The issues that face the Nation

[Sociopathicsteelerfan]

(10-28-2016, 12:12 PM)GMDino Wrote: I agree with going after the people using the illegal workers. 

But as to the highlighted part I thought that would just lead to more crime?

Not much. Unlike Trump I am aware that most immigrants are not criminals in that sense.  They just want to earn money to send home.  Illegal immigrants are generally hard working and law abiding people.  That doesn't change my point at all though.

(10-28-2016, 12:16 PM)fredtoast Wrote: It will cost a lot of money to step up prosecution.  Maybe just as much as stepping up deportation.  They both require the same amount of work i.e. locating and identifying illegal workers.  How do you prove that a lawn service is paying cash to workers when there is no paper trail?

To some extent, which would also be offset by the fines collected against employers for violating the law.  But in reality cost of enforcement is a non-issue.  Your point assumes that the people put in charge of enforcement aren't already being paid by their job to enforce the law in other areas or ways.  In reality it wouldn't cost more as the people involved are already making a pay check.  As to your last sentence, IRS auditors live for that shit.

(10-28-2016, 12:48 PM)wildcats forever Wrote: There is data to support that more Mexicans are leaving the US than entering (http://www.pewhispanic.org/2015/11/19/more-mexicans-leaving-than-coming-to-the-u-s/). Offsetting this is the increase of Indian and Chinese immigration, far outpacing recent years of Mexican immigration. 

The caused me to wonder about the total cost of illegal immigration, which according to this: http://www.fairus.org/publications/the-fiscal-burden-of-illegal-immigration-on-united-states-taxpayers is $113 billion total, $84 billion being at the state and local level, and $29 billion for Federal. One number that jumped out was the $52 billion cost for educating the children of illegal immigrants. This report shows tax receipts of $9.5 billion for Federal, and app. $4 billion for state and local from illegal aliens. 

What I'm looking for now is an accurate report assessing where the holes are in our current law that is preventing getting these numbers under control, and what is being done to improve the situation other than yapping on and on about building a wall.

Thank you for taking the time to post hard data.  I'm at work and don't really have the time.

(10-28-2016, 02:48 PM)Belsnickel Wrote: The healthcare is money lost in the private sector. Money spent at the municipal level is generated primarily from property taxes and sales taxes, which they can't avoid. They may not pay the property taxes directly, but they pay them indirectly through their landlords. Money to pay for roads is picked up from vehicle registrations, which they often do pay, just again it is often indirectly, and through gasoline taxes which are unavoidable.

Good points until you get to vehicle registration.  Those are often forged or stolen from other vehicles.  There's a reason every Californian scores the crap out of their registration sticker, so it can't be peeled off and reused.  Gasoline tax is the same as sales tax, which has already been conceded.

Quote:I will say something about an earlier post, though. The whole illegal immigrants having an ITIN is bull shit. More often than not they are using another person's SSN/ITIN to obtain employment and so taxes are being paid in that person's name.

Very true, which often causes immense problems for the person whose SSN is being used.  Their credit score is often decimated which can cause irreparable damage to a person's life.  Using someone else's SSN is a significant crime and a huge detriment to the victim.

[GMDino]

(10-28-2016, 12:48 PM)wildcats forever Wrote: There is data to support that more Mexicans are leaving the US than entering (http://www.pewhispanic.org/2015/11/19/more-mexicans-leaving-than-coming-to-the-u-s/). Offsetting this is the increase of Indian and Chinese immigration, far outpacing recent years of Mexican immigration. 

The caused me to wonder about the total cost of illegal immigration, which according to this: http://www.fairus.org/publications/the-fiscal-burden-of-illegal-immigration-on-united-states-taxpayers is $113 billion total, $84 billion being at the state and local level, and $29 billion for Federal. One number that jumped out was the $52 billion cost for educating the children of illegal immigrants. This report shows tax receipts of $9.5 billion for Federal, and app. $4 billion for state and local from illegal aliens. 

What I'm looking for now is an accurate report assessing where the holes are in our current law that is preventing getting these numbers under control, and what is being done to improve the situation other than yapping on and on about building a wall.

(10-28-2016, 03:28 PM)Sociopathicsteelerfan Wrote: Not much. Unlike Trump I am aware that most immigrants are not criminals in that sense.  They just want to earn money to send home.  Illegal immigrants are generally hard working and law abiding people.  That doesn't change my point at all though.

I was just looking at it from the possible angle of if they CAN'T get home easily or thinking of situations where people get desperate if they have nothing to go back to.

I agree that most would simply leave, as many already have.

[Belsnickel]

(10-28-2016, 03:28 PM)Sociopathicsteelerfan Wrote: Good points until you get to vehicle registration.  Those are often forged or stolen from other vehicles.  There's a reason every Californian scores the crap out of their registration sticker, so it can't be peeled off and reused.  Gasoline tax is the same as sales tax, which has already been conceded.

In my location they typically have registered vehicles. As with many of these issues, regional variations do exist.

[*TheLeonardLeap*]

(10-28-2016, 02:48 PM)Belsnickel Wrote: The healthcare is money lost in the private sector. Money spent at the municipal level is generated primarily from property taxes and sales taxes, which they can't avoid. They may not pay the property taxes directly, but they pay them indirectly through their landlords. Money to pay for roads is picked up from vehicle registrations, which they often do pay, just again it is often indirectly, and through gasoline taxes which are unavoidable.

Money lost in the private sector. How do you think they recoup those losses? The same way they got to pay for the ACA. Raise our fees and prices. It might not be called a tax, but it might as well be.

[*bfine32*]

(10-28-2016, 03:28 PM)Sociopathicsteelerfan Wrote: Not much. Unlike Trump I am aware that most immigrants are not criminals in that sense.  They just want to earn money to send home.  Illegal immigrants are generally hard working and law abiding people. 

I agree with this point and have most likely seen it first hand. That does not change the inconvenient truth that both they and their employers are participating in illegal activity.

The biggest issue I have with illegal immigration and "looking the other way" is the message it sends to those trying to enter the country by legal means.

[Belsnickel]

(10-28-2016, 05:06 PM)TheLeonardLeap Wrote: Money lost in the private sector. How do you think they recoup those losses? The same way they got to pay for the ACA. Raise our fees and prices. It might not be called a tax, but it might as well be.

That's what happens when we have laws preventing hospitals from turning people away but we don't provide the regulation or fiscal support to make it a viable financial model.

[Sociopathicsteelerfan]

(10-28-2016, 05:11 PM)bfine32 Wrote: I agree with this point and have most likely seen it first hand. That does not change the inconvenient truth that both they and their employers are participating in illegal activity.

The biggest issue I have with illegal immigration and "looking the other way" is the message it sends to those trying to enter the country by legal means.

I agree, which is why I used the term, "criminals in that sense", meaning street level crime.

[fredtoast]

(10-28-2016, 03:28 PM)Sociopathicsteelerfan Wrote:  Your point assumes that the people put in charge of enforcement aren't already being paid by their job to enforce the law in other areas or ways.  In reality it wouldn't cost more as the people involved are already making a pay check. 

No.  My point assumes that a lot more work will require a lot more manpower.

If the population of a city quadruples they have to add more investigators and prosecutors even though there are already some working and making a pay check.  So if we suddenly ask prosecutors and investigators to find evdence regarding the employment of several million illegal immigrants the increase in workload is going to require more manpower.

[fredtoast]

(10-28-2016, 03:28 PM)Sociopathicsteelerfan Wrote: To some extent, which would also be offset by the fines collected against employers for violating the law. 

But many employers of illegal immigrants don't have much money to pay fines.  They are small farmers, construction contractors, lawnservices, and restaurants.

You can levy millions in fines, but you can't collect if they don't have it.

[fredtoast]

(10-28-2016, 02:37 PM)TheLeonardLeap Wrote: Except you forgot to mention that then you're losing the money they spend on things like educating their children, giving them healthcare, paying the salaries of the police/EMT/firefighters/etc who work their neighborhoods, repairing the roads they drive on, etc, etc.

That's why normal citizens pay all that tax, to pay for it. So if you're only getting $2,500 instead of the $4,200 in your example, you're falling short $1,700 that you'll then need to either increase the taxload of your fully paying citizens, reduce the services you offer, or provide insufficient services.


YOUR math is based on the assumption that the tax dollars aren't spent on the illegal immigrants at all, so that anything they provide is a net positive. It doesn't work that way.

Still not quite correct.  Things like military spending and most areas of government regulation are going to be the same no matter what the populations.

You have a point that some services costs are based oin population, but not all of them

[fredtoast]

(10-28-2016, 12:48 PM)wildcats forever Wrote: This caused me to wonder about the total cost of illegal immigration, which according to this: http://www.fairus.org/publications/the-fiscal-burden-of-illegal-immigration-on-united-states-taxpayers is $113 billion total,

This is a perfct example of what I said earlier about it being hard to find an unbiased study on the costs of immigration and deportation.  FAIR is an extremely biased source and there has been a lot of criticism of the methodolgy used in this report

https://www.americanimmigrationcouncil.org/research/statistical-hot-air-fair%E2%80%99s-usa-report-lacks-credibility

• FAIR assumes, without any empirical backing, that all children of unauthorized immigrants are low-income, and that they all attend low-income schools—and therefore that they are responsible for nearly 10 percent of the $13.8 billion in Title I funding aimed at assisting schools to improve the academic performance of children from poor families. In addition to being baseless, this assumption is inconsistent with other sections of FAIR’s report, where higher income levels are acknowledged or even used as a basis for computing costs. In other words, FAIR changes its assumptions about the income of unauthorized immigrants in order to maximize the costs which are attributed to them.
  

• FAIR acknowledges that “only anecdotal information is available” about Medicaid fraud by unauthorized immigrants, yet inexplicably assumes that the number of unauthorized immigrants who fraudulently use Medicaid is equal to the number who seek emergency medical treatment. No explanation is provided as to why these two numbers would bear any resemblance to one another, but this assumption helps FAIR to produce $2.5 billion in alleged costs.
  

• FAIR assumes that nearly three-fourths of Limited English Proficiency (LEP) students in public schools are the children of unauthorized immigrants—and therefore utilize most of the $730 million in taxpayer-funded Title III programs for LEP students. Yet FAIR also states that the majority of the children of unauthorized immigrants are U.S. citizens, born and raised in the United States. It stands to reason that native-born children are less likely to be LEP students than are foreign-born children.
  

• FAIR counts the entire $2.5-billion budget of the Department of Homeland Security’s Detention and Removal Office as a cost associated with unauthorized immigration. However, 10 percent of the people deported each year are Legal Permanent Residents, not unauthorized immigrants.
  

But it works both ways.  People who claim it will costs too much to deport all the illegal immigrants will often inflate those numbers also.