The anarchy of immigration

The anarchy of immigration
By Robert Hayes

When I listen to President Bush or politicians talk about illegal immigration, I often feel as though I'm listening to Rod Serling introduce another episode of "The Twilight Zone."

You can't make this stuff up; it's too bizarre. We have an under-patrolled southern border, which our politicians refuse to adequately protect, and millions of poverty-stricken people, mostly from Mexico, crossing that border to work.

Once here, they easily obtain false identification, present their bogus ID to an employer who will usually ask no questions, while the federal government looks the other way.

Even a child can understand the hypocrisy involved here. Are we blind, do we not see all these people we know are here illegally?

Yet, we not only ignore them, we rent them places to live, take their children into our schools, allow them to drive when they can't legally hold a Mississippi drivers license, and we employ them knowing full well it's against the law.

We are watching and participating in what can only be described as complete anarchy. It's absolutely amazing.

To add fuel to the fire, we have a growing list of sanctuary cities, which openly proclaim they will not cooperate in any fashion with the enforcement of our own immigration laws.

In many parts of the country this immigration is bankrupting state and local governments, hospitals, school districts, prisons and social services. And yet we smile and pretend it isn't happening.

Then you have a convoluted Social Security situation, when the agency is taking in $7 billion annually from false Social Security numbers. This is essentially free money because you can't provide benefits to bogus recipients.

Yet, the agency will not release this information to Immigration and Customs Enforcement because it would identity the location of fraudulent users and their employers.

There has to be a reason for all this insanity, and it has to be money. It's apparent that many within government and business are doing everything they can to maintain a cheap labor force.

In a congressional hearing last year during the debate over the now dead amnesty immigration bill, New York's Mayor Bloomberg hit the nail on the head.

He stated, "Although they broke the law by illegally crossing our borders ... our city's economy would be a shell of itself had they not, and it would collapse if they were deported." He then ominously added, "The same holds true for the nation."

Whether we want to face it or not, we are creating a future multicultural nightmare of unintended proportions. We want the cheap labor, but we don't want the immigrants.

By 2050, Hispanics will make up 24 percent of our population, and in states like Texas, New Mexico, Nevada, Arizona, and California, Hispanics will be the overwhelming majority.

Unless we enact a logical immigration policy, and help those here now assimilate into our culture, our children and grandchildren will pay a huge price for our failure.

Robert Hayes is retired from BellSouth and living near Ellisville, He can be reached at robert_hayes@bellsouth.net.