Exaggerating Illegal Immigration
There are perhaps twelve million people in the United States today who are working here without the legal right to do so. This figure represents less than four percent of the US population of about 305,000. Yet, if you look around at the news media and online sources, you will find that most of our nation’s problems are being blamed on this group of people.
Every mention of a poor economy, of overcrowding in our cities, of the poor unemployment rate, of our lack or resources for health care, and so on, are blamed on these 12 million people. They supposedly use all of our resources, cause all of our crime, and are major users of our public services. If you are to believe the folks who make these claims, the solution to all of our nation’s problems would be to exclude the undocumented aliens from US jobs.
There are problems with that notion, though. For example, a recent National Public Radio report related the story of a town in Iowa where it has had to reduce operations drastically because of an immigration raid took away 10% of the town’s population, including half the workers at the plant. The fact of the matter is that the vast majority of the jobs being done by these undocumented workers are those jobs that were unfilled by US citizens. The US has traditionally increased it’s labor force through immigration. The current administration has artificially reduced immigration targets. this leaves employers with few choices for filling their needs.
I am not in favor of illegal immigration. We will have to accept immigration as a given, though. as long as policies for how many may enter the US legally are not realistic. In other words, the solution to our “problem” is to allow a realistic number of immigrants into the country legally. Until then, we will have to accept the situation for what it is.
I am tired of those among us who exaggerate the immigration issue. Some speak of “all the jobs that immigrants are taking from us.” I know of no one who is looking for a job who couldn’t get it because the place was taken by an illegal immigrant. I am still looking for a case where someone can truthfully say that they want a job, but cannot have it because an illegal immigrant has taken it. I would challenge anyone to provide me with a specific example.
We hear that most of our lawbreakers are illegal aliens. Again, since they represent about 4% of the population, I might expect them to commit about 4% of the crime. (Other than, of course, having stayed in the US too long.) I believe that if a person is looking to not be deported, they will actually try not to attract attention by committing crime. More accurately, if we look at our Hispanic immigrants, we see a group that has stereotypical “American” families, that are active in their communities, that attend church more often than not, and are contributors to society.
Most illegal immigrants are also contributing to society by paying taxes. They have the same tax withholding as the rest of us, and without the possibility of getting an eventual return on their Social Security payments. You will find that most actually do file tax returns as required by Federal law. They pay sales taxes, where applicable. If they own their homes, they pay property taxes.
Some will accuse the illegal immigrants of registering to vote and voting to change the results of our elections in their favor. Oregon Secretary of State Bill Bradbury has noted on occasion that he doubts that many illegal immigrants are going to risk a Class A felony in order to vote. He adds that he would be happy to see a majority of the people who were actually legally eligible to vote to actually go register and then vote.
We are spending a lot of time and effort trying to “solve” the illegal immigration problem through brute force. It would be much more effective to solve the issues that cause illegal immigration to happen. Then it will mostly stop. (To the extent that I don’t really think we could completely stop any behavior.) We have even got to the point where we are willing to give up our basic constitutional rights in an effort to stop the problem.
More importantly, our government and some of our citizens are causing trouble or fear for our Hispanic citizens and legal residents. There are about 45 million persons of Hispanic descent in the US, or about 15% of our population. I have heard te voices of too many people who presume that any person of Hispanic heritage is here in the US illegally. This cannot be further from the truth. I see too many places though where all our nation’s ills are blamed on this group of people. I encourage all of us to see through our bigotry and see our problems as they actually are. At the very least, if we need to find a scapegoat, at least let’s find the real problem.
September 3rd, 2008 at 8:39 am
HOW MANY ILLEGAL IMMIGRANTS ARE REALLY IN OUR UNITED STATES???
There is endless speculation about how many illegal immigrants there are in our United States. Our politicians, especially the pro-illegal ones, love to use the number 12 million. They have been using that same number for the last four years, all while, each year, millions more illegals have invaded our United States.
Illegals have been swarming across our border ever since 1986, when amnesty was granted to the estimated 1.3 million illegal immigrants, who were here at that time, which turned out to be closer to 3.5 million.
In 2001, before any real concentrated border enforcement effort, it was estimated that the Border Patrol apprehended 1, out of every 7, illegal immigrants, attempting to cross our Southern border. Now, with a increased Border Patrol effort, and 300 miles of fencing, plus some vehicle barriers, along the almost 2,000 mile Southern border, it is estimated that the Border Patrol now apprehends 1, out of every 4, illegal immigrants, attempting to cross our Southern border.
So, realizing that we could grossly guestimate how many illegals came into our country each year, by multiplying available DHS statistics on Border Patrol apprehensions, by as much as 6, in the early years, and by 3 in the last couple of years, how many illegals do you think we now have in our country??
————-SOUTHWEST BORDER PATROL APPREHENSIONS———-
—-1999——-2000——-2001——-2002——-2003——-2004——-2005——-2006——2007——2008
1,537,000-1,643,679-1,235,718–929,809–905,065-1,139,282-1,189,108-1,071,972-858,638-611,721
In the last ten years, well over 11 million illegals have been apprehended at the border. If we used the lowest multiplier, that 1, out of 4, were apprehended, it still indicates that over 33 million illegals entered our United States, and that is just in the last ten years. How many more entered from 1987 to 1998??
Let’s stop accepting, or believing, that there are only 12 million illegals in our United States. There are probably much closer to 40 million, if not more. We can even assume that as many as 20 million former illegals have since become legal over the past 22 years, and the numbers of illegals, here right now, could still be well over 30 million.
What is your best guess on the number of illegals in our country??
Support E-Verify for ALL employees, and let’s begin taking our country back!!!
September 3rd, 2008 at 9:16 am
You seem to have left one important piece of math out of your calculations. That is that the movement of the undocumented workers is flowing in both directions across the border.
In other words, there may be, like you say, a million apprehensions per year and thus 3 or 4 or 6 million crossing the border Northbound per year. On the other hand, these are temporary workers. For the most part, there are similar numbers of immigrants traveling back home at the end of harvest season or construction season or just to get back home with their families.
We also know that many people have been apprehended multiple times. They are sent back, then try again. I don’t think any of us really know how many of them there are traveling in each direction. But your figures presume that all of the illegal immigrants are crossing the border exactly once, then never crossing back to go home. Certainly many will stay or try to stay. The majority are coming here to work then go back home.
I will step up and dispute your 40 million guess. We know perhaps that 33 million came North in your time frame, but you presume that none of them ever went home. Just from looking at the illegal immigrants in my area, the usual situation is that most of them return home for at least part of the year.
Even if the number is 20 million or so, it is still not a large enough figure to change the fortunes of the US.
I am pretty confident of the Census Bureau’s figure of 45 million Hispanics all together. Just looking around at the ethnic mix of our country, it seems reasonable that about 15% of us are Hispanic. That being said, it is ridiculous to figure that 40 million of those are here illegally. It just cannot be so. that is why the 12 million figure also seems somewhat reasonable to me.
And also, I do support some kind of system to check on potential employees. However, I would have to insist that, before it were put into place, that it would be free of “false positives”. The last thing we want is innocent US citizens being subjected to the same situation as the US Government “No fly list” that supposedly contains terrorists, but also contains the names of many, many everyday people who should not be prevented from flying.
And, of course, it would need to be put in place in conjunction with a reasonable immigration plan to allow the temporary workers into the country that the US employers need so they can thrive.