ILLEGAL IMMIGRATION PART 1

2010

The untold truth about illegal immigration!

It appears that the arguments surrounding illegal immigration have polarized into two general categories of belief. One view, typified by the political right is that this is simply a crime that must be stopped, and in fact reversed by sending these illegal’s home as soon as possible. On the left you will hear a more humane argument that the vast majority of these folks are simply coming from horrible poverty to take jobs that most Americans simply don't want.

I was sort of in between these two arguments for many years. I really could not support the notion that anyone could enter our country illegally and be allowed to stay. However, I also could understand why a person trying to earn enough money to help their family survive would take the risk.

That all changed for me four years ago when I met a gentleman by chance while in the Palm Springs area of California on a golfing vacation. I went to a resort golf course alone and was paired up with three fellows from the East coast. The one who I was in the same golf cart with was in his early 70’s and appeared to be quite well educated and certainly was well-spoken. We did the usual, where are you from, and what do or did you do in your career, etc. This fellow turned out to be a rather prominent Economist who had taught at a couple of prestigious Ivy League schools and had been a member of the Council of Economic Advisors for both President’s Clinton and Bush.

For some reason…I don’t remember why…the topic of illegal immigration came up. This fellow asked me what I thought about the overall issue. Of course, I immediately launched into my arguments against. I talked about the word “illegal”. I complained about jobs being taken from Americans, the fact that many of these folks were paid under the table and thus both they and their employers were avoiding taxes. I added my concerns about the huge public expense being absorbed by the rest of us for education and health care for them and their children.

This gentleman turned to me and told me very directly that I needed a serious amount of education on the topic. So I told him to go ahead and educate me….fully expecting rhetoric about the need for empathy and humanity, etc. Instead he asked me an interesting question: “Do you really believe that the United States government, with the most powerful military in the world, really wanted these folks coming in that we couldn’t stop them?” He added that Canada sure didn’t have any problems stopping them...did they!

He then told me that he had been involved in many discussions with many of the top leaders in our country from both major parties for the past three decades during which the policy of allowing these folks in was openly and broadly supported. I was quite surprised and frankly more than a small bit disbelieving. I asked him why our leaders would do such a thing.

His answer surprised me and changed my attitude on this subject forever. He said that the birth rate in the US had been so low over the past few decades that we no longer had a population of young workers coming of age in the next several decades to allow enough money to be collected in taxes to support all the necessary public programs to pay for our ever-growing older population’s needs. He also said that in purely economic terms no civilization with a long-term birth rate below 2 per female had ever survived. The US has been hovering in the 1.7 to 1.8 rate for decades. He said that our leaders knew what was coming and had elected to allow the illegal immigration because it was the least expensive and most expedient solution.

He went on to explain that almost every developed nation was in the exact same situation and most were taking similar steps though most had legalized them as “guest worker” programs. He also mentioned that the country in the most trouble in terms of sustainability was Japan because their birth rate was even below ours and they absolutely will not allow immigration.

His final comments were that we all should be focused on making sure that these “illegal’s” become citizens as soon as possible (thus maximizing tax revenues), and that our own children and those of the illegal immigrants get the best education possible in order to improve their overall earning capacity….and the taxes that can then be collected. He also said that we were fortunate because most illegals are Hispanic and as such they are generally Christians with a deep love of family.

My final question to him was why our leaders don’t just level with the American people if this is all true? He said that it is sad but our leaders think the average citizen is just not smart enough to understand!

I guess we should all ask ourselves the same question; why would our government allow this ongoing illegal immigration to occur for all these decades? If this fellow is correct and there is a logical reason maybe we all better re-think our positions?

What do you think?

Mike Tower

Hendersonville, NC

Citizens Against Politics As usual
http://capau.org


Lee's Political Opinion
http://leespoliticalopinion.blogspot.com

ILLEGAL IMMIGRATION PART 2

Illegal Immigration: Part 2

Recently I wrote an article regarding illegal immigration. That article’s premise was that our government had decades ago understood that our birth rate was far too low to provide enough workers in the future to pay the taxes necessary for the growing needs of an aging population…and thus the decision for the past several decades to unofficially allow illegal immigration. I received a lot of feedback from readers that inspired me to write this follow-up article. Many readers expressed surprise that the decades old birth rate decline in our country (similar to almost every other developed nation) was likely the underlying cause of our federal government’s acceptance and tacit approval of illegal immigration. Many had been and remain baffled by our federal government’s seeming inability to address and effectively fix this serious problem. Having a logical cause helped many to understand that the lack of effective immigration policies was likely not just accidental. This unofficial policy (more likely official but unacknowledged) of allowing immigrants to enter across barely guarded borders has had many serious side effects.

For example, our national media has continually used this issue to increase readership and viewership by running stories and articles designed to pit the two major political parties and their followers against one another. While the media did not create the problems, they certainly have exacerbated the debate by not asking the “why” question of traditional journalism. This debate has centered on the leadership from the left wanting to support the “illegal’s” for humanitarian purposes (when in truth they see likely them as future Democrats), while the leadership for the right has focused on the “illegality” of entry (because they fear having more Democrats). Our leaders of both parties have once again demonstrated that doing the right thing the right way for the right reasons for all of us is secondary in importance to power and control. And, why haven’t they told us…because they don’t think we are smart enough to understand. This should be offensive and repulsive to most Americans.

We have built walls, and added to our Border Patrol staffs…but then tied their hands with policies that force them to return captured illegal’s back at the border only to allow them to almost immediately return to try again. Or we build the walls but appear to have forgotten to add razor wire at the tops. Perhaps we should have provided ladders!

Particularly scary and dangerous is that we have set up a system of barely controlled borders that also provides an easy venue for terrorists to enter our country during one of the most threatening eras we have ever faced.

Some have expressed the fear that our benign neglect of the borders has also provided easy access to traffickers in illicit drugs and humans.

What about the folks who actually live in close proximity to these almost 2,000 miles of borders? They live in a virtual war zone where they are afraid to even go out of their homes without firearms. Look at the resulting death rates in the Mexican border towns caused by the drug cartels fighting for control of access to these easy entry points for their illicit poisons into our country. What about all the human beings who, out of sheer economic desperation, have left their homelands because they perceive the risks of illegal immigration to be less than those of staying home where their prospects are so poor? What about the hundreds or likely thousands who have died on the journey? Our government tacitly allows them to make this dangerous journey, tacitly allows them to find employment, and then with our media enhanced political debate we force them to live lives of desperation in which they fear that at any moment they will be forced out of this country….even though they may have lived here for many years, may be property owners, and even have children here who are now legal citizens. What about the taxes which sometimes are not collected from either the employers or these illegal workers because of under the table cash payments of wages? What about the tons of debris and waste that have been left behind by literally millions of immigrants as they enter our country. Why hasn’t our media shown this environmental disaster? This lack of action by our leaders in Washington has forced states like Arizona to take action out of sheer desperation. Many local law enforcement agencies have launched 287G programs to help protect local communities from the side-effects of the unenforced federal immigration laws. The solutions seem very straightforward and simple. However, it will require that our leaders actually unify to make the decision to fix this major problem. Simply put, they need to stop worrying about being a Republican or Democrat and start truly being Americans! This cannot be a partisan issue. Unfortunately our leaders have repeatedly demonstrated a lack of willingness to collaborate on much of anything.

The suggested first, and most important, step is to immediately really close down the border between the U.S. and Mexico which seems to be the main problem area. If we really do have the best military forces in the world don’t you think that we should be able protect our own borders?

Next, begin formal and mandatory registration of all the illegal’s who are already here through a “guest worker” program that would be rigidly enforced. The only path to any possibility for future citizenship would be through this mandatory program. Failure to be registered would result in immediate expulsion with no chance of future acceptance. We also have to institute severe penalties for any employer who hires an unregistered worker. The final step would be to revise our current legal immigration system to allow rational control of access to our great country in a manner that truly reflects our nation’s future work force needs and other national requirements. “We the people” have every reason to be severely disappointed in our elected officials and “we” need to do something about it. As the newscaster in the movie Network said many years ago…we should all open our windows and start shouting, “I’m mad as hell and I’m not going to take it anymore”! That unfortunately will only serve to lower one’s blood pressure. I believe that the only effective actions we can take are to let our future votes show just how mad we really are.

This is what I think…what about you?

Mike Tower

Hendersonville

Please visit:


Citizens Against Politics As Usual
http://capau.org

Lee's Political Opinion
http://leespoliticalopinion.blogspot.com

ILLEGAL IMMIGRATION PART 3

2011

Placing all the blame on illegal immigrants is just wrong

I would like for a single reader to tell me that even one of their ancient ancestors was born in America. I would of course delight in telling that person that this is virtually impossible. Even our American Indians ancestors migrated from elsewhere to America. Thus every person alive in America today must trace their roots back to their immigrant ancestors who either came here willingly, mostly seeking a better life, or were brought here unwillingly as slaves.

For the past thirty years or so our elected from both parties have clearly allowed the immigration of many millions who have come here “illegally” mainly from Central America and Mexico. A few years ago I met an Ivy League Professor of economics who had served as a member of the Council of Economic Advisors during the terms of Presidents G. W. H. Bush and Bill Clinton. This fellow posed a key question that I had never considered; “Do you think it’s realistic to think that if America’s leaders, with the world’s strongest military, did not want this illegal immigration that we could not stop it”? Of course, if we indeed could not…God help us if an armed enemy invades from the South. If you want to learn more about his explanation of why this immigration was not only allowed but desired, please read part 1 of this series.

The first question you should ponder is the one the economist posed. Do you really think we could not have stopped them if we had wanted? Do you think that it is accidental that we have such restrictive policies for legal immigration through our front door while openly allowing millions to enter illegally through our back door; and that these aren’t somehow connected in the twisted but purposeful logic of our collective leadership that has failed our country in so many other ways over so many years? If our elected leaders at the very highest federal levels were in on this for at least three decades and did virtually nothing to stop or even slow down the flood of immigrants…who should really be blamed? We need to each look within ourselves and take an imaginary journey; begin by imagining that you had been unfortunate enough to have been born in Mexico or one of the other Central American countries with long histories of poverty, and you saw absolutely no possible way to lift yourself or your family out of this condition. What would you do? Would you just accept your fate and like countless generations before simply live lives of impoverishment, and pass that heritage on to your children? If instead you then learned that the greatest country in the world, you know the one, the famous land of opportunity, had clearly decided to allow people like you to enter their sacred land of freedom and opportunity, what would you do? It was officially illegal to enter this way, but the front door was locked and the back door was not only open, no real efforts were being made to restrict entry. What would you do? It started with a trickle of some of the bravest people imaginable. They knew that the trip would be personally dangerous and yet they risked their very lives in the journey that had to be taken. They also knew they faced the risks of being arrested and imprisoned, or simply being returned to the border to find their own way home.

Have any of us not benefitted from this immigrant labor in some way? Will those of us retiring in the next few decades refuse to accept the taxes paid by their children to support our retirement? Do you think it’s the morally right thing to do to force these people to live in the constant fear of deportation? Can you even see a Hispanic appearing person anywhere and not wonder if they are here legally? How do you think it would feel to be in their shoes? Have you ever noticed when you are out and about and you pass by one of these folks that they won’t likely look you in the eyes? They don’t want to be noticed for a very good reason…they are terrified of being kicked out of America…even if they have, as most are, been good neighbors, paid their taxes, bought property, even started businesses, and have children who are legally American citizens.

At the end of all of this it seems to me that we have to remember that these are ordinary people who have come here for the same reason that most of our ancestors did. We need to stop pointing the finger of blame at only the immigrants…because you know as well as I do that most of us would have done exactly the same thing if we were in their situations. If a finger of blame must be pointed…it should be aimed at our collective leaders over the past thirty years or so who have committed the real crimes of allowing and encouraging this illegal entry. Like we the people…these poor people have been the pawns and victims of our corrupt government.

These are my opinions. What do you think?

Mike Tower
Hendersonville, NC

Please visit:

Citizens Against Politics As Usual
http://capau.org

Lee's Political Opinion
http://leespoliticalopinion.blogspot.com