Illegal Immigration
“What about illegal don’t you understand” is the common mantra although it is not that simple and never has been. A. Could we actually deport 20 million people and not affect the economy adversely?
B. Can the US function normally without the 20 million people that should not be here that are? Can we harvest our own crops without using these people? Obviously we can't since last year over 1 billion of crop have rotted in the fields because US Citizens refuse to do this work.
C. If these people won't be paying property taxes, sales tax, gas tax, social security tax, federal taxes, state taxes where will we make up that revenue and will it indeed be off set by the crime going down by not having these people here?
D. Can the states handle supporting 3.5 to 4 million US Citizen Children of undocumented people for the next 18 years? The estimated cost reaches into the billions over this time period. Forcing them to deport US Citizens is not a legal option.
1. OBEY THE LAW: We say we cannot justify people doing things against the law although we can understand why they do what they do (#4) and analyze how to fix the problems using long term solutions rather than many of the actions that are being done that are not working. Those coming over the border do bring crime and drugs with them and there is an increased amount of criminal activity because of the illegal border crossings. Many of the people that are against illegal immigration publish figures are are wrong and misquoted so that also creates perceptions that are misleading although the fact is they do bring crime with them and other things like drugs but the fact that they bring drugs is our fault because of SUPPLY AND DEMAND. We have the greatest demand in the world so they just fill that demand.
A. Understanding the law is one of the first steps:
CRIMINALS OR NOT?
If you are caught crossing the border without permission this is a CRIME and you are deported. Sometimes the Government will prosecute the crime as a misdemeanor and other times as a felony when it has been repetitive and depending on what else is involved such as drugs or human trafficking.
If you are not caught crossing the border and you make it over and into a state then that is not CRIMINAL it is UNLAWFUL PRESENCE and it is only CIVIL not criminal. This may not seem right to you but it is the law and for this reason the Government has a harder time trying to enforce laws because they are limited because of this. So referring to these people as criminals is not correct under the actual definition of the current immigration laws.
2. TAXES: Illegals pay more than 9 billion into the mismatched social security system every year that they will never get back. Illegals also pay RENT to over 3 million landlords that would have grave financial problems if they were all to leave. The rent money that is paid also pays property tax and in most states much of this money goes to pay for education so they are not getting a free ride as many think. They all pay Gas Tax, Sales Tax where applicable and many other taxes and without the collection of these taxes and without them spending the money they earn here the US would be much worse off than it already is.
Americans are not having enough children to meet the future Social Security needs but most people that are unlawfully here are having children and these children are born as US Citizens under the current rules since every single state recognizes them as US Citizens and issues birth certificates and social security numbers to them.
Many estimates say that 2/3rds of those that are here illegally are working using false social security cards and therefore they are not only paying into the social security fund but they are also paying federal and states taxes. The US supreme court ruled in 2009 that if they only use the false ID in order to work then they will not be prosecuted for identity theft unless they used the ID for loans and illegal purposes. Keep in mind that some states have laws that conflict with this so it could also be challenged again.
3. FINANCIAL ISSUES FOR THE US: The estimates are that there are somewhere between 14 and 20 million illegal aliens in the US today and that does not count the millions of legal children that they have. If they all were deported it would cause devastating problems to the economy throughout the country. States like Oklahoma and Alabama are now seeing the effects of the anti immigration laws that they recently passed. In the last year over 1 billion dollars in crops have rotted in the fields because Americans without jobs that are on unemployment or even off unemployment won’t do this type of work.
Many of these people send a great deal of money out of the US and some would argue that this hurts the US when indeed on a MACRO economic scale it actually helps the dollar to be traded outside the US and to be sent out of the US by those within. It is also a form of foreign AID that is being done on a private level. Whereas when it is done through the government many times the funds do not actually reach the poor. If we were say deport 10 million Mexicans that country does not have the ability to employee that many people and the flow of money that is being sent to Mexico each year from the US would slow to a trickle. Many people say “to hell with them” we don’t care if they can’t employee their own. Well anyone that has studied MACRO economics and history knows that neighboring countries doing poorly affect those countries around them in a big way so telling them to DEAL with it won’t solve the problem.
4. In Guatemala the rape and murder solve rate is less than 2% because no one will step forward. The living conditions are sad and in a small town you need about $600 per month to meet the cost of living but a normal job there will only pay about $60 a month and if your lucky to work for a plantation or factory you might make $200 so if you have 3 family members get the best jobs around you could meet the cost of living and if you only got a normal job you would make $60 per month. Now if you borrow money from your brother in law in the US then you can easily make 30 times that wage and then send money back home to take care of your wife and children and still have money left over. This is why it happens because they are trying to get their basic needs met of food and water and that does not even touch on health care. I lived in Guatemala from 1983 to 1984 and saw these things first hand, I returned in 2008 and 2010 and did interviews and budget analysis for several families living in the same town where my family lives. I went to work with my father in law and experienced much of what they do on a regular basis.
Obviously I am bias although my Hispanic wife also feels very strongly that criminals should be punished quickly and according to the crime and she has also accepted responsibility for her actions as well.
We spent well over 12,000 to get my wife’s visa and she is married to a US Citizen and had been for several years. The process required that we send in form after form which ended up being 29 forms for a total of over 10,000 pages that ended up being sent to USCIS and ICE which really took more than a small tree when you consider just the paper. Our lawyer told us “ICE denies and lawyers reapply, it’s a business” so we kept plugging at it. We would get a form that was 3 pages and it would have 12 pages of instructions with it and the cost to file the form would be over $500 and when they deny it, you don’t get your money back. So it is like this. If you want to JOIN our club give us $500 so you give it to them and they say, no you can’t join but we are going to keep your money. They call it processing fees. The last form I sent in was denied but they kept the $1080 and we will have to file this form again at a later date and pay the money again. The system is broken and should be simplified. The amount of visas is too limited and has not been re-evaluated in years to meet the current needs.
5. SOLUTIONS: I would propose that we allow those currently in the country to pay a fine and stay with their families. We would not be rewarding them because we would not put them in the front of the line for citizenship but we would have them pay a special tax to be here and all of them would need to get documented and go through a back ground check. If a man says his name is Juan Martinez then fine, print him, have his eyes scanned and now he will have a valid ID and if he gets caught we can track those things and take action. Currently there are millions that are not documented and they are in the country working without permission and this causes them to stay in the shadows even more.
Try not to separate families unless deporting CRIMINALS.
Many say that we should ship their US Citizen children out of the county with them when they go and some of them want to take their kids and others know they cannot give their children the healthcare, education and basic needs care that they need so they let them stay here in the foster care system where the State is now responsible for paying for them rather than having the parents work to support them which is how it currently is.
It would take over 24 years to deport 12 million people at the current rate of deportation which is at it’s highest with President Obama that it has been in a long time. This would mean the US would have to pay billions of dollars in long term child care and when there were two raids a a factory in our state recently it overloaded the state’s ability to place children because they used buses and taxed the system to it’s limit. When a child is in State’s custody it costs the state much more than they want you to know about. We can go into the figures later.