Exclusive: How (and Why) to Make Illegal Aliens Leave America

Author: Mike Cutler
Source: The Family Security Foundation, Inc.
Date: September 29, 2007


Illegal immigration negatively impacts everything in America, from the economy, the environment, education and health care to criminal justice and national security. But how can we make them leave? FSM Contributing Editor Mike Cutler has the answer.

Several weeks ago Julie Myers, the head of Immigration and Customs Enforcement, testified on Capitol Hill that the cost of removing the illegal alien population, which she estimated to consist of 12 million people, would cost 94 billion dollars. She went into an analysis of detention expenses and other costs, but she but did not include the cost of finding these illegal aliens in the first place. Obviously, that cost which would greatly increase this estimate.

I’ll provide a different perspective. It is my belief that it would not be necessary to remove all of the illegal aliens but that once our nation showed real resolve in enforcing the immigration laws, many illegal aliens would simply leave the United State of their own accord and at their own expense. The additional positive impact of such enforcement efforts would be that more illegal aliens would be discouraged from violating our nation’s borders and immigration laws.

Last year some 45 billion dollars was wired back to Latin America and the Caribbean by illegal aliens. Even more money was smuggled out of our nation otherwise, as there are illegal aliens who come from other regions of the world and also send billions of dollars out of the United States. These exported dollars are utterly lost to our economy. If we are to consider the enormous cost of tracking down illegal aliens and saving the loss of these exported dollars, our nation would realize significant savings.

Other areas of concern would also be improved. In fact, illegal immigration negatively impacts everything in America from the economy, the environment, education, health care to criminal justice and national security.

Illegal aliens run up non-reimbursed medical bills, often causing emergency rooms to serve as primary health care providers for illegal aliens who have no health insurance and no means of paying for the treatments that they receive. Ultimately many hospitals go bankrupt providing this service and close their doors.

The cost to the criminal justice system is also high; it is estimated that 25% of the inmate population is composed of illegal aliens. Court costs, legal aid, costs associated with incarcerating those criminal aliens all add to the tab. Additionally, the cost to the families of the victims of violent crimes is incalculable. When someone dies, the family and friends of the victim suffer immensely. When the victims of such crimes are not killed, the experience they live through - both physical as well as emotional trauma - often scars them and permanently impacts their families. These victims lose days from work and sometimes their own mobility. These are all enormous costs about which we virtually never hear.

It is also worth noting that when illegal alien advocates claim their clients pay taxes, they fail to mention that many illegal aliens work “off the books" and the items they purchase are meager because they are focused on sending every cent they can back to their home countries. When aliens do work "on the books", many of them claim to have many children and in so doing wind up with a tax credit at the end of the year. I know this to be a fact because when I arrested illegal aliens working in the United States, they almost always claimed to have more than 8 children! On occasion, I asked them for the names of their children. Often, they’d balk claiming that they hadn't seen them for so many years, they’d forgotten their names. Occasionally they’d provide the names of their kids, and when I returned a bit later and to ask them again for their children’s names, they’d forgotten the names they’d previously given me, and they’d give me a new set of names!

Illegal aliens also encourage additional criminal activities in the neighborhoods that play host to this population. Many illegal aliens are young men who have left their families behind. They are lonely and have the normal needs for female companionship. This is all too often provided by houses of prostitution. If you find this hard to believe, I recommend that you drive along the main thoroughfares of neighborhoods that host large illegal alien populations. See how many gynecological clinics you find. Many of those clinics are there to service the hookers.

The various services desired by illegal aliens also provide advantages that are greatly needed by criminals, drug traffickers and terrorists. I refer to the telephone arcades that enable bad guys to make phone calls with little fear of a wire tap capturing their words. The many mail box services also provide the anonymity that criminals and terrorists require for their nefarious activities. Gold buying services that abound in such neighborhoods permits the easy movement of money as do the many money remitters such as Western Union and others. These businesses are not illegal but do create headaches for law enforcement.

There are also many document vendors that offer entire suites of false documents or stolen identities. These establishments are, of course, illegal but there are so many of them in neighborhoods that provide a relatively safe haven for illegal aliens, law enforcement cannot keep up with tracking them down. I would remind you that the 19 terrorists who attacked our nation on September 11, 2001 used, among them, a total of 364 aliases!

Consider one additional point: sleeper agents. Robert Mueller, the head of the FBI, and George Tenet, the former head of the CIA, have both testified before Congressional hearings about their concerns regarding sleeper agents. As you may know, a sleeper agent is an alien who managed, in one way or another, to enter the United States. That is to say, they may have run our nation's borders, stowed away on a vessel or entered the United States through a port of entry under an assumed identity or by concealing material facts about their background and intentions.

Once a sleeper has succeeded in entering a country he is intent on attacking, his goal is to establish himself (herself) in a community and take on a pedestrian appearance. Such sleepers seek employment that provides them with camouflage and mobility. We have seen terrorists such as Mahmoud Abouhalima who entered our country as a tourist and then overstayed his authorized period of admission. He subsequently applied for amnesty under the agricultural worker provisions of the disastrous Amnesty of 1986, falsely claiming to have been a farmer. His application for amnesty was approved and he drove a taxicab in New York City. The only thing he ever planted was a bomb in the basement of the World Trade Center complex that was detonated on September 26, 1993, killing 6, injuring hundreds of innocent victims and inflicting an estimated 500 million dollars in damages to that iconic complex, nearly toppling one of the towers!

When I speak before audiences I often like to ask a simple question, "What does a terrorist do two days before he initiates an attack?"

The answer: "He goes to his nondescript job where he hides in plain sight!"

Enforcement efforts, where illegal immigration is concerned, would act as a deterrent and encourage those who are illegally present in the United States to leave.

As I stated when I testified before a Congressional hearing a couple of years ago, "No one would break into an amusement park if they could not get to go on the rides and, no one remains in the amusement park at the end of the day when they shut down the rides and turn off the lights!" We the People can and must take charge of that amusement park.

Democracy is not a spectator sport!

Lead, follow or get out of the way!
http://www.familysecuritymatters.org/ho ... id=1384797
# #

FamilySecurityMatters.org contributing editor Michael Cutler is a Fellow at the Center for Immigration Studies and a well-respected authority on immigration and border security issues.
read full author bio here