Illegal Immigrants

[Angrboda]

You could dramatically increase the portion of taxes that illegal immigrants pay if you made them all citizens.

Or, you could stop funding dictators around the world, stop selling weapons to governments known for their poor human rights, and most importantly: stop Comedy shows like the invasion of  Iraq and Afghanistan.

History repeats itself, and Rome's scenario will happen again. Then you can eat your taxes instead of food.

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Don't defend this fucked up system; please. This is a system that risen on invasions and mass murder.
It thrives via war economy and bank scams

[Amarok]

You could dramatically increase the portion of taxes that illegal immigrants pay if you made them all citizens.

Yup amazing how simple that solution is.Kind of makes all my links seem redundant 

[FlyingNarwhal]

[LadyForCamus]

[FlyingNarwhal]

You could dramatically increase the portion of taxes that illegal immigrants pay if you made them all citizens.

Not necessarily.  As many have pointed out illegal immigrants do not receive many benefits because they are not citizens, in fact the immigrants that DO pay taxes, pay out more than they receive, yes.  Once they become citizens, it's a different story.  We know that about half of the illegal immigrant population have not attained a high school diploma or equivalent, well above the national average.  Half the population can also neither speak English, or not speak it well.  We also know that on average a household only makes $30,100.  Between lack of education and language barriers, this makes lifting yourself out of poverty unlikely.  Instead what will more likely happen is the benefits that were not available prior to amnesty will now be used, creating a tax deficit for a large portion of the population given amnesty.

If we are going to entertain amnesty, we also need to think of what rules would be creating to allow this path to citizenship.  And there are a lot of questions that need answering to implement those rules.  Should they have to pay a fee/fine?  Obviously what they did was illegal, we have a system in place to grant citizenship to people wishing to immigrate to the US.  How much should that fine be?  If the average illegal immigrant family is making $30,100, we can't quite fine them $10,000 and expect them to pay it.  Should the fine cover the estimated average cost it will be to provide amnesty, therefore relieving current citizens the tax burden of doing so?  Should they have to pay back taxes?  Surely they should, I mean we are talking a large portion of the population willfully neglected to pay taxes.  Ask Wesley Snipes how that worked out for him.  Should we imprison those that didn't pay taxes?  Won't they become an even further tax burden at that point?  If they agree to pay back taxes, what time frame do we give them and do we imprison them if they fail to pay in full within the allotted time?  Will amnesty solve the problem of illegal immigration?  How does this affect our infrastructure?  Do they get moved to the front of the line or back of the line to be granted citizenship?  Do we perform background checks first?  Should they need to learn English?

In my opinion, I would be willing to give amnesty to those that have already been paying taxes.  What a country should be looking for in it's citizens is those that are willing to contribute to the benefit of everyone.  That's what taxes are.  We pay taxes so we can all benefit.  I still however, think giving amnesty to even the tax paying portion of illegal immigrants to be unfair to immigrants that came here through legal channels and waited patiently.  It's a slap in their face, and what they did was still wrong.  But it is a compromise I am willing to make.

Also it's worth keeping in mind that we gave amnesty to roughly 3 million undocumented immigrants in 1986, and it got us 11 million just 25 years later.  If we provide amnesty, even if only in limited fashion, we need to upgrade our border laws and enforce them to a high degree.  We also need to take a look at our immigration policies and see if there are ways that we can improve/update them to make legal immigration easier/faster if it allows.  But what we don't want to be doing is providing amnesty to large swathes of illegal immigrants every couple of decades, it defeats the purpose of having an immigration policy in the first place.  We need to make sure that employers of illegal immigrants are punished, find ways to disincentivize employers from hiring them, make it more difficult to be hired if you are undocumented, enforce our borders, and enforce immigration policy.

[WinterHold]

Or, you could stop funding dictators around the world, stop selling weapons to governments known for their poor human rights, and most importantly: stop Comedy shows like the invasion of  Iraq and Afghanistan.

History repeats itself, and Rome's scenario will happen again. Then you can eat your taxes instead of food.

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Don't defend this fucked up system; please. This is a system that risen on invasions and mass murder.
It thrives via war economy and bank scams

Blah Blah from my side indeed, I mean what did I expect? you believe Israel is a "legitimate" country for God's sake.

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It's the heartless that make me sure I made the right choice when I believed in the Quran.
Keep immigrants out and if you're French; remember to vote Le Pen

[FlyingNarwhal]

[Mr.wizard]

[The Grand Nudger]

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

It;s tembling nativist shit, nothing more and nothing less.  The idea that the more some other has the less you will have.  That;s not how anything works and we know it isnt...but fear is rarely rational or grounded in fact.

[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.