The Bush admin won't do anything about this, as shown by his proposed plan to legalize many of these ilegal immigrants.

Why? His big business contributors depend on the cheap labour. Plain and simple. Follow the money. The money made from cheap labour likely exceeds the $9 billion several fold. As discussed in Barber's comments, Wal-Mart uses illegal labour greatly, and of all the political contributions Wal-Mart dispenses, 97% of that goes to Republicans. And they aren't the only ones.

Vince, you don't live in America, so you are probably unaware that

a) big business donates as much or more to Democrats as to Republicans

b) the bulk of Republican campaign contributions come in amounts of less that $1000, while the bulk of Democratic contributions come in amounts of more than $10,000.

Ever here of Warren Buffett or George Soros? Democrats, Vince, not Republicans.

Maybe you ought to get informed about American politics before you rush to assumptions.

But sterotyping is so much easier, I know.

Oh, and Vince, you don't have any sources for your figures on say, Wal-Mart's use of illegal immigrants?

Oh, that's right, you didn't provide any--you just asserted it.

I live in an area with lots of illegals, and lots of Wal-Marts. Illegals here work on farms and in construction, not to mention gardening and housework for wealthy Democrats in Seattle. Never heard of any employed at Wal-Mart. I assume it's possible.

But you can't just walk up to Wal-Mart and say "I'm an illegal give me a job". You have to have documents. They are easy to forge....

Wal-Mart has to keep lots of paper work on their employees and it is much easier for people with farms or orchards to get away with stuff. Wal-Mart is always under intense scrutiny by folks like yourself, Vince, whereas farms and wealthy Democrats who need housekeeping are not.

Can this figure be balanced against the net benefit that these immigrants bring to the economies of the affected states, such as California? I've read some good analysis of this in the past, such as in The Economist, that made it clear that the loss of this young inexpensive labor would, all things considered, do serious harm to many labor intensive industries which cannot realistically expect to substitute native workers.

Voivod: Balance that against the taxes that California has to confiscate from people who were born here, in order to support the leeches. Remember also that the leeches don’t pay the same taxes that the rest of us do.

If each one of them paid $3,000/yr to the state, I might have less of a problem with them being here. Somehow, though, I don’t think that’s the case.

voivod

Go read the North County Times article in the entry above it has a detailed breakdown of the numbers.

The study above includes revenue from illegals etc... the nearly $9 billion figure is after factoring in income generated from illegals.

"Oh, and Vince, you don’t have any sources for your figures on say, Wal-Mart’s use of illegal immigrants?"

The links provided more than proved the Wal-Mart-illegal link, Gabriel. Oh, and Gabriel, you may want to read them.

Oh, and Gabriel, the Wal-Mart/illegals issue is nothing new and to disregard it would make one a complete moron.

Oh, and Gabriel, you never gave any proof about 'individual' donations to Republicans. I'll let you slide on that, because the reality is that while both parties receive donations from big business, the Repubs are in power, so it doesn't matter what Soros and Buffett do, now does it?

If each one of them paid $3,000/yr to the state, I might have less of a problem with them being here. Somehow, though, I don’t think that’s the case.

How can it not be the case, gus?

The vast majority of state revenues are generated via property, sales and fuel taxes. Do retailers maintain special cash registers where they don't charge illegals sales taxes? Do landlords not pass on the costs of the property taxes they're assessed to illegal tenants while they pass those costs on to everyone else? Do illegals fill up at special illegals-only tax-free gas pumps?

I would love it if someone would explain to me how illegals pay fewer taxes than home-grown white people working the same jobs. It would also be great if someone would explain to me why I should be mad about the "remitances" sent back to Mexico by illegal Mexican framers and simultaneously not be mad about the monies "remitted" to Canada for the imported lumber those same framers use to build our houses, which more of us are able to afford thanks to illegals' lower-cost labor.

:jackson

Illegals don't pay payroll taxes and such if they are paid in cash, under the table, jackson zed.

Can't see how they could avoid sales tax, though.

And I see Vince doesn't like being called on ignorant stereotyping.

I didn't wade through the comments sections of the links to dig the source for your Wal-Mart assertion. If it's so damn simple and clear, Vince, why don't you link directly to it?

As for who gives to Republicans, Vince, I refer you to the Washington Post:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A42947-2003Jun27

"The study, analyzing donations during the 2002 campaign cycle, found that those little guys giving less than $200 to federal candidates, parties or leadership political action committees contributed 64 percent of their money to Republicans. By contrast, those fat cats giving $1 million or more contributed a lopsided 92 percent to Democrats. The only group favoring Democrats, in fact, were contributors giving more than $100,000."

So, Vince, why don't you "follow the money" and you tell me which political party is more willing to allow illegal immigrants?

Or maybe you could just admit that the truth is a little more complicated and nuanced then your fairy tails about Republican plutocrats.

Zed, I think there is error in your logic when you try to avoid the fact that illegal immigrants avoid paying taxes in the following way:
-No Fed. Income Tax paid
-No State Income Tax paid
-No Fica paid by employee or employer

Even if you assume that the worker might be completely tax exempt on a federal and state level, the Feds lose out on not making any interest on the payroll taxes withheld at every pay period, and the approx. 16% in SS taxes that are never collected.

The bottom line, the playing field isn't level for low income legal immigrants or native born citizens vs illegals. It's foolish to try and argue your way out of that FACT. Who cares that they pay some taxes? Why is that relevant?

The bottom line, the playing field isn’t level for low income legal immigrants or native born citizens vs illegals.

So you're suggesting that only Mexicans get paid under the table? You think that if all of a sudden employers are forced to hire white people they're all of a sudden going to start sending in W2s?

I hate to break it to you, but there are probably millions of citizens getting paid under the table for all kinds of piece work in these United States, including the same work these illegals are doing. This isn't an immigration issue, it's a tax fraud issue.

And illegals that get shift jobs by virtue of fraudelent documentation DO pay payroll taxes: for unemployment insurance that's too risky for them to apply for, for Social Security benefits to which they'll never be entitled, and not to mention the tax refunds they'll never get back.

And you'll notice, jackhammer, that it's not the FEDERAL government that's complaining; they figure they come out ahead by being able to tax businesses that simply wouldn't exist if it weren't for illegals willing to work for lower wages. The article above is about STATE taxes that for the most part illegals PAY IN FULL via the mechanisms I mention above. Yeah, the playing field is tilted alright.

:jackson

Heh, jackson zed, my sisters, all of whom worked at a tiny restaraunt in North Carolina for a neighbor, were ALL paid under the table.

And not one of us is an illegal immigrant, if you were wondering.

So yes, citizens do also work under the table.

My beef is not with immigration but with illegal immigration. I'm at a university, right? So I have lots of fellow grad students and professors who are LEGAL immigrants.

And they have to jump through all these hoops, and do all this paperwork, and keep lawyers on retainer in some cases--and if they make one mistake they can be deported (I know one guy happened to, a Romanian--his lawyer asked me to write a statement to help him, and I did but to no avail.)

So it really, really pisses me off when illegals who make no attempt whatever to comply with the law get off scot-free in amnesties while people who are trying to comply with the law get punished for not crossing t's and dotting i's.

I think encouraging illegal imiigration with amnesties and such cultivates a disrespect for the law.

i would be happy to see legal immigration greatly expanded but I have no patience with arguments for coddling illegals.

Stuff like this, for example (from National Review)

GET SMART by Mark Steyn



The other week, a reader of Britain's Sunday Telegraph recounted a
story. He's a British army veteran, now a helicopter pilot, who fell in
love with an American. He married her, and they chose to live in the
United States. He applied for a green card, but - because of the length
of time the government takes to process that application - was issued in
the interim an "advance parole" that would allow him to move about and
conduct his business.



In October, this gentleman's wife had business at a trade fair in
Guangzhou in southern China, and he decided to accompany her. On their
return to LAX, he was informed that his "advance parole" had just
expired, was handcuffed, fingerprinted, tossed in jail for 24 hours, and
then told that he would be put on the first plane back to Guangzhou.
Since his Chinese visa had expired, officials at Guangzhou would
presumably put him on the first plane back to LAX, who would put him on
the first plane back to Guangzhou, who would put him on the first plane
back to LAX, and he would spend the rest of his life at 36,000 feet
eating plastic food and watching Adam Sandler movies. Not our problem,
said U.S. officials.



After some pleading, he was allowed to buy a $1,000 one-way ticket to
London, where he is at present. He prefers to remain anonymous because
he would like, one day, to see his wife and step-daughters again.



You may well be relaxed about such behavior by Big Government -
hey, if they're doing that to British army guys, think what they
must be doing to al-Qaeda members! More likely, the time and money
they're expending on the above case is time and money they're not
expending on Saudi flight-school students. Even if you're
insouciant about a U.S. citizen's returning to her country with her
spouse and having that spouse removed from her company and expelled
from the jurisdiction, it seems rather odd from an immigration
agency that, as we learned after September 11, has no real idea
who's in the country or what they're up to. In Britain or Australia
or France, these stories mostly involve impoverished people who
don't speak the language from obscure, coup-ridden banana
republics. Only in America do they ensnare respectable citizens
from the country's own stalwart allies.



One of the reasons America has an illegal-immigration problem is that
it has a legal-immigration problem. If you do things by the book - if
you go to a U.S. consulate in a foreign city and get issued an
"advance parole" - you lay yourself open, for years to come, to the
fate of the hapless British chap above. But if you slip across
the border, rent an apartment, and get a job and a Gray Davis
driver's license, the entire Democratic party and a good half of the
Republican party will bend over backward to respect you as a fine,
upstanding member of the Undocumented-American community and
facilitate your access to all the benefits Uncle Sam has to offer. In
that sense, entering the country illegally is a rational choice.



I would imagine that, in the course of a typical year, I cross more
borders than most people. While all immigration procedures can be
irksome, in my experience the U.S. government is unique in the amount of
effort it puts forth to entrap the law-abiding and criminalize them. An
American citizen is free to marry whomsoever he chooses - Scot or
Fijian, Belgian or Guatemalan - and live with that spouse in the United
States, assuming that the Fijian or Belgian in question is not on the
run from Interpol.



In other words, as in most free societies, this is essentially an
automatic, non-discretionary immigration application. It would be
reassuring to think that the INS - or whatever they're calling it now -
takes years to process a spousal application because they're
investigating whether the Belgian applicant is wanted by the
Brussels Sûreté on a pedophile charge or because the Fijian has had his
Suva Municipal Council coconut-oil processing permit revoked.



But, as we know from the student visas issued to Mohamed Atta and Marwan
al-Shehhi on March 11, 2002 - six months to the day after they'd plowed
their respective jets through the towers of the World Trade Center -
the notion that anybody is undergoing an elaborate background check
is a fiction. The late Mr. Atta had spent most of the previous six
months front and center with his picture plastered all over the papers,
but no INS clerk thought to say, "Hey, this guy has listed his place of
residence as Venice, Florida, even though he's now at Big Hole in the
Ground, Lower Manhattan."



The only reason it takes two, four, twelve, fifteen years to process
routine applications is that the bureaucracy has a minimum
requirement for the thickness of dust that has settled on a file
before they shuffle it from Pile A to Pile B. In the sense that
his application was not approved until he was deceased, Mr. Atta may
be a more poignant symbol of legal U.S. immigration than we realize.



Amnesties for the "undocumented" corrupt the integrity of American
citizenship, and start at the wrong end of the problem. Look at it
this way: If the INS were running Howard Dean's socialized health-
care system, there'd be a ten-month waiting list to get into the
maternity ward.

Gabriel- Let's not jump all over the INS - any system of socialized medicine would trumpet a wait of only 10 months.

Two hundred miles from the Canadian border and we're getting 'visitors' at our local hospitals.

Don't think they're all pregnant.

And illegals that get shift jobs by virtue of fraudelent documentation DO pay payroll taxes: for unemployment insurance that’s too risky for them to apply for

Once again, you're focusing on a hidden tax that everyone pays for by accepting a higher wage. I don't know about your State, but in mine, unemployment insurance tax isn't a line item on my check.

for Social Security benefits to which they’ll never be entitled

What? You must be registered with the SS Administration via an SS# to be required to pay social security taxes. Are you trying to tell me that businesses pay their portion of the SS tax for employees that they supposedly don't even employ? That's a bunch of crap. The SS tax doesn't apply to illegals in any way, because you need an SS# to be in the system. 16% free-ride there, Zed.

Tax returns for taxes they didn't even pay...? You're not entitled to tax refunds on sales or excise taxes!

VINCE (at the top of the comments above) is a perfect example of why I have lost all faith in the left in general and Democrats in particular these days. They simply don't have a clue. They latch on to lies, like those Clinton and Michael Moore are so fond of repeating, and run with them like they are gospel! You know you would think anyone that has people like Al Franken, Michael Moore, the whole crowd of Hollywood lunatics, Al Sharpton, Carol Mosley-Braun and Jessie Jackson, not to mention Terry McAuliffe, Howard Dean, John Edwards, John Kerry and Queen Hillary as their stars would eventually either wise up or someone would have them committed until they did so.

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