Illegal Immigration

Each week, thousands of illegal immigrants cross our southern border. Although some presumably have good intentions, at least twenty percent (20%) of southern border-crossers are known criminals, drug dealers, sex traffickers, and gang lords willing to commit the most heinous crimes one can imagine to achieve their ends. Most frightening of all, mingled with those menaces are potential terrorists from countries hostile to the United States. When one contremplates the level of pedestrian and vehicular traffic crossing the borders every day, it is becomes clear how simple it would be to smuggle a dirty bomb or other device across the border. Unless we reduce that traffic by a significant amount, it will not be a question of whether but when a new terrorist attack will occur.

As the violence occurring in the Mexican border towns begins to spill across the border, it is time to consider closing the border at Juarez, Laredo, Reynoso, and Tia Juana. It is time to change the rules of engagement to enable hot pursuit of drug runners and gang lords across the border. It's time to give our border patrol agents some protection from prosecution for acts performed in the course of their duties.

America does not need another reminder, as we had on 9/11, that lax immigration law enforcement opens the door to our enemies. Of the 19 hijackers who attacked us that day, 3 were here illegally, and 15 were on visas that should have been revoked under immigration law. Many of the hijackers obtained fake ID's from illegal aliens.

Terrorists have exploited our immigration weaknesses. We continue to leave our borders open to impending catastrophe. The majority of U.S. citizens understand this threat, and know that national security cannot be achieved without border security, strict adherence to existing immigration law, appropriate use of the deportation system, mandatory E-verify across the board, and close monitoring of such privileges as visas.

The public supports stronger controls. Our elected officials know this, but they have been reluctant to fix the problem.

Officials in both major parties give precedence to the desires of illegal aliens rather than those of their own citizens. They continue to be paralyzed by political correctness and bureaucratic sclerosis. They have yet to come to grips with the reality of homicidal America-haters lurking at our doorstep--evildoers whose modus operandi is to infiltrate our country, then kill us. Our leaders have failed in one of their most basic constitutional responsibilities--to provide for the common defense--because too many special interests profit from open borders.

Illegal immigration is excused for economic reasons. Politicians in the pocket of special interests tell us our economy needs cheap, foreign, "illegal" labor. In reality, a case can be made that illegal immigration drains our resources. Illegal immigration costs taxpayers an estimated $70 billion a year in subsidies for healthcare, schooling, welfare benefits, and domestic crime-fighting. The exploitation of undocumented aliens in the job market results in lower wages and job losses for native-born Americans, naturalized citizens, and legal immigrants. Current trends, left unchecked, are expected to dramatically decrease the standard of living for everyone.

In California, for example, the overflow of foreign-born illegal aliens has given that state the most crowded cities in the country. Poverty increased more in California than anywhere else in the nation over the past decade, particularly in areas of the state with large migrant populations. The influx of low-skill immigrant workers may well have already vastly exceeded the demand for low-skill labor, and many economists and analysts not enamored of free-market theory argue it has caused lower average incomes overall and increases in unemployment.

Irresponsible hirers of illegal aliens tend to be less morally accountable and more exploitative in their treatment of illegal workers than their law-abiding business competitors are of their employees. Those who systematically cheat the system can pay lower than the minimum wage, abuse their illegal employees, and commit tax fraud--all outside the purview of government. An undocumented worker does not necessarily know his rights under U.S. law, and would tend to be afraid and reluctant to contact authorities regarding abuse and exploitation.

The smuggling of aliens is itself inhumane. Death is a frequent consequence of illicit border-crossing attempts. Those who survive often suffer disease, starvation, dehydration, and abuse from their smugglers. Women are raped, and even children are trafficked for sexual exploitation.

This is incompatible with the vision Americans have for their country. More than any other country, we have in the past extended a hand of compassion to the tired, poor, and needy when natural disasters strike. But we do it under a system of law, order, equality, and protection of the paramount rights of our citizens, not the so-called "rights" of illegal aliens and other foreigners. And we do it only to the extent that we can justify it as being in the national interest. We need look no farther than India, China, Bangladesh, Pakistan, Afghanistan, and sub-Saharan Africa to know what unrestrained population growth will mean to our quality of life and standard of living.

Population-driven economic growth is unsustainable in the long run. The "limit" of natural resources per capita as population grows without bounds is zero. How much farther down that road does Congress thing we should go?

Americans produce 20 metric tons of pollutants per capita annually. If we add 300 million more people to our population by the end of this century, we will be adding 3 billion more tons of pollutants to the environment annually at the present rate. Even if, by some technological miracle, we were to be able to reduce our per capita output by half to that of Mexico, we still would have made no progress in reducing the present unacceptable level as our population doubles.

Our country used to be the shining torch of liberty and justice and opportunity that we exemplify to all the world. Many millions would come here every year if they could. They believe America is the land of milk and honey, a bottomless cornucopeia of jobs, welfare benefits, health care, freedom, and democracy.

In the beginning a largely unsettled continent lay before the Founding Fathers and their successors. There was a good reason then for loose immigration controls. Natural resouces like water, game, fish, minerals, energy, timber, and arable land seemed limitless. Now we know better. This is no longer the late 19th century and early 20th century when the economy was expanding and America had an industrial base second to none. It is now a time for reflection and study on how we can stabilize our population while bringing our economy into a soft landing. It is time to rebuild America's industrial base and to recover our technological and competitive edge.

This means tailoring legal immigration precisely to our needs to meet that goal. Let's give foreign PhD students in physical science, engineering, math and medicine a fast track to citizenship if they want it. Let's make sure every citizen who is capable of work at the PhD level in these areas is given the financial assistance and incentive he or she needs to succeed. And let's make sure all of our citizen graduates in engineering, math, science and medicine are fully employed before we allow any foreign students at the bachelors and masters level in these areas to achieve permanent residency or obtain visas to stay once their educations are complete.

The supposed economic benefits from illegal immigration are not worth the costs to our national unity, our prosperity, our security--and most importantly, to the integrity of the principles of justice and responsible self-government enshrined in our Declaration of Independence. So let's put an end to illegal immigration now by refusing to grant amnesty to anyone who has violated our borders. Let's establish border security in depth by continuing the improvement of border infrastructure and staffing and by using E-Verify to ferret out those illegals in our midst who are holding jobs Americans will do if offered a living wage and the hiring preference they deserve. If we require employers to present irrefutable evidence that they were unable to fill their jobs with citizen labor after extensive advertisement before they can hire any foreign labor, we will be well on our way to solving this problem once and for all.

We can no longer support a policy that suggests that America has an obligation to take all of the potential immigrants who wish to come here. They may well constitute numbers greater than our entire current population.

Contrary to what the politicians and special interest lobbyists would have us believe, our immigration system is not broken. We simply need to put the national interest first and enforce the law and secure the borders. Those who say the immigration system is broken are right only to the extent that the present system allows too many to enter our country legally and illegally. It is time to send the message that we consider our population to be optimum at its present level or lower, that we can accept only those immigrants who have the skills, entrepreneurial spirit, innovative talent, and inventiveness we need to survive in this global economy. Legal immigration including chain immigrations must be reduced to no more than 200,000-250,000 per year focused on the skills for which there is a demonstrated need with precedence given to those who are already fluent in English. This range would exclude tourists, students, and temporary migrant workers.

It is also time to end the charade of English competency for citizenship. We must require real fluency before citizenship can be offered. This does not require the repatriation of permanent residents who are unable to achieve fluency. They simply will not be able to enjoy voting and other privileges accorded to citizens. Although they may not be able to achieve fluency, their children will. We can then put an end to multi-lingual ballots and other official government documents and proceedings and we can repeal Executive Order 13166 that requires that nonsense.