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Immigration News

Taxes and Immigration, Public Seminars

The Tax Deadline is APRIL 18, 2011

All immigrants residing and working in the United States are generally required by law to file income taxes every year, which are due around mid-April. Besides the legal requirement, there are other good reasons to file income tax returns, including eligibility for citizenship and other immigration benefits and potential tax refunds, credits or exemptions.

Lawful permanent residents, or green card holders, must demonstrate that they have complied with the tax laws to apply for US citizenship and to maintain their permanent resident status. To become an American citizen, they will have to show evidence that they have filed taxes during the five years prior to their application for naturalization or proof that they were not required to file a tax return. Failure to file a required tax return may be considered an act of bad moral character which is a temporary bar to attaining U.S. citizenship.

Undocumented immigrants living and working in the United States are also required to file an income tax return to report their earnings here. They must apply for and use an Individual Tax Identification Number (ITIN) in place of a Social Security number to file a tax return and report income. An ITIN is a nine-digit number issued to people who are not eligible for a Social Security number. It does not authorize someone to work in the United States. An ITIN is used only for record keeping purposes and for filing taxes. One must complete a W-7 form and file it with their first tax return to get an tax identification number. Afterwards, the ITIN may be used to file future returns and also for opening a bank account, taking out a mortgage or for other financial transactions.

For the 2010 tax year, a single individual under 65 must generally file a tax return if his or her income was above $9,450 as a regular employee. Individuals who are independent contractors, including those who are self-employed or whose employer does not report their income to the IRS, are required to file a tax return if they earned more than $400 last year. Those who do file a tax return may be eligible for a tax refund if taxes have already been deducted from their salary, may be eligible to claim the Child Tax Credit or exemptions for dependents.

The IRS does not currently share any information from taxpayers with other government agencies due to privacy provisions in the tax laws. It is also not in the IRS’s tax collection interest to disclose any information to the immigration authorities, since it will discourage those who are undocumented from filing tax returns.

It is in the best interest of undocumented immigrants to file their taxes in anticipation of a legalization program or other immigration reform. Tax filing may be used as evidence of physical presence in the United States and also demonstrates good moral character. Each may be a requirement towards a path to citizenship under new legislation.

NOTE: THE CENTER WILL BE HOSTING FREE PUBLIC INFORMATION SEMINARS AT OUR WOODSIDE AND WOODLAWN OFFICES ON WEDNESDAY, MARCH 9th  AND THURSDAY, MARCH 10th , RESPECTIVELY, FROM 6-8pm.

OUR IMMIGRATION ATTORNEY, IMMIGRATION COUNSELOR AND PRIVATE ACCOUNTANTS WILL BE ATTENDING TO PROVIDE INFORMATION AND ANSWER QUESTIONS ON GENERAL IMMIGRATION AND TAXES.

FOR FURTHER DETAILS PLEASE CALL THE WOODLAWN OFFICE AT 718-324-3039 OR THE WOODSIDE OFFICE AT 718-478-5502.

EIIC Public Tax and Immigration Seminars Flyer

Mayo Society to honor EIIC’s Noreen Lydon O’Donoghue

Mayo Society Of New York

48-45 63rd Street • Woodside, New York 11377

132nd Annual St. Patrick’s Ball
to be held on
Saturday, March 12, 2011

Antun’s, 96-43 Springfield Boulevard • Queens Village, N.Y. 11429

Honorees
Fr. Tom Basquel, Aughagower, Co. Mayo
Noreen Lydon O’Donoghue, Tourmakeady, Co. Mayo

January 23, 2011

The Mayo Society of New York will pay tribute to two outstanding Mayo people at our society’s 132nd Annual St. Patrick’s Ball on March 12, 2011. Noreen Lydon O’Donoghue will be honored as our Mayo Woman of the Year and Thomas Basquel, C.S.Sp. as our Mayo Man of the year. This event will take place at Antun’s, 96-43 Springfield Blvd, Queens Village, NY. Cocktails are at 7.00pm followed by dinner and dancing at 8.00pm. Noel Henry’s Irish Show Band featuring vocalist Kevin Prendergast will provide the music for this evening’s celebrations.


Noreen Lydon O’Donoghue, A native of Tourmakeady, Co Mayo, Noreen arrived in New York City in 1963, and began a long career of community service benefiting friends and strangers both far and near. Noreen combines hands-on service with leadership and lobbying. She founded the Woodlawn chapter of The Irish Immigration Reform Movement in 1987, and is a co-founder and now Executive Board member of the Emerald Isle Immigration Center’s (EIIC) in 1988 Woodside, Queens, And the Woodlawn office in 1993. She takes great pride in their success in providing a wide range of services to the community. Her commitment to the Irish-American community is evident, not only through her work with the EIIC, but with her membership in The Mayo Society of New York, The Ladies Ancient Order of Hibernians Tarrytown, Div 11; her participation in The American-Irish Association of Westchester, Make-a- Wish Foundation: her passion for set dancing, traditional Irish music, instruction in the Irish language, in which she is fluent.

Thomas Basquel, C.S.Sp. The son of Michael and Kathleen Basquel, Tom is from Aughagower, near Westport in County Mayo. One of nine brothers and four sisters, Tom entered the Holy Ghost Congregation after high school. As part of his preparation for the priesthood, Tom spent two years in Nairobi, Kenya where he returned after his ordination in 1976 at St Patrick’s Church in Aughagower. According to legend, the last person to be ordained there was St Patrick! Tom held several positions in London and Dublin before heading to New York in 1996. Tom moved to the Brooklyn diocesan after a year and became a participant in the Irish Lobby for Immigration Reform, attending meetings in Washington, Philadelphia, the Bronx and Woodside. In 2001, Bishop Daly asked the Holy Ghost Fathers to take over St. Mary’s Parish in Woodside, and appointed Fr. Tom as Parochial Vicar. He immediately embraced the Irish community, celebrating all milestones of life. In 2006, Tom was appointed Superior and Provincial Delegate of the Irish Holy Ghost Fathers in America. He now visits eight states, checking on the wellbeing of all his confreres.

Tickets are $85 per person or a table of ten for $850.
For reservations, please contact Rita Lydon Lenz, 718-565-9251.

For additional information, please contact Journal Co-Chairs:
Mary Lydon at 718-728-7924
or Jim Lombard at 646-263-1733.

Rita Lydon-Lenz & Michael S. Regan Mary P. Coyne
Dinner Dance Co-Chairs President

Irish expatriates express anger at not being allowed to vote

The Sunday Times (London)
February 6, 2011 Sunday
Edition 1; Ireland

IT’S OUR FUTURE, SO WHY CAN’T WE VOTE?

As one forecast predicts emigration will reach 1,000 people a week, Irish expatriates express anger at not being allowed to vote.
Ciara Kenny writes;

NIALL JUDGE felt so strongly about exercising his right to vote that when it was announced the election would be on March 11, he took a day off work and booked a flight home from Brussels.

Then the date was brought forward to February 25, and it was too late for Judge to change his flights. He is disappointed at missing out on having his say, although technically as a non-permanent resident he has no entitlement to vote.

“Every election is important but in this one people will have the chance to vent their anger at how the economy has been so badly mismanaged during the last decade,” he said.

The 26-year-old, who has worked for a data marketing company in Brussels for two years, is one of tens of thousands of young Irish people who have emigrated in search of work. As unemployment reached nearly 14%, an estimated 27,700 people left last year, double the 2009 figure. The Central Statistics Office predicts 100,000 Irish people, or 1,000 a week, will emigrate over the next two years.

So it is no surprise that jobs – and the lack of them – is the number one issue in the election for many people. It certainly is for Judge’s mother Maura, who lives in Kinnegad, Co Westmeath. Last August she waved goodbye to her second son, Declan, who left for Perth, Australia, in search of work as a civil engineer. Declan, 24, had spent almost a year trying to find a job in Ireland. Even his offers to work for free, in order to gain experience, were ignored.

“I was brought up Fianna Fail, and I always voted Fianna Fail, but not now, never again. I am totally disillusioned,” Maura said. “The government lost the run of themselves, and the victims now are the young people who are left with nothing. They didn’t seem to give any thought to the creation of jobs at all.”

Her eldest daughter is on an Erasmus year in France studying international business, and Maura worries that she will also have to move away when she graduates. “So many parents around here are just devastated seeing their children heading off, and we wonder if they will ever come back. It’s very lonely,” she said.

Although Niall Judge would like to come back to Ireland eventually, he doesn’t see it happening any time soon. “I feel locked out of the country now,” he said. “Before it was a choice to live abroad. Now it’s a necessity for me and thousands of others.”

Judge points out that whoever comes to power in the next government will be in a “financial straitjacket”, but he hopes they will be able to implement job creation measures to stimulate the economy.

Judge is far from the only emigrant feeling disenfranchised. “For our generation, this election is about getting closure on the devastation of the country over the past three years,” said 23-year-old Eoin Delap from Clontarf, who left for America after he graduated with a masters in Irish literature last September.

“Just because we are not in the country at the time of the election, that doesn’t mean that we shouldn’t have the right to exercise our citizenship. I think it reflects the general disenfranchisement of our young people, and the fear shared by those in power that too much vibrancy among young people is destabilising,” said Delap, who is working in the Emerald Isle Immigration Center in New York. “I think that’s why the issue of emigration was ignored by the government for so long, because it makes their lives easier, by closing off that section of disillusioned voters.”

Research carried out at University College Cork shows that most Irish emigrants intend to return in the long term.

“I don’t have any intentions of staying away in the long term,” said 22-year-old Robert Hogan from Meath. He moved to New York after three years looking for work following a carpentry apprenticeship. “When you put your hand in your pocket and there is no money in it, you have to do something about it,” he said.

Isabel Hayes and her fiance Aidan McGowran live and work in Sydney and say they will wait for the economy to improve before coming back to Ireland. She believes that young people living abroad are among the most disappointed in Fianna Fail, and should be able to exercise their vote. “We see our future as being at home and keep a close eye on taxation and house prices,” she said.

Simon Mackin, an IT systems administrator who works in investment banking, left Ireland to go travelling at the height of the boom in 2007. He was offered a job in Australia. “For me to consider coming back I would have to have a lot of confidence in the government and the direction the country was going,” he said. “To create jobs the government needs to spend money. I don’t think they will be able to for quite some time.”

Selective Service registration requirement for all men, even the undocumented

Selective Service does not collect any information which would indicate whether or not you are undocumented. You want to protect yourself for future U.S. citizenship and other government benefits and programs by registering with Selective Service. Do it today.

If you are a man ages 18 through 25 and living in the U.S., then you must register with Selective Service. It’s the law. According to law, a man must register with Selective Service within 30 days of his 18th birthday. Selective Service will accept late registrations but not after a man has reached age 26. You may be denied benefits or a job if you have not registered. You can register at any U.S. Post Office and do not need a social security number.When you do obtain a social security number, let Selective Service know. Provide a copy of your new social security number card; being sure to include your complete name, date of birth, Selective Service registration number, and current mailing address; and mail to the Selective Service System, P.O. Box 94636, Palatine, IL 60094-4636.

If you have a social security number, you can register online (click here). It’s quick and easy.