Is Illegal Immigration Moral?
By
Victor Davis Hanson
11/25/2010
We know illegal immigration is no longer really unlawful, but is it moral?
Usually
Americans debate the fiscal costs of illegal immigration. Supporters of open
borders rightly remind us that illegal immigrants pay sales taxes. Often their
payroll-tax contributions are not later tapped by Social Security payouts.
Opponents
counter that illegal immigrants are more likely to end up on state assistance,
are less likely to report cash income, and cost the state more through the
duplicate issuing of services and documents in both English and Spanish. Such
to-and-fro talking points are endless.
So is the debate over beneficiaries
of illegal immigration. Are profit-minded employers villains who want cheap
labor in lieu of hiring more expensive Americans? Or is the culprit a cynical
Mexican government that counts on billions of dollars in remittances from its
expatriate poor that it otherwise ignored?
Or
is the engine that drives illegal immigration the American middle class? Why
should millions of suburbanites assume that, like 18th-century French
aristocrats, they should have imported labor to clean their homes, manicure
their lawns and watch over their kids?
Or
is the catalyst the self-interested professional Latino lobby in politics and
academia that sees a steady stream of impoverished Latin American nationals as
a permanent victimized constituency, empowering and showcasing elite
self-appointed spokesmen such as themselves?
Or
is the real advocate the Democratic Party that wishes to remake the electoral
map of the American Southwest by ensuring larger future pools of natural
supporters? Again, the debate over who benefits and why is never-ending.
But
what is often left out of the equation is the moral dimension of illegal
immigration. We see the issue too often reduced to caricature, involving a
noble, impoverished victim without much free will and subject to cosmic forces
of sinister oppression. But everyone makes free choices that affect others. So
ponder the ethics of a guest arriving in a host country knowingly against its
sovereign protocols and laws.
First,
there is the larger effect on the sanctity of a legal system. If a guest
ignores the law -- and thereby often must keep breaking more laws -- should
citizens also have the right to similarly pick and choose which statutes they
find worthy of honoring and which are too bothersome? Once it is deemed moral
for the impoverished to cross a border without a passport, could not the same
arguments of social justice be used for the poor of any status not to report
earned income or even file a 1040 form?
Second,
what is the effect of mass illegal immigration on impoverished U.S. citizens?
Does anyone care? When 10 million to 15 million aliens are here illegally,
where is the leverage for the American working poor to bargain with employers?
If it is deemed ethical to grant in-state tuition discounts to
illegal-immigrant students, is it equally ethical to charge three times as much
for out-of-state, financially needy American students -- whose federal
government usually offers billions to subsidize state colleges and
universities? If foreign nationals are afforded more entitlements, are there
fewer for U.S. citizens?
Third,
consider the moral ramifications on legal immigration -- the traditional great
strength of the American nation. What are we to tell the legal immigrant from
Oaxaca who got a green card at some cost and trouble, or who, once legally in
the United States, went through the lengthy and expensive process of acquiring
citizenship? Was he a dupe to dutifully follow our laws?
And
given the current precedent, if a million soon-to-be-impoverished Greeks, 2
million fleeing North Koreans, or 5 million starving Somalis were to enter the
United States illegally and en masse, could anyone object to their unlawful
entry and residence? If so, on what legal, practical or moral grounds?
Fourth,
examine the morality of remittances. It is deemed noble to send billions of
dollars back to families and friends struggling in Latin America. But how is
such a considerable loss of income made up? Are American taxpayers supposed to
step in to subsidize increased social services so that illegal immigrants can
afford to send billions of dollars back across the border? What is the morality
of that equation in times of recession? Shouldn't illegal immigrants at least
try to buy health insurance before sending cash back to Mexico?
The
debate over illegal immigration is too often confined to costs and benefits.
But ultimately it is a complicated moral issue -- and one often ignored by all
too many moralists.
Victor
Davis Hanson
Victor
Davis Hanson is a classicist and historian at the Hoover Institution, Stanford
University, and a recipient of the 2007 National Humanities Medal.
THE
SITUATION OF LA RAZA SUPREMACY IS MUCH WORSE THAN THIS AUTHOR COVERS IN HIS
ARTICLE ON DREAM ACTS.
THERE
ARE ONLY EIGHT (8) COUNTIES WITH A POPULATION GREATER THAN LOS ANGELES COUNTY,
WHERE HALF OF ALL JOBS GO TO ILLEGALS USING STOLEN SOCIAL SECURITY NUMBERS.
LEAD BY LA RAZA SUPREMACIST LIKE GIL CEDILLO, THE STATE PASSED A LAW QUICKLY
SIGNED BY LA RAZA DEM JERRY BROWN (ELECTED BY ILLEGALS) THAT MAKES IT ILLEGAL
FOR EMPLOYERS TO USE E-VERIFY.
LOS
ANGELES COUNTY PAYS OUT $600 MILLION TO ILLEGALS ON WELFARE (source: JUDICIAL
WATCH). NOT A SINGLE LEGAL VOTED TO BE MEXICO’S ANCHOR BABY BIRTHING CENTER, OR
WELFARE LOOTING STATE!
ONE-THIRD
OF THE DRIVERS IN MEXIFORNIA ARE ILLEGALS DRIVING ILLEGALLY WITHOUT LICENSES,
INSURANCE AND FREQUENTLY IN CARS REGISTERED IN NOMINEE’S NAMES TO AVOID BEING
IMPOUNDED WHEN CAUGHT. LA RAZA SUPREMACIST GIL CEDILLO AND THE LA RAZA FACTION
IN SACRAMENTO ARE PUSHING TO END THAT. HEY. THEY’RE ILLEGALS, INVITED HERE TO
KEEP WAGES DEPRESSED FOR THE PAYMASTERS OF THE LA RAZA DEMS, LIKE CONGRESSWOMAN
ZOE LOFGREN. NEARLY 95% OF THE CAMPAIGN BRIBES THIS ADVOCATE FOR OPEN BORDERS,
CHAIN MIGRATION, AMNESTY OR AT LEAST CONTINUED NON-ENFORCEMENT, ARE FROM
EMPLOYERS THAT BENEFIT FROM SOME OF THIS STAGGERINGLY EXPENSIVE “CHEAP” MEX
LABOR.
WHO
BENEFITS?
LA
RAZA DEM, AND ADVOCATE FOR OPEN BORDERS AND NO E-VERIFY SEN. DIANNE FEINSTEIN
HAS LONG HIRED ILLEGALS AT HER S.F. HOTEL, JUST MILES FROM HER $16 MILLION
DOLLAR WAR PROFITEER’S MANSION!
LA
RAZA DEM, AND ADVOCATE FOR OPEN BORDERS
AND NO E-VERIFY CONGRESSWOMAN NANCY PELOSI HIRES ILLEGALS AT HER RESTAURANTS AND HER ST. HELENA, NAPA WINERY.
BARBARA
BOXER, ONE OF THE MOST CORRUPT POLITICIANS IN CA HISTORY, WAS REELECTED BY
ILLEGALS BASED ON HER PLATFORM OF CONTINUED NON-ENFORCEMENT AND NO E-VERIFY!
NOT ONCE, BUT THREE TIMES….!!! ON BEHALF OF THEIR BIG AG BIZ DONORS, BOXER AND FEINSTEIN HAVE PUSHED FOR A “SPECIAL AMNESTY” FOR 1.5 MILLION ILLEGAL FARM WORKERS…… DESPITE THE FACT THAT ONE-THIRD OF THESE FARM WORKERS COME TO GROW ANCHOR BABIES AND COLLECT WELFARE!
*
SOMETHING ELSE THE OCCUPIED
LEGALS SHOULD KNOW: ACCORDING TO CA ATTORNEY GEN. KAMALA HARRIS (AN OPEN
BORDERS LA RAZA DEM), NEARLY HALF OF ALL MURDERS IN MEXIFORNIA ARE BY MEXICAN
GANGS!!!
*
THE
STATE OF CA OPERATES DEFICITS OF $28 MILLION AND STILL PAYS OUT $20 BILLION IN
SOCIAL SERVICES TO ILLEGALS!
NOT
ONE LEGAL VOTED FOR ANY OF THIS!
BUT
THEN THE MEXICAN FASCIST PARTY of LA RAZA IS DOES NOT INCLUDE LEGALS!
Lloyd
Billingsley
The DREAM and the Nightmare
In California, students are better off being illegal immigrants than legal.
30 March 2012
The DREAM and the Nightmare
In California, students are better off being illegal immigrants than legal.
30 March 2012
Last
year, Governor Jerry Brown signed the California DREAM Act, which makes
students in the country illegally eligible for grants and waivers to attend one
of the state’s public colleges or universities. The students must have attended
school in the state for three years, “affirm that they are in the process of
applying to legalize their immigration status,” and show both financial need
and academic achievement. Assemblyman Gil Cedillo, the Los Angeles Democrat who
authored the DREAM Act, hails the legislation as a victory for those “in the
country through no fault of their own.” Opponents such as Republican
assemblyman Tim Donnelly—a first-term legislator not given to
understatement—called Cedillo’s legislation the “California Nightmare Act,” said it is “morally wrong,” and would create “a new entitlement that is going to cause tens of thousands of people
to come here illegally from all over the world.”
Poster
children for the DREAM Act abound. Mandeep Chahal, for example, was six years
old when her parents brought her to the United States from India. Chahal wants
to be a doctor; her fellow students at Los Altos High School near Palo Alto
voted her the person “Most Likely to Save the World.” That’s a tall order, but
to deny such a person the opportunity seems unreasonable. “Many parents of
these children pay taxes for many services they cannot get,” argues Cedillo.
Cedillo’s
point implies that illegal immigrants are the only ones subject to this
dynamic. But consider: my taxes subsidize the Medi-Cal system, which provides
medical care for low-income state residents, but I couldn’t “get” health care
that way, even in the year my income was so low that my daughter qualified for
a Pell Grant. Likewise, the taxes of, say, a California welder help pay for
top-drawer pensions and benefits for state
government employees, but he can’t enjoy those benefits himself. Neither is he
entitled to get a government job merely because his taxes help pay the salaries
and benefits of workers at the Department of Motor Vehicles, CalTrans, the
California Air Resources Board, the Franchise Tax Board, California’s
Department of Education, the State Board of Equalization, the Coastal
Commission, and on and on.
The
taxes of a fast-food worker help subsidize the University of California at
Berkeley, but nothing guarantees that taxpayer admission to Berkeley. The
state’s Master Plan for Higher Education does
guarantee everyone a place in the system, whether at a community college, a
state university, or within the UC system. But no one is promised a place at
the top, and the system grants no special favors to legal immigrants. When I
came to the United States, legally, in 1977, I had been studying at the
University of Windsor, a four-year school in my hometown of Windsor, Ontario. I
wanted to continue my studies at San Diego State University but was not allowed
to transfer because I hadn’t attended high school in California. SDSU
administrators suggested I try the state’s community college system, which
seemed a step down from what I had in mind. But eventually, I put two children
through San Diego State. They’re now working in productive careers, a tax
burden to no one. No legislation rewards parents for that achievement or for
coming to the United States with proper documents.
Cedillo’s law, by contrast,
rewards those who came to California illegally. Will the law, therefore,
encourage more people to enter the state illegally, as Donnelly and other
critics assert?
(IN FACT THERE ARE MORE THAN
11 MILLION ILLEGALS IN SOUTHERN CA ALONE! NOW NEARLY 40% OF CA ARE ILLEGALS,
33% OF NEVADA AND 24% OF COLORADO. MOST
NON LA RAZA PROPAGANDA SOURCES BUT THE NUMBER OF ILLEGALS AT 40 MILLION
AND BREEDING LIKE BUNNIES!)
Recall
how Congress passed and President Ronald Reagan signed the Immigration Reform
and Control Act of 1986, which gave amnesty to several million undocumented
immigrants. A quarter of a century later, the number of illegal immigrants
stands at 11.5 million. It seems clear
that the 1986 act didn’t discourage foreign nationals from entering the United
States without signing the guest book. One of those who obtained
citizenship under the Act was Alfredo Quinones-Hinojosa, who made his way
through UC Berkeley and Harvard Medical School and is now associate professor
of neurosurgery and oncology at the Johns Hopkins Bayview Medical Center in
Baltimore. Quinones-Hinojosa and others who have spoken out in support of the
DREAM Act often give the impression that their cases are typical of illegal
aliens. Not exactly. Amnesty measures, however well-intentioned, usually bring
unintended consequences.
THE REALITY OF LA RAZA’S LOOTING OF CA:
Consider Ignacio Mesa Viera,
subject of a recent front-page story in the Sacramento Bee.
He came to the United States illegally in 1979 to work and help his family, as
he explained, but was convicted on a drug offense in 1995. He was deported but
returned to the United States, whereupon he was busted for another drug offense
in 2008. Before his recent deportation, the U.S. government was paying for Viera’s
kidney dialysis, a treatment that can cost more than $60,000 a year. “I imagine
that the reason they don’t want to let me stay in this country,” Viera told the
Bee, “is they don’t want to be paying for this.”
Cedillo
and his colleagues need to know that everybody’s taxes pay for services they
and their children “cannot get”—including kidney dialysis and other expensive
medical treatments courtesy of the federal government. Meantime, as a University of California report noted last year, tens of
thousands of middle-class, taxpaying legal residents are being squeezed out of
an affordable college education even as the legislature contrives to provide
scholarships for the children of illegal aliens. The lawmakers’ solution is to create yet another
entitlement in the form of a new $1 billion scholarship program for students
whose families earn less than $150,000 a year. Such is life in the Golden
State, even with a DREAM Act in place.
Lloyd Billingsley is the author of Hollywood Party: How Communism Seduced the American Film
Industry in the 1930s and 1940s and the former editorial
director of the Pacific Research Institute.
OBAMA HAS PROMISED HIS LA RAZA “THE RACE” PARTY BASE of ILLEGALS AMNESTY, NO E-VERIFY, NO I.D. FOR REQUIRED OF ILLEGALS VOTING… OR AT LEAST CONTINUED NON-ENFORCEMENT!
OBAMA
HANDS MASSIVE WELFARE TO ILLEGALS, ALONG WITH OUR JOBS TO BUY THE ILLEGALS'
ILLEGAL VOTES!
The
truth about the DREAM Act
By Rep. Lamar
Smith
Published
March 20, 2012
The
DREAM Act has become a rallying cry for President Obama, members of his
administration, and liberal Democrats everywhere. President Obama has vowed to
“keep fighting for the DREAM Act,” which would grant amnesty to millions of
illegal immigrants.
It’s
true when listeners or those polled don’t know the facts that the DREAM Act has
some appeal. After all, we are all naturally sympathetic when children are
involved.
But
the descriptions of the DREAM Act voiced by President Obama and his cohorts are
not accurate. And the consequences are never told.
DREAM
Act supporters claim that only children would benefit from such a bill, but the
facts tell another story. Under most DREAM Act proposals, amnesty would be
given to individuals up to the age of 30—not exactly children. And some other
proposals don’t even have an age limit.
These supporters also maintain that illegal immigrants can’t go college without the DREAM Act. But the truth is that illegal immigrants can already go to college in most states.
And ultimately, most versions of the DREAM Act actually don’t even force illegal immigrants to comply with all the requirements in the bill, such as going to college or joining the military. The administration can waive requirements because of “hardship”at its complete discretion.
DREAM Act proposals are
also a magnet for fraud. Many illegal immigrants will fraudulently claim they
came here as children or that they are under 30. And the federal government has
no way to check whether their claims are true or not.
Such massive fraud occurred after the 1986 amnesty for illegal
immigrants who claimed they were agricultural workers. Studies found two-thirds
of all applications for the 1986 amnesty were fraudulent.
(ANYONE THAT THINKS THERE ARE ONLY 11 MILLION ILLEGALS IN OUR BORDERS SHOULD COME VISIT CA! LOOK AROUND AND TRY TO FIND A NON-HISPANIC ENGLISH SPEAKING LEGAL! CA IS NOW 40% ILLEGAL. NEVADA IS NOW 33% ILLEGAL. COLORADO IS NOW 20% ILLEGAL. AND LA RAZA IS NOW MOVING INTO THE AMERICAN SOUTH)
And this amnesty did nothing to stop illegal immigration. In 1986, there were about three million illegal immigrants living in the U.S. Today, there are an estimated 11 million illegal immigrants in the U.S. and about seven million of them work here, unfairly taking jobs from unemployed Americans.
While DREAM Act
supporters claim that it would only benefit children, they skip over the fact
that it actually rewards the very illegal immigrant parents who knowingly
violated our laws. Once their children become U.S. citizens, they can petition
for their illegal immigrant parents and adult siblings to be legalized, who
will then bring in others in an endless chain.
This
kind of chain migration only encourages more illegal immigration, as parents
will bring their children to the U.S. in hopes of receiving citizenship.
President Obama tried to
get the DREAM Act passed during a lame duck session about a year ago but it
faced bipartisan opposition in Congress. This hasn’t stopped the administration
from passing its agenda. The Obama administration does everything it can to let
illegal immigrants stay here, which compounds the problem.
Political
appointees at the Department of Homeland
Security recently issued new deportation guidelines that amount to
backdoor amnesty and strike another blow at millions of unemployed U.S.
workers.
Under
the administration’s new deportation policy, DHS officials review all incoming
and most pending cases before an immigration court to determine if the illegal
immigrant can remain in the U.S. Since the administration has made clear that
many illegal immigrants are not considered priorities for removal, including
potential DREAM Act beneficiaries, this could open the door to allow millions
of illegal immigrants to live and work in the U.S. without a vote of Congress.
The Obama administration
has also cut worksite enforcement efforts by 70%, allowing illegal immigrants
to continue working in jobs that rightfully belong to citizens and legal
workers. And the list goes on and on – this administration has a pattern
of ignoring the laws and intent of Congress.
The United States is based on the rule of law but the Obama
administration already has dirty hands by abusing administrative authority to
grant amnesty to illegal immigrants. The DREAM Act doesn’t stop illegal
immigration—it only encourages more of it by rewarding lawbreakers.
Rep.
Lamar Smith (R-Texas) is Chairman of the House Judiciary Committee
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