The Solution To The Immigration Problem That No One Is Talking About
Whenever clear battle lines are drawn on some major national issue, and the Left is busy canonizing martyrs and blowing their little whistles every day, one of the hardest things to do is step back and reassess all of your available options at a strategic level.
At the moment, for example, it’s very easy to conclude that the main dispute in this country concerns ICE raids. You might think that the Left opposes ICE raids, and the Right supports them. You might conclude that, at the highest levels of government, the debate is between bleeding-heart Leftists who don’t want young Juan to be separated from his parents, on the one side, and hard-nosed Right-wingers who simply want the law to be enforced, on the other.
But there’s a very good reason to believe that this divide doesn’t actually exist at all. And here’s why: Neither major political party has even suggested taking a very simple and straightforward step that would instantly result in the departure of millions of illegal aliens from this country, without the need for a single ICE raid. There wouldn’t be any need for “family separations,” or federal agents with masks, or anything like that. All you have to do is take this one step, and you’ll solve the vast majority of the problem that both parties claim to be concerned about.
I’m talking about getting rid of the “Individual taxpayer identification number,” or ITIN.
In case you’re not familiar with the concept, an ITIN takes the place of a social security number if you’re an illegal alien (or anyone else without a valid social security number). With an ITIN, an illegal alien can obtain credit. They can open savings accounts and checking accounts at a bank. They can start a business with an Employer Identification Number. They can work as independent contractors. They can obtain driver’s licenses in many states. They can apply for mortgages, too.
The ITIN has been around for a long time now — since the 1990s. But there was never any vote in Congress to establish it. Instead, the IRS unilaterally created the idea of ITIN, in order to make it easier for illegal aliens to pay taxes (and to pay into the Social Security system). The idea was that, since the IRS was required by law to tax everyone’s income, the agency had the authority to create the ITIN system and allow illegal aliens to use it. And on top of that, the IRS wouldn’t alert immigration officials about anyone using an ITIN, in order to encourage illegal aliens to register. So the IRS pitched the idea as a win-win. The United States would collect more tax revenue, and more funding for Social Security (which the illegal aliens wouldn’t be able to tap into). And in turn, illegal aliens could get tax refunds, as well as child tax credits.
What’s happened since the 1990s, of course, is that this rationale — as flimsy as it was — completely collapsed. The ITIN system was premised on the idea that we’d have a secure border. But if the federal government allows foreigners to enter the country at will — as the Biden administration did — then ITIN allows for massive distortions in the market. There are dozens of lenders that allow foreigners with ITINs to get home loans — from PNC Bank to Wells Fargo to First National Bank. If you’re on the market for any kind of home, including a mobile home, then you’re competing with every foreigner with an ITIN.
Here’s just one example I pulled from X:
Credit: Triad Financial Services/@Triad_FS/X.com
It’s from “Triad Financial Services,” which is based in Florida. And it states:
Smarter financing for manufactured home buyers. Individual taxpayer identification numbers (ITINs) are now accepted for all chattel programs — gold, silver and bronze.
The advertisement also promises that “low down payments” are available and that a 550 credit score is more than acceptable.
And although it’s not supposed to work like this, an ITIN can function like a work authorization, too. Until recently, according to various social media posts and videos, you could use an ITIN to sign up for many major food delivery services.
Screenshot: Uber/DoorDash
For their part, DoorDash has denied this — they say they require a social security number — but there are plenty of screenshots where their representatives have told people in the past that they only need an ITIN to create an account.
So if you take away the ITIN system — which the IRS can do, instantly — then you achieve two immediate benefits. First, you lower the price of housing — particularly starter homes — for American citizens. It’s simple economics. If fewer people are trying to buy homes, the price will go down. You also lower competition for a lot of jobs. Second, you give illegal aliens a very good reason to self-deport, since they won’t have anywhere to live. (And they won’t have any bank that will accept their money, either.)
It’s true that there’s a very small number of people living in this country who might want to use an ITIN for tax purposes, even though they aren’t illegal aliens.
If an American citizen marries a foreigner who doesn’t have a work authorization for some reason, they might need an ITIN to file a joint tax return. Or a wealthy foreign investor might make money in the United States, and he needs an ITIN to pay taxes on his investments.
These are rare scenarios. And the IRS can easily distinguish these scenarios from an illegal alien who resides in the United States, and who wants an ITIN to purchase a home. So why is no one in Congress, in either party, suggesting a change like this?
Why is everyone fine with an arbitrary system that was invented in the 1990s, which enables illegal aliens to act like they have social security numbers?
Why are we talking about a crazy ICE nurse, and not any kind of systemic issue like this?
As best I can tell, the only Republican who’s proposing any kind of meaningful legislation on this front is a state lawmaker from Utah named Trevor Lee. This is from a local news station in the state.
A bill introduced by Rep. Trevor Lee that would end the driving privilege card program for immigrants is currently in the House Rules Committee, waiting to be discussed. A driving privilege card is issued to undocumented immigrants without lawful presence status. It is a Class D license that allows the holder to drive a motor vehicle but cannot be used as identification by any Utah government entity, according to the Driver License Division. These cards can also be issued to individuals who are paroled in the U.S.
This is obviously a good idea, but you have to ask: Why are states giving “driving privilege cards” to illegal aliens in the first place? Why would we do *anything* to make life easier for people who broke our laws to enter this country? Why hasn’t Congress passed a federal law banning this practice, nationwide?
To be clear, most Republicans are not taking Trevor Lee’s approach. Instead, the most prominent GOP politicians in Washington — the Republicans with actual power in Congress — are currently taking the Democrats’ position on illegal migration.
Here’s Thom Tillis, the senator from North Carolina, the other day.
Watch:
Credit: @Newsweek/YouTube.com
It’s almost word-for-word what Ilhan Omar was saying, before the alien from the first Men in Black movie squirted some vinegar on her. There is no daylight between a senior Republican senator from a red state, and a Muslim communist who openly despises this country and wants to destroy it from within. And the reason these two politicians are in total agreement is that a Leftist domestic terrorist — who deliberately instigated several violent confrontations with ICE agents in order to obstruct them — received exactly the fate he was looking for.
And it’s not just Thom Tillis who’s leaving Noem out to dry.
This is from NBC News:
“Lisa Murkowski, R-Alaska, whose term runs until January 2029, said Noem should not be running DHS. ‘Yes, she should go,’ Murkowski said … [Meanwhile], Senate Majority Leader John Thune sidestepped Tuesday when asked if he has confidence in Noem. ‘She serves at the pleasure of the president,’ he told reporters. ‘The important thing is that the president’s got confidence in his team.’ … Centrist Sen. Susan Collins, R-Maine, who chairs the Appropriations Committee that controls the DHS budget, didn’t go as far as Murkowski or Tillis when asked about Noem. ‘I have urged her to have a pause in both Minnesota and Maine on this surge of enforcement,” Collins said Tuesday.”
It’s always the case that, when the Democrat and Republican establishments agree on something, you need to look very closely at why they agree. It’s not because they’re losing sleep over a psychotic nurse who got himself killed. It’s not because they can’t stomach the concept of immigration enforcement. To be clear, right now Democrats are going on camera and threatening physical retribution against ICE agents for doing their job. This is the party that Republicans are siding with, when it comes to the job of the Homeland Security secretary.
Here’s New Jersey’s governor, for example:
🚨 BREAKING: New Jersey Gov. Mikie Sherrill to Launch a Portal to Track & Report ICE Agents
“We are going to be standing up a portal so people can upload all their cell phone videos and alert people. If you see an ICE agent in the street, get your phone out.” pic.twitter.com/zgpW7JFkOf
— Chief Nerd (@TheChiefNerd) January 29, 2026
Credit: @TheChiefNerd/X.com
You’d think it would take an awful lot for Republicans to join forces with someone like this. She’s advocating for the creation of a database that Leftists can use to harass, attack and murder ICE agents.
But maybe it’s not so surprising to see bipartisan agreement on this point — because after all, the business interests that largely fund both parties have become very happy with, if not dependent on, the fact that millions of illegal aliens with fake Social Security numbers, provided by the IRS, are working for their companies and taking out their loans.
That would explain why the Cato Institute — which is supposedly a libertarian think tank, although it’s really an arm of the Democrat Party that Republicans pretend to take seriously — just put out this remarkable video, along with some accompanying “research.” Watch as Cato attempts to make the argument that American citizens are more of a drain on our welfare system than illegal aliens:
Immigrants consume 24% fewer welfare benefits per capita than native-born Americans, and noncitizens consume 53% less. Learn more in a new Cato Institute study from @AlexNowrasteh. pic.twitter.com/JwfLCJ7wFo
— Cato Institute (@CatoInstitute) January 29, 2026
Credit: @CatoInstitute/X.com
The point of this video is to provide Republicans with a talking point, which they can use as an excuse for caving on immigration enforcement. It’s completely dishonest. First of all, to be clear, he’s counting “Social Security” as welfare — even though it’s really a ponzi scheme that you pay into, and that you can only access when you’re relatively old. Obviously, illegal aliens — many of whom do not arrive in this country at the age of 65 — are not going to be receiving a lot of Social Security benefits.
But more importantly, if you do what he says, and actually read the research on Cato’s website, here’s what you’ll find.
All comparisons in this brief are calculated on a per capita basis rather than per household, which avoids attributing native-born welfare consumption to immigrants living in mixed-status households.
What this means is that, if an illegal alien has 10 children in the United States in her household, and every single one of those 10 anchor babies receives food stamps and free education and free housing for life, then under Cato’s statistical model, they don’t count as “immigrants receiving welfare.” After all, thanks to birthright citizenship, those 10 anchor babies are American citizens. So you’re not allowed to count any of the benefits that those anchor babies receive, according to Cato.
Obviously, the point of this statistic is to obscure the enormous toll that illegal aliens (and their offspring) have on our economy. And of course, the Cato study doesn’t account for the billions of dollars in fraud that illegal aliens commit every year. In just one state (Minnesota), they’ve been caught stealing hundreds of millions of dollars in a matter of months. But it’s not just happening in Minnesota. Here’s a recent case from Massachusetts, where some Haitian migrants set up a couple of fraudulent grocery stores, and robbed the SNAP program out of hundreds of thousands of dollars.
Watch:
Federal prosecutors have charged Haitian migrants in Massachusetts in a $7 million SNAP fraud scheme, involving fake retail stores that reportedly generated up to $480,000 per month.
— Breaking911 (@Breaking911) December 18, 2025
Credit: @breaking911/X.com
If you end the SNAP program, all of this stops. And as we’ve discussed before, the SNAP program should obviously be terminated. Contrary to what that woman said, the SNAP program does not prevent Americans from “going hungry.” Roughly three-quarters of adult food-stamp beneficiaries are overweight or obese. I’ll say that again. Three-quarters of SNAP recipients are overweight or obese. They’re not starving at all. It’s not even close. Millions of these people claim to be “disabled,” so they don’t have to work. They just upload TikTok videos all day about all the free food they’re getting. Is there any sane person who really thinks that one in eight Americans — more than 40 million people — really need taxpayer assistance, or else they’ll starve? What do people think this is, Mogadishu?
And then, once we get rid of SNAP, we should get rid of the ITIN system as well. Start scrapping programs like this, one by one, and the illegal aliens will leave much faster than we can deport them. Democrats and Republicans both know that. Every craven politician telling Kristi Noem to resign is doing so for a simple reason: They want you to focus on the most incendiary and dumb political drama, instead of the larger strategic picture. That’s what Thom Tillis and Lisa Murkowski and Ilhan Omar all want.
In response, the Trump administration — which has already shown some signs of breaking — doesn’t simply need to stand firm. They need to escalate the fight against illegal migrants in a strategic and sensible way. Treat them like any foreign invasion force. Cut off their supply lines. The IRS doesn’t need their tax money. We need them to get out of the country. And if we stop focusing on lesbian agitators and deranged ICU nurses who got what they were asking for, we can make that happen.
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