New Haven Independent

Posted by: Joe | January 30, 2007 12:37 PM

The Mayor and his team deserve a lot of credit on this. This is a great way to keep building an ethic of immigrant tax-paying. It's also another nail in the coffin of the "free-loader" argument which so often rears its ugly head. Most data suggest that the majority of undocumented immigrants in the US are already paying taxes, and that those that don't are pretty much paying "defacto taxes" via the incredibly low wages they're willing to accept.

Posted by: BorderSentry | January 30, 2007 1:06 PM

It is a federal felony to aid and abet invaders or to do anything that would encourage or enable an invader to remain in the United States. It is illegal for invaders to work in the United States, and it is illegal to hire invaders. The feds ought to round up and deport the invaders mentioned in this article and charge city officials and anyone else who is enabling these invaders.

Posted by: North Carolinian | January 30, 2007 2:43 PM

I am VERY happy I do not live in New Haven.
It is deplorable that taxpayer dollars are going to aid and abet illegal aliens in this city.
There is a difference between "immigrant" and "illegal alien".

Posted by: Horace | January 30, 2007 3:01 PM

It is not up to the mayor to make judgements on the direction of future immigration legislation. It is up to the mayor to engage the spirit of the law, as well as the letter of the law with respect to the Code of Federal Regulations. I don't know the nature of the oath he took as mayor, but this position on assisting illegal aliens is hardly consistent with the principles of good government. Will someone remind him that his constituency consists of the citizens, and legal residents of New Haven, and not illegal aliens who are deportable. The City of New Haven is sanctioning illegal immigration and in effect granting sanctuary to these people. Time for a recall election or impeachment of the mayor for his poor judgement and ill conceived actions.

Posted by: THREEFIFTHS | January 30, 2007 4:00 PM

Is This The Same King John Who Ran For Governor And Ran A Commercial For His Campaign That Show His Father Who Was A New Haven Police Officer That
Believe In Up Holding The Laws?

Posted by: Joe | January 30, 2007 5:14 PM

How nice to see members of the anti-immigration blogosphere take such interest in the New Haven Independent. And what a nice vision of community you all have! I just can't imagine why we wouldn't take your advice and replace our diverse, interesting, tolerant, and strong vision of community with your lovely "hate thy neighbor" approach.

Posted by: Bobby | January 30, 2007 5:30 PM

The Mayor and his "Team" should immediately be arrested because as some of the posters have pointed out, they are in violation of the laws already on the books. Their actions are criminal.

Posted by: BorderSentry | January 31, 2007 11:53 AM

It would appear that Joe has confused "immigrants" (those who are here with permission) with illegal aliens, criminals by definition. I'm not sure about you, but I want my 'community' free of criminals and parasites.

Posted by: Cedar Hill Resident | January 31, 2007 3:16 PM

I will stand on a previous statement I once made. A lot of our ancestors that came to this great country were illegal immigrants you may think they were legal but there was a good chance they were not. It is just back in those days there record keeping was not as good as it is now. So I can not judge how people ended up here or why they came and risked what ever they had to, to be here. But if the mayor of this city can help them do there taxes then what is the problem with that?? And in a very smart way it helps with other things to. It shows there desire to be citizens and although they may have gotten here under the radar, they are willing to follow the rules and laws of the country since they arrived. We also now have a record of undocumented people that are living in the city which helps with our census records and federal moneys our city may be entitled to as well.

Posted by: Ned | January 31, 2007 4:43 PM

Immigrants, "legal" or otherwise, bring their labor, new ideas, languages and cultures to New Haven and make the city a more dynamic, cosmopolitan place. The mayor seems right to welcome them and to help them integrate into the life of the city. How much more personal initiative can one demonstrate than to relocate thousands of miles, to a new country, to find work? They're here now and I would rather they have a good experience than a hostile one. New Haven has a bad enough public relations problem without adding provincial jingoism to the mix.

Posted by: Senior Citizen | February 12, 2007 7:24 PM

On June 29, 2004, the U.S. Commissioner of Social Security and the director general of the Mexican Social Security Institute reached an agreement - the so-called Totalization Agreement. Yes, it took three years of wrangling with Freedom of Information Act by the TREA Senior Citizens League to obtain the document entitled “Social Security – Proposed Totalization Agreement with Mexico”.

The seniors group (TREA) knew that if illegal aliens get legal status -- through an amnesty or some sort of legalization plan such as the one the President and the Senate tried to enact 2006 last year -- it would allow illegal aliens, mostly from Mexico, to gain legal status and access to Social Security benefits for their relatives, children and other dependents.

What the agreement reveals is that the United States will permit illegal aliens from Mexico to collect Social Security benefits if they have as little as 18 months of U.S. employment history. In contrast, U.S. citizens must show 10 years -- 40 quarters -- of perfectly legal job history to collect same Social Security benefits.

Despite the fact that it's illegal for employers to knowingly hire individuals who are in this country illegally, the agreement which awaits the President’s signature, can take effect without Congress' approval. The current Democratic Congress doesn't have to vote to approve it -- it has only 60 days to disapprove it, which isn't likely because they likely support allowing the agreement to become law.

This agreement would drain more billions from a Social Security system that already lists a $14 trillion liability and assets of only $3.5 trillion, according to a 2003 report generated by the Center for Immigration Studies. And it's worth noting that virtually none of those $3.5 billion in "assets" consists of gold bars or even bundled greenbacks sitting in some government vault.

These so-called "Totalization" Agreements are common -- the United States has them with 20 other countries. Their goal is to avoid double taxation when employers assign employees to work temporarily in another country.

But, "Totalization” was not designed or intended to cover millions of illegal aliens sneaking past the southern U.S. Border Patrol from what is a borderline Third World country. The Pew Hispanic Center estimated that there are between 3.4 and 5.7 million unauthorized Mexican citizens in the United States and the Urban Institute has estimated that there are more than 4 million according to GAO-03-993 Social Security Report to Congressional Requesters.

The vast majority of individual tax returns are filed using a social Security Number (SSN) as identification. However, there are instances where alien individuals will file a U.S. tax return.

To enable these individuals to file, Treasury Regulations were issued in 1996 to provide them with Individual Taxpayer Identification Number (ITIN).

An ITIN is intended for tax purposes only and creates no inference regarding an alien individual’s right to live in the U.S. or be illegally employed here. A study done by the Inspector General’s Office of the Department of Treasury found that 55 percent of illegal aliens who filed income tax returns using tax identification numbers had no federal income tax liability, reflecting their income and large number of dependents.

An analysis of Forms 1040 filed in Tax year 2001 with ITINs found that approximately 530,000 Forms 1040 were filed with ITINs as the primary number by aliens with the number increasing each passing 5 years.

All American’s should be concerned about illegal aliens coming here and getting as good a better deal from our government “entitlement” programs with their U.S. Citizenship. In fact, they’re going to get a much better deal from this Congress.

This Totalization Agreemment and the ITINs that the illegal aliens are filing to get into the U.S. Social Security Benefits will effect my Social Security, my children's and grand-children's Social Security. Amen