H-1Bs want stimulus checks

Date: Wednesday, June 25, 2008 3:59 AM

<<<<< JOB DESTRUCTION NEWSLETTER No. 1881 -- 6/25/2008 >>>>>

H-1B visa holders have a new gripe -- many of them don't qualify for the
economic-stimulus checks that are being mailed to many Americans. It is
estimated that hundreds of thousands of legal immigrants and H-1B visa holders
are ineligible for the economic-stimulus checks, and they are very unhappy
about that.

It's important to keep in mind that most H-1Bs will get stimulus checks.
The only H-1Bs who won't get the checks are ones who brought spouses and
families with H-4 visas. H-4 visas don't give the family members authorization
to be employed so they have Individual Taxpayer Identification Numbers (ITIN)
instead of Social Security Numbers (SSN).
H-1B visa holders who are single, or who are married to foreigners who do have
SSNs will get the checks. Since most H-1Bs are young single men this isn't as
big an issue as the pro-immigration storm troopers are making it out to be.

Several politicians are scrambling to do whatever they can to make sure that
the H-1Bs get checks. For instance, Rep. Zoe Lofgren, D-CA, said she would
certainly vote to give the legal immigrants their rebates. Actually H-1Bs are
nonimmigrants, but Lofgren never makes a distinction between the two. I'm not
even sure she makes a distinction between legal immigrants and illegal aliens,
but that's a subject for other venues.

Rep. John Lewis, D-Ga, chairman of the House Ways and Means Oversight
Subcommittee, and Rep. Michael McNulty, D-N.Y., chairman of the House Social
Security Subcommittee, went one step further -- they actually held a hearing
last Thursday to see what can be done to get stimulus checks into the hands of
expectant H-1Bs. The transcript of the hearing hasn't been made available but
when it does it will appear here:

http://waysandmeans.house.gov/hearings.asp?formmode=detail&hearing=636&comm=3
Subcommittee on Oversight -- Hearing on Economic Stimulus Payments

Other shills like Paul Donnelly and Bruce Morrison came out of the graveyard
to push this agenda. Donnelly, if you recall, worked as a media spin doctor
for Rep. Bruce Morrison in 1989. Morrison is one of the authors and architects
of H-1B. If you want to know who to blame for H-1B these two are a good start.
Donnelly also gets credit for turning the IEEE into a bunch of brain dead
zombies that want unlimited numbers of instant green cards.

Paul Donnelly said that he hopes to persuade Congress to make a "technical
fix" that would allow legal immigrants to get their rebates - perhaps in the
form of a tax credit next year. That term "technical fix" is Donnelly-talk for
"loophole".

Bruce Morrison declares, "We haven't given up, We'll keep working on the
principle that people shouldn't be punished for obeying the law." Actually,
it's the taxpayers who Morrison wants to be punished, since they will be the
ones who ultimately foot the bill to give H-1Bs the government handout.
The economic stimulus checks are supposed to improve our economy as Americans
spend the fiat cash printed by the Federal Reserve for frivolous Chinese made
goods at Walmart. The intent of the stimulus checks has never been to be fair
to aliens who work in this country on visas.

If politicians want to give checks to H-1B or other types of immigrants the
least they could do is to require that the checks be spent in the US instead
of being sent out of the country. Another thing they could do is to give the
stimulus checks to all Americans, since right now millions of people are
excluded. You might be surprised to learn that the people who most need the
checks don't qualify, so perhaps Lofgren and her fellow politicians could
spend more time tending to our poor instead of to H-1Bs who don't deserve the
checks.

Keep in mind that it was only recently that our troops fighting in Iraq won
the right to get the checks. That is because many of our troops are illegal
aliens!

I don't have the stats to back this statement up, but I am very sure that a
much higher percentage of H-1Bs are getting the stimulus checks than American
citizens (read intro to this newsletter for the reason). This article has an
excellent chart of which citizens will get the checks, and which ones won't.

http://krugman.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/01/25/who-gets-stimulated/
Who gets stimulated?

The interesting thing to notice about the article and op-ed below is the
Mercury News totally focuses on the fact that a few thousand immigrant workers
don't qualify for stimulus checks. There is a total lack of concern for the
millions of Americans that aren't getting checks.

+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

http://www.mercurynews.com/nationworld/ci_9620770?nclick_check=1

Troops to get tax rebates

BILL SIGNED BY BUSH DOESN'T INCLUDE MANY LEGAL IMMIGRANTS, HOLDERS OF H-1B
VISAS By Ken McLaughlin Mercury News Article Launched: 06/18/2008 01:35:35 AM
PDT

Jun 18:
NEW REBATE RULES
President Bush on Tuesday signed a bill giving tax rebates to tens of
thousands of U.S. troops overseas who were denied the checks after Congress
tried to make sure that illegal immigrants didn't get any of the money.

"The president supports tax relief for our men and women serving in harm's
way," Trey Bohn, a White House spokesman, told the Mercury News.

But hundreds of thousands of legal immigrants and H-1B work visa holders in
Silicon Valley and elsewhere complain that the bill - HR 6081, the Heroes
Earnings Assistance and Relief Tax Act of 2008, which provides various forms
of tax relief for military families - does nothing for them. The immigrants
and work visa holders note that they're ineligible for the economic-stimulus
checks simply because their spouses don't have Social Security numbers -
through no fault of their own.

Lobbyists for pro-immigration groups said Tuesday they still haven't given up
on getting the immigrants their checks and plan to raise the issue at a House
oversight hearing on the rebate checks Thursday. The hearing will be chaired
by Rep. John Lewis, D-Ga., chairman of the House Ways and Means Oversight
Subcommittee, and Rep. Michael McNulty, D-N.Y., chairman of the House Social
Security Subcommittee.

Inadvertent exclusion

When Congress passed an economic-stimulus package in early February giving
rebates to most taxpayers, it tried to make sure undocumented immigrants
didn't get any of the money.

To be eligible for the rebates, taxpayers had to provide Social Security
numbers, lawmakers decided. But legislators inadvertently penalized about a
million legal immigrants - and U.S. service members stationed overseas - whose
foreign spouses are ineligible for Social Security cards. Hundreds of
thousands of H-1B work visa holders are also not getting checks for the same
reason.

The scope of the problem was first detailed in a Mercury News article last
month as the government began electronically depositing and sending out rebate
checks.

"The issue is not just about money," said Parveen Kumar of Sunnyvale, an H-1B
visa holder from India who works as an engineer at Intelliswift Software in
Fremont. "We don't want to be treated like illegals - like second-class
taxpayers. We came to this country through the front door, the right way."

His wife has an H-4 "dependency visa" that doesn't allow her to work. So she
is not eligible for a Social Security card.

At the urging of anti-illegal-immigration groups such as the Federation for
American Immigration Reform, the Senate Finance Committee in early February
inserted language into the rebate bill aimed at illegal immigrants who don't
have Social Security numbers and instead routinely use "tax identification
numbers."

If a married couple files a joint tax return and one spouse doesn't have a
Social Security number, both spouses are ineligible for a rebate, which can be
as high as $1,200 for a couple. They also lose an additional $300 rebate for
each child.

More than 288,000 members of the armed forces are stationed overseas,
according to the Pentagon - not counting those in Iraq and Afghanistan.
Many live in countries such as Korea, Japan and Germany where extended stays
often result in marriages to locals. In addition, there are about a million
non-citizen immigrants whose spouses are overseas and waiting for visas.

The military people and legal immigrants had the option of filing separate
returns for the 2007 tax year, but in most cases that would cause their tax
bill to increase more than the amount of rebates.

In any case, the IRS says taxpayers can't amend their filing status after
April 15.

"It's too late to switch back," said Jesse Weller, an Internal Revenue Service
spokesman. "Once you file a joint return, you can't choose to file a separate
return for that year."

Effort continues

Paul Donnelly, a longtime pro-immigration advocate in Washington, D.C, said he
hopes to persuade Congress to make a "technical fix" that would allow legal
immigrants to get their rebates - perhaps in the form of a tax credit next
year.

"We haven't given up," said Bruce Morrison, a former Connecticut congressman
and pro-immigration lobbyist who once chaired the House Immigration
Subcommittee. "We'll keep working on the principle that people shouldn't be
punished for obeying the law."

Ira Mehlman, a spokesman for the Federation for American Immigration Reform,
said his group would have to see the details of any such bill before deciding
whether to support it. Besides, he said, "the lack of a benefit is not the
same as a punishment."

Rep. Zoe Lofgren, D-San Jose, said she'd certainly vote to give the legal
immigrants their rebates. But she said she wasn't holding out much hope in a
Congress that is avoiding discussion of most things related to immigration.

"They messed it up, and I don't think it was fair," she said. "But that
doesn't mean it's going to get done."

+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

http://www.mercurynews.com/opinion/ci_9452233

Editorial: Anyone who pays taxes should get a rebate check Mercury News
Editorial Article Launched: 06/02/2008 01:32:18 AM PDT

Few things can be as nasty as anti-immigration politics in an election year.
Congress was so determined to exclude undocumented workers from the economic
stimulus program that it also shortchanged hundreds of thousands of troops
overseas and legal immigrants working in the United States.

In late May, a much-chagrined Congress amended the program to entitle members
of the armed services to their checks. That's fine, but not enough.
At a minimum, legal immigrants and their spouses should get payments, too.
And the rebates really should extend to anyone who pays taxes, including
illegal immigrants.

The goal of the stimulus is to jump-start the economy. Cutting out millions of
workers and taxpayers undermines the program's effectiveness.

Congress created the problem by restricting the stimulus rebates - up to
$1,200 per couple, plus an additional $300 per child - to workers with Social
Security numbers. Workers whom the IRS assigns Individual Taxpayer
Identification Numbers - primarily millions of illegal immigrants - were
denied cash back.

But workers whose spouses don't have a Social Security number were excluded,
too. They included American soldiers stationed abroad who have foreign
spouses, high-tech professionals in Silicon Valley with H-1B visas whose
spouses aren't allowed to work, and about a million legal immigrants whose
spouses are overseas awaiting visas.

Tax laws should be applied uniformly, not as a tool to discriminate.

And Congress should be making progress on immigration reform, not moving
backward.

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