In the course of the prevailing 109th Congress, President Bush along with several Congressional leaders will be proffering a proposal to ‘regularize’ (Read legalize, guest worker, earned amnesty, amnesty, etc.) the 20 million plus illegal aliens currently residing in the United States.
Pluralities of United States citizens have a quarrel with their Government over illegal immigration and the enforcement of current immigration law. This disagreement came to light in the recent Congressional debate on the National Intelligence Reform Act of 2004. The showdown implicated a craven Congress (with the exception of 77 members) succumbing to pressure from Congressional leadership and the President. The outcome was a sell-out of our country. Congress and the President chose to ignore key provisions of the 9/11 Commission Report recommending immigration enforcement, secure identification and border security. These critical components were eliminated from the final version of Intelligence Reform Act.
Ronald Reagan warned, in his first Inaugural Address, that Government showed signs of having grown beyond the consent of the governed and how a powerful Government elite threatened to usurp the will of the majority. Today, more than ever, this ‘tyranny of the minority’ is dictating policies to the majority of United States citizens. In the current instance, the ‘minority’ is the Government including elected members of Congress, the President and sometimes the Courts.
Many Congressional leaders (Including John McCain R-AZ, Joseph Lieberman D-CT, Edward Kennedy D-MA, Nancy Pelosi D-CA, Barbara Boxer D-CA, Susan Collins R-ME, et al) along with President Bush and other illegal immigrant cheerleaders view illegal immigration as merely a policy problem by blurring the distinction between right and wrong. They cloak themselves and their record in fatuous moral clothing by associating adjectives such as divisive, uncompassionate and mean spirited whenever the enforcement of current immigration law is mentioned. The real moral dilemma that occurs is twofold; Their position is in direct contravention to the overwhelming majority (Up to 80% on some immigration issues) of Americans whom they are supposed to represent; and based on this moral reasoning, are we to now to assume that a bank robber’s behavior can be excused because he was only trying to make a better life for his family? Ezola Foster, Los Angeles educator, author, family values activist and former Vice Presidential candidate, summed it up best when she said,” It is a sad day in America when the law-makers side with the law-breakers against the law-abiding citizens.”
Let’s look at what this ‘Guest Worker/Amnesty/Regularization plan’ is likely to bring us:
Arizona’s recently passed voter initiative, Proposition 200 (Denying State benefits to illegal aliens), and similar proposals in other States may be effectively subverted if illegal aliens are rendered legal residents.
Under President Bush’s proposed Totalization Agreement with Mexico, a newly legalized worker could become eligible for some Social Security benefits after only one and a half years (Six quarters) of tax contributions under certain conditions.
The United States currently has about 27 million illiterate citizens. Legalizing another 20 million illegals (Plus family members brought in later), largely un-literate even in their native language, only adds to the future tax burden of our children. Los Angeles Mayor, James Hahn, recently said that over 50% of the work force in his city was now illiterate and did not speak or understand much, if any, English.
Remember the last, last amnesty, the 1986 Reform and Control Act? A 1996 Immigration and Naturalization Service study found that 10 years after the last amnesty, which legalized 2.8 million (Plus family members brought in later), the average amnestied illegal alien had only a seventh-grade education and an annual salary of less than $9,000 per year. A study by the Center for Immigration Studies shows the net cost to United States taxpayers, in just the first 10 years after the 1986 amnesty (1986 thru 1996), came to more than 78 billion dollars in direct and indirect benefits to the newly legalized aliens, over and above any of their contributions.
A January 3, 2005 research paper by the Wall Street investment firm, Bear Stearns (Robert Justich and Betty Ng), revealed that pervasive employment of illegal aliens is a direct threat to middle class American workers. Illegal immigrants now hold 12 to 18 million jobs in the United States and 4 to 6 million of these have shifted from the legal work force to the underground market.
Steve Camarota, research director for the Centers for Immigration Studies, looked at successive censuses (1980, 1990, 2000) and found that, for immigrants who had been in the United States for twenty years or more, the gap with the rest of society was actually getting larger.
Research by Dr. Victor Davis Hanson, professor at Cal State Fresno and fifth generation Californian, concludes that each illegal immigrant will take more than $50,000 in services and benefits over and above any contributions, during their lifetime.
It’s time for another showdown between American citizens and their Government. The majority of citizens cannot continue to perilously remain a nameless or faceless number in the latest poll, only to be forgotten or ignored by the ‘tyrannous minority’. You have a right to be offended and a responsibility to let your elected representatives know how you feel. Now do something!
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Email: LonOpsahl@aol.com
