If you are among the 43% of Americans who actually pay taxes you will be glad to know that the IRS and the federal government is closely monitoring how each penny of that money is being spent.Okay, okay, calm down and clean off your computer screen. Of course they aren't. Here is just one example of where a half million of your dollars went.
The FBI seized $500,000 in cash during a raid of an illegal immigrant's home as part of an investigation into false tax filings, agents said.A couple of points I want to make in regards to this case. One it wasn't the IRS, the Treasury Department, or any other law enforcement generally associated with either tax law or immigration that was involved in this seizure. In fact, you have to feel just a little bit lucky that this happened in one of the few areas of the country where local law enforcement is allowed to check the immigration status of people they detain for law violations. In case you didn't catch it in the snippet above, a stop for a traffic violation is what set this whole series of events into motion.
Federal agents and Hall County deputies arrested 34-year old Guillermo Merino on Friday after a traffic stop in Gainesville.
Investigators told Channel 2's Richard Elliot they found more than $50,000 in his car. Afterward, they searched his house and said they discovered more than $450,000 in cash inside the home. According to agents, they seized a total of $540,000.
The other point is that here is a very tangible example of how illegal immigrants costs us all without having to hypothesize on how much of the expense is due to illegals using public services.
The last point is this is just one case. I am sure if this guy figured it out there are several others who have also, which begs the question of how much money is leaving our treasury directly to pay these fraudulent refunds?
This anecdotal windfall for cops in Hall County says NOTHING about the cost of illegal immigration, but it's clearly useful for the descendants of 18th and 19th century immigrants unifying around 21st century immigrants as the contaminating element at the root of their problems (rather like Jews were in 1930s Germany). From a cost perspective, the IRS provides illegals with ITINs and happily hold taxes on their wages, especially Social Security and Medicare contributions that illegals will not benefit from -- the federal tax take from 1996 to 2003 was $90 Billion (see http://www.immigrationforum.org/about/articles/tax_study.htm). If the premise for your racial stereotyping were so true, why is it that the conservative State of Utah has passed immigration reform essentially welcoming immigrants and posturing to give them guestworker status?
ReplyDeleteI wonder how much my santuary city-riddled blue state has doled out to illegals in tax returns on the state level.
ReplyDeleteWow Mark you certainly got all those liberal progressive talking points in there didn't you. Compared me to the Nazis and called me a racist. That is what we call a twofer. After carefully reviewing the post I can not figure out where the racist charge comes from since mentioned neither the race of the accused, the law enforcement officials who effected the arrest or even mine. That is called projection.
ReplyDeleteAs for the babble about 18th and 19th century immigrants blaming the current crop go look up Ellis Island. You know most Americans have no objection to immigration we just want you to sign the guest book on your way in.
You might want to ask the Indians, er excuse me Native Americans what happens when you allow uncontrolled immigration.
JAG, first and foremost, I thank you for your service and most respectfully disagree on several points. I referred to 1930s Germany to compare a similar myopia, illegals are disproportionately and irrationally blamed because it is so useful and unifying to gang up on outsiders deemed contaminants. I did not use the word Nazi and no where did I call you a Nazi. I did say that you are contributing to a racial stereotype (I do not call you racist and there's no need for you to volunteer to be called one.) The post lends itself to stereotyping latino illegals; the accused criminal was clearly latino and fit rather nicely into Mulligan's "Wetbacks are criminals" theme (for those of you from Rio Linda, this is local to Cobb County, Georgia). Your post implies that illegal aliens like Guillermo Merino are conspiring to sponge up every crooked dollar they can (this stereotype helps to confirm the group-think that latinos are illegals and they contaminate). Since almost all of us are descendants of struggling immigrants trying to make a better life for themselves, I think the self-righteous disdain and mistreatment of illegals is beneath us, and the far more just approach was the Pres. Bush guest worker program. This money sponging stereotype is particularly egregious because huge amounts are paid into federal and state treasuries from the wages of these immigrants - a fact that you fail to acknowledge -- clearly there are some facts you prefer to avoid and instead suggest that I'm a parrot of liberal talking points; perhaps your editor will reprimand you after googling the Mark30339 comments in the blogosphere. Is conservativism so orthodox that dissenters to the sheriff by sheriff ad hoc deportation project need to be labeled "liberals" (yet another contaminating outsider)?
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