A Citizen's Suggestions (to a Reluctant Government) to Stem The Crisis of Illegal Immigration

self | 08/21/05 | joanie-f

[joanie-f]

Something happened in Boston in the winter of 1773 that served as evidence that the final straw had been laid on the camel’s back … and the spark for a revolution against tyranny and aristocracy was ignited.

What happened in Boston spread, and other colonial seaports defiantly followed the example set by Sam Adams (‘It does not require a majority to prevail, but rather an irate, tireless minority keen to set brush fires in people’s minds’). When the news spread of what Sam Adams and a handful of Boston patriots had done, other seaports all down the Atlantic coastline followed the example and staged similar acts of defiance of their own.

Of all of the signers of our Declaration of Independence, Sam Adams probably best embodies those character traits found in colonial American patriots. He was an eloquent man, determined to keep himself informed regarding the abuses of power that continued to be heaped upon the colonies, and, in addition to sharing his insight and stirring eloquence, he was not afraid to act when it appeared that words would no longer suffice.

In spite of the education garnered, and knowledge shared, on this forum, I believe that most adult Americans could not even tell you who Sam Adams was. And, of those who are aware of his role in the revolution … and beyond … I believe most know him through his most famous declaration, ‘If you love wealth more than liberty, the tranquility of servitude better than the animating contest of freedom, depart from us in peace. We ask not your counsel nor your arms. Crouch down and lick the hand that feeds you. May your chains rest lightly upon you and may posterity forget that you were our countrymen’.

Powerful words indeed … and perhaps more powerful now than then.

But another of Adams’ statements may even prove to be more pertinent and providential in America 2005:

Among the natural rights of the colonists are there: First a right to life, second to liberty, and thirdly to property. Together with the right to defend them in the best manner they can.

Life, liberty and property were the three sanctified entities that our Founders sought, and sacrifice beyond our comprehension, to guarantee each and every American – not only their eighteenth century contemporaries, but every one of us who has followed in their footsteps.

Yet during our lifetimes alone, there have been countless examples of government gone awry that have represented a direct and destructive assault upon the sanctity of those three God-given human rights that our Founders sought to ensure for us. The government-sponsored murders at Waco, the Supreme Court decision in Roe vs. Wade, the passage of the McCain-Feingold assault on the First Amendment, the court-ordered murder of Terri Schiavo, and the government land grab upheld two months ago in Kelo vs. New London come to mind. And in between each of those travesties, there occurred dozens more.

What happened in Douglas, Arizona this week deserves to be added to the growing list of what our Founders would have called ‘grievances against the King’.

In America 2005, we are experiencing a growing arrogance on the part of government at all levels … represented by the passing of liberty-restrictive laws and by judicial rulings that all but declare the Constitution a nuisance, and the American citizen a slave of the state.

But not only is government pro-actively trampling on our three most precious God-given rights, it is also accomplishing the same result by simply refusing to defend them when their sanctity is threatened by outsiders.

The illegal immigration travesty is the prime example of death through neglect.. We are pro-actively fighting a ‘war on terrorism’ six thousand miles from our shore, and yet an onslaught that is threatening to destroy us, both physically and economically, and that also affords terrorists the ability to find a home and a breeding ground from which to proselytize on our own soil, and in our own neighborhoods, is being allowed to continue unabated. Government efforts to stop illegal immigration have been half-hearted, at best – and entirely unsuccessful.

Alexander Hamilton (and Washington and Jefferson as well) vehemently opposed granting immediate citizenship to new immigrants, writing, ‘To admit foreigners indiscriminately to the rights of citizens, the moment they foot in our country, would be nothing less than to admit the Grecian horse into the citadel of our liberty and sovereignty.’ And he repeatedly warned against allowing masses of immigrants to cross our borders, because he believed that our safety and sovereignty would be threatened by such ‘reckless policy’.

The Founders’ concerns were focused on the deadly threats to our republic represented by failing to limit legal immigration. It’s difficult to imagine what they would think of laws and court rulings that hold the American citizen/taxpayer hostage to the ‘rights’ of illegal immigrants. The fact that the American legal/judicial system would go so far as to seize the property of an American citizen and lawfully convey it to an illegal immigrant would surely be beyond their ability to comprehend, let alone condone.

The dollar cost of illegal immigration is rising exponentially, and consists of (among other considerations), the cost to the American taxpayer of:

• Providing ‘benefits’ to those illegal immigrants who are hired by American businesses looking to make a quick, illegal buck, but who provide no healthcare – thus causing their illegal employees to obtain ‘free’ (on the backs of the taxpayer) healthcare (thanks to the Emergency Medical Treatment and Active Labor Act of 1985).

• Food stamps, free education and school lunches, subsidized housing, and seemingly countless entitlement ‘perks’ for their children born on this side of the border.

• The cost to the American taxpayer of supposedly ‘cheap labor’ being obtained by unscrupulous businesses.

• Driving down the wages that American citizens receive in whatever businesses the cheap immigrant labor finds a foothold (generally agriculture, construction and food services)

• Incarceration costs of those illegals who drive uninsured or otherwise get in trouble with the law, pro-bono legal services, and the cost of interpreters

• The drain, sometimes to the point of collapse in the border states, on the healthcare system … indirectly resulting in inferior, and more expensive, healthcare for our own citizens.

  All of the above expenses, and more, have resulted in estimates ranging from $10 billion to $40 billion a year pilfered from the American taxpayers’ pockets as a result of our government’s unwillingness to address the immigration issue.

  I can think of much better ways to spend our money, one of which would put a major dent in the cause of the US/Mexico border immigration crisis.

  Simplistically, here is a layman’s partial solution – a very rough and ‘non-expert’ draft which would, of course require significant ‘fine tuning’ …

  Let’s use the ‘average’ of the $10 to $40 billion estimates, and assume that illegal immigrants cost the taxpayer $25 billion annually.

  The length of the US (CA, AZ, NM, TX)-Mexico border is approximately 2,000 miles.

  Many nuts-and-bolts conservatives (yours truly included) have suggested building a wall and/or stationing armed guards as a reasonable solution to the illegal immigration problem occurring across our southern border.

  Let’s look at the potential cost of doing both:

  The extraordinarily effective protective wall that Israel has built in the West Bank in order to prevent the infiltration of Palestinian suicide bombers cost them $1.6 million per mile.

  Using that figure, the construction of a similar wall along our entire southern land border, would cost $1.6 million/mile x 2,000 miles = $3.2 billion.

  Now, if we were to build small guard stations and assign an armed guard at each station every half-mile along that wall, we would require 2,000 x 2 = 4,000 guard stations.

  Let’s liberally assume that each small station (something along the lines of this or this ) would cost $100,000 each to install (including wiring for air conditioning and a set of outside floodlights, plumbing, communications equipment, etc.). The total cost for all 4,000 stations would be $400 million.

  If we were to station guards at each station so that each worked an 8-hour shift, five days a week – and hired a sufficient number of guards so as to have a guard on duty 24 hour a day, seven days a week -- we would require 21 eight-hour shifts (totaling 168 hours) per week with each guard working a 40 hour week. Therefore we would require 4.2 guards per station.

  4.2 guards per station x 4,000 stations = a total of 16,800 guards needed to patrol the border.

  Let’s assume a cost of training each guard (in the procedures to be followed and in firearms training, both of which would be done in classes of 100 or more guards per class), and the providing of each guard with a firearm, to amount to $2,500/guard. Then the cost of training 16,800 would be $42 million.

  Assume that each guard is paid an annual salary and benefits totaling $75,000. The total annual salary/benefits cost for all 16,800 guards would amount to $1.26 billion.

  Now take the estimated $25 billion dollar per year to the taxpayer cost of illegal immigration and subtract the $3.2 billion cost of an Israeli-like security wall running along the entire border and the $400 million cost of guard stations positioned every half mile along that wall, the $42 million training costs, and the $1.26 billion in guard salaries and we are left with $20.1 billion dollars (a full 80% of the figure with which we started) – which could be used for maintenance purposes, insurance, utility costs, additional equipment, etc, with a sizeable surplus left over.

  The large portion of the outlay described above is a one-time – as opposed to annual -- cost (the construction of the wall itself, especially). The construction of the wall would surrely employ thousands of Americans in the process. As would the guard positions, which would presumably be permanent, unless and until the exodus were to subside.

  Of course, all of the above are simply the estimates of a layperson, who has no expert knowledge in the costs of the physical items involved. But I believe those estimates to be not unrealistic. Neither do I suggest that I have covered all financial considerations that would be involved.

  My entire purpose in creating this hypothetical example is to suggest simply that I believe there is a fundamental, nuts-and-bolts solution to the crisis represented by the exodus of illegals coming across our southern border. And I also believe that the financial cost of such a common sense solution would be nowhere near as prohibitive as the financial cost of continuing to support (and now actually cater to, at the cost of our own freedoms) non-citizens who have committed a crime simply by being here in the first place.

  How to address the problems cause by those illegals who are already here is an entirely different issue. But I believe that stemming the source of the problem now is entirely within our power … and entirely possible, dollar-wise.

  As for the ramifications of the Douglas, Arizona Ranch decision …

  I can’t help but wonder when we citizens of America 2005 will declare that the last straw has been placed on the camel’s back. Are we more ‘tolerant’ of the tyranny of government than Sam Adams and his fellow patriots were? Are we more of a mindset that we will not take action until the abuse occurs in our own backyard? Are we more willing to wear the chains to which Adams referred, because we love the tranquility of servitude better than the animating contest of freedom?

  Back in 1999, Claire Wolfe observed in her book, ‘ 101 Things To Do ‘Til The Revolution’:

  ‘America is at that awkward stage. It's too late to work within the system, but too early to shoot the bastards. '

  Considering the atrocities (both by neglect and by overt action) committed by our government in the six years since Claire penned that thought, I can’t help but wonder whether we have been pushed significantly closer to the revolution she envisioned in those last three words.

  ~ joanie ..

[WilliamofCarmichael]

Superb!

Like listening to classical music -- or reading something Thomas Sowell wrote.

[TheForceOfOne]

The evidence is overwhelming; the excuses why we haven't secured our borders are weak. More than any reason as to how we got in this situation it is political pandering to Mexico and to the liberal ideology that has held this country hostage for decades from political correctness to Affirmative Action that rose in the 1960's out of what was perceived as white guilt for the doings of previous generations of Americans who did it legally according to the laws of that time, ever since then it has been kind of a pay back, pay the piper kind of deal in the eyes of minorities and it has no end until unless whites become the minority and the excuse runs dry.

It is also the pandering going on from both parties seeking future political power derived from new Spanish votes instead of the votes from legal Americans. To believe that only whites would have belittled minorities at some point in our history or the history of any nation is naive, once again those who have power abuse it. More blacks have been enslaved by Arabs than anyone and they are doing it today, blacks enslave blacks in Africa too and to this day know one says a word about it. The reconciliation has already been made yet the hands are still out demanding more free handouts from the pockets of today’s tax payers and businesses and it must stop.

The drive continues by minority political activists who terrorize businesses demanding compensation for blacks and deposit the money in their own pockets for slavery of black ancestors from Americans today who haven't a clue if their ancestors owned slaves or if they were even in the country at that time.

The border problem is caused by the will of the government to turn a blind eye on businesses that hire illegals to keep costs low and compete with other companies who also hire illegals and the lack of will to say no to a minority group such as Mexicans because we have been told for decades we are oppressors and Mexicans are just innocent people crossing out border for work while conveniently leaving out the murders, rapes, gangs like MS-13 that terrorize out street and our citizens, our hospitals are closing from the flood of illegals with no medical insurance, our jails over crowded with criminals, etc. all of these thing bare an undue burden on the American tax payer and our safety.

The things I have mentioned are all connected by political correctness created by the left just as the antiwar activists carry the same flag of protesters from the 1960's about Vietnam, nothing has changed in 30 or 40 years in the eyes of the left and the right has bowed to the pressure and sacrificed our security and our culture as a free nation that everyone is equal. Today whites are less equal in the job market, or when a crime is committed the term "hate crime" is directed almost exclusively at whites, we carry the burden of Welfare for minorities, we are told that we can't change a social security plan that is nothing more than a house of cards because they want to continue distributing the earned wealth of Americans to everyone including those who don't deserve it because they don't contribute and that is socialism. Racial slurs once used incorrectly by whites are flung at minorities by minorities everyday with not even a blink of the eye, why is that better and why is it allowed. In Mumford, Texas white students were denied the right by school officials to attend another school based purely on the color of their skin, and it was stated openly by school officials and that is another example as to how favoring anyone or denying anyone based on the color of their skin is wrong. Allowing anyone to breach our borders because of the color of their skin or race, etc. in clear violation of our laws must be stopped. Know one should receive any preferential treatment based on color or race.

The reason the border is an issue today is because we are getting sick and tired of the reverse bias and finally we are standing up to it. Now the border is an issue to be taken seriously by politicians who must bite the bullet of political correctness that has many branches and talk about it in the coming political cycles.

The Democrats have come out of the gate first on the border problem and that’s fine with me because it isn't a matter of Democrats versus Republicans it is a matter of breaking a barrier that has prevented us from fixing the problem. Once the barrier is broken we can make serious progress.

I am not a racist; I want all people treated equally, no laws to create a biased advantage to anyone at any time. We must let go of the past and move to the future as one nation of many ethnic backgrounds meshed into one society of Americans who speak English as the primary language with no hyphenations such as African-American, Spanish-American, etc. that attempts to create a tossed salad society with know common language. We are all Americans as long as we are here legally; everyone else is an invader breaching our borders. The military’s prime objective is to protect our borders to maintain our sovereignty and to continue to exist as the United States of America.

[Borax Queen]

Thank you! I'm on a few "lists," heh heh, but always appreciate the coverage.

[DumpsterDiver]

Apologies for any duplicate pings.
Apologies for any duplicate pings.

OK, but it better not happen again.
OK, but it better not happen again.

Thanks for re-posting this, joanie-f. I'd saved it from the other thread. It's a keeper.

[nicmarlo]

yw, BQ

[freepatriot32]

Libertarian ping.To be added or removed from my ping list freepmail me or post a message here

[freepatriot32]

Rights, farms, environment ping.
Let me know if you wish to be added or removed from this list.
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[Petruchio]

Joanie,

I LOVE the idea of a wall. There is a fundamental difference between what you propose and what the Berlin Wall was. The Berlin Wall was designed by East Germany to prevent East Germans from escaping. Your Wall is to prevent foreigners from invading.

Actually, the more I think about it, I think the Mexicans would like your Wall too. I mean, just think of the Mural they can paint on the south side of it . . .

[blackie]

Roger that jonie ~ thanks for the ping HiJinx!

Protect our borders and coastlines from all foreign invaders!

Support our Minutemen Patriots!

Be Ever Vigilant ~ Bump!

[TexasKamaAina]

The American public was until circa 1965 unafraid of asserting its superiority as a people, a culture, a nation...Did I make you wince?

You hit the nail on the head. What makes me wince is when I hear someone complaining about the border problem who hastens to add that his concern is strictly about national security. This is usually said to deflect any charges of racism. But the fact is that if everyone of the millions of illegals in this country were properly vetted from a national security standpoint, they would still bring the same unwanted and negative consequences on our economy and culture that we are today experiencing.

[E.G.C.]

BTTT!!!!!!!

[c-b 1]

I can’t help but wonder when we citizens of America 2005 will declare that the last straw has been placed on the camel’s back. Are we more ‘tolerant’ of the tyranny of government than Sam Adams and his fellow patriots were? Are we more of a mindset that we will not take action until the abuse occurs in our own backyard? Are we more willing to wear the chains to which Adams referred, because we love the tranquility of servitude better than the animating contest of freedom?

If memory serves Adams and his fellow patriots, were about 3% of the population at the time. There is a certian border community who's backyard is one of many where the abuse is occuring. The population of said community is over 100,000, 3% of that population would be 3,000. There is a neighborhood/border watch group in that community with 30 participants.

If only .003% are willing to stand up, and say NO, that means 99.997% are willing to wear the chains!!!!

[Czar]

Absolutely superb, expressing the thoughts held by so many of us. Great work, joanie.

You simply cannot write a piece like this unless you are a loyal American conservative. Not a GOP Big Tent RINO, liberal or moderate--a loyal American conservative.

With apologies for any duplicate pings. Don't want anyone to miss this one.

[Ron H.]

Great article and love your About Page here.

[monkeywrench]

Simply excellent! Great comments, too!

[TaxRelief]

bttt

[planekT]

Good article. Anyone who thinks we can't build an effective fence across the border because it is too expensive need look no further then what Texas is getting ready to spend on the Trans Texas Corridor, a whopping 38 million dollars per mile.

In fact, a cost/benefit analysis of a border fence vs the Corridor would probably open a few peoples eyes.

Now where is the elected official who will put it together and disseminate the information to the public?

(((crickets go chirp chirp)))

[rolling_stone]

A wall is one part of the solution..a wall would push illegals into entering in other avenues, such as by boat along coastlines or smuggled in in small planes like drugs are smuggled in. In addition many illegals enter the US through ports of entry with false documents, smuggled in etc. In addition a large percentage of illegal aliens entered with legal visas but overstayed their visas or violated the terms of their visas such as working on a tourist visa. Enforcement needs to be multi pronged.

The buck stops at the top and we need to put more pressure on the top. We need the Presidente of the USA to say enough is enough and that we will enforce the laws we have on the books and give our enforcement personnel a few more tools to work with. We need to stage protests like Sheehan until the President acts. If something is not done, it might turn to real internal strife and bloodshed and tea parties. How the Whitehouse can ignore that is beyond my comprehension.

First step is implementation of a counterfeit proof social security card so employers cannot feign innocence by aliens using false documents. There are two reasons for lack of enforcement of employer sanctions, one is lack of funding for the program and two is false documents.

We need to enforce the sanctions vigorously. We also need to take away benefits from illegal aliens. Why should we allow illegal or legal aliens to use public taxpayer benefits? That is insane. We should deport any illegals using public benefits like we used to do with legal immigrants.

The Supreme Court ruling that we must provide education must be challenged again as several things have change since it was decided, namely it is now illegal to employ illegal aliens and second they have proven to be an unmanageable burden,. It is a job for the US Attorney General or Some states Attorney General to take the case again.

We need to quit locating and releasing illegals. We need to house or jail them in work camps in the middle of the desert and provide some punishment for their illegal activities. This revolving door of catching and returning them tne same day to have them return the same night is insane. Releasing OTM's without bond is also insane-how many ever show up for their hearings? We need to put pressure on the countries that these people come from to solve their problems. No foreign aid to countries that encourage illegals. Mexico is taking a crap right now on the US. They are corrupt and those in power could care less about the peasants and prefer to push them off on us. It is time to close the border and let them have a revolution. It can't get any worse than it is.

We also need to eliminate one of the biggest loopholes which is automatic citizenship by birth in the USA even if the parents are here illegally or on a non-immigrant visa. Its well know in foreign countries that they should come to the USA and have their babies here thus million of anchor babies.

We have to close not just the front door, but the back door, the windows and the chimney or they will find a way in.

[TaxRelief]

What makes me wince is when I hear someone complaining about the border problem who hastens to add that his concern is strictly about national security. This is usually said to deflect any charges of racism.

One could equally argue that allowing open borders with Mexico is in itself "racism". One hundred years from now illegal immigrants will be demanding reparations because their ancestors were treated like slaves, paid sub-standard wages, exploited and abused by elite hoteliers and wealthy,corporate farm owners.

[cynicom]

"a reluctant governmentt"

That is a world class understatement if ever there was one

As a professed conservative, surely you realize this is a lockstep republican forum. With that in mind, I enjoyed your dissertation. Well written and insightful.

To be to the point, there will be no change until blood flows.

Sam Adams, Warren, Hancock and the rest were men of their time, men that we are now lacking. Our politicians are nothing short of power grubbing individuals that care less for this country.