Thursday, April 3, 2008
Open Forum: Where’s the balance in story on illegal immigration?The Gazette gave voice to law-breaking, pro-illegal alien advocates like Maryland House (Casa de Maryland) and the NAACP, but did not balance the story with representatives from Numbers USA or the Center for Immigration Studies (‘‘Hispanics feel threat of immigration checks,” March 27).
I would like to thank Frederick County Sheriff Chuck Jenkins for myself, my family, my neighbors, my country and all law-abiding Americans, including legal immigrants, for using a common-sense and fair approach to the problem of illegal immigration.
It’s a shame that Maryland House (Casa de Maryland), the same people who live off my tax dollars and publish comic books that encourage illegal aliens to not respond to officers of the law when they ask questions, is also encouraging criminal activity, lying and cheating, and will stop at nothing until the country is overrun with illegal aliens.
When Sheriff Jenkins clearly states that he will return illegal aliens to their country of origin when they commit crimes in our country, Maryland House (Casa de Maryland) engages in fear mongering saying that illegal aliens are afraid to leave their homes.
Please. That kind of nonsense no longer works. Look at how Americans rose up and defeated the amnesty bill that Bush, Kennedy, McCain and many wealthy and powerful Democrats and Republicans tried to ram through the Congress in the middle of the night. Americans are no longer going to fall for this kind of nonsense.
We see the rampant illegal alien crime, the anchor babies, the drug dealing, the murders, the rapes, and we ask, what is going on? Why are my tax dollars supporting these people? Why is my government giving them a driver’s license when they are here illegally? Why should I pay to educate, house, provide health care for, and jobs for these illegal aliens?
Illegal aliens create significant costs for taxpayers mainly because they are unskilled, not because they are illegal. Most lack a high school diploma. Such people pay relatively little in taxes regardless of legal status because they earn so little in the modern American economy.
Research indicates that the net fiscal drain (taxes minus costs) would triple if we legalized illegal aliens. Unskilled illegal aliens are costly, but unskilled legal immigrants cost even more because they can more easily access social programs.
A strategy of attrition through enforcement, on the other hand, is both realistic and avoids the problems of illegal immigration by making illegal aliens go home or self-deport.
A March 2005 Immigration and Naturalization Service report estimates that 165,000 illegal aliens go home each year, 50,000 are deported, and 25,000 die. But many more than that come in.
If America becomes less hospitable to illegal aliens, many more will simply decide to go home. To do this, we should enforce the law that bars illegal aliens from holding jobs by using the national databases that already exist to ensure that each new hire is legally entitled to work here.
In 2004, only three employers were fined for hiring illegal aliens. The Internal Revenue Service must also stop accepting Social Security numbers that it knows are bogus. We also need to make a much greater effort to deny illegal aliens things like driver's licenses, bank accounts, loans, in-state college tuition, and other supports, like Maryland House, that make it easy to rip off Americans.
Local law enforcement can play a vital role, and Sheriff Jenkins is to be honored, not vilified, for understanding this fact. When an illegal alien is encountered in the normal course of police work, the immigration service should pick that person up and deport him or her.
Attrition through enforcement is really the only option if we want to solve our illegal immigration problem. Implementing such a policy will save taxpayers money, help American workers at the bottom of the labor markets, and restore the rule of law.
God bless you and thank you, Sheriff Jenkins, for enforcing the will of the American public. Most support your efforts. I’m sorry the loudmouths get the media attention, but please keep enforcing the rule of law.
Bruce Curley, Mount Airy
