Ilegal Immigration: Americans Fed Up With Government's Failure

by Rory Cripps | August 3, 2010 at 03:18 pm

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According to various estimates, there are currently 10 to 12 million illegal immigrants in the U.S. Most of those illegal immigrants are from Mexico and Central America. In Fiscal Year 2009, Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) deported 2 percent (298, 401) of the U.S.illegal immigration population. ICE says it expects to deport 400,000 illegal immigrants in FY 2010.

Those claiming that deportations of illegal immigrants under the Obama Administration have increased are making a specious claim for political and ideological purposes. Indeed Obama supporters conveniently omit the fact that deportations since 2005 have consistently increased every year in a straight-line pattern and that the relative increase under Obama is virtually no different from the increase under the Bush Administration.

What is painfully clear to the American people is that both the Bush and Obama administrations, and those before them, have in effect refused to enforce the U.S. immigration statutes unless one believes that an enforcement rate of 2 percent is something to write home about. In any event, the increase in the amount of deportations is meaningless because the figures are not in percentages relative to the increase in the amount of illegal immigrants that reside in America. In other words, what difference does it make if 100,000 more illegals were deported in the same year that 1 million more illegals were allowed to enter the country?

It's estimated that between 2008 and 2009, under the Bush administration, the amount of illegal immigrants in the U.S. fell by 1 million. It doesn't take much effort to figure out why the fall occurred when one considers the poor state of the U.S. economy. In fact, illegal immigration into the U.S. follows a straight line pattern with the U.S. economy. The more jobs, the more illegal immigrants.

If and when the U.S. economy picks up, there will be a corresponding influx of illegal immigrants into the U.S. And if the American economy approaches full employment levels (anywhere between a 4 to 6 percent unemployment rate) the American people can expect to see a massive influx of illegal immigrants across the Mexican border. My off-the-cuff estimate is that if the American economy rebounds substantially, the American people can expect to see at least 3 to 4 million illegal immigrants enter the U.S. given the historical failure of the U.S. government to enforce the immigration laws.

There are currently about 25 "sanctuary cities" in the U.S. Sanctuary cities are those cities that ban law enforcement personal from asking criminals about their immigration status. Cities such as New York, San Francisco, and Washington D.C. are "sanctuary cities". What that means is that in "sanctuary cities" someone who is in the U.S. illegally and murders or rapes someone, for example, is granted the same constitutional rights that an American citizen is granted.

Poll after poll conducted by reputable polling organizations consistently indicates that an overwhelming majority of American citizen's believe the U.S. federal government has no desire to enforce the immigration laws.And who can blame them for believing that? There is no evidence to suggest otherwise. Indeed, many American citizens in border states such as Texas and Arizona watch their property get trampled on and destroyed, day in and day out, by illegal immigrants which include drug-traffickers, smugglers, and kidnappers. And then, to add insult to injury, property owners and home owners are told by local law enforcement that they don't have the right to protect their own property and that local law enforcement's hands are tied because enforcement is vested exclusively in the federal government.

Just imagine the outrage and sheer frustration of witnessing people trespassing on your property day in and day out and in the process the trespassers urinate and defecate on your property and strew litter all over it. And because it's your property, you're stuck cleaning up the mess, in addition to being told by law enforcement that you have no right to protect your property or lay a hand on the trespassers because only the federal government has the authority to do so.

In the case of Arizona, its citizens and law-makers got fed up with the U.S. Government's refusal to enforce the immigration laws, curb the flood of illegal immigrants, and protect Arizona's citizens. Consequently, Arizona law-makers had no choice but to pass legislation that allowed local law enforcement to do the job that the federal government is supposed to do but refuses to do. What Arizona did makes sense to me and an overwhelming majority of Arizonans as well as an overwhelming majority of Americans.

It is painfully clear that the Obama Administration, together with most of the "political class", really doesn't care what the American people have to say about the U.S. government's refusal to enforce the immigration laws. I say that because Obama has gone out of his way to put his finger in the ear of a federal judge by the name of Susan Bolton and issue her his marching orders. And Obama's marching orders went like this: Issue an injunction against the state of Arizona's immigration law and declare it unconstitutional on the grounds that the power to regulate immigration is vested exclusively in the federal government.

There are many reasons why the Obama Administration and past administrations refused to enforce the immigration laws. Those reasons include economic, political, social, and ideological. But none of them on their face make any sense in terms of the American people's overall welfare. For example: The assertion that illegal immigrants are necessary for the well being of the American economy in view of the fact that the official unemployment rate is 15 million is absurd. And the assertion that the addition of millions of people from the third world is beneficial to the American fabric in light of the fact that we have Americans living in poverty and squalor throughout America's inner cities is absurd. And so it goes.

The American people, nowadays, are becoming politically astute, because virtually anything that they want to know about what their government is up to is available at their fingertips. As a result, they sense something is very wrong with their government and they sense that their government has been selling them a bill of goods for many, many years. There's a lot of pent up anger out there on the part of the American voter. And there is no doubt that they are very angry over the federal government's refusal to enforce the immigration laws.

I've attached some "grass roots" YouTube videos to this post for illustrative purposes. The videos depict angry Americans. Anyone that is well acquainted with American history knows full well that it takes Americans a long time to be outraged over an issue. But they also know that when Americans are outraged over an issue and feel that they've been wronged, they will take to the streets, have no mercy, shed blood, and take no prisoners. The numbers are not in favor of illegal immigration. And my prediction is that if the U.S. government continues ignoring the American people's demands for immigration control there will be hell to pay, because the country will swing so far to the right that it will take decades before it comes back toward the center. For every action there's a reaction.

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t k kidwai

at 22:58 on August 3rd, 2010

Deportation of even 10 percent illegal immigirants by Obama administration won't remedy the situation.Americans are angry,and should be angry,but the level of illegal immigirants has remained constant since couple of decades.The anger is not intriguing,it is the timing.Has this issue not been blown out of proportion by the conservatives to put Obama in dock for which all previous presidents and administration are equally responsible,the seething anger would have remained confined to earlier levels?The number of illegal immigirants has not increased during present administration,nor it is going to decline in future till a proper mechanism is put in place to deport all illegal immigirants and punish those who employ them.

Karen Hatter

at 06:04 on August 4th, 2010

From an article entitled Most Arizonans Believe SB-1070 Will Heighten Racism, White Supremacist Groups On The Rise

The East Valley Tribune also reports that “[w]hite supremacist activity is on the rise in Arizona.” Experts point to the fact that the immigration debate has always been a recruiting tool for racist groups, even before the passage of SB-1070.

However, heightened tensions over the polarizing new law give the groups a leg up. “They become more emboldened every day,” said Bill Straus, Arizona regional director of the Anti-Defamation League. “It does seem like the distance between what most of us would consider the extreme fringes of political thought and the mainstream of political thought, it seems like that distance has shrunk.”

One of the most disturbing illustrations of their stepped-up activity is the presence of heavily armed neo-Nazis who started patrolling the border in search of undocumented immigrants shortly after SB-1070 was signed into law. One neo-Nazi border “ranger,” Harry Hughes, has written: “Mexican illegal aliens are revolting. And they know it. It is their purpose to disrupt us, interfere with us and give us diseases that we haven’t had in this country for 100 years.”

The leader of the group, J.T. Ready responded to Judge Susan Bolton’s decision to block key provisions of the by stating, “perhaps [Judge Bolton] should step her ass outside the air-conditioned courtroom sometime and see what is really happening as Rome burns and barbarians with AK-47s are in gun battles twenty miles from the gates of Phoenix.”

State Sen. Russell Pearce, who sponsored SB-1070, endorsed Ready when the he ran for City Council in the spring of 2006. Ready describes his newest initiative as “the Minuteman Project on steroids”

Rory Cripps

at 06:25 on August 4th, 2010

Karen: Of course white supremacists groups are on the rise! And guns and ammo sales have skyrocketed since Obama took office. But a lot of the guns and ammo sales are a result of 9/11 too. I've been going to gun shops every so often for the past 30 years. And I can tell you for a fact that nowadays Americans are pissed off and they're arming themselves in record numbers. So much so that certain ammunition is in short supply. But the vast majority of Americans that are arming themselves are not white supremacists. They're just relatively conservative Americans that have families and go to work every day. And they're mad as hell at the federal government. I've said many times, that if the federal government keeps thumbing its nose at the majority of American voters, then those voter sentiments are going to go far right and it's going to take decades before things come back toward the center. Most people don't vote in off-year elections. But the 2010 elections should prove to be very informative as to what direction the country is headed in.

Karen Hatter

at 07:15 on August 4th, 2010

As I have stated, Rory, the modern day efforts for immigration reform, which seeks to prevent EVERYONE non White admittance into the United States, whether their entry is legal OR illegal, is a campaign coordinated and crafted by the John Tanton network, which included Senator Pearce's draft of bill SB 1070 making use of a Tanton Network lawyer.

The Right Wing scare campaign, led by all of those desirous of stoking fear as a means to seek election, only succeeds with those predisposed to that brand of outreach.

It seems those predisposed are unable to hear any other sounds or embrace any other advice except 'Panic! Panic! Hunker down and defend yourselves from THOSE people!'

Rory Cripps

at 07:33 on August 4th, 2010

Karen: Tell all that to the overwhelming majority of American voters that are fed up with the federal government's refusal to enforce the immigration statutes. They've never heard of those people that you've referred to. They only know what they see. And what they see in places like Texas and Arizona are illegal immigrants crossing the border 24/7. You can call those that are opposed to illegal immigration racists all that you want. However they no longer pay any attention to that label because it's been used over and over again and they're inured to it.

Karen Hatter

at 07:50 on August 4th, 2010

That's the point, Rory. They don't know of John Tanton and his network and that is EXACTLY the problem.

Despite facts and information CONTRARY to their perception, BECAUSE of those spearheading the anti immigration debate have their hidden racist agenda, in many cases, these folks have been mislead, most likely, some willingly so.

Please read my words carefully. I didn't call any group or individuals racist. I have, however, pointed out the racist tendencies of those orchestrating this campaign.

Rory Cripps

at 06:10 on August 4th, 2010

tk: Illegal influx is directly proportional to the state of the U.S. economy. They come here when the economy is good and go back home when it's bad. I indicated in my story that Americans are fed up with the federal government's refusal to enforce the immigration laws. The anger started long before Obama was in office and now it's coming to a head. Conservatives were outraged over many of Bush's policies. The illegal immigration issue is a prime example of the federal government and the elites thumbing its nose at the American people. As I've indicated in my story, American's didn't always know what their government was up to. They only knew what they were told and what they read in the papers and saw on TV. But the internet has changed all that. And so has talk radio, by the way, which has been an integral part of the information chain throughout the past 20 years. The bottom line is that more and more Americans are coming to the harsh realization that neither the Democrats or Republicans are their friends. I view the Obama presidency as Jimmy Carter II and the only way that he'll be re-elected is if the economy improves dramatically and/or the Republicans run an inferior candidate. The irony is that any American president has very little to do with the state of the economy, yet people think that a president can improve the economy from behind his desk in the oval office.

Karen Hatter

at 07:01 on August 4th, 2010

From Fear and Loathing in Prime Time: Immigration Myths and Cable News :

There are many problems facing the United States today: a faltering economy, a health-care crisis, and the continuing war in Iraq, to name a few. But viewers of some of the most prominent cable news programs are presented a different reality, one in which one issue stands above all others: illegal immigration.

Media Matters Action Network undertook this study in order to document the rhetoric surrounding immigration that is heard on cable news. When it comes to this issue, cable news overflows not just with vitriol, but also with a series of myths that feed viewers' resentment and fears, seemingly geared toward creating anti-immigrant hysteria.

There are two types of myths we discuss in this report. The first type is the large and most common myths, about crime and undocumented immigrants, and the costs of illegal immigration in social services and taxes. These topics are complex, and there are sometimes legitimate points buried within the arguments immigration opponents make. The second type of myth is the urban legend: that there is a conspiracy to take back the Southwest United States for Mexico; that there is a secret plan to construct a "NAFTA Superhighway" running from Canada to Mexico; that the U.S. is well on its way to surrendering its sovereignty to a "North American Union" (NAU); that Mexican immigrants are infecting Americans with leprosy; and that undocumented immigrants are responsible for a wave of election fraud. These myths are discussed less often, but are notable for their sheer ludicrousness. The North American Union and NAFTA Superhighway are closely related, and indeed are often discussed in tandem (the building of the Superhighway being posited as a step on the road to the creation of the NAU), but since each is also often discussed alone, we examine these two myths separately.

Karen Hatter

at 10:42 on August 4th, 2010

Significant numbers of immigrants are uninsured.

In 2003, between 43 to 52 percent of all non-citizens were uninsured, compared with only 15 percent of native-born citizens and 21 percent of naturalized citizens.[source]

Low-income non-citizens are the most likely to be uninsured: Among low-income adults, 70 percent of Latino non-citizens lacked insurance in 1999, compared to 34 percent of low-income Latino citizens and 28 percent of low-income white citizens.[source]

Children's insurance rates are affected by their own status as well as that of their parents: Among low-income Latinos, 74 percent of non-citizen children lacked health insurance in 1999, compared to 30 percent of citizen Latino children with non-citizen parents and 17 percent of citizen Latino children with citizen parents.[source]

Approximately 4.5 million legal immigrants who have arrived in the United States after the 1996 welfare law are effectively barred from receiving federally funded health insurance until they become citizens.[source]

Immigrants have limited access to health care.

In 1997, 37 percent of low-income non-citizens reported not having a usual source of care, compared to 19 percent of the low-income native-born.[source]

Non-citizens are more likely to be without a usual source of care and less likely to go to emergency rooms than citizens. On average, non-citizen children had fewer medical, dental, and mental health visits than citizen children.[source]

In 2000, over 25 percent of adult Mexican immigrants had not seen a doctor in the previous two years, about four times the rate for non-Hispanic whites.[source]

In 2000, 48 percent of Mexican immigrants ages 18-64 had no usual source of health care, and 58 percent had no health insurance. In contrast, 14 percent of U.S.-born, non-Hispanic whites had no usual source of care, and 14 percent were uninsured.[source]

In 2000, half of adult Mexican immigrants with no usual source of care and no health insurance had not seen a doctor in the previous two years.[source]

The history of U.S. immigration reflects the social, economic, and political climate of the time. It also illustrates the nation's ongoing ambivalence about immigration, as well as offers insights on the role of race, prejudice, fear, and nativism in shaping U.S. immigration policy. The facts tell the story best.*(The emphasis is mine.)

1790: Congress passed a law allowing naturalization for "free white persons." This racial requirement remained in effect until 1952, although naturalization was opened to immigrants from certain Asian countries in the 1940s.

1798: The passage of the Aliens and Sedition Acts authorized the President to deport any foreigner deemed to be dangerous.

1882: Passage of the Chinese Exclusion Act codified racism into federal law, denying citizenship for Chinese immigrants and suspending their entry into the United States. It was not repealed until 1943.

1906: The ability to speak and understand English became a requirement for naturalization.

1917: Congress designated Asia as "a barred zone," prohibiting immigration from all Asian countries except Japan and the Philippines.

1919: The Palmer Raids resulted in the deportation of 10,000 labor and immigrant activists.

1921-1930: Thousands of Mexican workers, including many U.S. citizens, were deported.

1924: The Johnson-Reed Act created a new national-origins quota system favoring immigrants from northern Europe and banning immigration by persons "ineligible to citizenship," a provision that primarily affected the Japanese.

1942-1945: The United States interned 120,000 Japanese Americans.

1942-1964: The "Bracero" guestworker program, begun to meet wartime labor shortages, brought close to five million farm workers, predominantly Mexicans, to the United States.

1954: Operation Wetback deported more than 1.1 million Mexican immigrants.

1965: Thanks to the Civil Rights Movement of the 1960s, the 1965 Immigration Act eliminated race-based admission criteria and instituted criteria based on the would-be immigrant's skills, profession, or relationship to family in the United States.

1975: Congress passes legislation to permit the resettlement of Southeast Asian refugees in the aftermath of the Vietnam War.

1986: The Immigration Reform and Control Act granted amnesty to about three million undocumented immigrants and instituted sanctions for employers who hire undocumented workers.

1995: California voters approved Proposition 187 to prohibit undocumented immigrants from accessing publicly funded education, welfare, and health services. The proposition was later found to be unconstitutional.

1996: Three acts of Congress--welfare reform, immigration reform, and antiterrorism legislation--significantly reduced immigrants' access to social safety-net programs, toughened border enforcement, closed opportunities for undocumented immigrants to legalize their status, made it difficult to gain asylum, stripped many due-process rights, reduced access to the courts, and greatly expanded grounds for deportation.

2001: Shortly after the attacks of September 11, 2001, Congress passed the USA PATRIOT Act, giving the federal government, among other things, broad powers to indefinitely detain suspected terrorists. At least 1,200 South Asian and Middle Eastern men were swept up in government dragnets, detained without charge, and denied due-process rights. Few, if any, of these detainees were charged with involvement in terrorist activities.

2002: The Department of Homeland Security put in place "Special Registration" which required all nonimmigrant males age 16 and older from 24 countries to report in person, register, and be fingerprinted. All but one of the countries targeted by this program were those with large Muslim populations. An estimated 13,000 men were placed in deportation proceedings during the first year of this program. Although it was terminated, Special Registration was the most visible and systematic government-instituted program to detain members of specific ethnic groups in the United States since the internment of Japanese Americans during World War II.

2005: Congress passed the REAL ID Act, raising the standard for political asylum seekers, creating additional grounds for deporting immigrants, and restricting the issuance of driver's license and state ID documents to certain categories of immigrants. More than 150 anti-immigrant bills were introduced in 30 states, although few bills were eventually enacted into law. Arizona, Virginia, and Arkansas adopted anti-immigrant laws that target vulnerable populations, including undocumented immigrants, day laborers, and low-income families. Arizona's Proposition 200, approved by the state's voters, requires state and local government employees to report undocumented immigrants seeking publicly funded health and social services to federal immigration authorities.

2006: The State of Georgia passed the Georgia Security and Immigration Compliance Act. Under this state law, effective July 1, 2007, Georgia employers must use a federal database to verify their workers' immigration status; recipients of most state benefits, including welfare and Medicaid, must prove their legal status; workers who cannot provide a Social Security number or other taxpayer identification are required to pay a six percent state withholding tax; corrections officials must report incarcerated undocumented immigrants to federal authorities; and local authorities are authorized to seek training to enforce federal immigration laws. In spring 2006, as this report was being finalized, Congress debated immigration reform legislation. Some proposals focused strictly on strengthening border and other immigration enforcement, while others called for guestworker programs, opportunities for undocumented immigrants to earn legal status, and provisions to address the family-visa backlogs. Depending on the outcome of this debate, the political environment for immigrants could change dramatically in the upcoming years, possibly driving some immigrants deeper in the shadows or giving those who could benefit from any new laws the opportunity to become fully integrated into U.S. society.

TruthSeeker22 (not verified)

at 16:23 on August 20th, 2010

The bottom line is that illegal immigration is what it states, an ILLEGAL operation. It does not matter the color of ones skin trying to enter the US, they could be the whitest man on earth, but the fact remains they are still illegal. And if you want to talk about something illegal, talk about our constitution which strips all citizens and their respective states the right to enforce THEIR land and gives complete freedom to those who do not own it. Illegals get their free hospitalizations, lawmakers get free trials, and banks get bailout money all of which come from our own pockets. Wait and who pays to deport these illegals? Who pays to spend millions and billions of dollars on a reactive service when our military could stop the border problem in just one night at half the cost we spend on "upholding" the law for these politicians and illegal migrants? Is that not taking away freedom which every man woman and child so desperately want? Maybe if America turned to God again, we would not be plagued by these conniving snakes that we moronically place in a position of power.

Rory Cripps

at 07:17 on August 21st, 2010

TruthSeeker22: Yes! The bottom line is that the federal government breaks the law day in and day out and no one holds it accountable. It's really time for the American people to rise up and take their country back from the hands of the elitist criminals.

Karen Hatter

at 07:34 on August 21st, 2010

So, Rory, exactly who are the elitist criminals? Are you declaring duly elected government officials to be elitist criminals? If not, to whom are you referring?

Re: the 'Take Our Country Back!' rallying cry:

This meme will continue until the radical Republicans implode or manage to take a strong majority back. In the name of partisanship the radical Republicans have managed to split the nation and turn a segment of it against the rest.

Those who believe they have lost the United States are now open to further radicalization. The rise of right wing violence and nationalist groups is a direct result of feeding the meme of illegitimate government to a base who is most unlikely to question the dogma or look for countervailing views.

Thinking that the government is illegitimate and believing that you are part of a small group who are the only true citizens is a volatile mix that can easily lead to large scale violence. Here is a fervent wish that it does not reach that critical mass. It is easy to say “we will win at any cost” but the fact is that when you say that you lose control of what that cost may be, not just for your party but for your nation as well.

Rory Cripps

at 08:53 on August 23rd, 2010

KAREN: Half the people in government as well as half the corporate CEOs out there are "elitist criminals". You didn't know that? I'm shocked!

Eric Long (not verified)

at 10:54 on August 26th, 2010

Good discussion going on here. My 2 cents: Illegal aliens do not need health insurance because they go to the emergency room when they aren't feeling well instead of making an appointment with an general practitioner. They give false names, receive treatment, and go on their way after they get the check up. I have read that it costs $4.3 billion dollars a year in emergency room visits for illegal aliens. Taxpayers have to eat this. Illegal aliens send more than $8 billion American dollars back to Mexico annually. I know how our government loves to print money like it was for the game Monopoly, but those are real dollars that are no longer in our economy. We depend on consumer spending. Less money in the hands of the people mean less of everything here, including work. We haven't had real leadership in America since I've been of voting age, and Obama has only added to our woes by crying racism when anyone disagrees with him. I find him and politicians like him repugnant. He's as bad or worse than that idiot Bush. Here's the reason that illegals pour through our sieve-like border. Money. Lots and lots of money; for them that is. Think of it in this way. Say that the average American makes $40,000 dollars a year, about $825.00 a week. I'm not going to exclude the taxes that would be levied on this money, but would probably be around 25% of their take home. The average Mexican makes about 209 pesos each day. As of this writing, that is about $16.00 a day which works out to $480.00 US dollars monthly or $5760 a year. Now, imagine that same illegal alien walks a few hundred feet across the border from Mexico to America, finds a job making minimum wage and works 9 hours a day under the table i.e no taxes withheld. With the American federal minimum wage of $7.25 an hour, they would make $1160.00 a month in the US given that they take an hour for lunch each day, or $15,080.00 for the year. So, they move over here, live in substandard housing for 12 months with a group of friends, and make at least 3 times the amount of money that they would make working in their country in that same year. All with the benefits of free medical care, food stamps, and anchor babies so they can come and go as they please. Think about that. Would you go to Cananda and work for one year making at least three times your salary in the US and have the ability to ship that money back to your family in the US with no tax burden at all? Um, hell-to-the-yeah anyone? I could take a whole year off from work and do anything that I wanted to do and have enough money socked away I could live above the standard of my own country. I would only really have to work every other year. The reality is, most illegals make more than minimum wage when they are here. Their average pay is closer to $12.00 an hour but I worked these numbers based on minimums and averages for both countries. Maybe when illegals finally slap the last nail into the American economy, we too can rush to the Candian border and live the Canadian dream. At least for a year at a time. I need to take every other year off man, I get real tired you know.