COUNT.
THINK. CHOOSE
by
James K. Sweeney
November 23, 2003
It
is of note that the U.S. Marine Corps’ territorial area is the
most secure and best managed in Iraq. The 82nd Airborne’s area
is a close second. The Army, however, is not to be denigrated as its
task is different and, importantly, so is its training. Imagine what
would happen were we to suddenly place Iraq’s occupation in
the hands of the Coast Guard.
The illegal alien issue is analogous. Populist demagogues, such as
Fox’s bullying, boorish big-mouth, Bill O’Reilly, insist
that troops on the border will stop the flow of illegals. Maybe. But
one point O’Reilly and his ilk never mention is how many illegals
would the troops have to kill in order to stop the swarm. They can’t
possibly mean to place the Army on the border and not give the troops
the right and duty to shoot to kill. That, after all, is what troops
do. They kill large numbers of invaders. It is what they are trained
to do.
It seems much more sensible to increase the size of the Border Patrol,
people trained to control borders and not to kill illegals. What’s
the difference? Twenty thousand Army troops or twenty thousand Border
Patrol police is the same as to number but not as to effectiveness.
Moreover, there is a present Border Patrol infrastructure on which
to build; there is no need to re-invent the wheel. We have one.
Is there a solution? There is no single, silver-bullet solution and
each partial solution finds itself without much political support.
I have previously written that were we somehow able to assemble the
8 to 10 million illegals in one place and march them South to Mexico,
Vicente Fox would refuse to take them. That political slime would
be more likely to machine-gun re-entering illegals than any American
would. Remember; to Mexican politicians, illegals are their best export.
They ship their uneducated, unhealthy and unskilled citizens to the
United States where, miraculously, those same people work harder than
most other unskilled Americans plus the illegals send billions of
Yanqui dollars back to their families. Such return funding is Mexico’s
largest income industry, bigger than tourism or oil.
Few, if any, American families who employ illegals as household help,
day laborers or as a nanny show any inclination to hire legal workers
and pay them double simply based on citizenship. Restaurants, janitorial
services, farmers (America’s greatest pocket-pickers), construction
and other unskilled or low-skilled industries have zero interest in
paying American wages and benefits if they can avoid it. Thus, there
is a large and economically strong number of Americans who wish to
retain the illegals exactly that way: illegal. The minute they become
legal, they will demand to be paid like Americans. It is easier to
exploit the illegal and, unless you are a Republican running for office,
it’s risk free.
I wrote a column about Americans not willing to do “that kind
of work” (See the Archives: Americans Won’t Do That Kind
of Work) as is often though inaccurately said. The truth is that Americans
won’t do that kind of work for that kind of money.
Most media people are supporters of amnesty or open borders but, then,
they are not affected by illegals. I think a fair number would change
their position were, suddenly, an influx of illegal reporters and
TV anchor-types show up willing to work for half their regular wages.
After all, even ABC’s Peter Jennings, a Canadian, didn’t
become an American citizen until just this year when he became eligible
for Medicare. That single-payer, socialist system in Canada, a.k.a.
Hillary-care, is not for pretty Peter.
Who are hurt by the illegals? Obviously, those whom they replaced.
Those Americans may be qualitatively defined as uneducated and unskilled.
Those Americans may be generally identified as blacks and poor whites.
That’s who has been and continues to be hurt economically by
the millions of illegals. Did you know that there are virtually no
black building maintenance workers in Los Angeles any more? Go to
the street corners where casual laborers stand around waiting for
someone to hire them for cash for the day. What color are they? Well,
they are never yellow, rarely black and more rarely white. What are
they? Brown. The fill-in work, the between job work and the entry
level work in border states is essentially for illegals only.
Who else is hurt? Taxpayers, all taxpayers. Illegals pay sales tax
and that’s about all they pay. On the other hand, they consume
enormous amounts of welfare, social, educational and health services
subsidized by us, the taxpayers. The relatively low income taxpayer
and the non-border state taxpayer are, in effect, subsidizing those
who employ illegals whether at home or at work. And the illegals have
tons of children and relatives who, thanks to Sen. Kennedy’s
long-ago bill to pander to Irish immigrants in Massachusetts, enter
easily once the illegal has received amnesty or legal status. That
draws down more tax dollars for non-producers. The cycle is endless.
Is there any benefit to illegals? Yes. And again the benefit will
go to the boomers. Just as Social Security is about to go broke, the
illegals’ children and grand-children will have assimilated,
become reasonably educated and graduate into the middle class, where
they will pay crushing payroll taxes to support the retirement and
medical costs of the boomers. And that is the hidden reason why the
Washington crowd doesn’t “do something” about the
illegals. (They, though, will be paying for the new illegals as the
number of illegals grows exponentially.
I have one suggestion, one that I have written before, as to one,
specific condition of any amnesty: no illegal or child of an illegal
or any family member “re-unified” or child of an illegal
or re-unified person, wherever the child is born, may ever become
a citizen of the United States; i.e., they can never vote, unless
they return to their home country and file an application for legal
entry to the United States. Gone is the political pandering for votes;
politicians would carry the burden of principle, not election.
What else can be done? Not much and even this little is unlikely as
a practical matter. However, if elected, I would do the following:
1. Illegals came here one by one; if we want them removed, it will
have to be one by one. Each illegal detained has his personal ID entered
into a database; that person cannot file a legal application for ten
years.
2. No illegal should ever receive social security benefits or medicare
or some state version thereof.
3. The Border Patrol should be increased by at least 20,000 people.
If we can create a Transportation Security Administration from scratch
to 40,000 airport inspectors to keep out a handful of Islamic fascists,
we can do the same to the existing Border Patrol to keep out invading
illegals.
4. We should create bounty hunter rewards for licensed groups who
brings an illegal to any police or other authorized governmental entity:
REWARD: $1,000 per head, including family members.
5. No police or government entity may be instructed or elect not to
enforce discovery, detention and deportation proceedings against any
illegal or related family member.
6. No citizenship for an illegal, ever, unless he returns home and
files an application but only after 10 years from deportation.
7. Any illegal detained a second time is sentenced to 6 months of
hard labor in Alaska; detained a third time and it’s two years
in federal prison; after that, ten years for each offense. These camps
shall be in the swamps of Louisiana and run by prison guards having
at least 5 years experience as Texas or Mississippi prison guards.
You think I’m kidding? If we do nothing, English will be the
second language of the United States in three generations. Do the
math; think it over.
I know you won’t be here; neither will I. But is that your guiding
principle? If not, do the math; think it over. Or we lose our country.
Count. Think. Choose.