There are two major and overriding crisis now facing the American people. The first one is the utterly disastrous and failed Iraqi campaign and the second is the monumental flood of illegal and totally uncontrolled immigration into the United States.
The information on Iraq is easily found and growing but the immigration scandal is not as public. As I have a number of relatives in Arizona, some of whom are state officials, I have decided to take this border state as a microcosm of the growing disaster.
Conservative (and politically correct) official estimates (census, INS reports, state and Federal crime reports) place the number of illegal aliens now in the United States at 11 million, a more realistic (and politically incorrect) analysis by the same agencies place the number of illegals at between 20 to 23 millions, (about 90% of whom are Hispanics.)
In Arizona, the number of Hispanic illegals , as of March 1, 2006, is approximately 350,000.
In Cochise county, on the Mexican border, alone, over 56,000 illegals were detained in the month of February, 2006!
The number of identified illegals in Arizona alone are costing the state taxpayers up to $1 billion a year in state and local services. Herewith is a breakdown of these costs of immigration:
-- $31 million annually in unpaid emergency hospital care for illegal immigrants, as estimated by the governor's office.
-- $72 million a year to imprison criminals without legal residency, as estimated by the governor's office.
--$250 million a year in welfare, as estimated by the governor's office
--$380 million a year in welfare to illegal immigrants, as estimated by the Center of Immigration Studies.
These are costs of the maintenance of this army of illegals but now let us use the Arizona city of Phoenix to consider the criminal activity.
Phoenix has become the biggest gathering point and distribution hub for people migrating to the United States from Mexico. But unlike other large cities of the Southwest, Phoenix has little history in assimilating large numbers of Hispanics. The result has been an anti-immigrant backlash.
The U.S. Border Patrol polices Phoenix's bus station and airport -- some 175 miles from Mexico -- because the city has become an unofficial port of entry. The Phoenix area basically is used as a major transportation hub for illegal immigration, because it's going to be the first major city they get to after crossing illegally,
But the city isn't just a way-station for immigrants: It has also become a place for them to settle. Census figures show the percentage of the city's Hispanic population nearly doubled between 1990 and 2000 -- from 13 percent to 25 percent. No one knows what percentage are here illegally or even from Mexico. But it is largely a population of families, helping make Arizona the fifth youngest state.
Not everyone in Phoenix is adapting so willingly to this demographic and cultural shift. Activists say the undocumented are holding down wages, costing taxpayers millions for health care and education, and contributing to crime.
80 percent of all violent crime in Phoenix can be attributed to illegal aliens. Local law enforcement and Federal crime reports indicate that illegal Mexican gangs are engaging in heavy drug sales, by importation from Mexico of heroin and marijuana. Their “turf wars” have resulted in 289 drug-related deaths in FY 2004-6. Parts of Phoenix are considered unsafe for non-Mexican residents.
Public discontent with the situation has boiled over into state policy, leading voters and lawmakers to pass some of the most hardline anti-illegal immigrant laws in the country.
The reactions to this actual invasion of American territory and the burgeoning drug-related violence?
After Federal border officials arrested nearly 500,000 people trying to enter the state between last October and July. In April, the “Minuteman Project,” a self-appointed militia, began patrolling the Arizona-Mexico border. And in mid-August, Gov. Janet Napolitano (D) took the unusual step of declaring a state of emergency. The move frees up government money to boost law enforcement along the border.
According to the Pew Hispanic Center, which like Stateline.org is funded by The Pew Charitable Trusts, the number of illegal immigrants in Arizona has more than quadrupled since 1996 -- from 115,000 then to about 500,000 now. By comparison, the number of illegal immigrants in the United States roughly doubled, jumping from about 5 million in 1996 to about 11 million today. These figures are, naturally, extremely conservative and the actual figure hovers somewhere between 20-23 million.
Arizona’s turning point came last November when it became the first state since California in 1994 to adopt a ballot initiative, Proposition 200, that barred social services to illegal immigrants.
The measure, which passed with 55.6 percent of the vote despite opposition from both Democratic and Republican leaders, also makes it a crime for public employees to fail to report undocumented immigrants seeking benefits, and requires proof of citizenship to register to vote.
Unlike California’s initiative, Arizona's Prop 200 has held up in court. In early August, a federal appeals court rejected a lawsuit aimed at overturning it. Further legal action is expected.
Arizona law enforcement officers, as well as federal border patrol officers, now can arrest people suspected of smuggling illegal immigrants into the United States. They also cam seize vehicles driven by illegal immigrants that are involved in an accident.
State judges can lengthen a felony sentence if the person convicted has violated federal immigration law, and city and county officials are barred from spending on migrant work centers, which illegal immigrants often use to find employment.
Law enforcement officials and lawmakers also contend that crime follows illegal immigrants across the border. The state prison system spent $77 million last year detaining more than 4,000 illegal immigrants.
Mexican officials, outraged by these actions, have been blustering about “retaliation” against the “oppressive” U.S. state and federal authorities and uniformed Mexican military units, heavily armed, have actually convoyed large groups of Mexican illegals over the U.S. borders in Texas, New Mexico and Arizona. The Mexican government has also been supplying illegals with booklets describing methods to use to cross the border and how to use false identification and other deceptions to further hide from detection. The American-based ‘La Raza’ movement, a separatist group, has received money and other support from Mexico. It is the avowed aim of this group, and others, to “retake” what they consider legitimate Mexican territory (California, Arizona and New Mexico and parts of Texas), stolen from Mexico in the nineteenth century by Americans.
In light of a very restrictive immigration bill now being considered by Congress, these groups, with full support from Mexico (who uses illegal immigration as a means of getting rid of their unproductive, uneducated and certainly unskilled citizens) have launched a massive campaign to turn out hundreds of thousands of illegal immigrants onto the streets in an attempt to intimidate Congress and force the defeat of a bill that they view as destructive to their aims.
The claims of these groups and their supporters, mostly members of the American clergy, is that the immigrants are taking only those jobs that Americans do not want. In truth, the illegals are willing to work for very low wages and have driven down these wages to the point where millions of young American job seekers simply cannot compete. The employers, who welcome such cheap labor, do not pay taxes on these illegals, do not enroll them on the unemployment or workers compensation rolls and in general save a great deal ofmoney. Naturally, they do not want the flow of cheap workers stopped and are strong in their demand that any restrictive immigration legislation be scrapped.
The bottom line is that mass immigration means more competition for the limited resources in the "resource pie," whether one is talking about good jobs, room on the freeway, potable water, open space, or cheap energy. It drives up costs of all these desirable and necessary goods. Paying for immigration takes an ever increasing proportion of the family budget, which means that the consumer has less disposable income. Immigration, which makes the average American poorer, is ultimately very BAD for the economy and businesses since — as we hear ad nauseum — economic health depends on continued consumer spending. Even as millions of people have lost their jobs in the U.S. in recent years, we continue to allow more than a million aliens permanent resident status each year in the U.S., forcing increased competition for jobs, health care, education, welfare benefits, and housing at a time when Americans desperately need these resources.
This is a problem that is easy of solution, and if it is not solved with diligence and dispatch, it will become yet another millstone around the necks of the controlling Republican party come the November mid-term elections.
The solution?
Remove all illegals, without exception, from the United States;
Fine, heavily, any American firm that knowingly hires illegals;
Build an impenetrable wall from the Pacific to the Gulf of Mexico.;
Man this area with military units who are ordered to return the fire of illegals or Mexican military units who, as they have recently been doing, shoot at them first.
The advise to these units?
Shoot straight. And no quarter given.
The information on Iraq is easily found and growing but the immigration scandal is not as public. As I have a number of relatives in Arizona, some of whom are state officials, I have decided to take this border state as a microcosm of the growing disaster.
Conservative (and politically correct) official estimates (census, INS reports, state and Federal crime reports) place the number of illegal aliens now in the United States at 11 million, a more realistic (and politically incorrect) analysis by the same agencies place the number of illegals at between 20 to 23 millions, (about 90% of whom are Hispanics.)
In Arizona, the number of Hispanic illegals , as of March 1, 2006, is approximately 350,000.
In Cochise county, on the Mexican border, alone, over 56,000 illegals were detained in the month of February, 2006!
The number of identified illegals in Arizona alone are costing the state taxpayers up to $1 billion a year in state and local services. Herewith is a breakdown of these costs of immigration:
-- $31 million annually in unpaid emergency hospital care for illegal immigrants, as estimated by the governor's office.
-- $72 million a year to imprison criminals without legal residency, as estimated by the governor's office.
--$250 million a year in welfare, as estimated by the governor's office
--$380 million a year in welfare to illegal immigrants, as estimated by the Center of Immigration Studies.
These are costs of the maintenance of this army of illegals but now let us use the Arizona city of Phoenix to consider the criminal activity.
Phoenix has become the biggest gathering point and distribution hub for people migrating to the United States from Mexico. But unlike other large cities of the Southwest, Phoenix has little history in assimilating large numbers of Hispanics. The result has been an anti-immigrant backlash.
The U.S. Border Patrol polices Phoenix's bus station and airport -- some 175 miles from Mexico -- because the city has become an unofficial port of entry. The Phoenix area basically is used as a major transportation hub for illegal immigration, because it's going to be the first major city they get to after crossing illegally,
But the city isn't just a way-station for immigrants: It has also become a place for them to settle. Census figures show the percentage of the city's Hispanic population nearly doubled between 1990 and 2000 -- from 13 percent to 25 percent. No one knows what percentage are here illegally or even from Mexico. But it is largely a population of families, helping make Arizona the fifth youngest state.
Not everyone in Phoenix is adapting so willingly to this demographic and cultural shift. Activists say the undocumented are holding down wages, costing taxpayers millions for health care and education, and contributing to crime.
80 percent of all violent crime in Phoenix can be attributed to illegal aliens. Local law enforcement and Federal crime reports indicate that illegal Mexican gangs are engaging in heavy drug sales, by importation from Mexico of heroin and marijuana. Their “turf wars” have resulted in 289 drug-related deaths in FY 2004-6. Parts of Phoenix are considered unsafe for non-Mexican residents.
Public discontent with the situation has boiled over into state policy, leading voters and lawmakers to pass some of the most hardline anti-illegal immigrant laws in the country.
The reactions to this actual invasion of American territory and the burgeoning drug-related violence?
After Federal border officials arrested nearly 500,000 people trying to enter the state between last October and July. In April, the “Minuteman Project,” a self-appointed militia, began patrolling the Arizona-Mexico border. And in mid-August, Gov. Janet Napolitano (D) took the unusual step of declaring a state of emergency. The move frees up government money to boost law enforcement along the border.
According to the Pew Hispanic Center, which like Stateline.org is funded by The Pew Charitable Trusts, the number of illegal immigrants in Arizona has more than quadrupled since 1996 -- from 115,000 then to about 500,000 now. By comparison, the number of illegal immigrants in the United States roughly doubled, jumping from about 5 million in 1996 to about 11 million today. These figures are, naturally, extremely conservative and the actual figure hovers somewhere between 20-23 million.
Arizona’s turning point came last November when it became the first state since California in 1994 to adopt a ballot initiative, Proposition 200, that barred social services to illegal immigrants.
The measure, which passed with 55.6 percent of the vote despite opposition from both Democratic and Republican leaders, also makes it a crime for public employees to fail to report undocumented immigrants seeking benefits, and requires proof of citizenship to register to vote.
Unlike California’s initiative, Arizona's Prop 200 has held up in court. In early August, a federal appeals court rejected a lawsuit aimed at overturning it. Further legal action is expected.
Arizona law enforcement officers, as well as federal border patrol officers, now can arrest people suspected of smuggling illegal immigrants into the United States. They also cam seize vehicles driven by illegal immigrants that are involved in an accident.
State judges can lengthen a felony sentence if the person convicted has violated federal immigration law, and city and county officials are barred from spending on migrant work centers, which illegal immigrants often use to find employment.
Law enforcement officials and lawmakers also contend that crime follows illegal immigrants across the border. The state prison system spent $77 million last year detaining more than 4,000 illegal immigrants.
Mexican officials, outraged by these actions, have been blustering about “retaliation” against the “oppressive” U.S. state and federal authorities and uniformed Mexican military units, heavily armed, have actually convoyed large groups of Mexican illegals over the U.S. borders in Texas, New Mexico and Arizona. The Mexican government has also been supplying illegals with booklets describing methods to use to cross the border and how to use false identification and other deceptions to further hide from detection. The American-based ‘La Raza’ movement, a separatist group, has received money and other support from Mexico. It is the avowed aim of this group, and others, to “retake” what they consider legitimate Mexican territory (California, Arizona and New Mexico and parts of Texas), stolen from Mexico in the nineteenth century by Americans.
In light of a very restrictive immigration bill now being considered by Congress, these groups, with full support from Mexico (who uses illegal immigration as a means of getting rid of their unproductive, uneducated and certainly unskilled citizens) have launched a massive campaign to turn out hundreds of thousands of illegal immigrants onto the streets in an attempt to intimidate Congress and force the defeat of a bill that they view as destructive to their aims.
The claims of these groups and their supporters, mostly members of the American clergy, is that the immigrants are taking only those jobs that Americans do not want. In truth, the illegals are willing to work for very low wages and have driven down these wages to the point where millions of young American job seekers simply cannot compete. The employers, who welcome such cheap labor, do not pay taxes on these illegals, do not enroll them on the unemployment or workers compensation rolls and in general save a great deal ofmoney. Naturally, they do not want the flow of cheap workers stopped and are strong in their demand that any restrictive immigration legislation be scrapped.
The bottom line is that mass immigration means more competition for the limited resources in the "resource pie," whether one is talking about good jobs, room on the freeway, potable water, open space, or cheap energy. It drives up costs of all these desirable and necessary goods. Paying for immigration takes an ever increasing proportion of the family budget, which means that the consumer has less disposable income. Immigration, which makes the average American poorer, is ultimately very BAD for the economy and businesses since — as we hear ad nauseum — economic health depends on continued consumer spending. Even as millions of people have lost their jobs in the U.S. in recent years, we continue to allow more than a million aliens permanent resident status each year in the U.S., forcing increased competition for jobs, health care, education, welfare benefits, and housing at a time when Americans desperately need these resources.
This is a problem that is easy of solution, and if it is not solved with diligence and dispatch, it will become yet another millstone around the necks of the controlling Republican party come the November mid-term elections.
The solution?
Remove all illegals, without exception, from the United States;
Fine, heavily, any American firm that knowingly hires illegals;
Build an impenetrable wall from the Pacific to the Gulf of Mexico.;
Man this area with military units who are ordered to return the fire of illegals or Mexican military units who, as they have recently been doing, shoot at them first.
The advise to these units?
Shoot straight. And no quarter given.
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