THE BORDER REPORT

The phrase is usually reserved for the Iraq War; but these days it fits quite nicely into illegal immigration (should I start capitalizing illegal immigration? Like so: Illegal Immigration? Like War on Terror, or War on Drugs. Something snazzier maybe? War on Mojados? Thoughts?)

The New York Times has noticed that with tax day coming, there are millions of people in the U.S. who won't be getting a return even though they had taxes withheld because they're afraid to file their returns for fear of deportation.

I propose there's a more practical reason why the poor bastards are going to get jacked out of hundreds of dollars – the Social Security numbers they use belong to other people, usually dead ones.

Follow me.

From age 14 to 30, I worked every blue collar gig you can think of; bussing tables, pouring drinks, mopping floors, mowing lawns, digging ditches, slinging ice (no, not that kind; relax guys) and cleaning horseshit; in no particular order.

I cannot tell you how many illegal migrants I worked with in those 16 years. Dozens, for sure, maybe more. But nearly every one had "papers," usually a Social Security card drawn off some presumably dead taxpayer (I can recall entire debates standing around in a hot kitchen, protesting that Felipe looked more like a Marcos so he and Marcos should trade out SSNs). I say presumably dead because I don't think I've ever heard of someone filing a complaint with the IRS about an extra $22,000 that appear on their income filings and while I suppose it's possible, I'm betting that most of those tax return recipients were long past caring.

It leads me to wonder a few things:

How much are illegal immigrants propping up the Social Security Fund?

And, putting on my tinfoil hat again, if the Feds were indeed serious about controlling illegal immigration, does it not stand to reason that this is an easy way to do so? How hard could it be to run a quick process of elimination between SSNs and death certificates?

Unless of course, it's simply easier to ignore the problem because it's not perceived as a problem at all.

The Times' story puts the amount of money illegal immigrants pay into the federal pot at $9 billion. I have my doubts. If that number is based off the Census Bureaus' rough-rough-rough estimation of 7 to 12 million illegal immigrants in the country, it's gotta be much higher.

I contend the Feds, and by extension, the rest of us, find it convenient to jack these people out of their federal tax returns and simply ignore the entire fiasco.