It's illegal immigration, stupid!


Sunday, April 20, 2008

WASHINGTON -- Voting in our presidential primary is now only hours away and there are sufficient issues to confuse a battery of computers.

During the past months we have heard the major candidates explain how they would solve many of the problems faced by our United States.

In the 1992 presidential campaign, Bill Clinton won largely because of his slogan, "It's the economy, stupid!" While that is even truer today, there is a more ominous fear, but no candidate has dared to say, "It's immigration, stupid!"

Last week, at dinner with four friends, the conversation inevitably went directly to how to restore America to the greatness that President Ronald Reagan achieved during the 1980s.

There was a daunting list of issues, ranging from the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan through the rapid acceleration of the recession; our crippling credit card debt coupled with thousands of job losses and increased food and medical costs; and the rocketing prices of gasoline.

There was discussion about the foolish mistakes made by the State Department, indeed most parts of the bureaucracy and those urgent needs -- not being met by the moguls in Washington -- for security, health, education and welfare.

Each one of us had lived in a number of U.S. cities and in different countries during difficult eras. We realized as gas and food prices keep rising and as mortgages are foreclosed, banks will threaten to repossess more, not stopping at homes, but also cars and even furniture bought on credit.

These are the conditions that, failing dramatic government action, bring about food riots and a massive dislocation of society.

Already rumors abound on our Department of Homeland Security's operational plans for guarding centralized food warehouses and for protecting convoys to distribution points in cities. Teams are trained to hand out the basics -- all paid for under the mandate of security from terrorism.

What terrorism could be more feared than that generated by our hungry, jobless, now-impoverished neighbors. But as survival-related adults, we decided to offer those who want to be president a solution to many of these problems.

The overwhelming issue is illegal immigration. Once it is under control, our immigration laws have to be rewritten.

Let's look at some facts that underlie how crucial this is.

A report by a long-established New York City bank concludes that our government has grossly underestimated the size of the illegal population. It is about 20 million people, more than double the government's estimate of 9 million. They send home much of what they earn.

As a comparison, there are enough illegals to replace every U.S. citizen living in the cities of New York, Los Angeles, Chicago, Houston and our very own Pittsburgh.

Our Congress helps companies outsource jobs offshore, while they authorize 182,000 legal immigrants each month. An estimated additional 100,000 illegal aliens arrive monthly.

Other reports show that an average immigrant household pays $10,664 in federal taxes and receives $13,326 in federal welfare and entitlement programs. To which we must add education, medical care, policing and prisons -- and what happens when the illegals get old and get pensions?

And those familiar with the problems of law enforcement know that untold numbers of machete-wielding kids roam the streets of cities and towns organizing drug sales and prostitution. When caught, these young thugs may be deported -- but return to the United States again and again. The cost of policing and prison services has risen to astronomical heights.

With high-cost fuel imports obliging the United States to spend hundreds of billions of dollars overseas already, this problem is so dire that the only solution is immediate and wholesale deportation of illegals. This would be both un-American and brutal. It is also unlikely that anyone would be willing to fill the back-breaking jobs now held by illegals.

Do we just fold as a nation?

No. It is time to restructure the entire welfare system. It should not be based just on need or habit, but on an ability and willingness to work. The double-dipping must end: That's when you have earned your pension from the government, take another job and add to your earnings -- and to a separate pension. And the same slogan will apply to everyone from the cradle to the grave: "No play. No pay!"

Can we expect any change so that the United States survives?

Ask the candidate and become instantly the most disliked person in the room.

We can remind them that the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan can be ended by accepting that these states reject American democracy. The recession can be ended by policy changes that turn our majority of service industries into production entities and we will deal with timid, unwilling-to-change politicians who don't believe that the 21st century has arrived and is eight years old.

Dateline D.C. is written by a Washington, D.C.-based British journalist and political observer.


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