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<p>Otherwise, they would be punkettes.</p>
<p>It is withheld from their checks by their employers. Some of them use false IDs. Others (strange as it may seem) actually apply for SSNs and get them! (weird). But the main point is that the taxes, SS, Medicare, workers comp, are all withheld. My mother is very grateful (though the big threat to Social Security if there is one, is that undocumented workers have been going home.)</p>
<p>The shortage of workers we are seeing here is caused by the farmworkers settling out. They are married, bought homes, opened small businesses, and some of their kids have gone on to college. Others (who are citizens, by virtue of being born here), are now working in the orchards part-time to earn some extra money for their families.</p>
<p>“The boardwalks of the Jersey Shore are staffed by just such folks from Eastern Europe every summer. No question they are exploited kids, but they seem happy to be away from home learning English.”</p>
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<p>Sorry, but that doesn’t give the situation “clean hands.” </p>
<p>Exploiting young people, even if they ask to be, is rarely a good situation.</p>
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That’s exactly right.</p>
<p>Virtually every stitch of clothing I have on my body is the result of exploited young people. Just ones who are making much, much, much less than those on the Jersey Shore.</p>
<p>It’s the American way.</p>
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<p>I don’t disagree, but I was just saying that there must already be some program for that. </p>
<p>I don’t think these kids are trafficked. </p>
<p>I’ve spoken to some of them and they seem to enjoy their time, and the working conditions are not awful. I don’t know about the living conditions.</p>
<p>ClassicRockerDad,</p>
<p>I guarantee you their living conditions are not worse than what they have back home.</p>
<p>I think sylvan’s comment about how we’d feel if our sons/daughters married an undocumented was quite poignant. It made me stop and pause. For me, the issue wouldn’t be the fact that they are undocumented per se, but the potential boatload of issues with the extended undocumented family members that would/could fall into our laps. That would be a bigger issue for concern for me. FWIW, I would have similar concern if my DS married someone (legal) with a major boatload of debt (educational, credit card, what have you). Marrying into someone elses headaches is not easy. Some may be easier than others.</p>
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Those are excellent points.</p>
<p>I’m biased and I admit it. I hope my kids don’t marry immigrants at all. I’ve known three families, through work and personally, who had husbands take off with the kids to other countries when things went bad in the marriage. I understand that could happen in any marriage, but it’s easier if there is a support system in another country.</p>
<p>A lot of in-laws are no bargain. Fortunately mine are terrific. </p>
<p>I don’t expect to get a say in who my kids choose to marry, and I certainly don’t expect to see their income statements and balance sheets, LOL!</p>
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CRD, I have something to say about EVERYTHING! (I’m sure that doesn’t surprise you in the least)</p>
<p>LOL, ZM, it doesn’t surprise me. I’m a native New Yorker. I know your kind.</p>
<p>There was a thread many moons ago asking for opinions about someone’s kid marrying someone with a ton of educational debt. It was a great thread, and lots of very valid concerns were raised. While yes, as the saying goes, you can pick your friends (or your nose) but you can’t pick your relatives, when one gets married they are marrying the whole meshpuchah to a degree. And the major sources of stress/conflict in a marriage are money and family. </p>
<p>My older s is in a very serious relationship. I am not at all ashamed to admit that in the course of one conversation we somehow managed to discuss that neither he nor she has debt to deal with. This is a wonderful start, and a big relief.</p>
<p>You do not need a SSN to pay taxes, not even a false one. The government will issue a special 9 digit number by which undocumented workers pay taxes. It is called an ITIN number. </p>
<p>In 2010, undocumented workers paid $275m in state and local taxes in the state of Maryland. $76m was in income tax. $22m in property tax and the rest in sales tax. That was part of the background on the Maryland Dream Act. </p>
<p>In New York, the number was $662m. Nationally, it’s $11.2b.</p>
<p>Here’s the student loan debt thread . Great read: <a href=“http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/parents-forum/628417-how-would-you-feel-about-your-kid-marrying-someone-large-student-loan.html[/url]”>http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/parents-forum/628417-how-would-you-feel-about-your-kid-marrying-someone-large-student-loan.html</a></p>
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<p>Mini is right about this. The Social Security Administration estimates that 75% of the employed illegal aliens in this country hold jobs in the “formal economy” and are paid by check. Just like everyone else who is paid by check on a regular payroll, they have income taxes, FICA, etc. withheld from their paychecks. They need either a Social Security number or a federal Individual Taxpayer Identification Number, which you can get from the IRS to use in lieu of a Social Security number for tax purposes if you don’t have or can’t get a Social Security number (some legal resident aliens are eligible to work here but aren’t eligible for Social Security numbers, so they get ITINs, too). So some illegals apply for an use ITINs; the IRS apparently doesn’t verify their status. Some use stolen, fake (i.e., 9-digit numbers never issued by the Social Security administration), or fraudulently obtained Social Security numbers, in most cases the same number they used to get the job in the first place </p>
<p>In many cases those stolen, fake or fraudulently obtained Social Security numbers are supplied by their employers. When nearly 400 illegal workers, mostly Guatemalans, were rounded up at a large Kosher meat-packing plant in Postville, IA in 2008—the largest ICE raid ever–many were charged with identity theft, but most of those charged told their lawyers, journalists, and others who interviewed them that they didn’t even know what a Social Security number was; they had just been told they might find work at the plant, and when they showed up there they were told they needed to sign a bunch of documents, which apparently included W-9s and W-4s with fake or stolen Social Security numbers already filled in. That meant they were paying FICA taxes into someone else’s account or into an account that didn’t exist (I’m not sure how the Social Security Administration handles that latter category for bookkeeping purposes), and they were paying federal and probably state income taxes through the normal withholding mechanism. And they were effectively paying more in taxes than a U.S. citizen earning the same wages would pay, because very few illegal workers ever file for refunds based on things like the Earned Income Credit for low-wage workers or other deductions and credits they might have been entitled to had they been citizens or legal resident aliens. Plus they’re paying into Social Security and Medicare but are ineligible to receive Social Security and Medicare benefits (though in some cases the amounts they pay into Social Security under someone else’s I.D. might result in that person’s getting a bigger Social Security check upon retirement). Only one of the nearly 400 arrested in Postville was found to have actually used the identity of the person whose Social Security number he was using in any other context. I suspect this is common. Fake identities apparently can be purchased on the black market and some go that route, but most illegals aren’t sophisticated enough to steal someone’s identity on their own, and I suspect the Postville situation wasn’t unique; there are probably many other employers out there who are not only willing to turn a blind eye to false documentation, but actually willing to supply it to get a docile, low-wage workforce that won’t complain about wages or working conditions (which by the way were horrendous in the Postville plant).</p>
<p>The 25% of illegal workers who work in cash-only jobs are generally not paying income or payroll taxes; but then a lot of U.S. citizens in those jobs don’t pay what they owe in taxes, either.</p>
<p>So, as I said, I don’t really have a quick and easy solution to offer.</p>
<p>I have had many friends among settled-out undocumented immigrants in Eastern Washington. They own homes. Their kids are citizens. They own their own businesses. They pay taxes. (And they also send a lot of money back to the countries they came from.) I know one who even runs a radio station. Some of their kids are doctors and lawyers. If I decided one day to deport them all, the economy of much of Eastern Washington would collapse. There would be thousands of empty houses. The value of the homes of citizens would collapse along with them, and wouldn’t recover for decades. The infrastructure - from grocery stores to gas stations - would no longer be there. The very large hospital/community clinic system (which treats EVERYONE, not just immigrants) would fall apart immediately, and there would be no or little health care for the remaining folks. Retired folks would never be able to get care, and nursing homes would close up shop. The tax base which finances local school districts would collapse. Municipal services would go under. Teachers would lose their jobs. (This is in addition to the cherries and apples rotting on the trees.) With the collapse in agriculture, much of our state’s trade surplus with Pacific nations would disappear virtually over night. Businesses who depend on income from undocumented workers would go under.</p>
<p>And what would happen to my mother is anyone’s guess.</p>
<p>This is essentially why, in eastern Washington, one of the most politically conservative areas of the entire country, no one (or hardly no one) even dreams of deporting the tens of thousands of undocumented folks who live there.</p>
<p>So I don’t know what I’d propose. But I can easily see the potential result of the supposedly easy fix.</p>
<p>But while we wait for that difficult fix, I want to have our nation make best use of the academic talent, drive, and entrepreneurial abilities of those who are already here. I LOSE when that doesn’t happen (and I’m almost on Social Security, so here’s hoping more undocumented workers arrive soon! ;))</p>
<p>Illegal immigrants paying but not collecting on SS and Medicare is not a big plus. It is, as others have said, simply kicking the problem down the road. When those 10-15million illegal immigrants can no longer work due to age or disability, we will have to pay for their care anyway.</p>
<p>If farmers raised wages and improved working conditions, Americans would take the jobs. I don’t understand why everyone blames the “lazy” American worker rather than the exploitive farmer. Market demand will fix our food needs without having to import wage-busting immigrants. We could all use a little less food anyway.</p>
<p>$20 an hour (and subsidized housing) not enough? (Really, I’d like your opinion.) Of course, they are now planting apple trees in China, so our state may be doomed in any case.</p>
<p>“Illegal immigrants paying but not collecting on SS and Medicare is not a big plus.”</p>
<p>It’s currently in the tens of billions. Got another source? (serious question). It (together with lower life expectancy for Black males who never collect) is what has kept things afloat for quite some time.</p>
<p>“I would tell Natalie go to college, get an education, date citizens, and find one that you love who makes you laugh and loves you back.”</p>
<p>This is a very common urban myth. Marrying a citizen doesn’t usually lead to adjustment of status for a young person who was raised in the US without papers. Chances are, this person will have to leave her new spouse and return to the “home” country for an unpredictable number of years while expensive lawyers work toward a discretionary hardship waiver, which might never come. It’s pretty hard to convince a citizen to marry you under these circumstances, unless he/she wants to live abroad in perpetuity.</p>