CONS: Illegal Immigration-continued

CONS: Financial Drain: Financially, illegal immigrants are a huge strain on the American economy. Here is a quick rundown of some of the sources of the strain: enforcement costs, social programs, education costs, medical care, incarceration costs, prosecution costs, damage done to federal property upon illegal entry, not paying taxes on cash income, sending money home to their countries of origin never to return again (In 2003, then-President of Mexico, Vicente Fox told SignOnSanDiego.com that remittances "are our biggest source of foreign income, bigger than oil, tourism or foreign investment" and that "the money transfers grew after Mexican consulates started giving identity cards to their citizens in the United States." He stated that money sent from Mexican workers in the United States to their families back home reached a record $12 billion.), drugs smuggled in means cash going out, and the time and money lost debating how to solve this complicated issue.
Crime: Crime committed by illegals in the U.S. is not only a financial burden to the taxpayer, but also kills and harms the victims of violent crime and drunk driving. Saying that all illegals are involved in violent crime is as ignorant as saying that all Muslims are involved in acts of terrorism, but the fact remains that by virtue of being within the borders of the U.S. illegally, they have committed a crime. Bottom line, you reduce the number of criminals in a population, you will see a reduction in crime. There are two ways to reduce the number of criminals 1) Wave a magic wand and make them legal, and now only a percentage are criminals 2) Get them all out of the country, and now there all gone…no magic wand required. Sure, we'll still have our American criminals to deal with, but we have a system in place for that. Why should America have to house its own criminals and those of other nations?
Unemployment: Employment opportunities gobbled up by our illegal friends is the next point of contention. Some, as previously discussed, argue “They are doing jobs Americans won’t do.” Really? What about American teens that work summers, or used to? The Center for Immigration Studies has done several pieces on the effects of immigration (legal and otherwise) on low skilled and low paying employment in America. Simply put, if you pay a guy "off the books," you can pay him less; therefore, it behooves the small business man to break the law and hire illegals cheaper than he can pay a few local kids to do the same work. By the way, he has now broken federal law and should be punished, but “What about these poor people and their families?” you ask. Bank robbers have families, too, and so do murderers and tax cheats, and they have all broken federal law and should be punished accordingly. So to simplify how employment is affected, they take jobs away from Americans and don’t pay taxes on their earnings. Now we have more unemployed Americans that are going to depend on social programs and unemployment, and the “undocumented worker” (that bit of political correctness even felt sleazy) is not officially employed, so he can double dip and take advantage of our generous social programs that are draining the American economy dry. So, if we deport one illegal worker and his family, we take two families off of social programs and unemployment and get the tax money from the guy who now has a job…is it starting to add up?
Security: Security of our borders is the first line of defense of the security of our nation and our way of life. Now you can say, “They just want to come here and make a life for themselves and pursue the American dream.” Fair enough. There is a legal way to do that and I encourage them to pursue it. Don’t get me wrong, that legal way needs to be changed, but before we can pass sensible immigration reform, we must secure our borders so Other Than Mexicans (OTMs) can’t slip across our southern border and blow up our buildings. Mexican drug runners own the trails along the border. They smuggle drugs and people. Some of those people, OTMs, aren’t looking for the American dream; they are looking to destroy our country. Drug runners have loyalty to one thing, and that is making money; they don’t care where it comes from. Terrorists from the Far East are known to have ties with the cartels for this purpose. A 2007 report from the Department of Homeland Security, A Line in the Sand: Confronting the Threat at the Southwest Border reports that in 2005 at least 850 people from countries of "special interest" were apprehended crossing the southern border. How many more successfully crossed is unknown. We must secure our perimeter. It is the oldest military tactic in the books. Whether we go with a wall, drones, or military patrols with the authorized use of deadly force…just secure the damn thing.

Tomorrow, The Way Ahead.