Illegal Immigration
This is a sore spot with a lot of people, myself included. Illegal immigration is exactly that...ILLEGAL! I have no problem with people wanting to come here LEGALLY in order to make a better life for themselves and their families. My maternal grandparents were Italian immigrants, who arrived in America in the late 1890s. Now, I do realize why people want to come to this great country. America is still the land of dreams and opportunity despite the doom and gloom picture you get from the Socialist Far Left Elites. They hate this country, because it's not Socialist, and they are not in charge. They can't control us stupid, racist, sexist, homophobic, jingoistic, uneducated Neanderthals, so they fume and throw their childlike temper tantrums blaming America for all the ills of the world. They bash America every chance they get, but I don't see any of them renouncing their American citizenship and moving to Old Europe, their model of intellectual prefectness. In addition, they use the courts to do their dirty work for them, even if it goes completely against the will of the majority of the American people. Their other favorite tool is to use our public education system to indoctrinate our younger generation into their Socialist beliefs. These, for the most part, highly educated, well heeled, urban professional, Cultural Marxist buffoons don't seem to mind using the Capitalist system of the United States to feather their own nests while they spit in America's face.

There is a reason why you have people willing to risk their lives and sneak in here to take low wage service industry and agricultural jobs. These are jobs that supposedly Americans are not willing to do. Why should they when they can collect a welfare check? I will discuss this topic in another rant on another day. The reason is, even though these are back breaking poverty level jobs, they are better than what they could get in their native country. Yes, we have poor people in America, but for the most part, they are the richest poor people in the world. Mexico encourages the least educated, lowest 15% of its economic base to migrate north to America.

According to a January 10, 2005 article in the Washington Times, US Border Patrol officers arrested 1.15 million people trying to sneak into the United States last year. According to the article, that was a 24% increase over the previous year. The article states, "Among them, 23,000 people with criminal records were identified and arrested. They included 84 murder suspects, 37 suspected kidnappers, 151 who were wanted on charges of sexual assault, 313 robbery suspects, and 2,630 others implicated in drug-related charges." The Mexican Foreign Ministry also publishes a book called, "The Guide for the Mexican Immigrant," which is a guide on how to enter the United States illegally. Could it be possible that Mexico is attempting to culturally annex the southwestern part of the US? Think about it. You flood the southwest part of the US with uneducated unskilled people, many of whom are dangerous criminals that are no longer wanted in their home country. Plus, Mexico and the US have Social Security reciprocity. This is another way for Mexico to suck money out of the US Government while they get de facto control of their former territorial lands in Texas, New Mexico, Arizona, and part of California. At the same time, the Mexican government has troops stationed on their southern border with orders to shoot and kill anyone seen sneaking across the border into Mexico. Mexico has a Socialist government, and they can't afford what that 15% does to their social safety net. They send them north to take advantage of ours.

What is the cost of illegal immigration? First there are health care costs. There are estimated to be about 12 million illegals in this country. None of them have any form of health insurance. They use our hospital emergency rooms for basic routine care, and know which hospitals will not turn them away because they can't afford to pay. Who picks up the tab? We do in the form of spiraling health care costs. In addition, because no medical personnel screened them at the border, they are bringing in communicable diseases that we don't need. The San Francisco Bay area, for example, is seeing a large increase in cases of tuberculosis, because of the amount of illegal immigrants migrating to that area.

Another cost of illegal immigration is crime. Being here illegally is a crime in itself. In addition, there is a vast violent crime wave among illegal aliens in certain parts of this country. Last year, 95 percent of all outstanding homicide warrants in the Los Angeles area were for illegal aliens. A 1995 California Department of Justice study showed that over 60% of the 18th Street Gang, a southern California gang of thugs, was made up of illegal aliens. It is reported that this gang works hand in hand with an organization called the Mexican Mafia, which is the ring leader in Southwestern and California prisons involving activities like drug dealing, extortion, assassinations, robberies, drive by shootings, etc. I don't have current statistics at this time, but I have a feeling that the numbers may be worse, since the size of the gang has increased since then. Another Los Angeles crime gang, the Columbia Lil' Cycos Gang engages in murder and extortion to control the drug market around the MacArthur Park region of central Los Angeles. It has been reported that their leader is a Mexican Mafia member who controls the gang from his prison cell. He's serving time for various felonies as well as felonious reentry into the United States after deportation.

Another aspect of our open borders is that it has allowed Islamic terrorists to cross undetected into this country. There is strong belief among some very knowledgeable individuals that there may already be a huge underground network of Islamic terrorists ready to take out one of our major cites with a dirty bomb or worse. The 19 hijackers who flew the airplanes into the World Trade Center, the Pentagon, and that field up in Pennsylvania entered this country without any question as to their motives. Some weren't even questioned when they took flying lessons, and only wanted to learn to steer the plane, not take off or land.

There is a very powerful immigration lobby who pushes real hard for more immigration with less restrictions. These people feel that a nation's borders and it's national identity are relics from the past. We need to be good GLOBAL citizens, and we need to be socialistic and governed by the UN. According to the FBI, 15 of the 19 hijackers were here on expired student or tourist visas. If there had been reliable computer screening of those individuals, they may have been thwarted before they acted. That type of computer system was mandated by Congress after Palestinian terrorists were arrested by the FBI in New York City with bomb making equipment, but so far that system still has not been put into place as of 2005. At that time, then Senator Spencer Abraham, an open border champion, said that such a system was impractical, because it would cause a traffic jam at the Mexican border. Two of the hijackers were on a terrorist watch list, but weren't placed on it until after they had entered the US. Over 5000 people lost their lives on 9/11, because of slipshod immigration policies.

Then, there is the assault on American culture. America has always been a melting pot of all the various cultures that people have brought with them from other countries. This is what has made this country what it is. However, recently it has been allowed to become a salad bowl rather than a melting pot. Immigrants come here now, and refuse to blend into the American culture. Many refuse to learn English. They expect us to learn their language. Excuse me, this is MY country. I was born here, and I speak English. I am not going to learn your language unless I choose to out of my own free will. If I emigrated to your country, I would make sure that I learned your language out of respect for your country. Besides that, I would probably have to, since I don't think I would be able to get an English language drivers license application there.

Years ago, my maternal grandparents immigrated from Italy. Arriving in America, they started to create for themselves the American dream. They worked hard, and raised 13 children through the Great Depression. They didn't have a lot of money. Many times they were just plain poor, but they did the best they could, and they did it without any social safety net. All five of their sons served in the armed forces during World War II, and every morning my grandfather would go out onto the front porch of his home, and raise his American flag. My grandparents would occasionally speak Italian to each other, but they never taught Italian to their children. After all, this was America, and you spoke English. By the way, both grandparents did learn English, and they both became American citizens. My mother used to tell me stories about their neighborhood, and the different nationalities and races that were there. While people retained certain aspects of their Old World culture, the underlying theme was how it blended into our American culture. The African American family up the road, was no different from the Italian American family across the street, who was next door to the Polish American family, etc. Get my point? What is the common denominator? AMERICAN!

How do we fix this immigration problem? It's not going to be easy. While I disagree totally with President Bush's guest worker plan, I understand why he wants it. It's probably the only practical solution after years of out of control illegal immigration. Even though it would be the right thing to do, you can't round up every illegal alien in this country, detain and deport them. We don't have the prison space for 12 million illegals. That would mean building a prison to house a population larger than New York City. With our limited Border Patrol resources, it's impossible to prevent them from coming across anyway. We apprehend many of them, but most get in undetected. That includes Islamic terrorists.

My way of stopping illegal immigration would make most liberals blood turn to stone. I say put up two thirty foot concertina razor wire fences on the northern and southern borders of the United States with a one hundred foot no mans land between them. In that no mans land, you plant a land mine every three inches. You repeal the doctrine of Posse Commitatis, which prevents using the US military for domestic law enforcement purposes, and you assign military personnel to keep our borders secure. Arm them with 50 caliber machine guns, night vision equipment, laser guidance systems...what ever it takes. Next, you could make a dent in illegal immigration if you went after the employers who hire illegals in the first place. Send unannounced immigration inspectors to our agribusinesses, restaurants, hotels, and construction sites and demand to see work visas, naturalization papers or green cards for any and all foreign workers. You can determine who's foreign by them speaking with an accent, or an inability to speak English...a dead give away. If they don't have proper documentation, you take them into custody, and you impose draconian penalties onto the business owners that hired them in their attempt to save a buck. You have to make the consequences far more unpleasant than the risk involved.

Even if a foreigner comes here legally on a work or student visa,, if they get a drivers license, the expiration date on the license should be the same as the expiration date of that visa. One of the 9/11 terrorists, Mohammed Atta, was stopped for speeding in Florida two days before the attack. His license was valid, but his visa had been expired for six months. Because the license was valid, the police officer issued him a ticket, and sent him on his way. If his license had been expired, there would have been some questions raised. Along this same line, you have to bring down the barriers created by the turf wars among law enforcement agencies. These agencies need to put their egos in check, stop acting like kindergartners, and start learning to play nicely with each other.

There is no reason why in this information age, you can not have a national computer database with warrant, drivers license, and visa information that is available to all law enforcement personnel; federal, state, and local. This system is already in place with the national highway safety computer database, that shares drivers license information to all fifty states. When someone enters this country, you enter the information into that computer database. If they overstay their visa, the information is there, and if they get stopped for anything, you run them through the computer just like you do anyone else. Seconds later it can be determined whether or not there are any warrants against them, or that they are here legally or illegally. Also, don't let the immigration lobby influence law enforcement to look the other way in matters pertaining to illegal immigration. These lobbyists have been successful in getting local and state police departments to institute policies that prevent the police from asking immigration related questions. Secure national borders are not relics from the past. In this age of terrorism, they are now more necessary than ever. Department of Motor Vehicle personnel should also be hooked into that computer system, and be able to use that information to determine whether or not to issue a drivers license to that person as well. If they don't show up in the computer, they could be here illegally. Not only that, if they are not American citizens, they don't have the right to vote in this country either. It would help eliminated the fraud problems created by the Motor Voter program.

We have work to do folks. There is nothing wrong with people coming here legally to make a better life for themselves. In fact, I encourage it. If you have the talent that this country needs, and the drive and motivation to make something of that talent here, you are a welcome member of this great American family if that is your choosing. If, however, you are coming here to try to destroy us, it is our right and our obligation to hunt you down and destroy you first. To the wonderful people who come here legally to make a better life I will say to you what I saw on a T shirt for sale on a website recently: "Welcome to America. Now speak English."