How much of our Social Security money is benefiting former illegal aliens in Mexico?

With predictions that Social Security might be bankrupt before many of us ever receive any benefits, money potentially being given to people not entitled to it, bothers some people.

Dr. Jerome R. Corsi (WorldNetDaily.com) just did a very eye-opening analysis of the problem, where he states:

Amid the U.S. government's acknowledgment of rampant document and benefit fraud, the Federal Reserve is wiring 26,000 Social Security payments every month to Mexicans south of the border.

Officials with the Federal Reserve and Social Security Administration insist payments are not going to illegal aliens but admit they cannot be certain. Meanwhile, the Department of Homeland Security has launched a new task force to address the "growing" problem of benefit fraud, including in the Social Security Administration.

I like the official statement that no payments are going to illegal aliens, but they can't be certain?It seems to me that if they were certain, they might HAVE do SOMETHING about it.

I sometimes like to examine the money trail, which is what anyone wanting to determine fraud should follow, and according to the article:

According to the Federal Reserve, in 2005 the amount of funds transferred to Mexico reached more than $30 billion, up from $16.6 billion in 2004. The remittance market to Mexico has experienced double-digit growth in recent years.

Even scarier, was what is termed a totalization agreement with Mexico, that Social Security refused to release until forced to by an advocate group for senior citizens:

As WND previously reported, after refusing to release the document for three and a half years, the Social Security Administration in January finally made public a totalization agreement that "would allow millions of illegal Mexican workers to draw billions of dollars from the U.S. Social Security Trust Fund."

The disclosure was forced by a Freedom of Information Act request filed by the TREA Senior Citizens League, a non-partisan seniors advocacy group.

This hasn't been signed into effect by President Bush, but it could be done without congressional approval.

Dr. Corsi sums up this analysis using factual data from the GAO:

In September 2003, the U.S. General Accounting Office estimated a Social Security totalization agreement with Mexico would cost $78 million in the first year and would grow to $650 billion (in constant 2002 dollars) in 2050.

The GAO admitted even this estimate was low given that the totalization agreement provides an additional incentive for millions more Mexicans to enter and work in the United States.

Dr. Corsi's highly interesting analysis (I highly recommend reading the entire article), here.

So far as the officials, who aren't certain if fraud is occurring, they might want to consider the amount of benefits fraud, recently uncovered in the Katrina and Rita hurricanes. Initially, officials seemed to be in denial (not certain) about how much of it happened there, also. After the GAO did a little digging, they seemed to find quite a bit of it - and rumor has it - they aren't finished finding all of it.

Benefit fraud is a huge problem, and it costs us all in the form of higher taxes. It also takes away from the funds available to pay honest people, who are entitled to receive them.

Here is another post, I wrote about the scope of this problem in a limited area (Southern California):

Los Angeles Grand Jury Calls Child Care Program an ATM for Thieves

The official ICE press release about the government task force looking into this problem can be seen, here.