The hidden cost of illegal workers

The Christian Science Monitor ^ | 19 March 2007 | David R. Francis

[FLOutdoorsman]

Low-skilled individuals, legal or illegal, cost the government much more in services than they pay in taxes.

Possibly the rush of illegal workers across the Mexican border has eased a little. That would please most Americans, since polls find that 3 out of 4 want immigration levels into the United States reduced.

If the flow has decreased, it would indicate some effect from strengthened patrols and a fence rising along the 2,000-mile border, a modest step-up in prosecutions and convictions of immigration-related crimes (many involve people caught in the US again after having been deported), and recent, highly publicized raids on factories employing large numbers of illegal immigrants.

At the border, apprehensions are down, notes Mark Krikorian, executive director of the Center for Immigration Studies (CIS), a Washington-based group that supports more immigration restrictions. But so far, he adds, no solid statistics indicate whether the estimated pool of 11 million to 12 million illegal residents in the US is shrinking or still increasing. (In 1970, one estimate put America's "undocumented" residents at a mere 700,000.)

The cure for illegal immigration is "not difficult," says Robert Rector, a senior research fellow at the conservative Heritage Foundation in Washington. The government simply has to sternly enforce the laws against hiring illegals. If jobs for these foreign-born workers dry up, he says, so will their flow into the US.

[tsowellfan]

Well it sounds like they are preparing for another huge nationwide protest. I have a hunch it will be sometime in April. If not most likely the first week of May.

I feel that those who support open borders do NOT support the poor Mexicans that choose family over money. Those who support the Mexican Government's "Leave The Country For Jobs" Economic Policy are only hurting the Mexican people. Those who support illegals are responsible for the fact that Thais and Vietnamese who apply for a VISA (the old fashion way - the legal way) are told they have less than a 5 per cent chance of actually getting accepted due to the huge burden of illegals already in this country.

I hope they return back to their wives and children in Mexico or whatever nation they came from. There they can work to improve the situation in their own country just as black Americans and Republicans did back in the 1960s. Black Americans didnt just leave their nation when things were not going well for them. Neither should the Mexicans be forced to leave their homes just because they have a leadership that's failing them.

I've heard some say that family values do not stop at the Rio Grande. Unfortunately, there are many on the other side who disagree.

From the women and children of Mexico....
.....to the people of the U.S.A.

http://www.artcamp.com.mx/venga

I am against another amnesty, open borders and illegal immigration because I care for both my American culture and for the people who chose to either stay home with their family in their own country OR have chosen to migrate the legal way.

http://www.cafenetamerica.com

[conservative cat]

Yes, Mexico is BADLY in need of serious changes and that will not happen with the US as its safety valve.

[endthematrix]

"estimated pool of 11 million to 12 million illegal residents "

That's at the low end...they offer no high end.

[tsowellfan]

I just heard on the Terry Anderson Show that the US Government is now in Mexico looking to hire new border control agents.

[FLOutdoorsman]

Exactly. I wonder what happens when they realize there are 20-30 Mil? Do they stop?

[april15Bendovr]

Mexico's Glass House
Towhall ^ | 4/6/06 | J. Michael Waller

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1610123/posts

In brief, the Mexican Constitution states that:

• Immigrants and foreign visitors are banned from public political discourse.

• Immigrants and foreigners are denied certain basic property rights.

• Immigrants are denied equal employment rights.

• Immigrants and naturalized citizens will never be treated as real Mexican citizens.

• Immigrants and naturalized citizens are not to be trusted in public service.

• Immigrants and naturalized citizens may never become members of the clergy.

• Private citizens may make citizens arrests of lawbreakers (i.e., illegal immigrants) and hand them to the authorities.

• Immigrants may be expelled from Mexico for any reason and without due process.

[donna]

What America could easily do:

1) President of the United States gives a speech announcing illegal aliens are no longer welcome and should go home.
2) Start releasing the real crime stats by nationality.
3) Cut off food stamps.
4) Enforce "English Only" everywhere.
5) Start tracking illegal social security numbers.
6) Cut off federal funds to "sanctuary cities".

[Toliy]

Rector calculates that the average household of a high school dropout pays about $9,600 in taxes, including payroll, sales, excise, possibly income (often offset by the Earned Income Tax Credit), property, etc. That same household receives about $32,000 a year in government services. These include Social Security, Medicare, education, welfare, highways, police and fire protection, etc.

I wanted to pull out this quote from the article. Another cost associated with illegal workers is that they send the majority of their income back to their relatives and do not invest it back in the economy: consumer products, bank accounts, credit cards, and property ownership.

Legal immigrants, on the other hand, start out with government support and then go on to establish themselves with a documented job, pay taxes, and acquire property.

I think both of these points need to be constantly brought up in debate: the services/taxation imbalance and the lost opportunity to our economy.

[AZRepublican]

Time for Operation Wetback II

[donna]

Legal immigrants, on the other hand, start out with government support and then go on to establish themselves with a documented job, pay taxes, and acquire property.

A legal immigrant is supposed to have a sponsor who guarantees financial support so that taxpayers don't pay a cent.

[april15Bendovr]

Every time I go home back to Patchogue NY I have to deal with not seeing the World Trade Towers as I drive over the Triborough Bridge and seeing my hometown overrun with illegal aliens

[endthematrix]

Keyword is "supposed."

[ckilmer]

Another huge hidden cost of illegals is crime. There have been a number of reports on the networks of the upsurge of crime in the last couple of years. What they have not mentioned is that the crime is committed by illegals.

Pictures of most wanted in Washington DC

Pictures of top 10 most wanted in LAUp until a LA Times report on the upsurge of crime a couple weeks back--these online bios of people wanted for murder included their nationality. They were all foreign nationals and mostly Mexican.

There were 16,600 murders committed in the USA in 2005. I have seen estimates of 800 to 4000 of those being committed by foreign nationals. If you take even the low number and multiply it by four years you get the number of US soldiers who in the same period have been killed in Iraq.

[conservative cat]

Those two "top ten" sites are absolutely eye opening. (Well, they would be if my eyes weren't already open.)

[stephenjohnbanker]

HIGH time!