Essay title - United States Immigrants - Secure the borders now
The United States has always been and will always be a nation of immigrants. Almost every person in the United States today is a descendent from someone that had arrived to the United States from another country. The immigration policy of the United States does not discriminate people based on their race, religion, creed, or color.
A line from the poem “The New Colossus” that appears on a plaque at the base of the Statue of Liberty says it all about America’s immigration policy. The poem ends with the statue herself speaking:
Give me your tired, your poor, Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free, The wretched refuse of your teeming shore. Send these, the homeless, tempest-tossed, to me: I lift my lamp beside the golden door.
The beauty of immigration is that it offers freedom and opportunity to everyone. There are many different reasons why people have decided to come to the United States.
Whether it is to seek religious freedom; to seek relief from economic hard ships; or to make a better life for themselves and their families. Until the end of the last century the majority of people that has decided to immigrate to America have done so through legal channels.
The US Census Bureau conducted a nation census in 2000. Based on their estimates there were then 8.7 million illegal immigrants inside the United States.
Every year since then it is estimated that the amount has grown by as much as 500,000 a year (Knickerbocker). Illegal immigration is a major problem and concern to the United States. There is not one single strategy that can resolve this issue. If the United States implements a comprehensive strategy to combat illegal immigration this could also provide to both security and also sanity to the chaos at the border (Edelman).
This is the reason that the United States needs to secure its borders from the flood of immigrants that enter the country illegally.
There are many different ways that this can be accomplished. The first is to increase the number of agents that patrols the border. Currently there are not enough agents to patrol the border. As a result the United States has developed a “virtual border fence”. This fence is in use near Arivaca, Arizona. It uses nine towers with camera that can detect illegal border crossers in the day time or at night. With these remote controlled cameras that individuals that monitor the system can dispatch border agents to where people are crossing the border. These cameras have such a high resolution they are able to zoom in and detect if the people are armed and what clothing they have are wearing (Blasius).
Next there is the construction of a fence along the 1952 mile border with Mexico.
President Bush signed a measure to authorize the construction of a 700 mile fence on October 26, 2006 (Fletcher and Weisman). This fence would be equipped with high-tech TV cameras, lighting, motion sensors, and ground motion sensors to detect any
underground digging. The fence will be a double fence with a hundred yards between each fence to allow border agents to patrol between the fences. The height of the fence will be restricted to the height of the tallest of the average population of Mexico which is about six feet. The reason behind this is because it not only provides a psychological effect, but it also cuts down on the construction and maintenance cost of the fence.
Finally there is the use of a National ID card. Since so many people in the United States are already carrying around many different types of identification such as drivers license, Social Security cards, and passports. This ID card would make it so that you would only have to carry one form of identification. This device could contain not only your photo but also emergency medical information, a finger print, or even a voice print.
This device could also act as a deterrent for another problem affecting the United States which is identity theft (Bursky).
This is not a debate over the rights of illegal immigrants, but it is rather a debate over the amount of money it cost to provide and care for the illegal immigrants. These are illegal immigrants that broke the law to arrive in the United States. Every year American families and individuals pay income taxes to the federal government and in turn they receive back a wide variety of services and benefits. Whenever one group of people use more benefits and services than they payback in taxes it causes a fiscal deficit. This in turn forces other groups to pay for the services and benefits of the group that has caused the deficit. Each year the United States government is involved in large-scale transfers of resources between different social groups (Rector).
There are many reasons why the United States needs to control and regulate those who wish to come into the country. The first is the rise in health care costs from illegal immigrants. Immigrants that enter the United States illegally do not undergo any medical screening to ensure that they are not infected with any contagious diseases.
As a result of the increasing amounts of illegal’s that enters the country diseases that had been eradicated or nearly eradicated by the public health system are now show up along the border (FAIR). These diseases include: tuberculosis, American trypanosomiasis, leprosy, and polio.
It costs the American taxpayers between $1.5 billion and $2 billion annually to provide federally mandated health care to illegal immigrants. The majority cost of the health care is paid for by the four states that border Mexico (Kyl). Under federal law Medicaid is generally excluded to any illegal or legal immigrants who have not been inside the United States for more than five years. Under a join state-federal program this law allows those immigrants who are pregnant or disabled to qualify for Medicaid to pay for emergency medical care. In 2004 a study of an estimated 300,000 illegal immigrants that lived in North Carolina the lawmakers have decided not to provide the illegal immigrants with additional health care coverage (Hartsoe).
The next issue it the cost of providing education to illegal immigrants. Currently there are nine states that allow illegal immigrants to attend public college at the price of in state tuition costs. These states are: California, Illinois, Kansas, New Mexico, New York, Oklahoma, Texas, Utah, and Washington. These states have enacted legislation to allow illegal immigrant students who have two to three years of residency apply and receive tuition at public colleges or universities within the state at in-state tuition rates.
Some American students that attend out of state schools are suing in federal and state courts. The federal illegal immigration reform and immigrant responsibility Act of 1996 prohibits public colleges from favoring undocumented students by offering them in-state tuition rates and not extending that offer to U.S. citizens (Porteus). California legislators recently voted to grant the in-state rate to illegal’s who want to attend the University of California. According to Joe Guzzardi who is an English instructor in Lodi, California writes:
“Illegal immigrants in the United States should not enjoy the right to pay lower in-state tuition rates. Permitting in-state tuition entices people to enter the country illegally, and in California such policies are compounding the state’s already enormous debt. Moreover, it is unfair for an illegal immigrant to receive admission priority and financial assistance over a legal resident or a U.S citizen.” (Guzzardi)
The cost of providing education for illegal immigrants and their children continues to rise. In 2004 the state of California paid an estimated $7.7 Billion to provide education to illegal immigrants from grades K thru 12. The estimated costs of educating all illegal aliens and their children in the United States exceed 28.6 billion dollars in 2004 alone (Minnesotans for Sustainability).
All of the children either native born American’s or immigrants are receiving a poorer quality of education as a direct result of the federal government passing the failures of its immigration policy on the states. As a result the future generations of workers, the future of the economy, and the long-term competitiveness in the world market cannot be ignored (Minnesotans for Sustainability).
The United States and Mexico are considering a plan that would allow illegal immigrants from Mexico to collect Social Security benefits for the work that they did during the time that they were breaking the law. This plan is called “totalization”. This would allow someone to combine the years they spent working in the United States and Mexico when applying for benefits. As a result this plan would add over 160,000 Mexicans to the Social Security systems and end us sending over hundreds of millions of dollars to Mexico and put more strain on the Social Security system (Weyrich). On 18 May 2006 the Senate voted to allow Illegal aliens to collect Social Security benefits based on past illegal employment even if this job was obtained by the use of forged or stolen documents (Joyner).
The Center for Immigration Studies, a Washington-based group that advocates tougher immigration policies, used Census Bureau figures to compare the revenue that illegal immigrants contribute through taxes with the cost of government services they use. The report found that it costs the United States more than $10 billion a year to fund the services used by illegal immigrants (Fitzgerald). In 1996 the Internal Revenue Service created a nine-digit Individual Tax Identification Numbers (ITIN) for foreigners who needed to file taxes but do not have a Social Security number. In 2006 the number of ITINs that were issued by the IRS increased 30 percent. All a person needs to obtain a ITIN is to submit an application and a document that serves as proof of identity, such as a driver’s license or visa. More than half of the 8 million W-2 that the IRS received in 2004 that the names did not match the Social Security number were from California, Texas, Florida and Illinois (Barbassa).
The final effect of illegal immigration is the cost of law enforcement. With almost 900,000 people crossing the border of the United States illegally every year there is no way for law enforcement to know if any of these people pose a threat to our country.
During a five month period in 2006 there were more than 42,000 illegal aliens caught at the border who were convicted criminals or persons wanted for crimes (Buchanan).The financial impact of crimes that have been committed by illegal immigrants are estimated to cost between $14 and 80 billon or more each year. This total could reach well into the $150 billion range if you would take into effect the crimes of drugs being smuggled into the country.
Violence along the U.S.-Mexico border is undergoing what U.S. law-enforcement authorities call "an unprecedented surge," some of it fueled by weapons and ammunition purchased or stolen in the United States (Seper). The number of attacks that occur on the Border Patrol agents have increased dramatically. According to the New York Times in 2004 and 2005 the number of attacks has doubled from 374 to 778 (Kirkwood). One of the reasons for this increase in violence is a gang called Mara Salvatrucha or MS-13. This gang has an estimated 8k to 10k members in 33 states and tens of thousands more members in Central America. This gang is considered to be the most dangerous in America (Campo-Flores).
The amount of money it costs to keep illegal aliens in state prison have been rising rapidly. In fiscal year ’02, the Department of Justice’s State Criminal Alien Assistance Program (SCAAP) distributed $550 million to the states to help defray their expenses. Between FY'99 and FY'02, the detention of illegal aliens have increased by 45 percent (from about 69,300 inmate per year to over 100,300 inmate per year), and that trend is continuing. These expenses do not include the costs of illegal aliens incarcerated in federal prisons, public safety expenditures, detention pending trial, expenses of trial proceedings, interpretation, public defenders, or the incarceration expenses of immigrants for minor offenses that do not meet the standards of the SCAPP reimbursement program (FAIR).
If the United States would drastically cut illegal immigration there is a debate to what would happen to the economy. The people that support cracking down on illegal immigration argue that the absence of the illegal immigrants would be beneficial to the U.S. economy because this would force the employers to increase their wages to attack American workers to do these jobs. The opponents to the crackdown argue that the loss of this cheap labor would stall the economy because these workers do many of the jobs that few Americans will do (Davidson).
In the short term the cost of preventing illegal immigrants from entering the country is that there would be an increase in the cost of goods and services that were once provided by these illegal immigrants. The reason behind this is because these employers will have to pay more money to Americans to do the same job.
The long term effect of securing our border would result in an increase of money in three major areas. The first would be law enforcement. With a lower crime rate along the border these states could spend less time and money on the crimes that were committed by the illegal immigrants. With fewer crimes being committed it would not put such a burden on the legal system and the jails. Next is the effect on the public education system. In 2004 it cost the United States almost $30 billion to educate illegal immigrants’ children. This money can now be put to use to provide new text book, maintain and build better schools, and provide better teachers. Finally is the cost of the health care system. The United States spends billions of dollars each year on health care of illegal immigrants. With this amount of money now free to be spent in other areas of the health care system there would money free to help the average American with their health care coverage. With controlling access to the border this would control the influx of the eradicated disease from entering the country.
The current debate across the country about the immigration reform is that as a result it would make it harder for business across the country to hire low skilled labors which in turn could result in higher prices that in turn would be passed on to the consumers. According to Pat O’Brien from the American Farm Bureau if the labor pool from immigration is severely restricted it could produce a rise in cost from everything from wheat, corn and soybeans to dairy products, red meat and poultry. It is estimated that prices could rise as much as 5 to 10 percents. As a result in the labor costs this could have a devastation effect on many of the nation’s farms (Seid). With the United States securing the border this would put a huge strain on the people that rely on this type of cheap labor. In the state of Colorado the state legislature has passed some of the toughest anti-illegal immigration in the country. As a result of this the people that would migrate to the farms to pick the crops did not return. Now the farmers are turning to the states depart of corrections for help. These inmates would be the ones that pose a low security risk. If they choose to work in the fields, they would earn 60 cents a day and they are eligible for small bonuses (Riccardi).
The Department of Homeland Security’s Secure Border Initiative (SBI) is a multi-year plan to secure the nations border and to reduce illegal immigration. There are five key elements to the SBI:
- More agents to patrol our borders, secure our ports of entry and enforce immigration laws;
- Expanded and more efficient detention and removal capabilities to eliminate "catch and release" once and for all;
- A comprehensive and systemic upgrading of the technology used in controlling the border, including increased manned aerial assets, expanded use of UAVs, and next-generation detection technology;
- Increased investment in infrastructure improvements at the border - providing additional physical security to sharply reduce illegal border crossings; and
- Greatly increased interior enforcement of our immigration laws - including more robust worksite enforcement.
The Homeland Security Appropriation Bill that President George Bush signed into law provides the funds to hire an additional 1,000 border patrol agents, 400 new immigration enforcement agents and 100 deportation officers. This bill also included funds to add 2,000 new beds to the detention facility; increasing the capacity by 10% from 18,000 to about 20,000. The SBI uses improved technology to provide border security by the user of Unmanned Aerial Vehicles, aerial assets, remote video surveillance camera systems and sensors. The DHS will work employers in an effort to help reduce the hiring of unauthorized workers. By working together with the DHS these employers will minimize the known vulnerabilities in the employment eligibility verification process. One of the important steps of the SBI is the Criminal Alien Program (CAP). CAP a program designed to identify and remove all incarcerated criminal aliens from the United States (News Report).
In this economic time with huge government deficits it only makes since to stop the wasteful spending of the government. The United States spends billions of dollars each year to help subsidized the health care, law enforcement, education and Social Security of illegal immigrates. The biggest of the four is the amount of money spent on the education system. As stated before the state of California has spent almost $8 billion in 2004 to provide education to the children of illegal immigrants. The total cost for the federal government to provide education is estimated to cost $28 billion per year.
The construction of a border fence is estimated to cost the federal government $50 billion dollars. Even if the government could save just half of the money it costs to provide education to the illegal immigrants it would only take four years before the fence starts paying for its self. This is only one aspect of the effect of constructing a fence for border security. With fewer and fewer illegal immigrates entering the United States it would cost less to maintain and patrol the fence. These border agents and law enforcement officials could be re-tasked to other areas of the country.
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