Election Tutorial: Immigration
Thursday, 26 June 2008
By Alan Caruba

Oil and more precisely the price of a gallon of gas has emerged as probably the number one issue of the forthcoming national election, but right behind it will be immigration. Other than energy, population has the most impact on a way of life American’s prefer.

Unfortunately for most Americans, both Barack Obama and John McCain, their parties, current and previous administrations have been hell-bent to artificially and unnecessarily increase the nation’s population by (a) turning a blind eye to the massive annual invasions of illegal aliens, (b) advocating amnesty for those already here, and (c) doing virtually nothing to impede the flow of both legal and illegal immigrants.
The massive citizen outcry in 2007 when an amnesty bill was being considered by Congress should have sent a message to the nation’s politicians, but the government has been intent on growing the nation’s population despite the wisdom of native-born and naturalized citizens who understand that this is a bad idea.

They understand it when they are stuck in traffic congestion. They understand it as more and more illegal immigrants crowd into our cities and suburbs while, at the same time, costing taxpayers millions to maintain schools crowded with their children, special programs for those who do not speak English, hospitals whose emergency rooms are the only access to care many can afford (the cost must be absorbed by the hospital and government agencies), and a variety of welfare programs because unskilled and frequently uneducated illegal immigrants make greater use of them. Predictably, they experience a higher rate of poverty than the general population. Why?

Despite ample evidence that a moratorium on immigration would have many benefits, our political elites refuse to acknowledge that America is being harmed by the burden of more than 12 million illegal aliens in our midst and more arriving every day. As Mark Krikorian says in his new book, “The New Case Against Immigrationâ€