How Do We Deal With Illegal Immigration?

Illegal immigration needs to stop. If someone wants to come into this country to make a better life, they need to do it the right way. Take the test, pay the money, and get your green card! Yes, illegal immigrants are hard workers just trying to make a better life for their family, but what about Texas families? We should be working to improve OUR economy.

In Biting the Hand That Feeds You, Congressman Steve King of Iowa noted:

What would the May 1, 2006, illegal immigration boycott look like without illegal immigration?

• The lives of 12 U.S. citizens would be saved who otherwise would die a violent death at the hands of murderous illegal aliens each day.
• Another 13 Americans would survive who are otherwise killed each day by uninsured drunk driving illegals.
• There would be no one to smuggle across our southern border the heroin, marijuana, cocaine, and methamphetamines, which plague the United States, reducing the U.S. supply of methamphetamines that day, by 80%.
• Our hospital emergency rooms would not be flooded with everything from gunshot wounds, to anchor babies, to imported diseases, to hangnails, giving American citizens the day off from standing in line behind illegals.
• Eight American children would not suffer the horror as victims of sex crimes.

Most crimes witnessed by illegal immigrants go unreported. Illegals are afraid to report crimes because they are scared their residency status will be checked and they don't want to get deported. Many of the violent crimes committed by illegal immigrants are sexual crimes. Researcher Deborah Schurman-Kauflin Ph.D. of the Violent Crimes Institute, reports on the analysis of 1,500 violent crimes from January 1999 through April 2006 that included serial rapes, serial murders, sexual homicides and child molestation committed by illegal aliens. The Schurman-Kauflin study noted that "63% of the illegal immigrant sex offenders had been deported on another offense prior to the sex crime." Should women and children have to suffer from sex crimes just to save ten cents on a head of lettuce? NO! We need to protect our border!

The media and Congress always say that illegal immigrants do the work that Americans won't... But what is never mentioned, is that illegal immigrants are the only ones who will do the work at such low wages.

The prestigious Wall Street investment firm Bear Stearns recently published a report, The Underground Labor Force is Rising to the Surface, which claims that the illegal alien population is double the official government estimates and that the Government vastly underestimates the cost of illegal immigration. According to Bear Stearns:

• The illegal alien population of the U.S. is about 20 million - roughly the population of New York State.
• Between 4 and 6 million jobs have shifted to the underground economy since 1990. These are not "jobs Americans won't do, but rather jobs Americans used to do.
• On the revenue side, the United States may be foregoing $35 billion a year in income tax collections because of the number of jobs that are now off the books.
• There are approximately 5 million illegal workers who are collecting wages on a cash basis and are avoiding both income and FICA taxes.
• The United States is hooked on cheap, illegal workers and is deferring the costs of providing public services to these quasi-Americans.

Before these "non-American" jobs were done by illegal immigrants, they were done by Americans. Someone had to mow yards, dig ditches, flip burgers, and clean hotel rooms. These entry level jobs were done by guest agricultural workers, the working poor, legal immigrants, and during the summer, by students. There are still plenty of legal Americans who would do this work at a fair wage.

In order to solve the immigration problem we have to do two things: First, slowing down and eventually preventing entry by illegal immigrants. Then, make it harder for existing illegal immigrants to live and exist in the US while simultaneously "encouraging" them to go home, as well as deporting others. But, before we can do that, the US has to recognize the growing problem this will have on the country.