Immigrants
The facts about immigrants... how they are legally processed by the US systems in place.
I'm making a separate post when I have these journaling records of what I see happening in our lives in the US under the Musk/Trump regime. However, some of my regular posts will also have comments, just not quoted articles!
I didn't know this! From a daily newsletter here in the Asheville NC area...so it talks about local organizations and interviews an employer in Buncombe County.
Posted by Facebook group Immigrants Rising
"The U.S. limits the number of employment-based green cards — officially known as Permanent Resident Cards — issued each year, and the backlog occurs because the demand far exceeds the available supply. At the start of fiscal year 2024, approximately 34.7 million green card applications were pending, according to the Cato Institute. Given the annual cap of about 1.1 million green cards, only about 3 percent of applicants were expected to receive permanent status last year.
The system for approving or rejecting applications is overburdened. Waits are often measured in years. It’s the same for applications for asylum. In North Carolina at the end of 2023, the most recent data available, there were 24,662 pending asylum applications in the state, and the average wait time for a hearing was more than four and a half years, according to the Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse (TRAC) at Syracuse University.
Although some undocumented workers are paid “under the table” for temporary or infrequent jobs, like housekeeping, many others — despite not having legal status — pay federal, state, and local income taxes, as well as Social Security and Medicare taxes, through payroll deductions by their employers.
According to the American Immigration Council, undocumented immigrants in North Carolina paid an estimated $1.8 billion annually in federal, state, and local taxes. The Social Security Administration (SSA) estimates that undocumented immigrants and their employers nationally contribute around $12 billion per year to Social Security through payroll taxes, even though the workers are ineligible to collect Social Security benefits. They also contribute to Medicare through mandatory payroll deductions, but rarely receive benefits.
Undocumented immigrants also contribute billions of dollars in sales taxes through everyday purchases, such as gas, clothing, and groceries, and indirectly pay property taxes, through rent payments, that fund local services like schools and infrastructure.
The government does grant undocumented immigrants a handful of benefits that are deemed necessary to protect life or guarantee safety in dire situations, such as emergency Medicaid, access to treatment in hospital emergency rooms, or access to healthcare and nutrition programs under the Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants, and Children (WIC).
“Probably 60 percent of our workforce is Hispanic,” one employer said. “All of our employees are run through E-Verify. They have to have two forms of identification. So all of our employees have gone through all the legal proceedings to be qualified as legal employees of this company.”
E-Verify is an internet-based system through which businesses electronically confirm the employment eligibility of their workers. The employee fills out a verification form and that information is matched against U.S. Department of Homeland Security and Social Security Administration databases.
Undocumented immigrants use stolen or false names and Social Security numbers and forged documents to pass through the E-Verify system. In those cases, it’s unclear whether the worker or employer is exploiting the loophole.
“If their documents look legitimate and feel legitimate, and we question them beyond that, that’s considered discrimination,” [this] employer told Asheville Watchdog. “We don’t discriminate against our employees. We take their documents and we submit them, and then it’s E-Verify’s job to verify that those are legal documents.”
Once the employee is cleared, “all of their taxes get deducted from their paycheck,” [this] employer said. “All of that gets reported and deducted for their pay scale and everything. Their tax money goes to the government, just like any other employee’s would.”
Concern about workplace immigration raids in Buncombe is growing among area employers.
“If a police officer or an ICE agent shows up at our door, we’re not going to willingly aid them unless we are required to by the confines of the law,” [one] employer said. “This is private property, not government property. So if anyone shows up and wants to search our premises, they need a judicial warrant. If they don’t have a judicial warrant, they’re not necessarily welcome to come search our property and ask questions.”
The Trump administration has signaled that it intends to use the Internal Revenue Service and its agents to pursue undocumented immigrants and their employers.
In a Feb. 7 memo to Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent, Department of Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem requested the IRS pursue financial audits of businesses suspected of having undocumented workers, and to deputize IRS agents to assist U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement with apprehensions, detentions, and removals of individuals who are in the country without authorization.
The deportation of potentially hundreds or thousands of undocumented immigrants who are working in Buncombe County would have far-reaching consequences for local employers, some of whom are themselves undocumented.
In campaign speeches, Trump said he would deport “between 15 and 20 million individuals,” although the number of undocumented immigrants is generally estimated to be 11 million. Trump’s “border czar,” Tom Homan, clarified: “Bottom line is, under Trump he’s still going to prioritize national security threats and criminals. But no one’s off the table. If you’re in the country illegally, it’s not OK. If you’re in the country illegally, you better be looking over your shoulder.”
Doug Brown, chairman of the Buncombe County Republican Party, told The Watchdog via email that because the Trump administration is deporting only criminals, the impact on Buncombe County’s labor force will be minimal.
“Venezuelan gangs, pedifiles[sic], and criminals are not our workforce,” Brown wrote. “So, if you are working, such as landscaping or washing dishes, as opposed to being a criminal, your gamble to enter the USA illegally is probably a safe gamble.”
Removing people who entered the United States without authorization “would save us money spent combating the crime, treating the wounded victims, replacing the stolen merchandise, over-burdening our police and sheriff departments — costly consequences of letting millions of people illegally enter our country,” Brown wrote.
Research shows that immigrants — including those who are undocumented — are less likely to commit crimes than U.S.-born residents, according to the American Immigration Council. As of Feb. 9, there were 41,169 ICE immigrant detainees in custody, according to TRAC. More than half, 54.7 percent, had no criminal record, and many more had only minor offenses, including traffic violations.
Rebecca Sharp, the founder and director of La Esperanza, an outreach program of the Episcopal Church of the Holy Spirit in Mars Hill that serves Latino families in Buncombe, Madison, and Yancey counties, said preparations are already under way to help immigrants deal with the expected increase in enforcement.
The U.S. Supreme Court has upheld that certain constitutional rights — excluding the right to vote — extend to everyone living within the U.S., not just natural-born citizens or legalized immigrants. This includes “due process” protections under the Fifth, 10th, and 14th amendments.
ICE enforcement officers typically use administrative removal warrants — signed by agency administrators, not judges or magistrates — to carry out their duties. Unlike a criminal warrant issued by the federal court, a removal warrant for civil violation of immigration laws does not authorize the ICE officer to enter into a home, school, church, or other restricted area to execute the warrant — unless invited to enter.
If refused entry, the ICE agents must obtain a judicial warrant or wait until the subject of the administrative warrant leaves the house or other private area. For many undocumented immigrants, that means every trip to the grocery store, to work, to take children to school — even to go to the doctor — becomes a frightening risk.
“I have heard that there are people that are too scared to leave their houses,” Sharp said. “For the most part, you can’t do that. You have to get food, you have to work, you have to pay the bills, but there are people that are definitely lying low more than in the past.”
La Esperanza also works with Pisgah Legal Services to help immigrants on the typically complex path to long-term lawful immigration status.
Originally called Mujeres Unidas en Fe (women united in faith), the nonprofit organization changed its name to La Esperanza (the hope) as the numbers of volunteers expanded. It now supports dozens of immigrant families in western North Carolina.
Rumors of ICE activity in western North Carolina — most of them untrue — spread via social media, Sharp said.
“We educate people that social media can overwhelmingly be evil,” Sharp said. “People say ‘Well, I saw on social media that ICE is here. I saw on social media that my neighbor can turn me in.’ So I’m telling people, get off social media. Really look for groups and gatherings with people that you trust.”
SOURCE: excerpts from
‘I love this country, and I want to stay here’: An undocumented immigrant in Buncombe tells his story, annotated in Feb. 20, 2025: "The Asheville Watchdog," by JOHN BOYLE, LINUS SCHAFER-GOULTHORPE and PETER LEWIS
