Posted on 05/01/2006 3:23:15 PM PDT by Maynerd
May 01, 2006, 7:08 a.m.
A Day Without an Illegal Immigrant An imaginary exercise.
By Tom Tancredo
What would a day without illegal aliens really be like? Let’s try to imagine it.
On May 1, millions of illegal aliens working in meat-processing plants, construction, restaurants, hotels, and other “jobs Americans won’t do” are supposed to stay home from work to show the importance of their labor to our nation’s economy. Doubtless, there will be some inconvenience if that happens, but there is another side to the story that is not being reported.
We are talking about illegal aliens, not mere “immigrants.” If legal immigrants stopped working for a day, we would miss the services of physicians, nurses, computer programmers, writers, actors, musicians, entrepreneurs of all stripes, and some airline pilots…as well as the CEO of Google. That would be more than an inconvenience, but it won’t happen because legal immigrants are not out marching angrily for rights that are already protected by our courts.
But if illegal aliens all took the day off and were truly invisible for one day, there would be some plusses along with the mild inconveniences.
Hospital emergency rooms across the southwest would have about 20-percent fewer patients, and there would be 183,000 fewer people in Colorado without health insurance.
OBGYN wards in Denver would have 24-percent fewer deliveries and Los Angeles’s maternity-ward deliveries would drop by 40 percent and maternity billings to Medi-Cal would drop by 66 percent.
Youth gangs would see their membership drop by 50 percent in many states, and in Phoenix, child-molestation cases would drop by 34 percent and auto theft by 40 percent.
In Durango, Colorado, and the Four Corners area and the surrounding Indian reservations, the methamphetamine epidemic would slow for one day, as the 90 percent of that drug now being brought in from Mexico was held in Albuquerque and Farmington a few hours longer. According to the sheriff of La Plata County, Colorado, meth is now being brought in by ordinary illegal aliens as well as professional drug dealers.
If the “Day-Without-an-Immigrant Boycott” had been held a year earlier on May 8, 2005, and illegal alien Raul Garcia-Gomez had stayed home and did not work or go to a party that day, Denver police officer Donnie Young would still be alive and Garcia-Gomez would not be sitting in a Denver jail awaiting trial.
If the boycott had been held on July 1, 2004, Justin Goodman of Thornton, Colorado, would still be riding his motorcycle and Roberto Martinez-Ruiz would not be in prison for killing him and then fleeing the scene while driving on a suspended license.
If illegal aliens stayed home—in Mexico, Guatemala, Brazil, and 100 other countries—the Border Patrol would have 3,500 fewer apprehensions (of the 12,000 who try each day).
Colorado taxpayers would save almost $3,000,000 in one day if illegals do not access any public services, because illegal aliens cost the state over $1 billion annually according to the best estimates.
Colorado’s K-12 school classrooms would have 131,000 fewer students if illegal aliens and the children of illegals were to stay home, and Denver high schools’ dropout rate would once again approach the national norm.
Colorado’s jails and prisons would have 10-percent fewer inmates, and Denver and many other towns would not need to build so many new jails to accommodate the overcrowding.
Our highway patrol and county sheriffs would have about far fewer DUI arrests and there would be a dramatic decline in rollovers of vanloads of illegal aliens on I-70 and other highways.
On a Day Without an Illegal Immigrant, thousands of workers and small contractors in the construction industry across Colorado would have their jobs back, the jobs given to illegal workers because they work for lower wages and no benefits. (On the other hand, if labor unions continue signing up illegal workers, no one will be worrying about Joe Six-Pack’s loss. Sorry, Joe, but you forgot to tell your union business agent that your job is as important as his is.)
If it fell on a Sunday, Catholic Churches in the southwestern states might have 20-percent fewer parishioners at Mass if all illegals stayed home, but they would be back next Sunday, so the bishop’s job is not in danger. The religious leaders who send people to the marches and rallies will never fear for their jobs, because illegal aliens need their special “human-rights” advocacy and some priests and nuns seem especially devoted to that cause. The fact that most Catholics disagree with the bishops’ radicalism doesn’t seem to affect their dedication to undermining the rule of law.
All of this might be a passing colorful episode in the heated national debate over immigration policy if it weren’t for an odd coincidence: The immigration-enforcement agency responsible for locating and deporting illegal aliens is also taking the day off today. Of course, they didn’t call it a boycott. It is just (non)business as usual.
—Tom Tancredo is a Republican congressman from Colorado.
First time I've seen it, thanks for posting it.
As long as people are paid for not working there is NO incentive for them to get off their fat, lazy butts to work....at the jobs they are able to do, that is, the entry level, minimum wage jobs that illegals do.
We have generation after generation of lazy people who absolutely will not work when the government hands out welfare.
The welfare is tied in with the welfarer's free medical care, free medications, free dentistry, free housing. We keep these people...pure and simple, all in the name of benevolent compassion.
The sick and sad part is that the illegals learn the system and milk it too. The saps in government bleed OUR HARD EARNED TAX DOLLARS all over the illegal immigrants who learn how to milk the system.
The American taxpayer gets SCREWED every which way but loose.
That's a fac, Jack.
Tancredo for President, 2008
I like it :o)
Sounds better than some of the other names being floated about.
Run Tom, run!
Imagine the Economic Impact of Liberals Not doing Illegal Drugs for a Day??
No Pot? No Meth? No Cocaine? No Crack??
How many people would live to see the dawn of Tuesday, that would otherwise be Doomed??
First time I have read this, thanks for posting it.
Protest Bush for not stopping the illegal alien invasion Saturday May 6 , 2006
When: 1 PM Saturday May 6, 2006 Where: Crawford Texas next to the Crawford Community Service Center 999 East 4TH Street on the parking lot of the football field.
http://www.areckoning.com/
Excellent post!
The ironic thing that happened to me today was when I went to the grocery store for a deli-made sandwich. The woman behind the counter who made my sandwich was hispanic and clearly didn't speak a lick of English. I asked for wheat bread, she tried to give me white. I asked for black pepper, she put on black olives. I asked for less pepperoncinis, she put on more. When I requested Swiss cheese, she just stared back at me with a dumbfounded look.
I found myself wishing I could actually have a day without immigrants, and perhaps get my sandwich made by someone who could follow my simple instructions without having to "re-do" the whole sandwich because she doesn't speak English.
Oh well. I guess making sandwiches is another job Americans won't do. Pretty soon, anything that doesn't require a PhD will be considered a job "Americans won't do."
Utter garbage.
This may sound a little warped, but be and the wife took a trip out and about tonight just to see...
WOW! It was a paradise. You could actually SHOP today without fighting your way through. We even tested Walmart. It was great.
Oh yea, and I picked up my new Kimber super match today too. What a beautiful day indeed!
All totals.. I spend a little over 2 grand today.
Did you pay for it?
Thanks. My first reading as well. Too bad most Americans won't be allowed by the MSM to get this side of the story. I think a decent candidate for president who came down hard on illegals would tear both the Democrap and RINO party apart. A recent poll showed such a candidate could pull in about the same percentage as the Dems though the RINO party would trail.
It was worse here when some guy compared illegals to being Jews in Nazi Germany. Good thing I'm not the reporter he was talking to. I might have lost my job, but would have had a say about what history lessons he has learned.
That is the worst part. The illegal part, while still being unacceptable, wouldn't bother me so much if they could speak English.
More and more it appears John Rocker was right.
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