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Rant

Should an undocumented immigrant be able to win the lottery?

Posted 8 months ago|5 comments|634 views
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Recently, it was reported that an illegal immigrant was tricked out of collecting a $3 million dollar lottery prize.

The man purchased the winning scratch off lottery ticket in Spring Valley, New York. Apparently, three of the clerks that worked at the store where the winning lottery ticket was sold, told the winner that if he tried to collect the prize, he would be deported.

These three clerks scared and intimidated the lottery winner. They were able to convince the winner to name them as co-purchasers, and then they cut him out of the deal and claimed the money themselves.

While I do not agree with how the three clerks handled the situation, being that their scheme was very greedy and underhanded, I also struggle with weather or not an undocumented immigrant should be entitled to lottery winnings?

It seems as if illegal, or undocumented immigrants are getting more and more rights daily. With this being the case, where is the incentive to become a legal immigrant?

The Rockland County district attorney commented on the case and stated that the man was entitled to claim the prize, despite the fact that he was an undocumented immigrant.

Does this seem right to you?
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COMMENTS
Altruist
Altruist
Eugene, OR
8 months ago: Pretty silly question. In our free market system anyone is allowed to gamble their hard earned wages thereby supporting our schools. This is essentially a tax on the foolish and we should be grateful that the undocumented are willing to support our state and local economies. If we don't allow them to collect, how else can we trick the gullible into handing over their hard earned cash?

Likewise if it were not for the taxes paid by the undocumented even though they are unable to collect anything our social security system would fail. We should be grateful for them for donating to the treasury and helping pay our debts. http://www.usatoday.com/money/perfi/taxe...
8 months ago: Really Al? Our social security system would fail without illegal's taxes? That's going a bit far.

As for an illegal buying a lottery ticket and winning, there is no requirement that they have to fulfill except to purchase the ticket and claim the prize and there never should be any other requirement, even age is up for grabs.

A tax is levied against all the citizens under the control of the government of the area the tax is collected in or has jurisdiction of. A person purchasing a lottery ticket is not being taxed and is only a fool or being foolish if they cannot afford to spend the money on that particular type of risky investment.

If you continue to hold that opinion, I would advise you to divest yourself of all stocks and bonds and remove all your funds from any banking or savings institution not 100% under your control and put it under a rock where only you know its location.

Risk is risk no matter what the vehicle of return is based upon.

As for you sports fans, divest yourself of all you hopes and dreams that your team will win and never attend another game, you are making a foolish investment of your time and energy on an investment you have no control of. That's just one example of a foolish investment with over-expectant dreams of high returns, not to mention the high cost of tickets, food and beverages.
8 months ago: There is no requirement to be a resident on most lottery systems in the US. So yes the guy should be able to collect and then arrested fined and deported.
8 months ago: Fined? Guess I should check that, I thought they just shipped them back to their home country. And yes, they should be deported, with their winnings.
8 months ago: It is a mechanism to tax the criminals though.

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