n increasing numbers, Hispanic immigrants are putting down roots in the Roanoke Valley. They're pouring concrete, opening hair salons and filling classrooms. Some employers, meanwhile, are attributing their success to this new labor pool. In this occasional series, The Roanoke Times explores the local impact of the national debate about immigration.
During a busy Friday night dinner waiter Jesus Malaga serves an armload of food to their Anglo customers. Malaga came to America four years ago from Mexico and, like many Mexican immigrants in Roanoke, first landed a job at El Rodeo.
Fake documentation
In Roanoke, illegal immigrants and those who employ them say that most are paying taxes — including Medicaid and Social Security. One Roanoke factory owner tallied up the money his illegal workers contribute to Medicare and Social Security, two programs they’ll never qualify for unless the laws change.
“With Social Security and Medicare alone, each one of my people pays $4,680 a year. If you multiply that by a low estimate of 5 million illegal workers, well, that won’t even fit on my calculator — and that’s not counting the federal and state taxes they’re paying,” said the businessman, who asked that his name and the name of his company not be used as protection against an Immigration and Customs Enforcement raid.
The immigration arm of the federal government may view underground workers as criminals, but the Internal Revenue Service makes it easy for them to be taxpaying members of the community.
The process is complicated, though well-known to those who depend on it. A simple application for an individual tax identification number, or ITIN, can be picked up anywhere from the bank to the local IRS office — and, yes, it’s available in Spanish.
- IRS-issued nine-digit number called ITIN
- Allows immigrants without Social Security numbers to file taxes
- Issued regardless of immigration status because, according to the IRS, “both resident and nonresident aliens may have U.S. tax return and payment responsibilities under the Internal Revenue Code”
- Applicants fill out W-7 form to get ITIN, available in Spanish
- Frequently used by illegal immigrants for tax-filing purposes; allows holder to file tax return and receive refund, if eligible according to IRS income guidelines
- Used for taxpaying purposes only; information is not shared with Department of Homeland Security
- Businesses such as Citibank and Wells Fargo are beginning to introduce ITIN loans, essentially freeing illegal immigrants to become homeowners/mortgage-holders
Niovis Cedillo, a 21-year-old restaurant manager from Honduras, got her ITIN shortly after sneaking into the country in 2000; her mother, already in Roanoke for four years at the time, had Temporary Protected Status, an option offered to many Hondurans in the wake of Hurricane Mitch in 1998.
In order to claim dependents on tax-return forms, Cedillo’s mother garnered ITINs for her children; the nine-digit number was entered on the tax form in lieu of the Social Security number.
Later, when Cedillo went to work herself, she got hired the way most illegal workers get hired: by showing phony Social Security and permanent residence cards, easily obtainable on the black market for $100 to $150.
“You use your fake number at first, and Social Security sends a letter to your employer saying the number doesn’t match,” she explained.
Employees continue using the fake number, usually with the employer’s blessing. But come tax-return time, employees use ITINs in place of the Social Security numbers on their tax-return forms. “I pay at least $500 in taxes every month,” she said.
The government doesn’t track such offenses because Homeland Security and the IRS don’t share information owing to federal restrictions on sharing tax information and limited Homeland Security resources. And immigration-change proposals don’t mention stopping the fraudulent use of ITINs.
“Everybody uses them,” the plant owner said of ITINs. An immigration lawyer advised him to review the fake documents, then have the employee sign a paper saying he or she is legally permitted to work.
“You hand the cards back [to the employee], and you keep the paper,” the businessman said. “From that point, it’s between ICE and the worker.”
Not long ago, he added, his friends criticized him for his all-Hispanic work force . “So I decided one day, I was going to hire 10 Americans, white or black, from the temp agency, and they sent them over.”
By the end of the week, all 10 had walked out or quit, saying job conditions were too harsh.
Hispanic workers “make the same as the Americans, but think about it: You only need one of them where you needed two of the Americans.”
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