street in front of the office Rep. Mary Bono, R-Palm Springs, to protest her vote in December for HR...

The average American in the year 2005 lives a fragile existence, in a struggle for survival that can be ended by missing a few paychecks. The carrot at the end of the stick which was formerly known as "the American dream" has been replaced by a whip that can best be described as the "American nightmare" * * * You no longer work to achieve a better life for yourselves and your children. You work to keep a roof over your head, and you pray that you don't lose it. You became a slave when fear replaced incentive as your...

<p>But these workers are not her employees. They are leased from a staffing agency, like many others who now supply workers to hotels, grocery stores and cruise ships. And not all of them should be here.</p> <p>In Biloxi, Miss., Orlando, and Atlanta, it is the same, operators of illegal labor networks told FLORIDA TODAY. So, too, in Indianapolis; Reno; Chicago, Newark, N.J.; and Anaheim, Calif.</p>

Thousands of foreign workers have gone into hiding in South Korea to avoid being deported by the government. Seoul has set a Saturday deadline for guest workers without the proper documentation to leave the country or be thrown out. The plan has already cost two lives, after a 31-year-old Sri Lankan man jumped in front of a train and another, from Bangladesh, hanged himself. The crackdown affects 120,000 of the 230,000 guest workers in South Korea. Cheap labour Workers from across Asia have flocked to South Korea since 1987. Analysts say the then government opened up the country to cheap...

Nine illegal immigrants who worked as janitors at Wal-Mart until they were arrested during federal raids last month have sued the company, accusing it of discrimination. The nine say they were paid lower wages and offered fewer benefit because they are Mexicans, and they accuse Wal-Mart and its cleaning contractors of failing to pay for overtime, withhold taxes or make required workers' compensation contributions. Their lawsuit, filed Wednesday in Superior Court in Freehold, seeks more than $200,000 in back pay. The plaintiffs, who now face deportation, were among 250 people arrested in an Oct. 23 federal immigration crackdown at 60...