<p>A couple years or so ago, Princeton came under fire for accepting an illegal immigrant.
The young man in question came here from the Dominican Republic, when he was very young. He lived with his mother and younger brother in a shelter in NYC.
A photographer saw him at the shelter, and made it possible for him to attend one of the elite prep school in NY.
He graduated second in his class at Princeton, and got a scholarship to study at Oxford.
I don’t know what happened to the young man, except that he did go to England.
People were mad at Princeton for admitting him. Princeton in turn, admitted that it did admit illegal immigrants in the past.
A friend emailed me the story about two years ago.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>The biggest myth is that illegal immigrants are a burden on the american taxpayer. If anything they are subsidizing the US social security and Medicare systems. </p>
<p>The vast majority of illegal immigrants pay taxes. The IRS is more than happy to issue taxpayer numbers to illegal immigrants and will not report an immigrant who files his taxes. According to estimates by the Social Security Administration over 75% of illegal immigrants pay social security, Medicare and income taxes. All pay sales tax and property taxes through rent. </p>
<p>In the current decade, illegal immigrants pay more than $50 billion a year in payroll taxes, generating $6 billion to $7 billion in Social Security tax revenue and about $1.5 billion in Medicare taxes. </p>
<p>
</p>
<p>Ironically, illegal immigrants contribute to a system that they never will benefit from. Social Security numbers are generally fake and they cannot get any retirement benefits. Same thing with Medicare. They are not eligible for Medicaid. </p>
<p>
</p>
<p><a href=“http://www.nytimes.com/2005/04/05/business/05immigration.html[/url]”>http://www.nytimes.com/2005/04/05/business/05immigration.html</a></p>
<p>In this case it is quite obvious that Karina de La Cruz paid taxes while working at Wienerschnitzel. Same thing for her mother who reportedly worked for well over decade at local canning company. And the rest of her family. </p>
<p>It seems only fair that if she and her family pay state and federal taxes that she should be able to pay instate tuition. If she graduates she will pay even more taxes into a system without ever being able to collect from it. Quite a bargain for the state.</p>
<p>Cellardweller thank you for posting.</p>
<p>pullinghair, that sounds like the story I posted in #77.<br>
[Undocumented</a> students have a degree of anxiety - Los Angeles Times](<a href=“http://www.latimes.com/news/education/la-me-ucla8-2008jul08,0,6025873.story]Undocumented”>Undocumented students have a degree of anxiety)</p>
<p>^Those analyses completely ignore the costs of illegal immigration on the states.</p>
<p>Bay, I think we’d all be happy to hear a factual argument for your point.</p>
<p>Illegals also greatly lower our produce costs. It’s estimated that if this population wasn’t key in bring in the crops, we would pay three times the price for our produce.</p>
<p>“People were mad at Princeton for admitting him.”</p>
<p>That’s unfair, IMHO. It’s not Princeton’s job to decide who belongs within our borders. It’s Princeton’s job to decide which students from around the world will bring the greatest benefit to Princeton. Looks like they picked a winner with that kid!</p>
<p>For a particular job, instead of filling it by illegal immigrant, a legal resident would still pay the same tax and contribute the same amount. There is no money lost coming to the gov’t. Aren’t you forgetting that SS is on the verge of bankruptcy now? Seriously, SS is a legalized Ponzi scheme, getting current tax payer’s money to pay for past contributors. AFAIK, SSA won’t be around when I or Mr. Mart</p>
<p>Cellardweller:</p>
<p>Fantastic post!!! I wish more of the people on this thread would truly listen to what you have to say. Instead, even though they will never admit it, I fear their prejudices get in the way of their reasoning. So many of the posts here have racial undertones or overtones. It makes me sick!!!</p>
<p>
I wonder what the kid checked in the citizenship status box.<br>
If non-citizen, he got in via the international route, BRAVO.
If citizen, well, a lie in the application should automatically get him suspended. And I suspect this is the case. So what is so unfair about it?</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>We’re conflating a variety of kids and their needs and abilities here. Not all illegal immigrant students at UCs and Cal States are planning on majoring in psych. Some of them may have a shot at amnesty. Most of them quite simply have very few options. Going to work illegally here, or trying to return to the country where they were born, are both problematic. A bright, hardworking 18 year old is going to look at going to school as the best of a bad lot. </p>
<p>I thank you for your kind offer for me to pay to send illegal immigrant students to college in their countries of origin, but I’m going to decline. I think that would be as irresponsible as UCLA admitting this young woman and then not doing the work needed to make sure she was getting access to support networks in an unfamiliar environment. </p>
<p>And Bay, while many of these kids came from Mexico and other parts of Central America, not all of them do.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>Please grow up, illegal immigrations is net liability on any country including USA. It is one of the biggest problem that is making the California State Financials so bad. Let me put things in perspective</p>
<ol>
<li><p>For every illegal patient seen at ER the medical premium shot up by $x. The illegals only go to ER as they are suppose to treat everyone that come up without regard to insurance and their status.</p></li>
<li><p>For every illegal child the CA State pays in for schools, teachers, subsidized lunch, after school care if available. </p></li>
<li><p>For every illegal person the CA and the city pays for water, electricity, roads and you name and the state and city pays for these facilities.</p></li>
<li><p>Most of the illegals works for cash so no taxes are paid, not even the payroll taxes.</p></li>
<li><p>Housing crises in CA, most of the ultra bad loans involved Illegals or their harbors and at they leave the state and country when the going get tough and make it worse for the law abiding citizens by making their Home Equity negative.</p></li>
</ol>
<p>It is the biggest drain on California budget, fix it and CA wil be a golden state again.</p>
<p>
I’ll give you a recent anecdote - an illegal rang my doorbell about 15 minutes ago looking for work. I politely declined him. If I would have hired him or if one of my neighbors hires him he’ll be paid in cash and won’t have any taxes witheld. Another example - if you go to an emergency room of a hospital around here it’ll likely be filled with illegals seeking medical attention (usually non-emergency treatment) and they almost certainly won’t pay. If you get in a car accident in my area more often than not it’s with an illegal who isn’t carrying any insurance hence even if the accident isn’t your fault you still get to pay the deductible. Many of the illegals that are living in a house/apartment as opposed to camping are living with several families in a dwelling meant to house a single family. This is taxing the sewage systems (i.e. the infrastructure wasn’t designed for this) and it’s not providing the expected property taxes to pay for schools since property taxes are per dwelling. Those who are camping are trashing and polluting the areas in which they camp and can easily accidentally start brush fires. Since many of these people live ‘under the radar’ the number of them in this country and the number paying into SS that might not withdraw (I’m sure that some manage to withdraw) versus not paying into it is unknown so the figures regarding how beneficial it is to have illegals here paying into SS don’t show the whole picture. If it was that desirable then maybe we should just have an open offer to anyone from any country to come and work here as long as they’re willing to pay into SS but not withdraw. I doubt any of the illegal immigrant advocates would really want that.
I could go on but you get the picture. Granted, I live in an area with lots of illegals.</p>
<p>Regarding the statement that illegals allow us to purchase goods at a lower cost - I don’t view this so much as a benefit as much as an exploitation of these people. I’d rather pay more for my lettuce and fruit and have ‘legal’ workers with an appropriate level of treatment (housing, security, etc.). I’m happy to have these workers be from Mexico or other developing countries as long as it’s controlled, at a reasonable level that doesn’t take jobs from Americans, and fair to those who want to come here legally from other countries. This is actually already done and we see a lot of ‘legal’ green-card workers in San Diego and I’m fine with that. I think that especially with Mexico because of its proximity, there’s a great symbiotic opportunity but it needs to be done legally and in order for this to happen we need some modernization of our immigration laws.</p>
<p>But this thread has now digressed to a different topic that’s already been hashed on CC numerous times.</p>
<p>hmom5: Very basic lessons in ecnomics
</p>
<p>China started manufacturing goods at a very low rate there by replacing the goods in US with china made goods, that resulted elimination of all the industrial jobs in US down.
If you looked at aftermath of Katrina in New Oreleans, it was no different from a third world country disaster.</p>
<p>The low cost of the goods that you are using results in elimination of the jobs to legal US citizen. Each such job replaces law abiding, hard working US citizens and bring the overall standard of living in US.</p>
<p>It is all relative, the more Walmarts; the lower cost of goods; but also low pay, and perks; inturn leaving the less ability to afford anything in turn lowering the cost of living.</p>
<p>Higher cost of local produce is actually a good thing if it is due to high cost of labor.</p>
<p>Parentofivyhope, your argument would be good if your numbers 4 and 5 were true. But I’m certain number 5 is wrong and I don’t believe 4 is correct but I’d love to look at any data you have.</p>
<p>And parent, when they decided to block the border a few years ago and not let migrant workers in to work on farms, fruits and vegetables rotted on the vine. Americans do not want these jobs.</p>
<p>ST,
My comments were directed at Ms. de la Cruz, who was identified in the LA Times article as a psych major, who moved here at age 4 from Mexico. </p>
<p>hmom,
I don’t understand your request for factual info about my point.</p>
<p>deleted post</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>for 5. Look at the foreclosure rates based on zip codes, you will find the heavy illegal immigrants area with very high foreclosure rates.</p>
<p>for 4. Just go to Home Depot or OSH or Payless Hardware in your neighborhood and you will find day labor waiting. 90% of those are illegal’s and work for cash.
If you deny that you don’t see day labors or don’t know about them working at cash then there is no way any one can convince you.</p>
<p>
Don’t make assumptions. I, for one, have been deeply involved with the undocumented community for decades. Thousands of my own hours and quite a good bit of my own money. I look at the issue from the perspective of the destroyed families, communities and cultures left behind. I also see firsthand the displacement of native black workers, which is the big, ugly story behind the scenes. Just because you don’t agree doesn’t give you the right to cry racism when you don’t know the posters or the histories involved. Ok!!!</p>
<p>
Recent events have proven otherwise. It’s also a false argument. The abundance of cheap labor does nothing so well as prevent technological advancements that would otherwise have been made. The key issue with regard to illegal immigration is to look at hospital closures.</p>