Published: June 30, 2008 01:53 pm         

Government intrusive except in enforcing immigration rules

How does it feel when it costs you $50 to fill up your car? Do you have more disposable income today than you had say 10 years ago? How about the rising food costs? If you want to play the blame game, you don’t have to look far. Blame our government and the policies, laws and regulations it imposes upon us.

Unfortunately, government intrudes into our lives in many ways and it’s too bad that there is one area where we’d like to see more government intervention and it’s missing. That is the area of illegal immigration. Our government has been woefully absent in the enforcement of our laws. Political correctness and liberalism have taken the place of common sense. Let’s take a look at some of the facts.

Immigration over the past seven years is at its highest level in American history. More than 10.3 million new immigrants have come to this country, with more than half of them without legal status, according to the CIS in Washington. One in eight people living in the U.S. is an immigrant for a total of 37.9 million, the highest level since the 1920s.

A large proportion of recent immigrants, both legal and illegal, are low skilled workers and about one-third have not completed high school. About 30 percent of all immigrants lack health insurance compared with 13 percent of native-born Americans.

Immigrants are employed at higher rates than native-born Americans but because of their low educational levels, many work at low-paying jobs that do not include insurance and other benefits. Harvard professor George Borjas estimates that between 1980 and 2000, immigration reduced the average annual earnings of American-born men by $1,700 or about 4 percent. Native born black and Hispanic workers were affected at a higher rate, 4.5 percent and 5 percent respectively.

Please understand that I am not advocating curtailing immigration. What needs to be stopped is the illegal immigration which has run rampant for many years. Who are the benefactors of illegal aliens coming to this country to find employment? Could it be our prestigious business community? In any controversy, to get to the facts all you need to do is follow the money. All illegal immigration has done is depress wages and increase the profits of the firms that employ the illegals.

And the social liberals stand by and say nothing as the gap between the rich and poor widens because while the wages of the poor and less-educated workers drop, businesses and the wealthy are able to take advantage of the cheap supply of labor and tens of billions of dollars were redistributed from low-income workers to rich folk. Can you imagine the outrage if Congress proposed raising taxes on the poor by tens of billions of dollars so that the wealthy could enjoy a more privileged lifestyle? Ever wonder why so many elitists look the other way when this issue is discussed? Follow the money.

— Robert Schrameyer, Goshen