Laboring Under a Misconception

There are currently a number of arguments being made for having local governments ignore the immigration laws and, on closer scrutiny all of those arguments fail to make sense or protect our nation and our citizens in a number of ways.  Those who pose these arguments are often identified in the media as being “Pro-Immigrant.”  In point of fact they are “Illegal Alien Exploiters” seeking to profit by the exploitation of vulnerable and desperate illegal aliens.  These exploiters are also oblivious to the harm the hiring of illegal aliens does to American workers and their families and oblivious to the harm that the presence of these millions of illegal aliens does to national security and community safety.

I have written extensively about the huge impact on national security, community safety and criminal justice that our extremely porous borders and failures to enforce our immigration laws from within the interior of the United States pose.  Simply stated, the presence of unknown millions of illegal aliens whose true identities, backgrounds, potential involvement with criminal or terrorist organizations is unknown and unknowable represents a major threat to the safety and security of our nation and our citizens.

Today, however, I want to focus on another component of the immigration crisis that confronts our nation today- the impact that the presence of unknown millions of illegal aliens has on our nation's economy and the impact that this has on beleaguered American workers.

The Orange County Register ran an article on December 7, 2011 entitled: "State measure would let illegal immigrants work legally"

Here is a quote from that article that is important to consider:

“Those who support the measure said the state stands to make up to $325 million in new tax revenue from those who are working in the country illegally, the Sacramento Bee reported. The initiative needs 504,760 voter signatures to qualify for an upcoming ballot.”

Every politician now seeking public office promises to create new jobs yet here is a proposal to enable more illegal aliens compete with American and lawful immigrant workers for scarce jobs!

The tax revenue that is promised in this article is a falsehood.  I am not certain as to how that number of $325 million dollars in tax revenue was reached but what is obviously being ignored is that often illegal aliens work “off the books” or lie about the number of dependents that they have so that they illegally receive an earned income tax credit.  Additionally, virtually all foreign workers have the same goal when they are paid- to send as much of the money they receive back to their family members in their home countries.  This is understandable, after all for those who seek employment in the United States one of their goals is to support their families.  However, the fact of the matter is that each and every year, tens of billions of dollars is wired, or otherwise sent out of our nation's economy, by foreign workers whether they are working illegally or if they have nonimmigrant work visas.  The money that they send out of our country is money that is completely lost to our nation's economy.  The money removed from our economy is not spent or invested within our nation.  For all the good that this money does, it could be tossed onto a bonfire!  In fact, if the money were tossed onto a bonfire we would at least get some light and heat from it!

The administration embarked on a series of incredibly costly economic stimulus programs to “jump start” our nation's hobbled economy.  In so doing they have plunged our nation into a level of debt that is unprecedented in the history of this country.

The idea was that money that would circulate through the economy would create an economic multiplier effect; every dollar earned generates more spending and more employment, etc., etc.  To hire foreign workers whose goal runs contrary to that principle makes as much sense as filling a swimming pool in the time of an extreme drought and then not securing the drain.  The next day when the hapless owner of the pool eagerly dons his bathing suit to take a dip in his pool he unhappily finds that the pool is empty- the water having disappeared down the drain!

Meanwhile, not only is our nation losing the benefits that the money accrued by the illegal aliens might have provided to our economy, American and lawful immigrant workers are kept from working, priced out of these important jobs because the real benefit to hiring illegal aliens is that they are easily exploited and work for substandard wages- wages that are often so low that an American worker could not support himself and/or his family on those wages.

One of the ways that illegal aliens manage to subsist on those wages is to share filthy, squalid apartments with many other illegal aliens in conditions that are beyond anything most people could imagine!

When I was an INS Special Agent, I often encountered such dwellings and was horrified at what I found!

There were few, if any furnishings to be found in those apartments, generally just filthy bare mattresses laid end to end and side to side with often a dozen or more adult men jammed into an apartment that had been designed for a family of four!

Often the filth was so extreme that the stench would remain in my nostrils for weeks!  The huge numbers of insects that infested these apartments often resulted in what we came to refer to as the “Moving wall.”  This was a wall that was encrusted with so many roaches and other insects that when you turned on a light, all of the insects would start fleeing in all directions!  You could not determine the color of the wall because it was utterly covered with scurrying insects!  It looked a bit like a football stadium with the crowds doing the “wave!”

Mice and sometimes rats would scurry around these apartments and their droppings could be found everywhere!

Imagine the impact that such a situation has on the families who might live next door to such an apartment!

It is also important to remember that when we are dealing with illegal aliens we do not know the true identities or backgrounds of these individuals.  Hiring illegal aliens exposes those who work with them to the potential that such illegal aliens have serious criminal histories or are carriers of dangerous communicable diseases.  As an INS Special Agent I arrested a number of illegal aliens at their jobs where they concealed their true identities and arrest records including one individual who was located working at a glass factory.  He had been previously deported from the United States after having pleaded guilty to manslaughter.  He unlawfully returned to the United States, was prosecuted for unlawful reentry to the United States and escaped from a federal penitentiary while serving a prison sentence!  In an era where workplace violence is a matter of serious concern it is of great importance that employers know who they are hiring!

The point is that illegal aliens who violate our nation's immigration laws by running our nation's borders leave no record of their entry and may well have evaded the inspections process that is supposed to prevent the entry of aliens into our country whose presence would pose a problem or threat to the safety and well being of our nation and our citizens.

Title 8, United States Code, Section 212 enumerates the reasons why an alien should be denied entry into the United States and is well worth reviewing.

Prior to the Second World War, the enforcement and administration of our nation's immigration laws was the responsibility of the United States Department of Labor.  It was widely understood that a massive influx of foreign workers would have a serious deleterious impact on American jobs and wages.  The enforcement of our nation's immigration laws helped to build America's large and upwardly mobile Middle Class.  It was this factor, more than any other, which enabled the United States to create the American Dream for so many of its citizens.

When “leaders” of cities and states ignore the immigration laws they are betraying United States citizens and lawful immigrants.  They are undermining national security and community safety so that they can profit from the labor of exploited illegal aliens.  Meanwhile ever more Americans are denied their thin slice of the American Dream and are falling below the poverty line!