Paying Illegal Aliens

From the Center for Immigration Studies:

An estimated $4.2 billion dollars has been sent to families of illegal aliens in a single tax period through the Additional Child Tax Credit (ACTC), which offers up to $1,000 per child to all resident families, including illegal aliens.

A new Center for Immigration Studies’ report faults congressional inaction, inappropriately casual policy decisions by low-level IRS staff allowing payments to illegal aliens, and IRS process policies often allowing the submission of phony support documents.

Much of this "paying-the-illegal-to-stay" pattern continues as a result of needlessly narrow IRS efforts to discourage and to detect fraud.

Congress has never specifically written that ACTC benefits could only be provided to those with Social Security numbers. And, although Congress did write into legislation in 1996 that no federal "grant or benefit" could be given to illegal aliens, it did not define the terms.

So the IRS took on the policy role and, without even a notice in the Federal Register, determined that illegal aliens with Individual Taxpayer Identification Numbers (ITINs) could receive tax credits.

It is hard to understand those people who have unquestioned faith in the federal bureaucracy. I suspect there are corrupt elements throughout.