My good friend Alma writes me:

I definitely know about the social security problem.

The sad fact is that the government uses it both ways: if you’re the legitimate holder of a particular SSN, they can refuse to send your payments until you prove to their satisfaction that you’re the legitimate party, while at the same time accepting payment from anyone who uses the number. It would be very easy to flag any number being used by more than one person and insist on clarification, but it’s pretty obvious why that hasn’t happened.

Right now (although the numbers are murky) I think it’s quite likely that illegals contribute more than they take out.

It’s the whole problem of what happens with their American kids and grandkids – born here, badly educated, ill-served by the medical system, and facing an economy based on labor policies that bear a sneaking resemblance to a Ponzi scheme.