Tag: News

Several of my friends have posted blogs about illegal aliens lately. A couple have referred to the invasion from the south, referring to the staggering number of illegal immigrants crossing the border from Mexico. It has prompted me to contemplate the issue more fully than I have in the past.

I have come to the inescapable conclusion that many believe we are being invaded by a vast horde that was never invited here, never applied through legal channels to come here, and which we have neither the infrastructure nor the economy to support.

I want to make it perfectly clear that I have no objection whatsoever to legal immigration. Congress should, in my opinion, make better immigration policies that pave a pathway to integration and citizenship. But in the face of the mind-boggling numbers of illegal immigrants, reducing the number of foreign-born people coming legally to the U.S. would seem only to punish those who go about things the proper way and reward those who do not. Congress needs to focus on the “invasion” from the south more than it needs to worry about the people who are doing things the right way. It needs to prioritize according to the severity of the crisis. What is happening in California, Arizona, New Mexico, and Texas is just that: a crisis. But it’s a crisis in which the United States is complicit and which it could handle much better.

I’ve seen lots of irritation over Spanish language options at banks, telephone service calls, and government offices. Why is this option even necessary? Here’s why: “nearly 50 million Americans spoke a language other than English at home in 2004—nearly one-fifth of all U.S. residents age 5 or older.”

Holy Hablamos Español, Batman.

With the current estimated levels of immigrants – legal and extra-legal – coming across the Río Grande, the number of non-English speaking homes is increasing rapidly. Population growth by immigration outpaces the rate at which we are replacing our U.S.-born population.

The government estimates that in 2005, there were “between 11.5 million and 12 million unauthorized immigrants and 10.5 million legal immigrants.” That’s right. There were at least one million more illegal immigrants in this country than legal immigrants. These numbers do not take into consideration naturalized citizens.

What’s even more staggering is that Hispanics account for almost one-half of the U.S. population growth overall. Now, to be fair, only about 60% of the non-legal immigrants are Mexican, so it’s not like we can just blame Mexico. Another 20% are from other Latin American countries. Eighty percent of the illegal aliens in this country are Spanish-speaking. Sí, Dear Reader, español se habla aquí, y se habla mucho.

Our infrastructure cannot keep up with the explosive growth due to immigration at these levels. In the video I’ve embedded below, we are told that in order to keep up with the population growth due considerably to uncontrolled illegal immigration, a new school will have to be built every single day from now until the end of time. That doesn’t even take into consideration the financial burden such population growth places on cities where these immigrants settle. Housing, food, transportation, the environment, road building, social services, child welfare, care of the elderly, daycare, water consumption, sewage treatment, garbage removal and disposal – the list goes on and on.

The National Guard and the Reserves are now being redirected to help with border patrol when they aren’t being sent to Iraq or Afghanistan. Deployment of these forces, which was infrequent before the 1990s, is available for all who want to go and required of many who don’t.

But are any of these wars worth fighting?