Myth vs. Fact: (You cannot deport 12 million people) Oh Yes You Can!

Myth: Illegal immigrants contribute greatly to the American economy.

Fact: So-called statistics supporting this myth are typically a deceptive amalgam of statistics and supposition arranged to conceal an undeniable truth. Consider, for instance, this statement from the ACLU paper Immigrants and the Economy (2002): "Immigrants pay more than $90 billion in taxes every year and receive only $5 billion in welfare. Without their contributions to the public treasury, the economy would suffer enormous losses." If 32.5 million immigrants (the total of legal and illegal immigrants, according to the recent U.S. Census figures) really pay $90 billion in taxes, then they pay half the taxes the average native-born American pays. Note too that the ACLU combines both legal and illegal immigrants into its statistic. Most taxes paid by immigrants are paid by legal immigrants. Illegal immigrants often pay little or no taxes because many of them are working "under the table" in the underground, cash-based economy.

Welfare is a term limited to only a few federal subsidy programs, and the Center for Immigration Studies (CIS) notes: "Even though illegal aliens make little use of welfare, from which they are generally barred, the costs of illegal immigration in terms of government expenditures for education, criminal justice, and emergency medical care are significant." CIS estimates that the total net cost of illegal immigration is an annual drain on the government of $11-22 billion annually.

Myth: We are a nation of immigrants.

Fact: This myth is false on its face. Nearly 88 percent of the people living in the United States today are not immigrants; they were born here. This is a nation of natives, not a nation of immigrants. "But," the liberal propagandists reply, "we all have ancestors who come from other countries." And, one might reply, so does just about every other nation on Earth.

Are not the French merely descendents of the immigrant barbarian Franks, who drove out the Roman era Celtic Gauls? And the English are simply immigrant Angles and Saxons who virtually wiped out the Celtic Britons in the fifth century A.D. They too are simply nations of immigrants under this liberal myth, as is practically every other nation on Earth. The myth descends to meaninglessness upon any serious analysis. Yet whenever this myth is uttered, we are expected to nod our heads in agreement that a deep and salient point has been made.

Myth: You cannot deport 12 million people.

Fact: This is nothing more than a slogan for people who have stopped trying to address the problem. The U.S. government needs to begin deporting illegal aliens, and even if it only deports a fraction of them over the next few years that would be progress. If the Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency deported only two million of the 12 million illegal aliens, 10 million illegals would be better than 12 million.

Congressman Tom Tancredo (R-Colo.) notes that enforcing employer sanctions could lead many to go home on their own without deportation proceedings: "If you can't get a job in this country, and if you can't get social service benefits, you go home." Additionally, a lot of immigrants visit families on their own, and wouldn't be able to get back in if Congress decides to secure the border.

On the other hand, if the 12 million illegals are legalized, none would be deported. Moreover, this amnesty (whether called amnesty or not) would simply induce more illegals to cross the Rio Grande in the hopes of waiting until the next amnesty.

Myth: Illegal immigrants are only taking jobs Americans do not want.

Fact: Many illegal immigrants are able to work for less than market value because they don't pay income or Social Security taxes and are able to take their entire paycheck (or cash) home. This is not only unfair competition against employers who follow the law and pay employees "above the table," but it depresses the wage scale for Americans who would otherwise select jobs currently filled by illegal immigrants. These are jobs that Americans "do not want" only because the illegal immigrants have depressed the wage scale for the positions. Take away the illegal immigrants, and the market would raise wages to the level where Americans would take the jobs.

Myth: Guest workers would only be here temporarily.

Fact: History demonstrates that "guest workers" would be as temporary as the "temporary" telephone tax, still in effect, that Congress enacted in 1898 to pay for the Spanish-American War. And what would happen if 12 million "guest workers" decided not to leave? Those who argue against deporting the current 12 million illegal aliens as impractical are likely, if challenged, to say they find the prospect of deporting "guest workers" impractical as well.

Thus, it is hardly surprising that President Bush fails to mention a time limit on the "temporary" worker visas the federal government would permit under the "guest worker" program he is pushing in his public addresses. Most pending congressional legislation would limit the "guest worker" to three years — but what then?

Myth: Illegal immigrants have a right to come here. It is our Christian duty to provide hospitality.

Fact: Nearly two-thirds of the 32.5 million foreign-born people living in the United States entered this country legally, and the United States has more legal immigrants than any other country in the world. That's hardly poor hospitality, and no bill before Congress that has a chance of becoming law would change this nation's hospitality. But it is poor hospitality to say to the nearly 22 million legal U.S. immigrants who waited in line that they wasted their time following the rules because illegal immigrants will now get the same status.

The need to deport illegal aliens and secure our borders has nothing to do with persecuting minorities or lack of hospitality. The United States can continue to allow a large or small number of immigrants into this country legally, depending upon how many can be reasonably assimilated without destroying our American identity. Rather, securing our borders is necessary as a matter of principle — in the interests of equal justice under law — as well as practical security in this age of international terrorism. And this nation can no longer afford to allow "myth-information" slogans to sidetrack the nation from fulfilling the mandate of controlling the borders.

In other words, the guest worker program worked.

Only if you overlook the fact that the bracero ultimately displaced the domestic farm worker because the farmer himself set the prevailing wages. So, the domestic worker had two choices --find other work or work for sub-standard wages.

But the farmers liked the fact that they could hire braceros at wages which were substantially less than domestic workers, so they kept the program going.

It was finally ended in 1964 with the realization that it was hurting domestic workers (what a surprise!). Soon, due to federal regulations, hiring a bracero became just as expensive as hiring a domestic worker.

Well, that is, until the US Govt. started sanctioning illegal immigration by looking the other way at those who crossed illegally and at employers who hired the illegals.

Only now, instead of making sure the Mexican citizens go home between work sessions, the Govt. want to let them stay and become American citizens.

"The United States Constitution does not apply to illegal aliens."

That's about as idiotic a statement as is ever posted on this forum.

The Constitution qapplies to the government, and what they can and can't do.

You can't make someone a slave simply because they are an illegal alien, it's unconstitutional.

Let's take it further than that even, and invoke another founding document.

The Declaration of Independence clearly states the belief of the Founders in the fact that all men were endowed with Rights by their Creator.

People have rights because God gave us rights, this government was created in the belief that governments should be created to safeguard the rights given to all by God.

The Constittion imposes restrictions on government and ordains its procedures, not limitations on rights according to immigration status.

"The "Bush's fault" mantra is as tiring as "doing jobs Americans won't do"."

President Bush took responsibility for the problem when he took office. I don't blame the President for the start of the problem; I blame him for not doing anything about it, and for making it worse by promising amnesty, which simply encouraged more illegals to stream across the border. I blame the President for the top-down policy decisions forcing rank-and-file Border Patrol agents to stop conducting raids after 'latino community leaders' complained. I blame the President for not walling off the border and securing it in the manner necessary for the security of this country. Most especially, I blame the President for ignoring our wide open borders after this nation was attacked in an act of war on September 11th, 2001. It's been more than four years since then, and the President has made nothing but token changes with no real effect on security. I blame him for that; not for everything that happened before his watch.

I don't blame the President for 12 million illegal aliens in this country; I blame him for not doing anything about them and for encouraging more to come.

Do the math. If you were able to round up, process and then deport say 1,000 illegals EVERY SINGLE DAY it would take almost 5 1/2 years to deport your 2 million. You honestly think this is possible in the United States in 2006?? Maybe in Nazi Germany or the Soviet Union. But America? Come on. How would you transport all these human beings to the border or country of origin? Remember, not every illegal is from Mexico. We going to round them up and put them on trains? Boy, imagine that image (aka the trains that took the Jews to the concentration camps) being played up by the media every single day for five and half years. Not going to happen, EVER. Put down the crack pipe and get a reality check.

The only reasonable solution to this problem is to dry up the reason the immigrants come here in the first place: money, aka jobs. My brother years and years ago dreamed about traveling to New Zealand and Australia to go surfing and see the sights. Wanted to do it on the cheap and figured he could pick up a job here and there while in those countries to help with the expense. Guess what? Not being a citizen or someone with a work permit meant no jobs were available for my brother in New Zealand (as far as he made it). He had to return to the United States after a month because he had run out of money. We need to do the same here. Work place enforcement. Strict and unrelenting. Throwing several hundred business owners into jail, dragging them into court and making them incur the legal expenses of defending themselves would send a powerful message to the business community real fast. “Hire illegal workers and you end up in jail. Plus pay hefty fines.” Make the bail amounts large too. Make them do the prep walk on national television. Make it so that the corporation laws don’t shield executives from paying the penalties. With no jobs most of the illegals will go home and/or sign up as a documented guest worker with a valid permit to be in the country. This where the President’s guest worker program kicks in so that economy will have the workers it needs. Business owners and immigrant workers would both have the incentive to follow the immigration law, and the employment laws.

While we’re on the subject of a guest worker program we need to tie it into the Social Security and Medicare systems that all workers have to pay into. The employers of a guest worker would have their contribution to these systems go straight into those legendary “lock boxes”, while the employees portion would be held in “escrow” until that guest worker returned to his/her country at which point they are given a “severance package” from the Federal government. If the guest worker “skips out” on his/her visa they forfeit those monies. Period. End of story. That again will give the documented workers incentive to follow the rules. Later, if the guest worker becomes a citizen then, and only then, would he/she be entitled to the Social Security programs like all other citizens.

As part of this we also need the federal government to enforce the supremacy clause by mandating that state and local government that don't enforce the immigration laws of the United States forfeit their federal grants and monies. Period. Currently it is a federal crime to be in the country illegally. Make the local and state police an extension of the federal government by requiring that they arrest and detain any illegal immigrant that they come in contract with. Of course, the federal government will have to reimburse them, but there also has to be a “stick” for noncompliance. If the City of Los Angeles wants to have a Section 40 rule then it gets no federal education dollars to help with the LA Unified School district. If San Francisco wants to declare itself a sanctuary city then no federal dollars for its many “feel good” programs. Make any routine traffic stop a nightmare for an illegal. No papers equals arrest and deportation. As added penalty to entering the country illegally make the offense equal to the drug laws in terms of property seizure so that the illegal immigrant forfeits any property accrued while in the United States illegally. Again this will give the potential immigrant a vested interest in following the rules. Also, make it so that any illegal arrested for criminal activity is unable to post bail. Remember, that provision of the Constitution (as well as all the rest) applies only to US CITIZENS, not foreign nationals.

Another thing that needs to changed post haste is to make being a US citizen count for something. One of those things is to have the Fourteenth Amendment amended so that a child born in the United States is considered automatically as a United States citizen ONLY if the mother is an American citizen or legal residence of the United States. That would stop a lot of the "baby dropping" that is going on so that the parents won't be deported because they have an "anchor" baby. Another things is to make federal government program benefits only go to citizens and legal residences. Some programs, like schooling for children, could be extended to guest workers. Yes, I know. “You’re creating a two-tiered society!” will be the liberals cry. And how exactly is that any different than it now? We want/need to have American citizenship count for something. We need our immigrants to want to become American citizens and raise their right hand and say “I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States and for which it stands…..”

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