THE PROGRESSIVE CONSERVATIVE, USA
An Online Journal of Political Commentary & Analysis
Volume IX, Issue # 87, May 16, 2007
Dr. Almon Leroy Way, Jr., Editor
Government Committed to & Acting in Accord with Conservative Principles
Ensures a Nation's Strength, Progress, & Prosperity
TOO MANY ILLEGAL ALIENS
By Alan Caruba
ILLEGAL IMMIGRATION AS A MAJOR CRISIS FOR THE U.S.A. & ITS CITIZENS: HOW DOES THE UNCONTROLLED &
UNIMPEDED FLOW OF ILLEGAL ALIENS INTO THE COUNTRY CONSTITUTE A SERIOUS THREAT TO AMERICAN NATIONAL
SECURITY? WHAT BURDENS DOES ILLEGAL IMMIGRATION IMPOSE ON CURRENT NATIVE-BORN & NATURALIZED U.S.
CITIZENS?
FULL STORY:
Here’s one of those statistics that sums up everything you need to know about America’s immigration crisis. The May 14,
2007, edition of US News & World Report had a small item noting that, “Mexico has lost more people to migration
to the United States than to death since 2000.”
“An average of 577,000 people moved [from Mexico] to the
United States annually during the 2000-2005 period, while
495,000 people died in Mexico.”
The U.S. agency providing this data estimates that about 11 million Mexicans are living, legally or not, in the United States.
This is not about disliking Mexicans. Many have come here legally, become citizens, and have risen in our society to
contribute in business, academics, and government. This is about saving America from a wholesale and entirely illegal
invasion, and its consequences.
Mexico has an entirely different view of people who would move there. The Center for Security Policy points out that
Mexico prohibits foreigners from owning land within 100 kilometers of the Mexico border and within 50 kilometers of the
Mexican coastland, prime real estate. Mexican law permits the government to revoke the naturalized citizenship of anyone
who chooses to live in his country of origin more than five years.
Foreigners are admitted only after proving they have “the necessary funds for their sustenance” and they can be fined or
jailed if they show false papers. Any Mexican who helps an illegal alien is breaking the law there. On the average, Mexico
annually grants citizenship to just 3,000 people, compared to the U.S. rate of almost 500,000.
Compare this with the insidious and stupid proposed immigration law, S. 1348, that U.S. Senate Majority Leader, Senator
Harry Reid (Democrat - Nevada), and other members of the United States Senate are trying to fast-track to passage with
the support of President George W. Bush. Co-sponsored by Senators Edward Kennedy (Democrat - Massachusetts),
Patrick Leahy (Democrat - Vermont), Robert Menendez (Democrat - New Jersey) and Ken Salazar (Democrat - Colorado),
this bill would provide amnesty to those who are here illegally and invite a whole new rush to the border by more
Mexicans and others.
By way of illustrating why the virtually uncontrolled flow of Mexican and other aliens represents a problem that cannot
and must not be ignored, let me share some facts about its impact on just one state, New Jersey, where I live.
In a recent study by the Federation for American Immigration Reform on the “Cost of Illegal Immigration to New
Jerseyites,” the executive summary notes that, “The illegal alien population residing in New Jersey is costing the state’s
taxpayers nearly $2.1 billion per year for education, medical care, and incarceration.”
Bear in mind that New Jersey is essentially broke, thanks to the huge debt it has been incurred under several governors.
When you add in the costs of an estimated 372,000 illegal aliens, you just exacerbate a bad situation. In sum, the “annual
tax burden amounts to about $800 per New Jersey household headed by a native-born resident.” Even if you subtract the
sales, income, and property taxes that might be collected from illegal aliens, you still have net costs of $1.6 billion per year.
New Jersey is small, but when one extrapolates such costs to a state like California, you begin to see why illegal aliens
pose an enormous cost to educational, medical, and other institutions and agencies trying to cope with people who have
absolutely no right to be here. It is estimated that 40% of all workers in Los Angeles County are working for cash and not
paying taxes. In Los Angeles, 95% of warrants for murder are for illegal aliens, and more than two-thirds of all births in LA
County are illegal aliens. And that’s just for one county.
Then there’s the issue of U.S. national security. In November, 2006, a report from the Inspector General’s Office of the
U.S. Department of Homeland Security revealed that half of the 91,516 illegal aliens from terror-sponsoring countries and
those of ‘special interest’ apprehended at the border between 2001 and 2005 were released into the U.S. population. I grant
you that Mexico is not a sponsor of terror, but it provides an avenue for access to America from nations where the drug
industry rivals all others.
The report notes that, in addition to the high-risk aliens who were released, authorities also released 27,947 known criminals
over a period of five years between 2001 and 2004. When you consider that only one in four aliens attempting to enter the
U.S.A. during this period was caught, the actual numbers of those who were not are some 350,000 from high-risk nations
and an estimated 400,000 criminal aliens.
In 2006, Edwin S. Rubenstein, a former contributing editor for Forbes, made a study commissioned by the National
Policy Institute, a study which stated that, “Illegal aliens cost the American taxpayer $25 billion more than they pay in taxes.”
Titled “The Economics of Immigration Enforcement,” the study concluded that illegal immigrants cost U.S. citizens an
estimated $81 billion per year. “Amnesty would make things worse,” stated the study, “by adding another $44 billion to
government spending for services.”
Something is very wrong when, given just these few facts, there are members in Congress seriously considering the
granting of amnesty — no matter how they mask the true intent of the legislation — and that the President of the United
States is one of its leading advocates.
The tyranny of numbers is that they cannot be ignored. The U.S.A. faces a new torrent of illegal aliens, with the political
leadership in Washington seeking to absorb the invaders, despite ample evidence they are endangering and burdening
current native-born and naturalized citizens. The proposed legislation is a demographic time bomb.
LINKS TO RELATED TOPICS:
United States Immigration, Assimilation, & National Security Policy:
Immigration into the U.S.A., Legal & Illegal Aliens,
& U.S. Border Control
Alan Caruba is a veteran business and science writer, a Public Relations Counselor, and Founder of the National Anxiety Center, a
clearinghouse for information about media-driven scare campaigns. Caruba writes a weekly commentary, "Warning Signs," posted
on the Internet website of the National Anxiety Center, which is located at
www.anxietycenter.com.
Caruba’s new book, Right Answers: Separating Fact from Fantasy, has been published by Merril Press.
© Alan Caruba 2007
Published with Permission of Alan Caruba
ACaruba@AOL.Com
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THE PROGRESSIVE CONSERVATIVE, USA
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Dr. Almon Leroy Way, Jr., Editor
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