Paying Taxes, and Fearing Deportation
GREELEY, Colo. — "For the past decade, thousands of Hispanic men and women who settled here went to Amalia’s Translation and Tax Services to pay their annual income taxes.
Whether these people were in the United States legally mattered little to Amalia Cerrillo, who runs the business out of her home in this northern Colorado farming town. The Internal Revenue Service, Ms. Cerrillo knew, requires everyone, regardless of immigration status, to pay taxes on income earned in this country.
“My clients wanted to do what any other American does,” Ms. Cerrillo said. “And they wanted to show that they paid their taxes if there is ever a chance for amnesty or a green card.”
That all changed Oct. 17, when investigators with the Weld County Sheriff’s Office, armed with a search warrant, seized thousands of confidential tax returns from Ms. Cerrillo’s business. They told her they were looking for people with fraudulent Social Security numbers, commonly used by illegal immigrants to get work."
DAN FROSCH in the New York Times.