Opinion on Obama's Immigration Executive Action

[Midnight Rain]

Let's see. If you don't have children and make the maximum of $14,590 for the year. You qualify for a tax credit of $496. You're really going to tell me that someone who makes only $14,590 for the year will only pay $496 in taxes that year for that amount? I'm under the impression that typical taxes are around the 20% range for working. So someone who makes $14,590 per year will be taxed around $3000. $3000 paid into taxes minus $496 ?

Actually they might not pay any of that since they will get a large tax return in addition to the tax credit. However we still have 15000 a year worth of money being spent on food and other supplies. Paying income tax is a large portion but we also have them paying sales tax.

 

[esmith]

Let's see. If you don't have children and make the maximum of $14,590 for the year. You qualify for a tax credit of $496. You're really going to tell me that someone who makes only $14,590 for the year will only pay $496 in taxes that year for that amount? I'm under the impression that typical taxes are around the 20% range for working. So someone who makes $14,590 per year will be taxed around $3000. $3000 paid into taxes minus $496 ?

Well unfortunately for you you are wrong. A single person with a gross income of $14590 and no dependents would owe around $444. My computations are based from the following link.
Tax Calculator - Estimate Your Tax Liability | Calculators by CalcXML
Now just how many that are now covered by the Obama Executive Order are single and no dependents? I would hazard to guess a very small number.
Now go to Earned Income Tax Credit Calculator - EIC and use an example of Married filing jointly with 2 dependent children.

 

[esmith]

Actually they might not pay any of that since they will get a large tax return in addition to the tax credit. However we still have 15000 a year worth of money being spent on food and other supplies. Paying income tax is a large portion but we also have them paying sales tax.

They were already spending that before Obama's action. You argument is irrelevant.

 

[tytlyf]

Actually they might not pay any of that since they will get a large tax return in addition to the tax credit. However we still have 15000 a year worth of money being spent on food and other supplies. Paying income tax is a large portion but we also have them paying sales tax.

I'm thinking about this wrong. I've found that only around 7% of people pay no federal income tax.

3) The vast majority of households that don't pay federal income taxes are either elderly or paying payroll taxes. As you can see below, 60 percent of those who don't pay income tax are still working and paying taxes for Social Security and Medicare. Their tax liability is just too low to qualify for the income tax. Another 22 percent of non-payers are retirees.

Only about 7.9 percent of households are not paying any federal taxes at all. That's usually because they're either unemployed or on disability or students or are very poor.

Who doesn’t pay taxes, in eight charts - The Washington Post

 

[Midnight Rain]

They were already spending that before Obama's action. You argument is irrelevant.

You are defending the liberal position? Or are you misunderstanding my position? I was stating that they were not paying income taxes at that level and they would only be paying sales tax.

People need to be brought in the US legally. Its a humanitarian issue that they want to give people amnesty rather than an economic one. And why should Mexico get special treatment (or other Latin countries) simply because they are closer? The only way we can really make any headway on this would be the close the boarder and to fix our system so we don't turn into a welfare state. That way EVERY working individual will give more than they take.

 

[godnotgod]

I never quite understood why people are shocked about the waves of immigrants coming from Mexico. Had NAFTA not been enacted at the behest of all the poor Mexican families, poverty wouldn't have increased, and along with it, millions of desperate people.

It's funny. Historically, the US has allowed, even encouraged, immigrants from Mexico to enter the country when it needed the work force, and then turned them away when that need subsided. The Brasero Program was one such official program that failed. Americans essentially turned a blind eye to 'illegal' immigration from Mexico up until about the 1980's when the recession came. Then they began to complain, seeing immigrant workers as a 'threat' Much of the negativity is hysteria and paranoia.

But under the guise of NAFTA, which is nothing more than America's version of the Trojan Horse, designed for IT'S benefit, not Mexico's, American corn growers dumped tons of cheap American corn onto the Mexican market, driving indigenous Indio farmers out of business, and displacing some 2 million workers. So where do you suppose they went looking for work? Uh.. huh. IOW, the US, through NAFTA, caused a large chunk of 'illegal' immigration in the agricultural sector.

In Mexico itself, NAFTA was the cause of the disenfranchisement of indigenous Mayans, who had been granted homestead rights to acquire land. NAFTA ripped out the carpet from under them, releasing those lands for sale to American corporations.

"Since the advent of the lopsided, so-called free trade agreement, where U.S. corn and bean producers get to keep their government subsidies while poor and modest Mexican Indian farmers lose theirs, the bottom has fallen out of the regional and local farming villages. While these Indian villages have always experienced poverty, most have been self-sufficient, at least in producing and providing and sustaining from the basic Indian foods of corn, beans and other produce, chicken and pigs, the occasional cattle. Thatís the traditional Indian homestead for most of southern Mexico, Guatemala and elsewhere among agricultural communities in Mesoamerica and South America. This is the stalwart bastion of the mostly self-sufficient safety net upon which the people have depended for millennia. Indian people, real Mexican Indians ñ Maya, Zapoteca and other indigenous peoples, with distinct languages and varieties of ethnicity and oral tradition ñ have been severely displaced and dislocated over the past decade. U.S. trade policy has a whole lot to do with it.

These are the bulk of the millions of new migrants inexorably making their way north. These are the Indian refugees displaced from their lands by the destruction of the old ejido systems, the privatization of water and lands, and the demolishment of a national economy that, up to 10 years ago, could make sense of the ancient Indian agricultural and gastronomic complex of the corn tortilla and the bean, grown and consumed locally and regionally. This is the dislocation of replacing this kind of agriculture ñ as foundation and safety net of rural peoples ñ with export-oriented agri-business, such as is more possible in the north of Mexico where, generally, the mestizo and Spanish identity have rolled over most of the Indian consciousness of land self-sufficiency."

Read more at Immigration issue sparks American racism - ICTMN.com

 

[dust1n]

It's funny. Historically, the US has allowed, even encouraged, immigrants from Mexico to enter the country when it needed the work force, and then turned them away when that need subsided. The Brasero Program was one such official program that failed.

You nailed it. My guess is that if anyone was even concerned about stopping Mexicans from entering America should be equally concerned about Americans going into Mexico to exploit cheap labor.

 

[metis]

My guess is that if anyone was even concerned about stopping Mexicans from entering America should be equally concerned about Americans going into Mexico to exploit cheap labor.

And even many farmers here in the States don't want the immigration spigot to shut because they can hire laborers at bargain wages. And I betcha most of those farmers and their family vote mostly Republican, and I know one of them that fits that scenario all too well as he'd my wife's first cousins.

 

[dust1n]

And even many farmers here in the States don't want the immigration spigot to shut because they can hire laborers at bargain wages. And I betcha most of those farmers and their family vote mostly Republican, and I know one of them that fits that scenario all too well as he'd my wife's first cousins.

Don't I know it. 50% of the construction workers in Texas are immigrants. Than the companies that benefit from this cheap labor pull lobby on making immigration illegal.

I guess having an illegal employee who has no rights to complain against work, and have their deportation and sometimes their families used against them, proves very profitable. Meanwhile, we can put off the dirty business of mass producing drugs despite our overwhelming consumption of them until Latin America forever, so that they deal with gang violence while we all get high.

 

[Midnight Rain]

Don't I know it. 50% of the construction workers in Texas are immigrants. Than the companies that benefit from this cheap labor pull lobby on making immigration illegal.

I guess having an illegal employee who has no rights to complain against work, and have their deportation and sometimes their families used against them, proves very profitable. Meanwhile, we can put off the dirty business of mass producing drugs despite our overwhelming consumption of them until Latin America forever, so that they deal with gang violence while we all get high.

This is a terrible situation for those workers and those companies are doing their country a terrible misdeed for hiring them in such a way. Not only are they not paying the taxes that they should be paying but there is humanitarian (and practical) consequences to their actions. Hiring new immigrants into impoverished situations will halt their ability to advance in American society as well as increase the crime rate.

 

[godnotgod]

You nailed it. My guess is that if anyone was even concerned about stopping Mexicans from entering America should be equally concerned about Americans going into Mexico to exploit cheap labor.

Yup. Current minimum wage in Mexico is ~.68 cents/hour in US currency, more on the Baja peninsula. Big US corps like GM do take advantage of that with their Mexican-based factories. In addition, Mexican workers in US factories (maquiladoras) are not unionized.

 

[godnotgod]

Scenario.

Imagine an American auto body shop with, say, 10 undocumented workers earning $10/hour cash. The shop rate charged to the customer is, say, $100/hour. With the shop running at full tilt, that is, all 10 workers busy for a full 8 hour day, every day, the shop is pulling in $800/day PER EMPLOYEE! That's $8000/day gross income. The wages, however, amount to only $80/day per employee x 10 = $800/day gross wages. So that leaves the shop with $7200/day to play with. This is income that the 10 undocumented workers generated for the shop that wouldn't be there otherwise. This money is then distributed to others for Rent, Insurance, Utilities, Supplies, Materials, Advertising, etc. The $800/day paid to the workers is then distributed to others for Rent, Groceries, Clothing, Fuel, Utilities, Entertainment, etc. with some portion being sent back to Mexico, the lion's share stimulating the US economy domestically.

At least the monies sent to Mexico that would have been paid in income taxes are not going to support illegal wars in Afghanistan and Iraq.

 

[godnotgod]

This is a terrible situation for those workers and those companies are doing their country a terrible misdeed for hiring them in such a way. Not only are they not paying the taxes that they should be paying but there is humanitarian (and practical) consequences to their actions. Hiring new immigrants into impoverished situations will halt their ability to advance in American society as well as increase the crime rate.

The dillema seems to be that, if all of these workers were to suddenly become documented, paid legal wages, and pay taxes, the companies who hire them would downsize or not hire them at all. Undocumented status means that the employer has the upper hand and can manipulate the workers without fear of punishment simply because the workers fear being exposed themselves.

A Peruvian friend of mine who worked for a building contractor for 6 months was promised a paycheck at the end of the project. When the project was over, the employer simply refused to pay him. My friend had no recourse.

 

[Midnight Rain]

The dillema seems to be that, if all of these workers were to suddenly become documented, paid legal wages, and pay taxes, the companies who hire them would downsize or not hire them at all. Undocumented status means that the employer has the upper hand and can manipulate the workers without fear of punishment simply because the workers fear being exposed themselves.

A Peruvian friend of mine who worked for a building contractor for 6 months was promised a paycheck at the end of the project. When the project was over, the employer simply refused to pay him. My friend had no recourse.

And what of all of the legal immigrants? What is your opinion on that matter? Should we simply have no control over who enters the country or not? Or should the current legal immigration system be revised?

I am already against the companies who do underhanded tactics for undocumented workers. In your scenario I find it highly unrealistic that they would pay an undocumented worker $10 dollars an hour. Probably closer to 2 or 3.

Its a risky business doing illegal things. Working illegally, hiring illegally. In my personal opinion your friend should not have been working illegally from the get go. If you wish to make the case that the process should have been easier for him to get into the US then I can agree with you.

 

[godnotgod]

And why should Mexico get special treatment (or other Latin countries) simply because they are closer?

You've got to understand the bigger picture. 'Illegal immigration' is the price America is now paying for past offenses against Mexico. President Polk ordered American troops to deliberately incite Mexican troops to war by crossing the then US/Mexican border (River Nueces). That was the beginning of the Mex/American War. The issue was slavery. Polk, a slaveowner, wanted more territory for slavery, and Texas was the prize, which was then Mexican territory. Mexico envisioned a multi-cultural immigrant population for its territories. Mexico told the Americans they could enter Texas and homestead as long as they did not bring slaves. The Americans agreed, but brought slaves anyway, inciting the Battle of the Alamo. After the US won the war, the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo sent 100,000 Mexican nationals back to Mexico who had held legal title to land in New Mexico. More casualties came out of California and Texas. The US, wanting even more land, then threatened Mexico with invasion if Mexico did not accept the bribe which bought the lands known as the Gadsden Purchase. All in all, Mexico lost 1/3 of her northern territories to the US via an instigated war and bribery. In the mind of the Mexican, we are the invaders and robber barons. The Southwest is their land which is being illegally occupied. Historically, prior to any Europeans having landed on the North American continent, what is now the Southwest was called 'Aztlan', a kind of happy hunting ground for the Aztec people.

So who is stealing from who?

 

[Midnight Rain]

You've got to understand the bigger picture. 'Illegal immigration' is the price America is now paying for past offenses against Mexico. President Polk ordered American troops to deliberately incite Mexican troops to war by crossing the then US/Mexican border (River Nueces). That was the beginning of the Mex/American War. The issue was slavery. Polk, a slaveowner, wanted more territory for slavery, and Texas was the prize, which was then Mexican territory. Mexico envisioned a multi-cultural immigrant population for its territories. Mexico told the Americans they could enter Texas and homestead as long as they did not bring slaves. The Americans agreed, but brought slaves anyway, inciting the Battle of the Alamo. After the US won the war, the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo sent 100,000 Mexican nationals back to Mexico who had held legal title to land in New Mexico. More casualties came out of California and Texas. The US, wanting even more land, then threatened Mexico with invasion if Mexico did not accept the bribe which bought the lands known as the Gadsden Purchase. All in all, Mexico lost 1/3 of her northern territories to the US via an instigated war and bribery. In the mind of the Mexican, we are the invaders and robber barons. The Southwest is their land which is being illegally occupied. Historically, prior to any Europeans having landed on the North American continent, what is now the Southwest was called 'Aztlan', a kind of happy hunting ground for the Aztec people.

So who is stealing from who?

I don't see how any of this is relevant. Mexico lost a war over a 100 years ago and they lost the territory. It has been American territory since then. I don't deny that manifest destiny led to some terrible thin but unless you are advocating the removal of all Europeans and giving it back to native American tribes then I don't see how the point you are making leads to any kind of argument.

 

[godnotgod]

And what of all of the legal immigrants? What is your opinion on that matter? Should we simply have no control over who enters the country or not? Or should the current legal immigration system be revised?

I am already against the companies who do underhanded tactics for undocumented workers. In your scenario I find it highly unrealistic that they would pay an undocumented worker $10 dollars an hour. Probably closer to 2 or 3.

Its a risky business doing illegal things. Working illegally, hiring illegally. In my personal opinion your friend should not have been working illegally from the get go. If you wish to make the case that the process should have been easier for him to get into the US then I can agree with you.

My point was not about my friend, but about the fact that American companies exploit the undocumented worker.

Your 2/3 dollar figure may be the case for agricultural workers, but skilled labor such as auto body work may even bring a higher figure than the $10 I quoted, even under the table.

Will comment on the first part of your post later.

 

[1robin]

In my underinformed opinion, I'm just astounded that it came to this, that nothing was done about making these (eligible) immigrants citizens before now.

Why don't you and Obama go home open up your back door and anyone who sneaks in you can grant them amnesty and make them entitled to benefits your family receives at the expense of your family. How is a squatter eligible for anything?

 

[godnotgod]

I don't see how any of this is relevant. Mexico lost a war over a 100 years ago and they lost the territory. It has been American territory since then. I don't deny that manifest destiny led to some terrible thin but unless you are advocating the removal of all Europeans and giving it back to native American tribes then I don't see how the point you are making leads to any kind of argument.

Sorry, but it is THE argument. Most Americans hold the view that the scenario I presented is 'all in the past', but that is just a convenient way of sweeping the issue of injustice under the rug.

If the Russians or Chinese invaded the US and permanently seized all of the Eastern and Southern states under the guise of a 'legal war', would you just be willing to 'let bygones be bygones'? I don't think so.

No, I am not advocating your proposal. Stop jumping to conclusions.

 

[godnotgod]

How is a squatter eligible for anything?

I agree. Americans are the squatters/aggressors on indigenous Indian soil, and should not be eligible for anything. Well, food stamps, maybe.