"wow lets assume that bit was true then you would be opposed to our present system that mandates your version of rerallity continue.
Clarify."
our current failed system of immigration makes it i,possible for most of them to pay taxes or truly assimilate. we wall them out then wonder why they isolate
and as to the reallity
Illegal Immigrants are Paying a Lot More Taxes Than You Think
Eight million illegals pay Social Security, Medicare, and income taxes
By Shikha Dalmia
Denying public services to people who pay their taxes is an affront to America's bedrock belief in fairness. But many "pull-up-the-drawbridge" politicians want to do just that when it comes to illegal immigrants.
The fact that illegal immigrants pay taxes at all will come as news to many Americans. A stunning two-thirds of illegal immigrants pay Medicare, Social Security and personal income taxes. Yet, nativists like Congressman Tom Tancredo, R-Colo., have popularized the notion that illegal aliens are a colossal drain on the nation's hospitals, schools and welfare programs consuming services that they don't pay for.
In reality, the 1996 welfare reform bill disqualified illegal immigrants from nearly all means-tested government programs including food stamps, housing assistance, Medicaid and Medicare-funded hospitalization. The only services that illegals can still get are emergency medical care and K-12 education.
Nevertheless, Tancredo and his ilk pushed a bill through the House criminalizing all aid to illegal aliens even private acts of charity by priests, nurses and social workers. Potentially, any soup kitchen that offers so much as a free lunch to an illegal could face up to five years in prison and seizure of assets.
The Senate bill that recently collapsed would have tempered these draconian measures against private aid. But no one Democrat or Republican seems to oppose the idea of withholding public services. Earlier this year, Congress passed a law that requires everyone who gets Medicaid the government-funded health care program for the poor to offer proof of U.S. citizenship so we can avoid "theft of these benefits by illegal aliens," as Rep. Charlie Norwood, R-Ga., puts it.
But, immigrants aren't flocking to the United States to mooch off the government. According to a study by the Urban Institute, the 1996 welfare reform effort dramatically reduced the use of welfare by undocumented immigrant households, exactly as intended. And another vital thing happened in 1996: the Internal Revenue Service began issuing identification numbers to enable illegal immigrants who don't have Social Security numbers to file taxes.
One might have imagined that those fearing deportation or confronting the prospect of paying for their safety net through their own meager wages would take a pass on the IRS' scheme. Not so. Close to 8 million of the 12 million or so illegal aliens in the country today file personal income taxes using these numbers, contributing billions to federal coffers. No doubt they hope that this will one day help them acquire legal status a plaintive expression of their desire to play by the rules and come out of the shadows.
What's more, aliens who are not self-employed have Social Security and Medicare taxes automatically withheld from their paychecks. Since undocumented workers have only fake numbers, they'll never be able to collect the benefits these taxes are meant to pay for. Last year, the revenues from these fake numbers that the Social Security administration stashes in the earnings suspense file added up to 10 percent of the Social Security surplus. The file is growing, on average, by more than $50 billion a year.
Beyond federal taxes, all illegals automatically pay state sales taxes that contribute toward the upkeep of public facilities such as roads that they use, and property taxes through their rent that contribute toward the schooling of their children. The non-partisan National Research Council found that when the taxes paid by the children of low-skilled immigrant families most of whom are illegal are factored in, they contribute on average $80,000 more to federal coffers than they consume.
Yes, many illegal migrants impose a strain on border communities on whose doorstep they first arrive, broke and unemployed. To solve this problem equitably, these communities ought to receive the surplus taxes that federal government collects from immigrants. But the real reason border communities are strained is the lack of a guest worker program. Such a program would match willing workers with willing employers in advance so that they wouldn't be stuck for long periods where they disembark while searching for jobs.
The cost of undocumented aliens is an issue that immigrant bashers have created to whip up indignation against people they don't want here in the first place. With the Senate having just returned from yet another vacation and promising to revisit the stalled immigration bill, politicians ought to set the record straight: Illegals are not milking the government. If anything, it is the other way around.
Shikha Dalmia is a senior analyst at Reason Foundation, a free-market think tank. This column was originally distributed by the Knight Ridder/Tribune News Service.
"But that does not mean that all illegal immigrants -- even those with fake documents -- avoid taxation. Together with immigrants who hold temporary protected status, illegal immigrants in the region paid about $1 billion in taxes in 1999, the study found. That is because there are other taxes unrelated to income: All buyers pay sales tax on new television sets, and tenants generally pay property tax in their rent."
Households of illegal immigrants -- who constituted 22 percent of the immigrant population in 2000 -- and those with temporary protected status earned an average of $53,000 and paid 19 percent in taxes."
and as to my angle i was born here to my naturalized mom and my dad who was also born here. i just hate seeing any group dumped on it offends the irish in me. plus i've come to dislike cretain elements in the anti crowd.
and please don't misunderstand i don't lump you in that group
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/06/04/AR2006060400965.html
