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The Overwhelming of America
I don’t fit the profile of someone who worries
about uncontrolled immigration. My parents are
immigrants, I know that immigrants of all races
have contributed mightily to America, and I’m
no American flag waver. I am ashamed, for example,
of America’s international hubris,
environmental callousness, obscene materialism,
declining ethical standards, and unconscionable
disparity between rich and poor.
So, I never was particularly concerned about
uncontrolled immigration. I was additionally
reassured because the media was reporting research
that found illegal immigration to be a net plus for
the US.
But occasionally, I saw some contradictory
research and heard stories from my wife, Dr.
Barbara Nemko, the Napa County Superintendent of
Schools, about how challenging it is to meet the
immigrant children’s learning and health needs
while not shortchanging the other kids.
So I decided to more thoroughly review the
evidence on uncontrolled immigration’s
effects. As a result, I have had to change my mind.
I have come to the conclusion that the greatest
threat to America is not terrorism, but
uncontrolled immigration.
Heretofore, the effects have not been readily
apparent to many of us in the middle class, but
that will almost assuredly change.
Prevalence
The number of illegal immigrants in the US has
more than doubled in the past decade to at least
9,000,000, the population of Massachusetts and
Connecticut combined, and the rate is
accelerating.
Effects
There's a major difference between earlier waves
of immigrants and this one: this wave is
uncontrolled. As a result, the numbers are
overwhelming, and because so many in this wave has
chosen to flout US immigration laws, they, as a
group, are more likely to commit crimes. In fact,
the crime rate among illegals is extraordinary.
And the financial and human cost of providing
for this wave is dramatically greater than any
previous one. Help to earlier waves of immigrants
consisted mainly of providing them with night
school to learn English and minimum-wage and
working-condition laws. Today, the costs are many
times higher: free health care, free education
K-12, and subsidized higher education,
easy-to-illegally-obtain social security, welfare,
unemployment, housing subsidies, etc., plus the
terrible financial and human costs of their crime
rate. Our schools, our health care system, and
criminal justice system will likely soon be
overwhelmed. In addition, salaries are being driven
down, forcing ever more formerly middle-class US
residents into poverty.
Uncontrolled immigration and its devastating
effects would be dramatically worsened further by
President Bush’s Guest Worker proposal,
described later. All Guest Workers’ spouses,
children, parents, and siblings would receive legal
status. And the chain would extend far further: the
Guest Worker or spouse could “sponsor”
his or her parents and brothers and sisters, and
relatives, which means they can come to America
legally. In turn, those relatives could sponsor
their relatives, ad infinitum. Bush’s Guest
Worker Program is a dagger in the US middle
class’s heart.
Uncontrolled immigration, which would be
exacerbated by President Bush’s so-called
Guest Worker program, is a dagger in the middle
class’s heart.
Here is the evidence.
Lower wages
Cindy and Ed Kolb used to run a construction
service in Hereford, Arizona. On CNN, she said,
“We could never win a bid because we paid
Americans a living wage. Other firms hire illegals
and pay them below minimum wage.” The Kolbs
have had to close their business.
Of course, the problem also affects employees.
The owner of a Bay Area construction company who
insisted on anonymity bragged that he used to have
to pay carpenters $20 an hour plus benefits but now
gets them for $12, no benefits, because of the
ready supply of illegal immigrants.
The Center for Immigration Studies has
calculated that illegals have already cost American
workers $133 billion in salary cuts and job losses.
According to a study by the National Academy of
Sciences, this promises to significantly shrink the
middle and working class, forcing ever more people
into poverty.
Legally residing young adults without college
degrees—an already vulnerable group--are being
hit particularly hard. Last year, the employment
rate for teens reached a record low, down nine
percentage points just since 2000.
President Bush, pandering to Latino voters and
to Corporate America’s thirst for cheap labor,
is proposing a Guest Worker program that would
greatly increase the number of illegal workers. It
would provide legal residency for three years
(renewable) to all illegals holding US jobs, to
their families, and even to those with just a
letter stating that an employer promises a job.
The only restriction would be that the employer
must first have tried to hire a legal resident.
That restriction is practically unenforceable. The
cost of investigating each of millions of hiring
decisions would be prohibitive. No doubt, as in the
1986 amnesty program for agriculture workers,
Bush’s Guest Worker program would rely on
employers’ self-serving attestations. Even
that amnesty program’s sponsor, Charles
Schumer (D-NY) admitted that in that program, fraud
occurred in 2/3 of the hires.
According to Rosemary Jenks, director of
government relations for Numbers USA, a nonpartisan
nonprofit that collects immigration statistics,
“When that 1986 law was passed, it was support
to be a one-time never-to-be repeated action. Since
then, however, Congress has passed seven amnesties
rewarding more than six million illegal aliens with
legal residence and putting them and their
relatives on the path of US citizenship.” Why
have you not heard about this? Aware that the
public opposes amnesty for illegal aliens,
politicians disguise amnesty programs by giving
them obfuscating labels such as “earned
regularization,” or Bush’s term,
“Guest Worker.”
I wonder what Bush would say to that carpenter
whose income has dropped to $12 an hour, no
benefits. “Sorry. We wanted to be sure
corporations can get cheap labor.”?
Bush claims that Guest Workers do work that
legal Americans won’t. If that were true, then
in the 35 states with few illegals (87 percent of
illegals reside in just 15 states), lawns
wouldn’t get mowed, hotel rooms wouldn’t
get cleaned, buildings wouldn’t get built, and
crops wouldn’t get picked. In those states,
employers simply have to pay a living wage and
provide decent working conditions to get people to
do that work.
Gutted unions. Unions protect workers
against exploitation. Flooding the job market with
illegals erodes unions’ power to negotiate.
Bush’s Guest Worker proposal, which would add
millions of non-unionized workers, would, of
course, exacerbate the problem.
Worse public schools. America’s public
schools already suffer under severe budget
constraints, causing large class sizes, textbook
shortages, and leaky ceilings. Yet, US law requires
that all illegals receive free public education
K-12. The Federation for American Immigration
Reform estimates that this costs $7.4 billion
dollars each year.
The birthrate among illegals is double that of
legal US residents. The Pew Hispanic Center
calculates that within seven years, the children of
immigrants, legal and illegal, will account for one
in nine school-age children in the US. The Urban
Institute estimates that already, 15% of all school
children in California are illegals, many of whom
speak little English. These students are usually
mainstreamed in classes with native English
speakers. This means that teachers must slow down
instruction, denying native English speakers their
right to an appropriate-level education.
The challenge is even greater because not all
those students’ native language is Spanish:
For example, in my nearest major school district,
San Francisco, it would not be unusual to find a
class that had native speakers of Chinese, Russian,
Tagalog, Spanish, and English. Imagine the
challenge of trying to educate them all. If your
child were in that class, would you be confident
that he or she would receive a quality
education?
Immigrant children pose less obvious challenges
to the schools. Barbara Nemko, the Napa County
Superintendent of Schools, points out examples:
“Unless she speaks Spanish, we have a hard
time justifying hiring an even an excellent
teacher… So much of our staff development time
must now be allocated to dealing with the needs of
‘English Language Learners.’,,, Our
immigrant kids come to school with serious health
problems that we must address. For example,
dentists now visit our high-immigrant schools,
providing dental services at no cost to the
student.”
Immigrant advocacy groups such as the
Mexican-American Legal Defense Fund (MALDEF) and La
Raza have additionally burdened the public schools
by demanding that schools provide special
controversial programs such as Bilingual Education,
in which students are taught in Spanish for much of
the day. Bilingual education programs exist
throughout California even after longitudinal
research has not demonstrated their effectiveness
and after a voter-approved ban on these programs.
MALDEF and La Raza also pushed through legislation
that allows, in 19 states, illegal immigrants to
not only attend any public university in those
states, but to pay in-state tuition, while legal
residents of neighboring states must pay the
out-of-state rate which is three to eight times
higher. It’s quite an injustice, for example,
that a legal resident can be denied admission to
taxpayer-supported Berkeley and must attend
community college so an illegal foreign national
can attend Berkeley—at in-state rates!
MALDEF's and La Raza's lobbying and legal power
is remarkable.
Worse health care. US law states that all
illegals and their families are entitled to free
emergency health care, and many jurisdictions
provide non-emergency care.
Our health care system is already overwhelmed.
For example, thousands of Americans die each year
because of lack of adequate nursing and other
medical care. Illegal immigrants, coming from poor
countries, have great health care needs. And in
addition to common diseases, illegals bring
challenges not normally faced in the US, for
example, 7,000 new cases of leprosy in the past
three years came in from Mexico, India, and Brazil,
16,000 new cases of multiple-drug-resistant,
incurable, and communicable(!) tuberculosis. The
Centers for Disease Control reports that illegal
immigrants account for over 65 percent of
communicable diseases (TB, hepatitis, leprosy,
AIDS, etc.,) in the US. Immigration officials are
supposed to screen out immigrants who are carrying
diseases, but there is no health screening for
illegal immigrants.
Illegals’ further burden the health care
system because they disproportionately do heavy
physical work, which causes their bodies to fall
apart faster, and because the violent crime rate
among illegals is staggering (See below).
The burden of providing health care to illegals
extends beyond disease and saving crime victims.
For example, because of illegals’ high
birthrate, in Colorado, which has a mere (?)
100,000 illegal immigrants, taxpayers in 2003 alone
paid for 6,000 illegals to have their babies.
That’s 40% of the births Medicaid paid for in
the state. To get immediate care, the illegal only
must say “I am undocumented."
The Washington Times reported that dozens of
hospitals in Texas, New Mexico, Arizona, and
California have either closed their doors or face
bankruptcy because of losses caused by
uncompensated care given to illegal immigrants.
Brenda Walker, in the same publication writes,
"More than 40 million American citizens do not have
health insurance while they pay in their tax bills
for free medical care for Mexican nationals, many
of whom are illegally working at American jobs - a
double-dip rip off. Furthermore, hospitals closing
and emergency rooms crowded with illegal aliens
mean that an American needing speedy treatment may
have to wait far longer to receive it. Such delays
can mean the difference between life and
death."
US House of Representatives member Mark Foley
has persuaded the General Accounting Office to
study the financial costs that illegals impose on
hospitals. He says "we need to remedy this problem
before we can no longer afford to take care of
Americans."
Adding millions of Guest Workers, their spouses,
and children, to our already creaking health care
system would be devastating.
I wonder what President Bush would say to a
legal resident whose family member died because of
an overwhelmed health care system: “Sorry, we
allow the illegals because it enables corporations
to avoid raising wages.”?
More Dishonesty. The Guest Worker program
would give legal status to millions of people whose
first act in this country was to commit a
crime—sneaking into the US to evade
immigration laws--and who soon committed a second
crime-- applying for a job when only legal
residents are allowed to. Countless illegals soon
go on to commit yet another crime: obtain false
documents so they can, from US taxpayers, steal
(that is the correct albeit unvarnished word) food
stamps, housing subsidies, unemployment insurance,
Medicare, and other government benefits intended
for legal residents.
Obtaining false documents couldn’t be
easier. A fake identity package including birth
certificate, Social Security card, passport, green
card, and driver's license is widely available on
the street for $50 to $70. For a similar price,
illegals can borrow the real thing. Legal
immigrants simply rent their IDs to illegals who
want to apply for a job, welfare, or Social
Security.
Can we ask legal residents to be honest--for
example, to pay their income taxes—while, per
the Guest worker program, we reward lawbreaking
illegals with legal status, an array of services
for themselves and their families, plus full US
citizenship for all subsequent offspring? In
officially welcoming millions of acknowledged
at-least two-time lawbreakers into the US, we would
exacerbate America’s already declining
honesty.
And the impacts of a dishonest society are
profound. Already, we hear of endless examples of
rampant dishonesty from corporate malfeasance to
welfare fraud, from student cheating to identity
theft to elder scams. A viable society requires
that we be able to trust what people say and
do.
More violent crime. The violent crime
rate among illegals is horrific. I wish I could
present the most germane statistic: the violent
crime rate for legal versus illegal residents, but
for reasons I can’t understand, most law
enforcement agencies are prohibited from collecting
those data. Nevertheless, related statistics are
available.
According to the California Department of Motor
Vehicles, nearly half of California's drunk driving
arrests in 2001 were Latino men. (Data for later
years is not yet available.)
An article in City Journal reports, “In Los
Angeles, up to two-thirds of all fugitive felony
warrants (17,000) are for illegal immigrants. A
confidential California Department of Justice study
reported in 1995 that 60 percent of the
20,000-strong 18th Street Gang in southern
California is illegal; police officers say the
proportion is actually much greater. The bloody
gang collaborates with the Mexican Mafia, the
dominant force in California prisons, on complex
drug-distribution schemes, extortion, and drive-by
assassinations, and commits an assault or robbery
every day in L.A. County.”
One in seven inmates in California state prisons
are illegal immigrants, serving time for crimes
other than being in the US illegally. California
taxpayers alone spend $500 million a year on
incarcerating illegals.
Astonishingly, because of so-called sanctuary
laws, police in illegal-saturated cities such as
L.A., San Diego, Houston, Austin, Chicago, and New
York are prohibited from reporting even
felons’ immigration violations to federal
authorities.
Even an illegal alien who has committed murder
rarely gets deported! According to statistics from
the former Immigration and Naturalization Service
and Immigration and Customs Enforcement, 80,000
illegals who have served prison time for felonies
including murder, rape, drug smuggling, and armed
robberies, are roaming our streets. This is
frightening indeed because, according to Bureau of
Justice statistics, within three years of prison
release, 62% commit another crime.
I wonder what President Bush would say to the
family of a person who was murdered by an
illegal.
And if the Guest Worker proposal is enacted, the
violent crime rate among illegals will only worsen.
Because most Guest Workers would have physically
demanding jobs, when they reach their 40s, their
bodies are typically no longer capable of doing
that work. At that point, with no experience other
than in manual labor, most of these people will not
be able to earn a living wage, and hopeless people
(or their children) disproportionately turn to
crime. So, as time goes on, the already horrendous
crime rate among illegals will rise further.
Endangered national security. All 19 of
the 9/11 terrorists were in the US illegally.
Peyton Knight, Director of Legislative Affairs for
the American Policy Center, a Virginia think tank,
writes, “At a time when America is under
attack by Islamist holy warriors, the Census Bureau
estimates that as many as 115,000 illegal
immigrants from Middle Eastern countries are living
in the United States.
Higher taxes. Many illegals are paid
off-the-books. Most others earn low salaries and
therefore pay little or no tax. Yet illegals are
extremely high users of tax-dollar funded programs:
education, health care, and the criminal justice
system, for example. According to US Census data,
immigrants [1] are 75% more likely to use
food stamps, medical benefits, and housing
assistance at a cost of $68 billion per year.
(Compare this with the estimated $84 billion
one-time cost of the war in Iraq.)
Some argue that illegals contribute to our
economy through their spending. In fact, because
illegals’ salaries are low, they have little
to spend. In addition, while American-born workers
spend most or all of their earnings here in the US,
creating more jobs and in turn, more tax revenues,
illegals send much of their earnings back to
relatives in their native country. For example,
according to a study by the Pew Hispanic Center and
Inter-American Development Bank, Latino immigrants
in 2002, despite the soft economy, sent a record
$23 billion to relatives and others in their home
countries.
California is already almost bankrupt. The Guest
Worker programs’ adding millions more illegals
would likely push California over the edge. Other
states with large numbers of illegals would likely
soon follow, causing illegals to move to states
that still had money to provide them with services.
Senator Robert Byrd (D-WV) called the Bush plan,
“lunacy.”
Ever more illegal border crossing. If I
were a poor citizen of a poor country and learned
that the US government is not deporting illegal
aliens but instead, providing them with free health
care and education, and that with easy-to-obtain
fake ID, I could get many additional services, my
family and I would be ever more tempted to sneak
into the US.
And a majority of Mexicans, with whom the US
shares a 1,000-mile border, believe there’s
nothing wrong with doing so. According to a Zogby
poll, 57 percent believe “Mexicans should have
the right to enter the US without US
permission” and 58 percent agreed that
“the territory of the U.S.’ southwest
rightfully belongs to Mexico.”
Many Mexican leaders also hold these beliefs.
MALDEF co-founder, Mario Obledo, to whom President
Clinton awarded the U.S. Presidential Medal of
Freedom, boasted, “California is going to be a
Hispanic state. Anyone who doesn’t like it
should leave." He added: "Every constitutional
office in California is going to be held by
Hispanics in the next 20 years.” Jose Pescador
Osuna, former Mexican Consul General in Los
Angeles, said, "Even though I’m saying this
part serious and part joking, I believe we are
practicing 'La Reconquista' in California." Past
Mexican president Ernesto Zedillo, in 1997,
speaking before the national council of La Raza,
was not half-joking when he said: "I have proudly
affirmed that the Mexican nation extends beyond the
territory enclosed by its borders and that Mexican
migrants are an important – a very important
– part of this." And Mexico’s current
president, Vicente Fox has marched La Reconquista
forward by having convinced President Bush to
provide legal status for millions of illegals.
In Sum
As I mentioned earlier, I am far from an
American flag-waver, but despite its flaws, America
has, heretofore, been a land of exceptional
opportunity and innovation. As I get older, I
especially appreciate that America has spawned more
life-saving medical advances and quality-of-life
improvements than any country in the world. America
has also provided trillions in foreign aid, and is
the only country in the world with a worldwide
Peace Corps, a tremendous service to the people of
the developing world.
Uncontrolled immigration promises to destroy
that. Of course, many illegal immigrants do
valuable work, but their net impact, as I have
demonstrated, is already very negative, and
promises to decimate America.
Yet, in fear of not sufficiently celebrating
diversity, and in pandering to Corporate
America’s thirst for cheap, compliant labor,
both Democrats and Republicans are not only failing
to defend against the overwhelming invasion by
illegals but are encouraging it.
As a result, every year, America is dying
faster. President Bush’s Guest Worker proposal
and the similar bills working their way through
Congress would accelerate America’s death, a
dagger in the middle class’s heart.
And what about the millions of people worldwide
who have patiently waited so they can immigrate to
the US legally? Can we expect they’ll continue
to wait? Or will they just come on in, accelerating
the overwhelming of America.
This is sad, not only for America, but for the
world. For example, developing nations benefit from
a US government and a Corporate America wealthy
enough to invest in those countries. For example,
when US corporations establish operations in
developing nations, they pay employees much more
than the country’s prevailing wages and offer
far better working conditions. So, a dying America
contributes to declining standard of living to
people around the globe.
By having de facto suspended our immigration
laws, we will soon be just another of the
world’s countries struggling just to cope with
its own residents’ poverty.
An Alternative
For both humanitarian and practical reasons, the
US should not round up and deport illegal
aliens.
Instead, the US should impose and enforce severe
penalties on employers who hire illegals. If an
employer cannot find a legal worker, it must
improve salaries and working conditions until a
legal resident will take the position. The
government must also eliminate incentives for
foreigners to sneak into the US: no benefits to
illegals and their families except for emergency
health care.
Also, we should do more to make citizens of
other countries less eager to leave their
homeland.
Such efforts should focus on Mexico because it
is the source of the majority of illegal immigrants
to the US. What could be done? Mexico is home to
half of Latin America’s billionaires. Mexico
should more heavily tax its wealthy to provide
higher-quality education and health care for all
its citizens. US banks and non-profits, perhaps
with a government subsidy, should provide
microloans to help Mexican citizens start their own
local businesses. For 25 years, microloans have
helped millions of poor people to raise their
standard of living, even in the most
poverty-wracked countries. In addition, the Mexican
government needs to take some responsibility for
its people’s poverty. For example, its
government is notoriously corrupt, creating a gap
between rich and poor that dwarfs the disparity we
so decry in the US. If President Fox is to expect
the US to assist Mexico, he needs to make all
efforts to clean up the corruption.
If you believe that uncontrolled immigration is
damaging to America and indirectly to the world,
seek out candidates willing to control immigration.
Trouble is, I can’t find one.
[1] The census doesn’t identify
residents as legal or illegal, but the consensus
estimate is that 2/3 of all immigrants in the US
are illegal.
© 2007, Marty
Nemko
* * *
Marty
Nemko holds a PhD from the University of
California, Berkeley, and subsequently taught in
Berkeley’s Graduate School of Education. He is
the worklife columnist in the Sunday San Francisco
Chronicle and is the producer and host of Work With
Marty Nemko, heard Sundays at 11 on 91.7 FM in
(NPR, San Francisco), and worldwide on
www.martynemko.com
 .
400+ of his published writings are available free
on that website and is a co-editor of
Cool
Careers for Dummies.
and author of The All-in-One College Guide.
E-Mail.
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