Illegal aliens from Mexico to receive Social Security benefits after only 18 months?

Yesterday, I just caught the back-end of a segment on Glen Beck (on TV, not the radio show) about illegal immigration and Social Security. The guest on the segment was Steven Camarota, head of the Center for Immigration studies. (They're the nation's only "think tank" on immigration research: http://www.cis.org/) I headed on over to the CIS homepage and discovered that they had a link to an article on the issue that Steven was discussing with Glen on the show.

Article link: http://worldnetdaily.com/news/articl...TICLE_ID=53613

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An organization of retirees has announced the release, after three years of arguments and a Freedom of Information request, by the Social Security Administration of a copy of the first known public copy of the U.S.-Mexico Social Security Totalization Agreement.

The TREA Senior Citizens League said the document reveals what was expected, a huge threat to the future of Social Security, because any Mexican worker who has as little as 18 months of employment history in the United States could end up qualifying for some Social Security retirement benefits.

The organization of retirees, whose leaders have tried to convince Congress to prevent Social Security benefits from being awarded for work done by people in the United States illegally, said the exact financial impact cannot be calculated immediately, because the number of illegals working in the country isn't clear.

But with estimates ranging to 20 million illegals in the country, even a portion of them qualifying for Social Security benefits could move the costs into the range of billions quickly.

An analysis of the plan by the Center for Immigration Studies noted that at the end of 2003, the Social Security System owed retirees and current workers benefits valued at $14 trillion, with assets of only $3.5 trillion.

"Ominously, these assets include not only the trust fund's current reserves ($1.4 trillion), but also the present value of the taxes that current workers will pay for the rest of their working lives ($2.1 trillion)," the organization said.

The TREA organization, which represents more than 1.2 million people, said the government agreement between the United States and Mexico was signed in June 2004, and now is awaiting President Bush's signature. Once that signature is in place, which can be done without a vote in Congress, the U.S. House and U.S. Senate would have only 60 days to disapprove it by voting to reject it.

"The Social Security Administration itself warns that Social Security is within decades of bankruptcy – yet, they seem to have no problem making agreements that hasten its demise," said Ralph McCutchen, chairman of the league.

It's not the first such agreement; the U.S. already has nearly two dozen other agreements with other nations. They are intended to eliminate dual taxation for people who work outside their country of origin. But the other agreements are with developed nations with economies similar to that of the U.S., the league said.

For example, a worker who turns 62 after 1990 generally needs 40 calendar quarters of coverage to receive retirement benefits. Under the cross-country agreements, workers can combine earnings from both countries in order to qualify for benefits in the U.S.

The agreements generally provide that workers need only 18 months of coverage in the U.S. to qualify.

However, the league said Mexico's retirement system is "radically" different from other nations, the group said. "There, only 40 percent of the non-government workers participate in the system, as opposed to 96 percent of America's non-government workers. Additionally, the U.S. system is progressive, meaning lower-income workers get back much more than they paid into the system. But in Mexico, workers get back only what they put in, plus interest."

"I applaud the persistent efforts of TREA Senior Citizens League to try to get documents from the U.S. Government about the U.S.-Mexico Social Security totalization Agreement," noted Rep. Walter Jones, R-N.C. "The American people are finally beginning to get some of the information regarding this Agreement that they have been seeking for so long."

The CIS said the plan should not be approved in this form.

"It represents a sell-out of American workers and their families," the group's analysis said. "Such a one-sided pact with its enormous financial risks should never have been negotiated in the first place."

"It is unfortunate that the Commissioner of Social Security signed it despite the serious and specific concerns expressed in the GAO report and again in Congressional hearings in 2003. It would have been far better to pull the plug then rather than extend negotiations with Mexico, which now has every reason to believe the agreement will be accepted. We owe Mexico an apology for leading it on. But embarrassment over a diplomatic blunder should not get in the way of extricating ourselves from an agreement that is not in our national interest," the analysis said.

The CIS said the circumstances could attract illegals to the U.S., while providing only marginal benefits to any U.S. workers or employers.

The retirees' organization is made up of active senior citizens who are concerned about protecting their Social Security, Medicare and veteran or military retiree benefits.

It is working on changing the way Cost-of-Living Adjustments are made, obtaining reforms in the system for those people born in the "Notch" years of 1917-1926, and resolving threats to civilian or military work force retiree benefits.

Does anyone have other sources for this story, links to other articles, etc.? I am interested in finding out why our goverment thinks this is "fair," or what their motives are for promoting this arrangement.

Jam it back in, in the dark.

That's a pretty big claim to make, and while I understand that you don't have any sources, we do sort of require sources in thread creation when making claims of this nature. This thread has been closed temporarily until you can find a source. PM me or Styphon once you have one and are ready to edit it into your opening post.

Thread re-opened.

There's nowhere I can't reach.

Wow that's pretty incredible. I don't care much for illegal immigration, however I don't think erecting a wall will do much to stop it. If this happens, then no fucking wall or anything can do much for stopping illegal immigration. Gotta love hypocrisy.

This thing is sticky, and I don't like it. I don't appreciate it.

The simplest solution is to shoot all border jumpers on-sight. They're technically invading this country, but they only want to break our laws and not our spirits, so it's not kosher.

I wouldn't be surprised if this wasn't some Neoconservative conspiracy to destroy the Social Security network from within. It's as good a reason to get rid of the Minimum Wage than ever, I suppose.

I am a dolphin, do you want me on your body?

Originally Posted by Bradylama

The simplest solution is to shoot all border jumpers on-sight. They're technically invading this country, but they only want to break our laws and not our spirits, so it's not kosher.

I wouldn't be surprised if this wasn't some Neoconservative conspiracy to destroy the Social Security network from within. It's as good a reason to get rid of the Minimum Wage than ever, I suppose.

Yeah because mass murder is so acceptable.


The easiest way to get rid of this problem is to stop giving them incentives to be here. Punish the companies that hire them. Punish the people harshly who sell Social Security numbers to them. Get rid of this stupid Social Security benefits for them. Get rid of all potentials benefits for them.

The reason they come here is because pay is better and the work demand is here. Mexico is in a pretty sorry state when it comes to living and many people will jump the border to work for money and send it back to their families in Mexico. Or they'll try to create new lives here. They don't all want to be here, they'd rather be there if it was better. Come on, would you want to live in the United States if the police were so corrupt that they can be bought, the wages were fucking terrible and any other social problems they might have? Of course not.

It would also be a good idea to try to work with Mexico to set up a less corrupt government, since we like meddling in other people's affairs. Though I doubt we can do much about corruption when we have plenty of our own. This is just a complicated problem with no easy answer.

I was speaking idiomatically.

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Yeah because mass murder is so acceptable.

Right, I must've just imagined the part where they were invading this country en-masse.

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Punish the companies that hire them.

Improbable.

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Punish the people harshly who sell Social Security numbers to them.

Like people who sell SS numbers to anybody for the sake of identity isn't punished harshly (if they're caught).

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Get rid of this stupid Social Security benefits for them.

Not politically sound.

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Get rid of all potentials benefits for them.

The minimum wage.

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Come on, would you want to live in the United States if the police were so corrupt that they can be bought, the wages were fucking terrible and any other social problems they might have?

I was confused for a second here. For a while I thought you weren't talking about America.

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It would also be a good idea to try to work with Mexico to set up a less corrupt government, since we like meddling in other people's affairs. Though I doubt we can do much about corruption when we have plenty of our own. This is just a complicated problem with no easy answer.

No more minimum wage. The only reason they can work in the United States is because the Peso is one of the few currencies so much more monstrously worthless than the Dollar, that they can work below the competitive rate for Americans. Since the legal minimum is the minimum wage, by getting rid of it, they would then have to compete with American workers for wages, unless they were skilled labor, which they aren't.

What kind of toxic man-thing is happening now?

That's what you get with Free Trade agreements where one party (us) heavily subsidizes farming.

I personally think a North American Bloc would be a novel idea. Unified free economies between Mexico, the US, and Canada. Open borders everywhere, and citizens from each country can work in the other with no restrictions.

How ya doing, buddy?

Economists have pointed out that if we really didn't like them here, we could keep them out. Easily. The US military might is a force to be reckoned with. As Brady suggested, we could shoot them on sight. It's legal. They ARE invading, after all. However, they do help stimulate the economy, although most ignorant hicks don't realize this and talk about stealing their jobs. You know, the one where they work the fields for three bucks an hour. The government probably turns a blind eye to it publicly, and supports it privately. Wouldn't you?

Although the concept that it might be a way to destroy Social Security is intriguing.

What, you don't want my bikini-clad body?

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Since the legal minimum is the minimum wage, by getting rid of it, they would then have to compete with American workers for wages, unless they were skilled labor, which they aren't.

LOL allright. So whitey is going to be content working for a couple of bux an hour and do a better job than Mexicans? Doubt it. Aboloshing the minimun wage will only hurt the US citizens on it.

Jam it back in, in the dark.

Without a legal minimum, employers who pay their workers minimum wage would have to compete with each other in order to attract labor. Let's say there's a small town where every resturaunt pays their workers the same relative wage. In order to compete with these resturaunts in labor, an entrepreneur starting a new resturaunt offers to pay his employees maybe a dollar or two more an hour than his competitors. This encourages the workers in the current joints to seek jobs at his own establishment, which avoids having to train a completely new staff from scratch. If the resturaunts that already exist want to keep their workers instead of having to train their new ones, they would have to raise the pay of their workers, or offer other incentives like health plans in the case of large franchises.

In any case, the pay gravitates towards how much wealth is being generated by the workers. As it is, with a minimum standard, in many cases employers are either forced to pay more than their labor is worth, which hurts overall employment, or they're paying their labor worth less because there is a national standard for unskilled labor that neophytes will easily accept.

In many cases, the jobs that illegals perform are jobs that Americans absolutely can't do, because the value of their labor doesn't even come close to justifying paying them a minimum wage. They're jobs that Americans legally cannot do. If there was no minimum wage, then the illegals would have to compete with those jobs with the Americans that need them most, being high school and college students, retirees, and national minorities (American blacks, hispanics, etc.,). Would the contractors rebuilding New Orleans have used illegal labor if the unemployed blacks in New Orleans could work for the same rates?

Here's something any doubters should consider about the political nature of minimum wage:

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http://www.mises.org/story/2377

Last year Wal-Mart called for an increase in the minimum wage in spite of research on how the minimum wage affects labor markets. This might benefit Wal-Mart for a couple of reasons.

First, Wal-Mart wages are well above the federal minimum, but an increase in the minimum wage would reduce potential competition. This would make it effectively illegal for some people to compete with Wal-Mart.

Second, an increase in the minimum wage would benefit some low-income workers and hurt others; regardless, it might increase demand for Wal-Mart's goods.

There's nowhere I can't reach.