3 ms·

What social safety net? Is there some office that I can just show up without any papers and get free money?

by vkou 7mo ago

mothballed 7mo ago
You basically can for WIC, but that's about it. Although the other big one is public schooling is also almost always entitled to everyone at quite high cost (despite poor performance per dollar).
- hedora 7mo ago
  Note that the performance / dollar is much worse for immigrants than for citizens. You still have to pay for things like social security, etc, but you don't get to collect those benefits. Before someone says "but illegal immigrants don't those taxes!", note that they actually do: If not, then their employer is engaged in tax fraud, which is much easier to prove and prosecute than trying to track down and check the immigration statues of each of their employees. The US government runs a huge profit on legal immigrants (above average job creation / economic growth), and on illegal immigrants (they pay for services they cannot utilize).
  - raw_anon_1111 7mo ago
    If they are employing people who are not eligible to work , they are already committing fraud
    - vkou 7mo ago
      'Who' is doing work is hard to enforce. 'How you pay them' is easy. Most businesses do not handle enough cash to be able to pay a lot of staff off the books, and if you are doing it through the regular financial system, the tax man will find it very easy to make sure that you pay your dues.
      - raw_anon_1111 7mo ago
        Every employer I worked for has forced me to prove I was eligible to work.
  - mothballed 7mo ago
    The lifetime public fiscal impact by some measures of an illegal immigrant is $-60k []. You're overlooking a few things like the fact it's estimated over half of illegal immigrant households have a US citizen child and then they start drawing welfare in the child's name on account of the fact the parents did not obtain legal immigration levels of financial independence before immigrating. Also on account that some are legally able to claim EITC in tax filing, some other similar benefit factors, as well as the fact undocumented immigrant use hospital ERs and then have no documented solvent individual to bill to (their employers also less likely to provide health insurance so they end up in ER instead of regular doctor). When you put it all together the annual public benefit is close to break even but over the period of decades counts up in the tens of thousands in the negative. I'm generally for open immigration but I'd agree that when you consider the totality things aren't set up yet to make sure enough benefits they get are shit-canned to make sure it's at least break even. Shit-canning all the benefits that pull them below zero is definitely a less orwellian way of breaking even than the ICE/CBP apparatus, I will give it that. [] https://budget.house.gov/imo/media/doc/the_cost_of_illegal_immigration_to_taxpayers.pdf https://budget.house.gov/imo/media/doc/the_cost_of_illegal_i...

What social safety net? Is there some office that I can just show up without any papers and get free money?

by vkou 7mo ago

What social safety net? Is there some office that I can just show up without any papers and get free money?

You basically can for WIC, but that's about it. Although the other big one is public schooling is also almost always entitled to everyone at quite high cost (despite poor performance per dollar).

hedora 7mo ago
Note that the performance / dollar is much worse for immigrants than for citizens. You still have to pay for things like social security, etc, but you don't get to collect those benefits. Before someone says "but illegal immigrants don't those taxes!", note that they actually do: If not, then their employer is engaged in tax fraud, which is much easier to prove and prosecute than trying to track down and check the immigration statues of each of their employees. The US government runs a huge profit on legal immigrants (above average job creation / economic growth), and on illegal immigrants (they pay for services they cannot utilize).
- raw_anon_1111 7mo ago
  If they are employing people who are not eligible to work , they are already committing fraud
  - vkou 7mo ago
    'Who' is doing work is hard to enforce. 'How you pay them' is easy. Most businesses do not handle enough cash to be able to pay a lot of staff off the books, and if you are doing it through the regular financial system, the tax man will find it very easy to make sure that you pay your dues.
    - raw_anon_1111 7mo ago
      Every employer I worked for has forced me to prove I was eligible to work.
- mothballed 7mo ago
  The lifetime public fiscal impact by some measures of an illegal immigrant is $-60k []. You're overlooking a few things like the fact it's estimated over half of illegal immigrant households have a US citizen child and then they start drawing welfare in the child's name on account of the fact the parents did not obtain legal immigration levels of financial independence before immigrating. Also on account that some are legally able to claim EITC in tax filing, some other similar benefit factors, as well as the fact undocumented immigrant use hospital ERs and then have no documented solvent individual to bill to (their employers also less likely to provide health insurance so they end up in ER instead of regular doctor). When you put it all together the annual public benefit is close to break even but over the period of decades counts up in the tens of thousands in the negative. I'm generally for open immigration but I'd agree that when you consider the totality things aren't set up yet to make sure enough benefits they get are shit-canned to make sure it's at least break even. Shit-canning all the benefits that pull them below zero is definitely a less orwellian way of breaking even than the ICE/CBP apparatus, I will give it that. [] https://budget.house.gov/imo/media/doc/the_cost_of_illegal_immigration_to_taxpayers.pdf https://budget.house.gov/imo/media/doc/the_cost_of_illegal_i...