EvanTh
1d ago
Employing illegals likely also involves financial crimes. After all, they do not have a social security number, so how are you paying social security for them? Even making sure they pay income taxes would create a paper trail most employers would likely avoid.
As a VITA tax prep volunteer, I strongly disagree. I have seen many illegal immigrants come to fill out their income taxes, with all of the proper tax forms, issued under false social security numbers. Their W-2's showed that their employers had withheld all the proper amounts for income tax and social security.
It's certainly possible some of their employers knew those social security numbers were false, which I assume would be against the law, but I'm sure many of their employers didn't. But either way, it wouldn't be a financial crime.
I strongly suspect the federal law making this illegal is unconstitutional under general principles of state sovereignty and anti-commandeering.
The Supreme Court acknowledged something similar in Prigg v. Pennsylvania (1842) when they stated that state officials could help enforce the federal Fugitive Slave Act "if they choose... unless prohibited by state legislation." By implication, a state may legislate to prohibit officials from helping enforce federal laws; Northern states quickly took them up on that implication. I don't believe any court directly addressed any requirements for notification, but it seems to go with the general principle.
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