Thread: Modesto OP-ED:Do something about illegal immigration

Opinion
Friday, Apr. 17, 2009
Do something about illegal immigration


With the economy in the tank, unemployment soaring and government budgets under stress, the issue of immigration, especially illegal immigration, is again moving to the forefront.

It is easy to see why. The federal government historically has done a poor job of policing this nation's borders, and California, with an estimated 2.7 million illegal immigrants living here, shoulders more than its share of the burden of dealing with the results.

The state cannot escape most of this even if it wanted to. We educate illegal immigrant children in our schools because it is in our interest (and theirs) to do so, but also because the U.S. Supreme Court has ruled that we must.

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Our Point

Elected leaders need to study the full picture on immigration and then start making some well-reasoned decisions.

Click here to find out more!

We spend close to $1 billion a year keeping illegal immigrant felons behind bars in our prisons because if we let them go, even to deport them, many would go free long before their time, a condition that citizens and legal residents would soon find intolerable.

In the private sector, illegal immigrants make up an increasing share of the work force, not just on the farm but in construction, restaurants and hotels. They make up an estimated 5.4 percent of the U.S. work force. In California, their cheap labor buttresses the profits of companies large and small, makes our firms more competitive, our products less expensive, and ultimately helps the middle class by helping the economy grow. But by competing at the low end of the economic scale, illegal immigrants bid down the wages of low-skilled legal residents, including other recent immigrants who, ironically, are probably those hurt most by illegal immigration.

A study released this week by the Pew Hispanic Center highlighted the issues that illegal immigration brings to the fore, but it also pointed to some good news that might surprise some people.

The biggest concern about the 11.9 million "unauthorized immigrants," as the Pew study calls them, is that they tend to be poorer and less educated than legal residents and citizens, and stuck in their condition, especially if they arrived here as adults.

Even the citizen children of illegal immigrants live in poverty at about twice the rate of children of American-born parents, according to the study. Educating poor children who do not speak English as their first language is one of the biggest and costliest challenges in California schools today.

On the other hand, 61 percent of illegal immigrant children who arrive before age 14 and who graduate from high school go on to college. Nearly 80 percent of illegal immigrant adults have risen out of poverty, and 35 percent own their own homes. Illegal immigrants live as two-parent couples with children in greater proportions than their citizen counterparts.

It is also worth noting that California is no longer the immigration magnet it once was. In 1990, California was the destination for about 42 percent of illegal immigrants. Today, just 22 percent of the nation's illegal immigrants live here. Their rising numbers elsewhere point to one reason the issue has become a national concern.

California politicians would do well to master the details behind this issue while seeking policies that can build consensus rather than division. Securing the borders, making legal immigration simpler and educating all children to maximize economic mobility would be a fine place to begin.
http://www.modbee.com/opinion/story/669377.html

"The biggest concern about the 11.9 million "unauthorized immigrants," as the Pew study calls them, is that they tend to be poorer and less educated than legal residents and citizens, and stuck in their condition, especially if they arrived here as adults. "

I disagree!

The biggest problem is that illegals are allowed here in the first place by our politicians' lack of political will to do anything about it.

The second biggest problem is that our politicians don't listen to US citizens.

The third problem is that we have current/former elected/appointed officials who were not born in the US, or are only second generation (Arnie, Feinstien, A. Gonzales, Villaraigosa et. al.) and who CLEARLY have evil intentions for the direction of our once wonderful neighborhoods, towns, cities, states and country.

NOTHING FOR ILLEGALS EVER-EXCEPT DEPORTATION