End the influx of needy illegal immigrants

[ilbegone]

opinion essay by Yeh Ling-Ling, executive director of Alliance for a Sustainable USA.

End the influx of needy illegal immigrants


Saturday, March 6, 2010

By YEH LING-LING

Californians are concerned about double-digit unemployment, rising health care costs, higher taxes and chronic state budget deficits. Why should they pay close attention to the immigration "reform" promoted by President Obama and amnesty advocates?

Even though many legal immigrants and minority native-born citizens cannot find work, many Asian and Hispanic immigration activists demand amnesty and U.S. citizenship for millions of illegal immigrants, a scheme they term immigration "reform." If amnesty becomes law, millions of legalized people will likely apply for their extended families to immigrate to the United States. These tens of millions of newcomers will also need jobs, in addition to health care, education and many other costly social services.

The misleading "comprehensive immigration reform" will, in fact, increase illegal immigration as well if enacted: Millions of newly naturalized people will be mobilized by open border activists to vigorously oppose all efforts to reduce illegal immigration in the future. Sen. Dianne Feinstein, a strong amnesty advocate, should be reminded that after the Immigration Reform and Control Act of 1986 amnestied 3 million illegals, even though it had provisions intended to secure our borders, our illegal population has more than quadrupled!

California leaders should take a hard look at the impacts of record levels of immigration. Although some immigrants are great assets to the U.S., most foreign-born workers have limited incomes and are not likely to pay enough taxes to offset the cost of educating their children, let alone the costs of other social services.

American leaders must wake up: China now holds the largest foreign currency reserves in the world while Asia has more than 100 billionaires. Conversely, the budget deficits at the federal level and in many states have skyrocketed with no end in sight. Also, record unemployment and welfare benefits are being handed out to U.S. residents. It is irresponsible that we should invite other nations' poor to live the American Dream while we allow the numbers of unemployed and homeless Americans to escalate.

The worst may be yet to come if the U.S. population continues to grow. Do we want the United States to become like India, the Philippines and Mexico -- countries that many of us and/or our ancestors have left?

The U.S. is now a huge debtor nation due to many of our shortsighted and irresponsible policies. It is immoral to keep piling trillions of dollars in debt on the backs of our children to finance current and future needs.

For the sake of all U.S. citizens, Obama and Congress should immediately work together to enact some sort of immigration moratorium. Our immigration laws should also be strictly enforced across the board so that we can put American job-seekers, welfare recipients and nonviolent prison inmates to work.

Unless U.S. leaders are willing to work seriously on stabilizing the U.S. population, America will continue its rapid downhill slide.

Yeh Ling-Ling is executive director of Alliance for a Sustainable USA.