Illegal Aliens Spreading Diseases Across USA

If you travel into the Third World such as Mexico, Central and South America, you will notice that while visiting a bathroom there is a box for used toilet paper in the corner and no soap or paper towels at the lavatory. The sewage systems cannot handle toilet paper so it is a habit to throw it in the box provided which is open to flies and cockroaches. Additionally, for most Third World people, washing hands is non existent. Today, in California, Florida, Georgia and spreading to other states across the nation, recent arrivals are so accustomed to throwing their used toilet paper into boxes, they throw it into trash cans. Whether they work at the counter or chopping tomatoes, they often do not wash their hands. Thousands carry head lice, leprosy, tuberculosis and hepatitis A, B, and C.

Annually, an estimated 800,000 illegal aliens cross America's southern borders while avoiding a health screening. They are not stopped or vaccinated for a host of diseases they're bringing into America. Who is at risk? Everyone, but especially our school children when they come in contact with in-excess of three million illegal alien school children daily. What can those three million kids unknowingly transfer to our kids?

Tuberculosis, five years ago, was almost non-existent in the USA. Last week, a school in Sebewaing, Michigan reported 30 children and four teachers had tested positive for tuberculosis infections. Michigan supports a large Latin illegal alien population that migrated from Mexico. In the past four years, 16,000 cases of multi drug resistant (MDR) TB, which was formerly endemic ONLY to Mexico, crossed over the borders inside the bodies of illegal aliens. These adults and their children have spread out across the country to work in fast foods and harvesting. Another outbreak occurred in Austin, Minnesota where eight police officers tested positive for tuberculosis. A similar outbreak occurred in Portland, Maine last week with 28 testing positive for tuberculosis.

On November 6, 2003, at a local restaurant chain, Chi-Chi's in Beaver Valley, Pennsylvania, unscreened employees 'served' up plates of infectious hepatitis A to their patrons. Over 3,000 had to receive the painful gammaglobulin shots while two Americans died. Health officials reported, "Workers may have contaminated food by failure to follow basic hygiene in cleaning hands after using the bathroom." The employees were not health screened by the restaurant chain.

Another distressing disease, leprosy, long feared from Biblical times, totaled 900 cases in the USA in the past 40 years. In the past three years, according to a report from the NY Times in February, 2003, leprosy has infected over 7,000 people in the United States. It was brought in by illegal immigrants from India, Brazil, Mexico and the Caribbean. Leprosy spreads by infected illegal aliens working in fast food, dish washing and hotels.

Chagas Disease is brought directly from Mexico and Latin America where it has infected over 18,000,000 people. The T-Cruzi protozoan destroys heart tissue and other organs. "One can contract it by eating uncooked food contaminated with infective feces of the Vinchuca Bug. It crosses over the border in the bodies of an average of 2,200 illegal aliens daily. Whether it's dengue fever, now in Florida, Hemmorhagic Fever coming up from Texas border towns or E-coli intestinal parasites arriving with illegal aliens from Mexico daily, every American citizen is under a form of 'Bio Terrorism'. Tom Ridge of Homeland Security presents Americans with color coded 'alert' levels from Al Queda, but what he doesn't protect us from is a mounting invasion from an 'unarmed army' of disease carrying illegals who are becoming just as deadly as 9/11.

What can you do as a citizen? The first and most powerful defense for America would be a five-year moratorium on all immigration so this country can regain its collective breath. Our hospitals, schools and social services are being overwhelmed by an average of 2.3 million legal, illegal immigrants and their offspring each year. Too often, individual Americans neglect to exercise their citizenship. You must demand that each restaurant that you visit hires only legal American, health-screened employees. You must demand your schools examine and process every illegal alien child for head lice, TB and leprosy on a regular basis. You must press your senators, congressmen and president to put troops on our border with Mexico to stop illegal aliens from crossing. You must insist that anyone hiring illegal aliens be fined and imprisoned. Remember the Boston Tea Party? The Alamo? When their leaders did not act in their behalf, average citizens acted in defense of their country. It's time, once again, for American citizens to stand up for our country, our way of life and our kids.

Finally, you need to visit your schools, write your papers, call your TV stations, talk on radio stations and city councils to bring a discussion, debate and action as to why corporations, industry and government continue flooding our country with millions of illegal aliens who carry these deadly diseases. It's your country, your kids and the future of this democracy that are at stake.

Source - http://www.frostywooldridge.com/articles/art_illegal_aliens_spreading_diseases.html

Feds Let Illegal Aliens Steal Congressional Representation From Citizens

The heavy influx of immigrants cost the Republican Party nine House seats during the 2000 political redistricting process, according to a report released Thursday. At least one of those seats was lost as a result of illegal aliens being counted as part of the national population by the U.S. Census Bureau, the report's authors said.
The report, "Remaking the Political Landscape: The Impact of Illegal and Legal Immigration on Congressional Apportionment," was compiled by the Center for Immigration Studies (CIS). It examined the redistribution of House seats as a result of immigration.

The nation's 435 U.S. House seats are distributed among the states based on the census results every 10 years, with each state automatically getting at least one constitutionally mandated seat.

For example, as millions of Americans have left Northern states for warmer climates in the South, those Southern states have gained more seats. The influx of illegal aliens and other non-citizens has also affected congressional reapportionment because census takers count those individuals as well.

Dudley Poston, a Texas A&M sociology professor and author of the CIS report, examined how congressional seats would have been reapportioned if the Census Bureau had not counted naturalized American citizens, legal permanent residents (green-card holders), illegal aliens and those on long-term temporary visas.

"If we do this, there's a 16-seat change [among the states] in the 2000 apportionment. California loses nine of its 53 seats. This means that nine of its 53 seats are attributable to its immigrant population," Poston said. It could even be more than nine, Poston said, because some immigrants end up bearing children in the United States who are not considered foreign-born. "So California is the big winner," he said.

Poston then turned to the partisan implications by designating states Republican or Democrat based on the 2000 presidential election results, the big red-and-blue map.

"If the foreign-born were excluded, the Republicans would gain nine seats," Poston said.

Steven Camorata, CIS director of research, added: "The nine seats redistributed by non-citizens has a very serious effect when one considers that only a total of 12 seats in their entirety changed hands in 2000."

Poston used state estimates prepared by the Immigration and Naturalization Service, which indicated that nearly 7 million illegal aliens were counted in the 2000 Census. The illegal alien population, which Poston said is heavily concentrated in just three states - California, Florida and New York - resulted in the creation of at least one new Democrat-dominated congressional district and at the expense of the Republican Party.

The report did not pinpoint a particular district that Democrats, traditionally the favorite party of illegal aliens, seized from Republicans. Rather, the combination effect of the illegal population in America produced the GOP loss of at least one seat, according to the report.

"Illegal immigration also has a significant effect on presidential elections because the Electoral College is based on the size of congressional delegations," the CIS study indicated.

'Voter Erosion' of Citizens

According to the report, many low-immigration states that might seem unaffected by immigration experience "significant voter erosion" of their political influence in Washington.

"Taking away representation from states composed almost entirely of U.S. citizens so that new districts can be created in states with large numbers of non-citizens makes immigrant-induced reapportionment very different from reapportionment caused when natives relocate to other states," Camorata pointed out.

Of the nine states that lost a seat in 2000, only one in 50 residents is a non-citizen, the report revealed. By contrast, one out of every seven California residents is a non-citizen and six of the nine seats redistributed due to non-citizens went to California.

These findings, Poston suggested, might spur a movement among the public and lawmakers to revise the method of census taking.

"The exclusion of illegal immigrants may well be the scenario most likely to gain popular support and spark a legal challenge," Poston said.

The report noted that the Supreme Court has never addressed the substantive legal arguments surrounding the exclusion of illegal aliens in the census. The Federation of Americans for Immigration Reform (FAIR) filed two lawsuits challenging the Census Bureau's methodology of counting illegal aliens, but both suits were dismissed. In the latter suit, plaintiffs included 40 members of Congress and the commonwealth of Pennsylvania.

"Trying to deal with this problem by excluding non-citizens, illegal or legal, would be very difficult politically and is probably impossible as a practical matter," Camorata concluded.

According to Noah Pickus, the director of North Carolina's Institute for Emerging Issues and a participant in Thursday's panel discussion, the findings lend credence to the notion that states have a "perverse" incentive to attract larger populations of illegal aliens, which "undermines the very notion" of the representative republic on which the country was founded.

"The country faces a choice: Either continue to have record amounts of illegal immigration and therefore continue to redistribute seats away from states comprised mostly of American citizens to states with large numbers of illegal and legal immigrants, or better enforce immigration laws so as to reduce if not eliminate illegal immigration," Camorata said.

Source - http://archive.newsmax.com/archives/articles/2003/10/24/102835.shtml

Cops: Wal-Mart Knew of Illegal Aliens

LITTLE ROCK, Ark. – Evidence including recordings indicates that Wal-Mart had direct knowledge of immigration violations involving its cleaning contractors at stores across the country, federal law enforcement sources said.

Federal agents raided Wal-Mart's headquarters and 60 of its stores across the nation Thursday and arrested more than 300 illegal workers in an immigration crackdown at the world's biggest retailer.

The workers were members of cleaning crews hired by outside contractors, but federal law enforcement officials who spoke to The Associated Press on condition of anonymity said Wal-Mart knew of the violations. They cited recordings of meetings and conversations among Wal-Mart executives, managers and contractors.

"We have seen no evidence of this from the INS, and, if that turns out to be true, we will cooperate fully with law enforcement officials," Wal-Mart spokeswoman Mona Williams said.

The workers were arrested as they finished their night shifts at Wal-Mart stores in 21 states. Agents also hauled away several boxes of documents from an executive's office at Wal-Mart headquarters in Bentonville.

An employer can face civil and criminal penalties for knowingly hiring illegal aliens or failing to comply with certain employee recordkeeping regulations.

Wal-Mart Stores had sales last year of $244.5 billion. The company has about 1.1 million employees in the United States, and it uses more than 100 third-party contractors to clean more than 700 stores nationwide, Williams said.

"We require each of these contractors to use only legal workers," she said.

The law enforcement sources said the investigation grew out of earlier probes of Wal-Mart cleaning crew contractors in 1998 and 2001.

All the arrested workers were in the country illegally, said Garrison Courtney, a spokesman with Immigration and Customs Enforcement. They were detained at local immigration offices. Those who had no criminal record were released with instructions to appear before immigration judges.

Many of the workers said they were Eastern European, and a few were of other ethnicities, Courtney said.

More Corruption in Arkansas

Wal-Mart is not the first big company to be targeted in an immigration investigation. Six managers at Tyson Foods, based one town away from Wal-Mart in Springdale, were charged in an immigrant-smuggling case in 2001.

One defendant shot himself to death a few months after being charged, and two managers entered guilty pleas early in the case. A jury acquitted the poultry company and three other managers.

Ulysses A. Yannas, an analyst with the investment firm Buckman, Buckman and Reid, said it is too much to expect Wal-Mart to keep track of all of its vendors' workers. But he said the investigation could present a problem for the company.

"It is a question of what else it might bring out. These are long, drawn-out processes," Yannas said.

Top Wal-Mart officials learned of Thursday's sweep when store managers began calling headquarters for guidance in dealing with the raids.

Courtney said agents searched the office of one of Wal-Mart's executives. Williams, the spokeswoman, said they spent several hours in the office of a "midlevel manager" at Wal-Mart's headquarters and carried away several boxes of paperwork.

She said she did not know if any other Wal-Mart administrative offices were searched.

The arrests were made at stores in Alabama, Arkansas, Arizona, Connecticut, Delaware, Kentucky, Massachusetts, Maryland, Michigan, North Carolina, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New York, Ohio, Oklahoma, Pennsylvania, South Carolina, Tennessee, Texas, Virginia and West Virginia.

Source - http://archive.newsmax.com/archives/articles/2003/10/24/95919.shtml

250 illegal aliens arrested at wal-mart

WASHINGTON (CNN) - Federal officials raided Wal-Mart stores across the United States Thursday, arresting about 250 illegal immigrants working on cleaning crews at 61 stores in 21 states.

Federal agents picked up undocumented workers from Mexico, eastern Europe and other countries who were employed by several contractors used by the world's largest retailer. Many of those arrested in the crackdown, which officials called "Operation Rollback," were coming off night cleaning shifts at various Wal-Mart stores.

Garrison Courtney, a spokesman for the Bureau of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), said the raids started at 4 a.m. ET and ended about five hours later.

A search warrant also was executed at Wal-Mart headquarters in Bentonville, Ark., Courtney said, but he declined to provide details on what investigators were looking for or what they actually found.

"We are always looking at companies that are knowingly exploiting people for the purpose of making money," Courtney said. He said businesses that employ undocumented workers often pay low wages and offer few or no benefits.

"We're currently trying to understand the scope and the detail of the investigation," Wal-Mart spokeswoman Sharon Weber told CNN. "We are talking to the [immigration bureau] and, of course, are committed to cooperating with them."

Wal-Mart uses at least 100 outside contractors for cleaning services at about 700 stores across the country, she said. "We do require each of these contractors to use only legal workers. We do not know if the current investigation involves one or multiple outside contractors," Weber added.

None of the people arrested were Wal-Mart employees hired by the company to work in its stores, she said.

But federal law enforcement officials said information from an undercover investigation revealed that some Wal-Mart executives and some store managers knew of the immigration violations.

Some of the information in the investigation was gathered through the recording of conversations between store managers and contractor executives, the officials told CNN.

Investigators are concerned that Wal-Mart has kept using contractors who have been convicted of hiring illegal workers in the past. The latest sweep stemmed from a 1998 investigation that also targeted janitorial contractors at Wal-Marts, federal sources said.

Courtney said the penalty for knowingly hiring illegal workers can run up to $10,000 per person. He declined to give the names of the contractors who hired the workers picked up Thursday.

"People have to be authorized to work in the United States," said Courtney. "We are serious about enforcing the law."

The arrests on immigration violations involved no criminal charges. But sources said grand jury subpoenas have been issued in an ongoing investigation that could potentially result in criminal charges.

Industry analysts said the probe might hurt Wal-Mart's image but wouldn't necessarily hurt its financial results.

"It looks like these illegal workers were hired by contractors and not directly by Wal-Mart. Is this really bad press or slightly bad press? I think it's the latter," said Mark Mandel, analyst with Blaylock & Partners. "If Wal-Mart was hiring from sweatshops, that would be much worse."

"Where this could hurt the company is in its reputation of not being a great place to work. If left unchecked, it could have an impact on Wal-Mart's image," said John Allen, senior partner with corporate brand consultant Lippincott & Margulies.

The largest numbers of arrests occurred in Pennsylvania and Texas, officials said.

Other states where arrests occurred were Alabama, Arkansas, Arizona, Connecticut, Delaware, Kentucky, Massachusetts, Maryland, Michigan, North Carolina, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New York, Ohio, Oklahoma, South Carolina, Tennessee, Virginia and West Virginia.

Source - http://money.cnn.com/2003/10/23/news/companies/walmart_worker_arrests/

Capturing the Illegal Alien Vote

Today, millions of Californians are expected to exercise their right to vote. Voter franchise is the key component in our representative government; its sanctity should be paramount. Yet since the rise of big city machine politics and mass immigration in the 19th century the use of voter fraud to influence elections has threatened this fundamental right. This threat has turned into a full-fledged frontal assault in our time. More disturbing than the mass media's refusal to broach the topic is the determination of politicians to continually flout, not only the people's will, but to also the 15th amendment to the Constitution guaranteeing the right to vote.

Still vivid in our memories are the attempts by the Florida Supreme Court, DNC lawyers and local Democratic officials to tip the 2000 presidential election in candidate Al Gore's favor. Dimpled and hanging chads filled the American conscience for months as the Left, backed by countless media pundits, wailed over the "disenfranchisement" and "intent" of the voters. Noticeably lacking was their concern when it came to instances of abuse or outright fraud that favored their candidate. The 1,400 military votes thrown out in Florida, the media calling the state for Gore one hour before polls closed in the heavily Republican panhandle and the ruling by the Democrat-packed Florida Supreme Court are only some of the examples. Nationwide, the use of immigration policy and the failure to enforce immigration laws were the key to giving Gore his popular vote win. The 2000 election was not an isolated incident; efforts to undermine the electoral process through the nation's immigration policies were a staple of the Clinton years.

A report issued by the Justice Dept. in 2000 detailed a program run under the auspices of then Vice President Gore's "Reinventing Government" project to streamline government services. In a successful effort to clear a backlog of 1.2 million applicants, the INS engaged in this crash program called "Citizenship USA" to naturalize the immigrants between October 1995 and September 1996, not coincidentally, just in time for the presidential election. Douglas Farbrother, an official on Gore's team, is quoted in the report saying he "believed that the (citizenship) program had a deadline that was directly connected to the upcoming election." The Clinton administration bypassed the customary FBI background check for these new citizens demonstrating that creating new Democrat voters was a much higher priority than national security. It is estimated that tens of thousands of applications were approved without FBI review. The Justice Dept. report documented 1,000 cases in Miami; 1,300 cases in Chicago; and an astonishing 2,500 cases in Los Angeles.

The politicization of the INS continued in the 2000 election. As documented by journalist Joseph Farah ,on Nov. 6, 2000, (one day before the national election) the California Democratic Party sent thousands (upwards of 4 million by some estimates) of mailers out to immigrants who had citizenship requests before the INS. These non-citizens were informed, in both English and Spanish, that they were registered to vote as a Democrat and given a special identification card to "help...voting go more smoothly." Follow up investigations by the press pointed to the possible use of INS records to commit this massive voter fraud. How many of the recipients took advantage of the generous offer made by the Democrats is unknown, but based on the estimates it is quite possible that Gore's much touted popular vote win (by just under a million votes) could all be attributed to this scam alone. Flaws in the system continue to be used and expanded upon to give the Left an unfair advantage in elections and to undermine the legitimacy of our most fundamental American right.

Now, thanks to the political pandering of Gray Davis, millions of illegal aliens will soon have the opportunity to take part in the electoral process. The issuance of driver's licenses to all Californians regardless of immigration status has opened up the door to voter registration fraud and weakened the sanctity of the franchise. As California election officials have admitted, an alien who applies for a license need only lie about their immigration status and they are able to register. Thanks to the Motor Voter law, this affront is possible in 13 other states with similar statutes. As a recent Washington Times article points out, a "stealth amnesty" is underway by the states that accept Matricula ID's, non-regulated ID’s issued by the government of Mexico, and grant driver’s licenses to illegals. A Center for Immigration Studies (CIS) report reveals that "The Matricula card is accepted as a valid form of identification by police departments, banks and 12 states for driver's license applications." This disregard for immigration law has no positive impact for Americans except those who seek to grant Democrats additional power. Moreover, this aberration of constitutional law is tantamount to mailing absentee ballots for any future election to Iran, Syria, France, Germany, North Korea, or anywhere else.

In Massachusetts, where an estimated 150,000 illegals reside, local Democrats have sponsored a bill similar to the California law. Democratic State Rep. Eugene O'Flaherly who represents Chelsea, a city with a large illegal population, is the chief sponsor of the bill. He and those who support the measure claim the move would improve public safety by encouraging illegals to obtain insurance—the same argument used by Davis and other proponents in California. They do not mention the added benefit of increasing the number of registered Democrats. In the last gubernatorial election, Republican Mitt Romney beat out his Democratic rival by a mere 107,000 votes; this bill would quickly remedy that nasty staple of democracy.

Another method in use by liberal state officials is the unwillingness to require an ID at the polling place. In 2002 Congress passed the Help America Vote Act, designed to correct some of the irregularities found in the 2000 election. Among the reforms included was a provision that required ID for first time voters. The bill passed 92-2 in the Senate. The two standouts: New York Democrats Hillary Clinton and Charles Schumer.

Explaining her vote, Clinton said the ID provision would "disproportionately affect ethnic and racial minorities, recently naturalized American citizens, language minorities, the poor, the homeless, the millions of eligible New York voters who do not have a driver's license, and those individuals who otherwise would have exercised their right to vote without these new provisions." Considering the bill allowed for the use of Social Security numbers, pay stubs (including government issued checks), utility bills and other forms of verification, her real concern seems to be placed squarely on opposition to the prevention of voter fraud by the large illegal population in her state. Forty five percent of Democratic primary voters in New York were minorities, a group Clinton clearly pandered to in making her decision.

Among the special interest groups that oppose requiring ID to vote: The League of Women Voters, the Leadership Conference on Civil Rights, the National Hispanic Leadership Agenda, La Raza, the NAACP Legal Defense Fund, and the Mexican American Legal Defense and Educational Fund.

In Washington, D.C., Mayor Anthony Williams gave readers of the Washington Post an insight into the movement to grant non-citizens the right to vote. Saying he is "committed to expanding the franchise," he stated that in order to grant a greater voice to those he sees as underrepresented, that a new standard for voter eligibility is needed, and regardless of what that standard becomes, "it isn't citizenship."

Recently the Republican controlled legislature in Arizona passed a bill that would have demanded some form of identification to vote, but Democrat Governor Janet Napolitano vetoed the bill in front of a meeting of the National Association of Latino Elected and Appointed Officials to thunderous applause. In an attempt to justify the move, Napolitano made vague references to old Jim Crow-era laws such as poll taxes that were designed to disenfranchise Southern blacks in a disingenuous attempt to link the measure with those racist policies. At a press conference following the veto she suggested "this bill is not designed to prevent voter fraud, I'll tell you that." On the contrary, it would seem her veto was intended to perpetuate voter fraud.

Similar measures have been vetoed over the past few years by Democratic governors in states like New Hampshire, Kansas and Wisconsin, with the governors citing the alleged "chilling effect" presenting ID (including such easily obtained items as utility bills or bank statements) would have on potential voters. These politicians hide behind the rhetoric of identity politics in order to enable the ease with which citizens and non-citizens alike commit voter fraud under the present system.

Following Gray Davis’ lead, Napolitano has also been pushing a measure to grant driver's licenses to illegals, once more subverting the system to play into the hands of those who seek to eliminate our borders. Because of Napolitano's refusal to enact common sense reforms, state Republicans and other concerned citizens have begun a petition drive seeking to add a referendum to the 2004 ballot. Called the "Protect Arizona Now" initiative, the referendum would ask Arizona to end all but emergency public aid to illegal immigrants and require proof of citizenship before being able to vote. A recent poll conducted by Arizona State University found 70 percent of registered voters support the measure. Republican State Rep. Russell Pearce told the Arizona Republic "I'm surprised it's that low. People have been absolutely overwhelming in support of this. They understand that this is...about fraud. We are simply saying, 'Once you've come in through that back door, you can't get taxpayer money through welfare and you can't vote.' "

The poll found broad support that cut across racial and party lines. Even many naturalized Latinos favored the idea, recognizing that those who refuse to play by the rules detract from the gains made by law-abiding Hispanics. It should be noted that not only Democrats play this game. Napolitano's press secretary commented, "Arizona doesn't need this divisive initiative, and the governor joins with (Republican) Senators (John) McCain, (Jon) Kyl and the rest of the (Arizona) congressional delegation in opposing it."

Additionally, Arizona Republican Congressmen Jeff Flake, Jim Kolbe and Sen. John McCain are sponsoring a "guest workers" bill that would create new type of visa for migrant workers, allowing hundreds of thousands of illegals currently working in America to stay here simply by registering for the amnesty and paying a $1,500 fee. Such a law would legitimize these immigrants and grant them access to government programs -- and if Davis, Napolitano and other politicians pushing for licenses for non-citizens have their way, the opportunity to vote, as well. Arizona's Republican delegation are playing into the hands of those seeking to increase probable Democratic voters not only by supporting Napolitano's veto but by pushing for this blanket amnesty. Their opposition to the "Protect Arizona Now" initiative serves the interest of Democrats seeking to block reforms against voter fraud.

Angry Arizonans have not taken their actions lightly. Kolbe's brother Walter has been vocal in his disagreement over his brother's support of the guest worker amnesty and his brother's opposition to the referendum question. Walter has called the guest worker bill "amnesty on the installment plan," and says it is "a slap in the face to people who struggled so hard to come to America legally, lead productive lives, raise families and proudly become citizens of the United States of America." Other Arizona citizens recently expressed their dissent with Kolbe by dumping 22 bags of trash at the congressman's Sierra Vista office. The refuse was collected from trash left by illegals in their trek across the border, proof of the growing problems created by this illegal immigrant invasion.

Even the Bush Administration is contributing to the opening for mass voter disenfranchisement. Recently the Treasury Department handed down a decision allowing banks to accept Matriculas under the Patriot Act, legislation enacted in part to make tracing money to terrorist organizations easier. In Congressional testimony last week spokesmen for both the FBI and Department of Homeland Security backed off previously asserted national security concerns with issuing Matricula cards to illegals. Granting legitimacy to these flawed ID's opens the door wider to massive voter fraud in states granting driver’s licenses to non-citizens, further undermining an already besieged franchise.

The current parity among Democrat and Republican voters evidenced in the 2000 elections and more recently by Zogby polling indicating a continued 50/50 split among Democrat and Republican voters is a political reality. It is clear that the recent push to provide back door access to the polls for illegal immigrants is being done to tip the scales in the Democrat's favor. That they are being aided and abetted by some members of the Republican Party is confounding. Hopefully clear-headed, non-partisan Americans will recognize the power grab for what it is and move to stop the give away of the greatest right we have by exercising that very right itself.

Source - http://archive.frontpagemag.com/readArticle.aspx?ARTID=16042

Disease Creeps In Along With Illegal Aliens

Across the country this week, hundreds of bus loads of illegal immigrants are bringing a message to Washington DC that they want better treatment and instant citizenship. What they don't mention is their reckless disregard for legally immigrating into the USA has created a growing health care crisis in America. They demand their rights, but they disregarded our rights by illegally crossing into our country without being health screened. It's what they are carrying that we don't want. There is another ticking bomb crossing our borders daily by the thousands--entirely unregulated, unscreened and untracked in our nation. Their numbers average two per minute and over 800,000 annually, according the Center For Immigration Studies in Washington, DC. SARS and West Nile virus make big news, but other diseases are creeping into the heartland unnoticed.

In the past 40 years, the US incidents of leprosy stood at 900 recorded cases. Today because of massive immigration from Third World countries, we have more than 7,000 people suffering with leprosy, "And those are the ones we know about," said Dr. John Levis, physician at Bellevue Hospital's Hansen's Disease Clinic in New York. "There are probably many, many more and they are spreading." Most of those infected in the United States are immigrants from global leprosy hot spots, places: Mexico, Brazil, India and the Caribbean. But, in the past six years, Levis and his colleagues have proved that a few of his patients — including a 73-year-old man from Queens who had never been out of the country and an elderly Jewish man from Westchester County, New York — have contracted leprosy in the United States. Leprosy's symptoms--bumpy rashes, skin indentations and loss of feeling in hands and feet. As a result, The disease is now officially endemic to the Northeastern United States for the first time ever.

Another bug riding in the bodies of newcomers to America is tuberculosis. In a recent article from 'THE PATIENT PREDATOR', Dr. Reichman of New Jersey TB Clinic, "In the 1990s, cases among foreign born Americans rose from 29 percent to 41.6 percent. Anti biotic resistant strains from Mexico have migrated to Texas. Since three years ago, 16,000 new cases of TB were discovered in the United States. Half were foreign born. Strains of TB once found only in Mexico have migrated to border states of Texas, Arizona, New Mexico and California. It will move north as illegal aliens work in restaurants as cooks, dishwashers and food handlers. We sit on the edge of a potential catastrophe."

Disease is another crisis 'sneaking' across our borders in the form of unrestricted illegal immigration. Once it's inside our country, it's our problem and we will be forced to pay for it. If American political leaders okay the matricula consular card, give them drivers licenses and assist illegal immigration by not enforcing our Homeland Security laws, American citizens and their children are susceptible to more diseases. Hepatitis A,B and C run rampant in fast food workers. These diseases kill. It's that simple and that harsh.

Source - http://www.frostywooldridge.com/articles/art_disease_creeps_in_along_with_illegals_2003.html

Norwood, Sessions advocate get-tough approach to illegal aliens

WASHINGTON -- Dentist Charlie Norwood has spent most of his congressional career typecast as an expert in medical law. But since writing one of the toughest plans to deal with illegal aliens, Norwood has become public enemy No. 1 for those seeking a softer approach.

Critics of the Georgia Republican's Clear Law Enforcement for Criminal Alien Removal Act envision a nightmare scenario in which local police departments are strained and racial profiling runs rampant.

Norwood argues he's not really changing the law, just clarifying the right state and local law enforcement officers already have to arrest suspected illegal immigrants.

"We're just making very clear - you do have the responsibility and the authority to arrest people," Norwood said. "They help us in everything else, but this one area they're really skittish about. Part of it is they're fearful of lawsuits and part of it is that they do their job and the feds don't do theirs."

As was the case with his signature Patients Bill of Rights, Norwood has been rather methodical in promoting the immigration bill - rounding up 93 co-sponsors but not yet even seeking the support of Republican leaders or President Bush. Swift movement in Congress seemed unlikely, and may still be, but the Senate could change that this week.

Jeff Sessions, an Alabama Republican, is crafting a Senate companion version he expects to have ready by Thursday's hearing on immigration and border security. Foes of the approach are mobilizing in case the bill gets some traction at the hearing and makes its way to the congressional calendar next year.

"It sounds good - 'we're trying to enforce immigration laws,"' said Charlie Mitchell, legislative counsel for the American Civil Liberties Union. "It has the flashy headline, but that's not really what it does."

Norwood's bill, which he says mainly targets potential terrorists, requires the Bureau of Immigration and Customs Enforcement to either take custody of suspected illegal immigrants or pay the local police department to house them.

More controversial, however, is its stipulation that all immigration violations - even minor ones - must be included in a federal computerized crime database available to law enforcement officers at all levels of government. If a police officer comes across an immigrant suspected of being illegal, that person would be arrested. Failure to follow the mandate could cost a state or city some of its federal grant money.

"It makes no sense," said Judy Golub, spokeswoman for the American Immigration Lawyers Association. "It will hurt enforcement, make community policing more besieged and more difficult."

Sessions says he doesn't understand the outrage about the plan. States and localities already can detain immigrants for questioning, he says, but they often don't for fear they'll be accused of racism. Further, over-stretched immigration officials often refuse to pick up the suspects in a timely manner, if at all.

"I think they have that authority now," Sessions said. "A state police officer or state trooper can arrest the bank president for fraud. He can arrest burglars. He can arrest another police officer. The mentality that has come down is we're not going to come and get them if you detain them, and you're not capable of handling this."

Earlier this month, Alabama became the second state that the federal government officially deemed capable of handling the arrest of suspected illegal immigrants. At Sessions' request, state troopers received formal training on immigration law, and through a process he says was far too bureaucratic, the state and federal government signed a document certifying the troopers. Florida also has completed the process.

While the Sessions and Norwood proposals include grant money for training, they mandate that law enforcement officers - regardless of whether they're trained - would automatically be able to arrest immigrants.

Critics say that is risky because the laws are some of the most complicated on the books and officers will target anyone they think looks like an illegal immigrant. Law enforcement is largely divided on the bill, but Toccoa, Ga., police chief Bill Grant - a supporter - says that won't happen.

"I cannot imagine a chief of police in this country - small town, large town, any town - that would take his resources and go look for illegal aliens," he said.

The bill is H.R. 2671.

Source - http://chronicle.augusta.com/stories/2003/09/15/met_387690.shtml

Rising Costs of Tolerating Illegal Aliens

Why Health Care Is So Costly
While Americans without health insurance struggle with the problem of how to pay for medical care, many Mexicans don't have that problem. They just ride in a Mexican ambulance across the border to a hospital in Arizona, New Mexico, California or Texas, and get free medical treatment. The costs are currently paid by a combination of socking the taxpayers in those four border states plus inflating prices for patients who pay their own bills, insurance companies and Medicaid.

This ridiculous situation is caused by a combination of U.S. officials allowing Mexican cars to cross our border plus the federal Emergency Medical Treatment and Active Labor Act, which mandates that U.S. hospitals with emergency-room services treat anyone who shows up for care including illegal aliens. This unfunded mandate was legislated by a Congress that closed its eyes to the costs.

We are not just talking about Mexicans who may have had an accident close to the border. We are talking about Mexicans with serious health problems who are deliberately sent to the United States after Mexican hospitals discover they can't pay for services and have no insurance.

Senators John McCain and John Kyl have proposed a solution for this dilemma: lighten the tax burden on their own state while shifting it to U.S. taxpayers nationwide. How parochial! They introduced a bill to hit the U.S. taxpayers for $200 million for medical treatment of illegal aliens.

A study made by the U.S.-Mexico Border Counties Coalition, an American lobbying group, found that U.S. hospitals in border states provide at least $200 million a year in uncompensated emergency care to illegal aliens. In the four border states, 77 hospitals now face a medical emergency.

Uncompensated care to illegal aliens in Arizona cost the Cochise County Health Department 30% of its annual budget, the Copper Queen Hospital in Bisbee $200,000 out of a net operating income of $300,000, the University Medical Center in Tucson $10 million, and the Good Samaritan Regional Medical Center in Tucson $1 million in only the first quarter of last year. The Southeast Arizona Medical Center in Douglas is on the verge of bankruptcy. Some emergency rooms and pre-natal units have closed because they can't afford to stay open.

Arizona hospitals have offered donated medical equipment and ambulances to Mexican medical facilities, but Mexican customs officials have not permitted much of it to enter Mexico. They apparently prefer to send their sick to U.S. hospitals rather than care for them in Mexico. Other costs of dumping Mexicans on U.S. hospitals include transporting the seriously ill by helicopter from small border hospitals to Tucson or Phoenix. This cost ranges from $7,000 to $20,000 a trip.

In San Antonio, University Health System officials have proposed a statewide quarter-cent sales tax to help hospitals pay for uninsured persons who show up at the door. During the last three years, Houston's Harris County Hospital District spent $330 million to treat and immunize illegal aliens, an amount estimated to be at least 20% of the indigent caseload.

In California, where the state budget crunch is forcing reductions in Medicaid and the Children's Health Insurance Program, observers warn of an approaching catastrophe in the health-care system. Almost one in five Californians lacks health insurance, yet the law requires hospitals to continue to serve illegal aliens free.

These costs are especially onerous because hospitals are struggling with falling Medicare and Medicaid reimbursement rates and rising medical malpractice premiums, and most states are struggling with revenue shortfalls. Hospitals are often hit with providing follow-up care when an uninsured patient remains bedridden for months.

It's not just the border states. The Florida Hospital Association reported that illegal aliens amassed unpaid bills of $40.5 million last year. Uninsured illegal alien Saul Diaz, after an auto accident, spent a year in a Gwinnett Medical Center hospital, racking up an unpaid bill of $1 million. Another illegal alien repeatedly stabbed himself in the stomach, and it cost Gwinnett three months of care and $390,000 to restore him to health.

All this is in addition to the many illegal aliens who are injured in highway accidents when the trucks they are jammed into like sardines are driven recklessly by uninsured Mexican drivers trying to evade police. Such accidents have occurred as far away as Utah and Iowa.

U.S. taxpayers are also taken for chumps when food stamps are given to illegal aliens. Coming from countries that have no respect for a rule of law, they don't understand that selling food stamps is a crime. Food-stamp fraud among illegal aliens came to light in 1996 when Ohio authorities discovered that a Jordanian man and his uncle had deposited $24 million in purchased food stamps in the bank accounts associated with their chain of food and video stores. A ring of Somali asylum seekers netted $40,000 in food stamp fraud.

When are Americans going to wake up to the price we are paying because our government won't stop the invasion of illegal aliens?

U.S. Social Security for Mexicans?
Social Security, the so-called "third rail" of American politics, has just become more incendiary. The Bush Administration is proposing a change that is even more controversial than offering younger workers the opportunity to invest a small percentage of their Social Security taxes. Everybody knows that Social Security is facing a massive shortfall in a few years when the baby-boom generation starts to retire. Higher taxes, reduced benefits, or allowing some measure of privatization are the alternatives that need to be worked out by bipartisan consensus.

The Bush Administration has just thrown a monkey wrench into a harmonious solution. A deal is in the works to add to the bulging Social Security rolls many thousands of Mexicans who are working in the United States, both legally and illegally.

This idea would be very costly to U.S. taxpayers. It's bad politics, it undermines the rule of law, and it invites a new wave of illegals to come across our border in search of taxpayer benefits.

Vicente Fox's success as Mexico's President is threatened by his country's terrible poverty. So he has a very ambitious plan to deal with it: export his poverty to the United States. Fox encourages poor and desperate Mexicans to risk all kinds of hardships to cross the U.S. border illegally, often paying their life savings to a criminal "coyote," making a deal to transport illegal drugs, or enduring life-threatening thirst in the Arizona desert. Fox even toyed with a plan to give them Survival Kits to ease their pain.

If the illegal aliens manage to elude U.S. border guards and escape death on the highway in crowded vans or trucks driven by inexperienced drivers, many manage to land in various locations far away from Mexico, such as Colorado, Iowa or Georgia. They can then hope to get hired by a U.S. employer willing to close his eyes to how they got so far from home.

Nevertheless, the illegals are told by Fox and other Mexican officials to "think Mexican" first and send as much as they can scrape out of their pitiful paychecks back to relatives in Mexico. According to a Pew Hispanic Center and Inter-American Development Bank report, Mexicans in the United States will send $13 billion this year to relatives in Mexico.

As soon as George W. Bush was elected president, Vicente Fox started pressuring him to legitimize the status of the some ten million illegal aliens who are in the United States, plus give amnesty to many illegals by reviving a loophole in immigration law called 245(i). Those plans were sailing briskly until 9/11, the day that the American people woke up to the dangers of open borders. Fox was forced to move to an incrementalist strategy.

The Social Security Administration has begun discussions with Mexico about an agreement to allow Mexicans to receive U.S. Social Security benefits. One plan is to allow Mexicans, who were not employed in the U.S. long enough to collect U.S. Social Security benefits, to count the time they worked in Mexico as part of their mandatory 10 years or 40 quarters.

The more expensive plan is to provide benefits to the estimated 5 million Mexicans who are working illegally in the United States after having supplied fake Social Security numbers to their employers. "Our actuaries are working on the numbers," said Social Security spokesman Jim Courtney. Already there is talk of an addition to the U.S. Embassy in Mexico City to handle 37,000 claims anticipated in the first year.

Acquiescing in Vicente Fox's demands would put hundreds of thousands of Mexicans onto the rolls of the U.S. Social Security system just as the first wave of baby boomers starts getting retirement checks. If the State Department has its way, up to $345 billion could be siphoned from the Social Security "trust fund" over the next two decades, mostly to people who worked in the United States illegally. This doesn't even count the cost of making them eligible for Social Security disability, a program already plagued by fraud.

The Bush Administration claims that these plans would promote "totalization" of U.S. and Mexican retirement systems and develop a positive relationship between the two countries. Totalization is the bureaucratic code word for this $345 billion ripoff of U.S. taxpayers.

If foreigners work legally in the United States and pay Social Security taxes, they are entitled to receive the benefits they earned. But U.S. taxpayers should say "no" to Mexico's attempt to shift its social welfare burdens onto the U.S. taxpayers. Offering Social Security benefits to people who knowingly violate U.S. immigration laws would create a powerful new incentive for more illegals to enter the United States.

Stealth Amnesty Is Still 'Sheer Lunacy'
Last year's failed attempt to get Congress to grant amnesty to millions of illegal aliens has morphed into stealth amnesty. This devious plan is hidden behind a little card that looks like a California driver's license and goes by a strange foreign name: matricula consular.

Mexican President Vicente Fox has instructed his 47 consulates in the United States to issue these identification cards to Mexicans living illegally in this country, and they are lining up by the thousands to pay $29 to get one. More than a million were issued in 2002, and over a million older matriculas issued prior to 9/11 are still in circulation.

Since no one except an illegal alien would want or need a matricula consular, there must be some reason other than identification for the Mexicans' eagerness to acquire them. Indeed, there is. The matricula consular is a let's-pretend I.D. designed to be used to access U.S. privileges and benefits to which aliens are not entitled. It's Vicente Fox's plan to circumvent U.S. federal immigration laws by lobbying state and local authorities to grant amnesty in incremental steps.

Simultaneously with the issuing of the matricula consular, Mexican consuls have been aggressively lobbying state and local governments and institutions to accept the card as though it were an American-issued I.D. As a result, 13 states are now accepting matriculas for the purpose of giving driver's licenses to illegal aliens. Once an illegal alien gets a driver's license, he no longer needs his matricula consular. Eighteen of the 19 hijackers on 9/11 carried a driver's license, presumably their key to boarding the killer planes.

Starting with Wells Fargo and Bank of America, 74 banks now accept matriculas for the purpose of opening a bank account. No doubt the banks are eyeing the profits from remittance fees on the $13 billion a year that Mexicans who are employed in the United States send back to Mexico each year.

According to shocking information discovered by the Center for Immigration Studies, the U.S. Treasury Department winked at this practice in a sly footnote to its report to Congress (10-22-02) on implementation of the USA PATRIOT Act (which was supposed to guard against identity fraud). Footnote #17 stated, "The proposed regulations do not discourage bank acceptance of the 'matricula consular' identity card that is being issued by the Mexican government to immigrants."

At least 800 police departments or cities from Los Angeles to Houston to Georgia to Chicago are now accepting the matricula consular. The card can serve to conceal criminal activity because it makes the police less likely to run background checks, take fingerprints, deport, or search for fraudulent documents.

A dozen House members sent a letter to Secretary of State Colin Powell on January 7 stating that the matriculas are issued by the governments of Mexico and some other Latin American countries for "the express purpose of evading U.S.law." Their letter also charges that "the active lobbying of local and state governments by consuls of foreign countries is a breach of international protocol."

Colorado Governor Bill Owens sent a letter to the Consulate General of Mexico asking the Mexican lobbyists to register as foreign agents. After all, U.S. citizens who lobby for a foreign government are required to register.

In her first newsworthy action since becoming House Minority Leader, Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) got the federal building in San Francisco to accept the matricula consular as valid identification to enter the building for purposes formerly reserved to people carrying American-issued I.D. But within a week, on January 21, the General Services Administration (GSA) suspended recognition of matriculas pending an investigation.

The U.S. institutions that accept the matricula consular do so on the assumption that it really does identify the bearer, but there is no assurance of that. The consulates don't authenticate the documents presented by the Mexicans, don't do background checks, and have no database network to reject duplicate matriculas to the same person.

The matricula consular facilitates illegal entry and residence in the United States and serves as a coverup for this and other crimes. It is a federal crime under Section 274 of the Immigration and Nationality Act to encourage an illegal alien to remain illegally in the United States. If our immigration authorities want to locate illegal aliens in the United States, all they have to do is drive a bus up to the lines of people standing outside of the Mexican consulates.

A backlash has set in against this racket of pretending that the matricula consular is a lottery ticket redeemable in benefits available to U.S. citizens. New York City, New York State, and some cities in Michigan, Florida and Arizona have voted not to honor the card. Rep. Tom Tancredo (R-CO) has introduced legislation to deal with the fast growing deceptions caused by use of the matricula consular.

Our Border Open to Crime and Drugs
Smuggling illegal drugs into the United States has been a big money-making scheme for many years, but the industry of smuggling people may be getting even more profitable than marijuana or cocaine. Fees range from $1,000 for Mexicans to $4,000 for Central Americans and up to $50,000 for Chinese or Middle Easterners.

The 18-wheeler is the smuggler's vehicle of choice. A loaded 18-wheeler can be worth $100,000 to $200,000. The business deal calls for a down payment before the ride starts. After crossing the border, the smugglers often hold the vulnerable aliens until family or friends pay a hefty ransom. Migrant smugglers, called coyotes, sometimes steal their competitors' clients. Kidnapping of illegal border crossers has also become a profitable side business.

In one of the largest operations, smugglers were indicted for bringing in at least 11 tractor-trailer loads of aliens between 1999 and 2002, receiving about $1,500 for each alien. Drugs, prostitutes and money were used to entice the drivers into using their 18-wheelers to haul the human cargo. Their last trip was deadly. The aliens were loaded into the trailer with little water and no food. In the intense heat, many suffered hallucinations and lost consciousness and two died.

In Brownsville, Texas, three men pleaded guilty to another alien-smuggling ring that transported three truckloads of 30 people a day from Mexico to Houston, where people were hidden in houses until they could be shipped farther north. Western Union receipts showed that the smugglers raked in more than $5 million for their racket, which went on for years.

A school bus mechanic was arrested in Syracuse on charges he tried to smuggle 15 Chinese nationals across the St. Lawrence River from Canada. The families had paid international smugglers between $15,000 and $40,000 for safe passage to the United States.

Iraqi native George Tajirian ran a smuggling ring, charging $15,000 per head, from all over the world importing more than 1,000 Middle Eastern aliens. Two men from Pakistan and Sri Lanka were arrested in Miami on charges that they smuggled Middle Easterners into the U.S. for $20,000 each.

Tragic truck and van accidents have been reported all over the United States as the illegals are transported far from the border. In Brownsville, Texas, 73 illegal aliens were found hidden in a tractor-trailer among overripe watermelons to disguise the odor of the people.

After a truck with illegal aliens slammed into a tractor-trailer killing nine people in Iowa, state officials estimated that 1,000 illegal immigrants cross Iowa on I-80 in overloaded vans and trucks every day. In Denison, IA, 11 bodies were found in a railroad car.

According to the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration, about 65% of all the cocaine and most of the marijuana that enters this country comes from Mexico.

In just one week last December, San Diego's KFMB Radio reported that U.S. agents caught Mexicans driving a van with 5,989 pounds of marijuana valued at $2.7 million, a produce truck with 8,596 pounds of marijuana, an SUV overloaded with a 1,000-pound haul of marijuana, a big rig carrying a ton of marijuana, and $213,000 worth of marijuana coming over a mobile ramp system built to drive vehicles over a fence and directly into the United States.

Border Control in south Texas caught 22 illegal aliens from Mexico, Honduras and El Salvador transporting 1,700 pounds of marijuana worth $1.25 million. Drug investigators have discovered three tunnels and a fourth under construction at the U.S.-Mexico border at Nogales.

Hundreds of drug traffickers have flooded into North Carolina. In 1995, only 10 Hispanics were in state prisons for drug trafficking convictions, but the number has now risen to 400. (Charlotte Observer, 12-29-02) Police believe that northwest Georgia has become a drug hub.

It should be no surprise that the combination of clusters of illegal aliens and the persistence of illegal drugs has increased the crime rate. Phoenix police report that 60% of the homicides involve Mexicans mixed up in smuggling both drugs and people. Tucson's crime rate has grown 12 times the national average, and a vehicle is stolen in Arizona every 10 minutes.

City gangs are a big problem in many states, and gangs have invaded the suburbs, too. The worst city gang is thought to be MS-13, a ruthless Salvadoran gang that has spread to at least 28 states including Massachusetts. Gangs from Mexico have been reported burglarizing stopped trains. About a dozen railroad bandits ambushed two FBI agents in New Mexico, kicking and beating them with rocks until they were in critical condition.

The deserts and the national parks have become favorite routes for the entry of illegal aliens. Last year, 200,000 illegal aliens were caught sneaking into our country through the Organ Pipe Cactus National Monument in southern Arizona, and 700,000 pounds of illegal drugs were intercepted.

National Park Service ranger Kris Eggle was stationed there last August 9. Two armed Mexicans, who had killed four men in a murder spree over drugs, crossed into the Arizona state park. Three border patrol agents including Kris Eggle responded. One fugitive was captured but the other fled, and Kris Eggle, who had been a cross country runner, gave chase. Eggle was shot below his bullet-proof vest and died in an ambulance.

Where is any media or public outrage over this murder by an illegal alien on U.S. territory? Congressman Tom Tancredo called the incident "the latest example of a border gone wild."

One million illegal aliens are now entering our country each year. If a Mexican day laborer can sneak across our border, so can an al Qaeda terrorist. According to a Fox News poll, 79% of Americans support using the military to help secure U.S. borders.

It's not only "sheer lunacy" to give amnesty to illegal aliens, it is also "sheer lunacy" to tolerate the illegal business of smuggling people and drugs into the United States. U.S. citizens are paying a terrible price in costs to our taxpayers, in crime, and in drug addiction. The best way to stop the costs and the tragedies is to close our borders to illegal entry.

Source - http://www.eagleforum.org/psr/2003/feb03/psrfeb03.shtml

Huge Increase In Illegal Aliens

(AP) The number of immigrants living illegally in the United States jumped by 1 million in fewer than four years, the government reported Friday.

In the latest count, based on the 2000 Census and INS statistics, the Immigration and Naturalization Service reported that roughly 7 million immigrants, mostly Mexicans, were living illegally in the United States as of January 2000.

That's an increase over the 5.8 million illegal immigrants the INS said lived in the country as of October 1996. The population grew on average during the 1990s by 350,000 a year, about 75,000 more per year than reported in earlier INS estimates.

The totals are likely to trigger further outcry from groups seeking greater restrictions on immigration and tougher enforcement of immigration laws.

"These numbers again confirm ... that America has lost control of its borders," said Steve Camarota, research director for Center for Immigration Studies, a group that wants to curb immigration.

Since the Sept. 11, 2001 terror attacks, the nation's immigration laws and enforcement have been under heightened scrutiny. But all 19 of the hijackers entered the country legally, with travel, student or business visas. Most of the visas were still valid at the time of the attacks.

John Gay, a lobbyist for the American Hotel & Lodging Association, said the numbers shouldn't be a surprise because "we all know how broken the system is." The association lobbies on behalf of businesses that rely on immigrant labor.

"If you've got an economy that is sucking that many workers into it and no reasonably legal means to bring them in, then it's broken," Gay said.

Mexicans made up 69 percent, or 4.8 million, of the illegal immigrant population in 2000, compared with 58 percent in 1990, the INS said.

The new estimates are based on the foreign-born population counted in the 2000 Census, combined with INS statistics on immigrants admitted to the country, deportations and numbers of nonimmigrant residents admitted, such as temporary workers.

Aside from Mexico, other countries that each was the source of more than 100,000 citizens illegally in the United States include El Salvador, Guatemala, Colombia, Honduras, China and Ecuador.

The INS said California had the most illegal immigrants, about 2.2 million or 32 percent of the national total. States with the largest numerical increases in the 1990s were California, Texas, Illinois, Arizona, Georgia and North Carolina. California's share, however, has dropped from 42 percent of the total population in 1990, which reflects the growth of the Hispanic and immigrant population in other states over the past decade.

Some of the highest growth occurred in states where immigrants traditionally have not settled. Georgia's population was estimated at 228,000 in 2000, up from 34,000 in 1990, and North Carolina's rose from 26,000 in 1990 to 206,000 in 2000. The largest numerical increases, however, were in California and Texas.

The INS analysis also showed that about a third of the illegal immigrant population came from countries whose residents traditionally enter with visas and overstay.

Source - http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2003/03/10/national/main543313.shtml

Immigration officers find illegal aliens on Navy ship

JACKSONVILLE, Fla. - Immigration officials have discovered dozens of illegal aliens working on the USS John F. Kennedy as the aircraft carrier undergoes renovations at North Florida's Mayport Naval Station.

Eleven men, all from Mexico, were arrested and charged this week with possessing false documentation. The others are still at large.

"We responded to a military concern," said Barbara Gonzalez, a spokeswoman for the U.S. Immigration and Naturalization Service. The investigation began this month after the Navy started a routine review of the status of foreign-born workers hired by the contractors and subcontractors renovating the carrier, said Lt. Leslie Hull-Ryde, a Kennedy spokeswoman.

The Naval Criminal Investigative Service asked for help from the INS, which identified 65 workers ineligible to work in the United States, according to a court affidavit filed Wednesday by INS Special Agent Christopher Note.

When INS and Border Patrol agents went to Mayport last week to locate the illegal workers, they arrested 11 men, all "Mexican citizens illegally in the United States," Agent Note said.

All are charged with falsifying information on employment forms required of all U.S. workers by providing phony alien numbers, according to Agent Note's affidavit.

"The INS and Border Patrol were unable to locate the remaining individuals," Agent Note testified. Asked if INS is still searching for them, prosecutors and agency officials would say only that the matter is "ongoing." It is unknown what countries the missing workers are from. In most cases, undocumented aliens are deported to their native countries.

All of those arrested worked for Moran Environmental Recovery, one of five Kennedy contractors with "immigration discrepancies," said Lt. Brad Fagan, a Mayport spokesman. Moran Vice President Jay Daniel would not comment on the investigation.

Business owners can be fined for hiring illegal aliens or face criminal prosecution if the hirings were deliberate and flagrant, but typically they aren't sanctioned if the workers present false documents.

Source - http://chronicle.augusta.com/stories/2003/01/24/met_366312.shtml

Illegal Aliens: The Health Cost Dimension

Saul Diaz was a penniless, unemployed, uninsured illegal alien living in Georgia when he was severely injured in a car accident. During his yearlong hospitalization, Diaz racked up $1 million in medical expenses.

Officials tried to return Diaz to Mexico after he was stabilized. But Diaz died before he could be removed.

The Gwinnett (GA.) Hospital System expects more illegal immigrants will present themselves for urgent care this year and has established a $34 million reserve to cover its outlay.

Said Paula Martin, a hospital representative:

“When patients come in the emergency department, we do not know or ask if they are documented, we are obligated to deliver care regardless of their status. And as you know, some people do not admit to being illegally in the U.S.”

[Atlanta Journal-Constitution, Indigent care costs escalating; “Hospitals don't track illegal immigrant factor,” by Rick Badie, January 16, 2003]

Okay, you say, we just can’t let Diaz die on the highway. As humanitarians we must try to save him.

But take a hypothetical “Gloria,” a twenty-year old Los Angeles resident who is seven months pregnant? Like Diaz, Gloria is uninsured, unemployed and illegally in the U.S.

Medi-Cal will cover Gloria’s prenatal care and child delivery costs.

If Gloria doesn’t speak English, the hospital must, by law, provide her with a Spanish-speaking translator.

Gloria’s newborn child will also get car seats and diapers under her Medi-Cal coverage.

In the event of post-partum complications, California will absorb all of the costs.

U.S. taxpayers have spent hundred of millions on patients like Diaz and Gloria. As a consequence, the states are facing a crisis of unparalleled magnitude. As Los Angeles Times columnist Ronald Brownstein wrote in his December 30 column “Health-Care Storm Brewing in California Threatens to Swamp U.S.”, “the impending Medicaid disaster is not a problem the states can handle alone; their budget shortfalls are too big.”

If you want to reduce the cost of quality health care for U.S. citizens then you cannot provide it to every illegal alien in the country.

And if the government can turn its back on health care for military veterans, as it announced it would last week, then cutting off aliens shouldn’t be too tough.

On January 17th, Secretary of Veteran Affairs Anthony J. Principi stated that VA health care enrollment for Category 8 veterans would be suspended for one year. (A Category 8 veteran is one who does not have a service-connected disability and has an income in excess of $13,000.)

World War II veteran Bob Simmons predicts that “one year” means forever.

In justifying his decision, Principi noted that more than 200,000 veterans have to wait six months for an initial appointment and that in today’s economy many veterans “may have a false expectation of care.”

There’s a slice of American life circa 2003: veterans wait while illegal aliens go to the head of the line.

U.S. Marine Corps Captain David Brockett who served in Vietnam more than once between 1968 and 1974 e-mailed me his observation:

“The G.W. Bush decision to cut VA health care costs while funneling millions of dollars into health care for illegals is a kick in the gut. This decision is indicative of the ‘I appreciate your past service but what have you done for me today’ attitude that veteran's organizations fight each and every year.

“All veterans and their families are painfully aware of the uphill struggle to obtain medical services at Veteran's Affairs hospitals and clinics. We have to provide a ream of personal, financial, and military documentation just to get "in" the system. Once the information is validated then we are informed what our "share" of the medical expenses will be. If we submit the information in March, and we lose our job in April, we have to wait a full year for the VA to reassess our co-payment. With past funding cuts it is not unusual for a veteran to have to travel across several counties to reach a VA medical center.

“Meanwhile, the illegal simply presents himself to the nearest hospital for a complete smorgasbord of free medical services. This "squatter" enjoys all of the freedoms that the veteran has fought for, with none of the pain, suffering, or expenses associated with them…

“Several generations of this type of neglect has produced children of veterans who are cautioned against serving in the military. Simple solution to this problem is for our government representatives to receive the same health care services that veterans do. Let’s see how long they will be willing to rob Peter to pay Raoul.”

But there may be rays of hope. At the encouragement of Rep. Jim Kolbe, R-Arizona, the General Accounting Office traveled to southern Arizona to study the impact of illegal immigrants on Arizona and other border state hospitals. In 2002, three hospitals located in Cochise County funded more than $1 million in uncompensated health care costs, said Jim Dickson, CEO of the Copper Queen Community Hospital in Bisbee.

The Florida Hospital Association surveyed 28 hospitals and found that health care for illegal aliens totaled at least $40 million in 2002. Among the changes recommended are:

Specifying how much follow-up care a hospital must provide after stabilizing the patient.

Requiring that tourist visas be issued only if the applicants document their health status, assume financial responsibility for health care and agree to return home after they are stabilized.

Requiring other countries to accept medical transfers of their citizens.

Receiving more cooperation from and among the INS, foreign consulates, immigration lawyers and patients' families. (Good luck on this one!)

Rep. Mark Foley, R-Fla. has the best idea.[“Congressman: 'Parasitic' Illegal Aliens Burden U.S. Hospitals,” Jessica Cantelon, CNSNews.com July 16, 2002] Foley said that the U.S. should net hospital costs out of foreign aid payments.

Immigration enthusiasts, of course, do not agree. Hector Cora, lawyer for the family of Saul Diaz, the $1 million illegal I mentioned in my first paragraph was quoted in the Atlanta Journal-Constitution article as saying:

"It's nice to brush it off on them (illegal aliens)…But, they contribute to Georgia's labor, economy, and pay taxes. Most of the time, when they go to hospitals, it's going to be for delivering babies and critical-type care. You're talking about a community that's almost completely unaware they are driving up hospital costs. They are not educated enough to know what the costs are, and that they are high. You're basically talking about uneducated people from a Third World country."

Hmmm, interesting that the Diaz family has money for a lawyer but not for hospital bills.

Illegal immigrants may not know much about medical care.

But one thing they do know: they get a better deal in the U.S. than they do in Mexico.

Source - http://vdare.com/guzzardi/health_care.htm