Identity Theft & Illegal Immigrants
"We never thought Immigration would come here. We aren't trying to break the law, we just want to work and have a good life."
Jeez, they entered the country illegally and they aren't trying to break the law? They broke the law the first time they set foot on American soil illegally. Then there is the question of the false papers they purchase which of course involves identity theft from some American citizen. I find the identity theft the most troublesome aspect of the illegal immigration issue as every American Citizen is at risk of having their SSN stolen.
In the noisy immigration debate raging in Washington, there is one voice NOT being heard. The voice of identity theft victims. Behind many of the nation’s millions of undocumented workers are someone else's documents. To get a job, illegal immigrants need a Social Security number, and they often borrow one. As victim Melody Millet is fond of saying, U.S. citizens are being forced to share their identities with undocumented immigrants to give corporate America a steady supply of cheap labor.
And this is the most outrageous part. The government knows someone has stolen you SSN and they don't bother to tell you.
Victims often don't have any idea they’re sharing their identity with an immigrant, because there's no way to find out. Social Security won't tell you if someone else is using your SSN. The extra earnings don't end up on your annual Social Security statement, because they are designated to the Earnings Suspense File instead. Ditto for the Internal Revenue Service. The misuse isn't revealed in personal credit reports, either. If somebody uses your number to get a credit card or car loan, the nation's credit bureaus create a new credit file instead of alerting you to the misuse. Victims only find out when something goes wrong -- when there are unpaid taxes or unpaid bills, debt collectors often track down the original SSN holder.
And thanks to STUPID privacy laws you aren't entitled to know when someone is using your SSN.
Lenders routinely buy this information when assessing a consumer's credit risk. Every time MSNBC.com covers this issue, workers at car dealers and banks write in to say they’ve seen countless examples of consumers who apply for accounts and have multiple names connected to their Social Security numbers. Privacy rules prevent them from warning the consumers. And of course, any agency that collects taxes, such as Social Security or the IRS, has this information.It would certainly be possible for any of these groups to inform those who are sharing SSNs, but a serious attempt has never been made.
Illegal immigrants also cause other problems, overburdened government services being one problem.
Of course the real culprits here are the people who employ them.For many of Stillmore's 730 residents, including some city officials, the raid was long overdue. The community, which holds bake sales to raise money for services, recently took out a loan for a new million-dollar sewer system because the population of illegal immigrants, estimated at more than 300 before the raid, overburdened the old one.
Some worked 12 or more hours a day for $6 an hour, on grimy jobs that most locals would not take. Some residents blame Crider Poultry owner Billy Crider for what has happened in Stillmore. City Councilwoman Eddie Dean Allen, a lifelong resident, referring to Crider. "Not one thing has Billy Crider done to help this town, so we don't even consider him a part of the community."
Now the company is hiring American citizens.
To rebuild its workforce, the company increased starting wages by 40 cents an hour. Most employees earn $7 to $8 an hour plus bonuses and overtime. Still officials have recruited only about 450 employees.
Apparently there are plenty of out of work American citizens who need jobs, they just need to learn a work ethic and the companies need to improve the working conditions of their employees.
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