Why white people do not have the right to be safe in North America.

From civilizationwoapologies.blogspot.com

Why white people do not have the right to be safe in North America.

Reason #1: Foreign-Born Minorities Are Relatively Innocuous
This is the first in a series of posts detailing reasons the left gives for why white people do not have the right to be safe in North America.
The first reason boils down to:  It doesn’t matter that foreign-born blacks and Mexicans are somewhat more crime-prone than whites, because their US-born sons are much more crime-prone.
This is shown in data from the 2000 census provided in a pro-immigration article from the University of California, Irvine.  The article includes the usual language about “debunking stereotypes” but it only does so by setting up peculiar stereotypes to debunk.  Their main thesis is that immigrants are less criminal than the general population, but this is only true with an arbitrary redefinition of “immigrant”.  The normal definition is not limited to foreign-born people – “second-generation immigrant” is not a contradiction in terms – yet this article denies that a US-born person can be an immigrant.
The next method of obfuscation is subtle race norming.  This is the highly multiculturalist insinuation that whatever is common among a given minority is “normal”, even when it would be considered unacceptable for the rest of the civilization.  This is why it seemed completely logical to the academics at UC Irvine to set up the tables the way they did, with each racial and national group treated separately, and comparisons made only between people of different birthplaces and different education levels.  Race norming is one of the psychological underpinnings of affirmative action, and as we have seen here, also lends its weight to the open-borders movement.
There has been some unfairness toward foreign-born people and their children, lumping them all together regardless of national origin (and behavior).  This also goes to show how insidious political correctness is – people would rather implicate immigrants in general than to narrow their focus to the high-crime groups: blacks, Chicanos, and Hispanic islanders (Dominicans, Cubans, and Puerto Ricans).  To do the latter would be labeled racist, even though many of the latter groups are of the same race (Caucasoid) as the majority of Americans.
The main data on incarceration rates can be summed up thus (with all rates applying to males aged 18 to 39):
High-crime groups (incarceration rates above 3%) -US-born blacksUS-born Laotians and CambodiansUS-born ChicanosUS-born VietnamesePuerto RicansUS-born CubansUS-born DominicansUS-born Salvadorans and Guatemalans
Moderate-crime groups (incarceration rates 2-3%) - Immigrants born in the Dominican RepublicForeign-born blacksUS-born Colombians, Ecuadorians, and PeruviansImmigrants born in Cuba
In the US-born category, there is a very clear heirarchy of criminality: blacks have the highest crime rates, followed by Mexicans and Southeast Asians, Hispanic islanders, Central Americans, South Americans, whites, Filipinos, Indians, Koreans, with Chinese having the lowest crime rates.  In foreign-born category, the heirarchy is almost exactly the same.
The article notes the increasing criminality from generation to generation, but obfuscates it with typically mealy-mouthed language: The data examined thus far suggest that the process of “Americanization” leads to downward mobility and greater risks of involvement with the criminal justice system among a small but significant segment of this population.
There is not a thing in the article suggesting that Americans have the right to choose which countries lend us our next batch of immigrants, even though the data make it clear that to do so could dramatically reduce crime in the future.  The authors know quite well that immigrant groups all reproduce – many of them much faster than natives – and yet they persist in claiming that increased immigration will not lead to more crime.  They are clearly not confused about this; rather, they are seeking to increase the amount of crime against lower-middle class US natives as a way of dividing, demoralizing, and ultimately destroying that group.

Reason #2: Europeans were not the First People in America
This is the second in a series of posts detailing reasons the left gives for why white people do not have the right to be safe in North America.
This reason is best stated as: Since white Americans are descended from people who came to America after it was already partly settled, they do not have nor will they ever develop the right to be safe from crime or the anti-white propaganda that encourages it.
The verdict of history is that almost every country was formed through fighting and displacement.  Most areas were settled before recorded history, so it is generally not known which ethnic group was the first to settle an area.  Even in cases where the group which currently dominates is known to have displaced another group, no one questions the right of the majority to live safely in the land of their birth, unless the native majority is of British, Dutch, Jewish, or German descent.  Thus the right of Afrikaners to live in South Africa is questioned, but the right of Zulus to live in the same country is not, even though both groups are descended from invaders.
When this questioning appears in the group in question, it takes the form of existential angst on a national scale.  These feelings exist in all former British countries with white majorities.
One of the ways to chip away at respect for the rights of white people is to use biased and misleading language to describe the indigenous peoples.  In America, the favored term is “Native American”, which implicitly denies that whites can belong to America (even though “native” means nothing more or less than having been born in the place in question).  Another term, “Original Americans”, is merely speculative, since it is not known which ethnic group was first in North America, and available evidence implies that whoever they were they were not related to any extant Amerindian group.  The same sleight-of-hand is a work with the chosen Canadian term “First Nation”, again implying that extant tribes settled North America without displacing anyone – a proposition for which there is no evidence.  (The term most commonly used in Australia – “Aboriginal” – is more than likely accurate as the Aborigines are part of the broad Australopapuan group who were almost certainly the first humans in the region.)
These semantic tricks are not applied to any other group.  If you asked a group of Slavs born in Siberia if they ever had any contact with the “native Siberians” they would have no idea what you were talking about.  No one ever uses the existence of the Ainu to question Japan’s right to exist.   The groups insisting on black rule for South Africa – in spite of its utter failure to maintain prosperity or even order in Zimbabwe – did so by constantly reminding everyone that blacks preceded whites in southern Africa, glossing over the fact that the black majority – the Bantus – had gotten into that position by displacing the pre-existing Capoid groups.  Let bygones be bygones, we are told – unless a Germanic group would be slurred by the reopening of old racial wounds.

Reason #3: Unlike the USA, Mexico is a Native American State
This is the third in a series of posts detailing reasons the left gives for why white people do not have the right to be safe in North America.

This is reason involves some of the weirder logic of the racialist left.  It’s not easy to sum up, but it goes something like: The USA and Mexico were populated by Amerindians in 1492.  Mexico’s population has a greater admixture of Amerindian blood.  Thus, regardless of the ethnicity of the Mexican ruling class, Mexico is a more just and authentic government, and the rightful heir to the states of the US Southwest, if not the whole country.
The notion that Mexico is glorious land of racial tolerance is belied by the facts.  The notion is based on the somewhat greater mixing of Iberian peoples with the indigenous Mexicans than happened between Germanic peoples and the indigenous North Americans.  The latter case gave birth to the myth of “La Raza” – the rightful master race of Aztlan which is conceived of as a mix of Spanish and indigenous peoples.  Most Mexicans are indeed of mixed heritage, but this doesn’t change the overwhelmingly white nature of the ruling caste.
Nor does it alter the bizarre leftist nature of Mexico’s claims against the United States.  Mexico’s white rulers demand that the USA accept more and more mestizos that cannot seem to find prosperity or even safety in Mexico – and this demand is treated by the mainstream media as the height of progressivism and social justice.  Mexico does not lack natural resources (its daily production of oil exceeds Iraq’s), it does not lack income from tourism, there is decent land for a variety of agricultural products, etc.  Leftists never even try to explain what it is about the loss of southern California, Arizona, New Mexico, etc. that impoverished Mexico, because there is no explanation.
The poverty of Mexico’s lower classes is the result of corruption and an overlarge state that strangles market forces and suppresses class mobility.  No other explanations fit the facts.  For the same corrupt government to push its poorest people to emigrate to take advantage of US emergency rooms and US jobs (always said to be “low-paid” but they are quite high in pay compared to similar non-union jobs in Mexico) is just more of the same: feudal-style oppression of the masses, combined with a neo-colonial chauvinism emanating from Mexico City.  Yet now, the nominally anti-colonialist left, as well as nominally conservative Hispanic politicians in the US, have aligned themselves with the Mexican ruling caste.
These mainstream attitudes are not leukophobia per se – a true leukophobe would side with the country that produced Bobby Jindal, Barack Obama, Ben Nighthorse Campbell, and Daniel Inouye in preference to Mexico.  Rather, it simply shows an anti-Germanic, anti-Anglo bias in the media that maps directly onto the notion that the most successful civilizations should be ashamed of themselves ipso facto.

Reason #4: European Conquest of the Americas was Uniquely Violent and Premeditated
This is the fourth in a series of posts detailing reasons the left gives for why white people do not have the right to be safe in North America.
This reason is best stated as: By picking certain frames of reference, both in time and place, it is easily shown that white intentions in the Americas were primarily driven by a desire to kill and dominate, and they presumably maintain these desires to the present day.

The main tool the left uses to make this reason seem plausible is their own historical ignorance, which is reproduced in the generations they teach.  Leftists never mention the eastward expansion of the Russian Empire into territory previously held by Yakuts, Mongolians, etc.  They are typically not aware that the Celts are not the first people in the British Isles, coming to culturally dominate (though not replace) the Ice Age hunters (whose genes are reflected in modern British people as a striking similarity to the Basques of Spain and France).
Countless areas of the Earth, most of Eurasia and Africa for instance, are inhabited by people other than their original inhabitants, yet few countries have their right to exist questioned for that reason.  Self-criticism is indeed a virtue, but PC multiculturalism has distorted self-criticism into a vicious masochism and self-loathing.  When this mindset is applied to history, it creates nothing more or less than sentiment that “the cowboys were bad; the Indians were good.”
Slavery between indigenous American tribes is mostly forgotten, except as historical footnotes.  More importantly, the origin of principled opposition to slavery – Britain – is completely obscured.  Violence between English settlers and indigenous Americans is highlighted as if it were unique and bizarre.  No historian could hope to do a complete accounting for guilt – it would simply not be a valid way to study history – yet the implication is always there: the white man is always the bad guy.
English colonialism in North American was no worse than colonialism anywhere else, but it is more useful to leftists, since it has the potential to call into question the legitimacy of the most powerful capitalist, white-majority country in the world – the United States.  The effects are felt deeply, as generation after generation of American youth grow up too ashamed to show any patriotism, or oppose the resettlement of their country by Mexico.

America Has the Right to Know the Consequences of National Energy Tax

House passes climate change bill By: Lisa Lerer and Patrick O’Connor June 25, 2009 08:43 PM EST

Democrats narrowly passed historic climate and energy legislation Friday evening that would transform the country’s economy and industrial landscape. But the all-hands-on-deck effort to protect politically vulnerable Democrats by corralling the minimum number of votes to pass the bill, 219-212, proves that there are limits to President Barack Obama’s ability to use his popularity to push through his legislative agenda. Forty-four Democrats voted against the bill, while just eight Republicans crossed the aisle to back it. Despite the tough path to passage, the legislation is a significant win for House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Ca.) and the bill’s two main sponsors – House Energy and Commerce committee chairman Henry Waxman (D-Ca.) and Massachusetts Rep. Edward Markey (D) – who modified the bill again and again to get skeptical members from the Rust Belt, the oil-producing southeast and rural Midwest to back the legislation. “We passed transformational legislation which takes us into the future,” Pelosi said at a press conference following the vote, after she and other leaders took congratulatory phone calls from Obama, former Vice President Al Gore and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid. “It has been an incredible six months, to go from a point where no one believed we could pass this legislation to a point now where we can begin to say that we are going to send president Obama to Copenhagen in December as the leader of the of the world on climate change,” said Markey, referring to world climate talks scheduled this winter. After months of negotiations, 211 Democrats and eight Republicans voted for the bill of more than 1,200 pages, setting the legislation on a path towards the Senate. There, it faces a far more uncertain future given the opposition of key moderates and the already-heated battle over health care. Republicans are sure to try and use against other Democrats in 2010, with accusations that they raised electricity bills for already-strapped consumers in the midst of a deep recession. Indeed, the National Republican Congressional Committee wasted little time before blasting out a press release targeting more than two dozen Democrats for supporting “Democrats’ ongoing crusade against economic recovery.” “I’m in a tough spot. I really am,” Rep. John Salazar (D-Colo.), one of the Democrats who opposed the bill, said before the vote, citing his fears the legislation could raise energy costs and hurt the coal industry in his low-income, rural district. “Either way I’m going to get creamed.” Democratic leadership attempted to protect their most vulnerable freshman by cajoling yes votes from more senior members such as Lloyd Doggett of Texas. Doggett announced his change of heart from “strong objection” earlier in the day during the final stage of the floor debate. Doggett told POLITICO that he made his switch after speaking to Obama and having lengthy conversations with Waxman, Markey, Gore and Pelosi, but ultimately, he decided to support the bill so he could have a seat at the negotiating table when California Sen. Barbara Boxer introduces it in the Senate later this summer. “It has been a difficult and significant decision,” Doggett said. “I just decided that I will have a better chance to make changes later in the process if I acted in good faith now. But don’t think this means I’m signing off on the conference report,” he said. When the bill passed, the chamber erupted in applause, and colleagues shook Markey and Waxman’s hands. Even some Republicans clapped, mocking the Democrats for casting what they deemed a politically unpopular vote. The vote itself proceeded with much less drama than hung in the chamber for most of the day leading up to the much anticipated roll call; Democrats looked relieved and Republicans resigned as they watched votes register on the big board above the House floor. Fence-sitting Republicans such as Washington Rep. Dave Reichert and New Jersey Rep. Leonard Lance waited to vote “yes” on the bill, in a game of chicken with moderate Democrats. Many of those moderate Democrats, like freshman Rep. Bobby Bright of Alabama, also waited until the end of the roll call to cast votes against the package. In the end, Democrats had the votes they needed, and many veteran moderates were able to cast votes against the bill without hanging junior Democrats out to dry. One possible exception – Maryland Rep. Frank Kratovil, a freshman – accepted handshakes from colleagues after casting an early vote in favor of the package. The debate leading up to the vote was nevertheless intense. Democrats touted the legislation as a measure that would improve national security, create jobs, protect the environment and reestablish the United States as a world leader. Republicans slammed the bill as an economic catastrophe. “I look forward to spending the next 100 years trying to fix this legislation,” said California Republican Brian Bilbray. “This is the biggest job killing bill that’s ever been on the floor of the House of Representatives. Right here, this bill,” said House Minority Leader John Boehner. “And I don’t think that’s what the American people want.” Donning reading glasses, Boehner then delayed the roll call vote by reading page-by-page through a 300-page managers’ amendment Democrats added at around 3 a.m. on Friday. Boehner seemed to relish the hour-long stunt, picking out the bill’s most obscure language and then pontificating about what it might – or might not – mean. Republicans laughed along with him and roared with applause when he was done. The complex bill mandates a 17-percent cut in greenhouse gas emissions by 2020 and a 83-percent cut by 2050, reductions that will be accomplished by putting a price on carbon dioxide through a cap-and-trade system. It mandates that 20 percent of electricity comes from renewable sources and increased energy efficiency by 2020. And the legislation gives electric utilities, coal plants, energy-intensive manufacturers, farmers, petroleum refiners, and other industries special protections to help them transition to new, less-fossil fuel-intensive ways of doing business. It will also raise electricity prices for consumers by $175 a year per household by 2020, according to a report by the Congressional Budget Office, significantly less than the $3,000 price hike predicted by Republicans who say the “energy tax” will increase energy bills and the cost of consumer goods. Obama praised the House for taking a “bold and necessary step,” then wasted no time in turning up the heat on the upper chamber. “Now it’s up to the Senate to take the next step. And I’m confident that in the coming weeks and months the Senate will demonstrate the same commitment to addressing what is a tremendous challenge and an extraordinary opportunity,” he said in a statement. The White House played a significant role in drumming up support for the legislation, which is a key piece of the administration’s first-year agenda. The administration is under pressure to make significant progress towards cutting greenhouse gas emissions before the Copenhagen international climate talks next December. A long list of Cabinet secretaries, key staffers and even Obama himself lobbied undecided members. Gore, the don of the climate-change world, spent several days calling on the fence lawmakers. The legislation spilt both the environmental and business communities. Although environmentalists have pushed for stricter controls on greenhouse-gas emissions for more than a decade, more left-wing groups like Greenpeace wanted stronger emissions reductions and fewer protections for greenhouse-gas guzzling industries like coal. While some electric utilities, auto manufacturers, and Fortune 500 companies supported the bill, large business associations like the Chamber of Commerce argued that it would impose a crippling regulatory burden on the economy that would push factories and jobs abroad. The House chamber took on the feeling of a momentous vote on Friday, with lobbyists, administration officials and even the stray senator –in this case, Udall – working the hallways off the floor to convince fence sitters in one direction or another. After the rule vote, Markey quickly collared Holt for a brief conversation. “We are fond of seeing headlines that say this is the Democrats’ toughest challenge yet,” said House Whip James Clyburn, tweaking the media’s hyperbole. “Well, today that what quite true.” He joined many other Democrats in giving the ultimate credit to Pelosi making the difference on the vote. “Nancy Pelosi was the whip on this,” he said. – Victoria McGrane contributed to this story. Friday, June 26, 2009 YouTube.com House Democrats didnt want the American people to understand the true impact of Speaker Pelosis 1,500-page national energy tax. So House Republican Leader John Boehner took to the House floor and read portions of it to the American people, explaining how it would to raise electricity prices, increase gasoline prices, and ship American jobs overseas to countries like China and India. House Democrats didnt much like it either, and they tried to shut him down. But Boehner asked Chairman Henry Waxman and other Democrats: Dont you think the American people expect us to understand whats in the bill before we vote on it? Locust:  I think this is great news, thank you Michael Jackson, anyways, these events will insure the continuation of the current economic collapse of the United States, America is the proverbial lynch pin of the egalitarian humanist socialist movement within the Western world, once America falls into a ceaseless deepening depression with ever increasing unemployment, crime, poverty, and ethnic intolerance, Racial tension will flare up and trigger the coming bloody revolution against this alien government of socialist Republicrats.  White males will either grow a spine and take to the streets to defend their homeland or they will be slaughtered, ensuring the birth of an ethnocentric nationalist United States that will undoubtedly become stronger, and willing to bring to bear our ethnic mastery of science and technology in the coming war to reclaim Europe, exterminate the Islamic scourge, and annihilate before they annihilate us, China “the RED Dragon.”

From Stuff Black People don’t Like #33. The movie 300 #13. The Man and #152. Being Out-Rioted

From Stuff Black People don’t Like

#33. The movie 300

Black people are afraid of the movie 300. Yes, Black people went to see the 2007 Zack Snyder film, loosely based upon the heroic stand of 300 Spartans at Thermopylae, but Black people left the film with an uneasy feeling.

Breaking one of the cardinal rules of cinema, 300 depicted White people as the protagonists and as the supreme embodiment of heroism. Black people were quick to ascertain the depictions of White people as good and non-white people as bad.

Seeing the heavily muscled Gerard Butler depict King Leonidas, and bravely leading 299 other virile White men against a horde of non-whites, left a distressing taste in Black people’s collective mouths.

Black people do not like to think about history too much, because Black people don’t exactly have an excitingly stellar history, save for athletic feats in the United States and a crushing inability to maintain civilization anywhere.

Secondly, when they see Xerxes – who in fact was a White guy in reality – depicted as a seven-foot tall androgynous homosexual, they worry that White people will see a similarity between Barack Hussein Obama and the imaginary ruler of Persia from 300.

Anytime in a movie, White people are not portrayed as anything but homophobic, racist, hilly-billy, incestuous red necks, Black people get worried.

In the case of 300 Black people have found the ultimate movie that is included in Stuff Black People Don’t Like.

Because in the end, when White people start to see the movie depiction of Xerxes in the guise of the current President Obama, Black people truly fear they will see the movies depiction of White people, in real life.

http://stuffblackpeopledontlike.blogspot.com/2009/06/33-movie-300.html

#13. The Man

All Black people love conspiracies. Conspiracies that blame all Black problems on White people flourish in the Black community, especially conspiracies that date back hundreds of years, even thousands. Believing that White people stole numerous Black inventions; that many famous “White” people were actually Black – from Beethoven to Plato to Babe Ruth – and that White people are actually “ice people“.

Black people believe that crack was introduced to their community to kill them and keep them down; that AIDS was invented to kill them all off, due to their high fecundity rates; and that gangsta rap was created to convince Blacks to kill each other.

Rev. Jeremiah Wright, pastor to the Obama’s for 20 years, said, regarding the treatment of Blacks:

“The government gives them the drugs, builds bigger prisons, passes a three-strike law and then wants us to sing ‘God Bless America.’ No, no, no, God damn America, that’s in the Bible for killing innocent people… God damn America for treating our citizens as less than human. God damn America for as long as she acts like she is God and she is supreme.”

Black people have a natural distrust and aversion of government, and believe that anything that originates from Washington, or from the media, or from the mouth of any White person is only approved to bring about their collective destruction by THE MAN.

The Man is:

“The Man” is a slang phrase that refers to the government, leaders of large corporations, and other authority figures in general, rather than a specific person. “The Man” is colloquially defined as the figurative person who controls the world.”

All of the above mentioned plagues befallen the Black community are byproducts of “The Man” and his iniquitous imagination.Black people believe that “The Man” is behind all of his failures and all of his faults. He has kept Black people from creating flourishing nations in Africa; kept the alarmingly high Black illegitimate birthrate from falling; denied Black people a true golfing star and ensured Black scholastic achievement to be a mere dream.

(Watch Dave Chappelle discuss “The Man” and the numerous conspiracies that continue to destroy the Black community).

With the election of Barack Obama to the highest office of government, many Black people thought “The Man” was off their back, but Black people will recall he is only half-Black.

No, to Black people everywhere, “The Man” is sitting in an opulent high-rise office, surrounded by numerous – “The Man” – in training. He is sipping a glass of wine, while enjoying a cigar. His feet are propped up as he discusses the nefarious plans to subdue the Black man and all his recent gains. As he peers out the window of a 100-story building, the only thoughts “The Man” has, is how to acquire more power, and how to keep the Black man down.

Black people fear the rise of “The Man” and his omnipresent power is a constant reminder to Black people that they won’t be free of his maniacal reign until all White people are removed from any position of power.

#152. Being Out-Rioted

Black people pride themselves on their ability to engage in civil disobedience that would leave Henry David Thoreau blushing (look at this list of riots for the 20th century).

Whether from real or imagined problems and issues, Black people have an amazing ability to conjure up anger and frustration at the slightest provocation, turning formerly peaceful streets into war zones resembling Mogadishu.

Black people love to riot after the mistreatment of a fellow Black person, regardless of the heinousness of the crime committed. We can all remember the Rodney King beating and subsequent riots in Los Angeles and Atlanta; causing more than $1 Billion in property damage and robbing 53 people of their lives. This riot eclipsed the Watts Riots from 1965, that saw only 34 people killed.

A recent riot in Oakland after the shooting death of Oscar Grant, lead to the arrest of 108 people, and subsequently, the shooting death of four white police officers by Lovell Mixon – who has became a hero in Oakland’s Black community.

It was reported:

Police said the suspect, Lovell Mixon, 27, from Oakland, was on parole for assault with a deadly weapon. He had no-bail warrant for his arrest for violating parole. The Oakland Tribune reported Mixon had prior convictions in Alameda County for grand theft and possession of marijuana.

More recently, Blacks have rioted in Cincinnati; engaged in violence in Seattle riots; and North African immigrants in Paris burned portions of that city in 2005.

Indeed, Black people riot in every continent of the world and nearly every nation where they have a population – significant or minimal.

There were even fears that Black people would riot if Barack Hussein Obama was not elected president.

Black people have become synonymous with fierce rioters. It is a tried and true manner in which to get their way.

Black people, who have a fierce love of sports, also enjoy rioting after their team wins a major championship. Detroit, Chicago and Los Angeles have all seen riots break out after National Basketball Association (NBA) championship wins.

White people have tried to replicate riots on the scale of Black people, but have largely failed. Soccer hooliganism is relatively tame and frowned upon by the entire world. Black riots usually lead to rectifying of certain societal inequities, regardless of the validity of said accusations.

However, the recent 2009 Los Angeles Lakers win has put a new touch on riots, as images largely show Mexicans parading around downtown Los Angeles and engaging in previous-Negro approved behavior. Black people are scarce in the images and this raises a signficant question and conundrum: Stuff Black People Don’t Like includes being out-rioted. Why were there so few Black people rioting after the Lakers win?

Black people are world class rioters. To be out-rioted by relative newcomers to the rioting scene, immigrants for that matter, has left a deep void in the Black rioting soul.

Black people do not like to be out-rioted and if their history of rioting is any indication, we are overdue for a massive riot in the United States.

ETHNIC CLEANSING OF AMERICANS IN AMERICA’S CITIES- OUR COUNTRY COMING UNDONE – U.S Immigration Policy Means Ethnic Cleansing of Euro-Americans, CoCC Meeting Told

ETHNIC CLEANSING

OF AMERICANS IN AMERICA’S CITIES

By Frosty Wooldridge
July 23, 2007
NewsWithViews.com

Visited Los Angeles lately? How about Miami? What about New York City? How Houston, Texas? Notice anything? Millions upon millions of people from foreign lands reside illegally in our communities.

A Chicago reader echoed a growing crisis in America where Americans by the millions must step aside for people who broke into our country.

“As a native of the Chicago area I have been aware of immigration my entire life–as a youngster in the 60s we had many Central and Eastern Europeans in our community and they and their children learned English as soon as possible– and how the “melting pot” worked so well until 1965,” Terry said. “Although aware, I was not overly concerned until May 1, 2006. I was stunned to see all the Mexican flags, pictures of Che Guevara, and nasty slogans in Spanish by the hundreds of thousands of marchers in Chicago.”

Terry continued, “Much more disturbing is all the disinformation coming out of the Chicago Tribune, Sun-Times and the various Suburban daily newspapers. The editorial pages have been fair, giving both sides space in the letters to the editor section, but the reporting and the columnists have been very one-sided in their support of illegal immigrants. Almost every story is pro-immigration, feel good immigration stories or stories about how deportation will “break-up” families. Stories about the Latin Kings or illegal alien drunk driving accidents would make Geraldo Rivera proud. Those are only gang banger or drunk driving “incidents” not illegal immigration issues.

“To make a long story short and to keep these comments from becoming a rant, I contacted both Grassfire.org and NumbersUSA.com to air their videos and PSA’s on my cable-TV channel (www.tv17outdoors.com). I really believe people need to see the other side of the story, especially the population statistics put forth by NumbersUSA. The sprawl in the Chicago area has become overwhelming as Native Americans are pushed further and further out, the result of cultural and ethnic cleansing of neighborhoods. Today there are four Spanish Language TV Stations, 17 Spanish language Radio stations and numerous Spanish language publications, church services, street signs, box store signage, as well as government documents in Spanish. My son’s former grade school has hired three teachers to educate children in SPANISH! Even though Chicago is over one-thousand miles from the Mexican border, the Hispanic population in the area is now approaching two million! In 1965 it was less than 100,000 and they were mostly citizens (Puerto Ricans).”

There you have it! A snap shot of ‘ethnic cleansing’ in our American cities by a Chicago native. While illegal alien migrants chant ‘racism’, they methodically take over American neighborhoods and create their own enclaves filled with more of their own.

Take one look at Miami for ‘ethnic cleansing’ of Americans by Cubans. Travel to Houston to see Mexicans ‘ethnically cleansing’ Americans out of neighborhood after neighborhood. The same holds true in Atlanta, New York City, Dallas, Raleigh, North Carolina and any American city with major illegal alien overload.

If Black America thinks ‘racism’ overpowered it for most of the last two centuries, ‘ethnic cleansing’ of Black housing areas accelerates as Mexicans overwhelm neighborhoods in city after city. In Denver, where I live, Mexicans chase American Blacks out as fast as more relatives move in from Mexico.

Whether Senators Hillary Clinton, Kennedy, Specter, McCain, Reid, Hagel, Martinez, malcontent Cheney and others think ‘multiculturalism’ warms America’s heart—they stand dead wrong. Multiculturalism rips at America’s core. It destroys our cohesive society. It destroys our single language. It wreaks havoc in our schools. It shreds the American Dream. It forces Americans into a showdown with 20 million people illegally living in and ‘ethnically cleansing’ us out of our own country.

As it worsens from Bush not enforcing our immigration laws and Congress twiddling its thumbs, ‘ethnic cleansing’ of we Americans out of our communities creates tension, anger, failing schools and frustration that boils into violence.

At some point, Americans will stand their ground. When they do, look for heated violence on small and large scales in communities across America. If they don’t—look for major ghettoes forming by million of illiterate, foreign language speaking, non-citizens creating their own version of the Third World right here in America.

© 2007 Frosty Wooldridge – All Rights Reserved

Frosty’s new book “Immigration’s Unarmed Invasion“

U.S Immigration Policy

Means Ethnic Cleansing of Euro-Americans,

CoCC Meeting Told

The opening session of the semi-annual meeting of the Council of Conservative Citizens addressed the topic: Immigration — Is the Debate Over? In the US, unlike Absurdistan (Canada), immigration is still a legitimate concern. The CoCC debate enjoyed live covereage over C-SPAN.

Despite establishment efforts to all but declare the debate over, the panelists made it clear that Euro-America will not quietly accept its fate. Speakers emphasized that current immigration trends are nothing more than an invasion and the results will be not the joys of diversity, but the ethnic cleansing of the founding European people.

John Vinson of the American Immigration Control Foundation insisted that far from being over, the immigration debate has never really begun.

He explained that 1.2-million immigrants, legal and illegal flood into the U.S. annually. “Within 50 years, demographics will shift and Europeans will be a minority and culture will shift in the U.S. toward the Third World.”

There are already dark shadows of what is to come. Vinson cited the case of Mario Obledo, a California Hispanic leader who professes to be concerned about racism. Yet, Obledo has said: “California is going to be a Hispanic state and anyone who doesn’t like it should leave.”

How can this be happening, Vinson wondered. “Greed and treason are the reason. America’s elites don’t want any barriers to their profit making and don’t want to pay the American worker a decent wage.”

An example of this greed elite, said Vinson, “is George Soros, a passionate advocate of immigration. His Emma Lazarus Foundation gives money to pro-immigration groups.” Soros has been linked to massive currency speculation which has destabilized the economies of several Asian states.

` “They call us Nazis,” said Vinson, but it is the pro-immigration lobby “who see immigration as their final solution.”

CFRIC’s Immigration in Pictures to see the effect of immigration on Canadian cities

What is happening, argued Vinson, is that the rule of law is being confronted by the Third World’s philopsophy that might makes right and elites rule,when might makes right. Then, when there are no legal barriers, all men beneath them are “equal” he said

Concluding, Vinson told the meeting of 200 activists in Fairfax, Virginia: “We have to get over the idea that all cultures are equal. People came here to America because they see our culture is better.”

The second panelist was Virginia Abernethy, professor emeritus at Vanderbilt University. “Our own poor people, including minorities, are hurt first and worst by immigration,” she said. “The charge that we’re racist is ludicrous.”

Professor Abernethy focused on the demographic and financial impacts of massive Third World immigration. “The foreign born are 10 per cent of the population,” she said, “but 18 per cent of the births. We’ve been propelled into a birthrate that’s approaching that of the Third World..” One per cent population growth per year means we’ll double our population inside 70 years, she warned. “By 2050, we’ll be half a billion.”

“Population growth leads to serious environmental impacts, environmental degradation and higher taxes,” she cautioned. Following the pattern of many Third World countries, America is seeing a widening gap between a rich elite and the rest of the population.

Citing a recent study by Dr. Donald Huddle, Professor Emeritus of Economics at Rice University, warned: “The nearly 26-million legal and illegal immigrants settling in the United States since 1970 cost the taxpayers a net $69-billion in 1997 alone, in excess of taxes those immigrants paid.” Most of this burden falls on local taxpayers, she explained, particularly in the area of education. For instance, in California, just to keep up with the soaring population, “the state must build one new school a day!”

Abernethy, who is a member of the national board of directors of the Washington-based Carrying Capacity Network, said: “Blacks and Whites are fleeing California. Therefore, California’s real population growth is more than 100 per cent immigrant driven.”

There are hefty capital expenditures needed to accommodate this new growth, especially schools and roads. “Each new person costs a community $15,000 in capital investment.” She pointed to the fact that, on average, taxes in larger communities are 25 per cent higher than in smaller communities.

As for the alleged economic benefits of immigration, most of the GNP generated by the newcomers goes to the immigrants themselves as wages.

The competition for jobs caused by immigration drives down wages, Dr. Abernethy said. “Immigration is costing wage earners $33-billion per year in lost wages. That goes into the pockets of the employers. It’s destroying our middle and working class,” she charged.

The Huddle report found that during 1996, approximately 2.3-million predominantly low-skill American workers were displaced from their jobs due to the continued heavy influx of immigrant workers since 1970. That cost taxpayers, who paid more than $15.2-billion in public assistance for those displaced.

Dr. Abernethy echoed John Vinson in warning of “a growing disparity between rich and poor not seen since the Great Depression.”

The more people there are the more pressure there is on the environment, she warned. The topsoil in the U.S. is being destroyed 18 per cent faster than it can be replaced. “We’re doing this to export food. At some point, our soil will be depleted and we won’t be able to feed ourselves,” she cautioned.

“At the Carrying Capacity Network, we advocate a moratorium on immigration of 100,000 per year,” Prof. Abernethy said. “This is what polls show the American people want.” We’ll pay a terrible price to cater to the elite employers who want a nanny and a gardener cheap, she concluded.

Dr. Wayne Lutton, editor of the Social Contract journal, warned: “If President Clinton and his cronies have their way, we’ll have a very dark future indeed.”

“We really haven’t had a debate on immigration in America. One reason is that at no time has there ever been a general demand for more immigration,” Lutton argued.

Doris Meisner, the head of President Clinton’s Immigration Service chortled: “We’re transforming ourselves,” as immigration lawyers cheered. “What she should have said,” insisted Dr. Lutton, “is ‘we’re transforming and deconstructing you!’”

Did the politicians ever ask Americans: “Are your taxes too low? Is your air too clean? Do your children have enough playmates to play with? Are your roads too uncongested?”

The 1924 Immigration Act signed by President Coolidge was a rational response to the Balkanization which touched off World War I, Dr. Lutton argued. President Coolidge very naturally tried to head off the ethnic conflicts that had plagued Europe.

Early immigration programmes hoped to avoid a similar fate by placing the emphasis on selecting those “likely” to assimilate, he explained.

The 1924 Immigration Act, former college instructor Lutton explained, “limited immigration to 150,000 per year and tried to attract people similar to those here and, therefore, people who could be easily assimilated.”

The 1965 Immigration Act changed all that. The 1986 amnesty for illegals and the 1990 Act, which actually increased the number of immigrants annually even more, succeeded in increasingly immigration from 150,000 per year, mostly from Europe, to over 1.2-million per year, with 70 per cent of these being from backgrounds dissimilar to those of the founders of America.This has led to the family-driven chain-immigration that we have seen over the past 30 years

“The INS admits there are about 300,000 illegals annually in addition to the 1.2-million legal immigrants,” Dr. Lutton said.

“Immigration is not a single issue,” Dr. Lutton explained. “There’s an immigration impact on many other issues. We must help Americans see these links.” He mentioned such problems as crime, environmental degradation and the deterioration in education.

Recently, 29 per cent of adults surveyed in a Wall Street Journal poll said reducing immigration was their number one issue. More Americans, he explained, chose such issues as reducing crime, improving education and preventing U.S. jobs from going overseas. “The point is,” Lutton stressed, “is that all these issues have an immigration component. For instance, at any given time, 30 per cent of the prison population is foreign born and the drug trade is largely controlled by immigrants.”

As for welfare, he noted, recent immigrants have a far higher rate of welfare usage than do native-born Americans. Even if they have jobs, they’re usually poor-paying jobs. “Therefore,” Dr. Lutton emphasized, “these immigrants will be a drain on our social services especially in their later years.”

“If we want to reduce crime, lower taxes and help the environment, we must reduce immigration. It will have an immediate impact,” Dr. Lutton stressed.

Mokita is a word used by Pacific Islanders, Dr. Lutton said. “It means ‘what everybody knows, but dares not say. We must say it: 60 to 70 per cent of adult Americans agree. America is not just a geographical entity. It is a nation with certain values.”

“I’d go beyond the proposal of a zero immigration moratorium and say we should begin deportation. Deportation now!” Dr. Lutton concluded to thunderous applause.

Californian Glen Spencer, head of Voices of Citizens Together, said: “it’s often said that California is America’s future. Let me tell you about your future. Los Angeles schools have sunk to the 20th percentile. There’s a 50 per cent dropout rate. Many graduates can’t read. People are fleeing the system.. This is your future,” thanks to immigration, he warned.

Don’t fool yourselves, he cautioned his activist audience. The problem will not be “contained” in California, Already, in the heartland, in Iowa, 90 per cent of domestic crime is associated with Mexicans, while, in Salt Lake City, in Mormon Utah, 80 per cent of drugs arrests are “illegals.

In 1998, Democrat Ray Davis was elected Governor of California. “Republic Dan Lungren lost the election because he refused to talk about immigration. Why would neither candidate talk about immigration in a state facing traffic gridlock, environmental meltdown and education disaster?” Spencer demanded.

Lungren had no credibility, Spencer charged. During 8 years in Congress on the Immigration Committee, he helped other Republicans to grant amnesty to 3-million illegals.” Therefore,” concluded Spencer, “he couldn’t talk on immigration” reform.

He could have told voters about Art Torres, the Chairman of the Democratic Party in California who said Proposition 187 “was the last gasp of White America in California.” Spencer insisted that Torres has as much as stated that, when Mexicans take over, they’ll discriminate against White Californians.

Panelist and national newspaper columnist San Francis has said:” Former Rep. Robert Dornan, who opposed illegal but supported legal immigration, commented in 1996: ‘I want to see America stay a nation of immigrants. … If we lose our Northern European stock, your colouring and mine, blue eyes and fair hair — tough! Soon after his statement, Mr. Dornan lost his seat to a Democratic rival who emphasized her Hispanic identity.” The self-denigrating Dornan lost not only to the immigrant vote he welcomed, but, ironically, to widespread voter fraud perpetrated by many of these very immigrants

Latino legislators in California are now pushing for the issuing of driver’s licences to illegals, Spencer revealed.

Bill Clinton “attacked ethnic cleanser Slobodan Milosevic but gave the Presidential Medal of Freedom to ethnic cleanser Mario Obledo,” Spencer said.

Spencer also quoted Mexican President Zedillo telling a Chicago audience, June 23, 1997:: “I proudly affirm that the Mexican nation extends beyond the territory enclosed by its borders.” Isn’t it refreshing to hear a politician speak the truth, however unpalatable, about immigration?

OUR COUNTRY COMING UNDONE

By Frosty Wooldridge
November 2, 2004
NewsWithViews.com

This article examines seven destructive points being injected into America by over 10 million illegal immigrants already in this country and 3 million arriving annually. This massive ‘unarmed Army’ manifests at an ever increasing speed—the undoing of America.

For the first time in history, the United States suffered a crippling attack inside its borders on 9/11. Three years later, because our government leaders refuse to protect our southern flank, we are being attacked by an ‘unarmed army’ of millions who have invaded our country by crossing our borders.

Time Magazine, September 12, 2004, “Who Left The Door Open?” documented 4,000 illegal aliens crossing nightly and over three million intruders will cross in 2004. It’s an invasion unprecedented in the history of the United States. Worse, it’s being facilitated by our elected leaders to the highest levels in the White House.

Even more distressing is a concerted push by both major parties to assist this army to not only enter our country against our laws, but also to gain access to everything we have built with the blood, sweat and tears of American citizens.

Today, millions of illegal aliens are causing accelerating damage to our schools, hospitals, social programs, highways, language, sprawl, standard of living and our way of life. Should illegal aliens enjoy driver’s licenses, amnesty, welfare and schooling of their children on our tax dollars? Just because they came here to work for a better life?

The sobering reality is that two billion people would move to America if given a ticket today. However, it’s impossible. We are a nation of laws and we have horrific problems of unemployment at 18 million people, $7.4 trillion debt, collapsing hospitals, diseases and growing language conflicts.

Somehow, the media and the ‘elite’ of this country have forced us into this accelerating crisis. Polls show 70% of Americans want illegal immigration stopped and serious reductions in legal immigration down to fewer than 100,000 per year.

Astoundingly, 10% of Mexico now lives in our country. Fully 75% of all drugs cross over from Mexico. We pay $68 billion in expenses for immigrants annually. They send home hard currency of $10.5 billion to Mexico, $25 billion to Latin America, $16 billion to Asia thus draining our country. In short, illegal immigration is killing this country.

We MUST create a dialog on the future prospects of our nation by addressing seven major points: If you own a home, you maintain a door. You welcome guests after they knock and you lock it to keep out unwanted incursions. Just as every house needs a door, every country needs a border to maintain its right to privacy, self-maintenance and personal freedom. Our nation’s door has been invaded by over 10 million people who broke the latch and marched in as if they had the right to such a crime. They continue at 1 million per year.

However, this is a nation where the ‘rule of law’ is the most important brick in the foundation of our constitution. The ‘rule of law’ allows our freedom, our integrity and our right to choose what and whom we want or don’t want in our nation. We don’t want terrorists. We don’t want border crashers who bring drugs. We don’t want illegal aliens who suppress wages, over run our schools, usurp our language and overwhelm our social services.

Illegal immigration hurts America’s poor. In a recent account in the New York Times, black children suffered 50% greater poverty in the past 10 years due to immigration. Illegal immigrants compete for jobs normally done by America’s poor. A study by the Center For Immigration Studies wrote, “Mexican immigration is overwhelmingly unskilled and it’s hard to find an economic argument for unskilled immigration because it tends to reduce wages for U.S. workers.”

Cheap labor from illegal immigration is not ‘cheap.’ It’s subsidized by all of us in the form of our tax dollars paying for their services. It makes a few employers wealthy at the expense of all of us. The National Academy of Sciences found “…a significant fiscal drain of $7,000 per student per year paid for by U.S. tax dollars.”

These newcomers do not respect our English language. Adding more salt into our national wound of this invasion, there is not a single bilingual country in the world that is at peace with itself. Dozens of languages cause educational confusion, conflict and violence. When people move to this country, but maintain their language, their culture and their old loyalties, it’s a recipe for the undoing of our nation.

With that demise, our cohesive national fabric shreds as ethnic ghettoes advance across our nation with rituals such as female genital mutilation, cock fighting and violent groups espousing clashing cultures. Too many unskilled, uneducated, non-English speaking people living in too much poverty will not advance our nation. The Center for Immigration Studies points out; “The lower educational attainment of immigrants persists across generations as two thirds of immigrant workers lack a high school diploma.” Democracy is a delicate form of government that demands an educated populace with similar moral and ethical standards and a single language.

And finally, illegal immigrants crossing our borders without being health screened have brought us 7,000 new cases of leprosy in the past three years. Additionally, they brought 16,000 cases of incurable (multiple drug resistant) tuberculosis, thousands of cases of hepatitis, head lice, Chagas Disease and Exotic New Castle. Since 1.1 million illegal alien children attend U.S. schools, our children are at risk.

“The one absolutely certain way of bringing this nation to ruin, or preventing all possibility of its continuing as a nation at all, would be to permit it to become a tangle of squabbling nationalities.” — President Teddy Roosevelt, 1902.

Without a national debate on illegal immigration, our country will continue its downward spiral into conditions resembling the Third World.

Their numbers will burgeon from 10 million to 20 million and beyond. If we don’t take action today, we won’t be able to take action tomorrow.

© 2004 Frosty Wooldridge – All Rights Reserved

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Frosty Wooldridge possesses a unique view of the world, cultures and families in that he has bicycled around the globe 100,000 miles, on six continents in the past 26 years.

He has written hundreds of articles (regularly) for 17 national and 2 international magazines. He has had hundreds of editorials published in top national newspapers including the Rocky Mountain News, Denver Post, Albany Herald and Christian Science Monitor.

His first book, “HANDBOOK FOR TOURING BICYCLISTS” by Falcon Press is available nationwide. His second book “STRIKE THREE! TAKE YOUR BASE” by the Brookfield Reader published in January 2002. His bicycle books include “BICYCLING AROUND THE WORLD.”

His latest book. ‘IMMIGRATION’S UNARMED INVASION—DEADLY CONSEQUENCES.’

Frosty Wooldridge has guest lectured at Cornell University, teaching creative writing workshops, magazine writing at Michigan State University, and has presented environmental science lectures at the University of Colorado, University of Denver and Regis University. He also lectures on “Religion and Ethics” at Front Range College in Colorado.

Website: www.FrostyWooldridge.com
E:Mail: frostyw@juno.com

Replacement Migration: Is It a Solution to Declining and Ageing Populations ? Most Americans believe illegal immigrants hurt US- Why unskilled immigrants hurt America

Population Division
Department of Economic and Social Affairs
United Nations Secretariat
Replacement Migration
United Nations
ST/ESA/SER.A/206

Population Division
Department of Economic and Social Affairs
United Nations Secretariat

Replacement Migration:
Is It a Solution to Declining
and Ageing Populations ?

NOTE
The designations employed and the presentation of the material in this
publication do not imply the expression of any opinion whatsoever on the part of the
Secretariat of the United Nations concerning the legal status of any country, city or
area, or of its authorities, or concerning the delimitation of its frontiers or boundaries.
The designations “developed” and “developing” countries and “more
developed” and “less developed” regions are intended for statistical convenience and
do not necessarily express a judgement about the stage reached by a particular country
or area in the development process.
The term “country” as used in the text of this publication also refers, as
appropriate, to territories or areas.
ST/ESA/SER.A/206
UNITED NATIONS PUBLICATION
Sales No. E.01.XIII.19
ISBN 92-1-151362-6
Copyright © United Nations 2001
All rights reserved
Manufactured in the United States of America
ii i
PREFACE
The Population Division of the Department of Economic and Social Affairs at the
United Nations Secretariat is responsible for providing the international community with upto-
date and scientifically objective information on population and development. The
Population Division provides guidance to the General Assembly of the United Nations, the
Economic and Social Council and the Commission on Population and Development on
population and development issues. The Division undertakes regular studies on population
levels and trends, population estimates and projections, population policies and the
interrelationships between population and development.
In particular, the Population Division is concerned with the following substantive
areas: patterns of mortality, fertility and international and internal migration, including levels
and trends, their causes and consequences, and socio-economic, geographic and gender
differentials; spatial distribution of population between urban and rural areas and among
cities; estimates and projections of population size, age and sex structure, spatial distribution
and demographic indicators for all countries of the world; population and development
policies at the national and international levels; and the relationship between socio-economic
development and population change.
The work of the Population Division is published in a variety of formats, including
electronically, in order to meet the needs of diverse audiences. These publications and
materials are used by Governments; by national and international organizations; by research
institutions and individuals engaged in social and economic planning, research and training;
and by the general public.

The Part I like to look at is this part:

(g) Scenario VI
Scenario VI keeps the potential support ratio at its 1995 value of 5.2 persons aged 15-64 for each
person aged 65 or older. In order to keep the potential support ratio constant at that level, it would be
necessary to have 593 million immigrants from 1995 to 2050, an average of 10.8 million per year. By
2050, out of a United States total population of 1.1 billion, 775 million, or 73 per cent, would be post-
1995 immigrants or their descendants.
(h) Additional considerations
The official United States estimate of (documented) migrants into the United States from 1990 to
1996 is about 1.1 million per year. Thus, the past regular inflow into the United States is well above the
number of migrants needed to prevent a decline in the total population or in the working-age population.
Also under both scenarios III and IV, the percentage of post-1995 immigrants and their descendants in the
total population of 2050 (2.5 per cent for scenario III and 7.9 per cent for scenario IV) would be below the
percentage of foreign-born that exists currently (9.6 per cent). Figure 23 shows, for scenarios I, II, III and
IV, the population of the United States in 2050, indicating the share that consists of post-1995 migrants
and their descendants.
In the absence of migration, the figures show that it would be necessary to raise the upper limit of the
working-age to 66.9 years to obtain a potential support ratio of 3.0 in 2050, and to about 74 years in order
to obtain in 2050 the same potential support ratio observed in 1995 in the United States, which was 5.2
persons of working age per each older person past working age. Increasing the activity rates of the
population, if it were possible, would only be a partial palliative to the decline in the support ratio due to
ageing. If the activity rates of all men and women aged 25 to 64 were to increase to 100 per cent by 2050,
this would make up for only 21 per cent of the loss in the active support ratio resulting from the ageing of
the population.

Most Americans believe illegal immigrants hurt US

06 January 2006

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Many adults in the United States believe illegal immigrants are a problem, according to a poll by TNS released by the Washington Post and ABC News. Fifty-six per cent of respondents think illegal immigrants do more to hurt the country, while 37 per cent say they help the country.

The U.S. Immigration and Naturalization Service estimates that more than 7 million illegal immigrants are currently living in the country. A recent report by the Pew Hispanic Center calculated the number of undocumented immigrants at 10.3 million. While California is home to most workers, Arizona, Georgia and North Carolina have the greatest rates of increase.

In January 2004, U.S. president George W. Bush tabled his proposal for a major overhaul of the U.S. immigration system. The plan includes a “temporary worker program” that would grant legal status to undocumented workers, who would pay taxes, be required to return to their home country after three years, and receive no special preference if they decide to apply for permanent citizenship. 61 per cent of respondents say illegal immigrants who are already living and working in the U.S. should be offered a chance to keep their jobs and eventually apply for legal status.

On Dec. 16, Bush commended the House of Representatives for passing “a strong immigration reform bill,” adding, “America is a nation built on the rule of law, and this bill will help us protect our borders and crack down on illegal entry into the United States.” 79 per cent of respondents believe the U.S. is not doing enough to keep illegal immigrants from entering.

Polling Data

Overall, do you think illegal immigrants do more to help the country, or do more to hurt the country?

Hurt	56%
Help	37%
Neither	5%
No opinion	2%

Do you think illegal immigrants who are living and working in the United States now should be offered a chance to keep their jobs and eventually apply for legal status, or do you think they should be deported back to their native country?

Dec. 2005	Aug. 2005	Jan. 2005
Offered a chance to keep jobs	61%	55%	61%
Deported to native country	38%	42%	36%
No opinion	2%	3%	3%

Do you think the United States is or is not doing enough to keep illegal immigrants from coming into this country?

	Dec. 2005	Aug. 2005	Jan. 2005
Doing enough	20%	19%	20%
Not doing enough	79%	80%	77%
No opinion	2%	1%	4%

Locust: according to http://www.cis.org/CurrentNumbers

The nation’s immigrant population (legal and illegal) reached a record of 37.9 million in 2007. Immigrants account for one in eight U.S. residents, the highest level in 80 years. In 1970 it was one in 21; in 1980 it was one in 16; and in 1990 it was one in 13. Illegal aliens account for an estimated 11.3 million of the total, or almost one in three foreign born residents. Since 2000, 10.3 million immigrants have arrived — the highest seven-year period of immigration in U.S. history. More than half of post-2000 arrivals (5.6 million) are estimated to be illegal aliens.

If immigration continues at current levels, the nation’s population will increase from 301 million today to 468 million in 2060 — a 167 million (56 percent) increase. Immigrants plus their descendents will account for 105 million (63 percent) of the increase. Net immigration has been increasing for five decades; if immigration continues to increase, it will add more than the projected 105 million that will be added if immigration levels stay the same.

According to the Department of Homeland Security, 1,052,415 immigrants were given permanent residence in FY 2007. Of those, 689,820 were family-sponsored; 162,176 were employment based; 136,125 were refugees or asylees; and 64,294 were from other categories.

United Nations Population Division, Replacement Migration 15
III. THE APPROACH: METHODOLOGY AND ASSUMPTIONS
A. THE SIX SCENARIOS
As part of its regular work programme, the Population Division prepares population estimates and
projections biennially for all countries of the world, with estimates for the period from 1950 to 1995, and
with four projection variants for the period 1995 to 2050. The last such revision can be found in World
Population Prospects: The 1998 Revision (United Nations, 1999a, 1999b and 1999c).
The four projection variants in the 1998 Revision (high, medium, low and constant) are prepared for
countries and areas using the cohort-component method. The different variants are based on different
assumptions about the future course of fertility. All variants incorporate the same assumptions about the
future course of mortality, and for most countries the assumptions about future international migration
trends are also the same for all four variants.
The high, medium and low variants constitute the core of the official estimates and projections of the
United Nations. They are meant to create a range that encompasses the likely future path of population
growth for each country and area of the world. The high and low variants provide upper and lower
bounds for that growth. The medium variant is a useful central reference for trends over the longer-term
future. The constant variant projects the population of each country by maintaining fertility constant at
the level estimated for 1990-1995. The results of this variant are meant to be used for illustrative
purposes and are not considered to represent a likely future path for any country or area.
Building upon the medium variant of the 1998 Revision, the present replacement migration study
considers six different scenarios with regard to the migration streams needed to achieve particular
population objectives or outcomes. The six scenarios are described below:
Scenario I. This scenario is based on the medium variant of the 1998 Revision.
Scenario II. This scenario is based on the medium variant of the 1998 Revision, amended by assuming
zero migration after 1995.
Scenario III. This scenario computes and assumes the migration required to maintain the size of the
total population at the highest level it would reach in the absence of migration after 1995.
Scenario IV. This scenario computes and assumes the migration required to maintain the size of the
working-age population (15 to 64 years) at the highest level it would reach in the absence
of migration after 1995.
Scenario V. This scenario computes and assumes the migration required to prevent the ratio of the
size of the population aged 15-64 to the size of the population aged 65 or over, called the
potential support ratio (PSR), from declining below the value of 3.0.
Scenario VI. This scenario computes and assumes the migration required to maintain the potential
support ratio (PSR) at the highest level it would reach in the absence of migration after
1995.
16 United Nations Population Division, Replacement Migration
The study examines the situation for eight countries: France, Germany, Italy, Japan, Republic of
Korea, the Russian Federation, the United Kingdom and the United States. In addition, from 1995 on
computations are also made for Europe and for the European Union, treating each as if it was a single
country. The time period covered is roughly a half a century, from 1995 to 2050.
All the data pertaining to the eight countries and two regions mentioned above for the period 1950 to
1995 come from the estimates in the 1998 Revision. For the period 1995 to 2050, projections are carried
out using the cohort-component method, taking as a base the 1995 population by sex and five-year age
groups and applying the age-specific fertility and mortality rates assumed in the medium variant of the
1998 Revision.
More specifically, the number of survivors in each age and sex category at the end of each five-year
period is calculated by applying to the base-year population age- and sex-specific survival rates that are
derived from an observed or estimated national life-table, using the United Nations model for future
mortality improvement. The number of births expected to take place during each five-year period is
derived by applying the estimated age-specific fertility rate, which is obtained from the national fertility
pattern and assumed future fertility trend, to the average number of women in the age group. The births
are distributed by sex on the basis of the estimated sex ratio at birth. The assumed net number of
international migrants, classified by age and sex, is incorporated into the calculations.
The detailed past results and future assumptions of the 1998 Revision for each of the countries and
regions examined in this study are presented in the annex tables. A detailed description of the
methodology used for the estimates and projections may be found in World Population Prospects: The
1998 Revision, volume III (United Nations, 1999c).
The future population trends according to the medium variant are mainly determined by the assumed
future course of fertility. For each of the countries and regions considered in this study, the total fertility
rate is below the replacement level of 2.1 children per woman. For those countries whose latest estimated
total fertility rate was between 1.5 and 2.1 children per woman (France, Republic of Korea, the United
Kingdom and the United States), it is assumed that the fertility rate will move towards a target level of 1.9
children per woman and will remain constant to the end of the projection period, 2050. For those
countries and regions whose latest estimated total fertility rate was less than 1.5 children per woman
(Germany, Italy, Japan, the Russian Federation, Europe and the European Union), the fertility rate is
expected to rise to a target level of 1.7 children per woman and remain constant thereafter. It should also
be noted that the target total fertility rate was modified when information was available on the completed
fertility of the cohort of women born in 1962. In those cases (France, Germany, Italy, Japan, Europe and
the European Union), the target level was set as the average of either 1.9 or 1.7 and the estimated
completed fertility of the 1962 cohort. In general, recorded post-1995 trends in fertility were assumed to
continue until the year 2000, and then stabilize at the 2000 level until 2005. After 2005, fertility was
assumed to move towards the target level at a pace of 0.07 children per woman per quinquennium.
Scenario I, which is the medium variant of the 1998 Revision, already has migration assumptions for
the period 1995-2050. In each of the other five scenarios the net total number of migrants during each
five-year period is computed so that the projected results meet the particular requirements of the scenario.
Scenario II assumes that the total net number of migrants is zero for each five-year period. Scenario
III involves computing the total net number of migrants for each five-year period needed to maintain the
size of the total at the highest level it would reach in the absence of migration after 1995. Scenario IV
determines the total net number of migrants for each five-year period required to maintain the size of the
working age population (15-64 years) at the highest level it would reach in the absence of migration after
1995. Scenario V computes the total net number of migrants required to prevent the ratio of the
population aged 15-64 to the population aged 65 or over from declining below 3.0. Finally, scenario VI
United Nations Population Division, Replacement Migration 17
computes the total net number of migrants required to maintain the potential support ratio at the highest
level it would reach in the absence of migration after 1995.
Another critical assumption concerns the age and sex distribution of the total net number of
migrants. The age and sex structure of the migrants is assumed to be the same for all countries. This
assumption, while unlikely, permits comparisons among the countries and regions. It is assumed that the
structure of the migration streams is the average age and sex structure of migrants into Australia, Canada
and the United States. These three countries were selected because they are the three major traditional
countries of immigration.
The age structures of the three countries and their average, or model pattern for this study, are shown
for males and females in figures 3 and 4 respectively. The per cent distribution by age and sex of the
immigrants in the model pattern, which is used in the scenarios, is shown in table 4 and illustrated as an
age-sex pyramid in figure 5.
The projection methodology also assumes that, after the immigrants arrive in a country, they
experience the average fertility and mortality conditions of that country. While this is typically not the
case, especially when immigrants come from a country that differs greatly demographically from the
receiving country, this assumption permits computations to be more straightforward and also facilitates
comparisons between countries and regions.

United Nations Population Division, Replacement Migration 77
8. United States of America
(a) Past trends
The total fertility rate in the United States dropped from 3.45 births per woman in 1950-1955 to 2.02
in 1970-1975. Except for a temporary period during the late 1970s and early 1980s, when it hovered
around 1.8, the total fertility rate has continued to be around two children per woman. Life expectancy at
birth, meanwhile, has risen from 69.0 years in 1950-1955 to 75.7 years in 1990-1995. As a consequence
of these changes, the proportion of the population aged 65 or older rose from 8.3 per cent in 1950 to 12.5
per cent in 1995, and the potential support ratio declined from 7.8 in 1950 to 5.2 in 1995. As a point of
comparison, the potential support ratio was 15 in 1900, when 4 per cent of the population was aged 65
years or older.
(b) Scenario I
Scenario I, the medium variant of the United Nations 1998 Revision, assumes an annual net intake of
760,000 migrants per year between 1995-2050, for a total of 41,800,000 net migrants during the period.
Accordingly, the total population of the United States is projected to increase continuously from 267
million in 1995 to 349 million in 2050 (the results of the 1998 United Nations projections are shown in
the annex tables). By 2050, out of this total population of 349 million, 59 million, or 16.8 per cent, would
be post-1995 immigrants or their descendants. The population aged 15-64 would increase slowly from
174 million in 1995 to 214 million in 2050, although not in a monotonic fashion. The population aged 65
or older would rise rapidly, from 33 million in 1995 to nearly 76 million in 2050. As a result, the
potential support ratio would decrease from 5.2 in 1995 to 2.8 in 2050.
(c) Scenario II
Scenario II, which is the medium variant with zero migration, uses the fertility and mortality
assumptions of the medium variant of the 1998 Revision, but without any migration to the United States
after 1995. The results in this scenario are quite different from those of scenario I. The total population
would increase to 290 million in 2050, which is 50 million less than in scenario I. The population aged
15-64 would rise from 174 million in 1995 to 192 million in 2010 and 2015 and then decline, returning to
174 million in 2050. The population aged 65 or older would double, from 33 million in 1950 to 68
million in 2050. As a result, the potential support ratio would decline to 2.6 in 2050, which is slightly
below that presented in scenario I.
(d) Scenario III
Scenario III keeps the size of the total United States population constant at its maximum of 298
million, which it would reach in 2030 (assuming no in-migration after 1995). In order to keep the total
population constant at that level, it would be necessary to have 6.4 million migrants between 2030 and
2050, which is an average of 319,000 migrants per year. By 2050, out of a total population of 298
million, 7.3 million, or 2.5 per cent, would be post-1995 immigrants or their descendants.
(e) Scenario IV
Scenario IV keeps the size of the population aged 15 to 64 constant at its maximum of 192.5 million,
which it would reach in 2015 (assuming no in-migration after 1995). In order to keep the working-age
population constant at that level, 18.0 million migrants would be needed between 2015 and 2050, which
is an average of 513 thousand migrants per year. By 2050, out of a total population of 316 million, 25.0
million, or 7.9 per cent, would be post-1995 immigrants or their descendants.
78 United Nations Population Division, Replacement Migration
(f) Scenario V
Scenario V does not allow the potential support ratio to decrease below the value of 3.0. In order to
achieve this, no immigrants would be needed until 2025, and 44.9 million immigrants would be needed
between 2025 and 2035, an average of 4.5 million per year during that period. By 2050, out of a total
population of 352 million, 61 million, or 17 per cent, would be post-1995 immigrants or their
descendants.
(g) Scenario VI
Scenario VI keeps the potential support ratio at its 1995 value of 5.2 persons aged 15-64 for each
person aged 65 or older. In order to keep the potential support ratio constant at that level, it would be
necessary to have 593 million immigrants from 1995 to 2050, an average of 10.8 million per year. By
2050, out of a United States total population of 1.1 billion, 775 million, or 73 per cent, would be post-
1995 immigrants or their descendants.
(h) Additional considerations
The official United States estimate of (documented) migrants into the United States from 1990 to
1996 is about 1.1 million per year. Thus, the past regular inflow into the United States is well above the
number of migrants needed to prevent a decline in the total population or in the working-age population.
Also under both scenarios III and IV, the percentage of post-1995 immigrants and their descendants in the
total population of 2050 (2.5 per cent for scenario III and 7.9 per cent for scenario IV) would be below the
percentage of foreign-born that exists currently (9.6 per cent). Figure 23 shows, for scenarios I, II, III and
IV, the population of the United States in 2050, indicating the share that consists of post-1995 migrants
and their descendants.
In the absence of migration, the figures show that it would be necessary to raise the upper limit of the
working-age to 66.9 years to obtain a potential support ratio of 3.0 in 2050, and to about 74 years in order
to obtain in 2050 the same potential support ratio observed in 1995 in the United States, which was 5.2
persons of working age per each older person past working age. Increasing the activity rates of the
population, if it were possible, would only be a partial palliative to the decline in the support ratio due to
ageing. If the activity rates of all men and women aged 25 to 64 were to increase to 100 per cent by 2050,
this would make up for only 21 per cent of the loss in the active support ratio resulting from the ageing of
the population.

Illegal, but Not Undocumented: Identity Theft, Document Fraud, and Illegal Employment

By Ronald W. Mortensen
June 2009
Backgrounders and Reports

Download this Backgrounder as a pdf

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Ronald W. Mortensen, PhD, is a retired career U.S. Foreign Service Officer and former Society for Human Resource Management senior executive.

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This Backgrounder examines illegal immigration-related document fraud and identity theft that is committed primarily for the purpose of employment. It debunks three common misconceptions: illegal aliens are “undocumented;” the transgressions committed by illegal aliens to obtain jobs are minor; and illegal-alien document fraud and identity theft are victimless crimes. It discusses how some community leaders rationalize these crimes, contributing to a deterioration of the respect for laws in our nation, and presents a variety of remedies, including more widespread electronic verification of work status (E-Verify and the Social Security Number Verification Service) and immigrant outreach programs to explain the ramifications and risks of document fraud and identity theft.

The findings include:

• Illegal immigrants are not “undocumented.” They have fraudulent documents such as counterfeit Social Security cards, forged drivers licenses, fake “green cards,” and phony birth certificates. Experts suggest that approximately 75 percent of working-age illegal aliens use fraudulent Social Security cards to obtain employment.
• Most (98 percent) Social Security number (SSN) thieves use their own names with stolen numbers. The federal E-Verify program, now mandated in only 14 states, can detect this fraud. Universal, mandatory use of E-Verify would curb this and stop virtually 100 percent of child identity theft.
• Illegal immigration and high levels of identity theft go hand-in-hand. States with the most illegal immigration also have high levels of job-related identity theft. In Arizona, 33 percent or all identity theft is job-related (as opposed to identity theft motivated simply by profit). In Texas it is 27 percent; in New Mexico, 23 percent; in Colorado, 22 percent; California, 20 percent; and in Nevada, 16 percent. Eight of the 10 states with the highest percentage of illegal aliens in their total population are among the top 10 states in identity theft (Arizona, California, Florida, Texas, Nevada, New York, Georgia, and Colorado).
• Children are prime targets. In Arizona, it is estimated that over one million children are victims of identity theft. In Utah, 1,626 companies were found to be paying wages to the SSNs of children on public assistance under the age of 13. These individuals suffer very real and very serious consequences in their lives.
• Illegal aliens commit felonies in order to get jobs. Illegal aliens who use fraudulent documents, perjure themselves on I-9 forms, and commit identity theft in order to get jobs are committing serious offenses and are not “law abiding.”
• Illegally employed aliens send billions of dollars annually to their home countries, rather than spending it in the United States and helping stimulate the American economy. In October 2008 alone, $2.4 billion was transferred to Mexico.
• Tolerance of corruption erodes the rule of law. Corruption is a serious problem in most illegal aliens’ home countries. Allowing it to flourish here paves the way for additional criminal activity and increased corruption throughout society.
• Leaders support perpetrators and ignore victims. Political, civic, religious, business, education, and media leaders blame Americans for “forcing” illegal aliens to commit document fraud and identity theft. No similar concern is expressed for the American men, women, and children whose lives are destroyed in the process.
• The Social Security Administration and Internal Revenue Service facilitate illegal immigrant-driven identity theft. Both turn a blind eye to massive SSN fraud and take no action to stop it. The Social Security Administration assigns SSNs to new-born infants that are being used illegally. The IRS demands that victims pay taxes on wages earned by illegal aliens using their stolen SSNs, while taking no action to stop the identity theft.
• State and local governments need to adopt tougher laws to supplement federal efforts. The Bureau of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) is targeting large document fraud rings and the most egregious employers, but their resources are limited and stretched across multiple priorities. In 2007, identity theft cases represented only 7 percent of the total ICE case load.
• Employers must do their part. They can ensure that they have a legal workforce by using a combination of the federal government’s E-Verify and Social Security Number Verification Service systems and by signing up for the federal government’s IMAGE program or privately conducted audits.

Misconceptions

That Illegal Aliens Are Undocumented

When Jean Pierre from Montreal crosses the border into the United States illegally, he lacks the documents to obtain employment and other benefits that legal residents of the United States are entitled to. When Maggie from Dublin and Raj from India overstay their tourist visas in order to work in the United States, they find themselves in the same situation.

Because it is virtually impossible to live and work in the United States without documents, they and millions of others turn to fraudulent document dealers for falsified Social Security cards, forged drivers licenses, counterfeit green cards, and a wide range of other phony documents.

According to Richard Hamp of the Utah Attorney General’s Office, illegal aliens rarely steal Americans’ total identities (a victim’s full name, date of birth, and SSN) simply because doing so is more difficult and expensive. Instead, illegal aliens commit SSN-only identity theft by obtaining fraudulent Social Security cards in their own names, often with random numbers made up by dealers. However, since about half of all SSNs have been issued, there is a 50-50 chance that the SSN already belongs to another person. And even if the number hasn’t been issued, the Social Security Administration may later assign it to an infant, thereby giving a newborn an instant credit history, arrest record, and liability for back taxes.

That Illegal Aliens Are Law-Abiding

Illegal aliens who commit document fraud, use SSNs that do not belong to them, and falsify I-9 forms under penalty of perjury clearly are not ordinary law-abiding residents. They may be arrested and prosecuted for felony document fraud and perjury and in, certain states, they may be prosecuted for felony identity theft or felony identity fraud.

So, while simply living in the country without authorization is usually a civil offense, a large number of illegal aliens rapidly take the next step and commit serious felonies in order to obtain jobs and other benefits reserved for American citizens and legal residents.

Identity Theft Defined. The non-profit Identity Theft Resource Center defines identity theft as “a crime in which an impostor obtains key pieces of personal identifying information (PII) such as SSNs and drivers license numbers and uses them for their own personal gain.” According the Federal Trade Commission, “Identity theft occurs when someone uses your personally identifying information, like your name, SSN, or credit card number, without your permission, to commit fraud or other crimes…. They may get a job using your Social Security number.”¹

Therefore, the use of an SSN belonging to someone else, whether knowingly or unknowing, is clearly identity theft according to these definitions. In addition, the victims of illegal alien SSN identity theft suffer clear and extremely serious harm.

In spite of this, under federal and many state statutes, a person using someone else’s SSN or other personal information must “knowingly” do so in order to be convicted of felony identity theft. The United States Supreme Court has ruled that prosecutors must prove that an illegal alien is knowingly using another person’s SSN in order to convict the illegal alien of identity theft under the federal statute, thereby, leaving the victims of these serious and often devastating crimes unprotected.

At the state level, Utah faced the problem of defense attorneys claiming that their illegal alien clients should get off because they were not knowingly using the SSNs of Utah children. Therefore, in 2006, in order to protect all American citizens and legal residents including tens of thousands of children, Utah’s identity fraud statute was amended to clearly state that it is not a defense to argue “that the person did not know that the personal information belonged to another person.”

Following the U.S. Supreme Court ruling, County Attorneys in Arizona expressed confidence that that state’s felony identity theft statute would withstand challenge and called on Congress to revise federal statutes to hold illegal aliens committing identity theft liable for their actions.² Prosecutors in Kansas said that they would press legislators to revise identity theft statutes and it is anticipated that other states around the nation also will amend their statutes in order to protect their citizens from illegal alien-driven identity theft.³

The Relationship Between Identity Theft and Illegal Immigration. U.S. law enforcement agencies have observed that identity theft and immigration “go hand in hand.”⁴ In Weld County, Colo., which has large numbers of illegal aliens employed in the meat packing industry, District Attorney Ken Buck reports that the principal driver of identity theft is job related⁵

Identity theft is one of the fastest-growing crimes in the United States and impacts millions of American citizens and legal residents each year, though actual numbers are difficult to determine because most governments and police departments don’t track identity theft. Even the Federal Trade Commission, which is the lead agency for reporting identity theft, only captures a small number of actual identity theft cases.

But we know that illegal aliens routinely use fraudulent SSNs belonging to American citizens and legal residents. In a 2002 report to Congress, the General Accounting Office stated: “INS has reported that large-scale counterfeiting has made fraudulent employment eligibility documents (e.g., Social Security cards) widely available.”⁶ The Social Security Administration assumes that roughly three-quarters of illegal aliens are paying payroll taxes through withholding, which generally requires an SSN.⁷

For example, an immigration raid at an Agriprocessors, Inc., meat processing plant in Pottsville, Iowa, last year found that 76 percent of the plant’s employees had bogus SSNs.⁸ And during an April 2008 raid at Pilgrim’s Pride meat packing plants, more than 280 employees at facilities in five states were arrested on suspicion of committing identity theft and other criminal violations in order to obtain jobs.⁹ According to press reports, ICE agents said their investigation of Pilgrim’s Pride started when the victims of identity theft came forward after having problems with taxes and credit reports.¹⁰

Illegal aliens’ fraudulent document use was further confirmed by Domingo Garcia, General Counsel for the League of United Latin American Citizens (LULAC), who, according to press reports, said that it was well known that around 80 percent of the workers at Pilgrim’s Pride had fake identification.¹¹

So its no surprise that Table 1 shows that states with the highest percentage illegal aliens in their total populations tend to have the highest incidence of overall identity theft, including significant levels of employment-related identity theft.

Of the 10 states with the highest incidence of identity theft, eight are among the 10 states where illegal aliens account for the largest percentages of total population. The two remaining top-10 identity theft states are ranked 13 and 17 in terms of percentage of illegal aliens.

In 2008, 15 percent of all identity theft in the United States was employment-related, up from 14 percent in 2007.¹² Six of the 10 states with the highest identity theft have employment-related identity theft rates that exceed the national average. In Arizona, where substantive illegal immigration-related legislation was passed and where employment verification is now required, employment-related identity theft dropped significantly, from 39 to 33 percent of all identity theft cases. In Colorado, employment-related identity theft increased from 17 to 22 percent between 2007 and 2008. In New Mexico, the increase was from 19 to 23 percent; in Texas, from 24 to 27 percent; and in California, from 17 to 20 percent.

ICE Efforts Are Improving. ICE is the lead agency addressing immigration-related document fraud and identity theft. In 2006, the agency established the Document and Benefits Fraud Task Forces (DBFTF), which are now in place in 17 ICE field offices. Their mission is to investigate and dismantle criminal organizations that make, sell, and distribute identity documents to circumvent immigration laws or for any other criminal purpose and to seize their equipment and assets. For example, ICE agents in Denver, assisted by other field offices and federal agencies, took down the notorious Castorena family organization. The family ran a massive nationwide network of fake document rings, producing papers such as green cards, Social Security cards, drivers licenses, and other types of documents. Their franchises reached all 50 states.

The work of the DBFTFs intersects with other agency work, including counter-terrorism investigations and worksite operations. Many of ICE’s recent worksite enforcement operations have been launched as a result of information or activity uncovered by the DBFTFs. The 2006 operation conducted against the Swift & Company meat processing business, which resulted in the arrest of nearly 1,300 illegal aliens, was launched after ICE agents discovered hundreds of victims of identity theft from illegal workers at the Swift plants.

While ICE has recently been able to increase its efforts in this area, the agency has limited resources that are stretched across multiple priorities. In 2007, ICE worked 5,080 identity and/or benefit fraud cases, generating hundreds of indictments, arrests, and convictions.¹³ However, this represented only 7 percent of ICE’s total case load, reflecting the reality that violent criminals and drug smuggling are a more pressing investigative priority for ICE. Further, the DBFTFs must focus their efforts on dismantling large criminal enterprises. They do not have the resources or personnel to investigate every individual alien identity thief. As with other kinds of criminal activity, it is up to state and local law enforcement agencies to identify and address what is happening in their jurisdiction, and be the prosecutors of first resort.

That Illegal Imigration Is a Victimless Crime

Illegal alien-driven identity theft is not a victimless crime. It impacts millions of Americans of all ages. Newborn infants and children often are the victims of illegal alien identity thieves. IRS agents, law enforcement officials, people with disabilities, the unemployed, and even those serving time in jail have been victimized by illegal aliens using their SSNs in order to obtain jobs and other benefits. According to the Wall Street Journal, American citizens with Hispanic surnames are 1.5 times more likely to be victims of job-related identity theft than are other Americans.¹⁴

Following the Swift meat packing raids, Department of Homeland Secretary, Michael Chertoff told reporters that:

Anybody who has ever been a victim of identity theft understands the hardship, and, in fact, the persistent hardship, that follows from this kind of crime, and the hardship that is felt by innocent people.

Now, this is not only a case about illegal immigration, which is bad enough. It’s a case about identity theft in violation of the privacy rights and the economic rights of innocent Americans…. These individuals suffered very real consequences in their lives. These were not victimless crimes. ¹⁵

Thus, when illegal aliens use SSNs or other documents belonging to American citizens and legal residents, the damage can be substantial. The true owners risk being saddled with the illegal aliens’ credit, arrest, and medical records. Victims may be denied jobs, unemployment insurance, Social Security payments, and Medicaid benefits. It costs victims hundreds of hours and thousands of dollars to undo the damage and recover their names and lives.

In addition, all Americans are impacted by the fallout from illegal alien-driven document fraud and identity theft. Rather than spending their earnings in the United States and helping fuel the consumer-driven American economy, illegal workers minimize their expenditures in the United States so they can send billions of dollars back to their home countries. During a recessionary period, this transfer makes it all the more difficult to turn the economy around.

When the economy hits hard times and Americans and legal residents lose their jobs, illegal aliens can continue to work using their stolen identities and fraudulent documents. If an illegal alien who is laid off uses his fraudulent documents to obtain unemployment benefits, this drives up the cost of unemployment insurance. If an illegal alien is using an American’s SSN to obtain unemployment benefits, that citizen will be denied benefits that he or she is legally entitled to.

Children Are Prime Targets. Children do not use their SSNs for employment or to obtain credit so parents generally do not check their children’s credit histories, allowing a person using a child’s SSN to go undetected for years. Sometimes document vendors sell fraudulent identity packages using unassigned SSNs that are later assigned to a child, causing them problems before they are even born.

“We have a major problem with workers in medical offices stealing patients’ identities, selling them, and making a direct profit,” according to Sergeant James Bracke of the Phoenix Police Department.¹⁶ The stolen numbers are sold to immigrant smuggling groups who use them to fabricate fraudulent documents for people they bring into the United States via Arizona. The result of this is that in Arizona, child identity theft is nearly four times the national rate and an estimated 1.1 million Arizona children have had their identities stolen.1¹⁷

State and local investigators in Utah uncovered a crime spree involving illegal aliens using the SSNs of tens of thousands of children. They identified 1,626 companies paying wages to the SSNs of children on public assistance under the age of 13.¹⁸ One child’s SSN was being used by 37 adults.

Illegal aliens used the Utah children’s SSNs to get jobs, start businesses, and open bank accounts. One suspect told investigators he paid $100 for a boy’s SSN. Victims included a five-year-old girl who supposedly traveled 80 miles to her job at a steak restaurant, an eight-year-old boy who apparently owned a cleaning company and worked as a prep cook at two upscale restaurants, and an 11-year-old boy who supposedly worked for an express air freight company. The suspects were charged with third degree felony counts of identity fraud and forgery.¹⁹

Employment-related identity theft is the largest single driver (27 percent) of identity theft in the state of Texas. Almost 900,000 people became victims of identity theft in Texas in 2007. The cost to Texas victims was an estimated $435.7 million and Texas residents spent an estimated total of 3.5 million hours resolving identity theft issues.²⁰

The link between illegal aliens and identity theft was further confirmed by the Social Security Administration’s Special Agent in Charge in Salt Lake City. As reported in the May 3, 2006, Salt Lake Tribune:

According to Ronald Ingleby, Special Agent in Charge of the Social Security Administration’s Office of the Inspector General in Utah, real Social Security numbers and accounts are being created, or purloined, by undocumented workers to circumvent employers’ efforts to certify their legality….Ninety-eight percent of Social Security-related ID theft cases involve people who use their own names but use someone else’s Social Security number. Two percent involve perpetrators using the numbers to assume their victims’ identities…. ²¹

Identity Theft Victims Suffer Real Consequences. Victims of identity theft suffer real consequences. The victims of workers at the Swift packing plants included an individual in Texas whose personal information was being used by an illegal alien for employment. The victim was pulled over and arrested because the illegal alien had used his identity to conduct criminal activity.²²

In Utah, the staff of the state’s Workforce Services office has seen children denied Medicaid benefits because adults were using their SSNs. Based on information developed by Workforce Services, Utah Attorney General, Mark Shurtleff warned the public about the devastating impact that illegal alien identity theft has on children when he said:

Identity thieves are no respecters of age. They will steal your children’s ID, ruin their credit, and hurt them in ways never thought possible before they can graduate from grade school. Children are vulnerable even if parents do everything right.²³

In Illinois, an American citizen was denied a job at a Target store because one of 37 people who were using her SSN was already employed by the company. According to MSNBC, “The woman found herself in a financial nightmare. All those imitators made a mess out of her work history, her Social Security records, and her credit report. She was haunted by bills and creditors. She received threatening letters from the IRS, asking her to pay taxes on money earned by imposters. She was told to re-pay unemployment benefits she had received, after the government discovered she was ‘working’ while drawing benefits.”²⁴

A man whose SSN was used to obtain employment in at least three states was told by the IRS that he owed $64,000 in unpaid taxes in spite of the fact that he had been incarcerated in a state penitentiary during the time the income was earned.²⁵

A nursing home resident nearly lost his disability benefits because a worker at a Pilgrim’s Pride meat plant was using his identity and it appeared that the disabled patient was working.²⁶ An Air Force veteran was arrested on a warrant for unpaid parking tickets incurred by an illegal alien using his identity. He was only released after paying a $340 fine for tickets that he did not incur. He continued to receive demands for the payment of outstanding taxes on income that he had not earned and he saw his credit rating destroyed.²⁷

These stories are just the tip of the iceberg. Millions of Americans either knowingly or unknowingly are sharing their SSNs with illegal aliens and are having their lives slowly usurped by the identity thieves. They will only learn of the damage done when they are denied credit, receive a notice for taxes on income they didn’t earn, are denied benefits that they are entitled to, find that their medical records have been corrupted with possibly life-threatening consequences, or when collection agencies start calling.

A Culture of Corruption

Even those American citizens or legal residents whose identities are not stolen by an illegal alien still suffer the consequences of rampant document fraud and identity theft.

One of the key elements of a free and democratic society is respect for the rule of law by both the government and individuals. However, in most illegal aliens’ homelands, the rule of law is routinely disregarded and official corruption is a serious problem.

Transparency International’s Corruption Prevention Index (CPI) ranks 180 countries by their perceived levels of corruption. CPI scores range between 10 (highly clean) and 0 (highly corrupt). The average score for the 10 countries that account for the vast majority of illegal aliens in the United States is 3.43, indicating a serious level of corruption (see Table 2).

In contrast, the least corrupt countries in the world are Denmark, New Zealand, and Sweden, with scores of 9.3. Canada, which has 67,000 illegal aliens in the United States, comes in at 8.7, and the United States’ score is 7.3, or 18th in the world. The United States’ score is one of the lowest scores among the industrialized nations and it has gone down in the past few years.

As Transparency International points out, “People are as corrupt as the system allows them to be. It is where temptation meets permissiveness that corruption takes root on a wide scale.”²⁸ Thus, under a permissive U.S. system that fails to control the nation’s borders, that allows a fraudulent document market to flourish, that allows employers turn a blind eye to the legal status of their workers, and where civic, religious, and political leaders support felons over victims, it is not surprising that illegal aliens without a pre-existing allegiance to the rule of law see nothing wrong with using fraudulent documents to obtain jobs and benefits that they are not entitled to.

Those sworn to uphold the law also contribute to the permissiveness that leads to corruption and a weakening of the rule of law. When a human trafficking bill was being debated in the Utah House of Representatives, an attorney and former judge amended the bill to allow farmers to transport illegal aliens up to 100 miles without being charged with trafficking.²⁹ Utah’s Attorney General told illegal aliens present at a massive rally for illegal alien rights that “Many of my fellow Republicans will criticize me for being here. They’ll tell me instead of speaking to you, that as the chief law enforcement of Utah I should be arresting you. [That’s] not going to happen.”³⁰ In some cities, sanctuary policies prohibit law enforcement officials from questioning aliens about their immigration status or from contacting or assisting ICE.

This culture of corruption is reinforced when illegal aliens are offered special benefits such as in-state tuition, drivers licenses, financial services, and religious offices and privileges in spite of their multiple, ongoing violations of civil and criminal law. The increasing acceptance of corruption has a debilitating effect on the overall respect for the rule of law with the result that illegal aliens become involved in a wide range of other criminal activities including tax fraud; mortgage fraud; violation of drivers license, insurance, and traffic laws; and gang membership.

Tax Corruption

Illegal aliens and their employers are frequently involved in tax fraud. This results in lower revenues for governments at all levels and higher taxes for American citizens and legal residents. Some illegal aliens work “off the books” and thus pay no income taxes on earned income, while their employers avoid payroll taxes.

Many illegal aliens use a combination of Individual Taxpayer Identification Numbers (ITIN) and fraudulent SSNs to obtain tax refunds that they are not entitled to. For example, in Weld County, Colo., law enforcement officials uncovered tax fraud that involved 1,300 illegal immigrants using fraudulent SSNs to obtain more than $2.6 million in tax refunds.³¹ Treasury Department auditors have noted disapprovingly that the IRS allows illegal aliens filing returns with ITINs to obtain millions of dollars in credits and deductions to which they are not entitled as non-permanent aliens.³²

In spite of this, the IRS has distributed about 15 million ITINs since 1996, with a large share believed to be assigned to illegal aliens.³³ As reported by The New York Times,

In the Queens center, Ana Andrade, 32, from Mexico….presented a W-2 form that showed withholding of more than $3,000 from the $24,000 she had earned as a cook in a Manhattan restaurant, at $10 an hour. Like more than seven million such W-2 forms nationwide, hers bore a false Social Security number.

No problem, the senior tax specialist explained. Her return would be filed under her ITIN, with the problematic W-2 form, and the IRS would simply credit her wages to her ITIN. The result: a $2,000 refund, based mainly on child credits for her two American-born children.³⁴

Financial Corruption

America’s leading financial institutions accept foreign identity documents as well as ITINs that are only supposed to be used for the payment of taxes. Some banks and credit unions facilitate money transfers to foreign countries by illegal aliens. They design financial products specifically for illegal aliens, including credit cards. Some have set up special banking units to serve illegal aliens’ special needs and they actively solicit the business of illegal aliens.

Financial institutions also issue risky mortgages and loans to illegal aliens who are not authorized to work and who are subject to arrest and/or removal at any time, which can lead to a default on their mortgages or loans. In Denver, for example, fraudulent documents were used by illegal aliens to get Federal Housing Administration-backed loans and in one case the counterfeit documents were used to purchase 300 homes valued at $51 million. The FHA insurance fund lost millions of dollars.³⁵

Economic Corruption

Illegal aliens working with stolen identities and fraudulent documents transfer billions of dollars to foreign nations that would otherwise have been spent and invested in the United States. In October 2008, at a time the United States economy was reeling from an unprecedented financial crisis and a sharp drop in consumer spending, remittances to Mexico rose to $2.4 billion, a 13 percent jump from $2.2 billion in remittances in October 2007. If this were to continue at the same level for the entire year, the amount of remittances ($28.8 billion) just to Mexico would exceed the total amount initially requested to bail out the three major American automakers.³⁶

During a time of recession, illegal aliens using fraudulent documents may continue to be employed while American citizens and legal residents doing many of the same jobs are let go. When this occurs, the illegal aliens are, in fact, doing jobs that Americans are more than willing to do. In addition, the illegal aliens continue to transfer a significant portion of their earnings out of the country rather spending them in the United States in order to help the economy recover from recession.

According to a study by the Pew Hispanic Center, the unemployment rate for native-born Hispanics was 9.6 percent in the third quarter of 2008. The rate for immigrant Hispanics, when adjusted for individuals dropping out of the workforce, was 7.8 percent. Wage losses for native-born Hispanics were actually larger than those for foreign-born Latinos. From the third quarter 2007 to the third quarter 2008, employment of Latinos in the construction industry declined by 5.3 percent while employment of non-Latinos decreased by 5.9 percent. Long-term trends show that the differences between Hispanic and non-Hispanic participation in the labor force remained relatively stable. Thus, while recent statistics show that unemployment rates have grown among immigrants,³⁷ it does not appear that illegal immigrant workers, who are predominantly Hispanic, are being disproportionately laid off and, in fact, it looks as if many illegal aliens continue to work after American citizens doing the same type of work are terminated.³⁸

When governments take action to stimulate the American economy through huge public works and other taxpayer funded programs, it is imperative that the jobs created go to American citizens and legal residents, not to illegal aliens. This requires strict employment verification requirements for businesses or other entities receiving these funds in order to preclude the employment of illegal aliens and to ensure that the stimulus money is put back into the American economy rather than being transferred out of the United States to foreign countries. The U.S. Congress declined to impose such a requirement on the federal stimulus bill, but since it appears much of the funding will be distributed in state block grants, states will have the ability to establish requirements for employment verification to ensure legal hiring.

Corruption of the Rule of Law

Rather than using mass transit because they are ineligible for drivers licenses or automobile insurance, many illegal aliens break the law by driving without licenses or with fraudulent licenses. In addition, studies suggest that Hispanic illegal aliens may have an exceptionally high rate of alcohol-related automobile accidents and fatalities.³⁹ States contribute to the culture of corruption by allowing illegal aliens to register their vehicles. A handful of states give in to illegal aliens who threaten to drive without licenses or insurance and issue drivers licenses or driving privilege cards rather than enforcing existing laws.⁴⁰

A continual weakening of the rule of law results in illegal aliens contributing to a community’s gang problem. Gangs are considered the single most important public safety threat today — a recent federal assessment said gangs were responsible for 80 percent of crime in some communities.⁴¹ Some illegal aliens have gang ties even before unlawfully entering the United States and many others become involved in gang activity once in the United States. According to a recent Center for Immigration Studies Backgrounder, “Immigrant gangs are considered a unique public safety threat due to their members’ propensity for violence and their involvement in transnational crime…. Once in the United States, immigrant gang members rarely make a living as gangsters. They typically work by day in construction, auto repair, farming, landscaping, and other low-skill occupations where employers are less vigilant about checking status, often using false documents.”⁴² In spite of this, employers continue to hire individuals without verifying their documents and identities and cities continue to enforce sanctuary policies. Both of these practices facilitate gang activity.

Justifying and Facilitating Illegal Alien Identity Theft

In spite of the damage caused by rampant illegal alien document fraud and identity theft, many of America’s political, media, civic, religious, education, and business leaders continue to defend illegal aliens. When forced to acknowledge that illegal aliens are committing felonies, these elites often rationalize the criminal acts and offer support to those committing the crimes rather than supporting the rule of law. They rarely, if ever, acknowledge the victims. They criticize those who enforce the laws and resolutely oppose efforts to protect American citizens and legal residents from illegal alien-driven document fraud and identity theft.

Illegal Aliens “Forced” to Commit Felonies

America’s political, media, civic, religious, and educational leaders try to justify illegal alien document fraud, perjury, and identity theft by arguing that the unauthorized workers are forced to commit these crimes in order to obtain jobs. For example, in 2006, when asked about illegal alien driven identity theft, former United States Representative Chris Cannon (R-Utah) replied: “This is a huge problem, that we sort of force people into.”⁴³ [emphasis added]

The Associated Press had earlier used the same rationale when its reporter wrote:

In 2004, the IRS got 7.9 million W-2s with names that didn’t match a Social Security number. More than half were from California, Texas, Florida, and Illinois, states with large immigrant populations, leading experts to believe they likely represent the wages of illegal immigrants. Even immigrants who use ITINs to file taxes are forced to make up a Social Security number when they get a job.⁴⁴ [emphasis added]

An editorial in the Deseret News (Utah) stated that the solution to illegal immigration would be to give illegal aliens a “work permit that keeps them from having to forge Social Security cards.”⁴⁵ [emphasis added]

Illegal aliens, who are used to operating in the often more corrupt systems of their home countries, do what is necessary to get the documents required to work in the United States. When asked why they violate American law, they justify their actions by saying that they had no other choice, that it’s just like the bribe to the policeman or to the corrupt government official in their home countries. For example:

• “If I could do it again — I wouldn’t do it [buy an identity and Social Security number for $850], but the laws of this country force you to do it.”⁴⁶ (emphasis added) This person had been convicted of identity theft and was being deported.
• “You know, there’s a lot of people, they make documents and we buy them. That’s the only way you can work. It’s not legal, but what can you do?” The ID this person bought belonged to an IRS agent, which under Minnesota law is a criminal offense.⁴⁷
• “We were working, we weren’t stealing,” she said although she had been convicted of identity theft.⁴⁸
• “In Spanish, Ramos said all she wanted was a job and that she never knew the identity she was using actually belonged to another woman.” Ramos had used a stolen identity when hospitalized leaving the victim with a $17,000 bill and possibly life threatening, corrupted medical records.⁴⁹

Turning Criminals into Victims

By excusing criminal behavior and turning lawbreakers into victims, advocates for illegal aliens encourage corruption and subvert the rule of law. In 2008, former Rep. Chris Cannon described the December 12, 2006, raids on the Swift meat packing plant that resulted in the arrest of 147 illegal aliens on identity theft charges as “inappropriate” and “politically motivated” and he expressed concern that the arrests had ruined Christmas for the illegal aliens and their families.⁵⁰ No mention was made of the victims, including a person who was in a motorcycle accident and was denied disability payments from the Social Security Administration because the records showed him continuing to work hundreds of miles from his actual residence; nor was any concern expressed for a police training officer in Los Angeles County who was pursued by the IRS for $60,000 in taxes owed by individuals using his stolen SSN, and who was unable to buy a home because his credit rating had been destroyed.⁵¹

Following a raid at the Agriprocessors, Inc., plant in Postville, Iowa, that resulted in 297 individuals pleading guilty to identity theft and other crimes, the media and Congressional focus was not on the crimes committed, but on the hardships faced by those who were benefiting from the crimes. Iowa Republican Congressman Tom Latham’s spokesman, James Carstensen, told reporters that Latham “views the raid as a blow to families seeking a better life and for the community, which is suffering economically.”⁵²

A Wall Street Journal editorial made no mention of the victims of the illegal aliens arrested in Iowa but it did ask if homeland security officials didn’t have anything better to do than to raid businesses that hire willing workers. The editorial encouraged Americans to keep things in perspective pointing out that there are only about seven million illegal immigrants in the workforce (5 percent of the total). The Journal then asked if this (seven million people using fraudulent documents and, in many cases, the stolen identities of American citizens) is a big enough problem to justify requiring employers to verify the identity of the persons they are hiring. Its conclusion was that it wasn’t.⁵³

During a Congressional hearing on the arrests of hundreds of illegal aliens for identity theft, Democrats focused on the impact that the arrests had on the perpetrators, their families, and the community. No mention was made of the victims. Illegal aliens were absolved of their criminal activity because they “apparently had no idea what a Social Security number or card even was. It may have been the employer tagging them with the number so it could hire them,” according to Zoe Lofgren, chair of the House Judiciary subcommittee on immigration.⁵⁴

This permissiveness, corruption, and disregard for the rule of law has reached such a level that when a legal resident from Honduras who had her identity stolen by an illegal alien contacted 50 senators, 30 government departments, and two governors none of them were willing to help her. The victim continued to receive notices for back taxes on income that she had not earned from the IRS and collection agencies hounded her day and night for unpaid medical, furniture, and cell phone bills. Ultimately, she had to hire a private detective who found the identity thief and finally forced the police to take action.⁵⁵

Employers Fight Changes

Just as the financial industry opposed limitations on its activities, the American business community consistently and aggressively opposes employment verification requirements that would limit a business’ ability to hire illegal aliens.

The U.S. Chamber of Commerce, the Society for Human Resource Management (SHRM), the Associated Builders and Contractors, the American Council on International Personnel, and the HR Policy Association all actively oppose employment verification even though it offers significant benefits to both their members and their clients. For example, the use of E-Verify protects employers and especially HR personnel from criminal charges and fines should it be determined that a company has hired illegal aliens. Furthermore, as noted above, it could prevent nearly all of the job-related SSN-only identity theft and child identity theft. Yet, in spite of these benefits, these business and HR associations filed suit in federal court to stop President Bush’s executive order requiring federal contractors to use E-Verify from taking effect.⁵⁶

In Arizona and Oklahoma, Chambers of Commerce also took legal action against employment verification legislation. If they succeed in blocking employment verification requirements, among other things, they will preserve their members’ ability to hire illegal aliens who are using fraudulent documents and stolen identities. Employers also sued the Department of Homeland Security to stop the issuance of Social Security mismatch letters, which would stop illegal aliens from using SSNs that belong to American citizens and legal residents.

SSA and IRS Protect Identity Thieves

The Social Security Administration turns a blind eye to illegal misuse of SSNs. It does not notify American citizens and legal residents when someone else uses their SSN nor does it inform law enforcement authorities. It does not remove a SSN that it has not issued from its database once that number begins to be used for fraudulent purposes. It would, however, issue that number to a new-born child, thereby giving the infant an instant credit history, possibly even an arrest record, and liability for any unpaid income taxes.⁵⁷

Every year, the IRS receives millions of W-2s with names that don’t match their SSNs. In spite of the fact that a majority of these come from states with large illegal alien populations and high rates of identity theft, the IRS allows even this obvious illegal activity to go largely unchallenged. As Mark W. Everson, the Commissioner of the IRS, said “We want your money whether you are here legally or not and whether you earned it legally or not.”⁵⁸

However, if an illegal alien using another person’s SSN doesn’t pay taxes on the income earned under that number, the IRS demands that the true owner of the number pay the outstanding taxes. In addition, if an illegal alien has already filed a return using an American citizen’s SSN, the IRS will require the citizen to clear the matter up before accepting and processing the citizen’s return. Even then, according to a report by the IRS’s Taxpayer Advocate, “The IRS does not tell the taxpayer that identity theft is a possible cause of the problem nor does it describe the consequences of an insufficient or untimely response.”⁵⁹ Furthermore, according to Weld County Colorado Sheriff John Cooke “They [the IRS] know the Social Security numbers are stolen and they choose to ignore it.”⁶⁰

Credit Bureaus Facilitate Identity Theft

Like the IRS and Social Security Administration, the major credit reporting bureaus fail to support the rule of law and protect citizens and legal residents from SSN-only identity theft. Citing privacy concerns, they don’t advise individuals when someone else starts using their SSN. They may, however, create sub-files under the true owners’ names without any notification and when individuals review their credit reports, the credit bureaus will hide the sub-files from them in order to protect the privacy of the persons who have stolen their SSNs. The credit reporting bureaus will, however, allow businesses or other clients to see the sub-files and they may combine the credit scores of all of the files in the primary owner’s record.⁶¹

Leaders Reward Fraud and Identity Theft

Ten states currently offer in-state tuition to illegal aliens who graduate from their high schools. When the beneficiaries of these programs are profiled in the press, some openly talk about their jobs and how hard they work to earn money to pay their tuition and living expenses. However, since the students are illegally in the United States and undocumented, the only way they could have gotten jobs with reputable employers was to commit two and possibly three felonies — document fraud, perjury on an I-9 form, and possibly identity theft.

In spite of this, when it appeared that Utah’s special in-state tuition program for illegal aliens would be terminated, the president of the University of Utah, Michael Young, told the campus newspaper that he was willing to reduce the number of scholarships available for American citizens and legal residents in order to provide larger scholarships for illegal aliens. According to the paper, Young said “the U would have to tap into other scholarship funds, which they would be willing to do, but they would essentially have to decide whether to give scholarships to three documented students or one undocumented student.”⁶²

In 2008 when Utah legislators proposed a compromise bill that would have allowed students illegally in the United States to continue to be eligible for in-state tuition if the students would agree to refrain from working illegally, the University of Utah objected to the compromise. Gov. Jon Huntsman’s office labeled the effort “punitive.” Utah’s Attorney General said that it was not appropriate to entangle students in the identity theft debate. The Commissioner of Higher Education’s office took the position that the current law should remain unchanged. The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints called on legislators to show compassion for illegal aliens and the Alliance for Unity, which is made up of the religious, political, business, and civic elite of Utah, issued a statement calling for in-state tuition to remain unchanged.

Throughout the debate on in-state tuition, religious, political, business, government, education, and civic leaders opposing the no-work requirements consistently sent the message that it is acceptable to break the law in order to earn money to pay for a college education. Those supporting the students further turned a blind eye to the fact that students illegally in the United States. won’t be able to work legally in the United States after graduation.

Why unskilled immigrants hurt America:
In the old days, we cried ‘give me your tired, your poor,’ but today’s welfare and social- services apparatus enormously raises the cost of immigration

July 23, 2006

By Steven Malanga

The day after Librado Velasquez arrived on Staten Island after a long, surreptitious journey from his home in Chiapas, Mexico, he headed out to a street corner to wait with other illegal immigrants looking for work. Velasquez, who had supported his wife, seven kids, and his in-laws as a campesino, or peasant farmer, until a 1998 hurricane devastated his farm, eventually got work, off the books, loading trucks at a small New Jersey factory, which hired illegals for jobs that required few special skills. The arrangement suited both, until a work injury sent Velasquez to the local emergency room, where federal law required that he be treated, though he could not afford to pay for his care. After five operations, he is now permanently disabled and has remained in the United States to pursue compensation claims.

“I have no other way to live except if I receive some other type of compensation. I need help, and I thought maybe my son could come and work here and support me here in the United States,” Velasquez said through an interpreter at New York City Council hearings.

Velasquez’s story illustrates some of the fault lines in the nation’s highly charged debate on immigration. Since the mid-1960s, America has welcomed nearly 30 million legal immigrants and received perhaps another 15 million illegal immigrants, numbers unprecedented in our history. These immigrants have picked our fruit, cleaned our homes, cut our grass, worked in our factories and washed our cars. But they have also crowded into our hospital emergency rooms, schools and government-subsidized aid programs, sparking a fierce debate about their contributions and costs.

Advocates of open immigration argue that welcoming the Librado Velasquezes of the world is essential for our American economy: our businesses need workers like him. Like tax cuts, supporters argue, immigration pays for itself.

But the tale of Librado Velasquez helps show why supporters are wrong about today’s immigration, as many Americans sense and so much research has demonstrated. America does not have a vast labor shortage that requires waves of low-wage immigrants; in fact, unemployment among unskilled workers is high — about 30 percent. Like Velasquez, many of the unskilled, uneducated workers now journeying here labor in shrinking industries, where they force out native workers, and many others work in industries in which cheap labor has led businesses to suspend investment in new technologies that would make them less labor-intensive.

These workers come at great cost. Increasing numbers of them arrive with little education and none of the skills necessary to succeed in a modern economy. Many may wind up stuck on our lowest economic rungs, where they will rely on something that immigrants of other generations didn’t have: a vast U.S. welfare and social- services apparatus that has enormously amplified the cost of immigration. Just as welfare reform and other policies are helping to shrink America’s underclass by weaning people off such social programs, we are importing a new, foreign-born underclass. As famed free-market economist Milton Friedman puts it: “It’s just obvious that you can’t have free immigration and a welfare state.”

Immigration can only pay off again for America if we reshape our policy, organizing it around what’s good for the economy by welcoming workers we truly need and excluding those who, because they have so little to offer, are likely to cost us more than they contribute, and who will struggle for years to find their place here.

EARLIER IMMIGRANTS HAD SKILLS

Hampering today’s immigration debate are misconceptions about the so-called first great migration 100 years ago, with which today’s immigration is often compared. We envision that first great migration as a time when multitudes of Emma Lazarus’ “tired,” “poor,” and “wretched refuse” made their way from destitution to American opportunity. If America could assimilate 24 million mostly desperate immigrants from that great migration, surely, so the story goes, we can absorb the millions of Librado Velasquezes now venturing here.

But that argument distorts the realities of the first great migration. Though fleeing persecution or economic stagnation in their homelands, that era’s immigrants brought important skills that fit easily into the American economy and helped supercharge the work force. A 1998 National Research Council report noted “that the newly arriving immigrant nonagricultural work force . . . was (slightly) more skilled than the resident American labor force”: 27 percent of them were skilled laborers, compared with only 17 percent of that era’s native-born work force.

Many of these immigrants quickly found a place in our economy, participating in the work force at a higher rate even than the native population. Their success at finding work sent many of them quickly up the economic ladder: those who stayed in America for at least 15 years, for instance, were just as likely to own their own business as native-born workers of the same age, one study found.

WELCOME TO THE WELFARE STATE

What the newcomers of the great migration did not find here was a vast social-services and welfare state. They had to rely on their own resources or those of friends, relatives or private, often ethnic, charities if things did not go well, which was why many of them left when the economy sputtered. One often hears that restrictive anti-immigration legislation ended the first great migration, but what really killed it was the crash of the American economy. Even with the 1920s quotas, America welcomed 4.1 million immigrants, but in the Depression of the 1930s, the number of foreign immigrants tumbled far below quota levels, to 500,000. With America’s streets no longer paved with gold, 60 percent of those already here left in a great remigration home.

Today’s immigration has turned out so differently in part because it emerged out of the 1960s civil rights and Great Society mentality. In 1965, a new immigration act eliminated the old system of national quotas, which critics saw as racist because it greatly favored European nations. Lawmakers created a set of broader immigration quotas for each hemisphere, and they added a new visa preference category for family members. Senate immigration subcommittee chairman Edward Kennedy reassured the country that, “contrary to the charges in some quarters, [the bill] will not inundate America with immigrants,” and “it will not cause American workers to lose their jobs.”

But, in fact, the law increased immigration by 60 percent in its first 10 years. Sojourners from poorer countries around the rest of the world arrived in ever-greater numbers, so that where half of immigrants in the 1950s had originated from Europe, 75 percent by the 1970s were from Asia and Latin America. Legal immigration to the United States soared from 2.5 million in the 1950s to 4.5 million in the 1970s to 7.3 million in the 1980s.

Meanwhile, the widening economic gap between the United States and many of its neighbors also pushed illegal immigration to levels that America had never seen. In particular, when Mexico’s move to a more centralized, state-run economy in the 1970s produced hyperinflation, the disparity between its stagnant economy and U.S. prosperity yawned wide. With Mexican farmworkers able to earn seven to 10 times as much in the United States, by the 1980s illegals were pouring across our border at the rate of about 225,000 a year, and U.S. sentiment rose for slowing the flow.

But an unusual coalition of business groups, unions, civil rights activists and church leaders thwarted the call for restrictions with passage of the inaptly named 1986 Immigration Reform and Control Act, which legalized 2.7 million unauthorized aliens already here, supposedly in exchange for tougher penalties and controls against employers who hired illegals. The law proved no deterrent, however, because supporters, in subsequent legislation and court cases argued on civil rights grounds, weakened the employer sanctions, and the flow of illegals into the country rose to between 300,000 and 500,000 a year in the 1990s.

UNSKILLED IMMIGRANTS LOWER WAGES

The flood of immigrants, both legal and illegal, from countries with poor, ill-educated populations, has yielded a mismatch between today’s immigrants and the American economy and has left many workers poorly positioned to succeed for the long term. Unlike the immigrants of 100 years ago, whose skills reflected or surpassed those of the native work force, many of today’s arrivals, particularly the more than half who now come from Central and South America, are farmworkers in their home countries who come here with little education or even basic training in blue-collar occupations. Nearly two-thirds of Mexican immigrants, for instance, are high school dropouts, and most wind up doing either unskilled factory work or small-scale construction projects, or they work in service industries, where they compete for entry-level jobs against one another, against the adult children of other immigrants, and against native-born high school dropouts. Of the 15 industries employing the greatest percentage of foreign-born workers, half are low-wage service industries, including gardening, domestic household work, car washes, shoe repair and janitorial work.

Studies show that immigrants drive down wages of native-born workers and squeeze them out of certain industries. Harvard economists George Borjas and Lawrence Katz, for instance, estimate that low-wage immigration cuts the wages for the average native- born high school dropout 8 percent, or more than $1,200 a year. Even economists who don’t find as much of an impact on all native Americans admit that the new workers push down wages significantly for immigrants already here and native-born Hispanics. Consequently, the sheer number of immigrants competing for low-skilled service jobs makes economic progress difficult. A study of the New York City’s restaurant business, for instance, found that 60 percent of immigrant workers do not receive regular raises, while 70 percent had never been promoted.

ENDING UP ON SOCIETY’S MARGINS

In many American industries, waves of low-wage workers have also retarded investments that might lead to modernization and efficiency. Faced with a labor shortage in the early 1960s, when President Kennedy ended a 22-year-old guest-worker program that allowed 45,000 Mexican farmhands to cross over the border and harvest 2.2 million tons of California tomatoes for processed foods, farmers complained they would be forced out of business. Instead they swiftly automated, adopting a mechanical tomato-picking technology created more than a decade earlier. Today, just 5,000 better-paid workers—one-ninth the original work force—harvest 12 million tons of tomatoes using the machines.

The savings prompted by low-wage migrants may even be minimal in crops not easily mechanized. Agricultural economists Wallace Huffman and Alan McCunn of Iowa State University have estimated that without illegal workers, the retail cost of fresh produce would increase only about 3 percent in the summer-fall season and less than 2 percent in the winter-spring season, because labor represents only a tiny percent of the retail price of produce and because without migrant workers, America would probably import more foreign fruits and vegetables.

As foreign competition and mechanization shrink manufacturing and farmworker jobs, low-skilled immigrants are likely to wind up farther on the margins of our economy, where many already operate. For example, although only about 12 percent of construction workers are foreign-born, 100,000 to 300,000 illegal immigrants have carved a place for themselves as temporary workers on the fringes of the industry. In urban areas such as New York and Los Angeles, these mostly male illegal immigrants gather on street corners, in empty lots, or in Home Depot parking lots to sell their labor by the hour or the day, for $7 to $11 an hour. A New York study found that four in 10 employers who hire day laborers are private homeowners or renters wanting help with cleanup chores, moving or landscaping.

Because so much of our legal and illegal immigrant labor is concentrated in such fringe, low-wage employment, its overall impact on our economy is extremely small. A 1997 National Academy of Sciences study estimated that immigration’s net benefit to the American economy raises the average income of the native-born by up to $10 billion a year—about $120 per household.

If the benefits of the current generation of migrants are small, the costs are large and growing because of America’s vast range of social programs and the wide advocacy network that strives to hook low-earning legal and illegal immigrants into these programs. A 1998 National Academy of Sciences study found that more than 30 percent of California’s foreign-born were on Medicaid—including 37 percent of all Hispanic households — compared with 14 percent of native-born households. The foreign-born were more than twice as likely as the native-born to be on welfare, and their children were nearly five times as likely to be in means-tested government lunch programs.

Native-born households pay for much of this, the study found, because they earn more and pay higher taxes—and are more likely to comply with tax laws.

The study’s conclusion: immigrant families cost each native-born household in California an additional $1,200 a year in taxes.

This is a sharp turnaround since the 1970s, when immigrants were less likely to be using the social programs of the Great Society than the native-born population, said Harvard economist Borjas, who suggests that welfare and other social programs are a magnet drawing immigrants and keeping them here when they run into difficulty.

Pols around the country, intent on currying favor with ethnic voting blocs by appearing immigrant-friendly, have jumped on the benefits-for-immigrants bandwagon, endorsing “don’t ask, don’t tell” policies toward immigrants who register for benefits, giving tax dollars to centers that find immigrants work and aid illegals, and enacting legislation prohibiting local authorities from cooperating with federal immigration officials. In New York, for instance, Mayor Michael Bloomberg has ordered city agencies to ignore an immigrant’s status in providing services. “This policy’s critical to encourage immigrant day laborers to access . . . children’s health insurance, a full range of preventive primary and acute medical care, domestic violence counseling, emergency shelters, police protection, consumer fraud protections, and protection against discrimination through the Human Rights Commission,” the city’s Immigrant Affairs Commissioner, Guillermo Linares, explains.

IMMIGRANTS DON’T CLIMB THE LADDER

Despite our cherished view of immigrants as rapidly climbing the economic ladder, new arrivals and their children face a lifetime of economic disadvantage, because they arrive here with shortcomings not easily overcome. Mexican immigrants, who are up to six times more likely to be high school dropouts than native-born Americans, not only earn substantially less than the native-born median, but the wage gap persists for decades after they’ve arrived. A study of the 2000 census data, for instance, shows that the cohort of Mexican immigrants between 25 and 34 who entered the United States in the late 1970s were earning 40 to 50 percent less than native-born Americans in that age group in 1980, but 20 years later they had fallen even further behind their native-born counterparts.

Given these realities, several of the major immigration reforms now under consideration simply don’t make economic sense — especially the guest-worker program favored by President Bush and the U.S. Senate. Careful economic research tells us that there is no significant shortfall of workers in essential American industries desperately needing supplement from a massive guest-worker program.

The potential woes of a guest-worker program far overshadow any economic benefit, given what we know about the long, troubled history of temporary-worker programs in developed countries. The economic and cultural consequences of guest-worker programs have been devastating in Europe, and we risk similar problems.

When post-World War II Germany permitted its manufacturers to import workers from Turkey to man the assembly lines, industry’s investment in productivity declined relative to such countries as Japan, which lacked ready access to cheap labor. Even worse, descendants of these workers have been chronically underemployed and now have a crime rate double that of German youths.

If low-wage immigration doesn’t pay off for the United States, legalizing illegals already here makes as little sense as importing new rounds of guest workers.

Merely granting illegal aliens legal status won’t suddenly catapult them up our mobility ladder, because it won’t give them the skills and education to compete.

At the same time, legalization will only spur new problems, as our experience with the 1986 immigration act should remind us. The legislation swamped the Immigration and Naturalization Service with masses of fraudulent, black-market documents by illegals hoping to gain permanent status, so that the INS eventually rubber-stamped tens of thousands of dubious applications.

END SOCIAL AID TO IMMIGRANTS

If we do not legalize them, what can we do with 11 million illegals? Ship them back home? Their presence here is a fait accompli, the argument goes, and only legalization can bring them above ground, where they can assimilate. But that argument assumes that we have only two choices: to decriminalize or deport. But what happened after the first great migration suggests a third way: to end the economic incentives that keep them here and prompt the same kind of remigration that saw some 60 percent of previous immigrants return home. We could prompt a great remigration home if, first off, state and local governments in jurisdictions such as New York and California would stop using their vast resources to aid illegal immigrants. Second, the federal government can require employers to verify Social Security numbers and immigration status before hiring, so that we bar illegals from many jobs. And it can refuse to give those who remain the same benefits as U.S. citizens.

Instead, we must look to other developed nations that have focused on luring workers who have skills that are in demand and who have the best chance of assimilating. Australia, for instance, gives preferences to workers grouped into four skilled categories: managers, professionals, associates of professionals, and skilled laborers. Such an immigration policy goes far beyond America’s employment-based immigration categories, like the H1-B visas, which account for about 10 percent of our legal immigration and essentially serve the needs of a few Silicon Valley industries.

America benefits even today from many of its immigrants, from the Asian entrepreneurs who have helped revive inner-city Los Angeles business districts to Haitians and Jamaicans who have stabilized neighborhoods in Queens and Brooklyn to Indian programmers who have spurred so much innovation in places like Silicon Valley and Boston’s Route 128. But increasingly over the last 25 years, such immigration has become the exception. It needs once again to become the rule.

Steven Malanga is a contributing editor of City Journal. This is adapted from an upcoming issue.