If you have been following me for any length of time you know that I have a real problem with “illegal” immigration. The cost to our infrastructure and our pocketbooks is astronomical…and simply unsustainable. Case in point: In an even more outlandish example of twisted liberal “logic” the United States Internal Revenue Service has been paying out billions of dollars in tax refunds to illegal residents. Adding insult to injury, these illegals never even filed a tax return or paid “any” taxes. Is it no wonder that tens of thousands of illegals flood our border every year?
The numbers are astounding, and at first glance seem unbelievable, but according to Fact Check it is absolutely true. Here it is in black and white:
Q: Does the IRS pay billions in tax refunds to workers who are in the U.S. illegally?
A: Yes. The Treasury Department’s Inspector General determined that $4.2 billion was paid in 2010, up from less than $1 billion in 2005. Leading Democrats are resisting a bill that would stop future payments.
In less than five years, the amount we have “refunded” to illegal immigrants has quadrupled. Every year, we spend almost one billion dollars more than the year before on illegals. But make no mistake, this is not what we spend on infrastructure, welfare, support programs, or the like…oh no, this is cash in hand, folks. A U.S.-issued government check they can cash, and its delivered from the IRS right to their mailbox. The US Treasury Department Inspector General’s report title says it all: “Individuals Who Are Not Authorized to Work in the United States Were Paid $4.2 Billion in Refundable Credits.” It’s pure insanity.
So how does this scam work? And why are Democrats fighting President Trump to prevent him from stopping it? The answers may shock you.
There are three main IRS sources that are being scammed: the Earned Income Tax Credit (EITC), the Additional Child Tax Credits (ACTC), and the American Opportunity Tax Credit (AOTC).
Let’s start with the Earned Income Tax Credit. Existing since 1975, the EITC has been a part of the major overhaul to the welfare system that started in the 1970s. In short, workers (worker being the operative word here) receive a credit on their taxes that is equal to a percentage of their earnings up to a predetermined maximum credit.
The kicker is that these credits are equal to $1,000 per child. Even worse, the parents are entitled to this money (as a refund) even if they have never filed, worked, paid, or owe taxes. You read that correctly. Despite the regulation clearly stating that a “worker” is entitled, the way it is currently enforced means you don’t even need a social security number or have even worked or paid taxes to get this money.
According to the IG report quoted earlier, more than 2.3 million people (read illegal immigrants) who have no Social Security number, meaning not eligible to work in the U.S., received, on average, $1,800 each in 2010 in child credit tax refunds.
Those individuals that were actually known to be illegally in our nation (over 9,000 of them) received over $10,000 by retroactively claiming this credit for tax years prior to 2010. Thank you, Obama. Talk about hope and change.
As you can imagine, there was some pretty severe backlash when the IG report was made public. Efforts were made to stop the program. But this effort was opposed by the National Council of La Raza. In a statement issued in January, it said: “More than 4 million Latino children and their families would face greater hunger, poverty, and other severe hardships if this proposal is enacted.”
Nevertheless, a House bill by Texas Republican Sam Johnson (H.R. 1956) had collected 60 GOP cosponsors as of May 10. This bill would require that at least one parent file a valid Social Security number to collect a refundable child tax credit, thereby closing the loophole illegals had been using for years. A similar provision reached the House Ways and Means Committee on April 18. Committee members approved it by a party-line vote of 22 to 12, with only Republicans voting for and only Democrats voting against it. But that is as far as it got.
You see, then-President Barack Obama had made promises to expand the EITC during the 2008 election campaign. He wanted to expand the EITC to include workers that don’t even have children, increase benefits for those “taxpayers” with more than three children, and to remove the “marriage penalty” by increasing benefits for married couples.
Under the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, Obama did exactly that. On February 17, 2009, Obama signed his stimulus bill effectively expanding the EITC.
Everything was going great for a while, until 2015 when Obama took an unprecedented executive action to offer amnesty to illegal immigrants. This move was believed by many to be a preemptive strike to bolster Democratic votes heading into 2016.
But what they were not counting on was the public backlash and the publicity these changes to the EITC program were going to get.
For example, in 2015, news sources like Forbes shared this shocking news with the nation: “The IRS has reconfirmed that illegal immigrants can file and claim refunds for the last three years.”
You read that correctly. Illegal immigrants can file and claim tax refunds for the last three years. You simply can’t make this stuff up. As reported by Forbes: “Under President Obama’s executive action, an illegal immigrant can: (1) get a Social Security number; (2) claim the Earned Income Tax Credit for the three open tax years; and (3) IRS sends three years of tax refunds. No matter that you never paid taxes, never filed a return, worked off the books, etc.”
This was further confirmed by then-Acting IRS Commissioner John Koskinen. He stated publicly what many had been thinking privately: under the EITC, “illegal immigrants granted amnesty under President Obama’s new programs could claim back refunds even when they never filed returns to pay their taxes in the first place.” He went on to further explain the program: “To clarify my earlier comments on EITC, not only can an individual amend a prior year return to claim EITC, but an individual who did not file a prior year return may file a return and claim EITC (subject to refund limitations under section 6511 of the Internal Revenue Code).”
Then there is the Additional Child Tax Credits. Illegals who have filed income tax returns have received billions of dollars paid in the form of Additional Child Tax Credits (ACTC). As reported by the Center for Immigration Studies: “Currently, an illegal alien, even with a shaky Social Security number or even an ITIN (individual tax identification number), may claim the up-to-$1,000-a-head payments even though the kids only have ITINs, which are not proof of legal residence, as SSNs are.”
No wonder why illegals are flooding our borders. With this much free money, why wouldn’t they? These refunds are more money than they could probably expect to see in their lifetime had they stayed in their own country.
There’s still more.
As if free money in the form of IRS checks in your mailbox isn’t enough, the American Opportunity Tax Credit (AOTC) pays eligible students’ qualified education expenses—up to $2,500 annually—for the first four years of higher education. In 2013, the IRS paid ITIN filers $204 million through this credit.
Is it no wonder that President Trump made promises during his campaign to end this insanity? The Washington Times summarized it best: “The new GOP tax overhaul would strip illegal immigrants of the ability to claim several major tax credits, saving the government $23.1 billion over the next decade.” Specifically, “immigrants covered by the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program will no longer be able to receive the credit when their work authorization expires,” according to CNN.
Consider this: under Federal Law, using a stolen or falsified Social Security number is a felony. Yet, according to public records, the Internal Revenue Service tracked over 1.3 million cases of identity theft by illegals between 2011 and 2016…yet neither a single arrest has been made nor a single demand for repayment of the fraudulently obtained money.
If you didn’t think that the IRS was an organized crime cartel when they illegally targeted conservative organizations for “enhanced scrutiny,” then the fact that the IRS actually encourages illegals to obtain and then use stolen identities and stolen social security numbers so that they can pay them should convince you otherwise.
Our countries borders are open and porous. Our current immigration laws as being enforced are contrary to our Constitution and our culture. We simply cannot sustain the level of illegals in this country, especially with more coming every day.
Why do you think that those thousands of Hondurans in the “caravan” didn’t want to stop in Mexico? Why would they not want to move to a country that is more in-line with their culture and language? Why do they not stay and revolt and fight for the homeland? Because it’s easier to simply come to America and get free money and free benefits from the Gringos.
But then these are people coming to this country by design. It is an invasion. Just read “La Raza” every once in a while, and you can see for yourself that the intent is to take back the lands lost in the Mexican-American war through this illegal invasion. It is called the “Reconquista” agenda. That is their stated goal. By bringing illegal immigrants in by the thousands every day, they are sure to overwhelm an already fragile—if not broken—system and then cause a complete collapse. And we finance this radical agenda with free money. They take our money and we let them.
Wake up America!
