The Good, the Bad and the Ugly: A New Year Story (IMPACT of ILLEGAL ALIENS on our SOCIETY/COUNTRY)

Dear Readers of Maine, I thought long and hard about this New Year. I thought carefully about the Good, the Bad and the Ugly. I thought about my beginnings, my experiences, and my life as it is now.

I write about immigration because of its impacts on my life, its impacts on my children’s future in America, and immigration impacts on all of America today.

Many of you never thought about immigration, and many of you still do not today. Numerous friends of mine still do not but more and more do. So I will begin my story with this.

Prior to 9-11, long prior to, I was a native Californian. I never planned on NOT remaining a native Californian. That is my roots, my home and where my heart still lies.

Many of you call Maine your home, with your family roots and where your heart lays. But the state of Maine, as you recognize her today, may not be the same Maine ten years from now. I have good reason to declare this to you all. I never dreamed that I would write the same words about Colorado, but I write them today.

I moved out of California, fleeing what was once a wonderful birthplace for myself and my two children. We all settled here in rural Colorado where I found, much to my astonishment, low car and home insurance rates. Wow, we had hit the jackpot. I found emergency rooms devoid of people. I found wonderful schools, with teachers that spent their time educating students who wanted to be in school, and I found families who took real pride in being called "American".

In 11 years of residing in Colorado, that has changed. Our car insurance rates have been driven up, slowly and insidiously, by the lack of insured and licensed drivers. Our homeowner’s insurance costs are driven up by population growth coupled with ensuing crime. Our emergency rooms are filled with families needing, seeking, free treatment for the common cold. And our public school education is being driven down yearly by a need to educate and communicate with students whose allegiance lies in other countries and not with America. We have students refuse to stand for our Pledge of Allegiance in our public schools. Not that I would force my children to say a pledge to another country while visiting their schools, but out of respect, I would require them to stand. These students in Colorado refuse to stand in our tax-paid public schools because they state, "We are not Americans." And they add; "We can come and go across the border because we have every right to do so." They do not have 'every right' but they are being given these rights, legal or not, in our country.

Many of my friends happen to be immigrants here. I applaud them and I respect them and perhaps more importantly, they are my friends. Many of my friends are citizens here by birth. Again, they are my friends. And my friends are impacted by allowed illegal immigration even when they are unaware of it. So are you.

One of my close friends moved her family to Florida last year. She is moving back to Colorado, not because she does not like Florida, she loves Florida. She is moving back due to unchecked immigration issues in Florida, even though she does not realize it. One of her children gets nosebleeds from allergies. A bloody nose is not a huge problem, unless you are a resident of Florida. You see, due to the "Large numbers", and I will quote her here, “of immigrants who carry illnesses that are blood-born", any child who bleeds during school is sent home. Immediately. For the remainder of the day. So my friend's child is missing so much school she has no choice but to relocate once again. Is she an anti-immigration activist friend? No. We talk about education, we talk about our families, we talk about our lives and we do not discuss immigration. Perhaps we should. Perhaps all of us should, so I will be the first to address it with you. As I said early on, this government action or non-action regarding our porous United States borders will impact Maine at some point in your future. It will impact you by population growth driven by fleeing residents of other states, or it will impact you by larger and larger numbers of drug availability in your schools. Perhaps it will impact you in several ways, but rest assured, it will impact Maine down the road.

I am sure most of you do not recognize this as a problem in Maine. I know Colorado residents looked at me as if I had stepped off of another planet when I first addressed immigration issues here. We had less than 100 English as a Second Language Learners in our schools in 1995. We have 2,300 now, and per our school district superintendent, the number is growing daily. Not weekly, not monthly, not yearly, but daily. My children are ‘not afforded’ much here. Each year, during the No Child Left Behind district accountability meetings I listen to my various school principal’s talk about the programs they are dropping, to put to use the .5 or 1.0 (one half day or full day) teachers in the Language Acquisition programs instead of standard classroom curriculum. Each year, we lose a little more that my children will need to become active, productive, members of our society education-wise. Each year the reported incidents of drug abuse rise a bit more in our schools, just as they do in yours.

I know drug use is climbing in Maine; I have followed the national trends and data supplied from our government. I know that almost all of your children’s marijuana supply is imported through Mexico and delivered to Maine through New York Dominican gangs and also drugs are 'imported' across the Canadian border. Almost all of Colorado’s illegal drug choices are delivered through our porous southern and northern borders on the West Coast.

So when do you say "enough" to your congressmen and your senators? These are the people who you employ, these congressmen and senators, who swear to serve you, the American citizens, while taking their oath of office while they hold their hand on a Bible.

Ladies and gentlemen of Maine, this issue really is here right now for you. You have the Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP), and League of United Latin American Citizens (LULAC), and the Immigrant Legal Advocacy Project putting pressure on your governor.

Understand that these Maine organizations are powerful coalitions. One man, who you will 'meet' shortly, is John Connors, your local LULAC Maine regional director. I was introduced to this local Maine resident when he emailed me following my column, “Are Congratulatory Notes in Order?” He contacted me along with many other wonderful people living in Maine.

Have a quick read, in part, for what resides with you in Maine. (Hint! Mr. Connors!) Then ask yourselves again, is this really what we envision for America’s future? For yours? For your family’s?

"It makes my brown skin crawl to know that you live in Maine, we are here and we are growing and we are staying get over it boy."

In closing dear residents of Maine, I will leave you with the following thoughts.

“The Good” is the good in us all, the willingness to aid others, to open our hearts, to open our communities, and to open our country to others. Many of my friends would be unknown to me if we did not do this.

“The Bad” is the future for our country, and for our children if our politicians continue to put blinders on, do what pleases them, and not hear what the people who elect them request in our country.

“The Ugly” is what already resides here, in the lack of lawfullness, the lack of respect for America, and the lack of concern for American residents future.

Happy New Year to you all. May we now begin the healing process of what ails America.

" I wonder how that might play with the guest workers who will be eligible to collect Social Security for life, after 18 months of work in the U.S.? "

http://www.townhall.com/columnists/michellemalkin/mm20040107.shtml

The criminal raid on Social Security
Michelle Malkin
January 7, 2004

My 8-week-old son's Social Security card recently arrived in the mail. On the back, there's a stern warning: "Improper use of this card or number by anyone is punishable by fine, imprisonment or both."

Welcome to the world of government theft and selective enforcement, my boy.

While innocent babes who have yet to earn a penny are threatened with jail time for misusing Social Security cards, the Bush administration appears set this week to turn the ailing government pension program into an international relief fund for illegal alien workers who used counterfeit Social Security cards and stolen numbers to secure illegal jobs.

Unlike the bedtime stories I tell at night, I am not making this up.

This belated gift to the open-borders lobby and Mexican President Vicente Fox is part of a larger amnesty plan that has been in the works since before the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks. So, why exactly are we rewarding a country that has been obstinately opposed to the War on Terror? Go ask Mr. Brilliant, Karl Rove. This I do know: It couldn't have come at a worse time from either a fiscal or national security standpoint.

According to Rep. Clay Shaw, R-Fla., chairman of the House Ways and Means subcommittee on Social Security, benefits paid to retirees will exceed revenues in just 15 years. The pay-as-you-go system could go belly up as early as 2030. These projections don't take into account the economic impact of the Bush proposal, which would allow untold millions of illegal aliens from Mexico to collect full cash benefits for themselves and their families from their home country -- without having to work the required number of years that law-abiding American citizens must work to be eligible for payouts.
---snip----

"The Bush administration has reportedly completed a draft of a treaty between the U.S. and Mexico that will give the Mexican government at least $345 billion in Social Security payments for Mexicans who have worked in the U.S. legally and illegally. The treaty, which is unique in that it provides a foreign government Social Security money even for those of its citizens who have worked illegally in America, may be timed to coincide with the 2004 elections.

"If the draft treaty becomes law, it will dismantle the chief provision of the 1996 Welfare Reform Act, a law which has saved U.S. taxpayers $72 billion since inception, because it will give Social Security payments to illegal aliens and legal aliens who have not paid into our payroll tax system for the requisite 10 years."

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,79013,00.html

Totalization: Sellout of the American Worker (Bush Admin & Illegal Immigration)
On News/Activism 11/20/2004 7:36:05 PM PST · 157 replies · 1,715+ views
Eagle Forum ^ | 11/17/04 | Phyllis Schlafly
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1285041/posts

ONE ILLEGAL COULD COST U.S. TAXPAYERS ONE-HALF MILLION BUCKS

"If a 24-year-old Mexican national who has worked illegally in the U.S. for three years is able to present documents from a friendly doctor and either a W-2 or pay stubs that indicate $12,000 in annual earnings, he will be eligible for the following: nearly $8,000 per year in disability income (adjusted for inflation), until age 65, at which point he would receive the same amount as retirement pay. (If he manages to get an under-the-table job in the U.S. or Mexico, he will be able to double-dip for a second income stream.) If he is survived by his wife or dependents, his family would be able to receive up to almost $12,000 annually. If he dies at 60, and his widow lives to 85, U.S. taxpayers will be on the hook for nearly a half-million dollars. That’s for one worker brought into Social Security by the pact." Source: Joel Mowbray, National Review, 1/27/03, pp. 22, 24

162,000 MEXICAN BENEFICIARIES?

" ‘We are concerned about the sheer magnitude of the agreement,’ said a House Republican aide who is an expert on Social Security. About 94,000 beneficiaries living abroad have been brought into the system by the 20 existing international agreements. A Mexican agreement alone could bring in 162,000 in the first five years." Source: Jonathan Weisman, Washington Post, 12/19/02, p. A1

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