Thread: Illegal aliens: Paralysis in Washington

http://www.allvoices.com/news/7117021-i ... washington
Illegal aliens: Paralysis in Washington
Published: Oct. 24, 2010 at 3:30 AM
By MICHAEL KIRKLAND

WASHINGTON, Oct. 24 (UPI) -- If everyone in the world who wanted to come to the United States actually came, by whatever means, the country would be swamped from sea to shining sea.

Even the recession that seems to consume the American political process, while it may be keeping fresh waves of illegal aliens from coming here, hasn't convinced a large proportion of those already here to leave. Though the U.S. economy has gone south, most illegal immigrants aren't following that example.

About one in 10 people born in Mexico now lives in the United States, a respected analysis by the non-profit Pew Hispanic Center says.

Comment on illegal immigration can be harsh.

"Half the 100 million Mexicans are still mired in poverty," ultra-conservative Pat Buchanan wrote in 2001, and posted at onetheissues.org. "Some 1.5 million are apprehended every year on our southern border breaking into the United States. Of the perhaps 500,000 who make it, one-third head for Mexifornia, where their claims on Medicaid, schools, courts, prisons and welfare have tipped the Golden State toward bankruptcy and induced millions of native-born Americans to flee in the great exodus to Nevada, Idaho, Arizona and Colorado. Ten years after NAFTA, Mexico's leading export to America is still -- Mexicans. America is becoming Mexamerica."

On a regional level, the court conflict over Arizona's draconian illegal immigrant law is an indication the federal policy has either failed or is non-existent. Even U.S. District Judge Susan Bolton, who blocked key provisions of the state law in July, saying it usurped federal prerogatives, conceded the law was enacted against "a backdrop of rampant illegal immigration, escalating drug and human trafficking crimes and serious public safety concerns."

The U.S. Justice Department challenge to the law is now before a federal appeals court.

Congress, meanwhile, seems paralyzed by the immigrant issue, like a deer in a car's headlights, afraid to move one way or the other. Politicians don't want to offend those who say illegal immigrants should be expelled from the country before any accommodation for "guest workers." On the other side, they don't want to offend those who say illegal immigrants -- "undocumented workers" in PC speak -- contribute to the U.S. economy, paying their taxes and doing jobs those born in the United States won't do, and are just trying to provide a better future for themselves and their families.

Politicians also are wary of the Hispanic-American vote, an increasingly powerful bloc in a number of states.

White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs said last Sunday President Barack Obama, in the remaining two years of his term, would concentrate on strengthening the economy, education reform and implementing the already enacted healthcare and Wall Street reforms -- pointedly leaving out immigration reform.

Also last Sunday, an article in the Arizona Republic said time has run out on immigration reform.

"There has been no shortage of talk about comprehensive immigration reform on Capitol Hill," Dan Nowicki wrote in the article. "But years of promises, good intentions and even all-out efforts to pass legislation so far have led nowhere. And with Congress in recess, time has run out -- again -- to tackle reform before the midterm elections, which could change the balance of power in Washington.

"It's enough for frustrated advocates to wonder if Congress' continued lack of action is deliberate."

Even lower-level administration officials are keeping their heads down on the illegal alien issue, apparently afraid of creating waves only a week or two before the elections.

Calls to the U.S. Department of Homeland Security and its Immigration and Custom Enforcement last week were not returned -- the answering machine at DHS was so full a reporter couldn't even leave a message.

But all the hiding and sliding doesn't obscure the facts: At least 11 million illegal immigrants -- some critics say many, many more -- are living in a kind of limbo in the United States.

The results of a massive Gallup poll released last June were startling.

Gallup estimated about 6.2 million Mexican adults say they would like to move permanently to the United States if given the opportunity. Worldwide, more than 165 million adults in other countries said they would like to move to the United States.

"If all of the adults worldwide who tell Gallup they would like to move to another country actually did so, the United States could see a net population gain of 60 percent," Gallup said in reporting the poll.

"Mexico, on the other hand, could potentially see net population losses as high as 15 percent."

Gallup cautioned it was reporting only on people's hopes, not their intentions.

Poll data for the Potential Net Migration Index scores were based on telephone and face-to-face interviews with 259,542 adults, ages 15 and older, in 135 countries from 2007 to 2009. The margin of error was 5 percentage points.

Other organizations see the illegal immigration issue diminishing.

The authoritative Pew Hispanic Center, headquartered in Washington, said the annual flow of "unauthorized immigrants" into the United States was nearly two-thirds smaller from March 2007 to March 2009 than it had been from March 2000 to March 2005.

That meant there were 8 percent fewer illegal immigrants living in the United States, the center estimated: The number dropped from a peak of 12 million in March 2007 to 11.1 million in March 2009, the first decline in two decades.

The estimates are based on data from the U.S. Census Bureau's Current Population Survey and the census.

But in a separate analysis released last July, the Pew Hispanic Center said although the flow of illegal immigrants coming into the United States from Mexico had dropped sharply, there is no evidence of more Mexicans returning home in the same period.

In other words, fewer are coming, but those who are here are staying put.

Mexico accounts for nearly a third of all foreign-born residents, legal and illegal, in the United States and two-thirds of Hispanic immigrants.

The U.S. Census Bureau released its own analysis of foreign-born U.S. residents earlier this month.

The bureau said 12 percent of the U.S. population was born elsewhere and 11 percent more have at least one foreign-born parent -- 36.7 million U.S. residents were foreign-born and the 33 million more had at least one immigrant parent in 2009. Nearly half of the foreign-born were from Latin America with nearly a third from Mexico, and more than half were non-citizens.

Second-generation Americans are likely to be better educated than their parents and have higher earnings, census figures indicated.

Mexico, on the other hand, could potentially see net population losses as high as 15 percent."

* Interest in going to the United States remains strong even in the current recession, with 36 percent of Mexicans (39 million people) saying they would move to the United States if they could. At present, 12 to 13 million Mexico-born people live in the United States.

* A new Pew Research Center poll also found that about one-third of Mexicans would go to the United States if they could.

http://cofcc.org/2009/10/zogby-56-of-al ... is-passed/

Of course they're not leaving at any appreciable rate; many are still employed and most have anchor baby benefits flowing.