Multiple news sources are reporting that today, US President Donald Trump, will begin discussing and preparing for the wall between the US and its border with Mexico. There are some personal experiences that I would like to share with you that many, if not most Americans are unfamiliar with. It is important, with the wall being such a hot-button political item, that some truths be told.
I am bilingual, I speak both English and Spanish. I am not Hispanic, but I know the culture well. For many years I lived in a highly Mexican populated area and worked directly with both legal and illegal immigrants. What most don’t know is that there is a seedy underworld where “papeles” (papers) are sold and shared between friends and relatives and even those who work at Immigration and Naturalization Services who are sympathetic to the cause will sell legitimate papers for a high price.
Here is the major take-away here, these people, while having legal papers, when the complete their W-2s when first hired by an employer, will claim a high number of dependents so that their paychecks will have less taken out in taxes. They all did it, and because they never filed their income tax in April like the rest of us, they were never held accountable for proving those invented dependents. I remember one in particular who joked about claiming six dependents and he wasn’t married and had no children. Yes, he paid into Social Security but compared to what he cheated the US government out of, the hit he took from Social Security was a small price to pay.
So, when someone tells you that illegals pay taxes, they do but not their full share.
Many work on a valid Social Security number and pass the card around to others once they are done with it. Sadly, what many illegals do is come here for an extended period of time to earn enough money to build a house in Mexico, save up for getting married, etc. Some may come for 5 years, 10 years or even 20. But, the goal is to eventually return to Mexico to live out the rest of their days. They send much of the money they earn back to family and friends in Mexico who oversee the construction of their homes or simply put the money away in a bank account for them to have access to when they come home. They also send money home to support family there. Yet, there in lies one of the many problems, according to this article (2013) from the UK Mail, immigrants send, “a staggering $120 billion back to their families.” That is money earned here yet is being injected into other economies instead of our own, Mexico included.
This is huge business for companies like Western Union. This 2016 Business wire article, outlines:
In 2015, remittances to Mexico totaled USD$24.8 billion, according to Banco de Mexico, growing 4.75 percent over 2014. While U.S. senders account for more than 90 percent of the money moved into Mexico, Western Union transferred money to Mexico from more than 180 countries last year.
That is $24 billion dollars sent to Mexico that was earned here yet is instead infused into the Mexican economy. Even former Mexican president Vicente Fox has been on a Twitter rampage against Trump, he too knows the trouble that Mexico could be in if this wall is built and the flow of US dollars into Mexico is minimized.
Sean Spicer, I’ve said this to @realDonaldTrump and now I’ll tell you: Mexico is not going to pay for that fucking wall. #FuckingWall
— Vicente Fox Quesada (@VicenteFoxQue) January 25, 2017
One of the reasons the amnesty attempts made over the past 30 years have been unsuccessful is because many prefer to stay in the shadows because it is financially expeditious. If they were given legal status, as a resident alien, then they would be issued an valid Social Security number and would then have to file taxes and show proof of any dependents they claimed on their W-2s. Those on the left love the phrase, “Path to citizenship,” but the reality is, most illegals only want the benefits of living in this country, not the responsibilities of it. Investigative reporter Dennis Michael Lynch has done several exposes where he looked into the realities of those who patrol the US/Mexico border and those who crossed it to find a way to a better life that couldn’t be found among the corruption of the Mexican government. But what he found was that far too many were here for nefarious reasons and most that he interviewed had no desire to stay here in the US and become citizens, they only wanted the reap the benefits of living in the US. Yet, those who had criminal records seemed to find the US as a haven as well.
In the next segment, we will look at more of what illegals take from the US and the cost is astronomical.
Musing Mary Ann 