It happened in 2001. I was a new business owner and I unknowingly hired an illegal alien. His name was Jose and he was a very good and hardworking employee. He presented me a picture ID and a social security card that looked very legit to me. There was no system or requirement in place for business owners to verify social security numbers. The only requirement was to make a copy of the cards, fill out an I9 and send it in and put the copies in their employee file. I did what was required and Jose worked for me for 2 years. During these 2 years, I was doing everything I was supposed to by taking taxes out of his checks and also paying 50 % of his social security and Medicare and 100% of his unemployment taxes. I was sending all the required documents to the IRS and issued him a W2 at year end. To my surprise, I received a call from the IRS one day, telling me that the social security number that I had been reporting for Jose did not match the name for Jose. They asked me if I had a copy of his cards in his employee file and if I could fax it to them so I did that immediately. I told them that what I had looked legit to me and that I was shocked to hear this and was not aware that it was not real. I asked them if I was in any trouble for this and they told me no and to just fax them what I had. I immediately called Jose to my office and told him about the call that I just got. I asked him where he got his Social Security card and ID and he told me that he had bought it from a guy in Dallas. I told him that now that I know all this he could no longer work for me so I fired him. He understood and left immediately. This all happened very fast. After Jose left I started thinking and asking myself these questions. Why did it take them 2 years to finally notice this? What happens to all the money that both Jose and myself had been paying towards his taxes? Will Jose ever be able to collect his social security benefits or Medicare benefits? Will he be able to draw any unemployment that I had been paying for? The answer is no to all these questions. It’s like a huge insurance scam by collecting premiums for something that they will never have to pay any benefits on. They don’t want it to end. Yet they have the nerve to tell us that Social Security is running out of money. Did ICE show up at my business to deport Jose? No. Was there any investigation started to go after this guy in Dallas that sold Jose the fake documents? No. After I faxed them what I had, I never heard anything else from anyone. Jose was let free to carry on and get another job. I did this unknowingly and was paying Jose the same wages that my American employees were making. However, there are so many employers that know exactly what they’re doing and know they can get away with it and are not paying the illegals proper wages because these illegals will accept lower wages and don’t seem to understand or care that our government is making them pay into benefits that they will never collect. This was such a big awakening for me and until business owners have to be held accountable and verify each employee before hiring them, this will continue.
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I understand your situation. Accidentally one hiring employee who slips you fake documents is one thing.
Hyundai hiring 400+ people is a little bit less of an accident, I would think.
Tyson Chicken was a big one too. Somehow 90% of their line work force was illegal. Did they know that? Absolutely they did because they fired all the American workers and hired illegals. To this day I don't buy their products.
My husband kept telling me don't buy Tyson, only Perdue chicken. Idk why
Wasn't Tyson close buddies with the Clintons?
I think you bring up something I haven’t seen explored. Is there a side racket collecting and keeping the unclaimed tax money for illegals. Where does it go? Who does it benefit? Is this yet another way to scam dark money to feed the machine that uses our own money to destroy our prosperity? 🤔
It’s just like the movie “Rainmaker” with Matt Damon and Jon Voight. The insurance company collects premiums but never pays claims so they get filthy rich.
Yes yes
Back in the early 2000's I had a neighbor that seldom left her house but would have LOTS of people show up at her place with folders of documents. Her house was much more expensive than mine so I couldn't understand how she was paying for it since she mostly stayed at home. Knowing that my New England town was FULL of illegals I grew more suspicious given the appearance of her visitors and the language they spoke. It appeared that she was producing documents for these people.
I casually mentioned it to my coworker who had a brother that worked for ICE. He informed his brother and they requested that I provide video. I recorded about 20 minutes of various visitors and submitted it to him. A few weeks later ICE set up a van down the street and observed the traffic for several hours.
They came to my door afterwards, flashed their badge, thanked me and said the situation deserved more investigation. I know he was legitimately trying to investigate and trace the people that were constantly coming and going, because his own brother would share whatever updates he was allowed to. Sadly nothing ever happened.
I can't help but think that the upper management at ICE squashed the whole investigation. They aren't allowed to stop the gravy train.
I have relatives that owned and operated a very large farm outside of Fresno, CA for decades. We spoke of this often. Its a matter of knowing or not knowing - they collect the documents and send them in, pay their portion of the taxes along with withholding from the employee - all legal from their standpoint. However, I would never expect anyone to be upset about the benefits they will not be receiving if they are working illegally to begin with. They are not paying into a record that can be tracked back to them so how would they claim this later in life? I don't feel bad in the slightest as they should be doing things legally themselves. The business itself is doing things legally and they are not faking the social-security documents themselves and thus liability isn't on them. If the rules were stricter and required employers to do more of a background check themselves to vet the info they are given would this positively or negatively affect them? or their industry in general? I'm sure there's some turning of a blind eye, but at the same time up in Idaho, for example, there was much much more participation in the farms by young adults saving for a couple years before college, or while going to school than it looked to be the case in California. Not sure what the answer is here, but if you use a social security number that isn't yours you shouldn't expect to collect from it later on - that's the price and they take it.
I’m not suggesting that an illegal with fake documents should be able to collect benefits. I’m pointing out that the IRS is knowingly taking that money while knowing that they will never have to pay any benefits. They are doing nothing to stop it or going after these people that are selling fake documents.
They have been exploiting the immigrants this way for a long time. The politicians know exactly what they are doing
for sure - same page on that point - its all part of the IRS scam engine and just another angle of fraud and abuse.
I think this is part your fault, did you even check past employment? Did you do a background check?
When we do things the "right" way, we get screwed by the system that TELLS us it is the "right" way. Meanwhile, the same system looks the other way for very a very specific kind of people doing it the "wrong" way.
In Colorado almost every roofing company, landscape contractor or cement company hires illegals. Have to say that they are super hard workers, just wish they would go through the correct entry procedures and want to become Americans.
The illegals are aware that they won't get unemployment insurance or social security payments based on their work record. It's just part of the deal when they get their fake documents.
On the other end, there are many illegals who knowingly claim benefits falsely and who do receive money from social security and general welfare like food stamps. They are hard workers too, but their "work" is only figuring out how to scam the system.
When I was 20 got a temp job making copper piping, one day I ran into 7 different Mexican dudes named Alex lol, this crap has been going on for decades.
In Colorado almost every roofing company, landscape contractor or cement company hires illegals. Have to say that they are super hard workers, just wish they would go through the correct entry procedures and want to become Americans.
I'm in construction management here in Colorado. The method they use is to hire subcontractors. Subcontractors only need to present an I-9 and an FEIN. They can use those 2 things to get a bank account. Technically, the I-9 doesn't give you a right to work, it's just a "company" that anyone in the world can start in the US. It's a loophole that's exploited because I can't ask about the immigration status of a subcontractor per federal law.
They don't go through the correct entry procedures because they wouldn't get in legally. They often see their options as a) coming here illegally, working very hard at low-paying jobs without the protections American workers have, and worried about deportation, or b) staying in their home country and living in abject poverty.
And yes, there are also those who come here illegally and just work the system, especially with Democrats encouraging them to do so.
The system we currently have screws the people on both sides of the border because it benefits the criminals running the system.
Jose stole someone else's identity. The fact is that Jose took someone's job. To put it in another light, the IRS is not ICE. I can guarantee that they have many illegal aliens collecting public assistance that did not pay in. Jose took somone's identity to get a job what makes you think that he wouldn't take someone else's identity to get SSI or Social Security.?
This whole theory is a scam, and it started with Jose claiming he was eligible for employment. You should have had him arrested for identity theft. Instead you want an investigation to the person that sold him the document. I'll bet you got hard work for low wage. You make me sick!
Wow! I didn’t expect to upset anyone about this. In no way am I condoning Jose’s behavior. I don’t condone illegals scamming or getting anything. This happened to me way back in 2001 and it happened so quickly and I fired Jose immediately. I didn’t think to call the police at the time. I am pointing out that the IRS let this go on for 2 years. They did not report this to ICE or do anything to even ask how he got the fake documents. The government does nothing to prevent any of this and I wonder what is happening to the money that they are collecting from illegals.
Goes into the black hole of money grift. The Democrats wanted these people here for more than one reason. They rob SS every so often to fund earmarks which is why it's broke. Remember the IRS mentions you need to pay taxes on bribes, they don't care as long as the money gets paid in.
The IRS' primary role is to collect taxes, not enforce immigration laws. The IRS is focused on ensuring that income is reported and taxes are paid even if the filer is illegal. They likely found that additional monies were not claimed, and that red flagged the account. Let's face it he did owe income tax. The IRS is bound by strict confidentiality rules under the Internal Revenue Code (Section 6103). These laws prohibit the IRS from sharing taxpayer information even with other federal agencies unless very specific legal exceptions apply. Like the IRS, the SSA is focused on maintaining accurate earnings records and ensuring benefits are paid correctly not on identifying or removing illegal aliens. Federal law strictly limits how the SSA can share personal information. Under the Privacy Act and other statutes, the SSA cannot disclose data to ICE without a specific legal basis Federal laws like the Privacy Act of 1974 strictly limit how agencies can share personal data. Medicare cannot disclose beneficiary information to ICE without a specific legal basis
You are partly to blame in this situation because you did not do your due diligence, in hiring this guy. Employers are the gatekeepers to the workforce. They decide who gets a job, when, and under what conditions. Since they’re the ones extending the opportunity, it makes sense that they should ensure the person they’re hiring is legally allowed to work. Which could have been done using an inexpensive background check.
I am retired now and have been out of the workforce for quite awhile now so being able to do a background check is probably pretty easy now. I hired Jose in 1999 and didn’t find out he was illegal until 2001. I don’t recall any system in place back then that employers could do background checks like they can today. In addition to sending funds every week to the IRS on behalf of Jose, I was also sending money to the Texas Workforce Commission for his unemployment taxes and they never notified me. Shouldn’t these organizations have a system in place that red flags discrepancies immediately? I’m not in agreement that it is not their job to do that. What is their job? In addition, when is the last time you have heard of these people that are supplying illegals fake documents being arrested? It’s a big business and nothing is being done to stop it.
For your situation, it’s understandable to expect more proactive notification from government agencies, but legally and practically, the onus has been on employers to verify eligibility. Today, employers have access to more robust electronic verification systems like E-Verify, which can instantly check work authorization status against government databases, a tool that was not widely available or mandatory back then.
E-Verify was not available when this happened to me. And even now it is not being enforced on a national level as a requirement for all employers to verify before hiring. It looks like some positive moves in this direction in 2025 are taking place but still work to be done. I can only suspect that the current positive moves are because of Trump and our current administration. Here is some good information that I found about this subject. https://tax.thomsonreuters.com/news/e-verify-in-2025-what-employers-need-to-know-about-federal-and-state-compliance/
My aunt and uncle were horse riders, judges, and trainers. They owned a large horse farm outside of a large city in the Midwest where they boarded, fed and trained, over 80 very expensive horses for their owners.
This was back from the 70’s through the early to mid 2000’s.
They had one supervisor who hired all the horse attendants. They had a number of trailers on the farm for these attendants to live. They fed, watered, cleaned out stalls, cleaned hoofs, and brushed these horses down. The only stipulation was they treated the animals well. The supervisor was responsible for making sure they were good with the horses.
Most of these attendees came from south of the border. Some spoke some English but most of them did not. They were very good handling the horses and knew what they were doing.
They would come and go from the farm. Some would disappear and new ones came in their place. I assume they were paid in cash weekly but I have no idea how their pay was handled.
My aunt and uncle knew these people were illegals even though they did not deal with any of them directly. They were happy as long as these million dollar horses were well cared for.
Why would anyone let unknown illegals care for million dollar assets? That's just fucking stupid.
The SS is being paid. It just isn't going to the person who worked.
Massive, massive fraud in SS. Too big a pile of cash to keep liberals away.
Liberalism creates zero wealth. It requires tax dollars.
Bingo. I've been saying this for 30 years
Never even thought about this IRS scam.
You could demand the money back. After all they have kept it for two years without verifying it’s legitimacy.
"and I unknowingly hired an illegal alien. His name was Jose"
I don't know why, but this line was just so funny to read
Okay. #1 Jose can claim all his earnings and SSA benefits if he keeps copies of his earnings and the SSN used. #2 The reason it took 2 years is because SSA doesn't get the earnings information until the employer provides a W-2 and the earnings are reported to the IRS.....THEN the information is sent to SSA. SSA verifies the information on its records. If it doesn't match, then a letter is sent to the employer asking them to verify the info. If the employer says that the info is correct and they verified it in real time. If not, then SSA will attempt to contact the individual to verify his info. It is a long process and because lots of "illegals" and 3rd world people use multiple names, or there are multiple family members with the same or similar names, or other family members will steal the SSN for the newborn anchor baby and use it for themselves. It makes the process time-consuming because of the personal information that has to be protected.
Thank you for proving my point that the system is whacked. #1 Jose should not be allowed to collect anything. He was illegal and used false documents and they caught him. #2 I never received any letter and neither did Jose. I just got a call out the blue one day. #3 he worked for me 2 years and I submitted 2 W-2s on him. How long does a long process take before it is considered unacceptable? #4 In my opinion, what has been going on for way too long is that most illegals move around from job to job so they are not getting caught because the system is broken. I believe that the only reason that Jose was discovered was because he stayed in one place too long.
You are absolutely correct! When I worked at SSA, we complained that the system in place was BS, but of course, we were just the peon workers. This is called the IRS mismatch. We wasted so much time and money trying to track down all the "hispanic" mismatch names. The majority were for anchor babies. Family members would take the newborn's SSN Card and use it to work. In some cases there were multiple family members using the same SSN.
The money train rolls on, or chugs down the line😎
See what you should've done is hire hose b