Posted on 03/23/2005 6:50:06 AM PST by TaxRelief
RALEIGH --North Carolina has experienced one of the most rapid rates of growth in illegal immigration in the United States, according to a new report. The Tar Heel State can now claim to host about three percent of the nation's illegal-alien population.
This is clearly news, though media accounts that dwell on the rate of growth alone will tend to exaggerate the significance of the trend (it is easy to outpace the nation in percentage growth if your starting base is relatively low).
The real question is: does North Carolina's role as one of the nation's magnets for illegal immigration constitute good news or bad news?
It depends on what factors you are examining, and the relative importance you place on them. On the plus side, rapid rates of illegal immigration into North Carolina suggest that attractive opportunities still exist despite recent and wrenching structural changes in the economy. Also, there is a very-real improvement going on here in the standard of living of many thousands of fellow human beings. Obviously, those who come to America from impoverished foreign climes realize significant gains (even if the official data show them increasing the "poverty" rate).
But less obviously, native North Carolinians also experience sizable gains in living standards as new enterprises start up, new entrepreneurial energies are unleashed, and labor costs moderate in competitive service industries that pass along much of the savings to consumers in the form of lower prices.
On the other hand, there are some entries on the cost side of the ledger, too. Some native-born workers face intensified competition for jobs, driving down their wages. Because immigrant families tend to be younger and have more children, their presence somewhat strengthens the finances of federal entitlement programs such as Social Security and Medicare but they worsen the finances of school systems, public health departments, and Medicaid. There are some adverse social and cultural consequences, much of them having to do with language differences and what many believe to be an inadequate commitment to rapid and effective assimilation of immigrants by public and private institutions.
A basic problem is the "illegal" part of the moniker. The illegality of current waves of immigration means that we don't have an effective means of distinguishing honest, hard-working people looking for economic opportunity from would-be criminals, welfare dependents, and perhaps even terrorists. Because they fear arrest and deportation, illegal aliens are less likely to assert their rights, less likely to obtain insurance and other necessities of modern life, and have fewer options for bettering themselves and their children's prospects.
The fact that illegal immigration is so widely recognized and tolerated isn't helpful, either. Like other laws on the books but enforced only at the margins, our immigration rules breed contempt for the law and condone its evasion. Whatever your view about the optimal rate of immigration, it is critical that illegal immigration be significantly reduced.
The question, of course, is how to do that. As two able debaters will explain at a Thursday forum on immigration policy to be held by the John Locke Foundation in Raleigh, you can reduce illegal immigration either by 1) getting serious about enforcing current immigration laws, including sanctions for employers who hire illegals, or 2) increasing the annual quotas for legal immigration. You can even mix the two approaches.
One thing you can't do is ignore this complex, critically important issue.
http://www.johnlocke.org/events/event.html?id=237
Which kind? The immigration from the north or the immigration from the South? In a word? No. < /hardheadness off and I'm sort of joking :) >
I doubt Troxler will act any different than his predecessors
I doubt Troxler will act any different than his predecessors
NC is also attractive due to incredibly lax documentation requirements in order to receive a drivers license. There have been recent noises about trying to correct this situation, but I think that the ease of acquiring fraudulent ID has more to do with the popularity of NC for illegal immigrants than the economy.
El Paso, Tx has as many illegals as the entire stateof NC.
Stop illegal, criminal Mexican alien from taking jobs, allow the wage levels to climb and put unemployed blacks to work. It will be a better future for all of us.
Hmm...we simply cannot get a driver's license for our 17-year-old born-in-the-USA daughter. It might be the county we're in or it might be that getting an NC identification card is easy as pie. Don't know if it has to be fraudulent, though. Do know that here in Lee County, illegals are thick on the ground and getting thicker. We're partly agricultural, so perhaps that's part of it. I do know that every last governmental level, from the NGOs like HAVEN to the County Commissioners, are turning up the volume for cash. There's a proposal for added sales tax and for increasing the property tax.
Given that the pressure might well be related to illegals who are not otherwise capable of paying their public way, I would favor sales tax increases coupled with an attempt to locate and either legitimize or expel illegals.
And it's not necessarily that you hit on the ones speaking any form of Spanish. That's profiling and, as Ron White would say, that's wronnggggg. (and that's me joking: if you wanna catch the bad guys, you narrow the field of candidates, eh?)
Cheers!
Are we a nation of laws, or not?
Which laws can I now ignore? Tax laws?
Is El Paso still in Texas? I thought it had been incorporated into Juarez.
Right. TINO. Texan in name only.
Obviously we should crank up legal immigration. And crack down on the remaining few illegals. That would solve the 'illegal' problem instantly.
Guess that's too obvious to work ....
GOOD LORD!!!! They're charging 10 bucks to listen to people bitch and moan about immigration?!?!?!?? When there are thousands of FR threads you can read for free right from the comfort of your own home??!?!?!? They would have to PAY ME, and more than 10 bucks, to show up to one of those things.
I think we're more like a "banana democracy" now(we're so far gone, can't even use republic in that phrase). It's obvious that there are different sets of rules for the "in crowd" (multinational corps., certain highly placed operatives in both parties, anybody with a certain ethnic last name, etc.) and then there's the rest of us schmucks still trying to figure out how to return us to a republic or else we're toast.
That's about the size of it. If we're not past the "tipping point," then we're too close to turn it around before we do pass it.
It shows, Johnny, it shows. :-)
Hey, at least I didn't try to deliver a 6-minute nominating speech in 3 minutes and call my audience "effete pansies". What was THAT all about???
Griswold is a good guy, and quite sharp. Those of you in the Eastern Piedmont should try to make it if you can!
What control would I have over anyone on the floor? (I'm not the chair.) I tried to get him the extra time, but the mean-spirited control freaks preferred to argue about numbers on ballots.
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