Thread: Opinion: Illegals are also taxpayers

By Dan Moffett Posted: 6:29 p.m. Monday, Nov. 23, 2009

The Lake Worth Resource Center celebrated its one-year anniversary last week, a milestone which predictably caused shrill critics to call for an end to the center's existence.

The complaints were familiar, which also is predictable because the country has made no progress resolving the debate over immigration issues that have been around for decades. Lake Worth commissioners approved the center at the city shuffleboard courts as a pragmatic solution to a nagging problem: day laborers, most of them immigrants, soliciting work from motorists on the downtown streets. It was a nuisance and a hazard.

The center has been successful at restoring a large measure of order. About 720 workers have found jobs, and 240 employers have registered their businesses, according to director Lisa Wilson. Beyond job placement, hundreds of workers have completed classes in everything from computers to cake decorations.

Lake Worth modeled its center after one in Jupiter. Supporters in both cities understood that this was an imperfect treatment for symptoms of a complex national ailment. Unlike members of Congress, supporters also understood that they couldn't do nothing.

It's easy for federal lawmakers to hide in Washington. Elected officials in places like Lake Worth and Jupiter have to live with the problem every day. But wherever you are, it takes plenty of political courage to embrace these resource centers, these imperfect yet necessary remedies.

The most annoying criticisms of the centers are that they coddle illegal immigrants who don't deserve the support of local governments and U.S. taxpayers. In fact, the centers are agnostic toward immigration status and try to help whoever walks through their doors. Many of the workers are in the country legally, and some are native-born and have lived here all their lives. Almost all the employers are U.S. citizens, and nearly all the services they provide go to U.S. citizens.

It's a safe bet, however, that most of the workers registered at the centers are here illegally. They deserve the support of local government, however, not only because they contribute mightily to the economy but because they pay taxes just like U.S. citizens.

That's right, illegal immigrants are taxpayers, too.

They contribute in the form of payroll taxes — about $9 billion a year to Social Security, according to one study. Because most have fraudulent Social Security numbers, they can't collect benefits; the money never leaves the system. Your mother's Social Security check might have been paid out with money paid in by an illegal immigrant.

Illegal immigrants also pay income taxes. Again, most workers with fraudulent Social Security numbers have money withheld from their paychecks, and that money stays in the system. The IRS allows people without a Social Security number to pay taxes through an individual taxpayer ID. The IRS told Congress that the country would get about $7 billion a year this way from illegal immigrants. Many of them are eligible for refunds but never try to collect because they fear deportation.

Most illegal immigrants are renters, so they pay the full range of property taxes through their landlords. Do you know a landlord who doesn't pass on his operating expenses to his tenants?

Every time an illegal immigrant eats at a restaurant or buys a T-shirt at Walmart, he pays the same Florida sales tax as legal residents. Every time he fills the tank in his car he pays the same federal, state and county taxes that native motorists do.

There are legitimate reasons not to like the resource centers. They are, after all, an inadequate substitute for the comprehensive immigration reform that Congress owes the country. But don't criticize them for coddling illegal immigrants. Those immigrants get no free ride here.

Dan Moffett is a former member of The Post Editorial Board. His e-mail address is moff1013@aol.com

http://www.palmbeachpost.com/opinion/co ... mmentsList

Again, most workers with fraudulent Social Security numbers have money withheld from their paychecks, and that money stays in the system.

Not if they claim a significant number of dependents.

Dixie

Drug dealers pay taxes too whenever they buy anything. So do prostitutes and bank robbers. THAT'S RIGHT...THEY PAY TAX TOO!!! Many people pay taxes. Pedhphiles pay taxes....that's right they do!!! What's the point? They pay tax...so? THEY ARE HERE ILLEGALLY!!

That's right, illegal immigrants are taxpayers, too.

They contribute in the form of payroll taxes — about $9 billion a year to Social Security, according to one study. Because most have fraudulent Social Security numbers, they can't collect benefits; the money never leaves the system. Your mother's Social Security check might have been paid out with money paid in by an illegal immigrant.

BS! Whatever they may pay in "taxes" comes nowhere near to covering the massive amounts they consume in taxpayer funded subsidies.


Illegals DO collect SS when they become senior citizens, whether they've paid into it or not.

It stuns me that this article openly admits they are committing FRAUD, but somehow there's nothing wrong with fraud when illegals do it??? WTH?

Someone should do a survey of the prisons and find out how many of those prisoners were tax payers when they were sent to prison. I bet many of them were taxpayers. Did the judge say we should not send them to prison because they were tax payers? NO!! Why not? Because it is a stupid argument...that's why.

I guess some do pay taxes, however that doesn't change the fact that they are here illegally. It does not change the fact that they are taking American jobs. I also agree that what they pay in does not equal what they take out. I also agree that their culture is so different and they are helping to bring down our standard of living. They really do need to stay home and make their country better just like we are fighting for ours. Someone in our government needs to grow a set and tell ALL of the immigrants to our country, legal or not, that if they don't like OUR culture leave. We are a Christian nation. If you are offended by that leave. I guess athiests are a different story. If they don't like Christmass they don't have to participate. Leave us alone or leave.

Originally Posted by agrneydgrl

I guess some do pay taxes, however that doesn't change the fact that they are here illegally. It does not change the fact that they are taking American jobs. I also agree that what they pay in does not equal what they take out. I also agree that their culture is so different and they are helping to bring down our standard of living. They really do need to stay home and make their country better just like we are fighting for ours. Someone in our government needs to grow a set and tell ALL of the immigrants to our country, legal or not, that if they don't like OUR culture leave. We are a Christian nation. If you are offended by that leave. I guess athiests are a different story If they don't like Christmas they don't have to participate. Leave us alone or leave.

That's right. If someone does not want to participate....great...but dont try to ruin it for everyone else. I am an agnostic....have been for many years. But I still celebrate the tradition of Christmas with family and friends as they are mostly Christians and I would not want to ruin it for them. I respect their beliefs, and they respect mine. And we all get along just fine. But subtracting ANYONE'S preferred religious holiday and replacing it with something else....ummmm.....no.

In what world is it FAIR for one person (or many millions as is the case) to live off of the work of another? Pro-immigration/amnesty folks need to quit making excuses for illegals and need to start feeding, housing, medicating, educating, and as necessary, incarcerating them on their own dimes. DON'T USE MY TAX DOLLARS OR FUTURE SOCIAL SECURITY. So many of our nations problems would be obliterated or reduced if our Big Business-loving politicians would just pony up and represent the will of the MAJORITY of the People. Our welfare rolls would decrease, our prison populations would be reduced, our medical costs reduced, our schools not overcrowded, our freeways not overcrowded, our job markets opened, IF, and only IF the current immigration laws were enforced. Illegals would self-deport, so the cost wouldn't be born by Americans (again). If the White House and our Congress would quit importing 130,000+ foreign workers EACH MONTH we wouldn't need to keep spending money "making jobs" while our government is busy giving them away to non-citizens as fast or faster than they're created. Why is illegal immigration always the elephant in the room, and why do Americans continue to keep in office those politicans that purport to represent us, while pandering to the hispanic vote and padding their coffers with special interest and Big Business funds? The U.S. is going to Hell in a handbasket unless the People stand up and scream for change. The majority need to get their heads out of their entertainment centers and see what kind of world their children will live in because of their current ignorance and passivity.

Illegals frequently collect EITC rather than pay taxes. So even if they file a tax return, they receive money back rather than pay taxes.

http://www.thesocialcontract.com/artman ... in_1.shtml

Too long to insert the entire article but a portion here:

IRS forms do not require illegal aliens to identify themselves as such; therefore, the agency does not know how many illegal aliens receive EITC. Estimates of EITC usage among illegal aliens have been published by private think tanks, however.

Steven A. Camarota, of the Center for Immigration Studies, examines EITC recipiency rates among Mexican immigrants in a report issued in July 2001. Camarota finds that immigrants in general, and Mexican immigrants in particular, use every major means-tested program at higher rates than natives.

The EITC stands out as the program most likely to be received by illegal alien households.

Households headed by illegal Mexican immigrants are more than three times as likely to receive the EITC than households headed by native-born Americans. In no other means-tested program do illegals receive such de facto preferential treatment.

Moreover, immigrants receive larger average benefit payments than natives. For the EITC, average payment amounts in 1999 were as follows:

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Every time an illegal immigrant eats at a restaurant or buys a T-shirt at Walmart, he pays the same Florida sales tax as legal residents. Every time he fills the tank in his car he pays the same federal, state and county taxes that native motorists do.

Yea...so does the tourist from Germany when he buys a six-pack of beer, puts gas in his rentall car and takes his family to Disneyland. Should he also be entitled to welfare and all the other social goodies that illegal invaders are so fond of?


Further, the argument that they pay payroll taxes via fradulent or stolen social security numbers is also laughable. Never mind the fact they are stealing jobs from American citizens. If that were not bad enough, these people use far more in socal services and welfare than they ever will contribute to the system. In fact, the majority of these invaders who do pay taxes with a fradulent SS, probably get a check back at the end of the year, which he readily admits later in his opinion.

Anyone who believes an illegal invader with a 8th grade education and five anchor babies will be a net gain to the tax base really doesn't understand economics.

This argument is akin to saying that those who rob banks should be entitled to keep the fruits of their ill gotten gains!

Your mother's Social Security check might have been paid out with money paid in by an illegal immigrant.

And that welfare check, WIC, housing subsidy, food stamps, etc., might have been paid out with money paid in by an America citizen!

Many of them are eligible for refunds but never try to collect because they fear deportation.

LMFOA..lets see..the fear of deportation did not stop them from presenting a fradulent/stolen social security card in order to steal that job you claim they are paying taxes with. Yet you expect people to believe that an illegal invader is going to leave money on the table at the end of the year because they fear filing a tax return might result in deportation, by a government nonetheless, that has bent over backwards to avoid deporting these very illegals!

LOL....