Presentation Transcript

1. Illegal Immigration

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2. The Issue With over 10 million undocumented immigrants in the US (as of 2009), the issue of illegal immigration continues to divide Americans.
3. Socially Liberal Some people say that illegal immigration benefits the US economy through additional tax revenue, expansion of the low-cost labor pool, and increased money in circulation. They contend that immigrants bring good values, have motivations consistent with the American dream, perform jobs that Americans won’t take, and that opposition to immigration stems from racism.
4. Socially conservative Opponents of illegal immigration say that aliens who break the law by crossing the US border without proper documentation or by overstaying their visas should be deported and not rewarded with a path to citizenship and access to social services. They argue that illegal aliens are criminals and social and economic burdens to law-abiding, tax-paying Americans.
5. Economically Socially Conservative Socially Liberal Some evidence suggests that unskilled illegal immigrants (almost all from Latin America) marginally suppress wage levels of native-born Americans without a high school diploma, and impose significant costs on some state and local governments. However the estimated wage suppression and fiscal costs are relatively small, and economists generally view the overall economic benefits of this workforce as significantly outweighing the costs.“ Apr. 30, 2009 - Alan Greenspan, PhD "Illegal immigration costs U.S. taxpayers about $113 billion a year at the federal, state and local level… The annual outlay that illegal aliens cost U.S. taxpayers is an average amount per native-headed household of $1,117... Education for the children of illegal aliens constitutes the single largest cost to taxpayers, at an annual price tag of nearly $52 billion...” Federation for American Immigration Reform (FAIR)
6. Economically The Wall Street Journal, in its "Monthly Economic Forecasting Survey: April 2006," conducted from Apr. 7-11, 2006, obtained the following answers from 46 economists:
7. What are the solutions to illegal immigration in America? Is the legalization of illegal aliens a good solution to illegal immigration in America? Is amnesty a good solution to illegal immigration? Is deportation a good solution to illegal immigration? Is a fence along the U.S. Mexico Border a good solution to illegal immigration? Is the enforcement of existing immigration laws alone a good solution to illegal immigration in America?
8. Is the legalization of illegal aliens a good solution to illegal immigration in America? YES NO "[We] must insist that they [Members of Congress] support a zero-net-immigration moratorium. Only pushing a moratorium calls the whole enterprise of mass immigration into question, defeats the Open Borders crowd's argument that '...we can 'solve' the illegal immigration problem by legalizing them all…' and thus puts maximum downward pressure on immigration numbers.“ Carrying Capacity Network (CCN), "It would be impossible to identify and round up all 10 to 11 million of the current undocumented, and if we did, it would ground our nation's economy to a halt. These millions of people are working. Aliens will not come forward to simply 'report and deport.' We have a national interest in identifying these individuals, incentivizing them to come forward out of the shadows, go through security background checks, pay back taxes, pay penalties for breaking the law, learn to speak English, and regularize their status. Anyone who thinks this goal can be achieved without providing an eventual path to a permanent legal status is not serious about solving this problem.“ John McCain
9. Is amnesty a good solution to illegal immigration? YES NO "Amnesty is bad policy and sends the message that immigrants are better off breaking our laws rather than respecting them.“ Randy Neugebauer, US Representative (R-TX) "Absolutely. I supported and was prepared to vote for amnesty from 1986. And it is essential to have immigration reform. Anyone who has been in this country for five or six years, who's paid their taxes, who has stayed out of trouble, ought to be able to translate into an American citizenship immediately, not waiting.” John Kerry, JD, US Senator (D-MA)
10. Is deportation a good solution to illegal immigration? YES NO "...the debate we are engaged in presently is a good and necessary one. However, a solution based solely on enforcement is not... The current flow of illegal immigrants and visa overstayers has made it extremely difficult for our border and interior enforcement agencies... Despite a record performance on deportations from ICE [U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement] the past two years, at current rates it would take nearly 70 years to deport all of the estimated 11 million people living here illegally, even if not a single new illegal alien entered our territory. Attempting to deport everybody is neither feasible nor wise." Tom Ridge, former Secretary of the U.S. Department of Homeland Security "Credibility in immigration policy can be summed up in one sentence: Those who should get in, get in; those who should be kept out, are kept out; and those who should not be here will be required to leave. ...for the system to be credible, people actually have to be deported at the end of the process." Barbara C. Jordan, JD, late U.S. Representative (D-TX)
11. Is a fence a good idea?
12. Will a Fence work? YES NO "We need those individuals to continue to grow our economy...If you show up illegally, without your card or you're here as a criminal element, I'm for throwing the book at those folks, but the issue of people who want to legally, thoughtfully and appropriately come to America to work and help us build our economy -- we should quickly come up with a program and an identification card to do that...We know how to deal with border security, and you don't do it by building a fence.“ Rick Perry, the Republican Governor of Texas "Fences are an important part of our border security strategy because fences help Border Patrol agents on the ground have a tactical advantage over the smugglers on the southern side of the border. Certainly in urban settings such as El Paso, Texas and San Diego, California, fences have proven to be quite effective in stemming the flow of illegal entry...The goal is to detect intrusions, rapidly respond and resolve the situation by apprehension; and fences are a key component to that strategy.“ Ralph Basham, Commissioner of U.S. Customs and Border Protection,
13. What if we just enforce our current laws better? YES NO "The problem is, enforcing immigration law is not a local government's responsibility. The federal government should be ensuring that businesses don't knowingly hire people who are not legally eligible for employment. But the feds have failed. And that leaves it up to states, counties and cities. If this problem is going to be fixed, Congress is going to need to step in and pass real immigration reform. That reform should have strictly enforced penalties for those who hire illegal immigrants.“ Greenville News, a South Carolina's daily newspaper, "The starting point of immigration policy must be adequate capacity, and willingness, to actually enforce the law, whatever the content of the law happens to be. Lack of enforcement has been the central problem of immigration policy — Congress can design the most elegant legal and administrative framework imaginable, but it won’t matter if the immigration authorities are not permitted to use it to enforce the law.“ Mark Krikorian, MA, Executive Director of the Center for Immigration Studies (CIS),