The Matt Walsh Show
Ep. 1726 - The Solution To The Immigration Problem That No One Is Talking About
30 Jan 2026
Chapter 1: What is the main topic discussed in this episode?
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Today on the Matt Walsh Show, as more Republicans start to fold on deportations, I want to talk about some very simple policy changes that could be made to help solve the illegal immigration problem. These are solutions that, for some reason, almost nobody's talking about. Also, Don Lemon is finally arrested for the various federal crimes he committed on camera.
Plus, the NFL has just hired a chief kindness officer. Yes, a chief kindness officer. Why? Who is this for exactly? We'll talk about all that and more today on the Matt Walsh Show.
Whenever clear battle lines are drawn on some major national issue and the left is busy canonizing martyrs and blowing their little whistles every day, one of the hardest things to do is step back and reassess all of your available options at a strategic level. At the moment, for example, it's very easy to conclude that the main dispute in this country concerns ICE raids.
You might think that the left opposes ICE raids and the right supports them. You might conclude that at the highest levels of government, the debate is between bleeding-heart leftists who don't want young Juan to be separated from his parents on the one side and hard-nosed right-wingers who simply want the law to be enforced on the other.
But there's very good reason to believe that this divide doesn't actually exist. at least not to the extent that we're led to believe. And here's why. Neither major political party has even suggested taking a very simple and straightforward step that would instantly resolve in the departure of millions of illegal aliens from this country without the need for a single ICE raid.
There wouldn't need to be any, quote unquote, family separations or federal agents with their scary masks that everybody's upset about or anything like that. All you have to do is take this one step and you will solve a significant part of the problem that both parties claim to be concerned about. I'm talking about getting rid of the Individual Taxpayer Identification Number, or ITIN.
In case you're not familiar with the concept, an ITIN takes the place of a social security number if you're an illegal alien or anyone else without a valid social security number. With an ITIN, an illegal alien can obtain credit. They can open savings accounts and checking accounts at a bank. They can start a business with an employer identification number.
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Chapter 2: What simple policy changes could help solve the immigration problem?
They can work as independent contractors. They can obtain driver's licenses in many states. And they can apply for mortgages. The ITIN has been around for a long time now, since the 1990s, but there was never any vote in Congress to establish it.
Instead, the IRS unilaterally created the idea of ITIN in order to make it easier for illegal aliens to pay taxes and to pay into the Social Security system. The idea was that since the IRS was required by law to tax everybody's income, the agency had the authority to create the ITIN system and allow illegal aliens to use it.
And on top of that, the IRS wouldn't alert immigration officials about anyone using an ITIN in order to encourage illegal aliens to register. So the IRS pitched the idea as a win-win. The U.S. would collect more tax revenue and more funding for Social Security, which the illegal aliens wouldn't be able to tap into. And in turn, illegal aliens could get tax refunds as well as child tax credits.
What's happened since the 1990s, of course, is that this rationale, as flimsy as it was to begin with, completely collapsed.
Chapter 3: Why are Don Lemon's legal troubles significant?
The ITIN system was premised on the idea that we'd have a secure border. But if the federal government allows foreigners to enter the country at will, as the Biden administration did, then ITIN allows for massive distortions in the market. There are dozens of lenders that allow foreigners with ITINs to get home loans from PNC Bank to Wells Fargo to First National Bank.
If you're on the market for any kind of home, including a mobile home, then you're competing with every foreigner with an ITIN.
Chapter 4: What is the role of the NFL's chief kindness officer?
Here's just one example that I pulled from X. It's from Triad Financial Services, which is based in Florida, and it states, quote, smarter financing for manufactured homebuyers. Individual taxpayer identification numbers are now accepted for all chattel programs, gold, silver, and bronze.
The advertisement also promises that low down payments are available and that a 550 credit score is more than acceptable. And although it's not supposed to work like this, an ITIN can function like a work authorization too. Until recently, according to various social media posts and videos, you could use an ITIN to sign up for many major food delivery services, for example.
For their part, DoorDash has denied this. They say that they require a social security number, but there are plenty of screenshots where their representatives have told people in the past that they only need an ITIN to create an account. So if you take away this system, which the IRS can do instantly, then you achieve two immediate benefits.
First, you lower the price of housing, particularly starter homes for American citizens, simple economics. If fewer people are trying to buy homes, the price will go down. You also lower competition for a lot of jobs. And second, you give illegal aliens a very good reason to leave since they won't have anywhere to live and they won't have any bank that will accept their money.
Now, it's true that there's a very small number of people living in this country who might want to use an ITIN for tax purposes, even though they aren't illegal aliens. If a U.S. citizen marries a foreigner who doesn't have a work authorization for some reason, they might need one of these to file a joint tax return, or a wealthy foreign investor might make money in the U.S.
and he needs an ITIN to pay taxes on investments. These are rare scenarios, and the IRS can easily distinguish these scenarios from an illegal alien who resides in the U.S. and wants an ITIN to purchase a home. So why is no one in Congress in either party suggesting a change like this? They might not solve every problem, but it would certainly be a big help.
Why is everyone fine with an arbitrary system that was invented by the IRS in the 1990s, which enables illegal aliens to act like they have social security numbers? Why are we talking about a crazy ice nurse and not any kind of systemic issue like this?
Now, as best I could tell, the only Republican who's proposing any kind of meaningful legislation on this front is a state lawmaker from Utah named Trevor Lee. This is from a local news station in the state. Quote, a bill introduced by Representative Trevor Lee that would end the driving privilege card program for immigrants is currently in the House Rules Committee waiting to be discussed.
A driving privilege card is issued to undocumented immigrants without lawful present status. It is a Class D license that allows the holder to drive a motor vehicle but cannot be used as identification by any Utah government entity, according to the Driver License Division. These cards can also be issued to individuals who are paroled in the U.S.
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Chapter 5: How does the ITIN system contribute to illegal immigration?
They'll pick up American citizens. They picked up a five-year-old child. We want documentation, and we are going to make sure we get it.
She's totally lying, of course, but everything she just said. This is not legal. This is not even close to legal, obviously. Creating a database for people to use in their efforts to obstruct law enforcement? This is a criminal conspiracy. And you'd think it would take an awful lot for Republicans to join forces with somebody like this.
She's advocating for the creation of a database that leftists can use to harass, attack, and ultimately murder ICE agents. I mean, it's not surprising to see bipartisan agreement on this point, because after all, the business interests that largely fund both parties have become very happy with, if not dependent on,
The fact that millions of illegal aliens with fake social security numbers provided by the IRS are working for their companies and taking out their loans.
That would explain why the Cato Institute, which is supposedly a libertarian think tank, although it's really an arm of the Democrat Party that Republicans pretend to take seriously, just put out this remarkable video along with some accompanying research. Watch as Cato attempts to make the argument that American citizens are more of a drain on our welfare system than illegal aliens. Watch.
Immigrant consumption of welfare benefits is a huge issue in the immigration debate. And it makes sense because the federal government and state governments spend about $3.4 trillion a year in welfare benefits in the United States. But when you drill down into the data, what you find is that immigrants consume on a per capita basis 24% fewer welfare benefits than native-born Americans do.
And then when you drill down even further, you find that non-citizens consume 53% less. And non-citizens, that includes illegal immigrants, green card holders, student visas, all the above. So while the welfare state is a big problem in American politics, and it's a huge issue that so many people are on welfare, it's not an imported problem. It's a native-born, homegrown problem.
And if you really want to do something about it, what we should do is build a higher wall around the welfare state, not around the country. If you want to read more about this research, come to Cato.org to read about immigrant and native-born consumption of welfare and entitlement benefits.
Now, the point of this video is to provide Republicans with a talking point which they can use as an excuse for caving on immigration enforcement. Completely dishonest. I mean, first of all, to be clear, he's counting Social Security as welfare, even though it's really a Ponzi scheme that you pay into and that you can only access when you're relatively old.
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Chapter 6: What are the implications of AI in the creative industry?
That's the lawyer's job. You've got to come up with some excuse. But every Democrat right now and everyone on the left, they're doing the same thing. Basically, their argument is that if you're committing a crime, but you film it while you're doing it, then it doesn't count. Well, actually, there's no fine print that says that actually a crime isn't a crime if you film it.
Let's say I saw a group of people.
stealing a car okay and i i see it happening and i pull out my phone and i record it from a distance from the outside and uh and to document what is happening right now you could argue that rather than recording i should call the police or something but let's just say that i said i see someone stealing a car i pull out my phone oh my gosh these people are stealing a car look at this
Well, in that case, nobody would say that I should be charged for helping to steal the car because objectively, I didn't. I didn't know this was going to happen. I was not involved in any way at all. I'm simply documenting it. Get into the ethics of documenting in these cases versus intervening or whatever, but you certainly can't say that I stole the car. But if I go with them,
OK, if I if I if let's follow the whole chain of events, if I know they're about to go steal a car. And I go with them filming. And I get in the car with them as they're stealing it, hop in the back seat and drive away with them. And on top of that, as I'm filming it, I am verbally affirming and encouraging everything they're doing.
Well, in that case, no sane person would buy my excuse if I said, no, I was just a journalist. I'm just a journalist. I'm just an innocent journalist. While I'm with them, yeah, steal the car. Let's go. Get out of here. The cops are coming. Nobody would buy that I'm a journalist. No, in that case, I'm as guilty as the thieves themselves because I am a thief.
I'm taking part in the crime, and that's exactly what Don Lemon did. Don Lemon falls into the latter category, not the former. He's not the guy who just happened to see this happen and takes out the camera. Oh, my gosh, look at what's going on. He was with them in the parking lot before they went in. He's on camera talking about what they're about to do, and the whole time he's cheering it on.
And so they have him dead to rights, and that's it. Now, I will say one word of caution about this that I think is important is that this is a gamble. To arrest Don Lemon is a gamble. I think it's the right gamble to take. I fully support it, clearly. I mean, I've been calling for him to be— Arrested since it happens. I'm happy that he's arrested. He should be arrested.
However, the caveat here is that you have to actually convict him and send him to prison. Okay, you must. Because if you don't do that, then the whole thing is a net loss, big time. It's a loss for the good guys. It's a win for Don Lemon and the bad guys. If you don't convict him and actually send him to prison for a considerable length of time.
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Chapter 7: What are the economic impacts of removing the ITIN system?
That's the only way. And the other thing is, you put him in prison, and even if he's only in prison for a few years, by the time he gets out, everyone's forgotten about this and nobody cares anymore. So at a minimum, you have to put him in prison until the point where the left has forgotten about him and moved on, which they will pretty quickly.
And so then he spends time in prison, he comes out, and he's still irrelevant. You got to do that. So this is the first step. That's the caution against people on the right that are celebrating.
Chapter 8: How does the NFL's new initiative reflect broader cultural changes?
It's not a win yet. Just making an arrest is not a win. You have to punish them. An arrest by itself is not only not a punishment, but it can be a reward for someone in a position like this if it is not followed by an actual punishment. So that's the word of caution.
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When you subscribe to the Whole Health System, a supplement as a preferred customer, go to bowelsofnature.com. Um, uh, By the way, Omar is very impressed with herself. She responded to somebody on X questioning why she didn't react differently if she thought it was a toxic substance.
A lot of people are asking like, if you thought it was a toxic substance, why didn't you seek medical attention or like at least wash, like change your shirt, you know, wash your hands or something. And Ilhan responded to that, said, I didn't do any of those things because I fear losing my dignity more than I fear losing my life. Something you coward losers will never understand, so f*** off.
Right, she fears losing her dignity. Well, too late for that, Ilhan. You know, that went out the window when you married your brother, you freak. You want to lose your dignity? You don't have any dignity to lose. Yeah, that went out the window when you used your position in Congress to enrich yourself exponentially. How are you a multimillionaire now, Ilhan?
So you don't have any dignity, you despicable scum. But also, it was apple cider vinegar, okay? Calm down, drama queen. This woman got sprayed with two teaspoons of salad dressing, and she's acting like it was a death sentence. I do not fear death. She's doused with a thimble full of vinegar. I do not fear death. I fear no man. Okay. And this whole thing is very weird.
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