Let me explain it to you. Even the illegals who work hard and do not apply for aid of any kind depend on medical care when they are sick or injured. They do not have the money to pay the bill, and either the taxpayers pay their bill or the hospital and Dr take a loss. Add that up and you will see that it contributes to higher medical bills and fewer services available to US citizens. The hard working illegal uses many services that he does not pay taxes to support in many cases. His money is for the most part sent home so even sales taxes paid in this country are kept to a minimum.
What happens too many times is the hard working illegal decides to stay and bring his family into the US. His job does not pay enough to support a family in the US so he is dependent on others to pay for things for his family that he simply cannot afford. Medical bills now for a family instead of just him, taxpayer funded meals at school for his children, taxpayer or others have to pay for his children's needed school supplies,taxpayers pay for extra programs needed for students who don't speak English, and when children in the family are young they get assistance for formula and baby food. The list goes on and on even for a hard working illegal who is not deliberately milking the system the costs far exceed his contribution to the system.
Then there truly are a large number arriving who think they deserve everything Americans have and do set out to milk the system. Using false documents they sign the women and children up for every welfare program you can imagine claiming there is no man in the house. In reality there is a man in the house or the men/women are working at jobs paying cash so they still get benefits.
We do have our own citizen "leeches" but the difference is the system is set up to deal with them, taxes are raised to support their needs and their bills are paid out of the system. Illegals are not part of the equation, when illegals use medical facilities or certain social programs, no one wants to pay their bill, they are not part of the system. What happens is a battle with local gov't wanting the feds to pick up the bill and in most cases they won't. The local services run out of funding because they are overwhelmed with people no one wants to pay for, because they are illegal and not part of the system in place. The result is services decline in the area of large populations of illegals and taxes go up. Drs leave for other areas, and medical facilities go broke and close their doors.
We really can't afford illegals, even the hard working ones are a drain on the system. Illegals are willing to take jobs at lower wages and poor or dangerous working conditions, in turn they depress the local job market so those who have to compete with them for work move elsewhere. It causes chaos and a breakdown in the system where ever there are large numbers of illegals. That is why areas with a large population of illegals become slums in a hurry. They cannot sustain themselves and those who paid the taxes when they arrived have left. One hard working illegal may not seem like a problem, but when you look at the big picture the problems are clear.
That was an excellent, lucid post, probably the best I've read on this subject, and I thank you very much for taking the time to write it.
It's very difficult for me to respect many of the people on the anti-illegal side, since so many of them seem to feel intense hatred and disrespect for them. I don't like people who don't respect people, and so I tend not to like or respect their arguments. Your post was one of the few I've read that didn't fall into that trap, and for that I am grateful.
But in my view, one problem with your argument is that it seems to imply that our institutions are competent, well-run and under attack. I don't know about the under attack part, but I do know that our medical facilities have been in decline for decades, as have our social services and even the bus system. Is this overall decline, due to poor management, not more to blame for the problems? Is our system using illegal aliens as an excuse, to paper over the real problems with how our cities are run?
Now, if the problem is illegals taking advantage of services they are not entitled to, it seems like the solution is not to scapegoat the illegals, but change the way services are provided. Again, illegals are being blamed for an overpriced and poorly run social service regime that they - by definition - didn't create.
I used to live in LA, where there were a lot of illegals. Now I live in Pennsylvania, which is very whitebread. Does this create a heaven on earth, where all workers are decent, competent and intelligent people? No. As a general rule, I've found it's much easier to find people willing to work hard in LA thanks to competition from illegals. Service in stores and overall is much better, too. Here, we have a lot of tired employees who are just going through the grim motions towards quitting time. (Trust me, you haven't seen grim until you've been to Pittsburgh. LA's employees are not capable of it.) Despite the lack of illegals, the quality of life in a city that's shrinking and seems to have little future to look forward to is very poor.
Los Angeles is growing, is dynamic and of course a lot of that growth and dynamism is created by illegals. I enormously prefer to live in a place with growth and dynamism as opposed to shrinking and decline. (I am planning to spend less than a year more here because I can't stand the stagnation, not to mention the cold weather.)
In short, having no illegals may be a worse cure than the disease, a point I tried to make in my original post. Stagnation is very painful. Dynamism and growth create an interesting environment where life is far more worthwhile.
I could certainly sign on to a guest worker program, as George W Bush appears to be proposing. But eliminating illegals, I think, would create a stagnating country that would be worse than the problems illegals cause.
I hope this has at least been interesting. I look forward to further dialogue.
D