patrick.net

The very roads, bridges, airports, and shipping ports of this country are being sold into private control.

That is encouraging development.

Illegal immigrants can also acquire credit cards, either with a fake SSN or no SSN at all. Though the credit limits are generally low (around $500) the card holders can simply disappear, leaving the bank high-and-dry.

For anyone like Betty who expresses the "can you blame them?" attitude, realize that the bank is not going to just suck up the delinquency out of the kindness of their corporate heart. They're going to pass that delinquency on to someone else, whether it is their customers, shareholders, or the taxpayer.

Same is true for RE fraud.

Now, who among us is feeling sympathetic for her dear, dear friends?

Thanks for sharing Betty. I encourage you to contact Lou Dobb's with your stories. You can write him here:

http://www.cnn.com/feedback/forms/form5.html?9

Rob M Says:
May 1st, 2007 at 12:43 pm
"Betty,
You should have discouraged your friend from breaking our law. Or you should have reported them to the authority. Are you now an accomplice?"

Not preventing a crime, and not reporting it does not make someone an accomplice, nor does it make them liable for the crime. Just FYI in case people wanted to run off on that tangent.

Randy H Says:

> Sorry to be a skeptic’s skeptic, but something smells
> wrong in the account. Too many apocryphal coincidences,
> misconceptions and contradictions.

The story makes sense to me. Here in California when most people think of an illegal alien they picture a guy named “Hector Gonzalez” but I personally know a lot of illegal aliens with names like “Sean O’Malley” who have been making good money working in construction with other illegal aliens (and making even more money buying, renovating and selling homes)…

> * How do you know they are buying illegal SSNs? “Undocumented”
> workers have been able to legally obtain so-called non-work
> SSNs since at least 2000. The reason was an attempt to discover
> and better track the number of children and size of families.
> (Also because SSNs are a de facto personal id #).

The guys I know with fake social security numbers have been here for a while and applied for (and got) social security numbers by getting the bona fide birth certificate of an American about their age that died as a child (so they won’t ever ruin anyone’s credit). I have heard that this is harder to do now than it was 10 years ago.

> * If they are indeed buying SSNs, then they are committing
> identity theft at a felony level, perhaps even an Federal felony
> level. As such, most people would (a) feel a very strong ethical
> or moral obligation to inform law enforcement; and/or (b) be
> very afraid of these people and feel too intimidated to report
> them. Nothing in the OP style wise hints at either of those.

I know some Irish born contractors that are actually using the SS# of a live person, but I’m not going to report a hard working guy who goes to church and does everything he can not to cause problems.

> * These people are supposedly “very very good” and dear
> friends. That leaves us as the readers with the uncomfortable
> position of either judging you by the friends you keep and
> hold dear,

I don’t have any illegal aliens that I would call “very very good” and dear
Friends”, but I have worked along side both Irish and Mexican illegal aliens that I would call “very good hard working guys”…

Peter P Says:
May 1st, 2007 at 1:10 pm
"The very roads, bridges, airports, and shipping ports of this country are being sold into private control.
That is encouraging development. "

Yeah, the private airline security screeners did a far better job on Sept 11, 2001 than the TSA has been doing.

Thank God someone else is noticing it is not just Mexicans that are illegal. Those filthy Irish have been causing problems here for 200 years.

Privatizing the Port of Long Beach to Saudi Arabia.........real smart.

Glad that idea got shot down by those of us who "didn't understand the details."

Privatizing the Port of Long Beach to Saudi Arabia………real smart.

That should be fine. In case sh*t happens it can be appropriated.

Ha ha, I even joked on a prior thread that Al Qaeda could have done more damage than knocking down a few buildings if they had got into the subprime game.

appropriated? What do you mean buddy?

I'd rather not have a nuke go off in Long Beach, than knowing who to point the finger to after the fact.

Ooops!

The illegals are just stage 3 of the runup. When the banks ran out of good legal borrowers, they started using bad legal borrowers, when they ran out of bad legal borrowers, they started lending to illegals. When they run out of illegals, what's next? Perhaps the next name that will appear on a mortgage application will be fido.

Allah is right. There is just too much money out there looking for a home. The borrowers are less and less desireable, and as each class of borrower is taken care of, they have to bottom feed in deeper waters.

appropriated? What do you mean buddy?

If the relationship sours it can be taken back for free, pretty much.

Oh, but it might just be a big hole. I guess it would be a deeper port than before, that would be good, but we couldn't use it for 50 years.

DP,

Now real winners in that situation. Somehow having to share a house w/ 3 other families isn't my idea of "affordability"?

The neighbors? Sheesh, guess that means your folks won't be stopping by the old neighborhood this Memorial Day!

Unless your folks moved to 'Washington's Mexico' (Oregon) it's doubtful they're very happy either.

I don't know WHAT the answer is here. When I was kid (in Cicero, IL) any bank mgr. that loaned to black families (however qualified) would have been ousted in short order. Other families (Polish and Italian) would have simply taken their money out of the bank in protest! Clearly that was not right, but I believe that people DO have the right to know that a SFH sold in their neighborhood is a SINGLE FAMILY HOME! Is that so much to ask?

Now real winners in that situation. Somehow having to share a house w/ 3 other families isn’t my idea of “affordability”?

It is if your previous home was living in a tent.

By the way, is that [the picture] one of Betty's friends?

Bap33

it’s directly caused by this nanny state the libs created. without all of the tax payer funded goodies that are enjoyed by anyone that staggers over the border, the invasion would have never happened.

The blame goes to both sides, yours is not at all without sin. Sorry. Who, exactly, do you think has been enticing them to come here in the first place? It wasn't that the states created social assistance programs *before* they came; that was a reaction to them already being here and growing in numbers.

No, someone was paying them. Didn't god-fearing Wal-mart get in a bit of a row over something like that a while ago?

But thanks for highlighting for everyone the reason this problem will *never* get solved until every single last partisan culture-wars extremist on the left *and* right loses their sway in this country. Until then, enjoy the Randi Rhodes and Anne Coulter show and authentic tacos.

"a SFH sold in their neighborhood is a SINGLE FAMILY HOME!" Yep, it's a race to the bottom. The argument that illegal aliens should have the right to live the American Dream is bogus. Many of them want the right to live as 3rd world as they did back home, chickens and all. And what is stopping them?

Ben Franklin,

(Wish I saw more of you)

Yeah, the terror/mort. fraud link was VERY interesting. Again, why run the risk of blowing the doors off a bank vault when it's so much easier to "rob your own home"? When we've made it just that easy to get a mortgage should this type of abusive behavior surprise any of us?

SFWoman said:
Ah well, Sonoma is in deep doo, and the Press Democrat had the skyrocketing foreclosures and decreasing prices as its lead story on Sunday. I expect the city to follow.

Let us know if any property near by comes up for sale cheap. Maybe we can start a patrick.net commune. Or just park one of these on your lot and tend your chickens as "ag workers". On second thought, I'm not sure I'd want to sign the paperwork your husband would draw up...
I'm going to side with Randy and think that Betty's story may be a bit too neat, although it is clear (from reports by people like SQT and FAB) that stuff like this does happen.

CHAIRMAN: You're not just tellin' us what we wannahear?
HI: No Sir, no way.
SECOND MAN: 'Cause we just wanna hear the truth.
HI: Well then I guess I am tellin' you what you wanna hear.
CHAIRMAN: Boy, didn't we just tell you not to do that?
HI: Yessir.
CHAIRMAN: Okay then.
(H.I. before the parole board in Raising Arizona)

LSR,

Like Randy I suspect I'll be in a position to have my mother live with us shortly. Then again, I've known her all my life. I don't think anyone would have any objections there.

It's when people that are totally unrelated all dog pile into a SFH more based on where they work and simply for economics and convenience that bugs me.

It’s when people that are totally unrelated all dog pile into a SFH more based on where they work and simply for economics and convenience that bugs me.

So long as they do not affect their neighbors I do not care how many families live there.

Indeed DinOR. Some of those 'families' are quite large. "Flop This House" is the reality show of the future.

On second thought, maybe flop houses are the way to finally bust this bubble? :)

Malcolm Says:

Thank God someone else is noticing it is not just Mexicans that are illegal. Those filthy Irish have been causing problems here for 200 years.

Why, that'd be just askin for a wee kiss from my shillelagh!

Patrick

I had to move out of Mira Mesa because of that nonsense. One small 2 or 3 bedroom house would have like 6 crappy cars, and of course no garage to put any of them in because it was either illegally converted, or it was crammed full of crap.

Actually I quite like the Irish, I'm just sick of the racism associated with illegal immigration. No one seems to complain about the Irish illegals (and there are many) but it's easy to pick on the brown people.

Malcolm

Me too.

There are probably nearly as many illegal former au pair 24 year old girls running around SF and Marin as there are illegal Mexicans. But who's gonna get upset about nubile French and Swedish white girls?

(In fact, there's a whole underground network of "expired J visa" au pairs around here, many of whom you'll see targeted in CL ads for "nannies" which only fit foreign au pairs, of course none of which can be here longer than 24 months on a sponsored visa, so they'd never answer such ads, right?)

Randy, technically, being illegal present is not the same as having entered without inspection, although those with expired visas may face serious immigration consequences.

Again, I am not a lawyer.

Randy, technically, being illegally present is not the same as having entered without inspection, although those with expired visas may face serious immigration consequences.

Again, I am not a lawyer.

Sweden is a much nicer place for the Swedes.

California is special.

Betty is right about them buying SS#'s. I have spoken to some illegals and they told me all about it. They don't have to though, they don't need a SS#, they could just get a TIN (tax id number) from the IRS that doesn't even require a background check. Read this article from 2003.

The illegal aliens buying houses is nothing new, it has been going on for many years. They just were lending more to illegals every time the market started slowing down. The illegals are actually more credit worthy than the legals with the low fico scores because the illegals are willing to rent out all the rooms (even create more) and live like what we call pigs. This is why banks love to lend to illegals and the gov seems to like them too; there are stories all over the net about this.

The worst credit risks in the US are concentrated in Appalachia, which last I checked had a fairly low concentration of illegal immigrants.

If you include defaults on farm and agriculture related real property loan defaults, then the Midwest and Plains are worse credit risks than the border states.

But white midwestern farmers don't fit the reactionary world view of societal free loaders. Witness what is set to soon become the largest government subsidy program (of funds directly distributed to individuals) in modern world history: corn-based-ethanol.

Allah says:
"The illegals are actually more credit worthy than the legals with the low fico scores because the illegals are willing to rent out all the rooms (even create more) and live like what we call pigs. This is why banks love to lend to illegals and the gov seems to like them too; there are stories all over the net about this."

So, banks are abandoning the FICO Score system, and basing their decision to lend money to illegal immigrants, on their own appraisals of character, and previous illegal, or at least questionable activity? Please point to one of these stories.

I can see having people "shoe-horned" into a SFH for short periods of time and this was done in "the old neighborhood" as well. The difference was we didn't actively seek a warm body with a paycheck to fill a bed/couch/spot on the floor during the off shift.

The Enrons and Worldcoms did not cause the internet bubble. They tried to illegally exploit the pre-existing bubble. Same here. The illegals are trying to game the system that was already broken.

But it still pisses me, and this is not the first time I am hearing such stories. I had a hard time getting my permanent residency like many others - in spite of (or maybe because of) following the law to the letter and to the spirit. I take pride in my being a good citizen and raising my kids to be so. As an immigrant I feel I have a lot of responsibility to prove myself.

Then I hear such stories and I feel like a dumb, dogmatic, impractical person stuck in some old value sets. I am too old to change, but maybe I shouldn't preach these values too much to my kids.

Malcolm says:
"...I’m just sick of the racism associated with illegal immigration. No one seems to complain about the Irish illegals (and there are many) but it’s easy to pick on the brown people. "

Agreed. But it may be in part, a product of where the focus is. Our southern border has been portrayed as an open back door, and even a battle zone, in recent MSM reports. And all the pictures we are shown, usually depict dark skinned, poor, Hispanic people, being arrested, detained or running through the desert.
The association is a strong one.
But I would point out that being Mexican is more a nationality than an ethnicity.