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Why Legalizing Illegal Mexicans Is a Very Bad Idea

2001

By Alan Caruba

The Sunday New York Times reports that "President Bush’s top immigration advisors are weighing plans to allow the more than three million Mexicans living illegally in the United States to earn permanent legal residency."

A recently published report by the Center for Immigration Studies (www.cis.org) regarding the realities of current and future of Mexican immigration policies makes it abundantly clear what a catastrophically bad idea this is.

This nation has, for all intents and purposes, lost control over its borders. As Mark Krikorian of the Center for Immigration Studies points out, "We grant permanent residence to 800,000 to 900,000 immigrants each year (half of whom are already here) and permit the settlement of 400,000 illegal immigrants. The total foreign-born population stands at about 28 million (6 million of them illegal) accounting for 10% of our country’s population." This nation has no real immigration policy if you are looking for any kind of analysis of the impact this has on our economy and society.

We will pretty much let any illiterate, unskilled person in without giving much thought to what this does to native Americans, but which I mean those born here, not Indians, who were also born here. As regards Mexicans, the large-scale immigration is, says the report, a fairly recent phenomenon. "In 1970, the Mexican immigrant population was less than 800,000. By 2000, it was nearly 8,000,000!

Of these new aliens, "almost two-thirds of adult Mexican immigrants have not completed high school, compared to fewer than one in ten natives. Mexican immigrants now account for 22% of all high school dropouts in the labor force. There are an estimated ten million native Americans without a high school degree facing "significant competition from Mexican immigrants." It’s not bad enough they lack the education to do anything other than low-skill jobs, they must compete with people who, as often as not, don’t even speak English and who will accept just about any pay scale. The report estimates that native Americans in this situation have seen their wages driven down by at least 5%.

Here’s where middle-class white Americans begin to feel the impact. "Although they comprise 4.2% of the nation’s total population, Mexican immigrants and their US-born children (under 18) account for 10.2% of all persons in poverty and 12.5% of those without health insurance." This is true even for Mexican immigrant families that have lived in the US for more than 20 years! Almost all are legal residents and more than half live in or near poverty while one-third have no medical insurance.

At a time when many US corporations are laying off thousands of management and skilled blue-collar workers, the Bush Administration is contemplating a guest-worker program. Why? For one thing, they need Hispanic votes to offset the near total rejection of Republican candidates by Blacks in America.

The problem is that offering the millions of illegal aliens amnesty or opening the borders wider to more illiterate, unskilled Mexicans will do nothing more than increase the tax burden on everyone else because, I guarantee you, someone has to pick up the tab at the hospital emergency rooms that serve as the only medical assistance available. Someone has to pay for the expansion of school facilities that cannot turn their children away. Someone has to pay for more police when crime rates rise.

The simple fact is that poverty level Mexicans who already live in America don’t contribute to easing the tax burden. "Even after welfare reform," said the report, "an estimated 34% of households headed by legal Mexican immigrants and 25% by illegal Mexican immigrants used at least one major welfare program." Someone has to pay and that someone is Whitey.

At this point, I am sure someone thinks I hate Mexicans. I don’t. I also don’t want a flood of Mexicans adding to this nation’s existing economic and social problems. Check the jails. They are filled with Mexicans, other Hispanics, and Blacks. Consider the nation’s huge drug problem and ask yourself who are the primary conduits? Not long ago, I saw a film, "Traffic", starring Michael Douglas and an excellent cast. Its message was simple; so long as white Americans insist on having their daily hit of cocaine, heroin, and other illegal drugs, Mexico will remain a six-lane highway to our border providing it.

That same highway is being used by Mexicans fleeing Mexico in the hope of finding a new life here. May I respectfully suggest to Vincente Fox, the President of Mexico, that he do something about his own nation’s economy other than send his people here? May I respectfully ask President Bush to be a little less concerned with Hispanic votes and a lot more concerned about shutting down our borders until we can effectively deal with our own problems?