America's New Immigration Bill

[AssKissinger]

Some news reports say it's 380 pages long. Other reports claim it's up to a thousand. It's probably about 400 with another 600 pages of endnotes and addendums. Nothing gets passed until every congress person has had a chance to add some kind of provision that leads to some kind of kickback. Immigration is a billion dollar industry. There is nothing about it that has anything to do with national security. If a 'terrorist' makes it into Mexico he might as well be in New York. Nothing has been done to change that. The $5,000 fine for all illegals is just another huge scam where the rich get richer and the poor get fucked over and out. None of that money will be used for 'homeland security'. Although a lot of that money will go into the security systems that guard the mansions of the super-rich in America. If you are American and have a Japanese spouse you should be fucking furious at this bullshit. The whole thing is a fucking scam and after 9/11, instead of trying to improve national security all they did was exploit the tragedy to make more money.

Fuck 'homeland security', naturalization and immigration services, congress and motherfuck George Bush. I got something for all yall to wrap your lips around. Fucking thieves and liars. Go to Hell.

[Tsuru]

Fuck 'homeland security', naturalization and immigration services, congress and motherfuck George Bush. I got something for all yall to wrap your lips around. Fucking thieves and liars. Go to Hell.

My man, I raise my glass to you.

[Hokuto-shinken]

Mine too!

[Blah Pete]

The Republicans want illegal immigration to continue becasue it is cheal labour for businesses and drives down the wages and benefits for legal workers.

The Democrats want an amnesty because they will get millions of new registered voters and will turn a few red southern states to blue.

The everage asshole on the street in areas with lots of illegal aliens wants them thrown out but the government doesn't listen. Nobody cared when the Mexicans were picking lettuce because it was like a 3K job in Japan. But when they started to take over the construction, landscaping and factory jobs is the point the average Joe wants them shipped back across the border.

[Samurai_Jerk]

I think I'm going to start shopping around for a new passport. It's too fucking expensive to be an American abroad and I don't get any service in return from my piece of shit government. And God forbid I ever get a horrible disease or disability and end up a medical refugee like Taro. Taro, it must make you feel real good filing taxes with a country than won't even take care of you if you ever go home.

U-S-A! U-S-A! U-S-A!

[AssKissinger]

American Health Care.

It's the biggest fucking scam in the world. Even rich people aren't immune from finally handing it all over to the docs.

The worst health care system on earth.

African countries are governed better.

[Samurai_Jerk]

Any hot Canadian or Northern European lasses looking for a marriage of convenience? I get a new passport and access to a decent healthcare system, you get the privelage of sleeping with me. It's what you call a win-win situation.

[Blah Pete]

[quote="Samurai_Jerk"]Any hot Canadian or Northern European lasses looking for a marriage of convenience? I get a new passport and access to a decent healthcare system, you get the privelage of sleeping with me. It's what you call a win-win situation. ]
The problem is any place with decent health care also has a 45%+ tax rate.
Just stay healthy. I suggest a few cups of Nishon-shu every day or at least 3 Asahi Super Drys.

[Samurai_Jerk]

The problem is any place with decent health care also has a 45%+ tax rate.
Just stay healthy. I suggest a few cups of Nishon-shu every day or at least 3 Asahi Super Drys.

I don't want to live in one of those countries. Just get the passport.

[Blah Pete]

I don't want to live in one of those countries. Just get the passport.

My plan is to get rich so I can afford my own retirement/health care/beer money/private island, and get citizenship from some tax haven like Cook Islands where they won't tax you and don't have any crazy home land security crap.
Now, the only problem with my plan so far is accumulating large sums of money.

[Samurai_Jerk]

My plan is to get rich so I can afford my own retirement/health care/beer money/private island, and get citizenship from some tax haven like Cook Islands where they won't tax you and don't have any crazy home land security crap.
Now, the only problem with my plan so far is accumulating large sums of money.

Yeah, I might pass the income level where I have to start paying taxes to Uncle Sam this year and almost certainly will next year, so the sooner I can get a tax haven the better. Gotta get me a good international tax accountant.

[Tsuru]

[yt]oSb1Orv_shE[/yt]

Funny thing is, the same amount of jobs taken up by immigrants is basically being shipped over to China, Mexico and some other places many times over by the big corporations of America. Buy a Chevrolet and it's made in Mexico.

[Big Booger]

Viva la revolucion!

[costanza]

The whole reason why the hairy bush adminstration has passed this law is to find a way to make more money because the defecit and so huge that the only way to help ease it is to give thousands of illegals social security numbers so they can start to collect taxes off their asses. Companies are gonna be gettin screwed here in the millions and the only people reaping these benefits of more tax collection, well i think you already know.

[kamome]

The Dems pretty much are unified in wanting a new immigration policy that gives illegals a path to citizenship and provides for a guest worker program.

The Republicans are all over the place on this issue. Pro-business Reps side with the Dems because it is in business' interest to maintain a cheap source of labor in the country. Other conservative Reps hate the idea because anything short of kicking illegals out of the country amounts to amnesty in their eyes. There was a lot of talk on the Sunday news shows in the US about this issue, and it was clear to me that, for the Republicans, immgration is more divisive than Iraq as a policy issue.

Yet something really needs to be done given that there are 12 million illegals in the US and many are creating an anchor for themselves in the US by having babies on US soil. I wonder what would happen in countries like France, Australia or England if they had an unrestricted flow of people illegally coming across their border to the extent that 12 million people were undocumented and likely living below the poverty line. Would the illegals be treated more or less harshly?

[kamome]

Yeah, I might pass the income level where I have to start paying taxes to Uncle Sam this year and almost certainly will next year, so the sooner I can get a tax haven the better. Gotta get me a good international tax accountant.

You are still liable for taxes in the US even if you park your money in an offshore tax haven. If the money goes unreported and the IRS finds out about it (or you try to repatriate the money somehow), you could be in for a world of hurt.

[AssKissinger]

The Dems pretty much are unified in wanting a new immigration policy that gives illegals a path to citizenship and provides for a guest worker program.

The Republicans are all over the place on this issue. Pro-business Reps side with the Dems because it is in business' interest to maintain a cheap source of labor in the country. Other conservative Reps hate the idea because anything short of kicking illegals out of the country amounts to amnesty in their eyes. There was a lot of talk on the Sunday news shows in the US about this issue, and it was clear to me that, for the Republicans, immgration is more divisive than Iraq as a policy issue.

Yet something really needs to be done given that there are 12 million illegals in the US and many are creating an anchor for themselves in the US by having babies on US soil. I wonder what would happen in countries like France, Australia or England if they had an unrestricted flow of people illegally coming across their border to the extent that 12 million people were undocumented and likely living below the poverty line. Would the illegals be treated more or less harshly?

Bird, You give these fuckers too much credit. The Dems could give a fuck about whether or not the illegals are able to get citizenship or not and Repugs don't give a rat's ass about cheap labor. Dude, there's no fucking way that all the pages on that bill are even remotely related to immigration. It's just full of bullshit pork. It doesn't need to be but three or four pages long. All that shit on This Week... and Crossfire and whatever else is all such fucking crap. Seriously, the US government is so full of shit, it's like we're in Africa.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20070521/ap_on_go_co/congress_immigration_12

It's got to go on for at least a couple of weeks to give everybody the opportunity in the Senate to feel like they've had their chance to offer amendments that they think would improve the bill," Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (news, bio, voting record), R-Ky., said Sunday.

Fuck you motherfucker! The thing is already so porked up it reads like War and Peace. It doesn't have shit to do with immigration except that it's bound to make the process even that much more incomprehensible to everyone. Whether or not you support illegals having a legit path to citizenship is irrelevant. This has nothing to do with that.

[Tsuru]

Would the illegals be treated more or less harshly?

Way less. Even in places like Italy and France.

In most European countries asylum seekers and illegal immigrants are given temporary housing and a small allowance for food while they await a decision on what the government wants them to do. In Holland we recently passed a law that grants legal residence to a group of about 26000 asylum seekers who have been waiting for a decision on whether they are allowed in or not since the late 1990s as a result of previous government fuckups. All of this time these people have been living in temporary housing communities provided for and fed by the gubmint.

If I was living in Senegal and couldn't get a job I'd be on a boat on my way to the Canaries right now.

[AssKissinger]

How easy it for Moroccans to hope on over to Spain?

[Tsuru]

Harder than you might think... the problem is that there actually is a tiny bit of Spanish territory on the African side of the Med, as well as a few islands. The trick is just to get in: once you are physically on EU soil (which includes the Canary islands and these tiny settlements) you cannot be legally apprehended unless you commit some sort of crime. Strange as it may sound, simply being here illegally is not a legal offense. So once they get in they just take the ferry to the European mainland.

There was a documentary a while back where a black British journalist tried to make the journey together with these immigrants, starting in the bushes just south of the fences around the Spanish settlement in Morocco. Watching what these people had to go through to make it to their final destination of Manchester massively increased my respect for illegal immigrants. If you get that far you have earned the right to live in Europe many times over as far as I'm concerned. I mean, people fucking walk across the Sahara from shitholes like Sudan just to get in.

[s]I'll see if I can find it.[/s] http://www.insightnewstv.com/illegals/

[Kuang_Grade]

If you get that far you have earned the right to live in Europe many times over as far as I'm concerned.

If that's your threshold for citizenship, this probably explains why you are looking to move to Canada. And don't assume they are just making it there on their solely grit and determination...many are financing criminal organization to aid them in their travel and many are victimized by these same organizations along the way. Is this much different than than having prisoners earn freedom via a no rules/last man standing brawl? Yeah, they earn it but you might not want them walking the street after that.

The US has a fair number of slot available of asylum cases and is one of the few countries in the world that actually offers the chance of legal immigration to africans and asians as long as they have access to a computer and a photo and are at least semi-literate.
http://travel.state.gov/visa/immigrants/types/types_1318.html

Much of Europe doesn't offer many (if any) options in the way of legal immigration except for asylum cases or marriages.

I haven't looked at all of the bill as of yet, but I am glad it is redirecting focus away from familal ties (giving a visa to someone's 75 year old granny who hasn't spend a day in the US before doesn't offer much in the way of potential gains for the nation while giving that visa to someone younger and hopefully with some useful skills would have a much better pay off for the country) and shifting towards more skilled based criteria is a big step in the right direction.

Fundamentally, the problem with illegal immigration in the US is that too many parties are making too much money from it...Real estate REITs, Car Dealers, Kraft, ect, ect don't want to lose all those customers. Bank of America just started to offer credit cards to people without a social security number(the basic tax ID for citizens/legal residents in the US), which I think verges on the traitorous. The simplest way to get back to manageable levels illegal immigration (it will never be solved) is to greatly increase the financial penalities for those who use illegal workers and those who profit from them...Apply RICO type financial penalties and seizure rules and add whisle blower payoffs...When business owners start losing their houses and get $25k fines per worker per event, a good chunk of the market for undocumented workers will disappear. Requiring vaild immigration status for legal contracts to be enforceable would put a great deal more risk for both parties, which will make it much more costly for both parties to do business.

Of course,there is a simple solution as well that would solve quite a few problems...roving press gangs with forced inducement of illegals into the military and then shipment to Iraq for two years....My father was drafted into the navy for a 2 year stint within 60 days of his legal arrival in the US...If it was good enough for him, it is good enough for guys hanging out around the parking lot of Home Depot.

[GomiGirl]

I wonder what would happen in countries like France, Australia or England if they had an unrestricted flow of people illegally coming across their border to the extent that 12 million people were undocumented and likely living below the poverty line. Would the illegals be treated more or less harshly?

Australia puts refugees in detention camps for years while their applications are being processed. It was causing such a storm of controversy that now they are moving these off-shore to places like Fiji so they are out of sight and out of mind.

More reports here.

Australian official figures suggest that there were about 50,000 people living illegally in Australia after overstaying their visas.

That is a drop in a leaky boat compared to the US number but given the population (and available space in Australia) it is not insignificant.

I do not have any suggestions for solutions, am just reporting what happens.

[Samurai_Jerk]

You are still liable for taxes in the US even if you park your money in an offshore tax haven. If the money goes unreported and the IRS finds out about it (or you try to repatriate the money somehow), you could be in for a world of hurt.

I'm talking about tax avoidance, not tax evasion. There are legal ways to greatly reduce your tax load. That's what I'm looking for. Anyway, the US really fucks it's citizens living abroad. The only other countries that tax their nationals working overseas are Eritrea and the Philipines.

[AssKissinger]

the US really fucks it's citizens

You can say that again.

How does it work? It starts if you make over 70 grand right? So if you make 75 grand does that mean you have to pay the full federal tax on 75 g just like if you were back home or is it on some kind of scale or does it just start from zero at 70 or what? It's probably confusing as hell. Remember, 'legal' is just whatever they fucking decide it is and they make the laws so long winded and confusing that they reserve the right to put anyone in jail at any time.

[emperor]

the US really fucks it's citizens living abroad. The only other countries that tax their nationals working overseas are Eritrea and the Philipines.

In Ireland: you have to be living here at least 180 days of the year to be taxed.
If you make less than 15,500euro you dont get taxed (ie part-timers, students).
If over: first 6000approx is taxfree - then up to 30,000 at 20% - then 42% above that.

[kamome]

I'm talking about tax avoidance, not tax evasion. There are legal ways to greatly reduce your tax load. That's what I'm looking for. Anyway, the US really fucks it's citizens living abroad. The only other countries that tax their nationals working overseas are Eritrea and the Philipines.

The IRS considers what you are contemplating to be tax evasion. Hence the penalties and interest you would have to pay for not reporting the income.

I agree that the US fucks its citizens by taxing them on worldwide income. And what is our money used for? To finance illegal wars abroad.

[Charles]

Australia puts refugees in detention camps for years while their applications are being processed.

Well that's ironic. I never heard of people who would endure a detention camp just for the privilege of living in a penal colony.

[Kuang_Grade]

I agree that the US fucks its citizens by taxing them on worldwide income. And what is our money used for? To finance illegal wars abroad.

Hey, empires have their cost...but actually the war is being debt financed for the most part (a mere $434 billion budget deficit for FY 2006) , so we'll be paying for this for a long, long time.

SJ: You should look at the tax rules for self employment and see if you can shoehorn your income under that. I profess zero knowledge of the tax rules on ex-pats and if/how they interact with self employment rules, but for US folks, there are many ways, if one structures them correctly, that one can often deduct a fair bit of stuff off your income and be able to cram pre-tax cash into keogh pensions as well, although you do get nailed with an additional Social Security tax. Needless to say, this is something you should talk about with a proper tax profession or accountant. Going this route means your taxes are much more complicated (good record keeping becomes uber important), and the chances of an audit are much higher (the IRS gets nervous about people whose income earned outside standard channels) but it can knock a fair bit of one's Adjusted Gross Income figures.

[kamome]

Hey, empires have their cost...but actually the war is being debt financed for the most part (a mere $434 billion budget deficit for FY 2006) , so we'll be paying for this for a long, long time.

SJ: You should look at the tax rules for self employment and see if you can shoehorn your income under that. I profess zero knowledge of the tax rules on ex-pats and if/how they interact with self employment rules, but for US folks, there are many ways, if one structures them correctly, that one can often deduct a fair bit of stuff off your income and be able to cram pre-tax cash into keogh pensions as well, although you do get nailed with an additional Social Security tax. Needless to say, this is something you should talk about with a proper tax profession or accountant. Going this route means your taxes are much more complicated (good record keeping becomes uber important), and the chances of an audit are much higher (the IRS gets nervous about people whose income earned outside standard channels) but it can knock a fair bit of one's Adjusted Gross Income figures.

SJ, are you self-employed or are you an employee of a company? If you're someone else's employee, KG's suggestion probably won't work.

[Kuang_Grade]

It is not a simple step and like many tax issues, not exactly straightforward in all cases or situations, but this page should help

http://www.irs.gov/businesses/small/article/0,,id=115041,00.html

But it also doesn't need to a full time job either...you can have a corp job and still do some self employment on the side. While you can't call a hobby a "business" (the IRS requires you make a profit with in either 2 or 3 years of starting the business or risk having all your previous deductions invalidated...ie, you can't lose money forever and write it off your taxes), that doesn't automatically mean you have to run the business at the highest levels of profit maximization.

For example, if GBoothe decided to get into the goat leasing business, he could probably deduct a fair bit of his goat procurement costs...Since he would be facing most of those expenses anyway for his own person enjoyment, a expense that wasn't previously tax deductible now might be, although certainly not 100% of it.

Now of course there are limits to this (and this is where that record keeping issue comes up)....the guy behind the 'girls gone wild' videos is in tax trouble because of this...The IRS got interested in him, if I remember correctly, when he tried to deduct huge $ amount of booze as business expense...although I don't know where his business would be without boozed up co-eds.....I think the IRS found some other stuff like calling a $1 million house in Mexico a business expense and that's what they are going after him on.

However, I am not a tax professional or accountant, and professional advice is something one should seek out before changing one's tax profile.