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Immigration Crisis

                There is a plague sweeping our country today that is affecting our economy and our society, and that is the illegal immigration of people from other countries to take advantage of our overly generous hospitality. Over the past twenty years, this problem that has continuously increased to the point where if we do not change the way we deal with it, we will be facing a crisis.  Arizona, as a border state, has one of the highest populations of these illegal immigrants. 

                The country as a whole is in an economical crisis and one of the major causes of this crisis is the amount of illegal immigrants that are in this country.  One of the areas that we can see how this part of our population is affecting our economy negatively is in the systems that we have set up to help the taxpayers when in need.  There is a record high unemployment rate in the U.S. and our unemployment system is being exhausted, not by the American taxpayer but by illegal immigrants. As reported in the Associated Press, more than forty-one percent of all unemployment checks are issued to illegal immigrants, forty-three percent of all the food stamps issued to illegal immigrants in the U.S., fifty eight percent of all the welfare in the U.S. is issued to illegal immigrants and nearly sixty percent of all occupants of HUD are illegal immigrants.   In addition, less than two percent of illegal immigrants in the United States are picking crops, but forty one percent are on welfare.

                Now what all this means is that the taxes that we, the American taxpayer, are paying are not being used in the manner that it is meant for.   These systems were set up to help the American tax-payer when they were in need, but instead our constitution is being exploited.  A 2004 study by the Federation of American Immigration Reform (FAIR) estimated that sixty two percent of all “undocumented immigrants” in the United States are working for cash and not paying taxes, predominantly illegal immigrants, working without green cards. Unlike most other countries, we have laws to protect all people regardless of residence status.  People from all over the world know that all they have to do is manage to get into our country and once in, we will take care of them and their family.    

Now there are laws preventing people from coming over here from other counties to live off us, but like most laws, there are loopholes.  One of these loop holes is “anchor babies,” that is a child born in the United States that ties them to this country because the child is automatically a citizen.  A 2002 USMBCC report cited an American Hospital Association survey that there are more than three hundred eighty thousand anchor babies born every year. Of these anchor babies, the American taxpayer paid for ninety-seven point two of all costs incurred from those births. Forty-five percent of all the births in Arizona are by non-wed Hispanics that do not have insurance because of their status. 

Another area in which we see the economical effects of immigration close to home is in our school systems. ALIPAC (Americans for legal Immigration Pac) noted that in the state of Arizona, thirty-four percent of all students are illegal immigrants and twenty-four percent of all students do not even speak English.  Now this is where it gets a little hairy, because we can’t punish the children for what their parents do.  We have a moral responsibility to the children to make sure that they are educated even though they shouldn’t be here in the first place.

Now I want to look at another area where not only our economy is being affected but also the American society.  Crimes committed by illegal immigrants are an area that affects our neighborhoods and puts a great deal of strain on our economy.  According to the Maricopa County Sherriff’s Department, in Phoenix alone, eighty-three percent of warrants for murder are for illegal immigrants; more than forty percent of all inmates in Arizona are illegal immigrants and more than seventy-one percent of all apprehended stolen vehicles, were stolen by illegal immigrants or transport “coyotes.” 

Therefore, they are not only infecting our schools and leaching off our taxes, but they are committing crime here.  The amount of crime committed by this virus is alarming to say the least.  Allowing them to be here puts our property and our family’s lives at stake.  With crime statistics like this, it is amazing that we, the American taxpayer do not take more action to prevent such things.

In April 2005, the American taxpayer finally did do something about it. An estimated nine hundred volunteers in the state of Arizona worked in cooperation with the border patrol. They called themselves the “Minute Man,” and their mission was simply to alert the border patrol agents to border crossers.  During that time, they claim to have assisted in the arrest of 335 illegal immigrants, which brought national attention to this plague of ours.

In the past few years the government, both State and federal, have taken some steps to help prevent immigrants from entering and staying.  One example of this is the wall that is being built between Mexico and the United States.  Since 2005, the Department of Homeland Security has been building a twelve-foot high and two-foot thick wall between the two countries as part of the operation Gatekeeper plan.

Another example of how the government is trying to wipe out this plague is by discouraging employers from employing illegal immigrants. One of the ways they are doing that is by implementing the “E-Verify” system. This system was set up by the Department of Homeland Security in cooperation with the Social Security Administration to empower employers to verify, almost instantly, whether a potential employee is in fact legally able to work in this country.  This originally was set to expire in November 2008, but has proven to be very effective and is now mandated for all federal contractors.  On January 1, 2008, the state of Arizona became the first state to require all employers, regardless of size to participate in the E-Verify program.  As a direct result of Arizona’s participation in this program many of the illegal immigrants have left the state to because it has become too difficult for them to find work here.

There is no doubt that this country has been infected by a plague, but I think that we have finally begun to recognize immigration as just that, a plague.   We need to protect ourselves against those who set out to harm our neighbors and ourselves and to do that we need to keep out the illegal immigrants. We have started down the right path to eradicate this disease from our beloved country; now it is up to us to stay educated and vigilant about illegal immigrants and to make sure that our leaders stay focused on this subject.