The country that today we call The United States of America was discovered by Columbus in the 1492. Most of the Americans take pride that they come from different ethnic background and culture. However, since 1882 when President Chester A. Arthur singed the law to band most of the Chinese immigrants also all the criminals and the mentally ill people to enter the United States but is also know as the start of the illegal immigration. (Lui, 20 April 2009) Today, there are only a few people that can experience the American dream and the rest are forced to immigrate illegally. The Illegal immigration is costing the country more problems than benefits and the reason I am saying this is because of everything that I read while during the research for this paper. In this paper I want to talk about some of the problems caused like: crimes, terrorism, jobs.
The crimes that are done by illegal immigrations have different forms and shapes. From the first time that they cross the border without permission is against the law and is a misdemeanor civil offense and if this person is caught for a second time is a felony. By this we understand that from the first moment that they come to the United States they start the life with a crime. (Illegal Immigration Laws, 20 April 2009)
According to some fact given by US Political Action Committee there are around 20 million illegal criminal immigrants presently in the U.S and they constitute over 25% of the federal prison population. Only in Los Angeles 95% of all warrants for homicide target illegal immigrants. Also, based on the fact given by the same source there are approximately 400,000 illegal immigrants who have committed a crime and have been given a deportation order but they are still at large in the U.S and their whereabouts are unknown. (USA, 21 April 2009)
As P.F Wagner says in his report there are 12 U.S citizens lives that die in a violent death at the hands of murderous illegal immigrants each day and another 13 Americans are killed each day by uninsured drunk driving illegals. And do not forget to add to this numbers another eight American children who suffer the horror as victims of sex crimes. (Wagner, 21 April 2009)
In the reports of the analysis of 1,500 violent crimes done by the researcher Deborah Schurman-Kauflin PhD and based on a figure of 12 million illegal immigrations and the fact that more of this population is male her study breaks down this way:
- 525,000 or 35 %, were child molestations
- 358,000 or 24 %, were rapes
- 617,000 or 41 %, were sexual homicides and serial murders
‘In those instances, the illegal immigrants typically gained access to the victims after having worked as a day laborer at or near the victims’ homes,’ she says. ‘Victims ranged in age from 1 year old to 13 years old, with the average age being 6.’
In her examination of the sex-related homicides, Schurman-Kauflin noted:
‘The murders were the worst of the sex crimes and were especially vicious. The most common method was for an offender to break into a residence and ambush his victims. Not only were victims raped, but some (6%) were mutilated. The crime scenes were very bloody, expressing intense, angry perpetrator personalities. Specifically, most victims were blitzed, rendered incapable of fighting back, and then raped and murdered. The most common method of killing was bludgeoning, followed by stabbing. Caucasians were more likely to become victims of sexual homicide committed by illegal immigrants. Hispanics were second and African Americans were third.’ (Schurman-Kauflin, 22 April 2009)
The lives of many law enforcement officers have been lost by the hands of illegal criminal immigrants while they were trying to protect our country and the American citizens. Ten lives were taken in October 2003 in the Washington Dc area when an illegal immigrant that failed to be deported to his country choose his victims randomly and kill them with a sniper. (Crime Victims of Illegal Aliens)
DC Sniper Victims
We all remember the 9/11 when many innocent people woke up that morning to start their routine day but they did not know that they were not come back home again. It is worth saying that three out of four people that hijack the planes that day to hit the towers where illegal immigrants. That day 2,751 Americans were killed.
9/11 Attack
As Kenneth R Timmerman noted in a June 2006 article, Broken, on a Homeland Security publication, ‘The report reveals that 45,008 aliens from countries on the U.S. list of state-sponsors of terror or from countries that protected terrorist organizations and their members, were released into the general public between 2001 and 2005, even though immigration officers couldn’t confirm their identity.’ Timmberman, 19 April 2009)
According to Global Security.org in their report on sleeper cells:
‘As late as February 2004, one report claimed that Al Qaeda sleeper cells were believed to be operating in 40 states, according to the FBI and other federal authorities, awaiting orders and funding for new attacks in the United States.
On July 8, 2004 a Senior Intelligence Official stated: ‘There is intelligence that al-Qaeda has individuals dispersed worldwide, and worldwide would include the United States, that are — they are using in order to facilitate the operational planning necessary to carry out attacks successfully.’ (Global Security, 17 April 2009)
Things like this may happened again and maybe much worse if we do not make our borders stronger, have a better identification for people in and out of our country.
People think that illegal immigrants are doing jobs that Americans wont but according to Gordon Hanson, professor and director of the center on Pacific Economies at UC San Diego in a community survey which said that 68% of construction labors, 73% of dishwashers and 74% of janitors are native American citizens, proving that Americans are willing to do this kind of jobs. (All Americans, 25 April 2009) (Scherer, 26 April 2009)
If we take a look to the Wall Street investment firm Bear Stearns they published a report that shows that the illegal immigrant in the U.S is roughly the same with the population of New York State. IRS every year fails to collect $35 billion taxes because of the number of jobs that are off the books. ( Justich, 20 April 2009)
As Frosty Wooldridge cited in Our Country Coming Undone:
‘Illegal immigration hurts America’s poor. In a recent account in the New York Times, Black children suffered 50% greater poverty in the past 10 years due to immigration. Illegal immigrants compete for jobs normally done by America’s poor. A study by the Center for Immigrants Studies wrote that Mexican Immigration is overwhelmingly unskilled and it’s hard to find an economic argument for unskilled immigrants because it tends to reduce wages for U.S workers. (Woodldridge, 15 April 2009) ” A study of 65 rural communities in California’s San Joaquin Valley between 1980 and 1990, found that the addition of 100 farm jobs resulted in an additional 139 people – including immigrants, their families and area residents – living in poverty. (The dark Side, 12 April 2009) This statistic is driven by the low wages paid to the farm worker, who intern is then unable to support dependents, creating the social welfare problem. A Rand study looked at the nine million net new jobs created in California from 1960 to 1990. It found that three-fourths of the new jobs were filled by workers with at least some college education, and almost all of the rest were filled by high school graduates. (The dark Side, 12 April 2009) Furthermore, the share filled by workers with some college education has risen over the years, the Rand study found. By the 1980s, some 96% of net new jobs were filled by such workers. According to a survey by the University of California at San Francisco and the Field Institute, Latinos are much less likely to benefit from the state’s explosion in job growth because they are less likely to finish high school or attend college. (The dark Side, 12 April 2009)
According to the survey, 56% of the state’s Latinos had an education level of high school or lower, compared to 28% of African-americans, 14% of whites, and 11% of Asians. The data show that in Brooklyn, Queens and the Bronx – counties with a major increase of immigrants – median income fell sharply. In Queens, according to the data, the median household income fell from $44,938 in 1989, to $36,480 in 1998, a drop of nearly 19%, while in Brooklyn it fell by 18%, from $33,762 to $27,556. In Los Angeles County, where there has been a surge of immigrants from Mexico, median income fell in constant dollars from $45,962 in 1989 to $37,655 in 1998, a decline of 18%. (The dark Side, 12 April 2009) The total K-12 school expenditure for illegal immigrants costs the states $7.4 billion annually—enough to buy a computer for every junior high student nationwide. (Greenhouse, 22 April 2009)
Illegal alien households are estimated to use $2,700 a year more in services than they pay in taxes, creating a total fiscal burden of nearly $10.4 billion on the federal budget in 2002. Among the largest federal costs: Medicaid ($2.5 billion); treatment for the uninsured ($2.2 billion); food assistance programs ($1.9 billion); the federal prison and court systems ($1.6 billion); and federal aid to schools ($1.4 billion). If illegal aliens were legalized and began to pay taxes and use services like legal immigrants with the same education levels, the estimated annual fiscal deficit at the federal level would increase from $2,700 per household to nearly $7,700, for a total federal deficit of $29 billion. Because many of the costs are due to their U.S.-born children, who are awarded U.S. citizenship at birth, barring illegally themselves from federal programs will not significantly reduce costs. Although they create a net drain on the federal government, the average illegal household pays more than $4,200 a year in federal taxes, for a total of nearly $16 billion. However, they impose annual costs of more than $26.3 billion, or about $6,950 per illegal household. About 43 percent, or $7 billion, of the federal taxes illegals pay go to Social Security and Medicare. (Economics Costs, 28 April 2009)
Illegal immigration is a problem and must be stopped so we can avoid any negative on the other countries and the U.S. It is an economic drain on the U.S and is degrading the condition of American society as a whole. . Frank Sharry, of the liberal National Immigration Forum has said, ‘There is virtually a national consensus that illegal immigration is a problem.’ With this in mind, in a few years, there will be new policies implemented that will virtually wipe out illegal immigration, mainly focused on preventing illegal aliens from acquiring jobs. (Sharry, 30April 2009)
