Amnesty: Coming Soon for an Illegal Immigrant Near You

All three of the presidential candidates with any chance to become president- McCain, Hillary, and Obama- are planning to grant amnesty to the 12-20 million illegal immigrants currently residing in the U.S. Yet none of them are willing to admit it. Here is how they mislead voters:

Amnesty: they all claim that their plans do not constitute amnesty because they involve fines and back taxes, learning english, and joining the "back of the line". We'll tackle each of these points separately, but for now let's focus on the is it or is not amnesty part. The key component that is missing from their plans is the going home part. Under each plan, the illegal immigrant would be allowed to stay in American indefinitely- which is exactly the reward for their illegal behavior that they want.

Fines and Back Taxes: The govenment might have a chance at collecting fines- but the idea that illegal immigrants are going to provide honest estimates of their years of under-the-table earnings is simply ludicrous. When I was in the Foreign Service, I examined that tax returns of hundreds, if not thousands of LEGAl immigrants that were sponsoring relatives to immigrate, and I can honestly tell you that most immigrants that have an opportunity to cheat on taxes (i.e. entrepreneurs, tradeseman that are paid in cash, waiters, etc) do so on a grand scale. They come from countries where only fools pay taxes and bring this same mentality to the U.S.

Learning English: Based upon my experience, many LEGAL immigrants never bother to learn english, despite the fact that its ALREADY supposed to be a requirement for citizenship, so now we are going to hold ILLEGAL immigrants to a higher standard, and expect that they are going to learn english? Some will, undoubtedly, but many will not, yet will be granted amnesty nonetheless. Why? Because is already set up for billingualism in case you haven't noticed. When I voted last week, the first question the touch screen asked me was "English or Espanol", despite the fact that only U.S. citizens can vote, and U.S. citizens are supposed to be able to speak english.

Joining the Back of the Line: Immigrating to America is not simply a matter of lining up, as though you are waiting to get on a ride at an amusement park. Yes, there are waiting periods for various categories of would-be-immigrants- but no, there is no single "line" to enter America, and no, not everyone is elligible to join this "line" that doesn't really exist in the first place. Confused? You should be- but the bottom line is that most qualify to enter as legal immigrants based upon a close family relationship to a U.S. citizen or green card holder, and if you don't have a very close relative- spouse, parent, sibling, child-etc in the States- you are often out of luck. Second, you aren't "in line" at all, if you came illegally and are allowed to stay without returning to your home country.

So, who cares really if illegal immigrants are granted amnesty? Consider the following:

DERIVATIVE EFFECT: Consider the fact that the "average" legal immigrant files between 3-4 petitions to bring relatives to the U.S. This means that if you legalize 12 million illegals, they will file somewhere between 36-48 million additional petitions to bring over their relatives, and then those people, once they arrive, will do the same thing, and on and on. So you aren't really just legalizing the estimated 12 million- within 10-15 years, you'll have an additional 35-50 million people.

RULE OF LAW or NOT SO MUCH? As a former Foreign Service Officer, I issued immigrant visas to scores of immigrants that waited in their home countries LEGALLY for many years. Sibling petitions, for example, are usually a 12-13 year wait! So what message does it send to these people that wait for more than a decade to legalize those that said- the hell with it, I'm going now? It tells them that they were dumb to wait- they could have been in the States with their families years ago. Upholding our laws is essential if we are to be a country that believes in the rule of law.

TRENDING TOWARDS THE THIRD WORLD: According to a Pew Research Center report released this week, http://pewresearch.org/pubs/729/united-states-population-projections, nearly 1 in 5 Americans will be an immigrant by 2050, (right now the figure is 1 in 8) and our population will have mushroomed to 438 million. Nearly all of the population growth will be attributable to immigration from the third world. Consider, also, that this projection does not account for the influx that will arrive if we have a blanket amnesty that allows some 12-20 million illegals to file petitions for their relatives to join them in the U.S.

Here are a few more staggering numbers for you:

Since the late 1980’s legal and illegal immigration to the United States has exploded. More than one third of all immigrants that the U.S has absorbed in its entire history arrived after 1970, with more immigrants arriving during the 1990’s than any prior decade in American history. Legal and illegal immigrants now account for one out of every eight persons living in the U.S. In 1970, the figure was one out of twenty-one, and as recently as 1990, the figure was one out of thirteen.

In 2006, 1,266,264 immigrants were granted legal permanent resident (LPR or “green card” status), and another 1,044,689 immigrants were naturalized as U.S. citizens. To place the later figure in perspective, consider that the high water year for immigrants naturalizing as U.S. citizens prior to World War II was in 1928, when 233,155 immigrants became U.S. citizens. Since 2000, more than 10 million immigrants have arrived in the U.S.- the highest seven-year period of immigration in America’s history. Suffice it to say that we are in the midst of the largest wave of immigration this country has ever seen.

Its also important to understand that its not just the number of immigrants coming to the U.S. but where they are coming from and what socioeconomic groups tend to dominate the immigrant population. Unlike Canada, and other nations that try to recruit highly skilled and educated immigrants, our system gives no preference to the best and the brightest around the world, with the result being that huge numbers of immigrants are unskilled and do not have high school diplomas. The social costs of bringing in huge numbers of unskilled, poorly educated immigrants is collasal. California alone spends more than nine BILLION dollars- or $1,183 per household- just to educate illegal immigrants each year, never mind legal immigrans as well. http://www.fairus.org/site/PageServer?pagename=iic_immigrationissuecentersffec

What is the net effect of this huge migration from the Third World? Decling American wages is one factor. Former Labor Secretary Robert Reich noted in the New York Times yesterday that the average median wage for Americans (adjusted for inflation) is barely higher now than it was 30 years ago. http://www.nytimes.com/2008/02/13/opinion/13reich.html?_r=1&scp=1&sq=robert+reich&st=nyt&oref=slogin There are many factors to blame for this, and wide-scale immigration is just one factor in this story, but it is an important part of why wages have stagnated, particularly for unskilled, working class Americans.

What to do about it? Let your elected representatives know that you don't support any amnesty plan that does not require illegal immigrants to return home first. No, we do not need to engage in mass deportations to solve the problem, we simply need to enforce the laws that are already on the books, and many illegals will leave voluntarily. America is a country of immigrants- and immigrants can make great contributions to our society, indeed America is a more interesting place because of immigrants, but we have seen such a massive influx over the last 15 years that right now we need a time-out to assimilate those that have arrived, and to reform our immigration system so that we can manage the flow of who comes in the future, so that we bring in smaller numbers of better educated and skilled immigrants that will require fewer social services and will assimilate more easily into American society.