Tag Archives: Amnesty

News

IRS sent $46 million in “tax refunds” to 23,994 illegal aliens, all living at the same address

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From CNS News.

Excerpt:

The Internal Revenue Service sent 23,994 tax refunds worth a combined $46,378,040 to “unauthorized” alien workers who all used the same address in Atlanta, Ga., in 2011, according to the Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration (TIGTA).

That was not the only Atlanta address theoretically occupied by thousands of “unauthorized” alien workers receiving millions in federal tax refunds in 2011. In fact, according to a TIGTA audit report published last year, four of the top ten addresses to which the IRS sent thousands of tax refunds to “unauthorized” aliens were in Atlanta.

The IRS sent 11,284 refunds worth a combined $2,164,976 to unauthorized alien workers at a second Atlanta address; 3,608 worth $2,691,448 to a third; and 2,386 worth $1,232,943 to a fourth.

Other locations on the IG’s Top Ten list for singular addresses that were theoretically used simultaneously by thousands of unauthorized alien workers, included an address in Oxnard, Calif, where the IRS sent 2,507 refunds worth $10,395,874; an address in Raleigh, North Carolina, where the IRS sent 2,408 refunds worth $7,284,212; an address in Phoenix, Ariz., where the IRS sent 2,047 refunds worth $5,558,608; an address in Palm Beach Gardens, Fla., where the IRS sent 1,972 refunds worth $2,256,302; an address in San Jose, Calif., where the IRS sent 1,942 refunds worth $5,091,027; and an address in Arvin, Calif., where the IRS sent 1,846 refunds worth $3,298,877.

Since 1996, the IRS has issued what it calls Individual Taxpayer Identification Numbers (ITINs) to two classes of persons: 1) non-resident aliens who have a tax liability in the United States, and 2) aliens living in the United States who are “not authorized to work in the United States.”

The IRS has long known it was giving these numbers to illegal aliens, and thus facilitating their ability to work illegally in the United States. For example, the Treasury Inspector General’s Semiannual Report to Congress published on Oct. 29, 1999—nearly fourteen years ago—specifically drew attention to this problem.

[…]In addition to the 23,994 tax refunds worth a combined $46,378,040 that the IRS sent to a single address in Atlanta, the IG also discovered that the IRS had assigned 15,796 ITINs to unauthorized aliens who presumably resided at a single Atlanta address.

The IRS, according to TIGTA, also assigned ITINs to 15,028 unauthorized aliens presumably living at a single address in Dallas, Texas, and 10,356 to unauthorized aliens presumably living at a single address in Atlantic City, N.J.

Perhaps the most remarkable act of the IRS was this: It assigned 6,411 ITINs to unauthorized aliens presumably using a single address in Morganton, North Carolina. According to the 2010 Census, there were only 16,681 people in Morganton. So, for the IRS to have been correct in issuing 6,411 ITINS to unauthorized aliens at a single address Morganton it would have meant that 38 percent of the town’s total population were unauthorized alien workers using a single address.

TIGTA said there were 154 addresses around the country that appeared on 1,000 or more ITIN applications made to the IRS.

And now they are trying to pass an amnesty bill which they tell us contains no corruption, waste or fraud at all. How stupid do they think that we are? If they were serious about their desire to clean up the immigration system and encourage immigration of responsible, law-abiding skilled immigrants, then they would be building a fence now and cleaning up the messes that already exist. It’s important to understand that illegal immigrants break the law and cheat the system – and the rest of us have to pay for it. We pay for their schools, their health care, their car accidents, their crimes and so on. Politicians who turn a blind eye to this want to appear to be generous, spending other people’s money and calling it “compassion”. But this money doesn’t come from politicians, it comes from taxpayers like you and I. I don’t know about you, but I had my own plans for the money I earn, and it didn’t involve paying for corrupt politicians to feel good about their “generosity”.

Commentary

Heather McDonald: the real risks of the Senate immigration amnesty bill

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Here’s a post from the moderate Manhattan Institute about the Senate immigration bill. (H/T Doug Ross)

No border enforcement:

Mickey Kaus has demolished the Senate bill’s central claim: that it makes border security a precondition for the granting of permanent-resident status. In fact, the enforcement goals consist of empty promises; nothing actually hangs on their achievement or requires that they ever be met. Immigrant advocate Frank Sharry candidly echoed Kaus’s analysis in the Wall Street Journal: “The triggers [for obtaining green cards] are based on developing plans and spending money, not on reaching that effectiveness, which is really quite clever.”

Amnesty almost immediately:

But the legislation’s most critical amnesty comes right away, before even the pretense of beefed-up security. Illegal aliens will get their illegal status removed six months after the bill is passed upon payment of $500. The formerly illegal aliens will be allowed to remain in the country legally, under so-called “probationary status,” for ten years (while those who wish to enter the country legally wait patiently in their home countries for permission to enter).

Criminals are eligible for amnesty:

Not one amnesty proposal has ever required a clean criminal record to qualify. The current bill allows aliens with two misdemeanor convictions to legalize. Given the incessant pressures on district attorneys to accept a plea in exchange for downgrading the crime charged and to ignore most arrests entirely, it takes considerable effort to rack up two misdemeanor convictions—whether by dealing drugs, assaulting fellow gangbangers, stealing, or tagging. The bill’s authors apparently think that staying on the right side of the law is an insuperable burden and that having a criminal record is an ordinary part of being an American.

Permanent Democrat majority:

The political effects of the proposed amnesty won’t benefit the GOP, whatever the party’s hopes might be. Hispanics will not shift their vote to Republicans in the next presidential election unless Republicans promote the same big-government programs, such as Obamacare, that attract Hispanics to the Democratic Party in the first place.

Hurts the poorest Americans:

Harvard economist George Borjas has recently estimated that low-skilled American workers already suffer wage losses of $402 billion a year because of immigrant labor, a sum that does not include the costs to taxpayers of welfare paid to low-skill immigrant workers and their children. Amnesty proponents should explain how providing legal status to millions of illegal aliens will affect the job prospects of the poorest Americans.

Massive burden to taxpayers:

Reconfiguring immigration priorities is crucial, because many children of unskilled immigrants are assimilating into the underclass. They are also placing enormous burdens on the nation’s schools. California governor Jerry Brown proposes to redirect state taxpayer dollars from middle-class schools to those with high proportions of “English learners,” because Hispanic students lag so far behind whites and Asians. Most of these “English learners” were born and raised in the U.S. but are characterized as non-native speakers because their academic language skills are so low. Nationally, only 18 percent of Hispanic eighth-graders read at or above proficiency levels, according to the 2011 National Assessment of Educational Progress. Because of their low academic achievement (and their high rates of illegitimacy), second- and third-generation Hispanics rely on government welfare programs far more than native-born whites.

I just wanted to be clear with everyone. I am in favor of legal immigration and even automatic green cards for skilled workers – especially in Information Technology. Skilled workers who come here legally and work here for 6 years without committing any crimes should get an automatic green card. Skilled immigrants pay more in taxes than they take from welfare programs. But this immigration bill does nothing for skilled immigrants. It’s targeting unskilled immigrants who have already broken the law by coming here illegally and forcing enormous costs on taxpayers. We already have a $17 trillion debt and it’s going up by a trillion every year. We can’t afford this amnesty bill.

News

New York Times editorial blames Americans for Boston Muslim terrorist attack

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Mark Steyn takes a look at it in his National Review article. (H/T Doug Ross)

Excerpt:

Eight-year-old Martin [Richards] was killed; his sister lost a leg; and his mother suffered serious brain injuries. What did the Richards and some 200 other families do to deserve having a great big hole blown in their lives? Well, according to the New York Times, they and you bear collective responsibility. Writing on the op-ed page, Marcello Suarez-Orozco, dean of the UCLA Graduate School of Education and Information Studies, and Carola Suarez-Orozco, a professor at the same institution, began their ruminations thus:

“The alleged involvement of two ethnic Chechen brothers in the deadly attack at the Boston Marathon last week should prompt Americans to reflect on whether we do an adequate job assimilating immigrants who arrive in the United States as children or teenagers.”

[…]How hard would it be for Americans to be less inadequate when it comes to assimilating otherwise well-adjusted immigrant children? Let us turn once again to Mrs. Tsarnaev:

“They are going to kill him. I don’t care,” she told reporters. “My oldest son is killed, so I don’t care. I don’t care if my youngest son is going to be killed today. . . . I don’t care if I am going to get killed, too . . . and I will say Allahu Akbar!”

You can say it all you want, madam, but everyone knows that “Allahu Akbar” is Arabic for “Nothing to see here.” So, once you’ve cleared the streets of body parts, you inadequate Americans need to redouble your efforts.

It’s our fault that this happened. We didn’t supply Mrs. Tsarnaev with enough welfare money. We need to spend more on public schools and free health care and food stamps. At least, that’s how the left views it. That’s how the Obama administration views it. They would never deport people like the Boston bombers, because that would be “intolerant”.

Victor Davis Hanson explains how far the United States will go to avoid deporting welfare-collecting criminals:

Deportation is now politically incorrect, sort of like the T-word “terrorism” which the administration also seeks to avoid.

[…]Why were the Tsarnaevs granted asylum in the United States – and why were some of them not later deported? Officially, they came here as refugees. As ethnic Chechens and former residents of Kyrgyzstan, they sought “asylum” here from anti-Muslim persecution – given that Russia had waged a brutal war in Chechnya against Islamic militants.

Yes, the environment of Islamic Russia was and still can be deadly. But if the Tsarnaevs were supposedly in danger there, why did the father, Anzor, after a few years choose to return to Dagestan, Russia, where he now apparently lives in relative safety? Why did one of the alleged Boston bombers, Tamerlan Tsarnaev, return to Russia for six months last year – given that escape from such an unsafe place was the very reason that the United States granted his family asylum in the first place?

[…]What, exactly, justifies deportation of immigrants of any status? Failure to find work and become self-supporting? Apparently not. The Tsarnaev family reportedly had been on public assistance. This is not an isolated or unusual instance.

[…]Should those residing here illegally at least avoid committing crimes and follow the rules of their adopted country? Apparently not – given that Tamerlan Tsarnaev, a skilled boxer, was charged in 2009 with domestic violence against his girlfriend. His mother, Zubeidat, also back in Russia now, was reportedly arrested last year on charges of shoplifting some $1,600 in goods from a Boston-area store.

Meanwhile, skilled immigrants who come to this country and work for decades without getting so much as a speeding ticket can just go back where they came from. We don’t want them – we need to deport them. They are “bad” immigrants who need to go back where they came from. We want the welfare-collecting terrorist immigrants, instead. Like Mrs. Tsarnaev. She is a “good” immigrant who needs to be fast-tracked to permanent residency and citizenship.

Meanwhile, the Department of Homeland Security continues to ignore real terrorism and claim that white male gun owners are the real terrorists in their training material. Just like the FBI claims that pro-lifers are the real terrorists in their training material. The Obama administration isn’t serious about national security.