Until we focus on the real issues, instead of asking who's wearing a flag pin or blaming others for our problems (such as the "illegals" we hire and abuse), we will continue getting deeper in a mess of our own making.
For example, in the article "Illegal Immigration costs American Tax Payers more than the War on Terror" by Phileas Fogg (the son of an immigrant!), the very first point ($11 Billion to $22 billion is spent on welfare to illegal aliens each year. <http://tinyurl.com/zob77%20>), while presented as a source for information regarding "illegal aliens," the reference contains data (however questionnable) that counts ALL immigrants, not just the minority of immigrants that are undocumented. This total immigration population includes the many political refugees that are here as a consequence of our own foreign policy around the world (southeast Asia, eastern Europe, Africa, etc.) Also, the source claims to be "updated in 10/02."
Often, we hear comments from this crowd that go something like, "I'm not anti-immigration, I'm anti 'illegal' immigration." However, their own sources and background info speak louder than their words.
For the sake of argument, let's say that this one source is correct: They claim that immigrants (ALL immigrants) cost from $11 to $22 billion a year in welfare. By conservative estimates, the CURRENT cost of the Iraq war is $144 billion a year. Many sources consider the total cost of the Iraq war to be around $3 TRILLION. This is just Iraq, not the total War on Terror.
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Comments: 19
I admit that I think both sides find statistics, quotes and stories for their own use to show how right their side is. It is a rare thing to find someone in this world who doesn't break the law SOMETIME. Even my incredibly careful, law-abiding K tends to break the 35 mph speedlimit going down the hill to our turn-off. It's blacktop, practically no traffic, and never any policing. It's too hard not to do closer to forty, you know?
So "don't reward law-breakers" thing... can sometimes be an amusing argument, to say the least.
Personally, I find myself gravitating more and more to an isolationist stance. We spend all our money interacting with the rest of the world when there are people who forego healthcare for chronic conditions because they have no insurance and no money for regular doctor visits (I'm one of them). We have homeless people here, starving people here. We focus on everyone else and lose ourselves in the process.
I've been assured we can't live in a bubble. I just wish I knew why we had to be so invested outisde of it...
Comparing Totals is really the only to make an Apples to Apples argument here Rico.
Pulling one expense out of the list then comparing it to the TOTAL for the war would be the same as me pulling the cost of .45 BULLETS only than comparing that to the total cost of illegal immigration.
ALL These costs are associated with ILLIGAL IMMIGRATION not Legal Immigration.
I believe a LEGAL system would allow immigrants to fully participate in our economy, while illegal immigration creates a slavery system where immigrants are a sort of slave labor pool.
2. $2.2 Billion dollars a year is spent on food assistance programs such as food stamps, WIC, and free school lunches for illegal aliens. http://www.cis.org/articles/2004/fiscalexec.html
3. $2.5 Billion dollars a year is spent on Medicaid for illegal aliens. http://www.cis.org/articles/2004/fiscalexec.html
4. $12 Billion dollars a year is spent on primary and secondary school education for children here illegally and they cannot speak a word of English! http://transcripts.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/0604/01/ldt.0.html
5. $17 Billion dollars a year is spent for education for the American-born children of illegal aliens, known as anchor babies. http://transcripts.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/0604/01/ldt.01.html
6. $3 Million Dollars a DAY is spent to incarcerate illegal aliens.
http://transcripts.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/0604/01/ldt.01.html
7. 30% percent of all Federal Prison inmates are illegal aliens.
http://transcripts.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/0604/01/ldt.01.html
8. $90 Billion Dollars a year is spent on illegal aliens for Welfare & social services by the American taxpayers. http://premium.cnn.com/TRANSCIPTS/0610/29/ldt.01.html
9. $200 Billion Dollars a year in suppressed American wages are caused by the illegal aliens.
http://transcripts.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/0604/01/ldt.01.html
10. The illegal aliens in the United States have a crime rate that's two and a half times that of white non-illegal aliens. In particular, their children are going to make a huge additional crime problem in the US
http://transcripts.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/0606/12/ldt.01.html
11. During the year of 2005 there were 4 to 10 MILLION illegal aliens that crossed our Southern Border also, as many as 19,500 illegal aliens from Terrorist Countries. Millions of pounds of drugs, cocaine, meth, heroine and marijuana, crossed into the U. S from the Southern border. Homeland Security Report: http://tinyurl.com/t9sht
12. The National Policy Institute "estimated that the total cost of mass deportation would be between $206 and $230 billion or an average cost of between $41 and $46 billion annually over a five year period."
http://www.nationalpolicyinstitute.org/pdf/deportation.pdf
13. In 2006 illegal aliens sent home $45 BILLION in remittances back to their countries of origin. http://www.rense.com/general75/niht.htm
14. "The Dark Side of Illegal Immigration: Nearly One Million Sex Crimes Committed by Illegal Immigrants In The United States ". http://www.drdsk.com/articleshtml
I for one have no problem with anyone wanting to better themselves. after all that is what we are all trying to do. The problem that I have is that when someone comes over and works for a lot less money per hour, it drives everyone else's wages down.
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Rico,
As can be seen from Phileas Fogg's comments, these people
make up facts to support their xenophobia. If Lou Dobbs said it, it has to be true! I tried addressing some of these fantasies earlier. ARTICLE HERE
It is a waste of time.
Good article!
I have many times mentioned this $45 Billion/year loss we suffer in remittances (tantative to foreign invasion and medieval type pillaging). This and the human services payouts that we cover for these other countries (mostly Mexico) is also nothing less than the biggest international burglary in world history.
I would take issue with you on one thing though. While the total cost of mass deportation (National Policy Institute) you mention may be correct, it has long been regarded that this is unecessary. Generally, illegal immigration opponents have for some years now advocated deportation by attrition (ie. with enforcement of the 1986
IRCA Act, and illegal employers being jailed), whereby illegal aliens will leave voluntarily
once locked out of the job market and welfare system. Pressure on Mexico would also help in this regard.
This voluntary departure is already happening in states that are cracking down,
and illegals are moving to easier pickings (for them) places.
If you think that Lou Dobbs shows' facts are "fantasies", and are being made up, then where where you when I published the article "Lou Dobbs: A Challenge To His Critics". I saw only 4 names in the comments to that article. 3 of them were positive and one was inquisitively neutral. I didn't see your name among them.
So when you had the chance to show up and answer the challenge you were uh, hiding ? Well the article is still here in Gather - you can still go to that article. Click on my name, the articles, then the article name. Or would you rather just stand on the outside and take potshots, and try to use race as an excuse for your treason ?
I also believe a fence is useless, accept to stem the tide of illegal drugs, and lawlessness on the border.
I would like to encourage anyone who is concerned about illegal immigration, to siugn into a web-site called
NumbersUSA.com
They let you send faxes to your congressmen for free. Hey are currently pushing to get the Democrats to allow a vote on the widely popular and bipartisan Save Act. (H.R.4088)
This bill would force employers to obey the law, and to use a verification system to check identities of employees.
Wayne is dead on, further, wage pressures have as much to do with our slowing economy as any other single factor. Our shrinking dollar comes from a combination of pressures, butr when you have less dollars in uyour own pocket, and you are chasing the same goods (food and gasoline) as the rest of the world, prices go up. Simple economics.
My position has always been to allow fgor a legal immigration system, where immigrants are forced to participate wholly in our economy, thereby reducing the possibility of wage pressures.
Illegal Immigration creates a class of people, who don't buy insurance (but use our health system), do not have drivers licenses or insurance (but use our roads), do not speak our language (but use our schools), do not obey many of our laws (but burden our police departments).
Given the same financial burdens as Americans, they would need the same pay level as Americans. The magnet of low wage illegal immigrant jobs replacing American jobs would be eliminated.
The last time we exchanged views on this subject you said, among other things, "In a time of disastrous overpopulation (10x what it should be), we shouldn't be allowing any unnecessary immigration to occur, and any additional people entering here"
Wow. The US population is 10 times what it should be. The population clock on the website for the US Census Bureau says we now have just under 304 million people. So, according to your calculations, we should have cut off immigration at about 31 million. That would have been around 1860.
You make a good point. To the fellow getting more isolationist: it is increasingly a global world. We cannot go backwards to isolationism at this point. Our food comes from all over the globe: fish caught in Norway is sent to China to be filleted and is sent back to Norway. Parts of pharmaceuticals are imported from China and other companies. Corporations are increasingly multinational. Whether this is a good thing or not is a complex question, but is certainly makes it increasingly difficult to pull off isolationist policy.
A Fellow Minnesotan
Sherry :
You couldn't be more wrong. The globalism you see is a result of GREED and recklessness. It isn't good for the American people . It's only good for the very small
number of profiteeers who engage in this outsourcing (international & domestic both).
I think I'm going to get a new baseball cap at one of those stores where they print
on it whatever message you choose. Mine will be : #1 Protectionist.