The following article and others go on to say there is estimated by Bear Stearns to be now 20 million illegals in this country.
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Going Underground - Barron's
The shadow economy is about to top $1 trillion -- at a great cost to many
By JIM MCTAGUE
AMERICA HAS TWO ECONOMIES, and one is flourishing at the expense of the
other. First, there's the legitimate economy, in which craftsmen are
licensed and employers and employees pay taxes. Then there's the
fast-growing underground economy, where millions of nannies, construction
workers and others are paid off-the-books, their incomes largely untaxed.
The best guess as to the size of the output of this shadow economy is about
$970 billion, or nearly 9% that of the real economy. It should soon pass $1
trillion.
What is largely fueling the underground economy, experts say, is the
nation's swelling ranks of low-wage illegal immigrants. -snip-very long.
http://groups-beta.google.com/group/soc.culture.romanian/browse_thread/thread/1bb41897c2797fca/a037432e6e83160d?q=%22The+Underground+Labor+Force+Is+Rising+to+the+Surface%22&_done=/groups?q=%22The+Underground+Labor+Force+Is+Rising+to+the+Surface%22%252
It's a huge problem. Legal immigration is also a problem. I wonder when people will wake up. Bush better get crackin' on this (though I doubt he will) 'cause Hillary is going to usurp this issue and it just might catapult her to victory in 2008. Many average citizens, most of whom are not politically astute, are sick of the government doing nothing about either one.
There are 257,000 "undocumented" residents in MA and the AG refuses to do a thing about it, he's quoted as saying if he runs into an "undocumented" he will turn his head.
The Mexican government now publishes a book instructing its nationals on how to be an illegal.
Ironically, one of the big selling points of the NAFTA deal was that it would greatly alleviate illegal Mexican border-jumping......but since that time it has skyrocketed.
Adding insult to injury American taxpayers are subsidizing foreign aid transfers to Mexico.
The government of Mexico---with all of its oil revenue----needs to be taking care of its own people, not "outsourcing' them as wards of American taxpayers.
Mexico can well-afford it. Mexico has more "Forbes" billionaires, 11, than all but eight other nations. It has more billionaires than Saudi Arabia, Switzerland or Taiwan. It also has more than 85,000 millionaires. According to the CNN report,
Mexico sits on oil reserves worth about $400 billion, but Mexico's state-owned oil company, Pemex, doesn't have the investment funds to tap those reserves, and Mexico's Congress refuses to allow foreign investment in Pemex.
According to Visa International that is now clamoring for a share of the transfer fees, American money sent South of the Border by illegals constitutes $38 BILLION this year alone constituting Mexico's second largest most profitable industry.
America needs to seal our borders and let Vincente Fox know that we will cut off every penny in aid he gets from the United States.
America should mandate proof for all cash transfers out of the US and/or force all transferring agencies -- banks, credit unions, Amex, Western Union to collect a substantial withholding tax -- 50%, say -- on every unexplained foreign remittance.