Study: 1 million sex crimes by illegal aliens

Researcher estimates more than 100 offenders crossing border daily

Based on a one-year in-depth study, a researcher estimates there are about 240,000 illegal immigrant sex offenders in the United States who have had an average of four victims each.

Deborah Schurman-Kauflin of the Violent Crimes Institute in Atlanta analyzed 1,500 cases from January 1999 through April 2006 that included serial rapes, serial murders, sexual homicides and child molestation committed by illegal immigrants.

She found that while the offenders were located in 36 states, most were in states with the highest numbers of illegal immigrants. California had the most offenders, followed by Texas, Arizona, New Jersey, New York and Florida.

Schurman-Kauflin concluded that, based on a figure of 12 million illegal immigrants and the fact that more of this population is male than average, sex offenders among illegals make up a higher percentage than offenders in the general population.

She arrives at the figure of 240,000 offenders – a conservative estimate, she says – through public records showing about 2 percent of illegals apprehended are sex offenders.

"This translates to 93 sex offenders and 12 serial sexual offenders coming across U.S. borders illegally per day," she says.

She points out the 1,500 offenders in her study had a total of 5,999 victims, and each sex offender averaged four victims.

"This places the estimate for victimization numbers around 960,000 for the 88 months examined in this study," she declares.

Schurman-Kauflin breaks down the 1,500 cases reviewed this way:


525, or 35 percent, were child molestations

358, or 24 percent, were rapes

617, or 41 percent, were sexual homicides and serial murders
Of the child molestations, 47 percent of the victims were Hispanic, 36 percent Caucasian, 8 percent Asian, 6 percent African American and 3 percent other nationalities.

In 82 percent of the cases, she noted, the victims were known to their attackers.

"In those instances, the illegal immigrants typically gained access to the victims after having worked as a day laborer at or near the victims' homes," she says. "Victims ranged in age from 1 year old to 13 years old, with the average age being 6."

In her examination of the sex-related homicides, Schurman-Kauflin found the most common method was for an offender to break into a residence and ambush his victims.

Not only were victims raped, she said, but some – 6 percent – were mutilated.

"The crime scenes were very bloody, expressing intense, angry perpetrator personalities," she said. "Specifically, most victims were blitzed, rendered incapable of fighting back, and then raped and murdered. The most common method of killing was bludgeoning, followed by stabbing."

She found it especially disturbing that in 22 percent of all sex crimes committed by illegal immigrants, victims with physical and mental disabilities were targeted.

The highest number of sex offenders, according to the study, came from Mexico. El Salvador was the original home to the next highest number. Other countries of origin included Brazil, China, Ecuador, Guatemala, Honduras, Jamaica, Nicaragua, Puerto Rico, Russia, and Vietnam.

Nearly 63 percent of the offenders had been deported on another offense prior to the sex crime, the study showed. There was an average of three years of committing crimes such as DUI, assault or drug related offenses prior to being apprehended for a sexual offense.

In 81 percent of cases, offenders were drinking or using drugs prior to offending. Rapists and killers were more likely to use alcohol and drugs consistently than child molesters.

Only about 25 percent of offenders were found to have been stable within a community. In 31 percent of the crimes, the offenders entered into the communities where they offended within two months of the commission of their sex offenses.

But many, 79 percent, had been in the U.S. for more than one year before being arrested for a sex crime. They typically were known to the criminal justice system for prior, less serious offenses before they molested, raped or murdered, the study said.

Schurman-Kauflin concludes illegal immigrants gradually commit worse crimes and are continually released back into society or deported.

"Those who were deported simply returned illegally again," she says.

She points out that only 2 percent of the offenders in her study had no history of criminal behavior, beyond crossing the border illegally.

"There is a clear pattern of criminal escalation," she said.

Source - http://www.wnd.com/?pageId=36410

13 illegal aliens OK plea deal

Nine of 48 illegal immigrants charged with conspiracy to smuggle humans - themselves - pleaded guilty to lesser charges Tuesday and will be deported under an agreement with the Maricopa County Attorney's Office.

They join four other immigrants who recently agreed to the deal, pleading guilty to solicitation to smuggle. In addition to deportation, the border crossers were placed on two years of probation.

The 48 immigrants were the first in the county to be charged with conspiracy to smuggle humans - a unique interpretation of a state law aimed at cracking down on coyotes, who are paid by immigrants to get them across the border.

Plea offers for the remaining 35 defendants are now off the table, said Bill FitzGerald, spokesman for the county attorney's office.

Those defendants will await a ruling by Judge Thomas O'Toole of Maricopa County Superior Court on whether the state can charge the people being smuggled across with conspiracy under Arizona's new anti-coyote law.

The defense attorneys and County Attorney Andrew Thomas have said they will appeal O'Toole's decision if they lose. That means the border crossers could spend months in jail if they can't make bail.

Timothy Agan is a defense attorney representing one defendant who hasn't pleaded guilty. He said the deal that was offered by the county attorney's office has no real benefit, except to get them out of jail sooner.

The immigrants have been in jail almost three months now.

In early March, Maricopa County sheriff's deputies stopped two vanloads of illegal immigrants in the far West Valley.

In addition to the 48 immigrants, one man, Javier Ruiz, was charged with human smuggling.

Since then, more than 200 people have been arrested and charged as conspirators. The outcome of their cases also depends on O'Toole's ruling.

On Tuesday, deputies with the Maricopa County Sheriff's Office arrested 10 more border crossers.

http://www.eastvalleytribune.com/article_6e15ecac-118a-5bb3-ae39-ec9101121fb2.html

A Day Without Illegal Aliens Would Save Taxpayers Lots Of $$$$$$$$$$$$!

The activist protestors are trying to confuse the American public by lumping legal immigrants with illegal aliens. A day without legal immigrants would be a day without almost all Americans. A day without illegal aliens, on the other hand, would be a boon to the American taxpayer.

The net cost to the federal government in 2002 for public services provided to illegal aliens was $10.4 billion or $2,736 per household according to a report by the Center for Immigration Studies. Estimates for 2005 put the amount at $11.7 billion or $3,080 per household.

Illegal alien costs by social service:

Lost Revenue

The U.S. may be foregoing up to $35 billion in lost tax revenue because of the growing size of the underground labor market using illegal workers in the cash economy, according to a January, 2005 report by the Wall Street firm Bear Sterns.

Health Costs

Medicaid costs for illegal aliens and their U.S.-born children are $2.8 billion annually, according to a study by the Center for Immigration Studies.

Approximately 70% of households headed by illegal aliens have at least one person without medical insurance, compared to 20% of all other households.

The federal government spends $250 million each year reimbursing states for emergency medical services provided to illegal aliens, which is less than 10% of the true cost of those services.

Education Costs

The Center for Immigration Studies has shown that federal aid to K-12 public schools for the education of the children of illegal aliens is $1.4 billion annually, not including the cost of free school lunches.

The total cost to state and local taxpayers for educating 3.5 million children of illegal aliens is estimated at $28.6 billion, according to a Federation for American Immigration Reform study.

Incarceration

Illegal aliens account for less than 5% of the U.S. adult population, but were 17% of the federal prison population in 2004, imposing a net cost of $1.8 billion in court and incarceration expenses.

Fortunately, Americans have seen through the protestors’ half-truths. A Rasmussen poll released last week showed widespread disfavor of recent immigration protests, with 26 percent holding a favorable opinion and 54 percent holding an unfavorable opinion.

Americans don’t respond well to illegal aliens who demand amnesty. As I’ve said before, that doesn’t play well in Peoria. Every time illegal aliens and their supporters take to the streets, it drives home the point to most Americans that illegal immigration is a problem in their home towns, and that we urgently need to get control of our borders.

http://www.theamericanview.com/index.php?id=614

An Amnesty by Any Other Name ...

IN the debate over immigration, "amnesty" has become something of a dirty word. Some opponents of the immigration bill being debated in the Senate assert that it would grant amnesty to millions of illegal immigrants. Supporters claim it would do no such thing. Instead, they say, it lays out a road map by which illegal aliens can earn citizenship.

Perhaps I can shed some light. Two decades ago, while serving as attorney general under President Ronald Reagan, I was in the thick of things as Congress debated the Immigration Reform and Control Act of 1986. The situation today bears uncanny similarities to what we went through then.

In the mid-80's, many members of Congress — pushed by the Democratic majority in the House and the Select Commission on Immigration and Refugee Policy — advocated amnesty for long-settled illegal immigrants. President Reagan considered it reasonable to adjust the status of what was then a relatively small population, and I supported his decision.

In exchange for allowing aliens to stay, he decided, border security and enforcement of immigration laws would be greatly strengthened — in particular, through sanctions against employers who hired illegal immigrants. If jobs were the attraction for illegal immigrants, then cutting off that option was crucial.

Beyond this, most illegal immigrants who could establish that they had resided in America continuously for five years would be granted temporary resident status, which could be upgraded to permanent residency after 18 months and, after another five years, to citizenship.

Note that this path to citizenship was not automatic. Indeed, the legislation stipulated several conditions: immigrants had to pay application fees, learn to speak English, understand American civics, pass a medical exam and register for military selective service. Those with convictions for a felony or three misdemeanors were ineligible. Sound familiar? These are pretty much the same provisions included in the new Senate proposal and cited by its supporters as proof that they have eschewed amnesty in favor of earned citizenship.

The difference is that President Reagan called this what it was: amnesty. Indeed, look up the term "amnesty" in Black's Law Dictionary, and you'll find it says, "the 1986 Immigration Reform and Control Act provided amnesty for undocumented aliens already in the country."

Like the amnesty bill of 1986, the current Senate proposal would place those who have resided illegally in the United States on a path to citizenship, provided they meet a similar set of conditions and pay a fine and back taxes. The illegal immigrant does not go to the back of the line but gets immediate legalized status, while law-abiding applicants wait in their home countries for years to even get here. And that's the line that counts. In the end, slight differences in process do not change the overriding fact that the 1986 law and today's bill are both amnesties.

There is a practical problem as well: the 1986 act did not solve our illegal immigration problem. From the start, there was widespread document fraud by applicants. Unsurprisingly, the number of people applying for amnesty far exceeded projections. And there proved to be a failure of political will in enforcing new laws against employers.

After a six-month slowdown that followed passage of the legislation, illegal immigration returned to normal levels and continued unabated. Ultimately, some 2.7 million people were granted amnesty, and many who were not stayed anyway, forming the nucleus of today's unauthorized population.

So here we are, 20 years later, having much the same debate and being offered much the same deal in exchange for promises largely dependent on the will of future Congresses and presidents.

Will history repeat itself? I hope not. In the post-9/11 world, secure borders are vital. We have new tools — like biometric technology for identification, and cameras, sensors and satellites to monitor the border — that make enforcement and verification less onerous. And we can learn from the failed policies of the past.

President Bush and Congress would do better to start with securing the border and strengthening enforcement of existing immigration laws. We might also try improving on Ronald Reagan's idea of a pilot program for genuinely temporary workers.

The fair and sound policy is to give those who are here illegally the opportunity to correct their status by returning to their country of origin and getting in line with everyone else. This, along with serious enforcement and control of the illegal inflow at the border — a combination of incentives and disincentives — will significantly reduce over time our population of illegal immigrants.

America welcomes more immigrants than any other country. But in keeping open that door of opportunity, we also must uphold the rule of law and enhance a fair immigration process, as Ronald Reagan said, to "humanely regain control of our borders and thereby preserve the value of one of the most sacred possessions of our people: American citizenship."

Source - http://www.nytimes.com/2006/05/24/opinion/24meese.html

No Amnesty for Illegal Aliens

A revelation struck me last Thursday as I watched President George W. Bush near Yuma, Arizona, doing a media photo op riding in a Border Patrol dune buggy.

I was witnessing the second coming of Michael Dukakis in a tank.

In 1988, Democratic presidential candidate Dukakis, governor of Massachusetts, rode in an Army tank for press photographers to demonstrate that he was tough on national defense. Grinning beneath a military helmet, he looked ridiculous, and the universal laughter at this pseudo-intellectual liberal playing soldier sank his campaign.

In 2006, President Bush seemed equally silly as he played Border Patrolman. Every American, right or left, now recognizes that Mr. Bush is only pretending to oppose, but has no intention of stopping, the flood of illegal aliens across our southern border.

This cheap Latino labor is too profitable to business campaign contributors, and key Republican lawmakers are afraid of alienating an emerging pivotal constituency of Hispanic voters.

Republican leaders would rather risk alienating aging conservative voters, assuming that conservatives have no place else to go and can be herded like sheep back to the polls in November by invoking their fear of liberals taking over Congress.

Mr. Bush last week promised to send 6,000 National Guard reservists to the border, but he spoke only after assuring Mexican President Vicente Fox that these reservists would be temporary, unarmed and kept away from direct enforcement roles.

Few praised the president's disingenuous speech to the nation, but Dick Morris, former political strategist for Bill and Hillary Clinton, called it brilliant. As NewsMax reported on May 4, however, Morris apparently is now on the payroll of term-limited Vicente Fox's conservative PAN party candidate Felipe Calderon in Mexico's upcoming July 2 presidential election. (See: Dick Morris Helping Mexican Candidate Surge?)

According to polls, Calderon recently has pulled ahead of long-leading leftist presidential candidate Andres Manual Lopez Obrador by using ads that show Obrador's links to Venezuelan Marxist dictator Hugo Chavez, ally of Cuban Marxist dictator Fidel Castro.

President Bush clearly wants to do or say nothing that could help Obrador, whose chief cultural adviser openly calls for "reconquista," the reconquering of former Mexican territory that is now the southwestern United States. Imagine having a Marxist regime like Cuba's or Venezuela's just across our porous border.

Polls show that what Americans – including a majority of Mexican-Americans – want, above all, is government action to stop the flood of illegals crossing our border. The Republican-controlled House of Representatives has offered a "tough" bill to build 700 miles of fence, while the GOP-run Senate's "comprehensive" bill would build only 350 miles of fence – but neither would cover much more than a third of this 1,998-mile-long border with Mexico.

(As liberal Democrat Chris Matthews, host of MSNBC's "Hardball," noted, after even a few miles of fence was built to wall off San Diego from Tijuana, crime in San Diego fell by 56 percent.)


The U.S. Senate last week passed two amendments, one declaring English the "National Language of the United States," the other declaring English our "common and unifying language." Neither prohibited the growing use of Spanish by government as America's second language. To prohibit this would require a law mandating English as America's "official" language, which no lawmaker seems eager to propose.

"I really believe this amendment is racist," said Senator Harry Reid of Nevada, the Democratic minority leader. "I think it's directed basically to people who speak Spanish." But Spanish, like English, is spoken by blue-eyed blondes and blacks, and "Hispanic" is a term describing ethnicity, not race.

Reid's was the latest effort to play divide-and-conquer politics by America's racist political party – the Democratic Party of the slave owners, the Klan, Jim Crow, the segregated South, Bull Connor and Al Sharpton. Its favored races change, but its race baiting never changes.

The president's attorney general, Alberto Gonzales, in an interview the day after the language vote, blurted out that Mr. Bush "has never supported making English the national language." The president, said Gonzales, favors "English-Plus," that Americans have proficiency in more than one language, as Mr. Bush does (if one counts doubletalk as a language).

Last week the U.S. Senate voted on an amendment by Senator John Ensign, R-Nev., to deny Social Security benefits to any illegal alien who used a false number. The amendment was tabled into oblivion by a 50-49 vote. Five Democrats supported it, all coincidentally up for re-election this year: Robert Byrd of West Virginia, Kent Conrad of North Dakota, Mark Dayton of Minnesota, Bill Nelson of Florida and Ben Nelson of Nebraska.

But eleven Republicans voted to kill the amendment – and apparently favor guaranteeing Social Security (already shaky as Baby Boomers near retirement) to millions of illegals who have broken American law twice. The Republican senators who killed Ensign's amendment are: Sam Brownback of Kansas, Lincoln Chafee of Rhode Island, Mike DeWine of Ohio, Lindsey Graham of South Carolina, Chuck Hagel of Nebraska, Richard Lugar of Indiana, Mel Martinez of Florida, John McCain of Arizona, Arlen Specter of Pennsylvania, Ted Stevens of Alaska and George Voinovich of Ohio. Of these, only Chafee, DeWine and Lugar face voters this November.

In 1986, Americans were assured that a new reform law with tough penalties for employers of illegals would solve this immigration problem forever. As many as 16 million illegals have arrived since then, and the promised employer penalties have never really been enforced.

It's clear that Republicans and Democrats both intend to turn the 2006 bill's "path to earned citizenship" into easy amnesty but that government efforts to halt the flood of new illegals will cease one minute after this November's election, just as in 1986.

"Fool me once, shame on you," the American people are now screaming. "Fool me twice, shame on me. We won't get fooled again. Take control of the entire border with a 30-foot-high wall NOW! Anything less is a sham and a betrayal of the oath our lawmakers and president took to defend America."

Source - http://archive.newsmax.com/archives/articles/2006/5/22/195030.shtml

Illegal Aliens granted Social Security

The Senate voted yesterday to allow illegal aliens to collect Social Security benefits based on past illegal employment -- even if the job was obtained through forged or stolen documents.

"There was a felony they were committing, and now they can't be prosecuted. That sounds like amnesty to me," said Sen. John Ensign, the Nevada Republican who offered the amendment yesterday to strip out those provisions of the immigration reform bill. "It just boggles the mind how people could be against this amendment."

The Ensign amendment was defeated on a 50-49 vote.

"We all know that millions of undocumented immigrants pay Social Security and Medicare taxes for years and sometimes decades while they work to contribute to our economy," said Sen. John McCain, Arizona Republican.

"The Ensign amendment would undermine the work of these people by preventing lawfully present immigrant workers from claiming Social Security benefits that they earned before they were authorized to work in our community," he said. "If this amendment were enacted, the nest egg that these immigrants have worked hard for would be taken from them and their families."

Mr. Ensign was among 44 Republicans and five Democrats who voted to block such payouts.

"It makes no sense to reward millions of illegal immigrants for criminal behavior while our Social Security system is already in crisis," said Sen. Jim DeMint, South Carolina Republican. "Why in the world would we endorse this criminal activity with federal benefits? The Senate missed a big opportunity to improve this bill, and I doubt American seniors will be pleased with the result."

Sen. Patrick J. Leahy, Vermont Democrat, said it would be unfair to deny illegals the benefits.

"We should not steal their funds or empty their Social Security accounts," he said. "That is not fair. It does not reward their hard work or their financial contributions. It violates the trust that underlies the Social Security Trust Fund."

Within hours, the vote had become an issue in this fall's elections, raised by a Republican challenger to Sen. Debbie Stabenow, Michigan Democrat.

"Instead of protecting the retirement security of Americans who are earning an honest living and abiding by the laws of our country, Debbie Stabenow sided with people who are here illegally and abuse our Social Security system," Oakland County, Mich., Sheriff Michael Bouchard said in a press release. "Allowing illegal immigrants to use their illegal work history as credit towards receiving Social Security benefits shows that Debbie Stabenow has forgotten who she is supposed to be working for in the U.S. Senate."

The Senate also yesterday approved an amendment to adopt English as the nation's official language, while reversing course from the day before on protections for U.S. workers who will face new competition from unskilled immigrant labor under the Senate bill. In addition, senators voted last night to kill an amendment that would have specified that the guest-worker program will not provide visas that would provide a path to citizenship.

On Wednesday, senators narrowly approved an amendment to require a foreign worker to have a job lined up in the United States before applying for a green card. The purpose, supporters say, is to ensure that the job market isn't flooded with foreign workers. Also, it prevents foreign workers from coming to the United States only to wind up unemployed and dependent on public assistance.

But yesterday, the Senate essentially gutted that amendment by allowing foreign workers to apply for permanent residency without having a job lined up.

"What that means is that up to 200,000 unskilled workers a year would become eligible for a green card, regardless of economic conditions, regardless of whether that worker has been actually employed for four years, and most importantly, regardless of whether there are unemployed U.S. workers available to fill those jobs," said Sen. John Cornyn, Texas Republican.

http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2006/may/18/20060518-114132-2456r/

Amnesty and Continued Low Skill Immigration Will Substantially Raise Welfare Costs and Poverty

This paper focuses on the net fiscal effects of immigration with particular emphasis on the fiscal effects of low skill immigration. The fiscal effects of immigration are only one aspect of the impact of immigration. immigration also has social, political, and economic effects. In particular, the economic effects of immigration have been heavily researched with differing results. These economic effects lie beyond the scope of this paper.

Overall, immigration is a net fiscal positive to the government's budget in the long run: the taxes immigrants pay exceed the costs of the services they receive. However, the fiscal impact of immigrants varies strongly according to immigrants' education level. College-educated immigrants are likely to be strong contributors to the government's finances, with their taxes exceeding the government's costs. By contrast, immigrants with low education levels are likely to be a fiscal drain on other taxpayers. This is important because half of all adult illegal immigrants in the U.S. have less than a high school education. In addition, recent immigrants have high levels of out-of-wedlock childbearing, which increases welfare costs and poverty.

An immigration plan proposed by Senators Mel Martinez (R-FL) and Chuck Hagel (R-NE), the Comprehensive immigration Reform Act (CIRA, S. 2611) would provide Amnesty to 9 to 10 million illegal immigrants and put them on a path to citizenship. Once these individuals become citizens, the net additional cost to the federal government of benefits for these individuals will be around $16 billion per year. Further, once an illegal immigrant becomes a citizen, he has the right to bring his parents to live in the U.S. The parents, in turn, may become citizens. The long-term cost of government benefits to the parents of 10 million recipients of Amnesty could be $30 billion per year or more. In the long run, S. 2611, if enacted, would be the largest expansion of the welfare state in 35 years.

Current Trends in immigration

Over the last 40 years, immigration into the United States has surged. Our nation is now experiencing a second "great migration" similar to the great waves of immigrants that transformed America in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. In 2004, an estimated 35.7 million foreign-born persons lived in the U.S. While in 1970 one person in twenty was foreign born, by 2004 the number had risen to one in eight.

About one-third of all foreign-born persons in the U.S. are illegal aliens. There are between 10 and 12 million illegal aliens currently living in the U.S.[1] Illegal aliens now comprise 3 to 4 percent of the total U.S. population. Each year approximately 1.3 million new immigrants enter the U.S.[2] Some 700,000 of these entrants are illegal.[3]

One-third of all foreign-born persons in the U.S. are Mexican. Overall, the number of Mexicans in the U.S. has increased from 760,000 in 1970 to 10.6 million in 2004. Nine percent of all Mexicans now reside in the U.S.[4] Over half of all Mexicans in the U.S. are illegal immigrants,[5] and in the last decade 80 to 85 percent of the inflow of Mexicans into the U.S. has been illegal.[6]

The public generally perceives illegals to be unattached single men. This is, in fact, not the case. Some 44 percent of adult illegals are women. While illegal men work slightly more than native-born men, illegal women work less. Among female illegals, some 56 percent work, compared to 73 percent among native-born women of comparable age.[7] As well, Mexican women emigrating to the U.S. have a considerably higher fertility rate than women remaining in Mexico.[8]

Immigrants and education

On average, immigrants have low education levels relative to native-born U.S. citizens. One-quarter of legal adult immigrants lack a high school degree, compared to 9 percent among the native-born population. However, there is a well educated sub-group within the legal immigrant population. Some 32 percent of legal immigrant adults have a college degree, compared to 30 percent of native-born adults.[9]

The education levels of illegal aliens are lower than those of legal immigrants. Half of all adult illegal immigrants lack a high school degree.[10] Among Latin American and Mexican immigrants, 60 percent lack a high school degree and only 7 percent have a high school diploma. By contrast, among native-born workers in the U.S., only 6 percent have failed to complete high school degrees and nearly a third have a college degree.[11]

Decline in Immigrant Wages

Over the last 40 years the education level of new immigrants has fallen relative to the native population. As the relative education levels of immigrants have declined, so has their earning capacity compared to the general U.S. population. Immigrants arriving in the U.S. around 1960 had wages, at the time of entry, that were just 13 percent less than natives'. In 1965, the nation's immigration law was dramatically changed, and from 1990 on, illegal immigration surged. The result was a decline in the relative skill levels of new immigrants. By 1998, new immigrants had an average entry wage that was 34 percent less than natives'.[12] Because of their lower education levels, illegal immigrants' wages would have been even lower.

The low-wage status of recent illegal immigrants can be illustrated by the wages of recent immigrants from Mexico, a majority of whom have entered the U.S. illegally. In 2000, the median weekly wage of a first-generation Mexican immigrant was $323. This was 54 percent of the corresponding wage for non-Hispanic whites in the general population.[13]

Historically, the relative wages of recent immigrants have risen after entry as immigrants gained experience in the labor market. For example, immigrants who arrived in the U.S. in the 1960s and 1970s saw their relative wages rise by 10 percentage points compared to natives' wages during their first 20 years in the country. But in recent years, this modest catch up effect has diminished. Immigrants who arrived in the late 1980s actually saw their relative wages shrink in the 1990s.[14]

immigration and welfare Dependence

welfare may be defined as means-tested aid programs: these programs provide cash, non-cash, and social service assistance that is limited to low-income households. The major means-tested programs include Food Stamps, Temporary Assistance to Needy Families, public housing, the earned income Credit, and Medicaid. Historically, recent immigrants were less likely to receive welfare than native-born Americans. But over the last thirty years, this historic pattern has reversed. As the relative education levels of immigrants fell, their tendency to receive welfare benefits increased. By the late 1990s immigrant households were fifty percent more likely to receive means-tested aid than native-born households.[15] Moreover, immigrants appear to assimilate into welfare use. The longer immigrants live in the U.S., the more likely they are to use welfare.[16]

A large part, but not all, of immigrants' higher welfare use is explained by their low education levels. welfare use also varies by immigrants' national origin. For example, in the late 1990s, 5.6 percent of immigrants from India received means-tested benefits; among Mexican immigrants the figure was 34.1 percent; and for immigrants from the Dominican Republic the figure was 54.9 percent.[17] Ethnic differences in the propensity to receive welfare that appear among first-generation immigrants persist strongly in the second generation.[18] The relatively high use of welfare among Mexicans has significant implications for current proposals to grant Amnesty to illegal immigrants.

Some 80 percent of illegal immigrants come from Mexico and Latin America.[19] (See Chart 1) Historically, Hispanics in America have had very high levels of welfare use. Chart 2 shows receipt of aid from major welfare programs by different ethnic groups in 1999; the programs covered are Medicaid, Food Stamps, public housing, Temporary Assistance to Needy Families, General Assistance, and Supplemental Security Income.[20] As the chart shows, Hispanics were almost three times more likely to receive welfare than non-Hispanic whites. In addition, among families that received aid, the cost of the aid received was 40 percent higher for Hispanics than for non-Hispanic whites.[21] Putting together the greater probability of receiving welfare with the greater cost of welfare per family means that, on average, Hispanic families received four times more welfare per family than white non-Hispanics.

Part, but not all, of this high level of welfare use by Hispanics can be explained by background factors such as family structure. [22] It seems likely that, if Hispanic illegal immigrants are given permanent residence and citizenship, they and their children will likely assimilate into the culture of high welfare use that characterizes Hispanics in the U.S. This would impose significant costs on taxpayers and society as a whole.

welfare use can also be measured by immigration status. In general, immigrant households are about fifty percent more likely to use welfare than native-born households.[23] Immigrants with less education are more likely to use welfare.

The potential welfare costs of low-skill immigration and Amnesty for current illegal immigrants can be assessed by looking at the welfare utilization rates for current low-skill immigrants. As Chart 3 shows, immigrants without a high school degree (both lawful and unlawful) are two-and-a-half times more likely to use welfare than native-born individuals.[24] This underscores the high potential welfare costs of giving Amnesty to illegal immigrants.

All categories of high school dropouts have a high utilization of welfare. Immigrants who have less than a high school degree are slightly more likely to use welfare than native-born dropouts. legal immigrants who are high school dropouts are slightly more likely to use welfare than native-born dropouts.[25] Illegal immigrant dropouts, however, are less likely to use welfare than native-born dropouts mainly because they are ineligible for many welfare programs. With Amnesty, current illegal immigrants' welfare use would likely rise to the level of lawful immigrants with similar education levels.

Illegal immigration and poverty

According to the Pew Hispanic Center, 4.7 million children of illegal immigrant parents currently live in the U.S.[26] Some 37 percent of these children are poor.[27] While children of illegal immigrant parents comprise around 6 percent of all children in the U.S., they are 11.8 percent of all poor children.[28]

This high level of child poverty among illegal immigrants in the U.S. is, in part, due to low education levels and low wages. It is also linked to the decline in marriage among Hispanics in the U.S. Within this group, 45 percent of children are born out of wedlock.[29] (See Table 1.) Among foreign-born Hispanics the rate is 42.3 percent.[30] By contrast, the out-of-wedlock birth rate for non-Hispanic whites is 23.4 percent.[31] The birth rate for Hispanic teens is higher than for black teens.[32] While the out-of-wedlock birth rate for blacks has remained flat for the last decade, it has risen steadily for Hispanics.[33] These figures are important because, as noted, some 80 percent of illegal aliens come from Mexico and Latin America.[34]

In general, children born and raised outside of marriage are seven times more likely to live in poverty than children born and raised by married couples. Children born out of wedlock are also more likely to be on welfare, to have lower educational achievement, to have emotional problems, to abuse drugs and alcohol, and to become involved in crime.[35]

poverty is also more common among adult illegal immigrants, who are twice as likely to be poor as are native-born adults. Some 27 percent of all adult illegal immigrants are poor, compared to 13 percent of native-born adults.[36]

Economic and Social Assimilation of Illegal Immigrant Offspring

One important question is the future economic status of the children and grandchildren of current illegal immigrants, assuming those offspring remain in the U.S. While we obviously do not have data on future economic status, we may obtain a strong indication of future outcomes by examining the educational attainment of offspring of recent Mexican immigrants. Some 57 percent of current illegal immigrants come from Mexico, and about half of Mexicans currently in the U.S. are here illegally.[37]

First-generation Mexican immigrants are individuals born in Mexico who have entered the U.S. In 2000, some 70 percent of first-generation Mexican immigrants (both legal and illegal) lacked a high school degree. Second-generation Mexicans may be defined as individuals born in the U.S. who have at least one parent born in Mexico. Second-generation Mexican immigrants (individuals born in the U.S. who have at least one parent born in Mexico) have greatly improved educational outcomes but still fall well short of the general U.S. population. Some 25 percent of second-generation Mexicans in the U.S. fail to complete high school. By contrast, the high school drop out rate is 8.6 percent among non-Hispanic whites and 17.2 percent among blacks. Critically, the educational attainment of third-generation Mexicans (those of Mexican ancestry with both parents born in the U.S.) improves little relative to the second generation. Some 21 percent of third-generation Mexicans are high school dropouts.[38] Similarly, the rate of college attendance among second-generation Mexicans is lower than for black Americans and about two-thirds of the level for non-Hispanic whites; moreover, college attendance does not improve in the third generation.[39]

These data indicate that the offspring of illegal Hispanic immigrants are likely to have lower rates of educational attainment and higher rates of school failure compared to the non-Hispanic U.S. population. High rates of school failure coupled with high rates of out-of-wedlock childbearing are strong predictors of future poverty and welfare dependence.

immigration and crime

Historically, immigrant populations have had lower crime rates than native-born populations. For example, in 1991, the overall crime and incarceration rate for non-citizens was slightly lower than for citizens. Strikingly, imprisonment for violent crime was half as likely for non-citizens as for citizens.[40]

On the other hand, the crime rate among Hispanics in the U.S. is high. Age-specific incarceration rates (prisoners per 100,000 residents in the same age group in the general population) among Hispanics in federal and state prisons are two to two-and-a-half times higher than among non-Hispanic whites.[41] Relatively little of this difference appears to be due to immigration violations.[42]

Illegal immigrants are overwhelmingly Hispanic. It is possible that, over time, Hispanic immigrants and their children may assimilate the higher crime rates that characterize the low-income Hispanic population in the U.S. as a whole.[43] If this were to occur, then policies that would give illegal immigrants permanent residence through Amnesty, as well as policies which would permit a continuing influx of hundreds of thousands of illegal immigrants each year, would increase crime in the long term.

The Fiscal Impact of immigration

One important question is the fiscal impact of immigration (both legal and illegal). Policymakers must ensure that the interaction of welfare and immigration policy does not expand the welfare-dependent population, which would hinder rather than help immigrants and impose large costs on American society. This means that immigrants should be net contributors to government: the taxes they pay should exceed the cost of the benefits they receive.

In calculating the fiscal impact of an individual or family, it is necessary to distinguish between public goods and private goods. Public goods do not require additional spending to accommodate new residents.[44] The clearest examples of government public goods are national defense and medical and scientific research. The entry of millions of immigrants will not raise costs or diminish the value of these public goods to the general population.

Other government services are private goods; use of these by one person precludes or limits use by another. Government private goods include direct personal benefits such as welfare, Social Security benefits,Medicare, and education. Other government private goods are "congestible" goods.[45] These are services that must be expanded in proportion to the population. Government congestible goods include police and fire protection, roads and sewers, parks, libraries, and courts. If these services do not expand as the population expands, there will be a decrease in the quality of service.

An individual makes a positive fiscal contribution when his total taxes paid exceed the direct benefits and congestible goods received by himself and his family.[46]

The Fiscal Impact of Low Skill immigration

The 1997 New Americans study by the National Academy of Sciences (NAS) examined the fiscal impact of immigration.[47] It found that, within in a single year, the fiscal impact of foreign-born households was negative in the two states studied, New Jersey and California.[48] Measured over the course of a lifetime, the fiscal impact of first-generation immigrants nationwide was also slightly negative.[49] However, when the future earnings and taxes paid by the offspring of the immigrant were counted, the long-term fiscal impact was positive. One commonly cited figure from the report is that the net present value (NPV) of the fiscal impact of the average recent immigrant and his descendents is $83,000.[50]

There are five important caveats about the NAS longitudinal study and its conclusion that in the long term the fiscal impact of immigration is positive. First, the study applies to all recent immigration, not just illegal immigration. Second, the finding that the long-term fiscal impact of immigration is positive applies to the population of immigrants as a whole, not to low-skill immigrants alone. Third, the $83,000 figure is based on the predicted earnings, tax payments, and benefits of an immigrant's descendents over the next 300 years.[51] Fourth, the study does not take into account the growth in out-of-wedlock childbearing among the foreign-born population, which will increase future welfare costs and limit the upward mobility of future generations. Fifth, the assumed educational attainment of the children, grandchildren, and great grandchildren of immigrants who are high school dropouts or high school graduates seems unreasonably high given the actual attainment of the offspring of recent Mexican and Hispanic immigrants.[52]

The NAS study's 300-year time horizon is highly problematic. Three hundred years ago, the United States did not even exist and British colonists had barely reached the Appalachian Mountains. We cannot reasonably estimate what taxes and benefits will be even 30 years from now, let alone 300.

The NAS study assumes that most people's descendents will eventually regress to the social and economic mean, and thus may make a positive fiscal contribution, if the time horizon is long enough. With similar methods, it seems likely that out-of-wedlock childbearing could be found to have a net positive fiscal value as long as assumed future earnings are projected out 500 or 600 years.

Slight variations to NAS's assumptions greatly affect the projected outcomes. For example, limiting the time horizon to 50 years and raising the assumed interest rate from 3 percent to 4 percent drops the NPV of the average immigrant from around $80,000 to $8,000.[53] Critically, the NAS projections assumed very large tax increases and benefits cuts would begin in 2016 to prevent the federal deficit from rising further relative to GDP. This assumption makes it far easier for future generations to be scored as fiscal contributors. If these large tax hikes and benefit cuts do not occur, then the long-term positive fiscal value of immigration evaporates.[54] Moreover, if future tax hikes and benefit cuts do occur, the exact nature of those changes would likely have a large impact on the findings; this issue is not explored in the NAS study.

Critically, the estimated net fiscal impact of the whole immigrant population has little bearing on the fiscal impact of illegal immigrants, who are primarily low-skilled. As noted, at least 50 percent of illegal immigrants do not have a high school degree. As the NAS report states, "[S]ome groups of immigrants bring net fiscal benefits to natives and others impose net fiscal costs… [I]mmigrants with certain characteristics, such as the elderly and those with little education, may be quite costly."[55]

The NAS report shows that the long-term fiscal impact of immigrants varies dramatically according to the education level of the immigrant. The fiscal impact of immigrants with some college education is positive. The fiscal impact of immigrants with a high school degree varies according to the time horizon used. The fiscal impact of immigrants without a high school degree is negative: benefits received will exceed taxes paid. The net present value of the future fiscal impact of immigrants without a high school degree is negative even when the assumed earnings and taxes of descendents over the next 300 years are included in the calculation.[56]

A final point is that the NAS study's estimates assume that low skill immigration does not reduce the wages of native-born low-skill workers. If low-skill immigration does, in fact, reduce the wages of native-born labor, this would reduce taxes paid and increase welfare expenditures for that group. The fiscal, social, and political implications could be quite large.

The Cost of Amnesty

Federal and state governments currently spend over $500 billion per year on means-tested welfare benefits.[57] Illegal aliens are ineligible for most federal welfare benefits but can receive some assistance through programs such as Medicaid, In addition, native-born children of illegal immigrant parents are citizens and are eligible for all relevant federal welfare benefits.

Granting Amnesty to illegal aliens would have two opposing fiscal effects. On the one hand, it may raise wages and taxes paid by broadening the labor market individuals compete in; it would also increase tax compliance and tax receipts as more work would be performed "on the books,"[58] On the other hand, Amnesty would greatly increase the receipt of welfare, government benefits, and social services. Because illegal immigrant households tend to be low-skill and low-wage, the cost to government could be considerable.

The Center for immigration Studies (CIS) has performed a thorough study of the federal fiscal impacts of amnesty.[59] This study found that illegal immigrant households have low education levels and low wages and currently pay little in taxes. Illegal immigrant households also receive lower levels of federal government benefits. Nonetheless, the study also found that, on average, illegal immigrant families received more in federal benefits than they paid in taxes. [60]

Granting Amnesty would render illegal immigrants eligible for federal benefit programs. The CIS study estimated the additional taxes that would be paid and the additional government costs that would occur as a result of amnesty. It assumed that welfare utilization and tax payments among current illegal immigrants would rise to equal the levels among legally-admitted immigrants of similar national, educational, and demographic backgrounds. If all illegal immigrants were granted Amnesty, federal tax payments would increase by some $3,000 per household, but federal benefits and social services would increase by $8,000 per household. Total federal welfare benefits would reach around $9,500 per household, or $35 billion per year total. The study estimates that the net cost to the federal government of granting Amnesty to some 3.8 million illegal alien households would be around $5,000 per household, for a total federal fiscal cost of $19 billion per year. [61]

Amnesty and the Hagel/Martinez Bill

Senators Mel Martinez (R-FL) and Chuck Hagel (R-NE) have proposed the Comprehensive Immigration Reform Act (CIRA) to offer Amnesty and citizenship to current illegal aliens (S. 2611). This plan would offer Amnesty and citizenship to between 60 and 85 percent of the nation's current 11.9 million illegal immigrants.

Under the plan, illegal immigrants who have been in the U.S. five years or more (60 percent of the total) would be granted immediate amnesty. Illegal immigrants who have been in the country between two and five years (25 percent of the total) would travel to one of 16 "ports of entry" where they would receive work permits that would bestow permanent residence and allow the bearers to become citizens. Overall, the plan is likely to grant citizenship to 85 percent of the current illegal alien population, or some 9 to 10 million individuals.

As noted, illegal aliens in the U.S. have very low education levels: at least half lack a high school education and a third have less than a ninth grade education. Illegal immigrants earn low wages similar to the wages of other low-skill workers in the economy. This means they are prone to poverty and welfare dependence.

Illegal immigrants are currently ineligible for most federal welfare benefits. Granting citizenship would provide eligibility to welfare programs such as the Earned Income Credit, Food Stamps, Medicaid, and Temporary Assistance to Needy Families. This would greatly increase welfare costs. The added government costs can be estimated by assessing government benefits and tax payments among current illegal immigrants compared to government benefits and tax payments among legal immigrants of similar national and educational backgrounds. This comparison shows that granting citizenship to 85 percent of current illegal immigrants would increase net federal fiscal costs by some $16 billion per year. Granting citizenship to 60 percent of current illegal immigrants would increase welfare costs by some $11.4 billion per year.[62]

These costs would not occur immediately. The CIRA plan imposes a prospective six-year waiting period prior to granting legal permanent residence to illegal immigrants. Individuals would wait another five years after receiving permanent residence before becoming citizens. Thus, much of the cost of the plan might be delayed; however, once millions of individuals are put on the path to citizenship there would be enormous (and probably irresistible) political pressure to grant them the same benefits that are available to the general population quickly, rather than enforce a long delay.

In addition, the cost estimates presented above are based on a static analysis that assumes that Amnesty will not alter behavior. In reality, illegal immigrants are likely to have significantly more children once they are permanently settled in the U.S. These children will increase welfare costs and child poverty further..

family Chain Migration

The impact and cost of CIRA would extend well beyond the ten million or so individuals initially granted amnesty. When an individual is granted citizenship, he is given the unrestricted right to bring his spouse, minor children, and parents into the country. Each of these individuals would have the right to become a citizen after he or she has lived in the country five years. Thus, each individual granted Amnesty under CIRA could bring five or more additional immigrants, all of whom could become citizens.

As noted, many of the individuals who would be granted Amnesty under the amendment have families abroad. Illegal immigrants granted permanent residence would have the immediate right to bring spouses and minor children into the country. Once here, the spouses and children would receive government services and have the right to become citizens. The total number of foreign-born persons who would ultimately be granted citizenship under S. 2611 could be far more than 10 million, and if so, government costs would swell far above the $16 billion figure given above.

But the fiscal problem gets worse; when an illegal immigrant has obtained citizenship through the Amnesty process, he or she would have the right to bring his or her parents in the U.S. as permanent lawful residents. (Currently one-tenth of the annual flow of legal immigrants to the U.S. are parents of recent immigrants who have naturalized.) If ten million current illegal immigrants were granted Amnesty and citizenship under CIRA, as many as twenty million foreign born parents would be given the right to immigrate to the U.S. Once in the U.S., the immigrant parents would receive social services and government funded medical care, much of it paid for through the Medicaid disproportionate share program.

These immigrant parents coming to the U.S. would also be eligible to apply for citizenship themselves. On attaining citizenship, most would become eligible for benefits from the Supplemental Security Income (SSI) and Medicaid programs, at an average cost of over $18,000 per person per year. While it is true that the language requirements of the citizenship test would serve as a barrier to immigrant parents becoming citizens, the tests are not very difficult and the financial rewards of citizenship would be very great. If only ten percent of the parents of those receiving Amnesty under CIRA became citizens and enrolled in SSI and Medicaid, the extra costs to government would be over $30 billion per year.

Obviously, these costs would not begin for some time, but the long-term potential of Amnesty to raise government spending is quite real.

While no one can predict how many spouses, children, and parents of the beneficiaries of Amnesty would enter the country, the pool of those who could enter is enormous, and the potential long-term government costs would be staggering.

Granting Amnesty is Likely to Further Increase Illegal immigration

The immigration Reform and Control Act (IRCA) of 1986 granted Amnesty to 2.7 million illegal aliens. The primary purpose of the act was to decrease the number of illegal immigrants by limiting their inflow and by legalizing the status of illegal immigrants already here.[63] In fact, the act did nothing to stem the tide of illegal entry. The number of illegal aliens entering the country increased fivefold from around 140,000 per year in the 1980s to 700,000 per year today.

Illegal entries increased dramatically shortly after IRCA went into effect. It seems plausible that the prospect of future Amnesty and citizenship served as a magnet to draw even more illegal immigrants into the country. After all, if the nation granted Amnesty once why wouldn't it do so again?

S. 2611 would repeat IRCA on a much larger scale. This time, nine to ten million illegal immigrants would be granted amnesty. As with IRCA, the bill promises to reduce future illegal entry but contains little policy that would actually accomplish this. The granting of Amnesty to 10 million illegal immigrants is likely to serve as a magnet pulling even greater numbers of aliens into the country in the future.

If enacted, the legislation would spur further increases in the future flow of low-skill migrants. This in turn would increase poverty in America, enlarge the welfare state, and increase social and political tensions.

Permanent "Guest Worker" Program

Finally, CIRA would issue 325,000 new visas per year to "guest workers." The number of visas available could increase by 20 percent annually, reaching two million per year within ten years. By 2017, the guest worker program would have admitted some eight million new workers. Illegal aliens who have been in the country for less than two years would be eligible to become guest workers and would probably be the primary recipients of these supposedly temporary (H2C) visas. Recipients of these visas could bring spouses and children into the country immediately, increasing the number of entrants over ten years well above eight million. Because nearly all of the guest workers and their families would within a few years become eligible for government welfare and other services, the fiscal costs from the program could rival those stemming from the direct Amnesty provisions of the bill.

On the surface, individuals in the guest worker program would be limited to a six-year stay in the U.S. But they would have the option to convert to legal permanent residence (LPR) after four years. This would make them permanent residents with the right to naturalize. In addition, all children born to guest workers would automatically become U.S. citizens. This would make it very unlikely that the parent would ever be forced to leave the country.

As structured, the CIRA guest worker program could, within a decade, double the inflow of legal permanent immigrants into the U.S. Many or most of these immigrants would be low-skill and would thus impose fiscal costs on U.S. taxpayers. It is true that many employers would benefit from additional low-skill laborers; however, if such laborers are granted citizenship and permanent residence, their employment is likely to generate negative externalities that impose costs on the rest of society. A guest worker program that, in fact, provides permanent residence and citizenship would not be beneficial to the nation's finances.

Policy Implications

immigration to the U.S. is a privilege, not a right. Immigrants should be net contributors to the government and society and should not be a fiscal burden on American society. While highly educated immigrants, on average, make positive fiscal contributions, the overall fiscal impact of low-skill immigrants is negative.

Over the last 20 years, around 10 million individuals without a high school degree have entered the United States. Many of these also have a high probability of out-of-wedlock childbearing, a key predictor of poverty and welfare dependence. Unless U.S. immigration policy is changed, these trends are likely to continue. Granting Amnesty to current illegal immigrants exacerbates the problem.

Sound immigration policy should be based on two principles. The first is respect for the rule of law. American citizens should determine who is allowed to enter the country, to become a citizen, and to vote in our elections. Lax border enforcement and the non-enforcement of laws against employing illegal immigrants have encouraged over 10 million individuals to enter the country unlawfully. Past and pending amnesties reward this behavior. Under the current system, decisions about who will live in the U.S. and who will become a citizen tend to be made unilaterally by foreigners. S. 2611 would further undermine the rule of law and put the U.S. on the path of uncontrolled immigration punctuated by recurring amnesties.

Second, recognizing the fact that low-skill immigrants are likely to be a fiscal burden on society, government should increase the average skill and education levels of incoming immigrants. Currently, the average skill level of immigrants is significantly reduced by two factors: largely uncontrolled border crossings and the high priority on kinship ties in the issuance of permanent residence visas. Only 7.6 percent of individuals granted visas for permanent entry into the U.S. are selected on the basis of their educational attainment and skills.[64] To the increase the skill levels of future immigrants, the U.S. should stop the inflow of illegal immigrants, reduce the number of family reunification visas, and increase the number of employment- and skill-based visas.

Five specific policies follow from these principles:

The influx of illegal immigrants should be stopped by rigorous border security programs and strong programs to prevent employers from employing illegals.

Amnesty and citizenship should not be given to current illegal immigrants. Amnesty has negative fiscal consequences and is manifestly unfair to those who have waited for years to enter the country lawfully. Amnesty would also serve as a magnet, drawing even more future illegal immigration.

Any guest worker program should grant temporary, not permanent, residence and should not be a pathway to citizenship. A guest worker program should not disproportionately swell the ranks of low-skill workers.

Children born to parents who are illegal immigrants or to future guest workers should not be given citizenship status. Granting citizenship automatically confers welfare eligibility and makes it unlikely the parent will ever leave the U.S.[65]

The legal immigration system grants lawful permanent residence to some 950,000 persons each year. This system should be altered to substantially increase the proportion of new entrants with high levels of education and skills in demand by U.S. firms. Under current law, foreign-born parents and siblings of naturalized citizens are given preference for entry visas. The current visa allotments for family members (other than spouses and minor children) should be eliminated, and quotas for employment- and skill-based entry increased proportionately.

http://www.heritage.org/research/reports/2006/05/amnesty-and-continued-low-skill-immigration-will-substantially-raise-welfare-costs-and-poverty

Illegal Aliens' Impact on Public Health and Environment

The immigration debate in the United States over proposed legislation is history repeating itself.

The only difference in 2006 is that U.S. citizens finally are waking to the scope of the problems posed by over 20 million illegal aliens residing in the country.

These lawbreakers, these non-voters, mean to seize the rights of U.S. citizenship by taking to the streets to demonstrate against any legislative measure with enforcement teeth. At the same time, these same lawbreakers wrap themselves in foreign flags and carry signs demanding that, "Gringos, leave our land" and "Europeans, be deported."

Meanwhile, yet another weak-kneed U.S. Congress follows in the footsteps of the Congresses of 1965 and 1985, whose muddled legislation set the stage for the current immigration free-for-all. United States citizens finally are waking to the failure of congressional Democrats and Republicans to protect U.S. borders.

The U.S. House of Representatives recently passed legislation that would make it a felony to aid and abet illegal aliens; but as soon as the illegal aliens took to the streets, the Republicans caved, and House Speaker Dennis Hastert stated that the "felony" provision for aiders and abettors was negotiable.

United States culture, ethos, and heritage are besieged by belligerent non-citizens, who dare to rewrite the national anthem; but Congress, especially the Senate, does nothing.

These elected officials are more concerned with the rights of illegal aliens than with national security and well-being. Some critics refer to Congress as "the whores on the Hill" for selling out the American people in exchange for the votes of illegal aliens, who do not have the right to vote, but who are, in increasing numbers. One of the signs carried in demonstrations on May Day 2006 read, "Today the streets, tomorrow the vote."

Even worse, the current immigration debate fails to address two life-or-death issues – the impact of 20 million illegal aliens on public health and on the environment.

Impact of Illegal Aliens on Public Health
The men, women, and children who are sneaking across the border into the United States do so without medical inspection, which in itself is a criminal offense and a public health travesty.

Unexamined, they are free to spread out through the country carrying any infectious diseases they may have. In the past, when Europeans made up the majority of immigrants in the United States, each person who sought to enter the country was subject to a health examination. Those diagnosed with an unacceptable health condition were immediately returned to their port of origin.

They were allowed no elongated appeal process, no asylum claims, no refugee provisions, and no street demonstrations demanding entitlements and decrying any effort to secure U.S. borders.

Section 212 of the 1954 Immigration and Nationality Act (8 U.S.C. 1182) defined the classes of aliens ineligible for visas or admission into the United States.

The Public Health Service Act as amended (42 U.S.C., Section 264) authorized the Secretary of Health and Human Services (HHS) to make and enforce regulations necessary to prevent the introduction, transmission, or spread of communicable diseases from foreign countries.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and its various divisions are the protectors of U.S. borders with regard to diseases.

The CDC Division of Global Migration and Quarantine (DGMQ) is the agency that has the mission to enforce measures to stop the introduction, transmission, and spread of diseases from outside the United States. Executive Order 13295, April 4, 2003, signed by President George Bush, sets forth that regulations for the apprehension and detention of individuals to prevent the introduction, transmission, or spread of suspected communicable diseases.

These include cholera, diphtheria, tuberculosis (TB), plague, leprosy, smallpox, malaria (yellow fever), and viral hemorrhagic fevers. Among these fevers are Lassa, Marburg, Eboli, Crimea-Congo, South American, and others not yet isolated or named. Add to these, SARS (Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome) and sexually transmitted diseases (STD), among them HIV/AIDS.

Vaccine preventable diseases include mumps, measles, rubella, polio, influenza type B, and hepatitis B. All of the listed diseases have been introduced and transmitted into the United States.

The numbers of these diseases that have been carried by illegal aliens cannot be determined, as no accurate records are kept, denoting the citizenship of the infected or the carriers.

Because of political correctness or more accurately lack of backbone, U.S. political entities and agencies purposely have failed to determine the citizenship or lack thereof for persons obtaining federal, state, or local services, welfare, and entitlements, such as the following: Medical services from emergency room to long-term children's hospital needs; welfare payments; social security payments; food stamps; Aid to Dependent Children (for anchor babies (children of illegal aliens) or illegal minors; HHS housing benefits; and public education.

The lemming response by most state and local government agencies is, "That is the federal government's job!" They thus abdicate their responsibilities to the rule of law in their country. Just as there is no accurate count of illegal aliens in the United States, there is no accurate data of any kind that correctly reflects services to citizens and services to illegal aliens.

This is meant to hide the costs to U.S. taxpayers, who are unknowing enablers of illegal aliens. Despite what immigrant special interests say, few illegal aliens pay income taxes.

The National Center for Infectious Diseases (NCID) states that infectious diseases are a continuing danger to everyone in the United States. SARS, malaria, TB, and other bacterial pneumonias are now appearing in forms resistant to drug treatment. TB is a significant problem among foreign-born persons in the United States, with foreign-born persons accounting for 53 percent of the 14,874 U.S. cases in 2005. Of these, 26 percent of the cases were from Mexico.

The 2005 NCID report estimates that 30 percent to 60 percent of adults in developing countries have TB. "From 1985 through 1992, the number of new TB cases in the United States increased from 22,201 in 1985 to 26,673 in 1992, an increase of 20 percent."

The report mentioned that up through 1984, the number of TB cases reported in the United States actually had been decreasing by an average of 6 percent a year." Note that 1986 was the year of the Reagan amnesty for illegal aliens.

An increasing proportion of TB cases in the United States are among foreign-born residents (legal and illegal). In 1987, in part because of the Immigration Reform and Control Act of 1986 (IRCA), in part to the immigrant rights groups and in part to the Sanctuary Movement, illegal aliens crossing U.S. borders successfully averaged 1.1 million a year – a conservative estimate.

With no medical examination, illegal aliens brought their medical problems with them. NCID, similar to other government agencies, uses political correct speak – listing illegal aliens as foreign-born persons–knowing full well that all legal foreign-born persons would have had medical examinations; if found to have communicable diseases, the foreign-born persons would have been denied entry into the United States.

SARS is an example of a disease introduced into the United States by foreign carriers. It is believed to have originated in southern China. A large contributor to the U.S. illegal alien population, China and especially Fujian province have so many immigrants (legal and illegal) in New York City that, in the main Chinatown, Fujian dialect has surpassed Mandarin as the most spoken Chinese dialect.

In 1994, when the alien smuggler's ship, Golden Venture went aground on Long Island, many of the illegal-alien Chinese aboard had TB. While in Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS) detention awaiting asylum hearings, these illegal aliens received medical treatments (at taxpayers expense), which controlled most of the cases.

Only a third of the Golden Venture illegal aliens were deported to China and other countries. The majority now resides in the United States; and we trust they are taking their medicine.

Typhoid fever, according to the Center for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), is a life-threatening illness caused by the bacterium, Salmonella typhi, and is common in developing areas of Asia, Africa, Latin America, and Mexico. Typhoid is the result of unsanitary conditions. United States citizens traveling to high-risk areas can take antibodies and avoid eating raw vegetables or drinking local water.

Researchers at the National Institutes of Health determined that recent outbreaks of typhoid have been attributed to food handlers who had recently emigrated from countries where the disease is common. The CDC and the pharmaceutical companies that supply vaccines estimate some 2,000 typhoid carriers are present in the United States at any given time. No data is available on the number of carriers who are illegal aliens.

Poliomyelitis (polio) was eradicated in the United States and other industrial nations in the mid-1950s thanks Dr. Jonas Salk and his vaccine. The last indigenous transmission of wild polio in the United States occurred in 1979. Note that CDC uses the politically correct term "indigenous" to separate the cases among illegal aliens. Again, legal immigrants have medical examinations before their entry into the United States.

Mumps recently reared its infectious head in the Midwest. In April 2006, an outbreak of mumps started in Iowa, the largest in 20 years, according to Dr. Julie Gerberding, CDC Director.

More than 1,000 cases have been reported.

While not necessarily life-threatening, the disease can cause sterility in young adults, who happened to be the main victims of this outbreak. It is speculated that the disease may have been transmitted during air travel; however, a large new illegal alien population now calls Iowa and Nebraska home.

Among other dreaded communicable diseases, cholera, smallpox, and eboli are now appearing in U.S. medical facilities.

Impact of Illegal Aliens on the Environment
Immigration is an environmental issue. For more that three decades, congressional Democrats and Republicans have been briefed repeatedly by three separate presidential commissions on the need to stabilize the U.S. population by limiting immigration.

The President's Commission on Population Growth and the American Future (1970-1972), chaired by John D. Rockefeller III, called for border enforcement, the curbing of illegal immigration, and recognition of the link between an ever-increasing immigrant population and environmental degradation.

The Select Commission on Immigration and Refugee Policy (1978-1981), chaired by Father Theodore Hesburgh, president of the University of Notre Dame, repeated these admonitions; as did the Jordan Commission on Immigration Reform (1990-1997), originally chaired by former Rep. Barbara Jordan.

The chairs of these commissions were as diverse as the American people – a billionaire businessman, a president of a Catholic university, and a former member of Congress, who was a prominent black woman.

In 1972, the Rockefeller Commission reported to Congress that the growth of the U.S. population (then at 205 million people) as the result of immigration (legal and illegal) was threatening the environmental legacy of future generations of Americans. These commissions, one after the other, called for immigration policies to address the real harm that unregulated growth was doing to the ecology of the United States.

Repeatedly, Congress has rejected the correlation between an uncontrolled, uncounted immigrant population and environmental degradation. Instead, members of Congress have played to the special interest groups that advocate open borders.

The 1986 immigration legislation granted cover of legitimacy to illegal aliens under the guise of "amnesty," just as some senators and representatives want to do again in 2006.

Nothing has changed except the number of illegal aliens residing in the United States, and that number continues to escalate along with the harm being done to natural resources in the United States by this uncounted and unaccounted for ghost population – a ghost population that has taken to the streets with signs and foreign flags.

The findings of the three commissions were validated in 2001 when the U.S. Census Bureau estimated that two-thirds of the future growth of the United States will result from immigrants (legal and illegal), immigrants who have arrived since 1994 plus their off-spring and extended families.

The estimated population of the United States in 2005 was 298.2 million up from 243.1 million in 1980. Part of this increase can be traced to the Immigration Reform and Control Act of 1986 (IRCA), another piece of muddled legislation that granted amnesty to an estimated 2.7 million illegal aliens, but this was just the beginning. Amnesty served as a pathway for the legal entry of an estimated 4 million family members of the previously illegal aliens.

Scientific consensus supports the findings of the presidential commissions on the direct relationship between population and environmental degradation. Air pollution, increased human waste, destructive pressures on the oceans, forest conversions, habitat destruction, reduced agricultural land and productivity, soil erosion, water consumption, and energy demands will impact the environmental landscape, including desert and mountain ecosystems, and ultimately the quality of life as we know it – the very quality of life that drew the immigrants.

Population stability both in the United States and worldwide is threatened by migrations from underdeveloped countries to developed countries. Migration from the majority of the world's countries to Europe, Australia/New Zealand, Canada, and the United States is economically based.

The United Nations in a 2002 report estimated that 91 million people are living as migrants in Europe and North America, which doubles the 1975 estimate. The new immigration agencies in the Department of Homeland Security estimate that 60 percent of migrants residing in the United States are from Mexico.

This, in turn, creates a new paradigm of demographics – highly fertile young migrants supplanting an aging native population.

In 1864, George Marsh, a diplomat and New Englander, wrote the book, "Man and Nature," linking human action with deforestation, desertification, avalanches, wildlife extirpation, and additional environmental degradation.

The link between population and environment was introduced to the public by such works as Rachel Carson's "Silent Spring" (1962), Garrett Hardin's "Tragedy of the Commons" (1968), and Paul Ehrlich's "The Population Bomb" (1968).

Although Ehrlich's widespread famines have yet to occur, natural disasters are on the rise. In 2005, damage caused by hurricanes Stan, Wilma, and Beta in Central America and especially Mexico sent a new wave of environmental immigrants to the United States. The damage to Cancun and the Mayan Riviera shattered the tourist, fishing, and agricultural industries and dislocated skilled and semi-skilled workers.

The entrenched politicians of Mexico and Central America encourage migrations to the United States, using suggestions of climate change, natural disasters, environmental changes, over-population, and unhealthy conditions to urge a northward migration.

March 22, 2006, was World Water Day, and the 4th World Water Forum met prior to it in Mexico City. This United Nations-sponsored meeting addressed the link between water and culture, concluding, "Cultural traditions, indigenous practices, and societal values determine how people perceive and manage water in the world's different regions." The message was that the United States and other developed countries must acquiesce to the new cultural and societal values of immigrants, legal or illegal.

Considering the environmental aspects of immigration, why are the environmental groups not more vocal on the subject? Why do prestigious groups, such as the National Audubon Society and the Sierra Club, waffle on the impact of the illegal alien population on the environment?

The Green Party and most environmentalists remain silent on the subject. As with Congress, most environmental groups show no profiles in courage.

There are, however, exceptions. In February 2006, the Defenders of Wildlife issued a report acknowledging the vast damage caused by illegal aliens crossing the fragile ecosystem of the U.S. Southern border.

With an average of 1 million illegal aliens apprehended each year since 1988 and another 1.1 million illegal aliens entering the country uncaught, the damage to the desert ecology is increasing.

The presence of 12 million to 20 million (perhaps up to 30 million) illegal aliens in the United States has consequences. This uncounted, unplanned for population of lawbreakers is affecting the quality of life in the United States. Air pollution, water pollution, energy consumption (gas, coal, wood, and electricity), deforestation, soil erosion and agricultural degradation, over-fishing, and ocean exhaustion threaten the sustainability of natural resources.

As natural resources become scarce and prices rise, the economic stability of the country is undermined.

The U.S. immigration system is broken and has been for decades. The U.S. Congress, now in session, in its legislative attempts to fix the malfunctioning immigration system, must address protecting public health, sustaining natural resources, and improving environmental quality.

Congress must cast aside timidity and the lobbying efforts of special interests and act to stabilize the U.S. population by limiting the number of legal immigrants admitted each year and by stopping illegal immigration at the border. A stable population and sustainable environment depend on congressional action.

It is all well and good for the president to sign strict public health executive orders, but they are meaningless if Congress continues to counteract them with muddled immigration legislation that perpetuates weak enforcement.

For the last 40 years, the U.S. Congress has failed to protect the nation's public health and environment from a foreign-born population explosion.

With the current rate of illegal immigration worldwide, public health and environmental quality in developed nations could approach the levels of disease and environmental degradation in many Third World countries.

The United States of America can best help developing nations by staying strong and healthy itself. With the survival of the United States – as united states – at risk, U.S. citizens must demand the government they deserve.

http://archive.newsmax.com/archives/articles/2006/5/8/230000.shtml

Just Invading the Homes Americans Won't Invade

Let’s examine yet another “feel-good” story about a good-hearted person from south of the border, just looking for a better life in our country. Francisco Serrano came to the United States from Mexico on a tourist Visa in 2002 and simply never left after it expired. But we all know that immigration laws are for saps, so all that really matters is that Francisco got here, and then began looking for his place in America.

The first place he found was a high school in Minneapolis. He didn't just study there, of course. He actually lived there for weeks, blending-in or hiding during the day and emerging at night to eat food from the cafeteria, shower in the locker room and entertain himself around the campus.

When he was finally discovered sleeping in the school’s auditorium in January 2005, he was, of course ... celebrated for his boldness and success in trespassing. Students printed up "Free Francisco" T-shirts, the media took up his story, and a local developer gave him a free place to live and then hired an immigration attorney for him to petition for permanent legal status.

And this reaction was perfectly appropriate, since Francisco's illegal adventure at the school was simply a perfect microcosm of the illegal adventure taken by millions of international trespassers in America every year. He snuck in, hid, ate tax-payer provided food, availed himself of public health facilities and then, when he was caught, he convinced a gullible community that he was just lovably independent and should thus be given a personal amnesty and subsidized housing. You couldn’t make up an illegal alien story that full of obvious and tortured symbolism if you tried. I mean, really, as allegory it’s nearly on a par with “The Lord of the Flies.” And I thought the author William Golding was dead.

Unfortunately for Francisco, however, infiltrating and leeching off a school is regarded as different from infiltrating and leeching off the entire nation, so a Judge had no choice but to order Francisco deported, or risk being featured on an episode of “The O’Reilly Factor.”

But in typical immigration-crime fighting fashion, the system failed miserably. Francisco the tramp was given a plane ticket and a trip to the airport, and then -- surprisingly -- he broke the law and snuck off somewhere as soon he was able. Yes, he was simply told to get on the plane and trusted to obey our laws. At this point, William Golding’s ghost found the story “tortured and unrealistic.”

But, again, the important thing is that Francisco, the loveable interloper, needed once more to find his place in America. He tried sharing a place with his Dad in Connecticut for a while. No news story has so far mentioned his father’s immigration status, so I have a guess that the mesquite bean didn’t fall far from the tree. But living at home can seem so legal and boring, so Francisco, the harmless little adventurer, again set out to sneak a place… I mean, “seek” a place of his own.

Two weeks ago he almost found it in Boston’s North End. Unfortunately, the person that was already living there was home at the time, and being apparently xenophobic, the selfish citizen did not simply accept Francisco into his home as a beloved new “undocumented family member.” Francisco thus had no choice but to fight for his right to illegal residency at that point. When police arrived, they found Francisco and the home’s legal occupant struggling with one another, and a knife in Francisco’s possession.

But at least Francisco finally found his place in America. He sits today in the Suffolk county jail. If the allegory continues properly, then no doubt Senator Ted Kennedy is currently at the jail, mangling the Spanish language in an indignant red-faced political speech and urging Francisco to register to vote in the upcoming congressional elections. And President Bush is probably close behind, en route in Air Force One to personally deliver Francisco an amnesty signed by Karl Rove.

For those not pandering for votes, however, Francisco's story demonstrates a few points about the ongoing immigration crime debate.

One is that increased border security alone cannot stop illegal immigration. We must have an increased capacity to identify and deport those immigration criminals that enter on "temporary" visas (such as would be issued to Bush's proposed "temporary" guest workers) and who then remain illegally, after blending into the general population.

Another lesson is that our current deportation procedures are an incompetent joke -- mostly because a lot of people seem to want them that way. We would not now be discussing the merit or practicality of trying to deport the 11 million international trespassers in our midst, if we had simply deported many of them when we have had the chances.

Like Francisco, many thousands of illegal aliens are identified by the justice system each year -- at traffic stops, disturbance calls, auto accidents and other common occurrences -- and are then just returned into the population, rather than deported as the law requires. We do not need a special system to “round up” and deport illegal aliens en masse, as many pro-amnesty fear mongers dishonestly claim would be necessary. We just need to deport those that we find everyday, and a large part of the problem will take care of itself over time. At the very least, we would know that most of those that remain are pretty much law-abiding.

Lastly, the strange saga of Francisco demonstrates how unrealistic and stereotyped we have allowed our perceptions of illegal aliens to become. The idea that they are all universally good-hearted cheap labor on a Tom Sawyer like adventure to El Norte is ridiculous. Losing control over who enters and how many enter our country, as we have undeniably done, means that those who sneak in will be a decidedly mixed bag. There will be the hard-working and good-hearted, and there will also be flakes and criminals in the lot as well. Yet we have to take all, because we have no choice in the current corrupt system. We cannot even successfully deport the flakes and criminals after they are found committing any but the most serious crimes.

And to be honest, it does not really recommend a person to be our neighbor and share our homeland, when their first act in our country is to break our laws by sneaking in -- which got to be something of a habit with Francisco.

http://www.humanevents.com/article.php?id=14432