7 ms·
I have a dumb question but how often do tourist visa overstayers get deported while running their own business under an incorporated ITIN? There's not even an
by beaeglebeached 3y ago
I have a dumb question but how often do tourist visa overstayers get deported while running their own business under an incorporated ITIN? There's not even an I-9 check for non-employee income. There's got to be millions of people doing something like this or as 'independent contractors' considering how trivial it is and the obvious completely broken immigration system that demands these kinds of hacks.
- wil421 3y agoWhy would you go through the trouble? Most people I worked with in restaurants would just find someone’s name/ssn to use, put they had 10 children, and never ever file taxes. I think there was a shady underground way to match illegal immigrants with SSNs. Or they just networked heavily in their communities.
- 101008 3y agoI can imagine this being true but at the same time it's so weird. I tried to open an account with Chase and Bank of America and they ask me for SSN, and I can't get one because I am from outside the US (I just want to get one to have my freelance money in an actual bank and not Paypal/Payoneer/an app). There are companies that provide a LLC with a SSN for just a fix payment of $400, but I am sure it comes with a lot of taxes issues that I don't want to care for now. So, how can the financial system rely on SSN if they can be sold for inmigrants?
- ceejayoz 3y agoThey won't use a Chase account. They'll get paid cash or a physical check they can take to a check cashing place.
- 101008 3y agoYes but my question was not about how they open a Chase account, but why Chase requires a SSN if SSN are sold in a black market (according to the previous comment)
- smeej 3y agoChase requires more than just the SSN. Chase requires you to prove your identity matches the person whose SSN you submit. They require it as part of a larger picture, not in isolation. (Employers are supposed to verify ID too, but they're not scrutinized as heavily as a major bank like Chase.)
- tossedacct 3y agoChase uses the SSN to look for a bad banking history.
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- beaeglebeached 3y agoWhy wouldn't they? They'd probably just use the business tin as the taxable account owner and then their real foreign passport as the UBO for KYC. If they can't do that it would surely break the wheels of industry as foreign owned US businesses need US bank accounts. IIRC banks need a ITIN or SSN + passport or ID of the UBO
- ceejayoz 3y agoDocumented immigrants will get a ITIN and/or EIN. Undocumented immigrants are far more likely to go the... undocumented route.
- petronio 3y agoUndocumented immigrants can get an ITIN, and many do. A lot of the time the ITIN will be used where it's allowed (opening bank accounts) and a counterfeit social security card where it's not (applying for employment).
- fooker 3y agoWouldn't that, by definition, turn them from undocumented to documented?
- petronio 3y agoI guess in a pedantic manner, but then they were always documented, since their country of origin knew who they are. In terms of immigration, undocumented typically means you don't currently have a valid visa or residency permit. In that case no, they would still be undocumented, since the ITIN doesn't grant them either.
- gamepsys 3y ago> There are companies that provide a LLC with a SSN for just a fix payment of $400 This has to be a TIN (Tax Identification Number) not a SSN (Social Security Number). As far as I know SSNs are only issued to people.
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- qingcharles 3y agoLegal immigrants get an SSN. I have an SSN it is just suspended or something. If I try to use it online it causes 500 errors everywhere as whatever status is attached to it isn't handled by any financial site.
- Aspos 3y agoBofA happily opens accounts for those with no SSN as long as they show up with somebody who has. And a person with a driver's license and SSN must confirm that the customer resides with them.
- alwayslikethis 3y agoMany 'illegal immigrants' also entered legally with a visa that allows them to get a real SSN, like most J1 exchange scholars or students. These cards usually show a line saying not for work except for permission, but there is probably an underground network for faking a normal one.
- qingcharles 3y agoAs an illegal, the biggest problem is.. how would I get ID with matching photo that I can use to sign up for web sites? A huge amount of web sites now want to ID verify with government ID and selfie. I have to get other people to do this for me.
- romafirst3 3y agoCalifornia does not require proof of legal status to get a driving license. I think the license is just eligible in California afterwards. I had one for a while while I was waiting for my visa to be processed.
- romafirst3 3y agohttps://www.dmv.ca.gov/portal/driver-licenses-identification-cards/assembly-bill-ab-60-driver-licenses/#:~:text=Under%20AB%2060%20(Chapter%20524,of%20identity%20and%20California%20residency https://www.dmv.ca.gov/portal/driver-licenses-identification....
- gumby 3y agoIt's short-sighted nonsense that undocumented immigrants can't get SSNs. They should be issued SSNs and pay taxes as usual. They are working, and the IRS should be collecting taxes, nothing more, nothing less. If they aren't paying taxes, someone else has to make up the difference. Likewise I want them to get licenses if they can pass the driving laws test, and should be able to get insurance. I don't want to be hit (or hit and run) by an uninsured driver. They and their kids should be getting the same vaccines someone with a legal right to live here does, under the same terms. This is basic public health that helps everybody. This is 100% orthogonal to whether ICE should be pursuing and deporting this or that person. They current system makes the rest of us less safe -- and that's not even getting into the massive impingement on the human rights of law abiding folks due to the misincented immigration (and other) laws and their enforcement).
- petronio 3y agoUndocumented immigrants can get an ITIN, and many do use them to pay taxes. The IRS really doesn't care where you got your money from, so long as they get their cut. Where undocumented immigrants won't be able to file their taxes is if they used a counterfeit SSN to be employed, but even in those cases they pay anyways through standard withholding. Most Americans don't know you can adjust withholding, nevermind undocumented immigrants.
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- thruway516 3y agoI think its partly about making day to day existence hard enough in the hope that they will self-deport, without making the laws outright inhumane
- gumby 3y agoThat may be the case, but it is self-defeating in that it makes things worse for everyone else, as examples in my comment show.
- paxys 3y agoThere may be "millions of people" doing this, but they are running street carts and house cleaning services, not tech companies.
- qingcharles 3y agoYou are wrong. Only from personal experience. I have an informal waiver from ICE right now, and I'm running a tech business, but I'm deportable and would ordinarily be in immigration jail except I'm in a sanctuary state.
- paxys 3y agoUnless you know of millions of other people in the same situation as you I'm not sure what your anecdote proves?
- bitxbitxbitcoin 3y agoA single example (what you are calling an anecdote) is all that’s needed to disprove your blanket statement - he provided it.
- notpushkin 3y agoI don't think it was a blanket statement. He's claiming that the millions of people GP is talking about are doing low-skill work – suggesting that there might be tech workers, too, but that there are less than millions of them.
- rmbyrro 3y agoWhy would you live illegally in the US if you run a tech business? I mean, you can sell tech services to the US market living anywhere legally!..
- throwaway1507 3y agoPlease, tell me how to do this. My (SW dev) business so far relies heavily on personal relationships built over long periods of time. I wasn't able to find any other way. I don't have much disposable income for online marketing professionals and ads (I had but it all went to waste).
- hasty_pudding 3y agoIs the immigration system broken? Or are there just billions of Indian and Asian people?
- j7ake 3y agoThere are 750 million Europeans , and maybe 4.5 billion Asians (6 times more in Asia than Europe). But the wait and difficulty is much more than 6 times if you’re Asian versus if you’re European.
- tristor 3y agoDo you think that might have to do with relative demand, because most Asians would prefer to emigrate elsewhere, and most Europeans would not? If you combine with that the relative population differences, it creates a striking demand curve.
- toast0 3y agoRelative demand is a factor. But a larger factor is that many of the immigration categories that are numerically limited have the same limit for all countries, and India and China have a lot larger population than any of the many countries in Europe.
- paxys 3y agoNow run the same numbers but looking at just visa applications instead of the entire population of these regions.
- hasty_pudding 3y agoimmigration should be on a country by country basis, not on a population basis. so if your country has tons of people (for whatever reason), that's kind of your country's fault and not the immigration systems fault. while there are benefits to a culture of having 12 kids theres also negatives. Europeans seem to have moderate family sizes for some reason. why is that?