by looking4poetry

While some would argue that, with the United States facing its worst economic crisis since the Great Depression, more pressing issues should take priority, or that eliminating 12 million illegal immigrants from our work force would even further damage our economy.

However, I argue that now is an even better time to resolve the issue of illegal immigration. Illegal aliens and their children receive welfare, food stamps, and often unrecompensed medical care for which American citizens foot the bill as taxpayers. .2 billion is spent each year on food assistance programs such as food stamps and free school lunches for illegal aliens, adding to .5 million spent on Medicaid (http://www.cis.org/articles/2004/fiscalexec.html), and billion a year spent on welfare for illegal aliens, paid for by American taxpayers (http://premium.cnn.com/TRANSCIPTS/0610/29/ldt.01.html).

In addition, the overwhelming majority of illegal immigrants do not pay taxes, meaning there is no compensation for the benefits they receive from the US government, except for that paid by US citizens on their behalf. A 2004 General Accounting Office Congressional testimony estimated that in 2000, 353,000 resident aliens who were not legally authorized to work in the United States filed a tax return and reported their wages. That’s 353,0000 out of an estimated 12 million illegal aliens residing in the United States, 4% of the estimated total number, barely a drop in the bucket.

The National Policy Institute estimates that the total cost of mass deportation should be between 6 and 0 billion, or an average cost of between and billion annually over a five year period (http://www.nationalpolicyinstitute.org/pdf/deportation.PDF). In comparison, the total accumulated costs caused by illegal aliens is estimated at 8.3 billion a year. The less costly option is clear. Illegal immigration is a problem American taxpayers cannot, particularly in these times of financial struggle and uncertainty, continue to subsidize. And if American taxpayers cannot afford to ignore it, it is time for them, as active voters and vocal members of their communities, to ensure that the government officials tasked with representing their wishes, can no longer afford to ignore them.

The question now is: what do we do?

I propose a three-pronged attack on the issue of illegal immigration aimed at tying off the primary arteries pumping blood into the heart of the black hole which is consuming American tax dollars at an astronomical rate without paying back into the system.

1. Employers

Although they are not legally eligible to work within the United States, illegal aliens make up approximately 5% of the US work force. Under the Immigration and Nationality Act, employers who violate eligibility requirements are subject to civil monetary penalties. In 2008, the US Department Of Justice increased the minimum fine for knowingly employing an unauthorized alien from 5 to 5. The maximum fine for a first violation increased from ,200 to ,200. The fine for repeated violations rose from ,000 to ,000. The federal government assesses the penalties on a per alien basis, meaning an employer who knowingly employs five illegal aliens could pay five fines. This trend must continue. And the most crucial part is not only raising the fines, but strict enforcement.

2. Birthright Citizenship and “Anchor Babies”

Automatic American citizenship as a birthright for those born within the United States or its territory has been protected since the 14th Amendment was ratified in 1868. Created with freed slaves in mind, Section 1 states:

“all persons born or naturalized within the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States”

Unfortunately, this amendment which was created to protect the rights of freedmen in the wake of emancipation of the slaves, has opened a huge loophole which has been exploited by illegal aliens in a way its authors never anticipated or intended. Illegal immigrants come to the US and have children on US soil. The children are automatically US citizens and cannot be deported. The children can also not be separated from their parents, thus the parents also cannot be deported. When they reach adulthood, the children can sponsor their parents for legal permanent residence, leading to them being referred to as “anchor babies”…an “anchor” to keep their parents in the United States.

From a pragmatic standpoint, if the parents were able to be deported, it would reduce the number of people receiving welfare without paying back into the system, as well as create opportunities for American families to adopt. The fact that all illegal aliens are by default at least technically criminals, could provide a route toward deeming them unfit parents and removing the children from the equation, although it would typically need to be proven that the parents represented an actual danger to the children.

Another suggestion is deporting the parents and having the children go with them because the parents are their legal guardians, without the children losing their US citizenship. In a way, it could become us exploiting the loophole in turn; parents and children cannot be separated, therefore if an illegal alien is deported, his/her children must go with them. Technically, it would not be the children being deported, but their parents, and the children would be able to return once they reached legal age and were no longer under their parents’ legal guardianship.

This idea sounds clever, and has the additional advantages of having a more human ring to it than deporting the parents and placing their children in the foster home system, and not requiring amending the Constitution. However, as intriguing as this idea sounds at first glance, it has two significant holes. For one, it would still set up, ten or twenty years down the road, an influx of the returning former “anchor babies”, and if our population/jobs ratio had not improved by then, it could be worse when this equivalent of “baby boomers” returned as adult US citizens.

Of more immediate application is the likelihood that this could be shot down before it could be enacted by being ruled de facto deportation of American citizens, and therefore unconstitutional and illegal.

The only surefire way to close the loophole would be an amendment of the Constitution to add a requirement for the child’s parents to be legal residents of the United States, but amending the Constitution is no easy feat.

The only way to completely close the possibilities on the subject of birthright citizenship and the anchor babies is to carry out an objective, pragmatic assessment of the legal feasibility and technical advantages and disadvantages of any of the above proposed routes.

3. Working Toward Citizenship

Ultimately, I am not under the illusion that summarily removing every illegal alien from the United States is a feasible task. There is not enough political will behind such an endeavor, even if the national levels of manpower, resources, information, and coordination could be arranged to carry out such a sprawling operation.

It is simply a matter of pragmatic fact that some unauthorized aliens will remain. The question is under what circumstances they remain.

While illegal immigrants make up an estimated 9% of the American population, a 2007 analysis by the Maricopia County Attorney’s Office, Phoenix, Arizona found that in that year alone, illegal immigrants accounted for 16.5% of violent crimes, 18.5% of property crimes, 33.5% of drug-related crimes, a staggering 50% of crimes related to “chop shops”, 35.8% of kidnappings, and 20.3% of felony DUIs. If these numbers are accurate- and all statistics were derived from cases in which the defendants were legally found to be illegal aliens- they five illegal aliens an involvement in crimes vastly out of proportion to their total US population.

Certainly not every illegal alien is a violent criminal or a drug trafficker. But the issue is that those who are must be made top priority and weeded out. 30% of prison inmates are illegal aliens, representing yet another burden for US taxpayers to bear, providing them with food, bedding, and clothing. Rather than being held in US prisons, these illegal aliens should be deported for violation of US law. There must be a comprehensive system put in place so that we know who these people are, and those with criminal records at the very least should be summarily deported. Likewise, those unwilling to work, who produce large numbers of children to receive welfare benefits, should be deported, with or without their children. Working American families spend enough money they don’t have footing the bill for American citizens who abuse the system to do the same for illegal aliens with no legal right to be here in the first place.

But it is simply a logical fact that we cannot flip a switch and teleport every illegal alien back across the border, and that is a fact we need to come to terms with and come to a compromise about if the issue is ever to be resolved. Those illegal aliens who demonstrate a willingness to work, who do not spend lengthy amounts of time on welfare, who have no other criminal records, particularly related to drugs or violence, who seek to learn English, to teach their children English, and to educate both themselves and their children to exist within American society and American laws, may be put on a path toward citizenship. This is not automatic amnesty, nor a handout. It would send an entirely counterproductive message were this to be seen as a reward for those who jump the border, while legal immigrants endure years of paperwork and red tape to achieve citizenship. Only those with clean records, who show their willingness to work, who pass tests demonstrating their knowledge of US history and US law, may be granted work visas, which will allow them to remain in the US while they work toward legal US citizenship. This would also serve us by giving us a way of keeping track of their identities, backgrounds, and activities, and identifying and removing the criminals in their midst.

The biggest issue with any of this is accountability and enforcement. So-called “sanctuary cities” which blatantly refuse to enforce US immigration law should be cut off from federal funding. The slightest noncompliance with any work program requirement should result in summary deportation. No abuse of the system could be tolerated, as it has been with blatant and shocking negligence, on the part of both illegal aliens eager to exploit it, and the reluctance of INS and ICE to do their jobs and enforce the immigration laws they were tasked with upholding, for many years.

The last part requires the taxpayers, the voters, and the citizens to be vigilant. Citizens active at the polls and in town meetings and local elections in their communities must send the message to their representatives to do their jobs upholding American sovereignty.