Posted on 06/01/2007 9:00:25 PM PDT by rmlew
A common theme in discussing the immigration issue is “I love legal immigration, it’s just the illegal kind I’m against.” And there’s no question that political elite’s refusal to enforce the law is the most immediate immigration problem we face.
But the “legal is good, illegal is bad” mantra will only get you so far. Even if we were to address the pervasive illegality of today’s immigration flow — by, say, amnestying all the illegal aliens and increasing legal immigration, as the appalling Senate bill calls for — most of the problem would remain.
To begin with, the legal and illegal immigration flows are inextricably intertwined. It’s not as though legals are from Mars and illegals are from Venus — they come from the same countries, live in the same communities and families, and are often the same exact people. Take Hesham Mohamed Ali Hedayet, for instance. He was the Egyptian immigrant terrorist who decided to celebrate the Fourth of July in 2002 by killing Jews at the El Al counter at Los Angeles International Airport. He had arrived legally years before as a tourist, then shortly before his permission to be here expired (which would have turned him into an illegal alien) he applied for asylum here, thus preserving legal status while his claim was adjudicated. After he was rejected and stayed here anyway, he became an illegal alien. Later, his wife won the visa lottery and he, as her spouse, also got a green card, making him legal again.
More broadly, as James Edwards of the Hudson Institute has written, legal and illegal immigration have risen in tandem, the same countries dominate the two flows, legal immigration creates the networks that enables illegal immigration to take place, and the screwy mechanics of the legal immigration system raise expectations abroad such that people see themselves as entitled to come to America, whether they have permission yet or not.
What’s more, every year large numbers of illegal aliens use the “legal” immigration system to launder their status. Edwards points to a survey of new “legal” immigrants which found that fully one-third had been illegal aliens at one point or another, a figure that rose to two-thirds for Mexicans. It’s not much of an exaggeration to say that our “legal” immigration system is a permanent rolling amnesty for illegal aliens.
Not only are the flows of legal and illegal immigration related, but the impacts they have on the United States are similar. The effect that illegal immigration has in reducing wages for low-skilled American workers, for instance, is only partly caused by the illegality. The majority of illegal immigrants actually work on the books, having provided a fake or stolen Social Security number, but they command low wages regardless because most of them lack even a high-school education and thus are unequipped for advancement in a modern society. In other words, the chief problem that immigration creates for less-educated or young or minority American workers is that it floods the job market with competitors, illegal and legal.
The same is true with regard to government services. In fact, here it is, in a perverse sense, actually better that immigrants be illegal, because they cost less. Households headed by illegal aliens represent a drain of some $10 billion a year at the federal level alone — i.e., they consume $10 billion more in federal government services than they pay in federal taxes. This is because they work, they’re poor, and they have lots of children, and our welfare system is specifically designed to help the working poor with children. But if the illegals were legalized, the costs to federal taxpayers would balloon, nearly tripling to $29 billion each year. This is because when you amnesty an uneducated illegal alien with a large family, all you do is turn him into an uneducated legal alien with a large family — his earnings, and thus his tax payments, do indeed go up somewhat, but his use of government services increases much, much more because now he’s legal, but he’s still uneducated.
Likewise in other areas. For instance, children born to immigrant mothers are responsible for 100 percent of the increase in the school-aged population — the strain this puts on local communities has nothing to do with the parents’ legal status. Immigrants using emergency rooms as doctor’s offices do so not because of a lack of legal status but because a lack of skills that can command high wages in a modern economy.
As Ramesh Ponnuru has written, “America has some serious immigration problems, but they are not distinctively problems of illegal immigration.” Calls of “Enforcement First” by critics of the Bush-Kennedy amnesty bill are surely the place to start the immigration debate, because without a commitment to enforce the rules, it doesn’t much matter what the rules are. But in the long run, the substance of the rules themselves is the more important question.
Show me just what Mohammed brought that was new, and there you will find things only evil and inhuman, such as his command to spread by the sword the faith he preached." -Manuel II Paleologus
“they come from the same countries, live in the same communities and families, and are often the same exact people.”
Ummmm..No..They’re not.
‘Legal’ immigrants go through all the necessary procedures to come to America, uhh, legally.
“Illegal’ immigrants storm the back door and arrive by ‘stealth’ to push there way into our country because they feel it is their ‘right’ to be here and no American ‘laws’ are going to stop them.
Legal immigrants abide by the law.
Illegal immigrants don’t and are nothing more than criminals.
Oh please.
Great article. I am one of the supposed bigots who are aginst the flood of illegals and legals from (primarily) Mexico. We are going to lose our Southwestern states relatively soon.
WRITE! WRITE! WRITE! WRITE! TILL YOU RUN OUT OF INK IN YOUR PEN!
Bombard the Democrats as well, especially the ones that ran on an anti illegal immigration plank and the ones in marginal districts who could be vulnerable. keep pounding on them. This is a bipartisan issue not a Conservative or Liberal issue BUT AN AMERICAN issue.
* T.B. was virtually absent in Virginia until in 2002 it spiked a 17 percent increase.
* Washington, D.C., T.B. had a meteoric rise of 188 percent. Public health officials blame immigrants, traced to illegal aliens from Mexico.
* The Queens, New York, Health Department attributed 81 percent of new T.B. cases in 2001 to immigrants, with 42 percent of all new T.B. cases ascribed to the foreign born.
* Violent T.B. outbreaks afflicted schoolteachers and children in Michigan and adults and kids in Texas. The teachers and kids caught it at school from the coughing children of illegal aliens.
* In Minnesota, the police suddenly came down with M.D.R.-T.B. The cops caught it in their patrol cars when they arrested illegal aliens who coughed in their faces.
* T.B. erupted in Portland, Maine, and DelRay Beach, Florida, directly traced to illegals.
* Chagas disease, which has no known cure and has the revolting nickname of “kissing bug disease.” The bug has parasites that favor the lips and the face for infection and infects 18 million people in Latin America.
* leprosy: Suddenly, in the past three years, America has more than 7,000 cases. Illegal aliens brought leprosy from India, Brazil, the Caribbean and Mexico.
* dengue fever. There was a recent outbreak in Webb County, Texas, on the border with Mexico.
* Polio was eradicated from America but now appears in illegal immigrants.
* Malaria was obliterated but is now emerging in Texas and other states.
* About 4,000 young children under age 5 have contracted a disease called Kawasaki, known as “strawberry tongue.”
* And there’s the deadly Marburg disease.
* And there’s the ever-present and increasing Hepatitis A, B and C; an outbreak occurred near Pittsburgh, where 3,000 came down with it thanks to infected Mexico-grown scallions and illegal alien kitchen workers in Chi-Chi’s restaurant. Two Americans died.
Couldn’t agree more. Everybody’s afraid to say what they’re really concerned about (or should be concerned about) and that’s a massive change in our social and cultural environment due to the large volume of immigration, AND its lack of diversity - being primarily from one country. We need to drastically reduce the flow and increase its diversity.
In the end the illegals will get everything that they and their proponents want and they not have to pay a penny or be punished in any way.
“Fool me once shame on you, fool me twice shame on me.”
Or...
“Don’t pi$$ on my leg and tell me it is raining.”
This is a perfect example of how the average person gets screwed when the Liberals and Conservatives agree on something at the expense of the average person.
And there really aren’t checks and balances. At least right away. Wait until the next election.
I consider myself moderate and I am extremely unhappy with the Republicans right now. Starting with Bush. I might even consider switching parties. Unfortunately, the Democrats are screwing us too.
It is a perfect situation for a Perot type of candidate who will give Congress and the President back to the Democrats in 2008.
Two Sides of the Same Coin--The Connection Between Legal and Illegal Immigration
It’s not just a moratorium needed. When illegals come into the country and their kids get into our public school system, they join our own children in being indoctrinated that America is bad. We are the source of all their problems in life.
Also, with the booing of our soccer team and Ms. America, and the racist hatred shown to us Americans duing the latest street protests (Si se puede!) it’s obvious that the current crop of Mexicans/Hispanics don’t like us all that well anyway. Yes, they can earn some US dollars here to send home, but they certainly don’t want our culture, our language, nor do they understand our amazing history. They are Mexican and that’s where their alligiance lies.
This is just one woman’s opinion, but that’s how it comes across to me. In the past it semms that anyonw who came to this country knew they had to work & support themselves - there may have been relatives, but no “social services.” If they wanted make good, they HAD to asimilate. And we taught all kids that America was good, and WHY.
No wonder that older generations of immigrants are doing well, but their kids are increasingly nationalistic (to their old country), racist, and getting into gangs. Our leftist friends have “helped” them do that real well. Everything the left touches they corrupt.
The author needs to drop his latte, Take a step outside his(it’s) world.
I do not support a moratorium. However a reduction to historic levels of, say 1/10 or 1% of the population per years (300,000) seems reasonable.
I don't know if I agree with that, but...DANG...your list is scary!
We are SO screwed.
Not quite yet.......we are still breathing, and we will not relent!!
I feel like we’re locked in a sealed train, that’s been hijacked by madmen heading for a broken bridge.
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