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 β€” 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

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