Originally Posted by pondering_it_all
Wow, you sure ask a lot of questions!

Mexicans can visit the US briefly without a visa, but now they do have to have an official Mexican government ID like a passport. Lots of Mexicans make daytrips into San Diego and other border towns to shop. If they try to travel north into Orange County without a visa, they get turned back at the INS checkpoint.

US citizens can visit Mexico without a visa, but they better have their US passport with them to get back into the US! If they want to go past around a hundred miles or stay longer than a couple of weeks they need a tourist permit (costs just a few dollars). To work in Mexico foreigners all need a work permit.

The casual labor tax withholding limit does not affect the employer's legal obligation to check that the person he hires has a right to work in the US. The law recognises no monetary limit for that. Paying an illegal $5 to help you load your pickup truck is illegal!

You can give anybody up to $10000 without paying gift tax, but you can give all you like by reporting it and paying Uncle Sam. As long as it is a gift, it is YOUR tax, not the recipient's. So I don't think it would matter if that person was a citizen of another country. You do have to report transfers of money across borders, but it is not illegal to do so. (Customs and DEA will just assume you are a drug smuggler until you prove otherwise!) If you try to "gift" your illegal employee instead of paying them, the IRS will figure that out and throw your ass in jail.

Companies can't deduct expenses for paying illegals, so they instead pay a labor contractor who then pays the illegals. Or they just pay out of petty cash and forgo the deduction.

Employers have a choice: They can use the government's quick-check ID verification system or they can rely on their own ability to spot fake documents. If they use the quick-check their legal liability is very limited. If they don't then they can face huge fines and even jail when they are caught with illegal employees. So every legit company is using the quick-check. The problem is that "quick" is a relative term. The identity check can take a couple of months, then they have to give the "potentially undocumented employee" another two months to get some valid papers together. Then they submit the new identity papers and another couple of months can go by before they get word that the new ID is fake. Then they have to fire the guy, but the INS is never dispatched to deport him. So illegals can work at a job for about 6 months (certainly a harvest or a planting season), and then just go find another job!

As for treating Mexicans versus Canadians differently, that only is present in the country quotas for the legal immigration process. Illegals are still illegal no matter where they came from. And BTW, many Hispanic illegals are from countries even poorer or more repressive than Mexico.
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Thanks, pondering!

Hmm, so there is another INS checkpoint between San Diego and LA? I did not know that. Of course, I haven't been down that way for quite a few years...

Anyway, I am curious... Why would anyone would risk a dangerous border crossing (esp. in the San Diego area), paying $1500 or more (or so I've heard), when all they have to do is make a LEGAL day trip from Tijuana to S.D.? And, once there, would it really be so difficult to avoid INS further north?

And is it really right to treat Mexican visitors any different from Canadians? I mean, yes there are more illegal immigrants from Mexico than Canada, but if the employment laws were properly enforced (with respect to EMPLOYERS as well as employees), would that still be such a problem?


Castigat Ridendo Mores
(laughter succeeds where lecturing fails)

"Those who will risk nothing, risk everything"