Illegal Immigrants

[LadyForCamus]

Okay, wait.  So, if only those undocumented immigrants who are using an ITIN to file taxes with the IRS are eligible for the Child Tax Credit, then what’s the gripe?  If they’re paying their taxes why shouldn’t they receive that credit as any other working, tax-paying individual?  Simply because they’re here illegally?  That’s not really much of an argument. Perhaps I’m misunderstanding something here.

Yes, they should not be receiving the tax credit because they are not a US citizen.  I know that sounds cruel, but there's a couple of things that need to be understood as to why we do this.  First of all, even upon gaining citizenship, legal immigrants do not get access to benefits for years.  The principle behind this is the same that you see with state colleges providing different in-state and out-of-state tuition costs.  They provide a heavy discount to citizens of the state, because the thought process is that someone that lives in the state, receives a higher education in the state, will likely continue to reside in the state.  Having a higher educated citizen provides various benefits to the state.  Usually it's required that someone live in the state for a period of 1-2 years beforehand.  This is so someone can't move into the state for a month, pay their first rent check, and demand in state tuition; only to leave the state to return home.  It's also the same reason I can't become an illegal citizen of Canada, start paying taxes, and then demand free healthcare.

Second, is that there is a reason you are required to become a citizen before receiving these benefits and that is because we can't overload our social safety nets.  Imagine if we declared that illegal immigrants would receive all of the benefits (Social Security, Welfare, SNAP, etc) as long as they paid taxes.  We know that illegal immigrants make considerably less than the average American household.  It is not entirely without reason that we may begin to see a tax deficit.  Hence why they shouldn't be receiving the Child Tax Credit.  It was originally an oversight that they intended to fix in 2010, but screwed it up again.  And haven't been able to get rid of it since.

Sorry, but None of this follows.  If the reason, according to you, that “people” don’t want undocumented immigrants here is because they ‘don’t pay taxes’, but it can be shown with data that many of them do pay taxes, and that the only undocumented immigrants receiving the Child Tax Credit are the ones who are working and paying taxes, then you’re refuting your own argument when you continue to balk at this particular group. 

According to you, these “people” (you?) should only have a problem with those undocumented immigrants who don’t pay taxes, and consequently don’t receive many benefits.  But now you’re lumping them all together when you need support for your argument (‘whatever, they’re all illegal’) after you just spent two long posts teasing out data that distinguishes tax-paying versus non-tax paying undocumented immigrants. Maybe we could make more progress if you stated your position clearly. Where do you stand on undocumented immigrantion in the US? My position is that if the government provides them a means to pay into the system, and they do, then they deserve to have some access to the benefit pool they contributed to.  If they are contributing to the economy and to society, I don’t really care where they came from or whether they have a SSN.  Or, if they’re brown.

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Theres simply no common ground for discussion with people who begin at the presumption that immigration is a burden.

Theyre assuming their conclusion then, because I’ve yet to see anyone actually demonstrate that assumption to be true.