hmmmm. I guess then I am one of the know nothings. I disagree with the article. I dont want anyone shoving their country's flag down my throat, no matter where they are from. I say this, if you want to come into this country do it the legal way. Otherwise you are breaking the law. Why didnt this article mention the latino gangs that are on the uprise , like the MS-13?
Yes it is.. Immigration produces democrats.. enliving the treason party..
What a load.
1. Who does the witholding? All those illegals who you see waiting on the corner for a job work for cash.
2. Even for illegals who pretend to be legal, do you think they are honest about the number of dependents when they fill out their w-2's?
Great news but totally irrelevant to the central discussion which is that our immigration laws are not being enforced.
What a crock of cr@p! This needs a barf alert.
"10 percent send kids to public schools."
Only if he re-defines who is an illegal. Anchor babies must not be included in this.
"illegal immigrants in 2004 accounted for 95 percent of all outstanding homicide warrants in Los Angeles and two-thirds of unserved felony warrants."
Have you ever watched the show "America's Most Wanted"?
The lowest 30% of American income earners not only have no income tax liability but they also qualify for the Earned Income Tax Credit (which is a governmment or, more accurately, taxpayer subsidy). What percentage of illegal aliens do you think are in the top 70% of income earners...virtually none I will bet
only 5 percent receive food stamps or unemployment assistance
There is no way to verify that because every state welfare agency as far as I know is prohibited from inquiring about an applicant's legal status. According to the US Census Bureau, 21% of all immigrants use various welfare programs...which is 43 percent higher than non-immigrants’ use (15 percent). There is no reason to believe that illegal immigrants (who are paid far less than other immigrants use welfare at the low rate this article claims
66 percent contribute to Social Security
The late John Attarian, who was one of the nation's foremost experts on Social Security, addressed the widespread myth that illegals are helping to save Social Security:
Immigration supporters argue that increasing immigration will push the taxpayer/beneficiary ratio back up and thereby avert the Social Security crisis. Seemingly sensible, this claim is extremely shaky.
Immigration contributes little to Social Security's finances. Alleged tax payments by illegal immigrants of $2.7 billion in 1990 were less than one percent of that year's Social Security revenues. So to substantially help Social Security, immigration would have to be much greater than it is now. Maintaining today's taxpayer/beneficiary ratio would require millions of immigrants every year, above future immigration already assumed by Social Security. Immigrants get old, too. So still more immigrants and their adult children would be needed to pay their benefits - perhaps 180 million by 2080. Adding such huge numbers of workers would depress labor productivity unless matched by trillions of dollars in investment. Since immigration is already making labor incomes stagnate, much higher immigration would almost certainly depress wages, and perhaps even reduce Social Security revenues. And most immigrants are poorly-educated and unskilled, hence earn low incomes, making them poor Social Security revenue sources.
Besides, much higher immigration would cause serious problems. The enormous population growth would overwhelm our infrastructure, energy supply, and natural resources, and greatly worsen urban sprawl. Political conflict is also likely, since poor working immigrants will understandably dislike being taxed to support wealthier Social Security retirees.
In some ways, immigration actually weakens Social Security. Some skilled foreign H-1B "guest workers" are recruited and supplied under contract to American firms. As employees of foreign firms, no Social Security taxes are withheld. Moreover, displacing Americans with cheaper immigrant labor means revenue losses for Social Security.
--John Attarian, Ph.D. (Economics) Author of Social Security: False Consciousness and Crisis
Tony Snow will also tell you there are 10 to 11 million illegal immigrates in the usa. A more correct figure would be 20-25 million. I do not believe any government stats on illegals, I believe my lying eyes instead.
I don't care if they open 1000 businesses, come here as millionaires, brain sugeons, quantum physicists or anything else. If they're here illegally--DEPORT'em. What is it about CRIMINAL that the "illegal immigrant lovers" don't understand??
Snow throws out the good news and the bad news, and concludes, America is still a great place. We know all that Tony. Most Americans want to make sure this nation remains a great place far into the future. Amnesty for illegals and continued open borders isn't the right way to go. Period.
Illegal immigration is about breaking US law, abusing the system and generally undermining the lives of law abiding US citizens. Promoting illegal immigration also undermines the efforts of foreigners to become legal citizens at some future date. Illegals have no rights. They shouldn't be given special treatment and allowed to go to the head of the line, in front of folks who've followed the legal immigration process from the get-go.
Most Americans have no problem with legal immigration. Some might want to reduce the over annual legal immigration numbers, some may want to increase those numbers. However, the vast majority of Americans oppose illegal immigration, backdoor guest worker-amnesty, employers who hire illegals and illegals who drain funding from the US social welfare system.
Illegal immigration is wrong and it needs to stop.
Another way to look at this is that 38% of Illegal Immigrants do not pay income tax, and 32% do not pay Social Security tax, and over 90% do not educate their children and assimilate them as Americans, when given the opportunity to do so for free..
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
What do the other 90% do with their kids?
For some reason, Tony Snow seems to equate illegal miscreants with good, hardworking Hispanics. I have no doubt the two sets intersect, but what good are we doing our own country if we don't have the resolve to boot out the border-jumpers, be they Hispanic, Irish, Arab, Slavic, etc.
"Total crime and property crime in California are half what they were in 1980; violent crime has fallen more than a third. The state's Hispanic population during that time has increased 120 percent." ---- fine, maybe the violent crime rate should have decreased by 2/3.
Police commanders may not want to discuss, much less respond to, the illegal-alien crisis, but its magnitude for law enforcement is startling. Some examples:
• In Los Angeles, 95 percent of all outstanding warrants for homicide (which total 1,200 to 1,500) target illegal aliens. Up to two-thirds of all fugitive felony warrants (17,000) are for illegal aliens.
• A confidential California Department of Justice study reported in 1995 that 60 percent of the 20,000-strong 18th Street Gang in southern California is illegal; police officers say the proportion is actually much greater. The bloody gang collaborates with the Mexican Mafia, the dominant force in California prisons, on complex drug-distribution schemes, extortion, and drive-by assassinations, and commits an assault or robbery every day in L.A. County. The gang has grown dramatically over the last two decades by recruiting recently arrived youngsters, most of them illegal, from Central America and Mexico.
• The leadership of the Columbia Lil’ Cycos gang, which uses murder and racketeering to control the drug market around L.A.’s MacArthur Park, was about 60 percent illegal in 2002, says former assistant U.S. attorney Luis Li. Francisco Martinez, a Mexican Mafia member and an illegal alien, controlled the gang from prison, while serving time for felonious reentry following deportation.
I take it this means Tony & you are at odds, since you proposed in your essay 'Antz' cutting off the incentives that draw the illegals here, while Tony believes the more the merrier.
Secure the borders!!!! Then we'll discuss amnesty.
Oh! And there is no-way I will vote for McCain, for anything.