On immigration (Good Read)

Should illegal aliens have driver's licenses, amnesty, welfare, and the right to move their families to the U.S.? Illegal aliens are, as is often pointed out, "good, hard-working people who just want the American dream." But is that the end of the argument? The trouble with that level of analysis is that there are billions of "good, hard-working people" and their dependents in the world who would love to come here, and obviously we can't take them all. We are also a nation of laws, with our own unemployed and underemployed, and our nation needs to come to some enforceable consensus on what our policy should be on people entering the country illegally.

Polls show that more than 70 percent of Americans object to illegal immigration, and we run a serious risk of a backlash against all immigrants if we don't reach some consensus on this issue. Polls also show that there is no issue in America where there is a bigger gap between public opinion and opinions of the media and other "elites."

Reasoned dialogue is rare and issues of immense importance to America's future are not being discussed or even debated.

Public policy requires us to be wise enough to appreciate cumulative effects. We already have approximately 10 percent of all Mexico living in the U.S. either legally or illegally. We owe it to the future to have a candid debate on the demographic impact of a mass migration of this magnitude. Consider:

1. We are a nation built on law. It almost sounds old-fashioned in contemporary America to ask that people obey the law. But when we start deciding which laws to obey and which to ignore, we start down a dangerous path. There are millions of potential immigrants patiently waiting in their home countries to immigrate here, playing by our rules. Illegal immigrants "jump the line."

2. As every house needs a door, every country needs a border. By turning a blind eye toward illegal immigration, we are encouraging countless numbers of these people to attempt to sneak into America. I spent a night with the Border Patrol in California, and was amazed to find people from India, Bangladesh, Iran, Egypt, Africa and China among the people detained.

3. Illegal immigration hurts America's poor. Illegal immigrants compete for the jobs our own poor need to start to move up the economic ladder. A study by The Center for Immigration Studies finds: "Mexican immigration is overwhelmingly unskilled, and it is hard to find an economic argument for unskilled immigration, because it tends to reduce wages for (U.S.) workers." The study goes on: "Because the American economy offers very limited opportunities for workers with little education, continued unskilled immigration can't help but to significantly increase the size of the poor and uninsured populations, as well as the number of people on welfare."

4. We are told that illegal immigration is "cheap labor," but it is not "cheap labor," it is subsidized labor. The National Academy of Sciences has found that there is a significant fiscal drain on U.S. taxpayers for each adult immigrant without a high school education. Illegal immigration is something that benefits a few employers, but the rest of us subsidize that labor through the school system, the health-care system, the courts and in other ways that this form of labor imposes. With school spending of more than $7,000 per student per year, even a small family costs far more than a low-wage family pays in taxes.

5. America is increasingly becoming, day by day, a bilingual country, yet there is not a bilingual country in the world that lives in peace with itself. No nation should blindly allow itself to become a bilingual-bicultural country. If it does, it invites generations of conflict, tension and antagonism. America has historically demanded that its immigrants be self-supporting and English-speaking to join our polity. We vary from that rule that made us "one nation, indivisible" at great risk to America's future. Today, when over 40 percent of today's massive wave of immigrants is from Spanish-speaking nations, people can move to America and keep their language, their culture and their old loyalties. If the melting pot doesn't melt, immigrants become "foreigners" living in America rather than assimilated Americans.

6. Our social fabric risks becoming undone. It is important to America's future that we look at how Mexican immigrants are doing. Too many of our Hispanic immigrants live in ethnic ghettos. Too many are unskilled laborers, too many are uneducated, too many live in poverty, too many are exploited, too many haven't finished ninth grade, too many drop out of school. The Center for Immigration Studies issued a report last year, which found: "Almost two-thirds of adult Mexican immigrants have not completed high school, compared to fewer than one in 10 natives not completing high school. Mexican immigrants now account for 22 percent of all high school dropouts in the labor force."

But what is most disturbing is that second and third generations don't do much better. Again, the study from The Center for Immigration Studies: "The lower educational attainment of Mexican immigrants appears to persist across the generations." A recent report from the center shows that two-thirds of Mexican immigrant workers lack even a high school education; as a consequence, two-thirds of Mexican immigrant families live in or near poverty. The question has to be asked: By tolerating illegal immigration are we laying the foundations for a new Hispanic underclass? A Hispanic Quebec?

Subsidizing illegal immigration

Posted: September 19, 2003
1:00 a.m. Eastern

Americans concerned about our nation's increasingly serious illegal immigration problem – and that's most of us, by the way – are suffering another insult, but it's one you may not have realized. Already overtaxed to support a voracious U.S. government that refuses to get serious about securing our borders, Americans are also subsidizing the country responsible for sending most illegals north: Mexico.

Last week the Mexican central bank made a startling announcement. Officials there reported money sent home from U.S.-based "migrants" – read "illegal aliens" – topped foreign investment and tourism dollars, and is now second only to oil revenues.

In all, foreign investment south of the border amounts to about $5.2 billion thus far in 2003, while tourism amounts to $4.9 billion. But aliens living and working illegally in the U.S. sent $6.3 billion home to relatives, and all at a time when the U.S. economy is stagnant, at best.

Other reports have suggested the amount may be as high as $10 billion. In all, say some analysts, "migrants" in the U.S. illegally earn about $60 billion a year.

Whichever figure is most accurate may be a moot point because now it should make sense why U.S. leaders aren't clamoring to close our borders. It's a matter of economics. Rather than have to bail out Mexico with American tax dollars – excuse me, with International Monetary Fund dollars – a la 1995, U.S. leaders have obviously decided it's better to let "migrants" siphon off what they need from the U.S. economy instead. Yet in doing so, they are saying to hell with American workers and local economies desperate for an infusion of the billions in cash being sent south of the border.

As Americans are being forced to support another failed Third World economy, suffice to say it comes as no surprise to longtime open-borders foes – we have known for some time that south-of-the-border leaders have neither the ability nor desire to improve the lives of their own people. Meanwhile, the hue and cry in the background are the open-borders proponents, who will still have the gall to argue that illegals are boosting the American bottom line. Don't you believe it.

But that's not all. The bleeding of the American taxpayer continues in other ways, thanks to millions of illegal aliens.

According to the U.S. Census Bureau and the Federation for American Immigration Reform, the cost to educate the children of illegal aliens alone is nearly $7.5 billion annually, or roughly the amount of money it would take to provide every student in the country with a computer.

It costs another $3 billion annually to provide medical care to illegals, though many hospitals – especially those along the border – can't do it much longer. Southwestern medical centers have lost hundreds of millions of dollars treating illegals while others have closed altogether. Closures, of course, mean American citizens – for whom these facilities were intended – are now going without.

But rather than oppose these obscenities, many of our so-called "leaders" exacerbate the subsidization with lunatic policies born of blatant political pandering.

For instance embattled Gov. Gray Davis just signed a bill allowing illegal aliens to obtain California driver licenses, becoming another in more than a dozen states which do so. Forget the fact that the written tests are going to have to be administered in Spanish. Once they have licenses, how are these illegals going to be able to read state road signs, which are written in English? Will the heavily indebted California government spend billions more to erect multilingual road signs?

That Mexico is allowed to export its poverty to the United States is bad enough. But purposely allowing such poverty proliferation to be placed on the backs of American families, workers and taxpayers – especially at a time when their burden is becoming too heavy to bear – is unforgivable.

American leaders should be working overtime to thwart illegal immigration, not reward and subsidize it. If they won't, maybe they should be looking for work come next November.

Why not blame Mexico?

Ralph Waldo Emerson once wrote that "a foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds."

The Republic demonstrates the truth of this statement with its stand on the issue of illegal immigration. No amount of facts will change the Editorial Board's point of view.

The tragedy of illegal immigration is all the fault of "Uncle Sam." According to official INS figures for the year 2000, Mexican nationals constitute 69 percent of the total illegal alien population of 7 million in the U.S.

The Mexican National Bank reported that the $10 billion Mexican immigrants remitted back home this year was the second largest source of foreign exchange for that country. Only petroleum revenues provided more foreign exchange for our southern neighbor.

Inquiring minds might ask why Mexico is unable to provide a decent standard of living for its own people. Or why we don't hold the Mexican government responsible for putting profit ahead of humanity?

US. Sends $310 Million to U.N. Refugee Agency
Wednesday, 1 October 2003, 9:42 pm
Press Release: US State Department

U.S. Sends $310 Million to U.N. Refugee Agency in 2003
Annual total includes $13 million contribution September 30

The United States will contribute another $13 million to the United Nations High Commission for Refugees (UNHCR), pushing its total donation for 2003 over $310 million. The State Department announced the latest donation September 30.

The money will be used for assistance to and protection of refugees in Iraq and Chad and for other worldwide activities of the UNHCR, an agency that works to improve the lives of more than 20 million refugees worldwide.

The following is the text of the State Department announcement:

(begin text)

U.S. DEPARTMENT OF STATE
Office of the Spokesman
September 30, 2003

Media Note

U.S. Contributes $13 million to UN High Commissioner for Refugees

The United States is pleased to announce an additional contribution of $13 million to the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees. This final contribution in fiscal year 2003 brings the United States' contribution to the organization to over $310 million.

Of this $13 million, $10 million will support the refugee agency's assistance and protection activities for Iraqi refugees and others in need of protection in Iraq. The remainder of the funding will respond to the urgent requirements of some 65,000 new Sudanese refugees in Chad, support the development of UNHCR's new registration system, and support activities on behalf of refugee women and refugee children in UNHCR operations worldwide, including primary education assistance in Azerbaijan.

The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees provides protection and assistance and seeks durable solutions for over 20 million refugees and other persons of concern. The United States is a strong supporter of the agency and is its largest donor.

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