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Something to read the next time you're waiting for a pie at an Upper Crust


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Comments

I think this is the first time boston.com has not let me finish an article before requiring a sign in. I don't particularly want boston.com to email me.

I was going to post a link to this article on facebook but I don't want to send my friends something they can't read without registering.

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I was going to post a link on Facebook, but Facebook wanted me to sign in too.

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I think we're beginning to see the shape of things to come from the Globe: you'll pay with money for bostonglobe.com; you'll pay with personal information for boston.com.

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I wonder how the food snobs feel now that their overpriced pizza was cooked by exploited illegal aliens making less than the minimum wage? Upper Crust charged a premium, underpaid it's employees, and by those employees being illegal aliens taxpayers have essentially been subsidizing their restaurants' operations. Those being deported should get their back wages (they earned them) and Upper Crust should be responsible for reimbursing the state for every social service their employees illegally used at taxpayer expense.

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-right on the money, Haviland.

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Illegal immigrants almost never use any social services. Why would they? They don't want to risk deportation. They also tend to be safer drivers, because again, a fender bender may mean $200 for you and deportation for them.

And they paid the same exact taxes you do. Wage taxes are deducted automatically, as are social security taxes that they will never see. They also pay property taxes, gas taxes, sales taxes etc.

In fact, you should thank them for subsidizing social security.

It's a myth that illegals don't pay taxes, one which takes about 10 seconds of logical thinking to disprove.

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Thanks for the reality infusion in a truthy morass.

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You may have heard of Obama's aunt.

Illegal aliens make generous use of social services, unpaid medical services etc with little risk of deportation. Heck, they can announce their illegality in newspapers with little risk of deportation.

The gross contribution to the economy by illegals is miniscule and the net contribution is without a doubt negative, unless you happen to employ scores of them in which case you can end up with a big house, nice cars, a yacht...

As for paying property taxes, well, they're not exactly paying their share if they live a dozen per apartment.

By the way, don't expect pizza-dough twirlers and berry pickers to save Social Security, but it is a nice little Chamber of Commerce talking point.

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Proof? Can't come from RedState.com or any conservative group. Let's see some objective facts.

As far as deportation goes, this isn't a matter of "Look, an illegal immigrant! GIT THE VARMINT!". It's like any other crime: you need probable cause, you need to do careful checking of the evidence, and you need to prove your case. Imagine you have a guy you think is illegal. His name is Bob Smith. What you've got to do is go through all the Bob Smiths who are actually citizens or in the process of being citizens and make sure he's not one of THOSE Bob Smiths. Then you have to arrest him. Then you have to deport him.

Then there are priorities. ICE is after drug dealers, murderers, gang members, etc. If an illegal immigrant is just working and is perfectly law-abiding, yeah, technically, they should be after him, but realistically, he's not worth the paperwork.

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You can't handle the truth! (And does ch. 4 count as a "conservative" group? Or did you not see thier interview with that leech Auntie Zuni?)

Time for YOU to take off YOUR ideological blinders, chump.

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They don't want to risk deportation.

Bwahahaha! Deval doesn't want to deport them when they're sitting in a jail cell, and he boasts about wanting to give them driving licenses. They go to the State House and testify in front of the legislature - and no one blinks. Who's going to deport them - the ghost of Dapper O'Neil?

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Completely amazing what ill-informed conspiracy theorists think that governors and presidents can do on a whim. I keep hearing more amazing powers being assumed each day! Like the house and senate simply don't exist! Like the very clear separation of US Federal and state powers outlined in the constitution and verified by the US Supreme Court can be wiped on on a governor's mere whim!

First he was raising taxes, when only the legislature has that ability. What next - will he be able to fly like Senator Nathan in Heroes?

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I can tell you that we've definitely had more than a handful of undocumented folks in the social services programs where I've worked. We don't require social security numbers or anything, and it would actually go against the codes of ethics in the professions to deny services to people unless there actually is a hard-and-fast barrier such as only being able to take people with a certain insurance, certain circumstances, etc.

That being said, I also work with a lot of people who are using certain government services like services for their child with cerebral palsy because they aren't about to neglect their child, but they won't use food stamps since they can instead work three jobs to get the groceries. The family I know with 10 people (three nuclear families) in a three-bedroom apartment also comes to mind; the adults work minimum-wage jobs and they won't get food stamps or AFDC or housing assistance or anything because "that's for lazy people."

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10 seconds of logic? I find the arrogance of making that statement very irritating. I can see that it is possible that the benefits to society outweigh the gains of illegals, but not from you argument.

First is the safe driver statement. I can see that it would logical for a person living here illegally to driver safer, but that doesn't mean the incident rate is zero nor really indicate that they will drive safer. One can come to the logical conclusion that teenagers should be safer drivers because they should have faster reflexes and etc. That doesn't hold true at all. This article http://newsnet.byu.edu/story.cfm/45631 here make the statement that there's a need to give then licenses to make them "safer." If they are so careful as drivers, the need to push for licenses should be void. The central point of this is just basically demonstrate that it is not so logically obvious.

There's there the social security statement. Since they are paid under minimum wage, it is likely they are have been paid under the table. A quick google search shows that SS is taxed by rate, if someone is being paid below minimum wage, the SS revenue would look below what could possible be. I guess they could have faked it, but then it would show that SS wage tax is not deducted automatically. In fact, that statement of wage taxes deducted automatically becomes flawed. How does the government automatically withhold money from a business's bank account? It sounds more logical that a company would automatically withhold and state it, then send the money and relevant information to the government of the employee's wage tax. That's assuming that the worker is paid properly, which they are not already.

Finally, also your statement about illegals doesn't cost anything to society sounds flawed. A quick google search show that they do use social services http://cis.org/articles/2004/fiscalexec.html

Now, writing all of this makes me sound very anti-illegal immigrant. Well, actually I don't have that strong of a stance. I am receptive to the idea that illegal immigrant could be beneficial, provided with strong logic and evidence. However, what you just wrote was not very strong at all with the links I just sent and making the statement that it only took 10 seconds of logic did not help my disposition to your argument.

Edit: Oh and swirllygrrl's comment didn't help either. I just poked a ton of holes.

Finally, if it wasn't for that comment, I just want to say this:

We should boycott Uppercrust. I find it outrageous that a pizza restaurant that charge would also under pay their employees, it is not like they are hemorrhaging in need of money. I can also see the understanding that there's definitely a wrong in hiring illegals when there likely plenty of US citizens who are willing to work, though I can't say it with strong conviction unlike the underpayment of employees and overcharge-ment for a higher profit margin.

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A full and accurate cost-benefit analysis of undocumented immigrants and the U.S. economy has never truly been done. Without a doubt all immigrants, as well as poor people, middle class people, rich people and corporations make use of various government services to varying degrees. In return they contribute to the system financially to varying degrees. (how's that for vague?)

As far as taxes go, undocumented immigrants pay sales tax, alcohol taxes, real estate taxes (whether they own or rent) and gasoline taxes.

Many undocumented immigrants are paid under the table, as are many native born U.S. citizens, however unlike the carpenter, collecting unemployment while temporarily laid off from his union gig and doing side jobs at a very good rate (under the table), immigrants are frequently making below minimum wage and putting up with labor abuse similar to if not worse than that at Upper Crust. (I use the tradesman example as I personally know a number of cases that fit that -- and enjoyed the work.)

For those immigrants who once had a legit social security number or for those that get numbers of dead people or just pull out nine random numbers that correspond to someone (or not), they can have federal and state taxes, and social security withheld from their checks. Social security contributions to numbers that don't correspond to a anyone go into SSA's "earning suspense file." Before the recession in 2005 SSA was receiving about $7 billion a year through false soc sec numbers (meaning it went into this "file" because there was no one to collect it -- god knows how many people found mystery money entering their soc sec account from someone else's work). This allowed social security to break even, as that's about the same amount as the difference between what is paid out in benefits and what it received in payroll taxes.

So basically undocumented workers have been subsidizing a system (social security) from which they will be ineligible to receive benefits.

Seems to me that the immigration debate is so touchy and rancorous because it goes cow-tipping with some sacred moo-moos of the U.S. that we hold to be self-evident -- we are a meritocracy, only criminals and the lazy avail themselves of social services, racism is under control and only exists in the first-cousin screwin' south, every country outside of the U.S. and Europe is a 3rd world hell-hole (due to their own actions & we had nothing to do with it) and that's why they all want to come here, this is a land of immigrants and opportunity, just apply yourself (start from the beginning).

By the way quoting Center for Immigration Studies' reports and analyses is a bit like quoting Mahmoud Ahmadinejad on Holocaust statistics.

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For 2009 total income for the social security and disability trust funds was a about $805 billion.... whatever was deposited to the trust fund by false social security numbers is less than 1%....

however, what is most wrong with illegal immigration is just that it is illegal... the US has the most generous legal immigration policy in the world; the US allows more legal immigrantion than the rest of the world combined... however, illegal immigrants make a mockery of those who elect to get into the country by following our laws... the other impact of having about 12 million illegal immigrants is that they depress wages for low income US workers...

It is interesting that people calling for enforcement of immigration laws are attacked by a strange coalition. The are attacked both by the free enterprise business interests( who would like to see free trade in labor augment the existing free trade in goods and materials and the existing free flow of capital) and by the multi-cultural left...

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Illegal immigrants enable continuing discrimination against blacks and Puerto Ricans.

The same moonbats who advocate "diversity" are quick to defend the so-called rights of illegal immigrants as they force American minorities of jobs.

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They feel pretty safe here...they can go to the ER and no one asks them immigration status...most work under the table and pay no taxes at all....countless drink and drive as police stats show...

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This food snob is never getting upper crust pizza again.

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They've always been that place that was trying too hard. The pies are hugely inconsistent, and even their best aren't great. It's always amazed me that they were able to expand like they did!

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had some of their whole wheat pizza, it was worse than frozen. Now this. Why does this story not surprise me? Now I know where they got the money for all of those TV spots and those incessant ads in the Improper Bostonian, Boston Magazine(natch) and Stuff, they were ripping off their illegal immigrant workers. Hopefully this will signal the end for this horrible place and the scum who own it.

Also, anyone, and I mean anyone who hires George Regan to proclaim their innocence is guilty. GUILTY!! George Regan would flack for Hitler if you paid him enough. He would flack for NAMBLA, the Westboro Baptist Church, the KKK, and Bernie Madoff if the money was right. I've had the displeasure of interacting with this scum in the past and I can assure you he's as phony as those whitened teeth and those knockoff Brioni suits he wears.

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Why does a pizzeria owner need his own airplane? I hope Tobins gets the book thrown at him. If you elect me to Boston City Council, I will work to create obstacles to stop people like this from doing business in our city.

We need good hardworking Brazilians in our city, and we need for them to get here without hiding behind gasoline containers. And when they get here, they should be treated as well as people who were born here who do the same job.

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He might be a jerk if the alleged mistreatment of workers is true, but your remark about planes is dumb. Lots of not-that-rich people take up flying as a hobby. A small plane costs no more than an ok sports car. In fact, I think this might be his plane: Tobins's plane, and you can buy one yourself for under 30k$: 1960 Cessna 210

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Which should have been paid to his employees in the first place. Please don't make excuses for this.

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Who would have thought a pizzeria operated like a West Indies sugarcane plantation? I've worked in Boston kitchens for two decades now and sad to say this is not the only place doing these kind of things by a long shot. Theres a certain dog track owning restaurateur I wont mention... Never forgot the day I was told off by the GM for advising a Brazilian line cook with the shape of a pan handle seared into his palm to go to the hospital.

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So does Upper Crust get fined for hiring undocumented workers, or do they get a pass on that?

I hate we the US demonizes the exploited *workers* instead of the businesses that break the law AND treat workers immorally

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it is easy to boycott upper crust...imagine all the money I will save and besides half the time the pie has the texture of cardboard. Illegal prices for pizza made by illegal aliens. NO THANKS!

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