We need to crack down on illegal immigrants wiring money out of the U.S.

The Washington Examiner reports:

The Obama administration has shown a complete lack of both competence and interest when it comes to securing our borders and enforcing our immigration laws. And that's costing us a lot of money. Billions, in fact.

There are the billions of taxpayer dollars used to subsidize illegal immigrants' health care and education. There's the revenue we lose out on when illegal immigrants don't pay income taxes. And there's a less recognized pot of billions — the billions of dollars of earnings that illegal immigrants wire out of the United States with no tax or penalty.

We have a lot of folks here in the United States from other countries — some are here legally, many of them are not — who go to storefronts or bodegas to wire money to their home country. These transfers are known as remittances.

In 2006, the Government Accountability Office reported that the United States was the largest remittance-sending country in the world. They estimated that nearly $38 billion was remitted by foreign-born residents in the United States to households abroad. The Center for Immigration Studies has estimated that roughly $25 billion is sent from illegal immigrants annually. This latter estimate is supported by the fact that the Congressional Budget Office and similar international reports repeatedly show that illegal immigrants send more remittances than legal immigrants.

Tax the illegals, what an idea.