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Index
Explanation _______________________________________ 3
1nc [1/2] _________________________________________ 4
Overview_________________________________________ 6
TECHNOLOGY / HEG IMPACT
Tech/Heg – mpx shell ______________________________ 50
Tech/heg – illegals kill tech growth ____________________ 51
ECONOMY IMPACT
UNIQUENESS
Uniq – 2nc/1nr wall ________________________________ 7
Uniq – ext 1 – econ means its low _____________________ 9
Uniq – ext 3 – mexico proves ________________________ 10
Uniq – ext 4 – border patrol _________________________ 11
Uniq – ext 5 – studies show _________________________ 12
Econ – mpx shell [1/2] ______________________________ 52
Econ – Illegals drain the economy _____________________ 54
Econ – Illegals ↑ unemployment ______________________ 56
Econ – Illegals hurt California econ____________________ 58
Econ – A2 illegals help Social Security _________________ 59
MISCELLANEOUS IMPACTS
LINK DEBATE
Link – social services [1/3] __________________________
Link – Economic opportunities _______________________
Link – Jobs ______________________________________
Link – escape poverty ______________________________
Link – improved economy __________________________
Link – abortion ___________________________________
Link – legal services _______________________________
13
16
17
18
19
20
21
INTERNAL LINK
IL – snowballs ____________________________________ 22
IL – reverse causal ________________________________ 23
Mpx – healthcare __________________________________ 60
Mpx – food prices _________________________________ 61
Mpx – energy prices ________________________________ 62
A2 BLOCKS for the 2NC/1NR
A2 - illegals aren’t eligible for SS _____________________ 63
A2 - will come if the economy improves ________________ 64
A2 – reform solves the impact ________________________ 65
A2 – ↑ enforcement solves ___________________________ 66
A2 Mexican Economy ______________________________ 67
TERRORISM IMPACT
Terror - ↑ = more terrorists __________________________
Terror – hiding with immigrants key method ___________
Terror – smuggle WMD ____________________________
Terror – Al Qaeda focusing on Mexico ________________
Terror – Impact ___________________________________
24
27
28
29
30
OVERPOPULATION IMPACT
Overpop – mpx shell _______________________________
US Overpop Brink ________________________________
Overpop – Illegals  US overpop [1/2] ________________
Overpop  Eco disasters ___________________________
Overpop  Poverty _______________________________
Solving Poverty = more consumption __________________
Solving Poverty = More Meat Consumption ____________
US consumes Most ________________________________
Overconsumption  Eco Collapse [1/2] _______________
31
32
33
35
37
38
39
40
41
DISEASES IMPACT
Diseases – mpx shell _______________________________
Diseases – Illegals spread them [1/2] __________________
Diseases – Spread throughout the US __________________
Diseases – Any More Bad / Brink ____________________
Diseases Impact __________________________________
TB bad _________________________________________
43
44
46
47
48
49
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AFFIRMATIVE ANSWERS
NON-UNIQUE
Non – Unique – Illegals Increasing Now _______________ 68
LINK DEBATE
No Link _________________________________________
No Link – abortion ________________________________
No Link – legal services ____________________________
Alt cause – Drug Violence __________________________
Immigrants follow the economy ______________________
Immigration inevitable _____________________________
70
73
74
75
76
77
IMPACT DEBATE
Illegals Good – help econ ___________________________
Illegals Good – don’t hurt the econ ____________________
Illegals Good – A2 unemployment ____________________
Illegals Good – A2 hurt Cali econ ____________________
78
80
81
82
MEXICAN ECON IMPACT TURN
Good Shell – Mexican economy ______________________ 83
Mexican Econ Growing ____________________________ 84
Illegals key to Mexican econ ________________________ 85
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Immigration Disad
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Explanation
The Disad
Again, another simple core of the topic disad. The plan provides a social service that functions as a ‘magnet’ to get more illegal
immigrants to cross the border to take advantage of those social services. More illegals in the US bad for a myriad of reasons.
The impacts are –
Terrorism – groups will use mass groups of people coming into the US to make it easier for them to smuggle in weapons of their
own. The more people coming, the less likely they are to get caught so they are less likely to try.
Overpopulation – Americans consume a ton. Increase our population destroys our environment.
Disease – legal immigrants have to get checked out and get vaccinated for diseases. Illegals come in without that which means
they spread more foreign diseases
Economy – illegals hurt jobs and cost money. Pretty simple.
The overpopulation section includes some cards that are the start of a “rich Americans bad” type argument that you could make. I
think it needs more work but the general argument is that when Americans get richer they consume more – overconsuming bad.
So basically, poverty good.
AFFIRMATIVE
I didn’t do a 2ac because I think the best answers are specific to the aff that you are reading. So, for example if you are reading the
abortion aff then the best answers are that the generic “social services” links that the neg reads don’t assume your aff. If I wrote a
generic 2ac I would be afraid you would do that.
There aren’t really any link turns b/c I don’t know how the aff would logically result in less immigrants coming to the US. Which
means you should probably read the impact turn in the 2ac to make sure you have some offense.
The no link cards are phenomenal – that is where I would start off my work.
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A. illegal immigration has reached historic lows – multiple studies confirm
WASHINGTON TIMES 10 – 3 – 08
[Flow of illegals into U.S. slows;Decrease seen amid crackdown, http://www.lexisnexis.com]
Illegal immigration appears to have fallen last year, marking the first drop in years and coinciding with Congress' failure to pass a legalization bill and
the Bush administration's stepped-up raids and enforcement.
In a study released Thursday, the Pew Hispanic Center estimates that the illegal immigrant population fell by 500,000 from 12.4 million in
March 2007 to 11.9 million this year.
The study's authors caution that the finding is "inconclusive" because of the margin of error of the estimates, although the findings mirror those of the Center for Immigration Studies,
which also estimated a drop in illegal immigration.
The Department of Homeland Security also said it has seen evidence that the flow of illegal immigrants is slacking off as well.
"In the history of law enforcement, there has never been zero crime, but both the steady decrease in illegal crossings at the southwest border and the unfortunate increase in violence
against our agents tell us that our posture is working," Homeland Security spokeswoman Laura Keehner said.
The Pew study, which used U.S. Census Bureau statistics, says there could be many reasons for the drop: a slowdown in U.S. economic growth
that has dried up opportunities for illegal workers, economic growth in Latin American countries that has kept some workers at
home and heightened enforcement in the U.S.
Illegal immigration from Mexico, which accounts for much more than half of the U.S. illegal immigrant population, appears to have stalled, while illegal
immigration from the rest of Latin America appears to have declined substantially.
"This recent decline is borne out by other Bureau of Labor Statistics data, cited in a recent annual Pew Hispanic Center report, indicating that the number of foreign-born South Americans
in the U.S. work force declined in the first quarter of 2008 compared with 2007," the Pew study said.
Steven A. Camarota,
research director for the Center for Immigration Studies, said his own study showed the drop began even before
a spike in unemployment among the apparent illegal-alien population, suggesting that enforcement did play a role.
"We all agree that something has changed. Incentives changed and the flow changed," he said.
B. plan creates incentives for a new wave of illegals
Borjas 99 Professor of Economics and Social Policy Kennedy School of Government Harvard University, Research
Associate at the National Bureau of Economic Research
[George J., “Immigration and Welfare Magnets” Journal of Labor Economics Vol. 17 No. 4 Part 1 October 1999 JSTOR
http://www.jstor.org/stable/2660682] JH
The debate over the link between immigration and welfare focuses on two related issues . The first is the perception that there has
been a rapid rise in the number of immigrants who receive public assistance . Although early studies of immigrant participation in welfare programs
concluded that immigrant households had a lower probability of receiving public assistance than U.S.-born households, more recent studies have shown that this conclusion
no longer holds-immigrant households are now more likely to receive welfare than native households.1 Borjas and Hilton (1996) report
that when one includes both cash and noncash benefits (such as Medicaid and Food Stamps) in the definition of welfare, nearly
21% of immigrant households received some type of assistance in the early 1990s, as compared to only 14% of native households.
The increasing participation of immigrants in welfare programs has spawned a rapidly growing literature that attempts to determine if immigrants "pay their way" in the welfare state.
There is also some concern over the possibility that the generous welfare programs offered by many U.S. states have become a "magnet" for
immigrants. The magnet hypothesis has several facets. It is possible, for example, that welfare programs attract immigrants who otherwise would not
have migrated to the United States; or that the safety net discourages immigrants who "fail" in the United States from returning
to their source countries; or that the huge interstate dispersion in welfare benefits affects the residential location choices of
immigrants in the United States and places a heavy fiscal burden on relatively generous states. Despite their potential importance, there has been little systematic study of
these magnetic effects, and there is little empirical evidence that either supports or refutes the conjecture that welfare programs have affected the size, composition, or geographic location
of the immigrant flow.3
This article begins to document the link between immigrant welfare use and some of the potential magnetic effects of welfare
benefits. In particular, I investigate whether the residential choices made by immigrants in the United States are influenced by the interstate dispersion in benefits. It turns out that
these magnetic effects can lead to striking and easily observable outcomes as long as immigration is motivated by income
maximizing behavior. In particular, foreign-born welfare recipients, un- like native welfare recipients, should be clustered in the
state that offers the highest benefits. As a result of this geographic clustering, the sensitivity of welfare participation rates to differences in state
benefit levels should be greater in the immigrant population than in the native population . The empirical analysis presented in this article uses the
1980 and 1990 Public Use Microdata Samples (PUMS) of the decennial census to test the theoretical implications. The data reveal a great deal of
dispersion in the welfare participation rate of immigrants across states and indicate that less-skilled immigrants -and, more
specifically, immigrant welfare recipients- are much more heavily clustered in high-benefit states than immigrants who do
not receive welfare, or than natives. The evidence, therefore, is consistent with the hypothesis that the generous welfare benefits
offered by some states have magnetic effects and alter the geographic sorting of immigrants in the United States.
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C. that provides cover for terrorists to sneak into the US
TING 06 Prof. Law @ Temple
(Jan, , Orbis, “Immigration and National Security”, 50:1, p. 41-52, ScienceDirect, doi:10.1016/j.orbis.2005.10.004)
The overwhelming majority of the millions of illegals, and even of the absconders, are not terrorists. But the sea of incoming
illegal aliens provides a cover and a culture in which terrorists can hide, and a reliable means of entry. We need only recall that
the Madrid train bombers resided easily in Spain (some came from Morocco, where Spanish is widely spoken) to appreciate that many Islamist
terrorists are fluent in Spanish. Border Patrol apprehension figures show that among the OTMs apprehended in 2004 and 2005 were hundreds of persons from 35
‘‘special interest’’ countries, almost all of which are Muslim. They include Afghanistan, Egypt, Iran, Iraq, Lebanon, Saudi Arabia, Somalia, Sudan, Syria, and Yemen; the number-one
country in the group, with the largest number of aliens apprehended, is Pakistan. Again, these are just the apprehensions: for every alien apprehended entering the United States illegally,
an estimated 3 to 9 others succeed.
the result is extinction
CORSI 05 Ph.D. in Political Science from Harvard University
[Jerome Corsi (Expert in Antiwar movements and political violence), Atomic Iran, pg. 176-178]
The United States retaliates: 'End of the world' scenarios The combination of horror and outrage that will surge upon the nation will demand that the
president retaliate for the incomprehensible damage done by the attack. The problem will be that the president will not immediately know how to respond or against
whom.The perpetrators will have been incinerated by the explosion that destroyed New York City. Unlike 9-11, there will have been no interval during the attack when those hijacked
could make phone calls to loved ones telling them before they died that the hijackers were radical Islamic extremists.There will be no such phone calls when the attack will not have been
anticipated until the instant the terrorists detonate their improvised nuclear device inside the truck parked on a curb at the Empire State Building. Nor will there be any possibility of
finding any clues, which either were vaporized instantly or are now lying physically inaccessible under tons of radioactive rubble.Still, the
president, members of Congress, the
military, and the public at large will suspect another attack by our known enemy –Islamic terrorists. The first impulse will be to launch a nuclear
strike on Mecca, to destroy the whole religion of Islam. Medina could possibly be added to the target list just to make the point with crystal clarity. Yet what
would we gain? The moment Mecca and Medina were wiped off the map , the Islamic world – more than 1 billion human beings in countless different nations –
would feel attacked. Nothing would emerge intact after a war between the United States and Islam. The apocalypse would be upon us.Then, too, we would face an
immediate threat from our long-term enemy, the former Soviet Union. Many in the Kremlin would see this as an opportunity to grasp the
victory that had been snatched from them by Ronald Reagan when the Berlin Wall came down. A missile strike by the Russians on a score of American
cities could possibly be pre-emptive. Would the U.S. strategic defense system be so in shock that immediate retaliation would not be possible? Hardliners in Moscow
might argue that there was never a better opportunity to destroy America. In China, our newer Communist enemies might not care if we could retaliate.
With a population already over 1.3 billion people and with their population not concentrated in a few major cities, the Chinese might calculate to initiate a nuclear
blow on the United States. What if the United States retaliated with a nuclear counterattack upon China? The Chinese might be able to absorb the blow and recover. The North
Koreans might calculate even more recklessly. Why not launch upon America the few missiles they have that could reach our soil? More confusion and chaos might only advance their
position. If Russia, China, and the United States could be drawn into attacking one another, North Korea might emerge stronger just because it was overlooked while the great nations
focus on attacking one another. So, too, our supposed allies in Europe might relish the immediate reduction in power suddenly inflicted upon America. Many of the great egos in Europe
have never fully recovered from the disgrace of World War II, when in the last century the Americans a second time in just over two decades had been forced to come to their rescue. If
the French did not start launching nuclear weapons themselves, they might be happy to fan the diplomatic fire beginning to burn under the Russians and the
Chinese. Or the president might decide simply to launch a limited nuclear strike on Tehran itself. This might be the most rational
option in the attempt to retaliate but still communicate restraint. The problem is that a strike on Tehran would add more nuclear devastation to the world calculation. Muslims
around the world would still see the retaliation as an attack on Islam, especially when the United States had no positive proof that the destruction of New York City had been triggered by
radical Islamic extremists with assistance from Iran. But for the president not to retaliate might be unacceptable to the American people . So weakened by
the loss of New York, Americans would feel vulnerable in every city in the nation. "Who is going to be next?" would be the question on everyone's mind. For this there would be no
effective answer. That
the president might think politically at this instant seems almost petty, yet every president is by nature a
politician. The political party in power at the time of the attack would be destroyed unless the president retaliated with a nuclear
strike against somebody. The American people would feel a price had to be paid while the country was still capable of exacting revenge.
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Immigration Disad
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Overview
The Disad outweighs and turns the case –
A. Magnitude – a terror attack on US soil would force US retaliation on Islamic groups in the middle east – that
would escalate to a global war involving the US, Russia, and all the major powers – the world would end in
Armageddon – that’s CORSI.
B. Timeframe would be quick – the next wave of undocumented immigrants could be the one to hide the next
terrorist – AL QAEDA is looking for the best way to sneak in WMD already
CNN 06
(Rick Flores, Sheriff for Webb County Texas, and Randi Kaye, Reporter, ANDERSON COOPER 360 DEGREES, 5-15, L/N)
Perhaps more
alarming than drug smuggling and gang warfare, growing suspicions that al Qaeda may see this place as a way into
the U.S. While terrorists can come from anywhere, deputies have never seen anyone of Middle Eastern descent crossing here. This is the sheriff's fear. RICK FLORES, SHERIFF,
WEBB COUNTY, TEXAS: It's very simple. They go to Mexico. They spend a couple of months. They learn the language. They pick
up on the culture. And they blend in with the other people who are crossing, making their way into the United States. And
possibly even bringing extra luggage with them. KAYE (on camera): Meaning? FLORES: Meaning dirty bombs, weapons of mass destruction. KAYE:
You're saying that you believe it's a possibility that al Qaeda or any other type of terrorist group could possibly be smart enough to blend in with these drug
cartels and gang members and cross the border that way? FLORES: If the price is right, anything is possible.
C. Flips the case – increased immigration means a greater number of people taking advantage of the social service
– which means it doesn’t accomplish what it was intended to do – Plus – increased illegal populations lock groups
into poverty.
FAIR 05 Federation for American Immigration Reform - national, nonprofit, public-interest, membership organization
[updated regularly – home page cites statistics from 2005,
http://www.fairus.org/site/News2?page=NewsArticle&id=16663&security=1601&news_iv_ctrl=1007]
illegal immigration causes substantial harm to American citizens
and legal immigrants, particularly those in the most vulnerable sectors of our population — the poor, minorities, and children.
Illegal immigration causes an enormous drain on public funds. The seminal study of the costs of immigration by the National Academy
of Sciences found that the taxes paid by immigrants do not begin to cover the cost of services received by them. The quality of
education, health care and other services for Americans are undermined by the needs of endless numbers of poor, unskilled illegal
entrants.
Additionally, job competition by waves of illegal immigrants desperate for any job unfairly depresses the wages and working
conditions offered to American workers, hitting hardest at minority workers and those without high school degrees .
Apologists for illegal immigration try to paint it as a victimless crime, but the fact is that
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Uniq – 2nc/1nr wall
1. the number of immigrants entering the US is at an all time low – that’s our WASHINGTON TIMES evidence –
it cites multiple studies and census data – half a million illegals stayed home last year because there weren’t enough
opportunities in the US.
2. Plus – we’ll win that illegal immigration is low –
A. the economy means it will remain low
Carafano. 12-15-08. senior research fellow in national security issues at The Heritage Foundation.
[James Jay Carafano, “Don't Count on Economy To Stop Illegal Immigrants.” http://www.heritage.org/press/commentary/ed121508b.cfm]
They are leaving. Illegal immigrants, that is.
The "unlawfully present" population in
the United States has shrunk — and it's getting smaller.
According to Pew, there has been a drop in the annual flow of people illegally entering the country since 2005. And the numbers of
those already here is going down. It peaked at 12.4 million in 2006 and is down by about 1 million now.
Analysts from both ends of the immigration debate, from the Center for Immigration Studies to the Pew Hispanic Center, agree.
What the analysts don't agree on is why. Good enough data simply aren't available to answer the question. There are a number of possibilities, though.
It could be simple economics, with fewer jobs translating into fewer illegal immigrants. Historically, whenever the U.S. economy
has shrunk, fewer workers risk coming north to seek employment. They find economic opportunities at home or migrate to
alternate destinations.
B. lack of jobs
Examiner.com 6-17-09
[Aurelia Fierros, LA Border and Immigration Examiner June 17, 2009 http://www.examiner.com/x-9270-LA-Border-and-ImmigrationExaminer~y2009m6d17-UCSD-border-apprehensions-decrease-not-related-to-enforcement-strategy] JH
Washington D.C. - The
Department of Homeland Security released a report this week showing that apprehensions of undocumented
immigrants at the U.S.-Mexico border are at their lowest level since 1973, leaving many observers contemplating the factors responsible for this decline. Is
it the recession-plagued U.S. economy or beefed-up enforcement efforts? New data from a research team led by Wayne Cornelius, Director of the Center
for Comparative Immigration Studies at the University of California, San Diego , sheds light on the decline in apprehensions and
reveals the surprising, unintended consequences of border enforcement. According to 4,012 interviews conducted with migrants and prospective
migrants in Mexico, California, and Oklahoma between 2005 and 2009, the drying up of the U.S. job market, coupled with the high personal and financial
costs of migration, are slowing the pace of undocumented migration from Mexico. At the same time , undocumented immigrants already
here are staying put due to the high costs and physical risks of being smuggled back into the United States, fear of losing their U.S. jobs,
and lack of economic opportunities in Mexico . The data reveals that, ironically, enhanced border security has created "reduced circularity in
migration"- essentially locking migrants in the U nited States as the prospect of going home and returning later has become increasingly expensive and dangerous.
The new research conducted by Cornelius' team indicates that the condition of the U.S. economy is far more significant in explaining the recent
decline in border apprehensions than any of the enforcement-only measures that have been implemented to date. Border-enforcement
efforts will continue to be largely ineffectual until the U.S. immigration system is brought into line with the ups and downs of U.S. labor demand, which drives so much of undocumented
immigration in the first place. Enforcement is not a substitute for reform.
C. Mexican census data proves
Preston 5-14-09 National Immigration Reporter for The New York Times
[http://www.nytimes.com/2009/05/15/us/15immig.html?_r=1&pagewanted=print “Mexican Data Show Migration to U.S in Decline. New York Times]
MEXICALI, Mexico — Census
data from the Mexican government indicate an extraordinary decline in the number of Mexican
immigrants going to the United States.
The recently released data show that about 226,000 fewer people emigrated from Mexico to other countries during the year that
ended in August 2008 than during the previous year, a decline of 25 percent. All but a very small fraction of emigration, both legal and illegal, from
Mexico is to the United States.
Because of surging immigration, the Mexican-born population in the United States has grown steeply year after year since the early 1990s, dipping briefly only after the attacks of Sept.
11, 2001, census data in both countries show.
Mexican and American researchers say that the current decline, which has also been manifested in a decrease in arrests along the border, is largely a
result of Mexicans’ deciding to delay illegal crossings because of the lack of jobs in the ailing American economy.
The trend emerged clearly with the onset of the recession and, demographers say, provides new evidence that illegal immigrants from
Mexico, by far the biggest source of unauthorized migration to the United States, are drawn by jobs and respond to a sinking labor market by staying
away.
“If jobs are available, people come,” said Jeffrey S. Passel, senior demographer at the Pew Hispanic Center, a nonpartisan research group in Washington. “If jobs are not available, people
don’t come.”
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D. Down for multiple reasons - border patrol proves
Aurelia Fierros 09 LA Border and Immigration Examiner. .
[http://www.examiner.com/x-9270-LA-Border-and-Immigration-Examiner~y2009m6d17-UCSD-border-apprehensions-decrease-not-related-toenforcement-strategy. “UCSD: Border Apprehensions’ Decrease not related to Enforcement Strategy.”]
Washington D.C. - The
Department of Homeland Security released a report this week showing that apprehensions of undocumented
immigrants at the U.S.-Mexico border are at their lowest level since 1973, leaving many observers contemplating the factors
responsible for this decline. Is it the recession-plagued U.S. economy or beefed-up enforcement efforts? New data from a research team led by Wayne Cornelius, Director of
the Center for Comparative Immigration Studies at the University of California, San Diego, sheds light on the decline in apprehensions and reveals the surprising, unintended
consequences of border enforcement.
According to 4,012 interviews conducted with migrants and prospective migrants in Mexico, California, and Oklahoma between 2005 and 2009 ,
the drying up of the U.S. job
market, coupled with the high personal and financial costs of migration, are slowing the pace of undocumented migration from
Mexico. At the same time, undocumented immigrants already here are staying put due to the high costs and physical risks of being smuggled back into the United States, fear of losing
their U.S. jobs, and lack of economic opportunities in Mexico. The data reveals that, ironically, enhanced border security has created "reduced circularity in migration"- essentially locking
migrants in the United States as the prospect of going home and returning later has become increasingly expensive and dangerous.
The new research conducted by Cornelius' team indicates that the condition of the U.S. economy is far more significant in
explaining the recent decline in border apprehensions than any of the enforcement-only measures that have been implemented to
date. Border-enforcement efforts will continue to be largely ineffectual until the U.S. immigration system is brought into line with
the ups and downs of U.S. labor demand, which drives so much of undocumented immigration in the first place . Enforcement is not a
substitute for reform.
E. Figures prove
Hsu 5-21-09 Washington Post Staff Writer
[Spenser S. Hsu, http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/05/20/AR2009052003644.html “Arrests on Southern Border Drop”
Washington Post]
The number of arrests at the U.S.-Mexico border has dropped 27 percent this year, a decline that could put the figure at its lowest
level since the early 1970s, federal officials said yesterday.
The decline accelerates a three-year-old trend that experts attribute to the economic downturn, with stronger U.S. immigration
enforcement measures also playing a role.
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Uniq – ext 1 – econ means its low
Economic decline has decreased illegal immigration
American Tribune 6-6-09 Esteemed Newspaper
[http://www3.signonsandiego.com/stories/2009/jun/06/lz1ed6top004616-immigration-decline/?uniontrib “Immigration Decline” American Tribune]
When Americans learn that fewer Mexican immigrants are coming to the United States, many assume enhanced border enforcement is paying off. Not so fast. A
new study
suggests that the lower numbers of migrants have more to do with diminished job opportunities in the United States.
When a team of researchers from the Center for Comparative Immigration Studies at UCSD interviewed more than 1,000 people
from a small town in the Mexican state of YucatÁn, they found that about 25 percent fewer people are considering crossing this
year, compared to a similar study they did three years ago. The researchers also found that 90 percent of those interviewed said it
was getting harder to find gainful employment in the United States.
The Mexicans who were interviewed were well aware of the beefed-up border enforcement which the United States has put in place in recent years, including more fencing and more
Apparently, the necessity to feed
one's family still overrides concerns about being nabbed at the border. And those who are nabbed usually try again soon after being returned to Mexico.
Tighter enforcement on the border has had an indirect effect, in that it has caused immigrant smugglers to raise their rates. The
price has gone up eight times in the last three years, according to the study. And, because of the recession, many employers are no
longer willing to pay the freight for workers as they have in the past.
Border Patrol officers. But they didn't seem to care much about that, according to the research. The same was true in the 2006 findings.
Illegals have slowed – economic decline
WASHINGTON TIMES 10 – 9 – 08
[What about the illegals?, lexis-nexis]
The word "attrition" or a reduction in numbers aptly describes the state of illegal immigration today. Illegal immigration in the
United States is on a slow decline - and enforcement and unemployment are playing significant roles . Unemployment surged up to
6.1 percent in September, according to the Department of Labor. In fact, the overall gloomy economic picture may be providing fewer enticements.
A major source of employment for illegal aliens, the construction industry and home-remodel business, are on the decline. Illegal
immigrants are also employed in the blue-collar production and service sectors, which have also been effected .
In addition, tightened enforcement measures have discouraged illegal immigrants from staying in the United States. Still, border
enforcement, workplace crackdowns, the threat of deportation and greater social awareness have not worked alone to push down
illegal alien numbers.
Illegal immigration down – economy & increased enforcement
DAVIES 6 – 19 – 09 Mercury News Washington Bureau
Frank Davies, “Obama, Congress consider tackling immigration reform,” http://www.mercurynews.com/nationworld/ci_12624976?nclick_check=1]
Because of the lack of jobs and tighter enforcement, the flow of illegal immigrants has slowed dramatically, U.S. and Mexican
officials say. The undocumented immigrant population has not grown since 2006, according to the Pew Hispanic Survey and Doris Meissner, a former
top immigration official with the Migration Policy Institute.
Last year, 724,000 illegal immigrants were caught at the border, the lowest total since 1973, the Homeland Security Department said in a report issued Tuesday.
The decline in illegal immigration may have taken some heat off the issue. In a January survey by the Pew Research Center for the
People and the Press, 63 percent of the public — 5 percent higher than in 2007 — favored "providing a way for illegal immigrants
already in the U.S. to gain legal citizenship."
A broad coalition of business, labor, church and immigrant groups is pushing hard to get the attention of Congress, as is the Center for American Progress, headed by Obama adviser John
Podesta.
Advocates are making an economic pitch that bringing undocumented workers "out of the shadows" by requiring them to learn
English and pay fees and fines to gain legal status will add to the rolls of taxpayers . The Congressional Budget Office estimated that legalization would
increase net revenue by $65 billion over 10 years.
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Uniq – ext 3 – mexico proves
Mexican emigration is declining – government survey
AP 6-2-09
[Associated Press June 2, 2009 “Mexican emigration drops 13 percent in 1st quarter” www.msnbc.msn.com/id/31073315] JH
MEXICO CITY -- A
government survey finds Mexican emigration dropped 13 percent in the first quarter of 2009 - an ongoing trend as
the U.S. economic recession discourages Mexicans from crossing the border in search of work . The National Statistics and Geography Institute
found that 137,497 people left Mexico in the first three months of 2009, compared to 159,024 during the same period of 2008. More people returned to Mexico than left:
Immigration to Mexico rose from 120,715 to 138,599 in the first quarter, a 12 percent increase . The institute released its findings from household
surveys Tuesday. Mexican emigration has dropped steadily over the past two years, a trend experts attribute to the U.S. economic
downturn and tighter border security.
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Uniq – ext 4 – border patrol
border patrol arrests prove
Julia Preston 06-19-09 National Immigration Correspondent for the New York Times [http://www.nytimes.com/2009/06/19/us/19brfsBORDERPATROL_BRF.html?_r=1. “Border Patrol Arrests of Illegal Immigrants Drop. New York Times]
Arrests of illegal immigrants by the Border Patrol declined in 2008 to 724,000, the lowest number in 35 years, the Department of
Homeland Security reported. Apprehensions by the agency fell from a peak of 1.6 million in 2000, declining by 39 percent in the
last three years. Border Patrol arrests are regarded by researchers as a broad-brush indicator of the flow of illegal immigrants. The department’s report attributed the
decline to high unemployment in the United States and increased border enforcement, among other factors.
Immigration is down due to increased enforcement – plan doesn’t change that
Hsu 5-21-09 Washington Post Staff Writer
[Spenser S. Hsu, http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/05/20/AR2009052003644.html “Arrests on Southern Border Drop”
Washington Post]
The number of arrests at the U.S.-Mexico border has dropped 27 percent this year, a decline that could put the figure at its lowest
level since the early 1970s, federal officials said yesterday.
The decline accelerates a three-year-old trend that experts attribute to the economic downturn, with stronger U.S. immigration enforcement measures also
playing a role.
U.S. Border Patrol Chief David V. Aguilar released the data to the Senate Judiciary subcommittee on immigration, refugees and border security, noting that the
number of Border Patrol agents has more than doubled from 9,000 in 2001 to a projected 20,000 by September. The government also has completed
626 miles of fencing and vehicle barriers. It plans 661 miles of barriers on the 2,000-mile frontier.
"By several measures, the border is far more secure than it has ever been and, with our help, will soon be even more secure," said Sen. Charles E. Schumer
(D-N.Y.), chairman of the panel, which held the first of four hearings scheduled to take place before the August recess. Aides said the hearings are meant to build a case for overhauling
immigration laws.
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Uniq – ext 5 – studies show
Studies agree Illegal immigration is down – Lack of Job Markets
Fox News 2-9-09
[Mike Levine February 09, 2009 Napolitano: As Recession Deepens, Illegal Immigration From Mexico Declines
http://www.foxnews.com/politics/first100days/2009/02/09/napolitano-recession-deepens-illegal-immigration-mexico-declines/ ] JH
The weak economy is giving the government a unique chance to toughen its efforts against illegal immigration, but officials need to act before the window of opportunity closes,
Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano said. Napolitano said Friday that the department has seen a "pretty significant decrease" in
illegal immigrants crossing over from Mexico because the number of available jobs in the United States has decreased. "I think we
need to move and take advantage of that," she said at a briefing with Customs and Border Protection (CBP) officials.
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Link – social services [1/3]
Social services function as an immigrant magnet
CARNEGIE 96 A joint project of the International Migration Policy Program of the Carnegie Endowment for
International Peace and the Urban Institute
[Research Perspectives on Migration, “Immigrants & Welfare,” September / October 1996 Volume 1 / Number ,
http://www.carnegieendowment.org/files/rpm/rpmvol1no1.pdf]
A number of key concerns were raised during the
debate, with ramifications for both welfare and immigration policy. Chief among them was the concern that immigrants are using
welfare disproportionately. Other concerns were that welfare use among i m m i g rants is accelerating; that certain ethnic groups with large and growing immigrant flows are
more heavily represented on the welfare rolls than others; that assistance programs are acting as a magnet for potential immigrants; and that welfare
may be producing some of the same undesirable social and behavi o ral traits among immigrants that critics have argued it
produces in the native-born population.
The debate that preceded passage of the bill reflected widespread public disapproval of immigrant welfare use.
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Link – social services [2/3]
The neg is damn right – welfare benefits are a magnet
Shaw 93 US Representative from Florida
[Eugene Clay U.S. House of Representatives Subcommittee on Human Resources Committee on Ways and Means Hearing on the Impact of Immigration on
Welfare Programs November 15, 1993 http://www.archive.org/stream/impactofimmigrat00unit/impactofimmigrat00unit_djvu.txt] JH
And when you talk about welfare here in this country, the benefits can mount to around $13,000 a year where your minimum wage
is around $8,000 a year. That creates a tremendous magnet here in this country. And the question is are people coming here from throughout the world —
and this isn't just Latin America, this isn't bashing on any particular group of people — ^but are they coming here because of the welfare? Do our welfare benefits amount
to a magnet? You are damn right they do . You are damn right they do. People are talking a lot about what workers are paid in Mexico, and I know there
is a lot of misinformation out there, but we do know that the Mexican wages are certainly below our minimum wage, so are our welfare benefits a
magnet for people to come into the United States? Of course they are .
Immigrant populations take advantage of social services – looking for economic opportunities
MEESE & SPALDING 5 – 10 – 07 Ronald Reagan Distinguished Fellow in Public Policy and Chairman of the Center for Legal and
Judicial Studies & Director of the B. Kenneth Simon Center for American Studies, at The Heritage Foundation
[Edwin Meese, III, & Matthew Spalding PhD, Where We Stand: Essential Requirements for Immigration Reform, Backgrounder #2034,
http://www.heritage.org/research/immigration/bg2034.cfm]
Principle: Immigration policy should be a fiscal and economic benefit not only for immigrants, but also for the nation as a whole.
Most individuals and families that immigrate to the U nited States come seeking economic opportu-nity. Unlike previous generations,
however, a gener-ous welfare, education, and health system with generous eligibility draws poor and low-skill immi-grants into the
ranks of the underclass rather than encouraging self-reliance and financial indepen-dence. Policymakers must ensure that the interac-tion
of social services and immigration policy does not expand the welfare state and impose significant costs on American society .
Overall, immigration policy should support a growing economy and bring economic benefit to all Americans.
*Don't import poverty. Government
provides a generous system of benefits and services to both the working and the non-working poor.
While government continues its massive efforts to reduce overall poverty, immigration policy in the United States tends to produce
results in the opposite direction, increasing rather than decreasing the poverty problem. Immigrants with low skill levels have a
high probability of poverty and of receiving benefits and services that drive up governmental welfare, health, social service, and
education costs.[22]
Illegal immigrants rely heavily on social services
MEESE & SPALDING 5 – 10 – 07 Ronald Reagan Distinguished Fellow in Public Policy and Chairman of the Center for Legal and
Judicial Studies & Director of the B. Kenneth Simon Center for American Studies, at The Heritage Foundation
[Edwin Meese, III, & Matthew Spalding PhD, Where We Stand: Essential Requirements for Immigration Reform, Backgrounder #2034,
http://www.heritage.org/research/immigration/bg2034.cfm]
*Consider fiscal costs and benefits. The
fiscal impact of immigration varies strongly according to immigrants' education levels. While highly
educated immigrants, on average, make positive fiscal contributions, the overall fiscal impact of low-skill immigrants is negative.
On average, low-skill immigrant households receive $19,588 more in immediate benefits than they pay in taxes each year —nearly
$1.2 million in lifetime costs for each such household .[23] Immigration reform must take into account the large and fore-seeable costs associated
with importing millions of low-skill immigrants and the likelihood that such an immigration policy will vastly expand the welfare
state. For the same reasons, a policy that grants amnesty to current illegal aliens would have a very significant fiscal cost.[24]
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Link – social services [3/3]
Social Services attract immigrants
Stein 2000 Executive director, Federation for American Immigration Reform
[Dan Stein “Immigration Pro/Con” July 2000 CQ Researcher http://www.prhs.k12.ny.us/fac/fitzgibbonsb/Debate/Immigration%20Pro%20Con.doc] JH
Politicians perpetually talk about the need to control illegal immigration. But because the talk is rarely backed with action, about 6 million illegal aliens now reside in the United States.
Now, some in Congress are suggesting illegal immigration once again be rewarded by granting amnesty to millions of brazen law violators. What sort of signal does this send? It tells
people we will do little to stop them and even less to deport them if they decide to bypass the legal immigration process. It tells them we will grant them legal status if they have the
fortitude to stick it out for a few years. Is it any wonder the illegal immigrant population equals the population of Massachusetts? The last amnesty in 1986 -- which Congress pledged
would never be repeated -- legalized some 3 million people and cost taxpayers an estimated $78 billion. Today, immigration enforcement has virtually collapsed.
And despite the
fact that financial institutions manage to run millions of electronic verifications every day, the government has yet to develop a
system that can even authenticate a job applicant's right to work and live in the United States . Consequently, the availability of jobs and
generous social services continues to attract illegal immigrants. Another amnesty would tell the world that the United States literally is unable to control its
borders. Such an admission inevitably would force a reappraisal of the validity and purposes of the meaningless immigration quotas now on the books. Illegal immigration also
inflicts economic injury on Americans in the lower half of the wage structure . Numerous studies show that immigration, especially illegal immigration,
results in wage loss for Americans who must compete against illegal immigrants. While amnesty proponents argue that legalization will give illegal aliens more bargaining leverage, even
this questionable merit is likely to be short-lived. Another amnesty is guaranteed to set off an even greater influx of illegal immigration as people perceive this to be our way to deal with
the problem periodically.Amnesty is not the answer. The only way to stop illegal immigration is to link aliens' ability to immigrate with their willingness to play by our rules. Encourage
those here illegally to return to their home countries through incentives and get control of our borders -- only then would any discussion of an amnesty and reward program be responsible.
Improving social services boosts illegal immigration – it’s the reason they come
GRAY 9 – 12 – 06 Chief Policy Analyst of the Civitas Institute, a research and public policy organization
[Becky Gray, “Civitas Institute: Higher Minimum Wage Would Be Magnet For Illegal Immigrants,” http://www.wsoctv.com/news/9829933/detail.html]
Raising the minimum wage, in addition to the other benefits provided by the state, could encourage a greater number of illegal
immigrants to come to North Carolina. Keeping the minimum wage at the current rate of $5.15 per hour won’t end the allure for illegal
immigrants, but it won’t encourage more to come.
In the Senate Budget Bill (SB 1741), and in a free-standing bill before the House (HB 2174), legislators want to raise the minimum wage to $6.15 per hour, one dollar more than the
federal rate. This would make North Carolina’s minimum wage the highest of surrounding states, the highest between Florida and New Jersey, and the 14th highest in the country.
Six states have no minimum wage state laws. They let the free market determine what workers are paid. Twenty-seven states (N.C. currently among them) adhere to the rate set by the
federal government — $5.15 per hour. Nineteen states have minimum wages higher than the federal level (N.C. would join these states).
Of the five states with the highest illegal populations (estimated, no one really knows), four have minimum wage rates higher than North Carolina. The fifth is Texas, which many would
argue is a magnet for illegals, regardless of its minimum wage, because of its proximity to Mexico.
Ten million illegal
immigrants live in the United States, although some estimates put that number at 20 million. They come to escape extreme poverty and poor
living conditions. They come to America to work, and many send money back home to their families.
North Carolina’s illegal immigrant population is estimated at 400,000- 600,000. They come here because of the generous Medicaid benefits, a
plethora of social services, schools for their children, easy drivers’ license requirements, lax voting laws, and most importantly, jobs. Most illegals fill the
lowest paying jobs the market has to offer. Who benefits when the pay for these jobs is raised? The workers at the bottom of the pay scale, and a great many of them are
illegal immigrants. Not only would the illegal immigrant workforce benefit immediately, but, since North Carolina would be offering the highest minimum wage in the region, the $6.15
starting pay rate would be a magnet for illegals to choose North Carolina as their new, albeit illegal, home.
New immigrants care about social services
Columbus Dispatch 07
[Columbus Dispatch, “Politicians woo central Ohio's immigrant votes for next election” December 2, 2007 Lexis]
Politicians are beginning to realize that while immigrants
as a group may be concerned about some of the same basic issues such as good jobs
for people with limited language skills or access to health care , immigrants may hold different views about everything from charter schools to taxes.
"Immigrant groups are not monolithic blocks. They have competing interests, just like any group in society does," said Doug Preisse, the Franklin County Republican Party chairman.
Instead, campaigning Republicans plan to appeal to immigrants' sense of entrepreneurship and hard work, Preisse said.
Democratic party leaders strive to unite immigrant groups by focusing on "kitchen table issues" such as improving schools, health care, and economic issues, said Ohio Democratic Party
spokesman Randy Borntrager. These issues bring people together because they benefit the community as a whole, he said.
Many immigrants are focused on issues tied to their home countries, said Louis DeSipio, an associate professor at the University of California-Irvine who has studied immigrant voting
patterns for 20 years. Cubans, for example, use their votes to influence U.S. policy toward Fidel Castro, while Mexicans may be concerned about the rights of illegal immigrants.
And, priorities may diverge with succeeding generations, DeSipio said. New
immigrants may be more concerned with social services than older
immigrants who have succeeded in businesses here.
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Link – Economic opportunities
Immigrants to improve their economical situation – Correlation between migration and economy quality
Special Committee on Immigration Reform 06 Missouri House Committee
[“Final Report of the Special Committee on Immigration Reform” October 24, 2006
http://www.house.mo.gov/billtracking/bills061/commit/report148/Final%20Report%20on%20Immagration%20Reform.pdf]
There is a natural correlation between migration and economic opportunity. Migration, to a great extent, is motivated by the desire
of individuals to better their lives and the lives of their families. It is apparent by the history of the United States that economic opportunity is the
greatest where economic freedom is the highest hence the claim for a clear correlation between migration and economic freedom. While there are multiple definitions
for economic freedom, the prime indicators of economic freedom, within any governmental jurisdiction, include the size of government; the legal structure and security
of property rights; access to sound money; freedom to exchange with foreigners; and regulation of credit, labor, and business. Although Mexico is not the only contributor to
illegal immigration into the United States, it is major contributor. An examination of the disparity between the economic freedom of the US and that of Mexico,
as published by the Fraser Institute, reveals that the U.S. is tied for 3rd and that Mexico, is tied for 59th on the indexed scale of economic freedom
rankings by country. As to the index of the legal structure and security of property rights component of this index of Economic Freedom, Mexico has a dismal index rating of only 3.9 out
of a possible rating of 10.
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Link – Jobs
Jobs created by the plan increase immigration - The decline in immigration is due to the lack of jobs
NY Times 5-14-09
[Julia Preston National Correspondent, New York Times “Mexican Data Show Migration to U.S. in Decline” May 14, 2009
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/05/15/us/15immig.html] JH
MEXICALI, Mexico — Census
data from the Mexican government indicate an extraordinary decline in the number of Mexican
immigrants going to the United States.
The recently released data show that about 226,000 fewer people emigrated from Mexico to other countries during the year that ended in
August 2008 than during the previous year, a decline of 25 percent. All but a very small fraction of emigration, both legal and illegal, from Mexico is to the
United States.
Because of surging immigration, the Mexican-born population in the United States has grown steeply year after year since the early 1990s, dipping briefly only after the attacks of Sept.
11, 2001, census data in both countries show.
Mexican and American researchers say that the current decline, which has also been manifested in a decrease in arrests along the border, is largely a
result of Mexicans’ deciding to delay illegal crossings because of the lack of jobs in the ailing American economy.
The trend emerged clearly with the onset of the recession and, demographers say, provides new evidence that illegal immigrants from Mexico , by far the biggest source of
unauthorized migration to the United States, are drawn by jobs and respond to a sinking labor market by staying away .
“If jobs are available, people come,” said Jeffrey S. Passel, senior demographer at the Pew Hispanic Center , a nonpartisan research group in
Washington. “If jobs are not available, people don’t come.”
New job opportunities are the crucial magnet for illegal immigration
VAUGHAN 3 – 14 – 07 Senior Policy Analyst, Center for Immigration Studies
[Jessica M. Vaughn, “Preventing Illegal Employment: Federal “Basic Pilot” Verification Program is an Effective and Business-friendly Tool,”
http://www.cis.org/articles/2007/jmvtestimony031407.html]
History of Basic Pilot. It is widely recognized that employment is the most common incentive for illegal immigration to the United
States. In 1986, with the passage of the Immigration Reform and Control Act, it became illegal for employers to knowingly hire
illegal aliens. The law required employees to produce documents establishing eligibility for work, but provided no way for employers to ascertain if the documents are legitimate.
This spawned a huge counterfeit document industry and enabled employers who deliberately ignore immigration laws to get away
with accepting fraudulent documents, while holding out the specter of discrimination charges against those conscientious
employers who might inspect documents too closely.
In 1997, the bipartisan blue-ribbon Commission on Immigration Reform, headed by former Democratic Texas Congresswoman and civil rights icon Barbara Jordan,
concluded: “Reducing the employment magnet is the linchpin of a comprehensive strategy to deter unlawful migration . . . .
Strategies to deter unlawful entries and visa overstays require both a reliable process for verifying authorization to work and an enforcement capacity to ensure that employers adhere to all
immigration-related labor standards. The Commission supports implementation of pilot programs to test what we believe is the most promising option for verifying work authorization: a
computerized registry based on the social security number."6
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Link – escape poverty
Hopes of escaping poverty motivate illegal immigration – US doesn’t enforce the laws
BAMBENEK 4 – 5- 06 project manager at Cap Gemini Ernst and Young, where he provided consulting services to
numerous Fortune 500 firms, Information security practitioner, BA Univ of Illinois in Theoretical Astrophysics
John Bambenek, “A Solution to Illegal Immigration?,” http://www.parttimepundit.com/archives/931
The immigrants’ position
Living in poverty with no hope of a better life for oneself or one’s children isn’t a fun thing. If you lived in Mexico and saw the
prosperity in the US you’d want to come here too . With the Mexican government and the United States government making it so easy to come
here it hardly seems like it is really illegal. Companies are ready and willing to not only hire you, but help you “doctor” the
paperwork so it appears legit. If your child is born in the US they’ll automatically have US citizenship.
It’s a win-win.
Analysis
This problem has been caused by the government of the United States not only spending decades not enforcing the law but broadcasting that
we have no intention of enforcing the law. When Mexico started producing pamphlets on how to sneak across the border, our government did nothing. While it is
tempting to blame the illegal immigrants, we can hardly blame them for wanting a better life, being told by their government they
can come to the US for a good life, and the US saying they won’t enforce the laws. Making it a felony to be an illegal immigrant starts to get
dangerously close to an ex post facto kind of situation.
Immigrants come to escape poverty – they can barely live on salaries in Mexico
Johnson City Press 07
[Jeff Keeling Press Business Writer “The simple reason millions of Latin Americans come to the States: - A better life” June 24, 2007
http://www.johnsoncitypress.com/09/News/article.php?ID=59658] JH
A simple reality has brought most of the millions of legal Latin American immigrants, and 12 to 20 million illegal ones, to the United States: Earning
enough for even the true necessities of life is very difficult in Mexico and many points south, and jobs are plentiful here .
“I don’t care if they build fences 40 feet high,” says Jane Myron, a city commissioner and owner of Jane’s Lunch Box. Myron has a friend and employee who is from Mexico and has
worked for her for about a decade, allowing Myron an “in” to the Hispanic community.
“When
you are hungry, and when you are trying to take care of your family and you know that you can do that by going across that
border, then you will climb that fence,” she says.
As the director of East Tennessee State University’s Bureau of Business and Economic Research, Jon Smith has spent considerable time in Mexico and says a demographic shift has
emptied entire Mexican villages of their young men. As a result, money sent home (remittances) provides Mexico’s second-largest source of foreign income.
Indeed, on Friday Mexico Lindo, a store in north Johnson City, was busy as usual helping people wire money home. Owner Lourdes McKinney said wire fees depend on how much a
person sends, with $1,000 usually costing $25-$30.
Virginio Cruz and his wife, Hermina Lopez, had brought in $1,400 to send to their four children in Oaxaca. While the couple is working here Lopez’s mother cares for the kids, ages 6, 9,
12 and 14.
“They send money every 15-30 days, and often it’s more (than Friday’s amount),” McKinney said.
Smith says he understands why people here are concerned about a huge influx of Latin Americans, but that without significant change to either our economy, the Mexican economy or
both, the situation is unlikely to change.
“One, the wages for people with good jobs are very low in Mexico, and two, jobs are available in the United States,” Smith says. “People are hiring them.”
Smith recently toured a York air conditioner plant in Monterrey, where he says he saw highly skilled workers making very sophisticated machinery. “The quality of their workmanship
was very high. They were paid $2 an hour (that works out to less than $4,200 a year), and that was a high-paying job.”
Marco Ramirez left Mexico City in his teens and came to Greeneville to work in tobacco. Today, the 25-year-old makes good money finishing concrete with his uncle. He
had learned the trade in his early teens working with uncles in Mexico City, but his comments about economic reality echo Smith’s.
“The money’s not right,” Ramirez
says. “You cannot live with what they pay you there — about $150 a week working long hours.”
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Link – improved economy
Plan attracts immigrants - Migration rates depend on economy
Littlefield 3-5-09 Council on Hemispheric Affairs Research Associate
[Edward W. “As Mexico’s Problems Mount: The Impact of the Economic Recession on Migration Patterns from Mexico” COHA Publication March 5 th,
2009 http://www.coha.org/2009/03/as-mexico’s-problems-mount-the-impact-of-the-economic-recession-on-migration-patterns-from-mexico/] JH
The following information was released by the Council on Hemispheric Affairs:
- As migration
from, and remittances to, Mexico have decreased as a result of the current recession, the Mexican economy ominously worsens
- Migration, remittances, and the national economy should be considered as integral components in the debate over whether Mexico deserves to be classified as a "failed state," and what
should be United States policy
The Mexican economy and many of its national institutional structures may be on the brink of collapse. While drug war violence has dominated the recent news about the possible
irreversible status as a society beyond remediation, the topic of immigration has been either marginalized or used to further promote fears that the conflict may spread to the United States.
Drugs, national security, and economic recession have replaced immigration reform on the United States' policy agenda. However, the
current financial crisis, and its
impact south of the border, is intricately linked to matters of immigration, security, and Mexico's very cohesion.
Previous Mexican Economic Crises and their Impact on Migration
In the past, economic crises in Mexico have precipitated spikes in immigration to the U nited States. In 1982, falling oil prices forced a 72 percent
devaluation of the peso, resulting in a 30 percent increase in Mexicans apprehended along the U.S. border, from 1 million to 1.3 million, in 1983 and 1984. In 1994, as the indigenous
Zapatistas in the southern Chiapas region welcomed the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) with an uprising, the economic crisis resulting from the peso's devaluation
resulted in another 30 percent increase in border apprehensions. Additional
factors, both internal and external, shaped Mexican migration to the
United States in the 1990s. The Mexican economy could not produce enough jobs to accommodate the country's dramatic
population growth (68 million in 1980 to 94 million in 1995). Consequently, the preferred solution on both sides of the border was to bolster the Mexican economy through
NAFTA, which intended to limit the population's incentive to immigrate illegally to the United States. Increased border security and United States employment levels were expected to
further curb migration in the mid 1990s. However, the 1994 peso devaluation increased the relative value of dollars earned by Mexicans in the United States, providing a major incentive
for the population to seek employment north of the border and send earnings back home.
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Link – abortion
Link - Abortion kills a generation that can now be filled by immigrants
Colson 6 – Political Activist Indicted for Watergate Scandal – Rights Activist
[Charles, “Illegal Immigration The Real Root of the Problem” Break Point April 11, 2006 http://www.breakpoint.org/commentaries/5551-illegalimmigration] JH
But what’s
the root of the problem? Why do we have a shortage of workers? Aha, that’s the unspeakable “A” word that the elite dread the most:
abortion.
The reason we must allow millions of illegal aliens in to fill these jobs is because we have murdered a generation that would
otherwise be filling them: 40 million sacrificed since 1973 to the god of self-fulfillment. And Americans are barely maintaining a replacement-level birthrate of
2.1 children per woman.
Remember the compassionate stuff that the abortionists used to tell us: “We are just preventing these poor kids from growing up in deprived, impoverished circumstances”? Hah! False.
What happens is that others come in from abroad to live in those deprived, difficult, and impoverished circumstances and at great public cost.
I hope the politicians will have the courage to face this issue in a way that does not undermine the American economy, shows compassion to those in our midst, and restores the rule of
law. At the same time, you and I can contend to restore the culture of life, because it is the culture of death that has put us in this mess today.
Is there a solution? Sure. Seal the borders, which you have got to do with terrorists out there anyway, insist the workers we have welcomed in our midst file and comply with
appropriate immigration laws, and—oh yeah—stop killing our children.
Abortion services increase immigration - Abortions free up jobs for immigrants
AP 11 – 13 - 06
[DAVID A. LIEB, Associated Press Writer “Mo. Panel: Immigration, Abortion Linked” SF Chronicle November 13, 2006 http://www.sfgate.com/cgibin/article.cgi?file=/news/archive/2006/11/13/national/a151852S62.DTL] JH
A Republican-led legislative panel claims in a new report on illegal immigration that abortion is partly to blame because it is
causing a shortage of American workers.
The report from the state House Special Committee on Immigration Reform also claims "liberal social welfare policies" have
discouraged Americans from working and encouraged immigrants to cross the border illegally.
The statements about abortion, welfare policies and a recommendation to abolish income taxes in favor of sales taxes were inserted into the immigration report by the committee chairman,
Rep. Ed Emery.
All six Democrats on the panel refused to sign the report. Some of them called the abortion assertion ridiculous and embarrassing.
"There's a lot of editorial comment there that I couldn't really stomach," Rep. Trent Skaggs said Monday. "To be honest, I think it's a little delusional."
All 10 Republican committee members signed the report, though one of them, Rep. Billy Pat Wright, said Monday he didn't recall it connecting abortion and illegal immigration.
Emery, who equates abortion to murder, defended the assertions.
"We hear a lot of arguments today that the reason that we can't get serious about our borders is that we are desperate for all these workers," Emery said. "You don't have to think too long.
If you kill 44 million of your potential workers, it's not too surprising we would be desperate for workers."
National Right to Life estimates there have been more than 47 million abortions since the Supreme Court established a woman's right to abortion in its
1973 Roe v. Wade ruling. The immigration report estimates there are 80,000 fewer Missourians because of abortion, many of whom now would have been in a "highly productive age
group for workers."
The abortion connection to illegal immigration was listed under the report's recommendations on federal social policies and
potential state legislative actions on illegal hiring.
"Suggestions for how to stop illegal hiring varied without any simple solution," the report states. "The lack of traditional work ethic, combined with the effects of 30 years of
abortion and expanding liberal social welfare policies have produced a shortage of workers and a lack of incentive for those who
can work."
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Link – legal services
Improvements in the legal system entice immigrants – Germany empirically proves
Aleinikoff 84 Professor of Law at the University of Michigan
[T.Alexander “POLITICAL ASYLUM IN THE FEDERAL REPUBLIC OF GERMANY AND THE REPUBLIC OF FRANCE: LESSONS FOR THE UNITED STATES” Lexis
Nexis]
If these policies virtually invited aliens to apply, the West German legal system ensured them a lengthy time to enjoy the benefits.
The right to asylum n56 and judicial review of administrative determinations n57 are secured by the German Constitution. As
implemented by statutes, these constitutional provisions formerly gave rise to administrative and judicial proceedings that
regularly took three to five years to complete [*199] and often took much longer. n58 The legal process itself, therefore, created
incentives for potential asylum claimants: whether or not one's claim was ultimately granted, the process promised to take so long that even aliens with patently frivolous
claims would be guaranteed a long stay in Germany.
Legal Service providers want to help out immigrant populations
COOPER 05 journalist in New York, who specializes in topics of human rights and justice. With a background as a
lawyer, she worked for legal services for two and a half years
[Cynthia L., Equal Justice Magazine, Winter 2005 | Vol. 4 No. 2]
LSC-funded legal services programs, while working within the Congressional restrictions and LSC guidelines, are reaching out in
increasing numbers to immigrant communities from every continent and circumstance. In accordance with LSC regulations (45 CFR 1626) and applicable laws, LSC
grantees may not assist illegal aliens, according to Mattie C. Condray, Senior Assistant General Counsel at the Legal Services Corporation. But program offices
may represent some income-qualified aliens, such as lawful permanent residents ("green card" holders), specified refugees and asylum
seekers, certain immigrants who, as spouses, children, or parents, are related to U.S. citizens, and other specifically designated groups.
Some immigrants may qualify for a more limited form of legal representation . Migrant farmworkers with guest visas, for example, may be represented on
problems related to their work contract. Victims of human trafficking (see sidebar) may be provided legal assistance if they are helping to prosecute the traffickers, and parents of children
abducted to another country may also obtain legal help.
Many of these regulations are complex, note the authors of "Representing Immigrants: What do LSC Regulations Allow?" (Clearinghouse Review Journal of Poverty Law
and Policy, Sept-Oct 2004). In it, three specialists-National Immigration Law Center (NILC) attorney Sara Campos in Oakland, NILC Executive Director Linton Joaquin in Los Angeles,
and Sheila Neville, staff attorney at the LSC-funded Legal Aid Foundation of Los Angeles-provide the most comprehensive analysis of allowable LSC representation. Many
LSCfunded programs sometimes "unwittingly" turn away eligible clients, they say. In addition, they point out, in non-case-related matters of education,
information and referrals, LSC-funded programs are permitted to provide important services to communities with immigrant populations.
legal services programs encounter wide swaths of client populations with different languages
and cultures who are eligible for, and desperately need, aid of all types. Legal services offices are discovering innovative ways to serve this new clientele in
Reflecting a large wave of immigration since 1990,
both day-to-day issues, such as housing, benefits, consumer and family law, but also in unique issues, such as the reunification of families across borders.
According to U.S. Census Bureau figures, the immigrant population increased by 57 percent between 1990 and 2000. Immigrants accounted for 11 percent of the U.S. population in 2000.
The vast majority, 85 percent, live in a household with at least one citizen. In total, immigrants and first-generation citizens account for 56 million people nationwide.
"Among the many vast changes that affect how and what services LSC programs provide to clients, none is more significant than
the high number of immigrants that have come to the United States over the past few decades," began a December 6, 2004, LSC program letter on evaluating services to
people with limited English proficiency.
The legal services population is especially affected by the growth in immigration because of high poverty rates. According to the
2000 U.S. Census, nearly 17 percent of the immigrant population is poor, while only 11.2 percent of the non-immigrant population
lives in poverty. For new immigrants, those figures rise even higher to a 23.5 percent rate.
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IL – snowballs
New immigrants will hear about and come because of new social benefits – networks are created among
immigrants
Borjas 96 Professor of Economics and Social Policy Kennedy School of Government Harvard University
[George J. and Lynette Hilton “Immigration and the Welfare State: Immigrant Participation in Means-Tested Entitlement Programs” Quarterly Journal of
Economics Vol. 111 No. 2 pp. 575-604 May 1996 JSTOR http://www.jstor.org/stable/2946688]JH
The empirical evidence provides a number of potentially important findings:
1.
Immigrant households are much more likely to receive some type of welfare benefit than native households . The data indicate that 20.7
percent of immigrant households received either cash benefits, Medicaid, vouchers, or housing subsidies as compared with 14.1
percent of native households. This welfare gap between immigrants and natives is much larger than the gap suggested by earlier
studies (which focus on cash benefits). Moreover, the welfare gap increased rapidly between the mid-1980s and the early 1990s. Although much of the welfare gap can be accounted for
by differences in socioeconomic characteristics between the two populations, these variables explain only about a third of the rapid growth observed in the past decade.
2. Immigrant
households have more spells of welfare, and these spells are longer . As a result, the typical immigrant household has a
much higher propensity of being "permanently" on welfare. The probability that an immigrant household receives some type of benefit for at least 75 percent of
the sample period covered by the SIPP is 13.4 percent, as compared with 9.1 percent for native households.
3. There are sizable cohort effects (with more recent cohorts being more likely to receive welfare benefits) and assimilation effects (with a particular immigrant household being more
likely to receive benefits the longer the household has resided in the United States). These effects are strongest for participation in the Medicaid program.
4. The
types of welfare benefits received by earlier immigrant waves influence the types of welfare benefits received by newly
arrived immigrants. This correlation suggests that there might be information networks operating within ethnic communities
which transmit information about the availability of particular types of benefits to newly arrived immigrants. Because of the
potential implications of our results, it is important to stress the many limitations of the study. For example, the short sample period in the SIPP panels (each household is followed for
only 32 months) precludes a full analysis of the dynamics of welfare dependency in immigrant and native households. Similarly, little is known about the long-run impact of welfare
dependency in the immigrant generation in terms of the economic and social outcomes of second-generation Americans.
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IL – reverse causal
Its reverse causal – improvements in the economy and job market will spur emigration
NY Times 5-14-09
[Julia Preston National Correspondent, New York Times “Mexican Data Show Migration to U.S. in Decline” May 14, 2009
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/05/15/us/15immig.html] JH
“The latest evidence suggests that you can reverse the flow,” said Steven A. Camarota, a demographer at the Center for Immigration Studies, a
“It is not set in stone, so with some mix of enforcement and the economy, fewer will
come and more will go home.”
But Wayne Cornelius, the director of the Center for Comparative Immigration Studies at the U niversity of California, San Diego, predicted
that if the United States job market revived, border enforcement would become much less of a deterrent .
research group in Washington that calls for reduced immigration.
The center has documented the causes of the decrease in Mexican migration though interviews this year with more than 1,000 Mexicans in California and in a Yucatán village that has
been a source of migrants. In the interviews, all of the Mexicans who did set out from Yucatán for the United States reported that they eventually succeeded in crossing.
Mexicans are “not forgoing migration forever,” Professor Cornelius said. “They are hoping that the economy in the United States
will improve.”
For now, though, Mexicans like José Luis Z., 16, of the state of Michoacán, are setting the trend. José Luis went to the Albergue del Desierto, a migrant shelter in Mexicali for minor boys,
after setting out from home without telling his parents.
But when a job planting trees in Washington State fell through and he heard from migrants of increased patrolling along the border, he decided to head back home.
“I thought it would be easy, but now I see how people suffer,” said José Luis, who asked that his last name be withheld because he was a minor. He said he would go back to picking
strawberries in Michoacán, if his furious father did not banish him.
“There is work back home,” José Luis said, “but it doesn’t pay anything.”
The enforcement buildup along the border, which started during the Bush administration, has made many Mexicans think twice about the cost and danger of an illegal trek when no job
awaits on the other side, scholars said.
“There is a lack of certainty about jobs, so for the time being it is better to stay home,” said Agustín Escobar Latapí, a sociologist
at the Center for Research in Social Anthropology in Guadalajara, Mexico.
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Terror - ↑ = more terrorists
A New Wave Of Illegals Would Allow Terrorists to Sneak In Without Being Caught
Meese and Carafano 05 distinguished fellow at The Heritage Foundation, served as attorney general under President
Reagan & senior research fellow for defense and homeland security at Heritage
Edwin Meese III, James Jay Carafano, The Heritage Foundation, “Rule of Law at Stake in Immigration Debate,” October 7, 2005. By: Edwin Meese III and
James Carafano. Pg online @ (http://www.heritage.org/Press/Commentary/ed100605c.cfm)]
When you reward someone for doing something, you encourage others to engage in similar behavior. That’s why amnesty programs are the wrong way to address illegal immigration.
Any program that allows illegal aliens — persons who have entered or stayed in the United States in violation of our immigration laws — to remain in the United
States would reward their behavior and encourage others to do the same.
In addition, allowing illegal immigrants to remain in the country jeopardizes national security and violates the rule of law. A better policy would involve states and the
private sector in identifying illegal workers and encouraging them to return home. Then, if they want, they can apply to re-enter legally.
We are a nation with a strong immigrant foundation. A foundation, that is, of legal immigration. We must keep our doors open to foreigners, but we also must know who’s coming through
those doors.
There are millions of illegals in the U.S. today, and there
is no sign that this flood of humanity will abate in the near future. It’s simple supplyand-demand. As long as other nations do not provide enough jobs to keep up with their population growth, their citizens will try to cross our border to find work. The
opportunities available to undocumented workers in the United States encourage thousands more to enter illegally each month.
This wave of illegals also compromises our homeland security efforts. As long as people can pour across the border unlawfully in
search of work, others, such as terrorists, smugglers and criminals, will follow in their path.
However, if there were no jobs available because of stricter enforcement against businesses for wrongful hiring practices, immigrants would have no
incentive to enter illegally. This would make policing the border easier, since the only people attempting to sneak in would be
terrorists and other criminals.
Reducing the possible number of illegal immigrants makes meeting the challenges involved in securing our borders more attainable. Border
security officers could focus more on catching the criminals and terrorists instead of spending the majority of their time and
resources chasing illegal workers.
Illegal immigrant populations provide cover for terrorist groups
FAIR 05 Federation for American Immigration Reform - national, nonprofit, public-interest, membership organization
[updated regularly – home page cites statistics from 2005,
http://www.fairus.org/site/News2?page=NewsArticle&id=16663&security=1601&news_iv_ctrl=1007]
Illegal Immigration Undermines National Security
While most illegal
immigrants may come only to seek work and a better economic opportunity, their presence outside the law furnishes an opportunity for
terrorists to blend into the same shadows while they target the American public for their terrorist crimes. Some people advocate giving illegal
aliens legal status to bring them out of the shadows, but, if we accommodate illegal immigration by offering legal status, this will be seen abroad as
a message that we condone illegal immigration, and we will forever be faced with the problem.
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Terror - ↑ = more terrorists
Increased immigration hides terrorist smuggling – only 1/3 are caught
P.F. Wagner 08 author of this report collected voluminous information from a wide variety of sources
[P.F Wagner “Impacts Of Illegal Immigration: Terrorism” The Dark Side Of Illegal Immigration
http://www.usillegalaliens.com/impacts_of_illegal_immigration_terrorism.html] JH
in 2005 at least 850 people from
countries of "special interest" were apprehended crossing the southern border. How many more successfully crossed is unknown.
How many actual terrorists have crossed is unknown. We do know, however, that they are there - see Al-Qaida Operative Nabbed Near Mexican Border. By the
A recent Homeland Security report, A Line in the Sand: Confronting the Threat at the Southwest Border (a MUST READ!), reports that
way, "countries of special interest" is government-speak for terrorism conducting and sponsoring countries. As noted in a June 2006 article, Broken, by Kenneth R. Timmerman, on a
Homeland Security publication, "The report reveals that 45,008 aliens from countries on the U.S. list of state-sponsors of terror or from countries that protected terrorist organizations and
their members, were released into the general public between 2001 and 2005, even though immigration officers couldn't confirm their identity." (emphasis added) Maybe Bin Laden is not
Despite new technology, Border Patrol overwhelmed, the numbers are
going up and DHS is concerned as they admit they only catch an estimated 1/3 of the border crossers . The article goes on: "... the Border Patrol
in Pakistan ... As reported in a February 2005 USA Today article by Mimi Hall,
arrested 39,215 so-called "OTMs," other-than-Mexicans, along the Southwest border. In 2004, the number jumped to 65,814. Those figures worry intelligence and Homeland Security
officials, who say al-Qaeda
leaders want to smuggle operatives and weapons of mass destruction across the nation's porous land borders .
al-Qaeda leaders believe operatives can pay their way
into the country through Mexico and also believe illegal entry is more advantageous than legal entry for operational security
reasons." T.J. Bonner, president of the National Border Patrol Council, says the Border Patrol has "reliable intelligence that there are terrorists living in South America, assimilating
James Loy, deputy secretary of the Department of Homeland Security, told Congress last week, "Several
the culture and learning the language" in order to blend in with Mexicans crossing the border. "We really don't know who comes into this country illegally over the Southwest border,"
Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., says. "This is a big problem." The independent 9/11 Commission's report warned in August that " the
challenge for national security in an
age of terrorism is to prevent the very few people who may pose overwhelming risks from entering or remaining in the United
States undetected." And that's a daunting task along these stretches of border in the Southwest." and concludes with: "The holes that
remain in our border security systems are not small," House Majority Leader Tom DeLay, R-Texas, says. "They are gaping, and they are
glaring to our terrorist enemies. They are coming for us.”
Illegal immigration allows terrorists to blend in ---- avoids apprehension
ROYCE 06 Representative from California
(Representative Edward, (R—CA), Federal News Service, “9/11: FIVE YEARS LATER - GAUGING ISLAMIST TERRORISM”, 9-7, L/N)
REP. ROYCE: My last question is: I had an opportunity in these two field hearings that I held, one in Laredo, Texas, to hear from county sheriffs. One local sheriff told us, all of us are
concerned that the
border with Mexico is being used as the front door to this country, and that the terrorists are already in our
backyards. As the sheriff said, "Many of the illegal immigrants from countries of special interest are apprehended along the south-west border. To avoid apprehension,
we feel that many of these terrorists attempt to blend in with persons of Hispanic origin when entering the country".
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Terror - ↑ = more terrorists
Illigal immigration makes terrorist strikes more likely ---- outweighs the risk of war
HAWKINS & ANDERSON 04 Senior Fellow @ U.S. Business, Industry Council & Consultant and Security Analyst
(William, and Erin, FrontPageMagazine, “The Open Borders Lobby and the Nation's Security After 9/11”, 1-21,
http://frontpagemag.com/Articles/ReadArticle.asp?ID=11838)
All the terrorists who flew the hijacked airliners into the World Trade Center and the Pentagon had come into the United States from the other side of the
world with the intent of carrying out their premeditated plot. America’s natural barriers – the great oceans which traditionally have protected America from foreign attacks – failed to
provide security in this case because the enemy did use ballistic missiles or a naval armada. The traditional safety afforded to the United States by the vast oceans separating the country
from foreign powers and foreign strife was not breached by ballistic missiles or an invading armada. Our enemies used normal commercial methods of transportation and exploited
America’s laxity about possible threats from strangers in its midst. The terrorists’ visa applications had been rubber-stamped by U.S. consular officials despite flagrant errors and
arrival, the terrorists simply blended in the general population – which already
accommodates more than 8 million illegal immigrants -- and went about their business of planning mass murder. Half of
suspicious answers to security-inspired questions.[3] On
the 19 hijackers made their deadly 9/11 airline reservations on an Internet travel site. Since the first World Trade Center bombing by Arab-Muslim fanatics in 1993, forty-eight foreignborn Islamic radicals have been charged, convicted, pled guilty or admitted involvement in terrorism within the United States since 1993. According to a report by the Center for
Immigration Studies, 16 of the 48 terrorists were on temporary visas (primarily tourists); 17 were legal permanent residents or naturalized U.S. citizens; 12 were illegal aliens; and 3 had
applications for asylum pending (including Ramzi Yousef, the Iraqi mastermind of the 1993 World Trade Center Attack).[4] In addition to the dozen who had entered the country illegally,
ten of those who had entered by legal means had subsequently violated the terms of their admission by overstaying their visas. All the 9/11 hijackers entered the U.S. on temporary visas,
except Ali Mohammed, a leading member of al Qaeda, who was a naturalized U.S. citizen. The United States has at sea the largest navy in the world and is developing a national missile
defense system to frustrate overt military attacks on the country. But the day-to-day security of its borders is a broken system that has been unable to stop small groups of terrorists, let
It is estimated that 700,000 illegal immigrants simply walked across the
U.S.-Mexican border last year and moved inland without interception by the thinly deployed Border Patrol.[5] The
demographic shifts caused by unregulated mass immigration can have adverse impacts on national stability that rival
or surpass the effects of war.
alone a mass migration that outnumbers the largest armies of history.
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Terror – hiding with immigrants key method
Illegal immigration is a key risk factor for terrorism ---- constraining the general illegal population is key to
constraining terrorism
HETHMON 03 Staff Counsel @ Federation for American Immigration Reform
(Michael, Albany Law Review, “SYMPOSIUM ON CONFRONTING REALITIES: THE LEGAL, MORAL, AND CONSTITUTIONAL ISSUES
INVOLVING DIVERSITY: PANEL II: IMMIGRATION POLICY: DIVERSITY, MASS IMMIGRATION, AND NATIONAL SECURITY AFTER 9/11 AN IMMIGRATION REFORM MOVEMENT PERSPECTIVE”, 66 Alb. L. Rev. 387, L/N)
From an immigration control perspective, the problems of a diversity-based analysis of immigration policy are particularly evident in a national security context. In 1980, Garrett Hardin
disagreed with advocates for egalitarian globalization that the threats of war, terrorism, and aggressive non-violent illegal immigration, conducted by poor populations against rich
Western societies, could be resolved through international programs of distributional justice. He pointed out that technology had already shifted the balance of military power further away
from poor societies, making war on the rich unlikely. For Hardin, police
action was the only rational response to terrorism, despite its imperfections.
Meeting the distributive demands of terrorists, which typically include some form of compensation for the past, would only create new
inequity. Hardin saw illegal migration as the greatest security threat because it would, under ecolate population theory, expand poverty. n125 Important changes in state responses to
international terrorism suggest that Hardin's 1980 thesis that terrorism can be managed by local police action - a position echoed with different motives by Helton in 2002 - has become
dated. First, as national populations have become more diverse, the need for government to monitor individuals has increased. The informal arrangements for social control found in
homogeneous societies have weakened. A tenet of multiculturalism is that one man's terrorist can be another's freedom fighter or victim of persecution. n126 Our world is full of examples
of individuals and population sectors that would fit both profiles. September 11 has simply injected this dilemma into popular discourse. Mass immigration greatly expanded the range of
individuals for whom a state can demonstrate a rational basis to "astutely target[]," to use Helton's phrase. n127 Second, increasing
population growth and
urbanization have increased the risk that individuals can function as implements of mass destruction, without the need
for advanced military technology. The ecolate analysis of the immigration reform movement - in particular the concept of cultural carrying capacity - explains these
phenomena far better than does diversity based analysis, with its focus on marshalling the [*409] legal resources of the state to combat irrational mass outbreaks of latent xenophobia.
The inability to locate individuals among migrant populations has become the primary security liability for
governments in the post 9/11 environment. To the extent that aliens cannot be accurately identified and located, the harmonization of conflicting national laws
governing migrant classification and protection has lost legal and political urgency. This identity crisis has renewed interest in government control of illegal immigration. Helton and
immigrant advocates would like to break down any nexus between alien terrorist suspects and the far larger population of millions of illegal immigrants, subjecting the relatively
minuscule former group to police scrutiny, while providing the later population some form of national preference treatment, such as eligibility for social benefits and political rights.
Instead, in the United States, exactly the opposite is occurring. The federal government appears to have tacitly recognized several longstanding policy insights of immigration reform
organizations. First, alien
terrorists are now seen as a particularly dangerous subset of illegal immigrants. Reducing or
eliminating the ability of the larger illegal population to avoid detection and control has become the key variable in
restricting the alien terrorist's ability to function. Second, without any overt change in domestic anti-discrimination policy, the liabilities of maintaining
multicultural identities have increased. As a consequence of changes in the foreign policy of the United States, often in reaction to hostile acts overseas, immigration preferences and other
legal benefits accepted by aliens based on their group membership status under diversity-based law become grounds for increased personal scrutiny. The reactivation of the moribund
system of alien registration is at the center of these changes. n128 It is important to note that the immigration reform movement does not disagree with advocates such as David Cole, who
argues that a risk exists that "measures initially targeted at noncitizens may well come back to haunt us all." n129 The ecolate analysis views the risk of erosion of citizen liberties as
serious as long as conditions of aggressive mass immigration persist.
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Terror – smuggle WMD
Illegal Immigration increases risks of a WMD explosion in the US – drugs & people help hide them
Flynn 00 - Former Consulting Professor for Center for International Security and Cooperation at Stanford University, Former adviser on
homeland security for the U.S. Commission on National Security (Hart-Rudman Commission) and retired Coast Guard officer. Researches and writes
on issues related to homeland security.
[EBSCOhost: “Beyond Border Control” by Stephen Flynn. Nov/Dec 200, pg online]
As the December 1999 Port Angeles terrorist arrest made clear, Americans
have reason to worry about the porousness of their borders . Considering that
more than 2.7 million undocumented immigrants have succeeded in entering the United States simply by walking, swimming, or
riding across the Mexican and Canadian borders, a terrorist could just as easily slip by the Border Patrol and the Immigration and
Naturalization Service. Five to ten million pounds of chlorofluorocarbons are smuggled into the United States each year to supply the large
black market for these ozone-depleting products, so it is probably a safe bet that a few pounds of a deadly biological or chemical agent could make
their way into the United States undetected. One of the dark jokes circulating through the Pentagon is that if a terrorist wants to smuggle a weapon of
mass destruction into the United States, the best place to hide it would be in a shipment of illicit drugs.
American concern over the spread of weapons of mass destruction may soon translate into an investment of more than $60 billion in ballistic missile defense. But why should a rogue state
or terrorist organization invest in ballistic missile technologies when a weapon of mass destruction could be loaded into a container and sent anywhere in the world? Osama bin Laden
could have a front company in Karachi, Pakistan, load a biological agent into a container ultimately destined for Newark, New Jersey, with virtually no risk that it would be intercepted.
He could use a Pakistani exporter with an established record of trade in the United States. The container could then be sent via Singapore or Hong Kong to mingle with the half a million
containers that are handled by each of these ports every month. It could arrive in the United States via Long Beach or Los Angeles and be loaded directly onto a railcar or truck for the
transcontinental trip. Current regulations do not require an importer to file a cargo manifest with U.S. Customs until the cargo reaches its "entry" port -- in this case, Newark, 2,800 miles
of American territory away from where it first entered the country -- and the importer is permitted 30 days' transit time to make the trip to the East Coast. The container could be diverted
or the weapon activated anywhere en route, long before its contents were even identified as having entered the country.
if such an incident did take place, the political repercussions would be
swift and brutal. All eyes would turn to Capitol Hill for the congressional postmortem. The public would be outraged when the U.S.
Let us hope such a scenario will be only grist for a future Tom Clancy novel. But
Customs commissioner testified that routine practice allows 40-foot containers with multi-ton shipments to roam around the United States for up to 30 days without anyone declaring the
contents or the sender. At
a minimum, one could expect a serious public backlash against the current systems that facilitate trade, travel,
and commerce. The political base for global liberalization could be severely and irreparably eroded.
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Terror – Al Qaeda focusing on Mexico
Al Qaeda will exploit weaknesses in the border and kill hundreds of thousands
Washington Times 6-3-09
[Sara A. Carter (Contact) The Washington Times “EXCLUSIVE: Al Qaeda eyes bio attack from Mexico” June 3, 2009
http://washingtontimes.com/news/2009/jun/03/al-qaeda-eyes-bio-attack-via-mexico-border/] JH
U.S. counterterrorism officials have authenticated a video by an al Qaeda recruiter threatening to smuggle a biological weapon into
the United States via tunnels under the Mexico border, the latest sign of the terrorist group's determination to stage another mass-casualty attack on the U.S.
homeland. The video aired earlier this year as a recruitment tool makes clear that al Qaeda is looking to exploit weaknesses in U.S. border security and also is
willing to ally itself with white militia groups or other anti-government entities interested in carrying out an attack inside the United States, according to counterterrorism officials
interviewed by The Washington Times. The officials, who spoke only on the condition they not be named because of the sensitive nature of their work, stressed that there is no credible
information that al Qaeda has acquired the capabilities to carry out a mass biological attack although its members have clearly sought the expertise. The video first aired by the Arabic
news network Al Jazeera in February and later posted to several Web sites shows Kuwaiti dissident Abdullah al-Nafisi telling a room full of supporters in Bahrain that al Qaeda is casing
the U.S. border with Mexico to assess how to send terrorists and weapons into the U.S. "Four
pounds of anthrax -- in a suitcase this big -- carried by a fighter through
tunnels from Mexico into the U.S. are guaranteed to kill 330,000 Americans within a single hour if it is properly spread in population centers
there," the recruiter said. "What a horrifying idea; 9/11 will be small change in compariso n. Am I right? There is no need for airplanes, conspiracies, timings and so on.
One person, with the courage to carry 4 pounds of anthrax, will go to the White House lawn, and will spread this 'confetti' all over them, and then we'll do these cries of joy. It will turn
into a real celebration." In the video, obtained and translated by the Middle East Media Research Institute, al-Nafisi also suggests that al Qaeda might want to collaborate with members of
native U.S. white supremacist militias who hate the federal government. Sean Smith, a spokesman for Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano, said the U.S. takes such threats
seriously. "We can never stop being vigilant while there are individuals who seek to do harm on the American people," he said. "We continue to step up our efforts with additional
personnel and better technology along the northern and southern borders and continue to strengthen our sea, land and air ports of entry." A U.S. counterterrorism official, speaking on the
condition of anonymity, said al-Nafisi is a "person of interest" and a veteran recruiter for al Qaeda. Misidentified on some blog sites as a professor, he is a Kuwaiti dissident and al Qaeda
associate who is thought to have communicated with senior al Qaeda leaders in recent years, the counterterrorism official said. The recruiter is also said to have close ties to Mullah
Mohammed Omar, the senior Afghan Taliban leader now thought to be in Pakistan. Al-Nafisi "is a significant ideological player in terrorist circles, and that makes him dangerous because
he can inspire his followers to do extremely bad things," the official said. Drug Enforcement Administration and Defense Department officials have been paying close attention to links
"It shouldn't be a surprise to anyone that
terrorist organizations would utilize the border to enter the U.S.," said a DEA official who also asked not to be named because of his involvement in
between various terrorist organizations, such as Hezbollah, and drug cartels in South America, Central America and Mexico.
ongoing intelligence operations. "We can't ignore any threat or detail when it comes to al Qaeda and other terrorist organizations bent on attacking the U.S."
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Terror – Impact
Terrorism will cause global nuke war and extinction
BERES 87 Professor of Political Science and International Law at Purdue University
[Louis René, Terrorism and Global Security: The Nuclear Threat, p. 42-3] jh
Nuclear terrorism could even spark full-scale war between states. Such war could involve the entire spectrum of nuclear-conflict possibilities, ranging
from a nuclear attack upon a non-nuclear state to systemwide nuclear war. How might such far-reaching consequences of nuclear terrorism come about? Perhaps
the most likely way would involve a terrorist nuclear assault against a state by terrorists hosted in another state . For example, consider
the following scenario: Early in the 1990s, Israel and its Arab-state neighbors finally stand ready to conclude a comprehensive, multilateral peace settlement. With
a bilateral treaty between Israel and Egypt already many years old, only the interests of the Palestinians—as defined by the PLO—seem to have been left out. On
the eve of the proposed signing of the peace agreement, half a dozen crude nuclear explosives in the one-kiloton range detonate in as many Israeli cities. Public
grief in Israel over the many thousands dead ands maimed is matched only by the outcry for revenge. In response to the public mood, the government of Israel
initiates selected strikes against terrorist strongholds in Lebanon, whereupon Lebanese Shiite forces and Syria retaliate against Israel. Before long, the entire region
is ablaze, conflict has escalated to nuclear forms, and all countries in the area have suffered unprecedented destruction. Of course, such a scenario is fraught with
the makings of even wider destruction. How would the United States react to the situation in the Middle East? What would be the Soviet response? It is
certainly conceivable that a chain reaction of interstate nuclear conflict could ensue, one that would ultimately involve the superpowers or
even every nuclear-weapons state on the planet. What, exactly, would this mean? Whether the terms of assessment be statistical or human, the
consequences of nuclear war require an entirely new paradigm of death. Only such a paradigm would allow us a proper framework for absorbing the
vision of near-total obliteration and the outer limits of human destructiveness. Any nuclear war would have effectively permanent and irreversible consequences.
Whatever the actual extent of injuries and fatalities, such a war would entomb the spirit of the entire species in a planetary casket strewn with
shorn bodies and imbecile imaginations.
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Overpop – mpx shell
Increased Immigration causes overpopulation in the US – leading to ecological collapse
LAMM 07 Certified Public Accountant and Prof. and Co-Director of the Institute of Public Policy Studies @ U.
Denver and former Governor of Colorado
(Richard, Denver University Law Review, “Immigration: The Ultimate Environmental Issue”, 84 Denv. U.L. Rev. 1003, L/N)
Every generation has its challenges, almost inevitably challenges different from that of their parents. The great challenge of public policy is to correctly identify the new challenges and the
new realities that society is faced with. Public policy is a kaleidoscope, time changes the patterns we are faced with, and we have to be wise enough to react to the new challenges as these
new patterns evolve. One new pattern/challenge must be to look at the issue of the environment with new eyes .
Our globe is under new dramatic environmental
pressure: our globe is warming, our ice caps melting, our glaciers receding, our coral is dying, our soils are eroding, our water
tables falling, our fisheries are being depleted, our remaining rainforests shrinking. Something is very, very wrong with our eco-system. The
environment issue is hydra-headed and complicated, but it is of immense importance that we have all aspects of the issue on the table. One issue in the current environmental debate,
however, is strangely absent: immigration. Immigration is the ultimate environmental issue, but U.S. environmental leaders are AWOL on this
issue. The United States with low immigration will stabilize its population at about 350 million shortly after the middle of this century. n1 With current levels of immigration, the United
States will double in size and then double again. n2 The census projections call for an America of 420 million people by 2050 and a billion by the end of this century. n3 Can
you
imagine the eco-system, already under great strain, with one billion consuming Americans? Our current immigration policy is
leaving our grandchildren an unsustainable America of a billion people, which I suggest is public policy malpractice . [*1004] The
environmental community would not tell you this (though most know). A combination of political correctness and the recent tendency of the environmental leadership to play Democratic
politics have silenced the almost universal recognition of the early environmental community that population is an indispensable part of environmentalism. Environmental leaders in the
1970s had a formula, I=PAT, which postulated that environmental impact was the product of POPULATION, AFFLUENCE, AND TECHNOLOGY. n4 To Gaylord Nelson
who
conceived Earth Day and the early environmental leaders, leaving out Population would be like having a bicycle with only one
wheel. n5 Today's environmentalists will discuss U.S. air pollution policy, U.S. wilderness policy, U.S. water-quality policy, U.S. billboard policy, but never a hint of U.S. population
policy. Here's my simple experiment I use on my environmental friends who have tragically lost their voice on population. Assume that I had a magic wand and could wave it and
accomplish all the goals of today's environmental leadership, but did nothing about the current immigration rate.
Is there a scenario where a billion Americans at
the end of this century would live in an environmentally-sound America? Have you been to China? India? We could do everything
on the current environmental agenda yet still have an unlivable nation. The self-imposed tragedy of the environmental movement
in the United States is that the current environmental agenda will not get us to an environmentally-sound America. On the
contrary, it locks in a myriad of environmental traumas as the United States careens toward a billion Americans. There is a concerted
effort in the environmental community to keep immigration out of the dialogue. But the subject is so central to the environment that it keeps popping out. The President's Council on Sustainable
Development concluded in 1996: "We believe that reducing current immigration levels is a necessary part of working toward sustainability in the United States." n6 National commissions have made similar assessments since 1972. n7 [*1005] The National
Academy of Sciences and the Royal Society, have both warned that increasing population and increasing consumption threaten to overshoot the earth's ecological carrying capacity. n8 In my view most of the historic ways that societies have grown and
developed may be obsolete. I believe we are at a great historical turning point that has to move from the growth paradigm to the sustainability paradigm. Could I be wrong? Of course! But increasingly we are warned by national and international bodies that
planet earth is over-driving its headlights and heading for major traumas. Yet one major, indispensable factor is missing from the debate: population. How could the ecosystem, already showing major signs of collapse, handle a billion consuming Americans. Few
Americans want to double the size of America and then double it again. Imagine for a minute that we had taken the advice of President Nixon's Commission on Population Growth and the American Future released in 1972. n9 The Commission recommended,
among other things, that America act to end illegal immigration and to freeze legal immigration at 400,000 a year. n10 The Commission found that "the health of our country does not depend on [population growth], nor does the vitality of business, nor the
welfare of the average person." n11 Strong words. Wise words. Headed by John Rockefeller, the "Rockefeller Commission" strongly urged stabilizing the population of the United States and asked Americans to get over their "ideological addiction to growth."
n12 America at that time had about 200 million Americans, used far less petroleum, and had a much smaller "ecological footprint" on the world environment. n13 But the nation did not listen to the Commission. It is unfortunate that American policy makers did
not listen. We
have added almost 100 million Americans since the Commission's brave [*1006] and farsighted declaration. n14 What problem in contemporary America was made better by
population growth and immigration, asks Professor Al Bartlett? We
now have over 300 million Americans, n15 we consume far more non-renewable
resources, and our "ecological footprint" is one of the major factors in a deteriorating environment worldwide. The geometry of population growth is
relentless. The first census (in 1790) found less than 4 million Europeans in America. n16 Two-hundred years later (in 1990) we had approximately 260 million Americans. n17 That means we had six doublings of the original European population (4, 8, 16, 32,
64, 128, 256). Please note that two more doublings give us over a billion people sharing America. There are a number of people who postulate that our current population of 300 million Americans is not itself sustainable, let alone 420 million or a billion. n18
Sustainability looks at the long term: Will our resources allow 300 million Americans to live a satisfying life at a decent level of living for the indefinite future? Will our children and grandchildren inherit a decent and livable America? We have not only put this
question off limits, we have made it taboo. This is not an issue of immigrants, but of immigration. What possible public policy advantage would there be to an America of 500 million? Do we lack for people? Do we have too much open space? Too much park
land and recreation? What will 500 million Americans mean to our environment? There are similar non-environmental questions. Do we need a larger military? Are our schools unpopulated? Do we not have enough diversity? Will we live better lives if our cities
double in size? Does immigration help our health care system? Will doubling our population help us build a more fair and just America? Do you want an America of one billion people? These questions seem to answer themselves. n19 [*1007] I do not believe
you can have infinite population growth in a finite world. We are living on the shoulders of some awesome geometric curves. The 2000 Census revealed how rapidly immigration is causing our population to skyrocket. The equivalent of another California has
been added to the nation -- 32 million people since 1990. n20 Demographers calculate that immigration is now the determining factor in causing America's rapid population growth -- immigrants and their U.S.-born children accounted for more than two-thirds of
population growth in the last decade, and will continue to account for approximately two-thirds of our future growth.
n21 Clearly,
America's population "growth issue" is an immigration
issue.
Extinction
CAIRNS 04
Department of Biology, Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University
John Cairns “Future of Life on Earth,” Ethics in Science and Environmental Politics, www.int-res.com/esepbooks/EB2Pt2.pdf.
One lesson from the five great global extinctions is that species and ecosystems come and go, but the evolutionary process
continues. In short, life forms have a future on Earth, but humankind’s future depends on its stewardship of ecosystems that favor Homo
sapiens. By practicing sustain- ability ethics, humankind can protect and preserve ecosystems that have services favorable to it. Earth has
reached its present state through an estimated 4550 million years and may last for 15000 million more years . The sixth mass extinction, now underway,
is unique because humankind is a major contributor to the process. Excessive damage to the ecological life support system will
markedly alter civilization, as it is presently known, and might even result in human extinction. However, if humankind learns to live
sustainably, the likelihood of leaving a habitable planet for posterity will dramatically increas e. The 21st century represents a defining
moment for humankind—will present generations become good ancestors for their descendants by living sustainably or will they leave a less habitable planet for
posterity by continuing to live unsustainably?
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US Overpop Brink
US population & consumption levels are at the brink
MOTAVALLI nov. 00 editor of E
[Jim Motavalli, E: The Environmental Magazine, “Balancing ACT - population growth”
<http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m1594/is_6_11/ai_67972378/?tag=content;col]
A Dangerous Environment
In 1996, the President's Council on Sustainable Development listed 10 goals, the eighth of which was moving toward stabilizing U.S. population. The report noted that U.S.
population was growing at a rate double that of Europe, putting in peril both economic objectives and the quality of the
environment.
An environmental assessment that catalogued the problems America faces in the year 2000 (from loss of species and farmland to polluted air and water) could well conclude that the
current 275
million is an unsupportable population for the U.S., a violation of the continent's carrying capacity . Imagine, then, those
problems magnified by a doubling of the population. According to Jay Keller, national field director for Zero Population Growth,
"Such a huge increase could be tremendously damaging. Even with the current population we have a lot of environmental
challenges."
By some measures, U.S. population growth is not all that astonishing. Even with 571 million people, there would be a population density of 161.4 people per square mile--a quarter that of
western European countries like England and Great Britain. But while those countries have many attractive features, they've also surrendered most of their wilderness regions, native
forests and unique animal populations. England, for instance, was largely deforested by the 1700s.
"Some of the European countries have very high population densities, with the consequence that they have to import most of their food and are very dependent on the rest of the world,"
says Keller. "The
United States, by contrast, is still one of the great breadbaskets of the world." But that isn't likely to continue, as the
U.S. loses 400,000 acres of farmland a year. Arable land is expected to be reduced from 400 million acres today to 290 million by
2050, when the population doubles. Among the threatened American assets are the $40 billion the U.S. makes through food
exports.
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Overpop – Illegals  US overpop [1/2]
Illegal immigration bad- overpopulates the U.S.
Jerry Kammer. 8-30-2007. Copley News Service Writer.
Immigration fueling huge population jump, study warns, Copley News Service
If flows of legal and illegal immigration continue at current rates, they will boost the population of the United States by 105
million by 2060, according to a study released here Thursday.
That growth, coupled with births among current residents, would boost the nation's population to 468 million from its current level of 301
million, reported the Center for Immigration Studies, a think tank that advocates lower levels of immigration.
"The central question these projections raise is - what costs and benefits come with having a much larger population and a more densely settled country," study author Steven Camarota
said in a panel discussion that included both a leader in the effort to restrict immigration and a prominent advocate of expansive immigration policies.
Net annual immigration is running at about 1.25 million persons, comprising some 800,000 legal immigrants and 450,000 illegal immigrants. Camarota's projections include growth only
from future immigrants, not from the 38 million immigrants now in the United States.
In the panel discussion, Roy
Beck, a former environmental journalist who now heads the grass roots activist organization NumbersUSA, called the report "thoroughly
depressing" and said it foreshadows steady deterioration in the quality of life . Beck said immigration-led population growth, which took the U.S.
population from 200 million in 1967 to the 300 million mark last year, is the direct result of federal policy directed by Congress. He said public attention in recent years has focused too
narrowly on the steady rise in illegal immigration.
Immigration causes US overpopulation
Population Connection May 03
(Adopted 11/1990, POPULATION CONNECTION: STATEMENT OF POLICY Since 1968, Population Connection’s Population Education program is
teaching and advocating for progressive action to stabilize world population at a level that can be sustained by Earth's resources.
<http://www.populationconnection.org/site/PageServer?pagename=about_goalsandmission_statementofpolicy>)
U.S. Immigration
Because of its increasing importance and impact on annual population growth, immigration plays a significant role in our goal of stabilizing U.S. population.
Immigration goals must be set within a larger framework of a U.S. population policy, which aims at slowing U.S., and world population growth and promoting a balance between U.S.
population and the environment through increased energy efficiency, conservation of natural resources, and sustainable environmental practices. It is Population Connection's view that
immigration pressures on the U.S. population are best relieved by addressing factors that compel people to leave their homes and families and emigrate to the United
States. Foremost among these are population growth, economic stagnation, environmental degradation, poverty, and political repression. We believe
unless these problems are successfully addressed in the developing nations of the world, no forcible exclusion policy will
successfully prevent people from seeking to relocate into the United States. We, therefore, call on the United States to focus its foreign aid on population,
environmental, social, education, and sustainable development programs. Changing political conditions present opportunities to work cooperatively with other nations to address the root
causes of international migration.
Studies show that of the people who emigrate to the United States, the majority would have stayed in their
home countries had there been economic opportunities or democratic institutions. Population Connection believes that U.S. immigration policies should
focus on reunification of immediate families, and that U.S. refugee policy should reaffirm our commitment to the United Nations Convention on the Status of Refugees. In addition, we
support measures aimed at increasing resources for the Immigration and Naturalization Service so that all immigrants, refugees, and asylees are ensured timely due process and to enable
the U.S. to enforce measures to prevent fraud and other violations of immigration laws. We also recognize that there are many issues surrounding the formulation of U.S. immigration
policy, including legal, civil rights, economic, cultural, and demographic concerns. Further, we believe that immigrants and refugees should be admitted equitably, without preference to
race, national origin, color, religion, gender, or sexual preference. Population Connection recognizes that the United States should preserve its ability to absorb reasonable numbers of
refugees and legal immigrants. In order to accomplish this, the United States needs to maintain control, in a way consistent with basic human and civil rights, over
illegal immigration. Assuming these conditions, Population Connection believes that the United States should adopt an overall goal for immigration as a part of its national population
policy. This goal should be set in the context of a federal commitment to plan for demographic changes and to slow population growth.
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Overpop – Illegals  US overpop [2/2]
Controlling immigration levels key to curbing overpopulation in the US
PIMENTAL & PIMENTAL 06 Prof of Ag and Life Sciences at Cornell & Prof of Nutritional Sciences at Cornell
[David Pimental & Marcia Pimental, Science Direct: “Global Environmental Resources vs. Population Growth” 2006, Journal of Ecological Economics, pg
online]
The U.S. population of 300 million is increasing rapidly, not only because of the 1 million legal immigrants, but also because of the more than 400,000 illegal
immigrants, who enter the United States each year (USCB, 2004). The U.S. has one of the fastest growing populations in the world.
In fact, the U.S. population growth rate is nearly twice that of China (PRB, 2004). At the current growth rate, the U.S. population could easily double to about
600 million in about 70 years (PRB,
2004).
The U.S. population problem is two-fold, and centers on both the legal and illegal immigration policies. Concerning the legal immigration regulations, the
Bureau of Census data suggests that the U.S. population could stabilize in about 70 years if an immigration rate of 200,000 per year were established (Bouvier et al., 1995). This
200,000 immigration figure is about the level that was traditional for the United States from 1776 to 1945. If adopted, it would again be an ideal level of immigration for the United States.
Halting the influx of illegal immigrants into the U.S. is paramount! Their easy entrance into the U.S. is imposing enormous economic
burdens on all Americans, and especially on those living in the border states. Illegals are a special financial burden on our educational and health
systems. Securing the U.S. borders over vast areas is a difficult task, but urgent. There are numerous traffickers who regularly transport illegals,
including terrorists across the border. Certainly, the U.S. businesses hiring illegals perpetuate the illegal system and should be prosecuted.
The present high rate of legal and illegal immigration and the current U.S. birthrate, result in the yearly addition of 3.3 million people to
the U.S. population of 300 million. If this growth continues, more food will need to be produced and this further stresses cropland
availability. In addition to food, each person added to the U.S. population requires an additional 0.4 ha (1 acre) of land just for highways and
urbanization. California, with one of the highest rates of immigration, is losing 247, 105 acres each year of its valuable farmland needed for
urbanization and highways (USCB, 2004). For many decades, California has been one the highest producing agricultural states, but it is fast losing this distinction. Under stress of
population needs, California already has a serious shortage of water and is mining their aquifers dry .
Neither restricting nor maintaining a high rate of legal immigration in the U.S. will solve the world population or the global environment problem. With the U.S. accepting 1 million legal
immigrants, this is only about 1% of the total number of people added to the world population each year. Globally, there are 85 million people being added to the world population each
year (PRB, 2004). Clearly, overpopulation
is a global problem and is most notable in China and India, plus many developing countries.
U.S., must learn to live within the carrying capacity of its population and natural resources. This is not to
suggest that there should be no global trading, but that each nation must determine how it will pay for its global imports . Of course,
this depends on the population numbers and the availability of its natural resources . Hopefully, globalization and free markets will be supported by all
Each nation, including the
world governments.
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Overpop  Eco disasters
US overpopulation will spark massive deforestation, C02 emission, & environmental castarophes
MOTAVALLI nov. 00 editor of E
[Jim Motavalli, E: The Environmental Magazine, “Balancing ACT - population growth”
<http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m1594/is_6_11/ai_67972378/?tag=content;col]
Trouble at Home
Much of the environmental concern about deforestation has focused solely on tropical rainforests. But if
the U.S. doubles its population, deforestation at home
could reach equally alarming rates. What are the environmental consequences of such a large population increase? "Imagine every congested, sprawled part of the country
right now, then double the number of people," says population activist Roy Beck of Numbers USA.
"The new population projections ... conjure images of twice as many cars jostling for position on the highways and twice as many
shoppers crowding the aisles at Wal-Mart," the Associated Press reported. And that's one way of looking at it.
The prospect of a billion Americans, however remote, is certainly alarming enough to take seriously. The environmental impact of a quadruple population increase is difficult to imagine,
but imagine it we must. Bob
Engelman, vice president for research at Population Action International, gives this discouraging scenario:
"It's very hard to even think about the flow of natural resources necessary to sustain a billion Americans living the way they live
today. There would be severe and almost unimaginable strains. For example, each American generates five tons of the global
warming gas carbon dioxide ([CO.sub.2]) each year, so that would mean five billion tons from the U.S. alone, with dire
consequences for the climate. There would definitely not be enough water, particularly in places like southern California, Nevada
and south Florida. Food security would be a major issue, because urban sprawl would take away much of our remaining prime
farmland. Forests could not possibly be stable with that level of population. Major biodiversity would also be lost: 95 percent of
the country's endangered plants are in just three states, California, Florida and Hawaii, which have the highest population growth
rates."
Population growth causes ecological disaster
WEYLER 08 Former Director of the Original Greenpeace Foundation, freelance journalist and ecological activist
[Rex, March, “Lord of the Fruit Flies,” Sustainability Television, http://www.sustainabilitytelevision.com/news/183]
What Malthus got right
At the end of the eighteenth century, Thomas Malthus
predicted that exponentially growing human population would eventually overshoot the fixed
land base of the earth. “Premature death must in some shape or other visit the human race.” He cited war, disease, and famine, to
which we might now add dead rivers, eroded soil, swelling deserts, global warming, rising sea level, and so forth.
Among twentieth-century industrialists arose the popular notion that Malthus was wrong. He had failed, the theory went, to account for technology’s windfall – cheap fuel, fertilizers,
pesticides, genetic engineering, and the so-called “green revolution” – that would allow us to escape nature’s laws.
But technology
only helped us eat the tomato more efficiently. In the end, natural law prevails. An exponentially growing
population, with exponentially growing demands, cannot sustain itself on a fixed planet.
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Overpop  Eco disasters
Population Growth causes environmental & social catastrophes – US growth is the main culprit.
Population Connection, May 03
(Adopted 11/1990, POPULATION CONNECTION: STATEMENT OF POLICY Since 1968, Population Connection’s Population Education program is
teaching and advocating for progressive action to stabilize world population at a level that can be sustained by Earth's resources.
<http://www.populationconnection.org/site/PageServer?pagename=about_goalsandmission_statementofpolicy>)
Mission Statement
Overpopulation threatens the quality of life for people everywhere. Population Connection is the national grassroots population organization that educates
young people and advocates progressive action to stabilize world population at a level that can be sustained by Earth's resources.
[Revised May 3, 2003)
Statement of Goals
Population Connection believes the well-being and even the survival of humanity depend on the attainment of an equilibrium between population and the environment. Just as the earth
and its resources of land, air and water are limited, so are the demands that can be placed upon them. Continued
population growth is foremost among the factors
aggravating deforestation, wildlife extinction, climate change and other critical environmental and social problems. It also erodes
democratic government, multiplies urban problems, consumes agricultural land, increases volumes of waste, heightens competition
for scarce resources and threatens the aspirations of the poor for a better life. The only acceptable solution to the population problem is through expanding
educational, advocacy and service efforts that lower birth rates. Rather than support a larger population at a poorer level, we believe it is preferable to support a smaller population at
adequate standards of living. Population Connection recognizes the gravity of global overpopulation and encourages citizens in every nation to work towards slowing population growth.
Recognizing the interdependence of the nations of the earth, we support the development and growth of citizen organizations in other countries dedicated to those ends. As a U.S. based
organization, Population Connection works primarily to educate and motivate Americans to help meet the global population challenge, and to mobilize this support for the adoption of
policies and programs necessary to slow global population growth. Because
the United States is the chief consumer of the world's resources, slowing
its population growth is disproportionately important for protecting the global environment. Because the United States has a major
influence on international political, economic and military affairs, reshaping its policies is important for the success of international efforts to slow
population growth. In pursuit of these goals, Population Connection participates in coalitions; influences governmental policies on the international, national, state and local
levels; works extensively with the media; engages in teacher training and public education programs; and produces educational materials. We conduct research, interpret and apply the
research of others, and provide a population perspective on social and environmental problems.
Achieving a Sustainable Society
Population Connection recognizes the significant roles which consumption, lifestyles, and technology play in determining the total impact of
human society on the earth. Together, these factors will determine whether we maintain a habitable planet and achieve a sustainable society, i.e.,
one that meets the needs and aspirations of present generations without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their needs. We
support efforts to create a sustainable society, both in the United States and worldwide, which integrate an awareness of the central role
population plays in meeting this objective. Specifically, for the United States, these include efforts to conserve energy and natural resources and
improve efficiency, eliminate our "disposable society" lifestyle, and use the best possible technology to protect the natural and human
environment.
Approach
Population Connection recognizes that broad social, economic and political changes may be necessary to slow population growth. We endorse
and actively support methods which are voluntary and which are positive enhancements of human rights and conditions. Population Connection
condemns any use of force or violence. Population Connection condemns racism in all of its forms. We will not support or tolerate being
knowingly associated with organizations which support or promote the use of force or violence or which espouse racism or racist beliefs.
Population Connection strives to be believable on a complex topic, creative in thinking about the future, concerned for the welfare of all human
beings, and forceful but not strident in the presentation of its views.
Specific Population Issues
International Population Leadership
World population now exceeds six billion and at current growth rates could exceed nine billion by 2050. The continued pressures
of a growing world population are pushing the world towards global environmental catastrophe. Population Connection believes
that to achieve lasting improvements in the quality of life for all, the nations of the world must make slowing population growth a
top priority. The United States should assume a leadership role in international efforts to slow population growth and should set an
example by adopting a national population policy that commits the United States to this goal. We should dramatically expend our foreign
assistance efforts to achieve these ends. The United States should be spending at least as much to defend the integrity of our planet from environmental catastrophe as it spends to defend
itself from war and nuclear holocaust. Population Connection believes that the fate of the people of the United States cannot be separated from the fate of the other peoples of the world.
We further recognize that slowing population growth will require addressing other social, economic, and political problems including poverty, the status of women, nutrition and health
care, hunger, and social justice. We support both bilateral and multilateral efforts and believe that effective action by the United Nations and its programs is critical to achieving these
objectives. We support the active involvement of non-governmental organizations and private voluntary organizations in these programs.
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Overpop  Poverty
Population growth makes poverty inevitable – lack adequate resources – flips the case
KINDER 09 Yale-New Haven Teachers Institute
Carolyn Kinder, “The Population Explosion: Causes and Consequences” http://www.yale.edu/ynhti/curriculum/units/1998/7/98.07.02.x.html#d
Instead of allowing poverty to persist, it is important to limit our number be-cause in dense populations too many lack adequate
food, water, shelter, education and employment. High fertility, which has been traditionally associated with pros-perity, prestige, and security for the future, now
jeopardizes chances for many to achieve health and security. 29
Rich and poor countries alike are affected by population growth, though the population of industrial countries are growing more slowly than those of developing one. At the present growth rates, the population of economically developed countries would double in 120 years . The Third World, with
over three quarters of the world's people, would double its numbers in about 33 years. This rapid dou-bling time reflects the fact that 37 percent of the developing world's population is
under the age of 15 and entering their most productive childbearing years. In the Third World countries (excluding China), 40 percent of the people are under 15; in some African
countries, nearly half are in this age group. 30
The world's current and projected population growth calls for an increase in efforts to meet the needs for food, water, health care, technology and education. In the poorest countries,
massive efforts are needed to keep social and economic con-ditions from deteriorating further; any real advances in well-being and the quality of life are negated by further population
growth.
Many countries lack adequate supplies of basic materials needed to support their current population. Rapid population
growth can affect both the overall quality of life and the degree of hu-man suffering on Earth. 31
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Solving Poverty = more consumption
The Rich consume vastly more the poor
U.N.D.P. 98 United Nations Development Program
[“Changing today's consumption patterns-for tomorrow's human development” HUMAN DEVELOPMENT REPORT 1998
http://hdr.undp.org/en/media/hdr_1998_en_overview.pdf]
Inequalities in consumption are stark. Globally, the 20% of the world's people in the highest-income countries account for 86% of
total private consumption expenditures- the poorest 20% a minuscule 1.3%. More specifically, the richest fifth: • Consume 45% of
all meat and fish, the poorest fifth 5%. • Consume 58% of total energy, the poorest fifth less than 4%. • Have 74% of all telephone lines, the
poorest fifth 1.5%. • Consume 84% of all paper, the poorest fifth 1.1%. • Own 87% of the world's vehicle fleet, the poorest fifth less than 1%.
Wealthy Americans consume a huge Percentage of global resources
MOTAVALLI nov. 00 editor of E
[Jim Motavalli, E: The Environmental Magazine, “Balancing ACT - population growth”
<http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m1594/is_6_11/ai_67972378/?tag=content;col]
Walking Tall
Adding population in the United States has a disproportionate impact on the rest of the world because, according to the United Nations Development Programme, the average American's
environmental impact is 30 to 50 times that of the average citizen in a developing country like India.
The richest fifth of the world's population, including the U.S., consumes 86 percent of all goods and services and produces 53
percent of all carbon dioxide emissions. Looked at another way, that same privileged fifth also consumes 80 percent of the world's natural
resources and generates 80 percent of the pollution and waste. The U.S. alone, with only five percent of the world's population,
gobbles up 30 percent of the natural resource base, using 20 percent of the planet's metals, 24 percent of its energy (the highest per
capita consumption in the world) and 25 percent of its fossil fuels.
Given these amazing statistics, it's not hard to calculate the likely environmental impact of all those new Americans. Strangely, however, the American media continue to portray
environmental problems-- from climate change to urban sprawl, and from species loss to soil erosion--as if they were isolated phenomena, unaffected by factors like rapid population
growth.
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Solving Poverty = More Meat Consumption
As people get out of poverty consumption of meat increases China proves
The Guardian 08
[Jonathan Watts, “From poverty and hunger to fast-food outlets in two generations” May 30, 2008
http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2008/may/30/food.china] JH
How is China's diet changing?
Thanks to two decades of double-digit growth, hundreds
of millions of Chinese have been lifted out of subsistence-level poverty. Two generations ago
A generation ago meat was reserved for special occasions. Today it is common. Worldwide, protein
consumption tends to rise with wealth. In China, since 1980, the average person's annual meat consumption has risen from 20kg
to 54kg.
China was plagued by starvation.
What other factors are involved?
Urbanisation is turning farmers into factory workers, and agricultural fields into industrial parks. Each year 8.5 million people
move from food-producing villages to hungry cities. The upside is a gain in efficiency and economic activity. The downside is a
surge in consumption and waste. So much farmland has been converted for factories, roads and homes that the country's arable land fell last year to 470,000 sq miles, less
than 10,000 above the minimum needed to feed China.
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US consumes Most
US is responsible for 25% of global consumption
HANAUER 98 Director of Zero Population Growth, Inc., Co-Chair of the New England Coalition for Sustainable
Population, and past Chair of ZPG of Greater Boston
[Michael G. Hanauer, “Overpopulation and Overconsumption: Where Should We Focus”, http://www.npg.org/forum_series/overpop&overconsume.htm>)
There are many widely read books with titles like Fifty Easy Ways to Save the Earth. Almost all of these books approach issues from the point of view of reducing (over)consumption.
We often hear how the U.S. has 5 percent of the worldâs population, yet consumes 25 percent of its resources. Itâs also true that the developed
world, with 23 percent of the population, uses about 66 percent of the Earthâs resources. Yes, it can sound like just a consumption problem, but the magnitude of this consumption
actually makes population even more important to preserving our environment and quality of life!
In many environmental and population circles, the traditional thinking dictates that the problem in developing countries is overpopulation, while in the developed world the bulk of the
problem is overconsumption. This oversimplification, that the U.S. has mainly a consumption problem, purveys easy, feel-good answers to many environmentally
conscious individuals and organizations. Such feel-good answers are dangerous because they lead to incomplete actions by masking the enduring effects of population growth. Letâs
explore further.
in highly populated sections of Western Europe and Japan
levels are somewhat lower than ours (often due to smaller and more expensive living spaces, higher energy costs, and fewer cars), but not vastly different. On the
other hand, most third world consumption levels are between 0.5 and 5 percent of ours. This vast difference is not because these people recycle, use
In the developed world, per capita consumption levels are all within the same order of magnitude. Yes,
little plastic or donât drive a turbo-charged car ö it is because they have no car, no central heat, no refrigerator, and maybe no house at all!
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Overconsumption  Eco Collapse [1/2]
Overconsumption risks environmental crisis – earth will become unlivable
Ehrlich & Ehrlich 8 – 4 – 08 Both in the Department of Biology & the center for Conservation Biology at Stanford
University. Paul is Bing Prof of Population Studies & Biological Sciences. Anne is Senior Research Associate
[Paul Ehrlich & Anne Ehrlich, “Too Many People, Too Much Consumption,” http://e360.yale.edu/content/feature.msp?id=2041]
overpopulation — now along with overconsumption —
is the central environmental crisis facing the world. And, he insists, technological fixes will not save the day.
Four decades after his controversial book, The Population Bomb, scientist Paul Ehrlich still believes that
Over some 60 million years, Homo sapiens has evolved into the dominant animal on the planet, acquiring binocular vision, upright posture, large brains, and — most importantly —
language with syntax and that complex store of non-genetic information we call culture. However, in the last several centuries we’ve increasingly been using our relatively newly acquired
power, especially our culturally evolved technologies, to deplete the natural capital of Earth — in particular its deep, rich agricultural soils, its groundwater stored during ice ages, and its
biodiversity — as if there were no tomorrow.
The point, all too often ignored, is that this trend is being driven in large part by a combination of population growth and increasing per capita consumption, and it
cannot be long
continued without risking a collapse of our now-global civilization. Too many people — and especially too many politicians and business executives — are
under the delusion that such a disastrous end to the modern human enterprise can be avoided by technological fixes that will allow the population and the economy to grow forever. But if
we fail to bring population growth and over-consumption under control — the number of people on Earth is expected to grow from
6.5 billion today to 9 billion by the second half of the 21st century — then we will inhabit a planet where life becomes increasingly
untenable because of two looming crises: global heating, and the degradation of the natural systems on which we all depend.
If we fail to bring population growth and overconsumption under control, then we will inhabit a planet where life becomes
increasingly untenable.”
Our species’ negative impact on our own life-support systems can be approximated by the equation I=PAT. In that equation, the size of the population (P) is multiplied by the average
affluence or consumption per individual (A), and that in turn is multiplied by some measure of the technology (T) that services and drives the consumption. Thus commuting in
automobiles powered by subsidized fossil fuels on proliferating freeways creates a much greater T factor than commuting on bikes using simple paths or working at home on a computer
network. The product of P, A, and T is Impact (I), a rough estimate of how much humanity is degrading the ecosystem services it depends upon.
The equation is not rocket science. Two
billion people, all else being equal, put more greenhouse gases into the atmosphere than one billion people.
Two billion rich people disrupt the climate more than two billion poor people. Three hundred million Americans consume more
petroleum than 1.3 billion Chinese. And driving an SUV is using a far more environmentally malign transportation technology than riding mass transit.
The technological dimensions of our predicament — such as the need for alternatives to fossil fuel energy — are frequently discussed if too little acted upon. Judging from media reports
and the statements of politicians, environmental problems, to the degree they are recognized, can be solved by minor changes in technologies and recycling (T). Switching to ultra-light,
fuel-efficient cars will obviously give some short-term advantage, but as population and consumption grow, they will pour still more carbon dioxide (and vaporized rubber) into the
atmosphere and require more natural areas to be buried under concrete. More recycling will help, but many of our society’s potentially most dangerous effluents (such as hormonemimicking chemicals) cannot practically be recycled. There is no technological change we can make that will permit growth in either human numbers or material affluence to continue to
expand. In the face of this, the neglect of the intertwined issues of population and consumption is stunning.
Many past human societies have collapsed under the weight of overpopulation and environmental neglect, but today the civilization in peril is global.
The population factor in what appears to be a looming catastrophe is even greater than most people suppose. Each person added
today to the population on average causes more damage to humanity’s critical life-support systems than did the previous addition
— everything else being equal. The reason is simple: Homo sapiens became the dominant animal by being smart. Farmers didn’t
settle first on poor soils where water was scarce, but rather in rich river valleys. That’s where most cities developed, where rich
soils are now being paved over for roads and suburbs, and where water supplies are being polluted or overexploited.
As a result, to support additional people it is necessary to move to ever poorer lands, drill wells deeper, or tap increasingly remote
sources to obtain water — and then spend more energy to transport that water ever greater distances to farm fields, homes, and
factories. Our distant ancestors could pick up nearly pure copper on Earth’s surface when they started to use metals; now people must use vast amounts of energy
to mine and smelt gigantic amounts of copper ore of ever poorer quality, some in concentrations of less than one percent. The same
can be said for other important metals. And petroleum can no longer be found easily on or near the surface, but must be gleaned
from wells drilled a mile or more deep, often in inaccessible localities, such as under continental shelves beneath the sea. All of the
paving, drilling, fertilizer manufacturing, pumping, smelting, and transporting needed to provide for the consumption of
burgeoning numbers of people produces greenhouse gases and thus tightens the connection between population and climate
disruption.
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Overconsumption  Eco Collapse [2/2]
US consumption levels are the main culprit for resource depletion
MOSELEY 7 – 11 – 09 Associate Prof of geography at Macalester College
[William G., “A population remedy is right here at home U.S. overconsumption is a bigger issue than fertility.” The Inquirer]
Today is World Population Day, a time when the United Nations calls on us to reflect on global fertility. Environmentalists have often framed the size and growth of the world's
facts suggest that American overconsumption is the real
culprit. Ever since the British philosopher Thomas Malthus wrote "An Essay on the Principle of Population" in 1798, we have been concerned that human population growth will
outstrip available food supply. In the early 1970s, the burgeoning American environmental movement came to see overpopulation as one its key issues. But human impact on
the environment is not just a question of population numbers. At least two other factors - efficiency of technology and levels of
consumption per capita - have as much, or more, influence in determining the environmental impact of a given population.
population as a problem. But if the question is defined as how many people the world can sustain, then
Conventional wisdom used to suggest that the wealthiest countries would employ the most efficient technologies. This assumption was shattered by the proliferation of gas-guzzling SUVs
in the 1990s. In fact, the average fuel economy of American cars and trucks grew worse after the mid-1980s, even as per capita wealth grew. In fact,
no other population on
Earth consumes at the same rate as the United States. With 4.6 percent of global population, Americans consume 24 percent of its
energy. While China, Brazil and 2.3 and 4 times higher than our own, Americans consume, on average, 6.8 times as much energy
as the Chinese, 7.3 times as much as Brazilians and 28 times as much as Ethiopians. In other words, in terms of environmental
impact, our already high and exponentially growing per capita energy consumption far outweighs any population growth in the
developing world. So why focus on controlling population numbers when environmental impact is the result of three factors, not one? As a college professor, I have watched
students debate this issue for years. While students recognize the importance of all three factors, they invariably argue that it just isn't practical to try to control overconsumption. They
suggest that the pragmatist must focus on what can be done - for instance, developing energy-efficient technology worldwide and supporting education and distribution of family planning
methods in the developing world.
I am perplexed by the assumption that encouraging families in the developing world to have fewer
children is more doable than reducing U.S. consumption. Having fewer or no children may be easy for a middle-class person in the United States, where raising
children is expensive and most of us expect no economic return from children, as they grow older. In fact, one could argue that having children in the American context is economically
irrational. It's true that millions of families in the developing world desire access to modern contraceptives, and filling this unmet need is important. However, for millions of others,
children are crucial sources of farm labor or important wage earners who help sustain the family. Children often act as the old-age social security system for their parents. For these
families, having fewer children is not an easy decision. We also have misconceptions about overconsumption - that it's synonymous with human well being and development. But booming
rates of childhood obesity, depression and environmental degradation contradict those connections. While individuals can and should be encouraged to reduce consumption on their own,
patterns won't change unless we address the underlying causes of interrelated consumption and development patterns. For years, government policy has promoted inefficient vehicles and
auto-friendly suburban development to the detriment of mass transit. Subsidies also favor energy-intensive industrial agriculture over more efficient local farms. It's time population
control came off the top of the environmental agenda. While we should help those who want access to better family planning abroad, the
real focus should be on
controlling wasteful consumption at home.
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Diseases – mpx shell
Illegals cause disease spread
World Net Daily 05
(“Expert: Illegals pose major health threat”, 6-9, http://www.wnd.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=44675)
A prominent medical attorney who has studied illegal immigration concludes the porous border with Mexico poses a major public
health threat to the U.S. Madeleine Pelner Cosman, author of a report in the spring issue of the Journal of American Physicians and Surgeons, is particularly
concerned with increases in multiple drug-resistant tuberculosis, chagas disease, dengue fever, polio, hepatitis A, B, and C,
she told Lou Dobbs on CNN last night. "Certain diseases that we thought we had vanquished years ago are coming back, and other diseases that we've never seen or rarely seen in
America, because they've always been the diseases of poverty and the third world, are coming in now," she said. As WorldNetDaily reported last month, even leprosy is suddenly on the
radar of health officials. Cosman recommends closing the border to all illegal traffic, rescinding the citizenship of "anchor babies," those born in the U.S. to parents of illegals, and
making the aiding and abetting of illegals a crime and an end to all future amnesty programs. "We have a terrible, absolutely vicious, law called EMTALA: the Emergency Medical
Treatment and Active Labor Act, which is really the culprit that requires every emergency room, and every physician of an emergency room, to treat illegal aliens for free," she said.
Cosman said 84 hospitals in California have been forced to close because of the high cost of treating illegal aliens with only 50 percent of all treatments reimbursed by government. "Even
physicians in those emergency rooms, don't fully get the point that by being compassionate, and generous, and gracious, they are, in essence, destroying their own livelihoods as well as
their own hospitals," she said. While politicians often mention there are 43 million without health insurance in this country, the Cosman's report estimates that at least 25 percent of those
are illegal immigrants. The figure could be as high as 50 percent. Not being insured does not mean they don't get medical care. Among the organizations directing illegal aliens into
America's medical systems, according to the report, are the Ford Foundation-funded Mexican American Legal Defense and Education Fund, the National Immigration Law Center, the
American Immigration Lawyers Association, the American Bar Association's Commission on Immigration Policy, Practice, and Pro Bono, the Immigrant Legal Resource Center, the
National Council of La Raza, George Soros' Open Society Institute, the Migration Policy Institute, the National Network for Immigration and Refugee Rights and the Southern Poverty
Law Center. Because drug addiction and alcoholism are classified as diseases and disabilities, the fiscal toll on the health-care system rises. "Today,
legal immigrants
must demonstrate that they are free of communicable diseases and drug addiction to qualify for lawful permanent residency green cards,"
writes Cosman, a medical lawyer, who formerly taught medical students at the City University of New York. " Illegal aliens simply cross our borders
medically unexamined, hiding in their bodies any number of communicable diseases."
The impact is extinction
SOUTH CHINA MORNING POST 96
(Kavita Daswani, “Leading the way to a cure for AIDS”, 1-4, L/N)
Despite the importance of the discovery of the "facilitating" cell, it is not what Dr Ben-Abraham wants to talk about. There
is a much more pressing medical crisis at hand - one he
believes the world must be alerted to: the possibility of a virus deadlier than HIV. If this makes Dr Ben-Abraham sound like a prophet of doom, then he makes
no apology for it. AIDS, the Ebola outbreak which killed more than 100 people in Africa last year, the flu epidemic that has now affected 200,000 in the former Soviet Union - they are all,
according to Dr Ben-Abraham, the "tip of the iceberg". Two decades of intensive study and research in the field of virology have convinced him of one thing: in place of natural and
man-made disasters or nuclear warfare, humanity could face extinction because of a single virus, deadlier than HIV. "An airborne virus is a lively, complex and dangerous organism," he
said. "It can come from a rare animal or from anywhere and can mutate constantly. If there is no cure, it affects one person and then there is a chain reaction and it is unstoppable. It is a
tragedy waiting to happen." That may sound like a far-fetched plot for a Hollywood film, but Dr Ben -Abraham said history has already proven his theory. Fifteen years ago, few could
have predicted the impact of AIDS on the world. Ebola has had sporadic outbreaks over the past 20 years and the only way the deadly virus - which turns internal organs into liquid - could
be contained was because it was killed before it had a chance to spread. Imagine, he says, if it was closer to home: an outbreak of that scale in London, New York or Hong Kong. It could
happen anytime in the next 20 years - theoretically, it could happen tomorrow. The shock of the AIDS epidemic has prompted virus experts to admit "that something new is indeed
happening and that the threat of a deadly viral outbreak is imminent", said Joshua Lederberg of the Rockefeller University in New York, at a recent conference. He added that the problem
Dr Ben-Abraham said: "Nature isn't benign. The survival of the human species is not a preordained evolutionary
of genetic variation exist for viruses to learn how to mutate and evade the immune system." He cites the 1968
Hong Kong flu outbreak as an example of how viruses have outsmarted human intelligence. And as new "mega-cities" are being developed in the Third World and
rainforests are destroyed, disease-carrying animals and insects are forced into areas of human habitation. "This raises the very real possibility that lethal,
mysterious viruses would, for the first time, infect humanity at a large scale and imperil the survival of the human race," he said.
was "very serious and is getting worse".
programme. Abundant sources
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Diseases – Illegals spread them [1/2]
Illegal immigration causes mass disease spread
COSMAN 05 Medical Lawyer and Former Teacher @ City College in New York
(Madeleine Pelner, Journal of American Physicians and Surgeons, “Illegal Aliens and American Medicine”, 10:1, Spring,
http://www.jpands.org/vol10no1/cosman.pdf)
The influx of illegal aliens has serious hidden medical consequences. We judge reality primarily by what we see. But what we do not see can be
more dangerous, more expensive, and more deadly than what is seen. Illegal aliens’ stealthy assaults on medicine now must rouse Americans to alert and alarm. Even President Bush describes illegal aliens only as
they are seen: strong physical laborers who work hard in undesirable jobs with low wages, who care for their families, and who pursue the American dream. What is unseen is their free medical care that has degraded and closed some of America’s finest
emergency medical facilities, and caused hospital bankruptcies: 84 California hospitals are closing their doors. “Anchor babies” born to illegal aliens instantly qualify as citizens for welfare benefits and have caused enormous rises in Medicaid costs and stipends
under Supplemental Security Income and Disability Income.
What is seen is the illegal alien who with strong back may cough, sweat, and bleed, but is assumed healthy even though he and his illegal alien
wife and children were never examined for contagious diseases. By default, we grant health passes to illegal aliens. Yet many illegal
aliens harbor fatal diseases that
American medicine fought and vanquished long ago, such as drug-resistant tuberculosis, malaria, leprosy, plague, polio, dengue,
and Chagas disease. What is seen is the political statistic that 43 million lives are at risk in America because of lack of medical insurance. What is unseen is that medical insurance
does not equal medical care. Uninsured people receive medical care in hospital emergency departments (EDs) under the coercive Emergency Medical Treatment and Active Labor Act of 1985 (EMTALA), which obligates hospitals to treat the
uninsured but does not pay for that care. Also unseen is the percentage of the uninsured who are illegal aliens. No one knows how many illegal aliens reside in America. If there are 10 million, they constitute nearly 25 percent of the uninsured. The percentage
could be even higher. The Emergency Medical Treatment and Active Labor Act (EMTALA) requires every ED to treat anyone who enters with an “emergency,” including cough, headache, hangnail, cardiac arrest, herniated lumbar disc, drug addiction, alcohol
overdose, gunshot wound, automobile trauma, human immunodeficiency virus (HIV)-positive infection, mental problem, or personality disorder. The definition of emergency is flexible and vague enough to include almost any condition. Any patient coming to a
hospital ED requesting “emergency” care must be screened and treated until ready for discharge, or stabilized for transfer–whether or not insured, “documented,” or able to pay. A woman in labor must remain to deliver her child. The hospital must have
specialists on call at all times for all departments that provide medical services and specialties within the hospital’s capabilities. EMTALA is an unfunded federal mandate. Government imposes viciously stiff fines and penalties on any physician and any hospital
refusing to treat any patient that a zealous prosecutor deems an emergency patient, even though the hospital or physician screened and declared the patient’s illness or injury non-emergency. But government pays neither hospital nor physician for treatments. In
addition to the fiscal attack on medical facilities and personnel, EMTALAis a handy truncheon with which to pummel politically unpopular physicians by falsely accusing them of violating EMTALA. High-technology EDs have degenerated into free medical
offices. Between 1993 and 2003, 60 California hospitals closed because half their services became unpaid. Another 24 California hospitals verge on closure. Even ambulances from Mexico come to American EDs with indigents because the drivers know that
EMTALA requires accepting patients who come That geographic limit has figured in many lawsuits. Los Angeles County Trauma Care Network, built in 1983, was one of America’s finest emergency medical response organizations. Consisting of 22 hospitals,
state-of-the-art equipment, superior emergency physicians, surgeons, specialists, nurses, technicians, it offered 365-day, round-the-clock emergency care for people suffering life-threatening car crashes, industrial accidents, urban crime, natural disasters such as
earthquake and wildfire, or terrorism. Now most trauma hospitals have left the network, and so havemany emergency physicians and surgeons. EMTALA contributed to the Trauma Care Network’s loss of focus and loss of money. Illegal aliens perpetrate much
violent crime, the results of which arrive at EDs. “Dump and run” patients, often requiring tracheotomy or thoracotomy for stab or gunshot wounds, are dropped on the hospital sidewalk or at the ED as the car speeds away. Usually such incidents are connected to
drugs and gangs. Even if the hospital is not exclusively dedicated to trauma care, EMTALAstill governs treatment. While most people coming to EDs throughout the United States are not poor and have medical insurance, cities such as LosAngeles with large
illegal alien populations, high crime, and powerful immigrant gangs are losing their hospitals to the ravages of unpaid care under EMTALA. In Los Angeles, 95 percent of outstanding homicide warrants are for illegal aliens, as are 66 percent of fugitive felony
warrants. The notorious 18 Street Gang has 20,000 members, of whom 60 to 80 percent are illegal aliens, according to the California Department of Justice and the Los Angeles Police Department, respectively. The Lil’ Cycos Gang, notorious for murder,
racketeering, and drugs in Los Angeles’s MacArthur Park, was thought to be 60 percent illegals in 2002, and the percentage is higher now. Francisco Martinez of the Mexican mafia ran the gang while imprisoned for felonious reentry after deportation. Illegal
aliens move freely in crime sanctuary cities. In Los Angeles, San Diego, Stockton, NewYork, Chicago, Miami,Austin, and Houston, no hospital, physician, city employee, or police officer is permitted to report immigration violators to the Department of
Homeland Security’s Bureau of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (the old INS or Immigration and Naturalization Service). Los Angeles Police Department , begun in 1979 by Chief Daryl Gates, prohibits police officers from “initiating police action where
the objective is to discover the alien status of a person.” As many as 10,000 illegals cross the 1,940-mile-long border with Mexico each day. About 33 percent are caught. Many try again, immediately. Authorities estimate about 3,500 illegal aliens daily become
permanent U.S. residents–at least 3 million annually. EMTALA rewards them with extensive, expensive medical services, free of charge, if they claim an emergency need for care. Government welcomes illegal aliens by refusal to police our borders, by
reluctance to prosecute people who violate basic American law, and by fervor to please those who abuse our generosity and cynically ply our compassion against us. American hospitals welcome “anchor babies.” Illegal alien women come to the hospital in labor
and drop their little anchors, each of whom pulls its illegal alien mother, father, and siblings into permanent residency simply by being born within our borders. Anchor babies are , and instantly qualify for public welfare aid. Between 300,000 and 350,000 anchor
babies annually become citizens because of the Fourteenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution: “All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and the State wherein they reside.” In
2003 in Stockton, California, 70 percent of the 2,300 babies born in San Joaquin General Hospital’s maternity ward were anchor babies, and 45 percent of Stockton children under age six are Latino (up from 30 percent in 1993). In 1994, 74,987 anchor babies in
California hospital maternity units cost $215 million and constituted 36 percent of all Medi-Cal births. Now they account for substantially more than half. Consider the story of one illustrative family to show how reality is the sum of the seen and the unseen. The
Silverios from Stockton, California, are illegal aliens seen as hard-laboring fruit-pickers with family values. Cristobal Silverio came illegally from Oxtotilan, Mexico, in 1997 and brought his wife Felipa, plus three children aged 19, 12, and 8. Felipa, mother of
the bride Lourdes (age 19), gave birth to a new daughter, her anchor baby, named Flor. Flor was premature, spent three months in the neonatal incubator, and cost San Joaquin Hospital more than $300,000. Meanwhile, Lourdes plus her illegal alien husband
produced their own anchor baby, Esmeralda. Grandma Felipa created a second anchor baby,Cristian. Anchor babies are valuable. A disabled anchor baby is more valuable than a healthy one. The two Silverio anchor babies generate $1,000 per month in public
welfare funding. Flor gets $600 per month for asthma. Healthy Cristian gets $400. Cristobal and Felipa last year earned $18,000 picking fruit. Flor and Cristian were paid $12,000 for being anchor babies. This illegal alien family’s annual income tops $30,000.
Cristobal Silverio, when drunk one Saturday night, crashed his van. Though he had no auto insurance or driver’s license, and owed thousands of dollars, he easily bought another van. Stockton Police say that 44 percent of all “hit and runs” are by illegal aliens. If
Cris had been seriously injured, the EMTALA-associated entitlement would provide, as it did for the four-year rehabilitation of a quadriplegic neighbor illegal alien. Rehabilitation costs customarily do not fall under the title “emergency care,” but partisans
clamor to keep paraplegics in America rather than deport them to more primitive facilities south of the border. My mechanic employs an illegal I shall call Umberto, who said when I came for my truck, “Dr. Cosman, my children lost their shadows! Help me!”
What does this mean? Umberto has five disabled children: two are autistic, two have attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, and one has oppositional defiant disorder, with additional obsessive compulsive disorder. All take California government-supplied
medications, including Ritalin. The autistic children had “shadows” or personal attendants, one per child, under the federal Individuals with Disability Education Act of 1975 (IDEA). The program provides a shadow, plus an “individual education program” that
cost about $30,000 per year per child. Umberto and his wife dine out alone each week, thanks to California-provided respite-care babysitters. Illegal aliens have translators, advocates, and middlemen supplied by immigrants’ civil rights groups or by Medicaid.
MediCal in 2003 had 760,000 illegal aliens, up from 2002 when there were 470,000. Supplemental Security Income is a nonmeans- tested federal grant of money and food stamps. People qualify easily. Scams, frauds, and cheats are rampant. In one clinic, 300
people diagnosed as “mildly mentally retarded” all had the same translator, same psychiatrist, same symptoms, and similar stipend. Fraud is an equal-opportunity employer that flouts America’s generosity to the feeble, the crippled, and the poor. Illegal aliens
have powerful legal facilitators who litigate and lobby for “Open Borders” and for welfare benefits for all who cross onto America’s soil. Open Borders proponents imperil America’s sovereignty by obliterating distinctions between legal immigrants and illegal
aliens, and between American citizens and all other people of the hungry world. Among the organizations directing illegal aliens into America’s medical systems are the Ford Foundation-funded Mexican American Legal Defense and Education Fund; the
National Immigration Law Center; the American Immigration Lawyers Association; the American Bar Association’s Commission on Immigration Policy, Practice, and Pro Bono; the Immigrant Legal Resource Center; the National Council of George Soros’s
Open Society Institute; the Migration Policy Institute; the National Network for Immigration and Refugee Rights; and the Southern Poverty Law Center. And there are more. Cases of “permanent disability” have burgeoned because its definition is vague [a 12month problem that interferes with work: see Disability Income, 42 U.S.C. 423(d)-(1)(A), and Supplemental Security Income, 42 U.S.C. 1382c(a)(3)(A)]; flexible, thanks to the case; and individualistic, thanks to government regulations. Mental, social,
behavioral, and personality disorders are included. More than 500,000 “mentally disabled” children on psychotropic drugs for ADHD and ODD have incentives to bad, bizarre behavior. Children’s disability stipends are called “crazy money,” for crazy behavior.
Drug addiction and alcoholism are classified as diseases and disabilities. Disability Code DA&A had in 1983 only 3,000 stipend recipients, but in 1994 exploded to 101,000. In 2003, between 250,000 and 400,000 got lump-sum grants of disability money via SSI.
When Linda Torres was arrested in Bakersfield, California, with about $8,500 in small bills in a sack, the police originally thought it was stolen money. It was her SSI lump sum award for her disability: heroin addiction. Immigrants on SSI, including legal aliens,
refugees, and illegals with fraudulent Social Security cards, numbered a mere 127,900 aliens (3.3 percent of recipients) in 1982. By 1992 the numbers expanded to 601,430 entitled (10.9 percent of recipients). In 2003, this figure was several million (about 25
percent of recipients). The National Immigration Law Center (NILC) proudly announced that it garnered for immigrants expensive cancer treatments, prenatal care, and critical health services by means of its litigation. Sometimes NILC worked in collaboration
with lawyers from the American Civil Liberties Union and the Mexican American Legal Defense and Education Fund. Though the 1996 Welfare Reform Legislation reduced all welfare payments to all recipients nationwide, NILC cleverly managed to restore to
When my grandfather came to
America, he first kissed the ground of New York’s Ellis Island, then he stripped naked and coughed hard. Every legal immigrant before 1924 was examined for infectious diseases upon
arrival and tested for tuberculosis. Anyone infected was shipped back to the old country. That was powerful incentive for each newcomer to make heroic efforts to appear healthy.
its constituency of legal and illegal immigrants: $12 billion in Supplemental Security Income, and more than $800 million in food stamps. For many illegal aliens, America is land of the victim and home of the entitled.
Today, immigrants must demonstrate that they are free of communicable diseases and drug addiction to qualify for lawful
permanent residency green cards. Illegal aliens simply cross our borders medically unexamined, hiding in their bodies any number
of communicable diseases. Many illegals who cross our borders have tuberculosis . That disease had largely disappeared from America, thanks to
excellent hygiene and powerful modern drugs such as isoniazid and rifampin. TB’s swift, deadly return now is lethal for about 60 percent of those infected because of new Multi-Drug
Resistant Tuberculosis (MDRTB). Until
recently MDR-TB was endemic to Mexico. This M is resistant to at least two major antitubercular
drugs. Ordinary TB usually is cured in six months with four drugs that cost about $2,000. MDR-TB takes 24 months with many expensive drugs that cost around $250,000,with toxic side effects. Each illegal with MDR-TB coughs and infects 10 to 30
people, who will not show symptoms immediately. Latent disease explodes later. TB was virtually absent in Virginia until in 2002, when it spiked a 17 percent increase, but Prince William County, just south of Washington, D.C., had a much larger rise of 188
percent. Public health officials blamed immigrants. In 2001 the Indiana School of Medicine studied an outbreak of MDR-TB, and traced it to Mexican illegal aliens. The Queens, New York, health department attributed 81 percent of new TB cases in 2001 to
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention ascribed 42 percent of all new TB cases to “foreign born” people who have up to eight times higher incidence. Apparently, 66
percent of all TB cases coming to America originate in Mexico, the Philippines, and Vietnam. Virulent TB outbreaks afflicted schoolteachers and children in Michigan, adults and children
immigrants.
in Texas, and policemen in Minnesota. Recently TB erupted in Portland, Maine, and Del Rey Beach, Florida. Chagas
disease, also called American trypanosomiasis or “kissing bug
18 million people annually in Latin
America and causes 50,000 deaths. This disease also infiltrates America’s blood supply. Chagas affects blood transfusions and transplanted organs.
disease is transmitted by the reduviid bug, which prefers to bite the lips and face. The protozoan parasite that it carries, , infects
No cure exists. Hundreds of blood recipients may be silently infected. After 10 to 20 years, up to 30 percent will die when their hearts or intestines, enlarged and weakened by Chagas,
burst. Three people in 2001 received Chagas-infected organ transplants. Two died. Leprosy, a scourge in Biblical days and in medieval Europe, so horribly destroys flesh and faces it was
called the “disease of the soul.” Lepers quarantined in leprosaria sounded noisemakers when they ventured out to warn people to stay far away. Leprosy, Hansen’s disease, was so rare in
Suddenly, in the past three years America has more than 7,000 cases of leprosy. Leprosy now is
illegal aliens and other immigrants brought leprosy from India, Brazil, the Caribbean, and Mexico .
America that in 40 years only 900 people were afflicted.
endemic to northeastern states because
Dengue fever is exceptionally rare in America, though common in Ecuador, Peru, Vietnam, Thailand, Bangladesh, Malaysia, and Mexico. Recently there was a virulent outbreak of dengue fever in Webb County, Texas, which borders Mexico. Though dengue is
usually not a fatal disease, dengue hemorrhagic fever routinely kills. Polio was eradicated from America, but now reappears in illegal immigrants, as do intestinal parasites. Malaria was obliterated, but now is re-emerging in Texas. About 4,000 children under age
five annually in America develop fever, red eyes, “strawberry tongue,” and acute inflammation of their coronary arteries and other blood vessels because of the infectious malady called Kawasaki disease. Many suffer heart attacks and sudden death .
Hepatitis A, B, and C, are resurging. Asians number 4 percent of Americans, but account for more than half of Hepatitis B cases. Why inoculate American newborns for
Hepatitis B when most infected persons are Asians?
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Diseases – Illegals spread them [2/2]
Illegal immigration spread diseases – swine flu
Howard Witt. 4-30-09. Writer for the Los Angeles Times.
SWINE FLU: SCIENCE AND POLITICS., lexis
But groups opposed to immigration were not convinced.
The swine flu "illustrates how any country that doesn't properly control its borders leaves itself wide open to the importation of a
major health crisis," said Dan Stein, head of the Federation for American Immigration Reform.
Michael Savage, a nationally syndicated radio talk-show host, was one of several conservative commentators sounding similar themes, according to Media Matters for America, a liberal
media-monitoring group.
"Make
no mistake about it: Illegal aliens are the carriers of the new strain of human-swine avian flu from Mexico," he said.
Illegal Immigration Can Pose a Potential Threat of Infectious Diseases
Investor’s Business Daily 4-29-09
[Investor’s Business Daily: National Edition, April 29, 2009, “Build The Fence” ,lexis]
Security: A Democratic congressman proposes closing the border to contain the spread of swine flu. Meanwhile, a pending bill would build a fence to prevent the transit of illegal guns,
illegal aliens -- and disease.
If you listen to the mainstream media, the swine flu pandemic , at least in the United States, is being spread by tourists and college
students returning from spring break. Little or no mention is made of the thousands of illegal aliens streaming across our border from Mexico,
some undoubtedly bringing with them more than a desire for a better life .
Nearly two years ago we warned that one of the consequences of illegal immigration was the reemergence of diseases long thought to be vanquished.
Among the infections being spread were a drug-resistant form of tuberculosis and an outbreak of dengue fever in Webb County, Texas.
"The influx of illegal aliens has serious hidden medical consequences," according to Madeline Pelner Cosman, Ph.D., author of a report in the spring 2005 issue of
the Journal of AmericanPhysicians and Surgeons.
The potential spread of infectious diseases through illegal immigration gives a whole new meaning to the phrases "yearning to
breathe free."
Diseases such as swine flu are no respecter of class. They can enter in the first-class section of a 747 or in the back of a pickup truck. But airport terminals
are relatively easy to secure and passengers easy to screen. Illegal aliens migrating though the open Arizona desert are not .
Rep. Eric Massa, D-N.Y., a member of the House Homeland Security Committee, has called for the "immediate" and "complete" closure of the U.S. border with Mexico until the swine flu
pandemic is brought under control. Presumably that includes more than legal points of entry.
"I am making this announcement because I
see it as a serious threat to the health of the American people, and I do not believe this issue is
receiving the attention it needs to have on the news," said Massa.
As longtime advocates of a secure border, we agree that the consequences of open borders from a national security economic or public health
perspective have not been adequately addressed. We also take note of the escalating drug war in Mexico that is spilling across the border and the finger-pointing
regarding drugs and guns.
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Diseases – Spread throughout the US
Disease spreads around the United States with the increase of illegal immigrants
FAIR 05 Federation for American Immigration Reform - national, nonprofit, public-interest, membership organization
[updated regularly – home page cites statistics from 2005,
http://www.fairus.org/site/News2?page=NewsArticle&id=16663&security=1601&news_iv_ctrl=1007]
One of the frequent costs to U.S. taxpayers is delivery of babies to illegal alien mothers. A California study put the number of these anchor baby deliveries in the state in 1994 at 74,987, at
a cost of $215 million. At that time, those births constituted 36 percent of all Medi-Cal births, and they have grown now to substantially more than half or the annual Medi-Cal budget. In
2003, 70 percent of the 2,300 babies born in San Joaquin General Hospital’s maternity ward were anchor babies. Medical in 2003 had 760,000 illegal alien beneficiaries, up from 2002,
when there were 470,000.9
Because illegal immigrants, unlike those who are legally admitted for permanent residence, undergo no medical screening to
assure that they are not bearing contagious diseases, the rapidly swelling population of illegal aliens in our country has also set off
a resurgence of contagious diseases that had been totally or nearly eradicated by our public health system.
According to Dr. Laurence Nickey, director of the El Paso heath district “ Contagious diseases that are generally considered to have been controlled in
the United States are readily evident along the border ... The incidence of tuberculosis in El Paso County is twice that of the U.S. rate. Dr. Nickey also states that
leprosy, which is considered by most Americans to be a disease of the Third World, is readily evident along the U.S.-Mexico border and that dysentery is several times the U.S. rate ...
People have come to the border for economic opportunities, but the necessary sewage treatment facilities, public water systems,
environmental enforcement, and medical care have not been made available to them, causing a severe risk to health and well being
of people on both sides of the border.”1
“The pork tapeworm, which thrives in Latin America and Mexico, is showing up along the U.S. border, threatening to ravage victims with symptoms ranging from seizures to death. ...
The same [Mexican] underclass has migrated north to find jobs on the border, bringing the parasite and the sickness—cysticercosis—its eggs can cause[.] Cysts that form around the
larvae usually lodge in the brain and destroy tissue, causing hallucinations, speech and vision problems, severe headaches, strokes, epileptic seizures, and in rare cases death.”2
The problem, however, is not confined to the border region, as illegal immigrants have rapidly spread across the country into many
new economic sectors such as food processing, construction, and hospitality services .
Growing Immigrant Neighborhoods Result in Disease Spread
Examiner 6-29-09
[Examiner, “Our troubled country: unrelenting immigration creating new poverty sub-class in America” 6-29-09, by Frosty Wooldridge, pg online @
[http://www.examiner.com/x-3515-Denver-Political-Issues-Examiner~y2009m6d29-Our-troubled-country-unrelenting-immigration-creating-new-poverty-subclass-in-America]
Third world slums began appearing along our borders from Brownsville, Texas to San Diego, California in the 80s . Called “Colonias,”
which in Spanish means “new neighborhoods,” they feature shacks, no sewers, no streets, no running water, no electricity, toilet facilities or waste pickup.
The New York Times, March 3, 1988, “Along the US Border, a Third World is Reborn,” reported, “ Colonias
are rusted trailers and shacks nailed together from
tar paper and packing pallets without indoor toilets…with mounds of uncollected trash that attract rats…the lack of sanitation has
polluted the ground water to the point where many residents drink their own waste…the colonias feature third world levels of
hepatitis, dysentery, diarrhea, skin rashes, cholera and tuberculosis…they are contaminated, explosive, fecal, filthy, illegal,
miserable, polluted, powder kegs, putrid, shocking, sick, stench filled, suffering and wrenching .”
Since their appearance in the early 80s, according to the Times, the 1988 population totaled 185,000; the 1995 population exceeded 500,000; the 2005 population exceeded 1.5 million. At
the current rate of growth, the New York Times predicted those human misery settlements would reach 20 million by 2021.
While filming colonias in Texas, I haven’t been as sickened to my stomach since my travels in Asia or countries like Haiti. It’s worse than any description the New York Times or I could
give you. Colonias represent human misery at its disturbing worst levels.
These slums represent a health hazard of unprecedented dimensions. Given enough time, large areas of southern California will
resemble the outskirts of Mexico City. Two decades of denial continues the expansion of American colonias.
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Diseases – Any More Bad / Brink
Waves of illegals spread diseases – the brink is now
Gibson 6-3-09 Current Events Writer for Examiner
[Examiner: Examiner: “Illegal immigration is exposing Americans to dangerous diseases” by Dave Gibson. Pg online @ http://www.examiner.com/x-5919Norfolk-Crime-Examiner~y2009m6d3-Illegal-immigration-is-exposing-Americans-to-dangerous-diseases#fragment-2]
While all attention is on the current swine flu epidemic, dangerous diseases crossing into this country from Mexico, along with
millions of illegal aliens is nothing new. It is often said that the flood of illegal immigrants into this country is reaching 'epidemic
proportions.' While that statement is true, it is just as true that the illegal immigrants pouring over the U.S./Mexican border are endangering this country with
actual epidemics. Tuberculosis, hepatitis, dengue fever, chagas, and even leprosy are being imported into the U.S. inside the bodies
of illegal aliens. A virtual 'hot-zone' of disease can be found in this nations border states. Illegal immigrants have set up so-called "colonias" just inside the
states of New Mexico, Texas, and Arizona. The shanty towns are comprised mostly of cardboard shacks and huts made with cast-off building materials.
They have no sanitation, and are surrounded by mounds of garbage. The estimated 185,000 illegals share their makeshift towns
with armies of rats. Of course, diseases only common to Central and South America run rampant in these places. One of the imports to this country is chagas
disease. It is caused by a parasite known as trypanosome. It is a blood-borne disease and is spread by triatomine insects. The parasite burrows into human
tissue (usually in the face), where it then begins to multiply. In addition to being spread by insects, it can also be contracted
through blood transfusions. After cases of chagas were reportedly discovered to have been spread by transfusions in Canada, that nation began testing all blood donations for
the disease. Once thought to be nearly eradicated in this country, TB is now making a strong comeback. In a 2005 interview with Mother Jones Magazine, Dr. Reichman
of The New Jersey TB Clinic said: “In the 1990's, cases among foreign born Americans rose from 29 percent to 41.6 percent. Antibiotic resistant strains from Mexico
have migrated to Texas. Since three years ago, 16,000 new cases of TB were discovered in the United States. Half were foreign born. Strains of TB once only found
in Mexico have migrated to the border states of Texas, Arizona, New Mexico, and California. It will move north as illegal aliens work in
restaurants as cooks, dishwashers, and food handlers. We sit on the edge of a potential catastrophe.” In 2001, New York's Tuberculosis
Control Program discovered that 81 percent of that city's new cases of TB were attributed to immigrants . Cases of TB are now being found in
many areas of the country, where there are high concentrations of illegal immigrants. In March of 2002, The Washington Post reported that Virginia's Prince William County
experienced a 188 percent increase of TB infections over the previous year. Of course, the streets of Prince William County are over-run with illegal aliens seeking day-laborer jobs.
Less than two weeks ago, in Chicago, another outbreak of TB was feared, as an infected doctor possibly spread the virus throughout area hospitals. The unidentified physician worked at
Evanston Hospital, Children’s Memorial and Northwestern Memorial’s Prentice Women’s Hospital. Chicago has a “sanctuary” policy for illegal aliens, and consequently has a very large
illegal population.
It costs between $250K to $1million to treat a patient with TB .
Despite the dangers presented by the swine flu and the fact that the World Health Organization has raised their threat level to 5
(out of 6). The U.S. government has refused to close our border to Mexico, where the flu has originated and where hundreds of
deaths have occurred.
During an April 27 press conference, DHS Janet Napolitano said: “Well, as I said yesterday, we're already doing passive surveillance at the border. And with respect to closing the border,
again, you would close the border if you thought you could contain disease, the spread of disease. But the disease already is in a number of states within the United States, so the
containment issue doesn't really play out. This particular flu, you can actually have it for a couple of days before you show any symptoms, and so even if—people could be coming
through now, even under passive surveillance, who actually have the flu. So that's a very difficult judgment to make.”
Then on NBC’s Today Show Napolitano gave the real reason behind this administration’s unwillingness to close the border.
Napolitano told viewers: “You have to look at what the costs of that are. We literally have thousands of trucks and lots of commerce that cross that border. We have food products and
other things that go across that border. So that would be a very, very heavy cost.”
“Commerce!” As usual, business
interest are put ahead of the safety and health of the American public. Fears are growing that as this
virus continues to ravage Mexico, scores of people will flood into this country, over our largely unprotected border. Of course,
many of them will arrive already infected .
It seems that every nation except the United States has been taking this outbreak seriously. Take a look at the following recent headlines from around the world:
“Swine flu prompts EU warning on travel to U.S.”
“ British holiday companies suspend flights to Mexico“
“ Air Canada and Westjet are suspending flights and vacation tours to Mexico“
“ Argentina suspends flights from Mexico”
“ Cuba halts flights to Mexico as flu virus spreads“
“ Cruise lines cancel Mexico stops over flu fear “
The
threats posed to our country by illegal immigration are many. However, our political leaders will undoubtedly continue to ignore them. Our own
left unchecked, illegal immigration will
destroy this nation one way or another.
president is willing to place all Americans at risk, in exchange for securing the Latino vote for the Democratic Party .
If
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Diseases Impact
Controlling the spread of diseases such as AIDS and even older viruses is vital to save lives and prevent mutations
– the result is extinction of the human race
SOUDEN 00 former Research Fellow in History at Emmanuel College, Cambridge, consultant to the
Cambridge Group for the History of Population and Social Structure
[David, “Killer Diseases,” Factsheet, http://darrendixon.supanet.com/killerdiseases.htm]
As the world's population continues to grow at an alarming rate, new microbes are developing to feed on an abundant food supply: humans. Each
year new and deadly diseases hit the headlines : the filoviruses; E. coli 0157:H7; Legionnaire's disease; Lyme disease; and HIV and AIDS. Meanwhile, well
known illnesses we thought we had conquered - such as influenza, tuberculosis, and bubonic plague - continue to evolve into new and more deadly strains as they become
resistant to conventional antibiotics. Filoviruses are possibly the most dangerous new forms of disease to have come to light in recent years, and can
cause severe illness including haemorrhagic fevers and often death. One of these, the Marburg virus, was first identified in 1967, in an outbreak that killed
seven people. It was found in a pharmaceutical factory in the German town of Marburg, which imported monkeys from east Africa for research. Nine years later, in 1976, another
filovirus, Ebola, hit Zaire (now the Democratic Republic of Congo) and 9 out of 10 of those infected there died. One of the survivors was a scientist at Porton Down, the UK government
microbiological lab, who accidentally infected himself while investigating the virus. Subsequent fears that Britain would experience an epidemic of this terrifying disease were luckily
unfounded. Then in 1989 a related form of the same filovirus, called Reston, was carried by monkeys brought to the USA after a complicated journey that brought the animals into
contact with other monkeys and people in four continents. This case brought into focus just how quickly hundreds of people around the globe can be exposed to a potentially deadly new
virus before it has even been identified, or contained. Fortunately predictions of a devastating filovirus epidemic were unfounded, and this strain of the virus was subsequently found to be
harmless to humans, but the
threat of a filovirus epidemic still strikes fear into the heart of the medical authorities. Fifty years ago, when penicillin was fairly new, it
could cure almost every case of infection caused by the common staphylococcus bacteria. Over time however, bacteria have absorbed part of
penicillin's genetic material into their DNA, and as a result penicillin has been rendered ineffectual - curing only 10 per cent of cases
today. This pattern has been repeated with each successive advance in antibiotics as the targeted bacteria evolves to outwit the treatment. Today there
is a whole new breed of bacteria that cause 'old' diseases (such as pneumonia, sexually transmitted diseases, dysentery and tuberculosis) that are now
resistant to traditional antibiotics. The situation has been worsened by the over-prescription of antibiotics for all manner of ailments, by patients not finishing their
antibiotics, and by the extensive use of antibiotics in animals intended for human consumption. The bacterium Eschericia coli (E. coli) is one of the common bacteria
that people carry in their intestines. However, a dangerous form of E. coli (0157:H7), that causes intestinal haemorrhaging, has emerged
due to evolutionary processes and through the unregulated use of antibiotics for livestock. There have been serious outbreaks in Britain, the USA and elsewhere: in 1997, a Scottish
outbreak infected hundreds, especially the very young and the elderly, and killed at least twenty people. The source of infection was eventually traced to cooked meats supplied by a
New diseases are not just a problem of the poor, some
emerge specifically because of our wealthy western society. In1976 a strange new disease emerged affecting members of the American Legion who had attended
butcher. Basic food hygiene precautions are usually all that is required to prevent the spread of infection.
a convention in a grand Philadelphia hotel. Exhaustive tests failed to find the cause, until finally a rare type of bacterium - legionella - was discovered. Legionella lives in a film of scum
on the surface of water, in dark, oxygen deficient places. In the case of the first outbreak, it was inhaled from air conditioning units. Although many air conditioning systems have been
redesigned to prevent further infection, legionella still lurks. The disease has been identified in many places since, although usually as an isolated incident rather than mass infection, and it
Humans again, unwittingly, created the environment for new disease by
radically changing the wooded environment in inhabited parts of the world. As a result of clearing forests, particularly in New England in the USA, ticks
has even been found in showers. Of those who contract it one in every ten will die.
that usually fed on mice and deer began to feed off humans and passed them a bacterium. The resulting Lyme disease (named after the Connecticut town where it was first identified) has
No new disease has
gripped the imagination and the world to a greater extent than AIDS and HIV (the human immuno-deficiency virus that is associated with it - (WRONGLY,
see vaccines List ... Ed). Its origins are obscure. Scientists believe that it originated from an isolated and rare virus in Africa, which exploded on
since been found in many different parts of the world. It causes similar symptoms to rheumatoid arthritis and can cause long-term disability and even death.
to the world scene in the 1980s. It is most commonly transmitted sexually, or through contaminated blood products. Its spread has also been encouraged by extensive international travel,
AIDS is the number one killer virus and has the potential to cripple the human
race. Its effects are at their starkest in many of the poorest parts of Africa, where poverty means that drugs to control infection are
not available and a lack of effective sex education hastens its spread. The UN conference on AIDS in Africa, held in July 2000, highlighted the bleak future for
many African countries, with extremely low life expectancies, the varying degrees of success in dealing with the problem, and the potential loss of a whole generation. Few were
hopeful, and some predicted chaos and war in the wake of AIDS. Nature's ability to adapt is amazing - but the consequences of that
adaptation are that mutations of old diseases, we thought were long gone, may come back to haunt us. But of all these new and old diseases,
AIDS poses the greatest threat. It has the capacity to mutate and evolve into new forms, and the treatments that are being developed have to take
account of that. Yet the recent history of life-threatening and lethal diseases suggests that even if we conquer this disease, and all the others described here,
there may be yet another dangerous micro-organism waiting in the wings. The golden age of conquering disease may be drawing to
an end. Modern life, particularly increased mobility, is facilitating the spread of viruses . In fact, some experts believe it will be a
virus that leads to the eventual extinction of the human race .
war and particularly by sexual liberation and intravenous drug-abuse.
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TB bad
Tuberculosis Will Kill The Impoverished Faster And Destroy The Economy
Dickson & Denis 4-28-09 Stephen St. Denis And Dr. Bob Dickson Are Partners With An Advocacy Group
Committed Eradicate Poverty
[The Calgary Herald: “Death, This is Thy Sting” April 28. 2009, Final Edition, pg online @ lexis]
Another World Day has come and gone -- ho hum! Or, in
the cases of malaria and TB, maybe not. Each year, these nasty diseases kill millions of
people, mostly the poorest in developing countries. And the economic and social destruction is devastating.
World TB Day was March 24. Tuberculosis kills 1.7 million people each year. It is a disease of poverty , preying on those with weakened
bodies and compromised immune systems. As such, TB is a leading killer of people with HIV. Now, HIV/AIDS is on the verge of spreading to highly
populated countries such as
China and India. These two countries alone account for one-half of the world's cases of tuberculosis (TB). Proliferation of the HIV virus into India and China would be like putting a
match to a powder keg.
World Malaria Day was April 25. This is an appropriate time to draw attention to this ravenous killer. Malaria is a completely preventable disease. Well over the official UN figure of one
million people -- the vast majority children under five -- die from malaria annually, the equivalent of tens of thousands of classrooms full of preschool kids wiped out each year.
Apart from the human toll, these insidious killers carry an immense economic toll. HIV/ AIDS is expected to slash overall economic activity in Africa
by one-quarter.
TB often strikes young adults, putting entire families into financial crisis when a breadwinner is afflicted. It is estimated that malaria alone costs Africa
more than $12 billion US annually in lost productivity. The best stimulus package for fragile economies is a healthy workforce.
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Tech/Heg – mpx shell
Illegal immigration collapses tech growth
HAWKINS 06 Senior Fellow @ U.S. Business and Industry Council
(William, The Examiner, “Importing poverty will weaken American living standards”, 12-4, http://www.examiner.com/a435438~William_Hawkins__Importing_poverty_will_weaken_American_living_standards.html)
Though the “comprehensive” plan is supposed to curtail illegal immigration, it is clear that its proponents oppose a vigorous program of border or workplace enforcement. Their objective
The higher costs for
health, education and welfare, not to mention crime control, that result from such a large increase in the number of
people living in poverty is substantial. This financial pressure is already undermining state and local governments, school systems and hospitals. Robert Rector of the
Heritage Foundation has concluded that the Senate bill “would be the largest expansion of the welfare state in 35 years.” His research shows “the U.S. has imported
poverty through immigration policies that permitted and encouraged the entry and residence of millions of low-skill
immigrants.” Taxpayers end up subsidizing the employers who hire low-wage workers. Society advances by alleviating poverty, not by
is to maintain the status quo of an essentially open border. Thus, even after reform, millions of illegals will continue to operate outside the system.
importing more of it. Yet, after decades of anti-poverty efforts and a focus on expanding the middle class, reformers now argue that there is a shortage of impoverished people and more
The country does not advance by substituting “cheap labor” for technological progress. From colonial times
labor supply. This has stimulated the accumulation of capital to improve productivity, and
hence the income and living standards of employees. The development of “labor saving devices” is undermined if “cheap labor” is seen as
an easy substitute for investment in new methods. A study last year by the Federal Reserve Bank of Philadelphia found
“plants in areas experiencing faster less-skilled relative labor supply growth adopted automation technology more slowly, both overall and relative
to expectations, and even de-adoption was not uncommon.” De-adoption of technology? Such short-sighted decisions undermine the
long-term advancement of economic prosperity and national capabilities.
should be imported.
forward, America has had a relatively tight
That’s key to heg
SEGAL 04 Maurice R. Greenberg Senior Fellow in China Studies @ CFR
(Adam, Foreign Affairs, “Is America Losing Its Edge?” 83:6, November/December, L/N)
The United States' global
primacy depends in large part on its ability to develop new technologies and industries faster than anyone
else. For the last five decades, U.S. scientific innovation and technological entrepreneurship have ensured the country's economic
prosperity and military power. It was Americans who invented and commercialized the semiconductor, the personal computer, and the Internet; other countries merely followed
the U.S. lead. Today, however, this technological edge-so long taken for granted-may be slipping, and the most serious challenge is coming from Asia. Through competitive tax policies,
increased investment in research and development (R&D), and preferential policies for science and technology (S&T) personnel, Asian governments are improving the quality of their
science and ensuring the exploitation of future innovations. The percentage of patents issued to and science journal articles published by scientists in China, Singapore, South Korea, and
Taiwan is rising. Indian companies are quickly becoming the second-largest producers of application services in the world, developing, supplying, and managing database and other types
of software for clients around the world. South Korea has rapidly eaten away at the U.S. advantage in the manufacture of computer chips and telecommunications software. And even
China has made impressive gains in advanced technologies such as lasers, biotechnology, and advanced materials used in semiconductors, aerospace, and many other types of
manufacturing. Although the United States' technical dominance remains solid, the globalization of research and development is exerting considerable pressures on the American system.
Indeed, as the United States is learning, globalization cuts both ways: it is both a potent catalyst of U.S. technological innovation and a significant threat to it. The
United States
will never be able to prevent rivals from developing new technologies; it can remain dominant only by continuing to
innovate faster than everyone else. But this won't be easy; to keep its privileged position in the world, the United States must get better at fostering technological
entrepreneurship at home.
Nuke Wars
Khalilzad ‘95
(Zalmay, RAND Corporation, Washington Quarterly, “Losing the Moment? The United States and the World After the Cold Water”, 18:2, Spring, L/N)
Under the third option, the United States would seek to retain global leadership and to preclude the rise of a global rival or a return to multipolarity for the indefinite future. On
balance, this is the best long-term guiding principle and vision. Such a vision is desirable not as an end in itself, but because a world in which the United States exercises leadership
would have tremendous advantages. First, the global environment would be more open and more receptive to American values -democracy, free markets, and the rule of law. Second, such a world would have a better chance of dealing cooperatively with the world's
major problems, such as nuclear proliferation, threats of regional hegemony by renegade states, and low-level conflicts. Finally, U.S. leadership would help
preclude the rise of another hostile global rival, enabling the United States and the world to avoid another global cold or hot war and all the attendant dangers, including a global
nuclear exchange. U.S. leadership would therefore be more conducive to global stability than a bipolar or a multipolar balance of power system.
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Tech/heg – illegals kill tech growth
Illegal immigration collapses US technology growth
TELLA 08 Former Georgetown U. Research Prof. of Econ
(Alfred, The Washington Times, “Understanding Immigration”, 7-6, L/N)
a century ago. Rather, it's America that has changed. The immigrants of old
were self-reliant - they had to be. There weren't a myriad of government programs available to nurture them, and their contributions were a net asset to an
adolescent society. Now our nation and our economy have attained maturity. In the process, we have created a quasi-welfare state that has made the new mass
We learn it's not that today's immigrants are so different from the immigrants who came to our shores
immigration a national liability. The immigration wave that started 40 years ago, triggered by the Immigration and Nationality Act of 1965, has infiltrated many facets of modern life.
Native-born workers have seen their wages depressed by both legal and illegal immigrants, opportunities for job advancement among
the native-born have been reduced, and American workers' bargaining power has been weakened. Entry-level jobs have become harder to come by.
African American and Native American workers and part-time jobseekers have been particularly hard-hit. Income inequality has worsened. Not least, cheap immigrant labor
has reduced the incentive to invest in new technologies, thereby dampening productivity and economic growth to the
detriment of all Americans. In Mr. Krikorian's words, "we have resumed the importation of what amounts to 19th-century foreign
labor." It no longer fits.
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Econ – mpx shell [1/2]
A. Illegal immigration jacks the economy
LAMM 07 Certified Public Accountant and Prof. and Co-Director of the Institute of Public Policy Studies @ U. Denver
and former Governor of Colorado
(Richard, Denver University Law Review, “Immigration: The Ultimate Environmental Issue”, 84 Denv. U.L. Rev. 1003, L/N)
Illegal immigration is having a heavy economic, social, and demographic impact and it is past time to make a bipartisan case for controlling illegal
immigration. I first got interested in illegal immigration when a Colorado packing plant fired a group of Hispanic Americans and replaced them with illegal immigrants. A small group of
the fired workers came to me, as Governor, to complain. There was little I could do. I called the President of the packing plant who nicely told me to mind my own business and claimed
that all his new workers had green cards, which indeed they had, bought in the underground market along with fake Social Security Cards for $ 25 apiece. Some time later, the
Immigration & Naturalization Service (INS) raided the plant, but the workforce evaporated during the raid, to return (or to be replaced by other illegal [*1009] immigrants) shortly
thereafter. The plant continued to employ a largely monolingual Spanish-speaking workforce until it was bought out and closed ten years later. It is easy to see why this
underground workforce is attractive to employers. The owner of this particular packing plant essentially told me he was not going to pay his (legal) workers
$ 16 an hour, plus benefits, when he could hire illegal workers at $ 10 an hour without benefits. This type of reasoning
will forever lock the bottom quartile of our American earners into poverty: for how are they ever to obtain a decent wage when employers have
access to endless pools of illegal unskilled labor? Illegal immigrants are generally good, hard-working people who will quietly accept minimum wage (or below), don't get or expect health
care or other benefits, and if they complain, they can be easily fired. Even the minimum U.S. wage is attractive to workers from countries whose standard of living is a fraction of ours.
But that is not to say it is "cheap labor." It
may be "cheap" to those who pay the wages, but for the rest of us it is clearly "subsidized"
labor, as we taxpayers pick up the costs of education, health, and other municipal costs imposed by this workforce. These
have become a substantial and growing cost as the nature of illegal immigration patterns has evolved. For decades illegal immigrants were single men who would come up from Mexico or Central America, alone, pick crops or perform other low-paid physical
labor and then go home. They were indeed "cheap labor." But starting slowly in the 1960s, and steadily increasing to this day, these workers either bring their families or smuggle them into the country later. They become a permanent or semi-permanent
population living in the shadows, but imposing immense municipal costs. Illegal immigration today isn't "cheap" labor except to the employer. It is labor subsidized by the U.S. taxpayer; where a few employers get the benefit and the rest of us pay. These costs
ought to be obvious to all, but the myth of "cheap labor" and "jobs Americans won't do" persists. But let us examine it in more detail using our experience in Colorado. It is hard to get an exact profile of the people who live in the underground economy, but
studies do show the average illegal immigrant family is larger than the average American family. n28 It costs Colorado taxpayers over $ 6,376 per child just to educate a child in our public schools [*1010] (and probably closer to $ 12,000 per child per year for
non-English speakers). n29 Realistically no minimum-wage workers, or even low-wage workers pay anywhere near enough taxes to pay for even one child in school. n30 Even if illegal immigrants were paying all federal and state taxes, Colorado's estimated
131,000 illegal alien children in Colorado school systems (out of an estimated Colorado population of 250,000 illegal immigrants) n31 impose gargantuan costs on our taxpayers. This figure is actually a significant understatement because there are an estimated
287,000-363,000 additional children born to illegal immigrants each year in the United States n32 (and these children are considered U.S. citizens), clearly adding to the total impact of illegal immigration. We have here in Colorado, and increasingly nationwide,
single-family houses with three or more families of illegal immigrants earning, at the most, between $ 15,000 and $ 25,000 per family, but with multiple kids in the school system costing our taxpayers more in education costs alone than all three families gross in
there is a significant fiscal drain on U.S. taxpayers for each
adult immigrant (legal or illegal) without a high-school education. n35 [*1011] But don't get caught up in the battle of studies: just use your
common sense and thoughtfully consider whether a low-income family with three or four kids in the school system are
paying anything close to what it costs to educate their kids. These are expensive families to provide with governmental
services. Some employers are getting cheap labor and externalizing the costs of that labor to the rest of us. Americans pay in more ways than taxes. Cheap labor drives down wages
wages. n33 Studies show that approximately two-thirds of illegal immigrants lack a high-school diploma. n34 Further,
as low-income Americans are forced to compete against these admittedly hard working people. n36 Even employers, who don't want to wink at false documents, are forced to lower wages
just to be competitive. n37 It is, in many ways, a "race to the bottom" fueled by poor people often recruited from evermore-distant countries by middlemen who profit
handsomely. It isn't only wages, the employers of this abused form of labor often violate minimum wage requirements, Occupational Safety and Health Administration standards, and
overtime laws. Further, if injured, illegal workers often have no access to Worker's Compensation. n38 The Americans who pay the price are those at the bottom of the economic ladder
who directly compete with this illegal workforce. The very people that liberals profess to speak for and care about pay the price in lost and suppressed wages while employers get the
benefits of reduced wages. Professor George Borjas
of Harvard, an immigrant himself, estimates that American workers lose $ 190 billion
annually in depressed wages caused by the constant flooding of the labor market from newcomers. n39 The dilemma is
compounded by the fact that approximately forty percent of illegal workers are paid in cash, off the books. n40 Go to any construction site, almost anywhere in America, and you will find
illegal workers who are paid cash wages with no taxes withheld. Virtually every city in America has an area where illegal immigrant workers gather and people come by to get "cheap"
cash wage labor. High costs, low taxes, downward pressure on wages, this is not cheap labor; this is the most expensive labor a community could ever imagine. [*1012] B. Supply-Side
Poverty Consequently, we have a group of workers who pay no, or reduced withholding taxes, with above-average birthrate n41 (thus above-average impact on schools), impacting our
school system, with more, and more arriving every year. n42 It is Orwellian to call this "cheap labor."
It is "supply side" poverty added to our society so a
few employers can get "cheap labor." It is happening nationwide. Mortimer B. Zuckerman, Editor-in-Chief of U.S. News and World Report, speaking of U.S. poverty
asks: So why haven't overall poverty rates declined further? In a word -- immigration. Many of those who come to the United States are not only poor but unskilled. Hispanics account for
much of the increase in poverty -- no surprise, since 25 percent of poor people are Hispanic. Since 1989, Hispanics represent nearly three quarters of the increase in the overall poverty
population. Immigration has also helped keep the median income for the country basically flat for five straight years, the longest stretch of income stagnation on record. n43 C. Health
Care Impact
The health care cost of this illegal workforce is also significant and also subsidized by U.S. taxpayers
. You can go to
virtually any emergency room in Colorado and you will hear Spanish as the predominant language. "Colorado has one of the highest rates of new mothers who speak little or no English." n44 Increasingly we are seeing elderly grandparents with health problems
present in emergency rooms as extended families consolidate. n45 No, we don't know for sure that they are illegal, because it is against federal law to check, but it is safe to assume that most are. Denver Health alone estimates that they spend one million taxpayer
dollars just in interpreting for non-English speakers. n46 What would the total taxpayer cost of interpreting be statewide, and that is just a fraction of the total health care costs? The cumulative cost of this [*1013] "subsidized" labor is impossible to ascertain and
difficult to even estimate, but it is immense and growing as our population of these workers grows. A few benefit, the rest of us pay. It is technically illegal for illegal immigrants to claim Medicaid, but as the Health and Human Services Inspector General found,
"Forty-seven states allow self-declaration of U.S. citizenship for Medicaid" and over half of those "do not verify the accuracy of U.S. citizenship statements as part of their posteligibility quality control activities." n47 The barn doors are wide open! Families
without a word of English boldly declare themselves U.S. citizens and nobody checks! When states don't use the tools available to them, it is more the states' fault than those abusing the system. Many of my liberal friends like to think of themselves as "citizens
of the world" who dislike borders, and indeed we all realize we live in a more interdependent, interconnected world. But "to govern is to choose" and if everyone is my brother and sister than nobody will ever get covered by social programs that liberals
compassionately seek. I have been fighting all my life for universal health care, but we can't have "the best health care system in the world" combined with Swiss cheese borders. Social and redistributive programs require borders. It is fine to think of yourself as a
citizen of the world, or a loving Christian, but we solve most problems in a national context and therefore we owe a greater moral duty to our fellow Americans than we do to non-citizens. Americans must defend borders or they will lose all the social programs
that they care about! No social program can survive without geographic limits and defined beneficiaries. We often hear that forty-three million Americans are without health insurance, but this figure is likely overestimated, because it includes over ten million
More and more hospitals are going broke because of the
constant stream of uninsured, particularly in our border states. n50 The Census Bureau estimates that 11.6 million people in immigrant households are
illegal immigrants. n48 Most of the estimated ten million people living illegally in America do not have health insurance. n49
without health insurance. n51 Of course not all immigrants are illegal, but the impact is [*1014] clear and substantial. n52 The problem is much like when the gods condemned Sisyphus
to ceaselessly rolling a rock to the top of a mountain, and the stone would fall back of its own weight. It is not unlike when you expand education funding or Medicaid and give extra state
aid to impacted hospitals, but the problems grow faster than the solution. We use the State Children's Health Insurance Program (SCHIP) to cover uninsured children, but a new flood of
immigrant children without health insurance quickly overcomes our gains. n53 The Center for Immigration Studies has estimated that for a recent five-year period, immigrants and their
the price of compassion is restriction. The only
way we can help America's poor is to develop programs which are not constantly diluted by the rest of the world's 6
billion, no matter how sympathetic those people may be.
children accounted for fifty-nine percent (2.7 million people) of the growth of the uninsured. n54 Ironically,
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Econ – mpx shell [2/2]
Economic growth is key to prevent wars, diseases, and environmental destruction
Silk 92 – Distinguished Professor of Economics at Pace University
[Leonard, “Dangers of Slow Growth,” Foreign Affairs (“America and the World”), p. 167, LN]
In the absence of such shifts of human and capital resources to expanding civilian industries, there are strong economic pressures
on arms-producing nations to maintain high levels of military production and to sell weapons, both conventional and dual-use
nuclear technology, wherever buyers can be found. Without a revival of national economies and the global economy, the
production and proliferation of weapons will continue, creating more Iraqs, Yugoslavias, Somalias and Cambodias -- or worse.
Like the Great Depression, the current economic slump has fanned the firs of nationalist, ethnic and religious hatred around the
world. Economic hardship is not the only cause of these social and political pathologies, but it aggravates all of them, and in turn
they feed back on economic development. They also undermine efforts to deal with such global problems as environmental
pollution, the production and trafficking of drugs, crime, sickness, famine, AIDS and other plagues. Growth will not solve all those
problems by itself. But economic growth -- and growth alone -- creates the additional resources that make it possible to achieve
such fundamental goals as higher living standards, national and collective security, a healthier environment, and more liberal and
open economies and societies.
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Econ – Illegals drain the economy
Illegal Immigration Bad- drains economy, and if rates keep rising, cost taxpayers at least $4 trillion
Byron York. 2-24-07. White House correspondent for National Review.
Researcher finds illegal immigrants are a net economic liability. http://thehill.com/byron-york/researcher-finds-illegal-immigrants-are-a-net-economicliability-2007-05-24.html
A senior research fellow at the Heritage Foundation, Rector has been crunching numbers on the cost of illegal immigration for years. And now, as Congress fumbles toward some sort of
deal, his work is giving us a new perspective on the debate.
Rector set out to answer this question: Is
the presence of illegal immigrants, mostly from Mexico, a boon for the U.S. economy, or a drag?
best way to get the answer is not to look specifically at illegal immigrants but instead at the economics of the 17.7 million
American households made up of people without a high school degree.
As it turns out, the
We know a lot about that group — how much they make, how much they spend, what benefits they receive from the government.
Why is it relevant to illegal immigration? Well, close to two-thirds of the illegal
learn about workers without a degree, the more you learn about illegal immigrants.
immigrant workforce in America falls into that category. The more you
First, Rector
found that people without high school degrees, like most everybody else, pay a lot in taxes — an annual average of $9,689 per
household. That number includes $2,509 in Social Security tax, as well as $1,486 in state and local sales taxes, $1,474 in federal income tax, $1,371 in property tax, and smaller
amounts in all sorts of other levies. (Rector’s figures are from 2004.)
without high school degrees also receive a disproportionately large amount of government benefits — $32,138 per
household per year, according to Rector.
But those
The biggest part of that is $11,963 in what is called means-tested aid, that is, aid specifically for low-income households. That includes Medicaid, tax credits, food stamps, housing aid,
and dozens of other federal programs.
Another $10,026 comes in direct benefits, that is, benefits available to all Americans who qualify for them. That includes Social Security, Medicare, and unemployment insurance.
Other benefits counted by Rector include public education, police and fire protection, public transportation, and dozens of other services.
Put it all together, and Rector found that the
average low-skill household receives $22,449 more in benefits than it pays in taxes.
group cost U.S. taxpayers $397 billion in
Rector then multiplied that $22,449 by 17.7 million — the number of low-skill households in the U.S. — and found that the
2004.
Multiplied by 10, that number means
cost even higher.
that such households will cost taxpayers at least $4 trillion in the next decade — unless Congress makes the
“This
number would go up significantly if changes in immigration policy lead to substantial increases in the number of low-skill
immigrants entering the country and receiving services,” Rector concluded.
Advocates of a more liberal immigration policy don’t question that illegal immigrants cost the government more than they pay in taxes. But they argue that those
illegal immigrants are responsible for a large amount of economic growth, which far outweighs their cost to taxpayers.
That is hard to measure, and Rector argues that even when growth is factored in, illegal immigrants are still a substantial net liability.
The bottom line? Well, it doesn’t mean that we should not provide benefits for the poor, the elderly and others. The government has made a lot of promises to a lot of people, and it should
keep its word.
Illegal Immigrants Harm the Economy- Minimum Wages, Welfare, and Taxes
Waggoner 06 professor of communication and current events at Wittenberg University
[Catherine Waggoner: Research Paper- “What should be done about the Illegal Immigration problem” 2006. ]
2a. A
major misconception about Mexican illegal immigrants and aliens is that they only have jobs that Americans would never
take. However, Mexican illegal immigrants are not just cleaning toilet bowls and picking apples. They are working for the state, at
hotels, in fast food restaurants, and in construction. These are all jobs Americans are willing to do; especially teens that are in
desperate need of money. All too often employers will take advantage of illegal immigrants. They will hire them knowing they will work
for minimum wage. There is nothing an illegal alien can do in this situation besides take the job because they need money. This is
detrimental to the American people because salary is kept at bare minimum wage and Americans who are struggling financially
are finding it more difficult to maintain a decent income.
2b.Welfare includes programs that provide cash, non-cash, and social service assistance that is limited to low-income households. In addition, these programs include Food Stamps,
Temporary Assistance to Needy Families, public housing, the earned income credit and Medicaid. “Illegal immigrants are not eligible for many government service, but they can use the
public health care system and their U.S.-born children are eligible for welfare” (Anderson, 2006). Shirley Christensen, a spokesperson for the Department of Public Social Services, said
that children of undocumented parents are not undocumented because they were born within U.S. borders. Therefore these children are legally eligible to be aided (Anderson, 2006). Los
Angeles County Supervisor Michael D. Antonovich said that close to 100,000 children of illegal immigrants in the county collect $276 million in annual welfare benefits (Anderson,
2006). According to Antonovich, “Legal immigration is a positive influence on out culture and economy…in public safety, health care and public social services, illegals
cost
county taxpayers nearly three quarters of a billion dollars a year ” (Anderson, 2006). Illegal aliens are a colossal drain on the nation's
hospitals, schools and welfare programs, consuming services they do not pay for (Dalmia, 2006). U.S citizens are unknowingly being
taxed to support Mexican illegal immigrants in the welfare service.
In addition, “ illegal alien households pay less than one fifth as much in federal income taxes to all other households ” (Rice, 2006). Needless to
say, this means that Mexican illegal immigrants are not getting almost a free ride compared to American citizens when it comes to their income taxes.
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Econ – Illegals drain the economy
Illegals Hurt the Economy- They don’t Pay Taxes and Send Most of Their Income Home
Cutler 6-6-09 Fellow at the Center of Immigration Studies, a ThinkTank in Washington DC
[Michael Cutler: “Illegal Aliens Cause a Myriad of Problems in America” June 6, 2009. Pg online @
(http://www.newswithviews.com/Cutler/michael29.htm)]
An AP article titled "Immigration raid spurs calls for action vs. owners" is important for a number of reasons. First of all it clearly illustrates the outrageous conditions under which illegal
aliens often toil. Illegal aliens are perceived as being easy to exploit because of their illegal status in our country. Exploitation takes many forms. It includes the payment of substandard
wages, it may also include working conditions that are so substandard that they are flat out illegal. The working conditions for illegal aliens often imperil their lives. Consider the serious
injuries that have been suffered by the employees of the Agriprocessors plant that where noted in the AP news article.
While not discussed in the news article, it
is significant to also consider another component of the employment of illegal aliens. Often payroll
withholding taxes are not taken out and the employer often does not pay any fringe benefits for illegal aliens or make the required
payroll deductions to Social Security. This means that not only are the illegal aliens being exploited, but our government, and hence the
citizens of this nation, is not being paid the taxes that a company that operates "on the level" would be paying into the system and
our nation's economy. This is also true of taxes not paid to states and municipalities by unscrupulous employers.
Another factor that must be considered is that generally when United States citizens and resident aliens receive their pay checks, they often make
purchases and through the circulation of money through the economy, we all benefit . That is the theory behind the "Economic
Stimulus" program that was implemented this year to provide Americans with relatively minor amounts of cash to hopefully make
purchases and help to jumpstart our nation's faltering economy.
Illegal aliens make little enough money to start with, but further exacerbating the economic side of the equation is the fact that
most illegal aliens invested hefty amounts of money to smugglers to get them into our country so that they could send money back
home. Last year it has been estimated some 45 billion dollars was wired from the United States to Latin America and the
Caribbean by illegal aliens. Still more money was sent from our country to other countries covertly. Latin America and the Caribbean were not the only regions of the world to
receive remittances and other sources of American dollars. This money is money that is permanently lost to our economy. This money does not
circulate within the United States, spurring economic growth and growing our nation's economy.
Meanwhile, the fastest growing white collar crime is identity theft. It would be interesting to find out how many illegal aliens are
responsible for committing this crime in order to secure a job or hide "in plain sight." Of those aliens it would be perhaps even more
interesting to find out how many criminals and terrorists have engaged in identity theft.
The Agriprocessors case is particularly egregious. I have highlighted several key sentences to deal with the horrific conditions under which the illegal aliens
worked and as you read the accounts of the injuries that the illegal employees suffered, I want you to think about the advocates for open borders who always like to
raise the issue of the "dignity of the undocumented!"
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Econ – Illegals ↑ unemployment
Illegal Immigrants hurt the economy - Undocumented workers displace uneducated Americans
Sum and Harrington 06 Director and Associate director of the Center for Labor Market Studies at Northeastern University
[Andrew M. Sum and Paul E. Harrington, “Two kinds of immigration” The Boston Globe
http://www.boston.com/news/globe/editorial_opinion/oped/articles/2006/10/16/two_kinds_of_immigration/] JH
DEBATES OVER immigration have intensified over the past few years, but the nation's understanding of how immigration affects the economy has not kept up. Both those who want to
liberalize immigration laws and those who favor severe restrictions have often provided incomplete or misleading analyses of how current practices affect the nation's labor market. These
The
overall effects of new immigrant inflows from 2000 to 2005 on American labor markets are unprecedented. Between 2000 and 2005, the
commentators also often fail to distinguish between the more favorable economic impacts of legal immigration and the more negative consequences of illegal immigration.
total number of employed workers 16 and older in the nation increased by 4.8 million. Over the same time period, the number of new immigrants entering the nation and finding work was
estimated to be 4.13 million. This means that new
immigrants accounted for 86 percent of the total gain in employment that the nation
experienced over the past five years. Our analysis suggests that close to two-thirds of these new immigrant arrivals were unauthorized. Among males, all of the net
growth in employment between 2000 and 2005 was attributable to new immigrants. This extraordinary finding casts serious doubt on the
common contention that new immigrants simply take jobs that Americans do not want. Can anyone seriously claim that, of the
nearly 2.8 million new jobs obtained by male immigrants, not one would have been taken by an American male? Worse still, the
impact of this displacement of native-born workers and established immigrants was concentrated among young people. The total
number of native-born people ages 16 to 34 has increased over the past five years, while the number of these young people who reported being
employed has fallen by 4.2 million. At the same time, the number of new immigrants ages 16 to 34 who found work between 2000 and
2005 increased by 2.7 million. Available evidence shows that there has been a high rate of displacement of younger, native-born male workers
and younger women without four-year college degrees by newer immigrants, especially undocumented immigrants. Our own statistical analysis of native-born
adults under 25 revealed that higher inflows of new immigrant workers in their state of residence hurt their ability to find jobs. The negative effects were larger for young men than for
women, for young adults with no postsecondary schooling, and for native-born black and Hispanic males. Not surprisingly, we found that young, native-born men with fewer years of
The notion that there is a shortage of unskilled, low-educated workers in the
United States and in Massachusetts is a canard. The evidence -- ranging from employment rates to measures of changes in annual earnings, weekly wages, and employee
benefits -- reveals a surplus of less- educated workers in both national and state labor markets. The lifetime earnings of adults without
high school diplomas over the past 25 years have declined catastrophically, and these declines have imposed increasing fiscal
burdens on the rest of the taxpaying public. Illegal immigration has also contributed to the growth of off-the-books jobs and the
breakdown of American labor laws. Over the past five years, only one of every five additional workers in private-sector jobs in the
United States has ended up on the formal payrolls of national private-sector employers, where payroll and income taxes are
withheld and workers are protected by laws regarding workers' safety, health, and wages. A number of employers and consumers
gain from the hiring of illegal immigrants. Illegal immigration makes home remodeling, lawn care, housecleaning, child care, and other household services cheaper for
schooling were the most adversely affected by new immigrant inflows.
more affluent homeowners. Some firms in construction, low-wage manufacturing, and the hospitality industry avoid immigration laws, wage and hour laws, and safety and health
regulations to reduce labor costs and raise profits. Yet, these
gains come at a price: declining employment and wage opportunities for some of our
most vulnerable workers, denying them an opportunity to improve their long-run economic prospects. Future debates over immigration reform
need to clearly distinguish between the economic benefits and costs of legal and illegal immigration.
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Econ – Illegals ↑ unemployment
Illegals Drain the Education System- Increasing Unemployment and Hurting the Economy
Owen 7-5-09 Correspondent for the Massachusetts Sunday Telegram
[Sunday Telegram: “Illegal work force can generate taxes but also has costs; Opponents: Cheap labor is no bargain” by Paula Owen. July 5, 2009. lexis]
It seems incongruous to some that immigrants
living illegally in this country can get work permits, find jobs and even pay taxes without being deported.
problem is unscrupulous employers who
provide illegal immigrants with jobs.
"Cheap labor isn't a bargain," he said. "Employers' costs are transferred to Americans. In Massachusetts, $580 million is spent annually
to subsidize immigration."
Bob Dane, spokesman for the Washington, D.C.-based Federation for American Immigration Reform, said the
FAIR estimates there are 11.6 million illegal immigrants in the United States. The organization doesn't align itself with the camp that contends mass deportation of 12 million illegal
immigrants is the answer, but it doesn't believe mass amnesty makes much sense, either. More border patrol agents and interior enforcement are needed, Mr. Dane said, along with
increasing document verification - "so we know who is who."
"For all we know, 20 people could be using your Social Security number right now," he said.
Even when an immigrant pays taxes, it costs Americans more than the immigrant contributes into the system, according to Mr. Dane.
"We're not soft-hearted on illegals if they pay taxes," he said. "It's a down payment on the enormous cost they have on the U.S."
The largest cost of illegals is K-12 education, totaling $28.6 billion annually, Mr. Dane said. Of that, $12 billion is spent annually to
educate illegal alien students and the remainder is to educate U.S.-born children of illegal aliens, who are considered U.S. citizens.
Alicia J. Alvez of Leominster came to the United States illegally 20 years ago. Like many illegal immigrants, she pays taxes with a tax identification number that she obtained from the
Internal Revenue Service.
Many illegal immigrants work two or three jobs to survive, Ms. Alvez said. "You have to work double because they pay you less."
She, like many others, contends that the United States needs illegal immigrants. "We are a large part of the work force."
But according
to a report compiled by the Center for Immigration Studies, the number of unemployed Americans with a high school
education or less - those who compete for employment with illegal immigrants - has increased significantly over the past 10 years.
Kirk A. Carter, an immigration lawyer at Fletcher, Tilton & Whipple in Worcester, said obtaining a TIN through the IRS is relatively easy for an
illegal immigrant.
"Immigrants have been doing it for years, " he said. "They use a TIN number like a Social Security number. They pay millions, if not billions, of dollars that is taken from
them and put into the Social Security retirement fund that they will never see any money from."
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Econ – Illegals hurt California econ
Illegal Immigration bad- draining California of money
Longley Dec. 2004. Liaison between city government, citizens and the federal government in Texas and California
Robert, Illegal Immigration Costs California Over Ten Billion Annually; State's “cheap labor” costs average household $1,183 a year.
http://usgovinfo.about.com/od/immigratio nnaturalizatio/a/caillegals.htm
In hosting America's largest population of illegal immigrants, California bears a huge cost to provide basic human services for this
fast growing, low-income segment of its population. A new study from the Federation for American Immigration Reform (FAIR) examines
the costs of education, health care and incarceration of illegal aliens, and concludes that the costs to Californians is $10.5 billion per year.
Among the key finding of the report are that the state's already struggling K-12 education system spends approximately $7.7 billion a year to school the
children of illegal aliens who now constitute 15 percent of the student body. Another $1.4 billion of the taxpayers' money goes toward providing
health care to illegal aliens and their families, the same amount that is spent incarcerating illegal aliens criminals.
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Econ – A2 illegals help Social Security
On balance low wage workers are bad --- increased immigration tanks social security
RECTOR 06 Senior Research Fellow Heritage Foundation
(Robert, “The Wrong Course: The Senate’s proposed amnesty will cost a fortune”, 5-25,
http://article.nationalreview.com/?q=MzFhZDE2Y2NiYzQzY2NiY2MxMjIwY2I3OWFhNzgzNTQ=)
There is a remarkably foolish idea now running through the Senate, that the key to solving the Social Security crisis is
to import into the U.S. tens of millions of low-skill immigrants, earning perhaps $20,000 per year, along with their families. The folly of
this should be apparent. For most of these individuals, receipt of the earned income tax credit alone will outweigh Social
Security taxes paid. The overall costs such individuals will add to government programs throughout their lifetime
(including welfare, social security, Medicare, education for children, transportation, and law enforcement) will greatly
exceed taxes paid. Immigration to the U.S. is a privilege, not a right. Immigrants should be net contributors to the government and society and should not be a fiscal burden.
To reduce the looming Social Security deficit and to strengthen the nation, the U.S. should encourage immigration of
high-skill workers who will be fiscal contributors, not low-skill workers who will be fiscal takers. In this respect, the
Hagel/Martinez bill is on the wrong course; it will make the finance books of government worse, not better.
Economic consensus supports this
SESSIONS 06 Senator
(Jeff, Senator, Federal News Service, 6-15, L/N)
Some have the idea that increased immigration will solve Social Security. Robert Rector said this could not be a more
false concept. And every economist I've read have said that large numbers of low- skilled workers are going to take
more out of the economy than put in, and therefore it's going to destabilize and make it harder to fix Social Security. But
you talk to experts on Wall Street; they think it's going to fix social security. How silly is that?
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Mpx – healthcare
Illegals massively increase healthcare expenses –
Leder. 11-3-08. Writer for Associated Content.
[Bobbi Leder, “The Effects of Illegal Immigration on America.”
http://www.associatedcontent.com/article/1176033/the_effects_of_illegal_immigration.html?cat=17]
Illegal immigrants are driving up the cost of our healthcare system. When they are sick or injured they go to our emergency rooms
and our doctors fix them at our expense. This is costing American taxpayers millions of dollars yet no one wants to do anything
about it, because they feel it is inhumane to turn away a human being who is in pain. Over two-thirds of all births in Los Angeles
County are to illegal alien Mexicans on MediCal, whose births were paid for by taxpayers.
Well, what about Americans who live abroad? Do you think we get free healthcare? No, we have to pay taxes in both our own country and in a foreign country in order to get healthcare;
so shouldn't illegal immigrants be forced to contribute as well?
Illegal immigration comes at a huge cost for the United States – problems with healthcare prove
Arnaud de Borchgrave and Harlan Ullma 06 Senior advisers at the Center for Strategic and International Studies.
[http://archive.newsmax.com/archives/articles/2006/4/4/144956.shtml. “Illegal Immigrants Drain US Economy.”]
With 1 out of 4 illegals caught crossing the 1,940-mile border with Mexico, the net illegal influx into the United States is between
3 and 4 million each and every year. So 20 million illegals now in the U.S. is probably a safer bet than the 12 million figure bandied about Congress. All of this adds
huge costs to the nation, especially for health care.
Pregnant women who deliver "anchor" babies shortly after eluding border patrols have an instant U.S. citizen in the family. The 14th
Amendment stipulates anyone born in the U.S. is a U.S. citizen. Anchor strains on emergency facilities have bankrupted scores of hospitals in the
Border States.
The 1985 Emergency Medical Treatment and Active Labor Act (EMTALA), an unfunded federal mandate, requires emergency departments to treat
any uninsured emergency free of charge. Anchor babies pull illegal mothers, fathers and siblings into permanent residency – and
public welfare aid.
Scams are common. In one clinic, some 300 people were diagnosed as "mildly mentally retarded." They all had the same translator, psychiatrist,
symptoms – and similar stipends. All of these put further pressure on a health care system whose costs are soaring out of sight.
Illegals put massive strains on the healthcare system – congressional law insures it.
De Borchgrave & Ullman 4 – 5 – 06 Both are senior advisers at CSIS – editor at large for the Washington Times
[Arnaud de Borchgrave & Harlan Ullman, “Illegal Immigrants Drain U.S. Economy,” http://archive.newsmax.com/archives/articles/2006/4/4/144956.shtml]
With 1 out of 4 illegals caught crossing the 1,940-mile border with Mexico, the net illegal influx into the United States is between 3 and 4 million each and every year. So 20 million
illegals now in the U.S. is probably a safer bet than the 12 million figure bandied about Congress. All of this adds huge costs to the nation, especially for health care. Pregnant women who
Anchor
strains on emergency facilities have bankrupted scores of hospitals in the Border States. The 1985 Emergency Medical Treatment
and Active Labor Act (EMTALA), an unfunded federal mandate, requires emergency departments to treat any uninsured
emergency free of charge. Anchor babies pull illegal mothers, fathers and siblings into permanent residency – and public welfare
aid. Scams are common. In one clinic, some 300 people were diagnosed as "mildly mentally retarded." They all had the same translator, psychiatrist, symptoms – and similar stipends.
All of these put further pressure on a health care system whose costs are soaring out of sight.
deliver "anchor" babies shortly after eluding border patrols have an instant U.S. citizen in the family. The 14th Amendment stipulates anyone born in the U.S. is a U.S. citizen.
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Mpx – food prices
Immigration keeps food prices low – provides workers
LEDBETTER 10 – 23 – 08 Writer for AgNews
Kay Ledbetter, Without Resolve, Labor Issues Could Affect Food Prices. http://agnews.tamu.edu/showstory.php?id=898
The past
pace of economic growth is not possible without immigration. We could not have had the economic growth of the past if we had
not had as much immigration.”
Agriculture has much at stake in this issue, he said. It needs to get the debate away from the big issues and establish that there is a legitimate need for these workers.
“But the whole issue is a lot more complex that just illegal immigration,” Anderson said. “It is one that is important to the overall economy of the U.S. and other countries.
“We have to get away from the macro debate on open borders, security, citizenship and no immigrants,” he said.
Foreign labor represents an estimated 43 percent of the nation’s dairy workforce , Anderson said.
The value of milk production is $28.7 billion and this part of the dairy industry alone provides 147,000 jobs nationwide, he said. If the related industries are added in, it is a $55 billion
industry with 363,000 jobs.
“If you had a foreign labor reduction of only 20 percent, you would lose 33,000 employees, $5.5 billion in sales and $1.5 billion in
income,” Anderson said.
Total elimination would be a lot higher, he said. Illegal immigrants make up 50 percent of agriculture’s workers.
“What if we lost that production, what happens to retail prices ?” Anderson said. “ We could see as much as a 30 percent increase.”
With dairies, labor is the second largest expense next to feed, he said. Large dairies pay higher wagers because they need specialized labor and can afford it
because they have a lower per unit costs and are better able to bid higher for labor, on average.
Anderson said turnover averages 15 percent across all dairies. The
rate of turnover can impact production per cow, death loss and feed efficiency,
meaning it is costly for dairy operators.
“That’s the hidden effect,” he said. “There is a cost of finding and training another person.”
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Mpx – energy prices
Immigration Raises Energy Prices- France, Holland, and England Prove
Examiner 6-29-09
[Examiner, “Our troubled country: unrelenting immigration creating new poverty sub-class in America” 6-29-09, by Frosty Wooldridge, pg online @
[http://www.examiner.com/x-3515-Denver-Political-Issues-Examiner~y2009m6d29-Our-troubled-country-unrelenting-immigration-creating-new-poverty-subclass-in-America]
We cannot import millions of desperately poor, illiterate and hard working people from third world countries and think they will
become functioning, positive aspects in a first world country. France, Holland and England’s failed immigration policies offer
proof. Ours fails, too !
What about our working poor? How about degraded educational opportunities for our children?
As we choke on millions of people from other countries, they displace our working poor as immigrants depress wages. Our
educational systems sink in academic excellence, creating millions of added poor .
As it stands today, millions of Americans can’t pay for heating and electricity bills. They rely on donations by other Americans to cover those bills. At some point, as this new poor class
expands into millions upon millions—something else will fail. What is that? Our
ability to deal with it or solve it!
Anyone with an ounce of common sense or economic intelligence knows that prices in the coming years will rise as oil becomes
more expensive. This translates into diesel that drives trains that bring coal to the electrical plants. Thus energy at every level will
become more expensive. The caveat enters the picture as these millions of poor cannot and will not be able to command higher
wages.
The American Dream degrades into the American Nightmare
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A2 - illegals aren’t eligible for SS
Immigrants consume social services – they are eligible & consume a majority of the budget
Singer 01 Researcher for the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace and an expert on international migration, race
and ethnicity, U.S. immigration policy, and demographic trends in metropolitan areas
[Audrey, “Immigrants, their Families and their Communities in the Aftermath of Welfare Reform” in the Research Perspectives on Migration Vol 3 Issue 1
http://www.robparal.com/downloads/RPMVol3-No1.pdf]
welfare reform has been on the policy agenda for
more than three decades, the immigrant population became a focal point only as it became evident to policymakers that
tremendous savings might be accomplished by excluding noncitizens from participating in public assistance programs . In August of
The policy worlds of immigration and welfare collided in the 1990s when a new welfare law was enacted. While
1996, President Clinton signed into law the Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act (PRWORA). It ended the 60-year guarantee of a safety net for poor children
and families, by transforming the federal entitlement of Aid to Families with Dependent Children (AFDC) into a state-run, block grant program called Temporary Assistance to Needy
Families (TANF). PRWORA emphasized work over benefits, established lifetime caps for benefits, and created incentives for states to reduce their welfare caseloads. It required recipients
to work within two years of receiving benefits, and to meet work participation requirements of at least 20 hours per week. It also limited most adults to five years of aid as a lifetime total,
including those months in which the recipient complies with work requirements.
PRWORA, commonly called the Welfare Act, was projected to save the federal government $54.1 billion over six years. Cutting benefits to legal permanent residents (i.e., green card
holders) comprised 44 percent of the net savings, or $23.8 billion. Legal immigrants–including those who were participating in the programs at the time the law became effective–became
ineligible for TANF, Food Stamps, Medicaid and Supplemental Security Income (SSI) (see Noncitizen Benefit Eligibility under PRWORA, p. 6). Prior to the Welfare Act, legal
permanent residents (LPRs) with at least five years of residency had access to public assistance equal to that of U.S. citizens. By one measure, welfare refor m has been successful in that it
has reduced the number of people receiving public assistance. Indeed, since the enactment of PRWORA, caseloads have declined by one-half. The number of families receiving TANF
was reduced from 4.4 million in August 1996 to 2.2 million in June 1999, and the number of individuals receiving TANF in the same time period decreased from 12.2 million to 5.8
million. However, the
consequences of the Welfare Act for immigrant families have been considerable and we know little about the
dynamics of adjustment to new eligibility policies
in the post-reform period. The studies reported on in this issue of RPM show how the Welfare Act has had an impact on immigrant families, including those with citizen children; on
communities and local economies where immigrants live; on refugees; on community based organizations; and on state budgets in developing and providing substitute assistance.
Since the enactment of PRWORA, the federal government has restored eligibility for some of the benefits from which immigrants
were originally barred. These restorations include Supplemental Security Income (SSI), Medicaid, and food stamps for noncitizen
children, elderly and disabled who were legally residing in the United States prior to PRWORA’s passage (“pre-enactment immigrants”).
Post- PRWORA legislation also extended the exemption for refugees from five to seven years (see Description of Federal Restorations of Public
Assistance to Legal Immigrants, p.28).
Despite these restorations, and the adoption of policies by many states to provide their own benefits, many immigrants who entered the United States after PRWORA’s passage (“postenactment immigrants”) have no access to the social safety net. Post-enactment immigrants are ineligible for all federal assistance programs for at least five years after their arrival in the
United States.
Defining a Problem: the Size and the Cost of the Immigrant Population Although
legal immigrants had not explicitly been the target of welfare reform
proposals prior to the start of the Clinton Administration in 1993, several developments led to an anti-immigrant sentiment that
placed immigrants squarely at the center of reform. Two related factors—an awareness of the relative size of the undocumented
immigrant population and the cost of providing social services (such as emergency health care and education) to this group—garnered politicians’
attention during the economic recession of the early 1990s. Immigration levels—both legal and undocumented—were estimated to be approximately one million
persons per year. The magnitude of these immigration numbers was in large part a consequence of the 1986 Immigration Reform and Control Act (IRCA). IRCA ultimately gave legal
status to more than 2.7 million undocumented persons and created the potential for greater increases in legal immigration due to policies that encourage family reunification. Although
IRCA was designed to allow undocumented immigrants to gain legal status and move into the U.S. economic and social mainstream, the political compromise that permitted IRCA to be
enacted also required a commitment to end further undocumented migration. The second part of the compromise has been largely unsuccessful. In addition, by the mid-1990s, the first
cohorts of legalized persons were eligible for citizenship and, hence, for greater immigration benefits, including sponsoring their immediate relatives for immigration.
The increasing size of the immigrant population was not the only concern of public officials arguing for reduced immigration levels.
The costs of providing social services
to that population was a second concern, which in the mid- 1990s environment of cutting government costs, at times competed with the call for reducing immigration levels.
The argument that immigrants, especially males, take jobs away from native-born Americans and drive down the wages of other
workers was salient given high levels of unemployment at that time. In addition, a new calculation emerged with the perception that the character of migration had
evolved. Migration flows–including from Mexico, the United States’ largest source country–were no longer simply the traditional maledominated flows; instead, the United States now received considerably greater proportions of women and children. These
immigrants, it was argued, consumed more than their fair share of public goods, including schooling and emergency medical care .
The debate was fueled by an enduring anxiety about the porous character of the U.S. border, especially fears about the sizable flow from the South, as well as the apparent failure of
employer sanctions to reduce the number of undocumented workers. The urgency to tighten controls of U.S. borders was heightened by a seemingly endless series of media reports on the
ease with which U.S. border control measures could be evaded. Under these circumstances, money and personnel devoted to border enforcement was dramatically increased in the mid1990s, and progressively harsher policies against unauthorized immigrants were adopted.
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A2 - will come if the economy improves
The Bad Economy isn’t enough – Immigrants don’t leave Mexico unless there are greater opportunities
Littlefield 3-5-09 Council on Hemispheric Affairs Research Associate
[Edward W. “As Mexico’s Problems Mount: The Impact of the Economic Recession on Migration Patterns from Mexico” COHA Publication March 5th,
2009 http://www.coha.org/2009/03/as-mexico’s-problems-mount-the-impact-of-the-economic-recession-on-migration-patterns-from-mexico/] JH
The Economic Recession's Impact on Mexico
The current global financial crisis appears to be having the opposite effect on Mexican migration: poor economic conditions are
motivating Mexicans to remain at home. Mexico City's National Statistics, Geography and Information Institute recently reported that, from August 2007 to
August 2008, the illegal and legal outflow of migrants has declined by over 50 percent , from 455,000 to 204,000. Additionally, remittances - the
funds sent from immigrants abroad to their families at home - have decreased for the first time since 1995. The number of Mexican households receiving money from relatives abroad,
largely in the United States, has fallen from 1.41 million in 2005 to 1.16 million in 2008. Remittances themselves, second only to oil as Mexico's largest source of foreign income, have
decreased by 11.6 percent to $1.57 billion from January 2008 to January 2009, the state-run Banco de Mexico revealed on March 3. The number of remittance transactions declined by 20
percent in the same time period.
Although this decrease is less than that which the Banco de Mexico forecasted, the financial crisis paints a bleak future for the Mexican economy, whose expected negative growth of 0.81.8 percent would represent the sharpest decline since that of 7 percent in 1995. Independent economists are even less optimistic - United States investment bank JPMorgan predicts that
the Mexican economy will contract by 4 percent in 2009. These decreases will have negative consequences for a country whose development, as a result of economic integration with the
United States, has become dependent upon the legal and illegal export of cheap labor and remittance seekers. In an article published by Migration Information Source, Ral Delgado-Wise
and Luis Eduardo Guarnizo present Mexico's cheap labor / export-led model of remittance-dependent development as having "imposed unsustainable economic, social, and political costs
upon Mexican society," including the exodus of its domestic labor force and the ensuing relentless impoverishment of rural areas.
The Colegio de la Frontera Norte (COLEF) recently reported a 24.5 percent
increase in Mexicans returning home from the United States in 2007. Whether or not such a trend is true for 2008 and 2009 is as of
yet unknown. Nonetheless, if the economic recession and lack of employment opportunities in the U.S.compels Mexicans to
further repatriate, the country would become increasingly vulnerable . According to London's Latin News Daily, "Mexico would be unable to cope with a
Even a mass repopulation would not avoid straining the Mexican economy.
mass return of migrant workers. For one, unemployment figures would rise at a much faster pace and any further social unrest on the back of this could destabilise the government."
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A2 – reform solves the impact
No timetable for immigration reform
AFP 6 – 20 – 09
[“Obama vows immigration reform laws,” http://ww.thepeninsulaqatar.com/Display_news.asp?section=
World_News&subsection=Americas&month=June2009&file=World_News2009062073424.xml]
Washington: President
Barack Obama yesterday said he was committed to comprehensive immigration reform, amid rising calls by
Hispanic supporters for a path to citizenship for 12 million illegal immigrants.
Obama did not, however, lay out a timetable for action on one of the most perilous issues in the United States, which political leaders struggle to
reconcile with the political heat of a two-year congressional election cycle.
“Together we must build a future where the promise of America is kept for a new generation,” said Obama, at the National Hispanic Prayer Breakfast in Washington.
“We also know that keeping this promise means upholding America’s tradition as a nation of laws and a nation of immigrants.
“Those things aren’t contradictory, they’re complementary. That’s why I’m committed to passing comprehensive immigration reform as president of the United States.”
Obama laid out general outlines of reform, saying people should not be allowed to come to the United States against the law and
that employers must not exploit low-wage, illegal labour.
He also called for an attempt to “clarify” the status of millions of immigrants, who entered the United States illegally years ago and put down roots.
“For those who wish to become citizens, we should require them to pay a penalty and pay taxes, learn English, go to the back of the line, behind those who played by the rules. “That is the
fair, practical and promising way forward.”
Former president George W Bush was also a fierce proponent of comprehensive immigration reform, but his bi-partisan effort to
offer legal status to 12 million illegal immigrants in the country crashed down in 2007 .
Obama’s spokesman Robert Gibbs said in April that the president hoped to launch an immigration reform effort in 2009 but that
fallout from the economic crisis would likely push the effort into next year.
immigration reform inevitable – obama pushing
AP 7 – 1 – 09
SUZANNE GAMBOA http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5h_EhhmjIcqAzvJainjWnJTLRylXQD995U4N00
WASHINGTON (AP) — The
Obama administration launched investigations of hundreds of businesses around the country Wednesday as
part of its strategy to focus immigration enforcement on the employers who hire illegal workers.
Immigration and Customs Enforcement has begun notifying businesses of plans to audit their I-9 forms — employment eligibility documents that employers fill out for every worker —
the agency told members of Congress in an e-mail Wednesday.
Immigration officers served "Notices of Inspection" to 652 businesses, the Homeland Security Department said. By comparison, 503 such notices were issued to businesses last year, the
agency said. Businesses were chosen for inspections based on leads and other investigative work, Immigration and Customs Enforcement said.
Employers are required to keep the I-9 forms and must check the authenticity of documents provided by the employee. The Homeland Security Department said it would not release the
names or locations of the businesses that are being audited because of the ongoing investigations.
"ICE is committed to establishing a meaningful I-9 inspection program to promote compliance with the law," John Morton, Immigration and Customs Enforcement director, said in a
statement. "This nationwide effort is a first step in ICE's longterm strategy to address and deter illegal employment."
President Barack Obama has said his administration's strategy for stemming illegal immigration would focus on employers who
hire illegal workers.
The Bush administration was criticized for deploying armed agents to raid businesses and arrest workers suspected to be working illegally. Critics said the Bush administration did not do
enough to go after the employers.
The Obama administration has been trying to build its credibility on immigration enforcement to boost the chances of passing an
immigration reform bill in Congress. The administration has doubted whether it has enough votes right now to pass immigration
reform. But some members of Congress emerged from a meeting with Obama last week saying immigration reform could be done
by the end of the year or early next year.
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A2 – ↑ enforcement solves
Enforcement can’t solve immigration – too many ways to get in
VAUGHAN 3 – 14 – 07 Senior Policy Analyst, Center for Immigration Studies
[Jessica M. Vaughn, “Preventing Illegal Employment: Federal “Basic Pilot” Verification Program is an Effective and Business-friendly Tool,”
http://www.cis.org/articles/2007/jmvtestimony031407.html]
Illegal workers take jobs that could be filled by the large number of native or legal immigrant workers who are currently un- or under-employed.
Illegal immigration
contributes significantly to the size of the population living in poverty and needing social services .
Our research shows that they do not “take
jobs Americans won’t do,” but mainly take low-skill jobs at lower wages than employers would have to offer to legal workers, causing labor market distortions and depressing wages in
low-skill sectors.4
The problem of illegal immigration cannot be solved with border control measures alone . Despite stepped up efforts along parts of
the border, many illegal migrants still are able to elude the Border Patrol. In addition, it is believed that as many as 40% of illegal
aliens arrive here on planes or ships, and overstayed their visa . For this reason, interior enforcement, including workplace compliance is a critical tool
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A2 Mexican Economy
Mexican economy has bottomed out since 1995
WALL STREET JOURNAL 7 - 7 - 09
http://online.wsj.com/article/BT-CO-20090707-711080.html
Mexico is grappling with its deepest recession since 1995 due to the economic woes in the U.S., Mexico's No.1 trading partner,
and a weak global economy that has crippled international trade.
Private sector economists surveyed by the Bank of Mexico expect the economy will shrink 6.3% this year and grow 2.1% in 2010.
Mexico held midterm Congressional elections Sunday that saw the center left opposition Institutional Revolutionary Party, or PRI,
displace Calderon's National Action Party as the largest political force in the 500 seat lower house.
Investors are watching to see if the PRI will have the appettite to approve a fiscal reform when the new Congress convenes in
September, given the looming threat of a sovereign ratings downgrade due to the federal government's falling tax revenue.
Mexico has economic safety nets in place
MARTINEZ-DIAZ 09 Political Economy Fellow, Global Economy and Development, The Brookings Institution
Leonardo Martinez-Diaz, Feb. 8th, http://www.brookings.edu/opinions/2009/0304_mexico_martinez_diaz.aspx
To meet the social challenge, the Mexican authorities will need to implement highly targeted social programs because the crisis
will affect sectors of the economy and regions of the country very differently. For example, export-oriented manufacturing,
especially that which relies on imported inputs, will be hardest hit, while commercial agriculture may actually benefit from the
currency’s devaluation. Emergency programs to help the unemployed will have to focus first on those sectors and localities that
will be decimated by the shock. Fortunately, the infrastructure to do this already exists, thanks to the long-running Oportunidades
program, a conditional cash-transfer program that reaches low-income families across Mexico. The United States can help
indirectly, by encouraging the multilateral development banks to create or expand lending instruments that help the Mexican and
other governments provide this kind of targeted support.
With a financial safety net in place and social programs at the ready, the Calderon administration should be reasonably well
prepared for one of the toughest years in living memory. Meeting the challenges of the crisis in 2009 will highlight the importance
of U.S.-Mexico economic cooperation, but it may also introduce complex tensions into the bilateral relationship.
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Non – Unique – Illegals Increasing Now
tons of illegal immigrants now
SCAMEHORN 7 – 5 – 09 Ohio University's Executive-in-Residence Emeritus
Dick Scamehorn, Illegal immigration is way out of control,http://www.lancastereaglegazette.com/article/20090705/OPINION02/907050323/1014/OPINION
The various states have developed data on the number of illegal immigrants in each state generating a moderately reliable estimate
of about 11.6 million: California, Texas and Florida having the largest populations.
Of this total, just less than 6.6 million are from Mexico: compared to the 4. 4 million legal Mexican entries in the past decade. It is
estimated that about half a million continue to illegally enter each year. The situation is out of control.
US already has a ton of illegal immigrants
Barbaro. Dec 2008. Director of NECSP.
[Henry Barbaro, “The Director's Corner” http://hosted.verticalresponse.com/292622/65721bf82a/1347002025/b363dbff30/]
For those following the immigration debate, it's important to remember that immigration is a worldwide phenomenon. Recent news coverage of social strife from immigration pressures
includes (but is not limited to) England, Spain, France, Holland, Germany, and Israel. Although immigration is not unique to this country, the
U.S. receives more
immigrants every year (roughly 1.5 million) than any other country in the world. For more than 20 years these elevated rates have
soared well beyond U.S. emigration levels. It has been this immense influx of people (i.e., "mass immigration") that has generated
widespread discontent across the nation.
Illegals are increasing now – 2.4 last year
WorkPermit 8-17-06 Immigration Website
[http://www.workpermit.com/news/2006_08_17/us/census_data_increase.htm “US Census Data Reveals 16% Immigration Increase in 5 years”]
Immigrants living in U.S. households increased by 16%, to a current total of 35.7 million foreign-born residents in the United
States. The dramatic increase is from 2000 to 2005, with many newcomers moving to states that traditionally have not had many
immigrants.
The U.S. Census Bureau this week released preliminary data on the most comprehensive survey of immigration in the United
States ever performed. More than 3 million households were surveyed, with tens of thousands of interviews by phone and in person. The data is expected to be the most definitive
and precise generated to date. The population data released provides the first large-scale glimpse of how U.S. communities of 65,000 and
larger have changed since the turn of the century.
Along with the increase in the overall number of immigrants, the survey found an increase in the numbers who are not U.S.
citizens, estimated to be 2.4 million more since 2000 . The survey did not try to distinguish between non-citizens in the country legally, like students or guest
workers, and those who are in the country illegally.
Among the many trends immediately noted, immigrants increasingly are bypassing the traditional gateway states like California and New York. They are settling directly in parts of the
country that, until recently, saw little immigrant activity, such as regions like the Upper Midwest, New England and the Rocky Mountain states.
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Non – Unique – Illegals Increasing Now
Immigration will remain high
PASSEL 04 Principal Research Associate - Immigration Studies Program @ Urban Institute - D.C
[http://www.migrationinformation.org/feature/display.cfm?id=208 “Mexican Immigration to the US: The Latest Estimates”]
In summary, migration
from Mexico to the United States has accelerated rapidly to the point where about nine percent of the
population born in Mexico is now living in the United States. While a large majority (around 80 percent) of all newly arrived
immigrants from Mexico are undocumented, only about half of all Mexicans in the United States are undocumented. And while
average annual flows from Mexico since 2000 are slightly smaller than in the late 1990s, they remain large and above the levels of
the early 1990s. More importantly, immigration from Mexico shows no sign of dropping significantly in the near future, even in
the face of post-September 11 security measures and a weakening economy. This continued migration is facilitated by the
geographic dispersal of the flow within the United States as more economic niches become available to the newly arriving
migrants.
Barring major changes in the nation's legal immigration policy, its enforcement strategies, or a sustained deterioration in the
economy, it is likely that overall migration and migration from Mexico in particular will continue at roughly current levels. Thus,
the United States can anticipate the entry of another 14 million immigrants between 2000 and 2010 with net migration of at least
400,000 Mexicans per year. Under these assumptions, the foreign-born population would increase from 31 million in 2000 to about 40 million in 2010, to represent 13 percent
of the total population. The Mexican-born population would grow from about nine million in 2000 to almost 13 million in 2010; at that point, more than 10 percent of the Mexican-born
population would be in the United States with less than 90 percent in Mexico.
3 hundred thousand new Mexican immigrants enter each year
PASSEL 8 – 17 – 08 Principal Research Associate - Immigration Studies Program @ Urban Institute - D.C
[Jeffrey, “Mexican Immigration to the US: The Latest Estimates,” http://www.workpermit.com/news/2006_08_17/us/census_data_increase.htm]
Growth of the Mexican-Born Population
While the Mexican-born population in the United States has grown substantially since 1990, the undocumented population from
Mexico has increased even faster. The 1990 Census included 4.3 million immigrants from Mexico . By 2000, this population more
than doubled to 9.2 million with a further increase to 9.8 million in 2002. The undocumented population from Mexico increased from two million in 1990
to 4.8 million in 2000 and to 5.3 million in 2002. Thus, between 1990 and 2002, the undocumented population from Mexico increased by about
250,000 to 300,000 per year on average; evidence from successive CPSs suggests that the annual inflows increased dramatically around 1997 or 1998.
The undocumented from Mexico have become an increasingly larger part of the total Mexican immigrant population . Between 1990 and
2002, the legal population from Mexico roughly doubled while the undocumented population grew by 165 percent. As a consequence, the proportion of undocumented among Mexican
immigrants living in the country increased from approximately 47 percent to about 54 percent by 2002. This increase has occurred because a very large proportion of all new immigrants
from Mexico are undocumented. Of all Mexicans who came to the United States since 1990, more than four of every five remained undocumented by 2002. Among those who entered in
the 1980s, only about one in five is still undocumented.
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No Link
Link is a lie – no evidence supports social services increase immigration
CARNEGIE 96 A joint project of the International Migration Policy Program of the Carnegie Endowment for
International Peace and the Urban Institute
[Research Perspectives on Migration, “Immigrants & Welfare,” September / October 1996 Volume 1 / Number ,
http://www.carnegieendowment.org/files/rpm/rpmvol1no1.pdf]
Magnet or Trap?
One of the enduring allegations about immigrants is that they are drawn to the country partly because of its assistance p r o g rams .
We know of no credible evidence to this effect . Instead, studies of immigrant motives, economic analyses of immigrant income
streams, and sociological surveys of immigrant behavior have all consistently shown that immigrants are drawn to the United
States overwhelmingly because of perceived economic opportunities .
Some critics, however, charge that once in the country, immigrants come to rely on welfare and to adopt a “welfare mentality” the way certain
native-born populations are alleged to. Speaking specifically of welfare, Newsweek columnist Joe Klein stated: “Immigrants aren’t destroying America, America is destroying the
immigrants .” Despite the hyperbole, the evidence here is equivocal. Borjas and Hilton adduce that the “typical i m m i g rant household has a much higher propensity of being
‘permanently’ on welfare.” However, since they do not disaggregate by type of welfare, it is difficult to tell whether the data support their conclusion. Their finding may simply reflect the
possibility that immigrants receive a different mix of assistance p r o g rams, some of wh i ch are typically provided for a longer d u ration than others. Elderly SSI recipients, a
disproportionate number of them immigrants, often receive benefits for the remainder of their lives. Families on AFDC may have much shorter spells of benefit receipt.
Furthermore, certain
of the ch a racteristics typically associated with welfare dependency — particularly non-participation in the labor market and family
much less frequent among immigrants than among natives. Th e Department of Labor study cited earlier concluded
that “proportionately more legalized than other prime-aged men were economically active…. As a result, there were fewer wo r
king- age dependents in the legalized than in the overall United States population.” They also found that “just five percent of legalized households with
breakdown — are
children were headed by wo m e n , compared with 26 percent nationally.”
Immigrants won’t be enticed by our plan – they don’t expect to receive social services
Nalle 6 Senior Politics Editor at Blogcritics online magazine
[Dave, “Basic Facts on Illegal Immigration” July 17, 2006 Blogcritics.org Lexis http://blogcritics.org/politics/article/basic-facts-on-illegal-immigration/]JH
Illegal immigrants don’t increase your taxes.
Surveys of immigrants show that they actually come with the expectation that welfare and social service benefits will not be
available to them. What’s more, per capita, they actually use welfare benefits less than the native population. Studies show that
only 2% of Mexican immigrants have ever used welfare or social security and only 3% have ever used food stamps. In
comparison, 84% pay income tax and none of them file a return. Because so many of them pay into the tax and social security and
Medicaid systems without being able to retrieve any of that money or benefits, the government actually makes a substantial profit
on each illegal who comes here. This has resulted in a surplus in social security funds of more than $50 billion a year just from
payments applied to fictional social security numbers. After factoring in services provided, on average during his time in the US,
an illegal immigrant will contribute $80,000 more to the government than he consumes in services. The one negative tax impact is that they act
to transfer money from the states who pay most of the services, especially education, to the federal government which gets most of the tax benefits
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No Link
immigrants are motivated by high wages – not social services
VANG 11 – 30 – 07 Writer for Ezine articles
Bruce Vang, Illegal Immigration- It's Impact on the US economy. http://ezinearticles.com/?Illegal-Immigration---Its-Impact-on-the-USEconomy&id=858220
it is however, uncertain that their authentic motivation is to
tap into freely available resources. Enciro Marcelli believes that it is generally recognized that most illegal immigrants are more
motivated to enter the U.S. to "build a better life for themselves and their families by securing a higher paying job" (Marcelli, 2005). There
exist many common claims by the U.S. legislation on illegal immigration. Those includes: immigrations migrate to the U.S. to use
its welfare program and public services and unauthorized immigrants take jobs away and depress the wages of, lower-skilled, minority workers.
In a study undertaken in the late 1980's by a team of University of Texas researchers using 1980 U.S. Census data, they reported that
although "legal immigrants had a small negative effect on the wages of U.S.-born white workers in the U.S. Southwest,
undocumented Mexican immigrants actually had a small positive effect " (Marcelli, 2005). During the same time of the research done by the University of
Texas scholars, another group of researchers from the University of Toledo in the early 1990s used the same data. However, they investigated
the impact of undocumented immigrants on the unemployment of U.S.-born minority workers rather than the impact of
undocumented immigrants on the employment of U.S.-born minority workers. They found an incredible inverse relationship. This is because illegal
Although it may to true that many illegal immigrants are motivated to bring its hard work ethic to the U.S.,
immigrants as they concluded enjoy clustering in states where unemployment rates were lower. The researchers interpreted this finding as "suggestive of labor market complimentarily
illegal immigrants fill undesirable jobs only after more
collectively groups of workers drift into higher paying occupations (Marcelli, 2005). This means there is no loss in jobs as immigrants
do not take jobs away from currently employed citizens.
In contrary to Marcelli with the issue related to the extent to which illegal workers utilize more public services than their tax contributions, Moretti and Perloff (2000) "found
that the participation in welfare programs by illegal immigrant worker families was 8% in contrast to 27%, 30%, and 42% for
citizen, amnesty, and green card worker families, respectively" (Moretti & Perloff, 2000). Although this research is sustainable to the validity of welfare programs, it
rather than substitution" (Marcelli, 2005). In rebuke, the conclusion of Marcelli suggests that
did not take into consideration the tax contributions with service usage. Their analysis was not based on tax contributions because "since most pertinent tax payments are via payroll
deductions or sales tax collections, the general belief is that tax contributions vary little by legal status" (Moretti & Perloff, 2000). There analysis therefore, included all public services as
illegal immigrants are actually contributing to public services as well as
social security because not only are they employees but they are also consumers who gives back to the community as well.
well as public education. With the conclusion of this analysis, it shows that
Immigration levels follow the economy – not social services – means the rise will be inevitable
American Tribune 6-6-09 Esteemed Newspaper
[http://www3.signonsandiego.com/stories/2009/jun/06/lz1ed6top004616-immigration-decline/?uniontrib “Immigration Decline” American Tribune]
When Americans learn that fewer Mexican immigrants are coming to the United States, many assume enhanced border enforcement is paying off. Not so fast. A
new study
suggests that the lower numbers of migrants have more to do with diminished job opportunities in the United States.
When a team of researchers from the Center for Comparative Immigration Studies at UCSD interviewed more than 1,000 people
from a small town in the Mexican state of YucatÁn, they found that about 25 percent fewer people are considering crossing this
year, compared to a similar study they did three years ago. The researchers also found that 90 percent of those interviewed said it
was getting harder to find gainful employment in the United States.
The Mexicans who were interviewed were well aware of the beefed-up border enforcement which the United States has put in place in recent years, including more fencing and more
Apparently, the necessity to feed
one's family still overrides concerns about being nabbed at the border. And those who are nabbed usually try again soon after being returned to Mexico.
Tighter enforcement on the border has had an indirect effect, in that it has caused immigrant smugglers to raise their rates. The
price has gone up eight times in the last three years, according to the study. And, because of the recession, many employers are no
longer willing to pay the freight for workers as they have in the past.
This study rings true. Still, let's keep in mind that variations in migratory patterns are no substitute for real and comprehensive immigration reform. When
the U.S. economy comes back, so will the immigrants.
Border Patrol officers. But they didn't seem to care much about that, according to the research. The same was true in the 2006 findings.
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No Link - More immigrants won’t come because of the plan -There is no welfare magnet
Wilson 07 Assistant Professor, Economics Department, the University of Denver
[Matthew C “The Economic Causes and Consequences of Mexican Immigration to the United States” 2007 DENVER UNIVERSITY LAW REVIEW
SYMPOSIUM: IMMIGRATION: BOTH SIDES OF THE FENCE: 2007 Lexis] JH
According to researchers at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, "there is no reputable evidence that prospective
immigrants are drawn to the U.S. because of its public assistance programs." n29 The argument that public services cause immigration suffers from the
same conceptual problem discussed above regarding factor price equalization. The greatest disparities in public services are likely exist between the very
poorest countries and the very richest countries, since the former can afford few public services, whereas the latter are among the
most generous welfare states. Thus if the latter are hypothesized as "welfare magnets," then, here again, the greatest flows of
immigration would be predicted to be from the poorest countries to the richest countries. However , as discussed above, waves of mass
migration do not tend to be from the poorest to the richest countries but rather from the rapidly developing to the richest countries.
A corollary objection concerns the fact that states vary widely in terms of the generosity of their social services to the poor. If states were welfare magnets, then states
like Texas, which rank very low, both in terms of overall generosity of benefits and in terms of accessibility of benefits to
immigrants, n30 would attract little or no immigration. Yet, as it is well known, Texas is a major gateway state.
Thus, there is little or no evidence to suggest that the United States is a "welfare magnet." While that characterization might apply to other aspects of
migration, such as migration of low-income people within the United States, it does not appear to be a significant motivation underpinning the mass
migration of workers from Mexico to the United States. While immigrants end up using public services, by and large they do not
immigrate in order to do so. Once immigrants (particularly those natural [*1110] ized) arrive, they may well have an incentive to apply for public services. However, that is
different from saying that accessing such services is a major motivation to immigrate in the first place. Moreover the validity of the claim that the United States is a
"welfare magnet" cannot be established merely by pointing out that immigrants use public services or even that they do so
disproportionately compared to natives.
No Link - Welfare is not a reason to emigrate – People come for other reasons
Wheeler 93 Missouri State Senator – member of the Immigration sub-committee
[Charles U.S. House of Representatives Subcommittee on Human Resources Committee on Ways and Means Hearing on the Impact of Immigration on
Welfare Programs November 15, 1993 http://www.archive.org/stream/impactofimmigrat00unit/impactofimmigrat00unit_djvu.txt] JH
Finally,
there is no evidence that public benefit programs in the U.S. serve as a magnet to persons seeking to immigrate to the U.S.,
either legally or illegally. Although there is recent evidence that undocumented women in Los Angeles rely on emergency rooms in county hospitals for the delivery of their
babies, this speaks more to the unavailability of affordable health care or other alternative methods for covering their health costs. People immigrate to the U.S. to work,
to join other family members here, to flee persecution, or to generally improve their standard of living, not to go on welfare.
No Link – There is no evidence supporting the welfare magnet theory
Zavodny 97 Professor of economics at Agnes Scott College
[Madeline “Welfare and the Locational Choices of New Immigrants” Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas 1997,
http://dallasfedbackup.org/research/er/1997/er9702a.pdf] JH
In this article, I
find little evidence to support the contention that new immigrants will choose their destinations based on welfare
generosity. New immigrants are attracted to areas with large immigrant populations. Because earlier immigrants are
disproportionately located in high-welfare states, it may appear that high welfare benefits attract immigrants. However, immigrants
do not respond to interstate differentials in welfare generosity but rather to differences in the sizes of the foreign born populations.
Immigrants are also attracted to a specific subset of states—namely California, New York, Florida, and Texas—and do not respond to changes in welfare benefits
within states over time. The recent historical evidence gives little reason to be concerned that new immigrants will choose their
destinations based on the welfare differentials created by the new welfare law.
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No Link – abortion
Immigrant women are already administering unsafe abortions in the US
NY Times 05
[John Leland, “Abortion Might Outgrow Its Need for Roe v. Wade” October 2, 2005
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/10/02/weekinreview/02leland.html?_r=1&scp=1&sq=Abortion%20Might%20Outgrow%20Its%20Need%20for%20Roe%20
v.%20Wade&st=cse] JH
Even if the court restricts or eliminates the right to an abortion, the often-raised specter of a return to back-alley abortions is not likely to be realized, said Dr. Beverly Winikoff, president
of Gynuity Health Services, a nonprofit group that supports access to abortion. ''The conditions that existed before 1973 were much different than what they are in 2005,'' she said. ''We
have better antibiotics now and better surgical treatments.''
But no change is bigger than the
advent of an inexpensive drug called misoprostol, which the federal Food and Drug Administration approved for treatment of
used in millions of self-administered abortions worldwide. If the Supreme Court overturns Roe v. Wade, freeing states to
ban abortion, this common prescription drug, often known by the brand name Cytotec , could emerge as a cheap, relatively safe alternative to the practices that
ulcers in 1988, but which has been
proliferated before Roe.
''We won't go back to the days of coat hangers and knitting needles,'' said Dr. Jerry Edwards, an abortion provider in Little Rock, Ark. ''Rich women will fly to California; poor women
will use Cytotec.''
Because it was never intended for use in abortions, it has not been widely tested for safety and effectiveness .
In 2000, researchers at three obstetrics and gynecology clinics in New York noted that low-income immigrant women were
already using misoprostol as an alternative to going to an abortion clinic, because it was easier and less expensive . They got the pills from
doctors, pharmacies, relatives and from contacts in other countries.
The drug causes the uterus to contract and, if the contractions are strong enough, to expel the embryo or fetus. In the United States, misoprostol is typically used off label with the abortion
drug RU-486 in non-surgical abortions and in some surgical abortions. A spokeswoman for Pfizer, which sells misoprostol under the name Cytotec, said the company does not comment
on off-label use. Last year, Americans filled 365,000 prescriptions of misoprostol for ulcers, according to IMS Health, a pharmaceutical consulting firm.
Immigrants won’t use abortion services – too religious
Washington Times 07
[Maxim Kniazkov. “Victory of Stars and Stripes; City quiets rebellion against 'los federales'” May 31, 2007 Lexis] JH
"We have God-fearing people here," said Sgt. Enrique Gonzalez, a veteran of the local police force of about three dozen officers who richly
peppers his English with Spanish idioms. "We noticed that even gang members refrain from touching stores if the image of the Virgin is on the
front."
There is not a single abortion clinic in this community of more than 30,000, mainly immigrants from Mexico, Central America
and Argentina, who have made this southern suburb of Los Angeles their home .
"That would not go over very well here," Sgt. Gonzalez said .
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No Link – legal services
Immigrants don’t use the legal system – lack of trust
COOPER 05 journalist in New York, who specializes in topics of human rights and justice. With a background as a
lawyer, she worked for legal services for two and a half years
[Cynthia L., Equal Justice Magazine, Winter 2005 | Vol. 4 No. 2]
Across the country, legal services are responding to the new faces of low-income clients and bridging a gap, sometimes a vast gulf,
between populations newer to the U.S., and the justice system that is meant to help one and all. "It is a vulnerable population in terms of abuse of
legal rights," said Cynthia G. Schneider, Deputy Director of the Office of Program Performance at the Legal Services Corporation.
Carl O. Callender (standing right), Executive Director of Queens Legal Services Corp., speaks at a Chinese community forum.
Others see a stark crisis. For
immigrants, the legal system is "overwhelming, incomprehensible and inaccessible due to cultural and
language barriers," says "Equal Justice, Unequal Access: Immigrants & America's Legal System," a report released earlier this year by the National Asian
Pacific American Legal Consortium. While immigrants' legal needs are high, trust is low, "rooted in their experiences in their
countries of origin, where legal systems may have been dysfunctional or non-existent," the report states. This, combined with
poverty, limited English ability, and a lack of legal knowledge, creates "not merely a gap, but a wall ."
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Alt cause – Drug Violence
Alt. Cause. – Any future increases in immigration will be tied to the escalating drug violence
Wolf 5-20-09 – US Journalist reporting from Mexico
[Julie, McClatchey Newspapers “New reason for Mexican immigration to U.S.: Drug violence” May 20, 2009
http://www.mcclatchydc.com/world/story/68531.html] JH
MEXICO CITY — Mexican immigration to the United States has been almost entirely an economic
Politicians have fine-tuned their positions around what to do about illegal immigrants who supposedly take jobs from Americans.
issue for the past few decade s.
Now, however, as violence on the border continues to increase, a new kind of immigrant to the United States is appearing: people
seeking asylum to escape the drug-fueled brutality in Mexico.
More than 5,400 people were killed in the violence last year, and more than 8,000 in the two years since President Felipe Calderon sent thousands of troops into
the drug war zones.
"Some families living on the frontier are leaving, and the easiest way to live in the U.S. for them is by asking for the status of
refugee," said Damaso Morales, a professor of international studies at the Universidad Nacional Autonoma de Mexico , the largest
university in Latin America. "It's a way to get into the U.S. in a legal way."
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Immigrants follow the economy
Illegal immigration patterns follow the economy – which will inevitably go back up
Fox News 2-9-09
[Mike Levine February 09, 2009 Napolitano: As Recession Deepens, Illegal Immigration From Mexico Declines
http://www.foxnews.com/politics/first100days/2009/02/09/napolitano-recession-deepens-illegal-immigration-mexico-declines/ ] JH
The weak economy is giving the government a unique chance to toughen its efforts against illegal immigration, but officials need to act before the window of opportunity closes,
Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano said. Napolitano said Friday that the department has seen a "pretty significant decrease" in
illegal immigrants crossing over from Mexico because the number of available jobs in the United States has decreased. "I think we
need to move and take advantage of that," she said at a briefing with Customs and Border Protection (CBP) officials.
Napolitano -- at the helm of her department for two and a half weeks now -- said she wants to keep new border security efforts "moving fast," perhaps even "accelerate" them, because,
"You
can reasonably anticipate that when our economy comes back -- and it will -- it could be accompanied by another wave of illegal
immigration." A DHS official told FOX News that, among the items on her list, Napolitano wants to get moving on completing
the security fence along the southern border. Most of the 670-mile fence has been completed, but more than 60 miles -- mostly in Texas -- remain unfinished. While
Napolitano has often criticized the fence construction, the DHS official said, "The secretary is a huge supporter of the right mix at the right places." According to the DHS official,
Napolitano also wants to "accelerate" efforts to mandate the E-verify program, which allows employers to verify the legal status of workers online, free of charge. The program is
currently a volunteer-based system, with only some employers participating, so Congress would have to take action to give it any legal or regulatory backing.
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Immigration inevitable
Immigration inevitable – capitalism insures it
Yates 6-29-09 Professor of economics and labor relations at the University of Pittsburgh
[Michael Yates, Monthly Review: “Don't Pity the Poor Immigrants Fight Alongside Them”, 6-29-09. Pg online @ [http://www.monthlyreview.org/090628yates.php]
workers’ circumstances were determined not by their desires and actions but by a
complex panoply of forces, all intimately tied to the essence of the capitalist world economy, namely the accumulation of capital: the incessant and
malevolent drive by businesses large and small to make as much money as possible and to expand capital here, there, and everywhere. Capitalists in the United States use
their political power to shape an imperial government that enforces, through its diplomatic and military might, the actions of the large and
therefore most influential corporations. When Latin American nations gained political independence from Spain, the United States
quickly asserted its power and soon dominated the new governments and economies. It found all too willing allies among the traditional landed elites and then among nascent
local industrialists. The United States turned a blind eye to military dictatorships, standing ready to support them with guns and troops
whenever an insurgency threatened stability. Local elites were happy to go along for a piece of the cash pie.
Whether Luz, Juan, and Edilberto were happy mattered not a bit. Their job was to work and obey. If their small plots were taken by the coffee growers,
they had to move. If the factory in the city shut its doors, they had to move . If these things happened because their government had signed a trade
agreement with the United States, they still had to move. They could organize and fight back, and they did, but the odds were heavily against them. If they weren’t killed,
they’d probably have to move. People have to eat; if they can’t get food at home, they have to move. If the food is in the United
States, they will move there. The choice isn’t really theirs. The decisions were made for them, by forces beyond their control . As Bacon says,
“globalization [meaning capitalism] creates migration.”
Bacon draws a number of conclusions from these stories. First, these
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Illegals Good – help econ
Illegal immigration is key to getting low skilled workers – key to the US economy
Hanson 2007 professor of economics in the Graduate School of International Relations and Pacific Studies
[Gordon H. Hanson, “The Economic Logic of Illegal Immigration” http://www.cfr.org/content/publications/attachments/ImmigrationCSR26.pdf.]
For a given labor inflow, the productivity gains from immigration will be larger the scarcer the skills of the incoming immigrants. A given type of worker may be scarce either because the
U.S. supply of his skill type is low relative to the rest of the world, as with workers who have little schooling, or because the U.S. demand for his skill type is high relative to the rest of the
world, as with computer scientists and engineers. Due
to steady increases in high school completion rates, native-born U.S. workers with low
schooling levels are increasingly hard to find. Yet these workers are an important part of the U.S. economy—they build homes,
prepare food, clean offices, harvest crops, and take unfilled factory jobs. Between 1960 and 2000, the share of working-age native-born U.S. residents with
less than twelve years of schooling fell from 50 percent to 12 percent. Abroad, low-skilled workers are more abundant. In Mexico , as of 2000, 74 percent of
working-age residents had less than twelve years of education. Migration from Mexico to the United States moves individuals
from a country where their relative abundance leaves them with low productivity and low wages to a country where their relative
scarcity allows them to command much higher earnings. For a twenty-five-year-old Mexican male with nine years of education (slightly above the national
average), migrating to the United States would increase his wage from $2.30 to $8.50 an hour, adjusted for cost of living differences in the two countries.27 While the net
economic impact of immigration on the U.S. economy may be small (as discussed below), the gains to immigrant households from
moving to the United States are enormous.
For low-skilled workers in much of the world, U.S. admission policies make illegal immigration the most viable means of
entering the country. In 2005, 56 percent of illegal immigrants were Mexican nationals. Given low average schooling, few Mexican citizens qualify for employment-based
green cards or most types of temporary work visas admission criteria that are too arbitrary to serve most prospective migrants who would like to work in the United States in the
immediate future. As a consequence, most Mexican immigrants enter the United States illegally. Although many ultimately obtain green cards, they remain unauthorized for a
considerable period of time. The
Pew Hispanic Center estimates that in 2005 80 to 85 percent of Mexican immigrants who had been in the
United States less than ten years were unauthorized .29 Illegal immigration thus accomplishes what legal immigration does not: It moves large numbers of lowskilled workers from a low-productivity to a high-productivity environment.
Illegal immigrants key to the economy – contribute billions to the GDP
BONELLO 5 – 21 – 08 Writer for the LA Times
Deborah Bonello,“Expulsion of illegal immigrants will cost U.S $1.7 billion a year, study says. http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/laplaza/2008/05/expulsionof-il.html.\
"The data...indicate that if
there were an expulsion from the country of the 8.1 million undocumented workers, it would provoke a loss of
$1.7 billion per year for the national economy and $6.52 billion in relation to the gross domestic product."
The figures show, says the Hoy blog post, that the contribution of undocumented migrants to the economy is not a virtual one - that the
losses the country is facing should they be expelled will be very real.
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Illegals Good – help econ
Immigrants Help the Economy More Than They Hinder It
Yates 6-29-09 Professor of economics and labor relations at the University of Pittsburgh
[Michael Yates, Monthly Review: “Don't Pity the Poor Immigrants Fight Alongside Them”, 6-29-09. Pg online @ [http://www.monthlyreview.org/090628yates.php]
A third conclusion that flows from Bacon’s book is that anti-immigration
politics have little basis in fact. If we look just at undocumented immigrants, we find that they
more to the national income than they take from it. They pay taxes, all sorts of taxes, including sales and excise taxes, payroll
taxes, property taxes, and yes, income taxes. They get little in return for these taxes ; they are much less likely than similarly situated natives to receive health care,
education, public assistance, police protection, and all other publicly provided services. As noted above, they do not often compete directly with native workers
for jobs. By any reasonable standard, they face harsher work regimens and enjoy fewer protections on the job than do native laborers . They
commit fewer crimes than natives. What all of this means is that the crusades being waged against “illegal aliens” have ulterior motives. Lou
Dobbs and Tom Tancredo know that employers will never be harshly prosecuted for hiring undocumented workers, and they do not want them to be. Rhetorical attacks on
employers play well with the masses, and this is why they do it. What the hysteria they foster does accomplish is to divide working people
by making part of the working class the “other,” a quasi-criminal element that can be used to hide the true horrors of this economic
system — one that the immigrant bashers love and profit from. Whatever divides workers makes it hard for them to form the one thing that
employers and their xenophobic allies really hate — unions.
pay their own way. They add
Illegal immigrants good- help the economy
VANG 11 – 30 – 07 Writer for Ezine articles
Bruce Vang, Illegal Immigration- It's Impact on the US economy. http://ezinearticles.com/?Illegal-Immigration---Its-Impact-on-the-USEconomy&id=858220
immigration can indeed be good for businesses. The reason why it is good for businesses because immigration
supplies labor at a relatively low cost, though the real concern is how often that immigrants are paid substandard wages (Davila, 2006). Although immigration can be good
In a perspective article, Davila (2006) insists that
for businesses, major businesses "are, of course, concerned with hiring illegals, especially given the senate proposals, which would place more emphasis on employers verifying that
many illegal immigrants bring hard work ethic to the U.S, which businesses are often
taking into consideration to their open positions. Davila believes that immigration should be perceived as a way to improve our economy
and use all possible resources at our will. This improvement of our economy brings the hard work ethic of illegal immigrants that
employees are legal immigrants" (Davila, 2006). However,
should be highly rewarded (Davila, 2006). In retrospect, the conclusion of Davila is that it is important to continue to encourage those who want to come to the U.S. to do so legally and
continue to contribute to our economy.
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Illegals Good – don’t hurt the econ
Immigrants don’t hurt the economy – just racial scapegoating
OLSON 4 – 24 – 09 Writer for the Press-Enterprise
David Olson, Panel: Focus on fixing economy, not blaming illegal immigrants
. http://www.pe.com/localnews/immigration/stories/PE_News_Local_S_forum25.38696b0.html
Speakers at a Cal State San Bernardino forum on immigration Thursday night warned against a growing scapegoating of illegal immigrants
because of the economic crisis.
"People are preying on the economic conditions of middle-class and poor residents" and blaming them on illegal immigrants, said
Jose Zapata Calderon, a professor of sociology and Chicano studies at Pitzer College in Claremont.
All six panelists supported large-scale legalization of illegal immigrants, although they differed on approaches.
Armando Navarro, a professor of political science at UC Riverside and coordinator of the Riverside-based National Alliance for Human Rights, said that although he supported
legalization, it would not stop the flow of illegal immigrants across the Mexican border.
Navarro said massive U.S. aid to Mexico -- similar to the Marshall Plan that stabilized Western Europe after World War II -- would help improve the Mexican economy, but it would only
be effective if it leads to a more equal distribution of wealth in Mexico and doesn't end up in the hands of the Mexican elite.
Increasing wages for the U.S. middle class and the poor would reduce incentives for businesses to hire illegal immigrants, Navarro said. U.S. employers' "addiction to a source of cheap
labor" causes them to rely on illegal immigrants to boost their profits, he said.
Roy Beck, executive director of Numbers USA, a Virginia-based group that favors greater restrictions on immigration, said average wages in Mexico are so far behind those in the United
States that it would take decades for the Mexican economy to improve enough to remove incentives to emigrate.
"Our only hope of reducing illegal immigration is to turn off the jobs magnet," said Beck, who was not at the forum.
Beck favors mandating that employers verify the immigration status of employees with an online database -- such as the now-voluntary E-verify program does -- and ramping up
enforcement against businesses that are caught hiring illegal immigrants.
Beck said illegal immigration is not the cause of the economic crisis. But he said it is not scapegoating to say that, with an estimated
8.3 million jobs held by illegal immigrants, illegal workers increase unemployment among native-born residents.
Forum panelist Angela Sanbrano, president of the Los Angeles-based National Alliance of Latin American and Caribbean Communities, said the dominance of the recession as a political
issue is delaying moves toward legalization.
"The
economic crisis has taken the oxygen out of most of the issues important to our communities -- education, health care and of
course immigration reform," she said.
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Illegals Good – A2 unemployment
Illegals don’t cause unemployment – they take unfilled jobs.
Wall 5-25-09
Staff Writer for the San Bernardino County Sun
[San Bernardino County Sun: “Immigrants not to Blame for Unemployment- Report Claims” May 25, 2009. Pg online @
(http://www.lexisnexis.com/us/lnacademic/results/docview/docview.do?docLinkInd=true&risb=21_T6883639697&format=GNBFI&sort=BOOLEAN&start
DocNo=1&resultsUrlKey=29_T6883641400&cisb=22_T6883639699&treeMax=true&treeWidth=0&csi=270092&docNo=20), lexis]
California has one of the highest unemployment rates in the country.
But immigrants
aren't to blame for the problem, according to a new report by a nonprofit research organization.
Even in a time of recession, there is no correlation between the number of newly arrived foreign-born workers in a given state,
county or city and the unemployment rate among workers born in this country, according to the Immigration Policy Center.
The highest unemployment rates are found in counties located in manufacturing centers and rural areas. Those places tend to have
relatively few recent immigrants, the report said.
Recent immigrants usually go where the jobs are: metropolitan and non-manufacturing counties where unemployment rates are
lower, the report states.
"For the most part, natives and immigrants are not competing for the same types of jobs ," said Rob Paral, a senior research fellow at the Immigration Policy
Center.
Recent immigrants are defined in the report as having arrived in the United States in the past 10 years .
The report, based on U.S. Census data, makes no distinction between legal and illegal immigrants.
Recent immigrants make up 5.7 percent of the population in San Bernardino County, where the overall unemployment rate was 12.4 percent as of April.
In nearby Orange County, recent immigrants comprise a much higher share of the population , 11.7 percent, but the unemployment rate
was lower at 8.3 percent, the report states.
The report also found no relationship between the number of recent immigrants in a particular area and the unemployment rate
among people of different races born in this country.
Remedies for high unemployment lie in economic policies such as stabilizing the financial sector, removing unfair trade barriers
and investing in new infrastructure, according to the report.
Jose Zapata Calderon, a professor of sociology and Chicano studies at Pitzer College, said the report dispels the myth that immigrants "take jobs" from other
Americans.
"What might help the economy in times like these is to move toward a comprehensive immigration policy that would lead to the legalization of 12 million (illegal) immigrants, so they
could come out of the shadows and pay taxes," Calderon said. "They
are already contributing immensely to the economy.That would help even more."
illegal immigrants perform jobs that unemployed Americans won't do.
"There are seven million non-agricultural jobs being held by illegal aliens," said Beck, whose organization supports lower immigration levels. "Would the
Roy Beck, executive director of Numbers USA, disputes the notion that
14 million unemployed Americans take those jobs? You bet they would."
Tom Pierce, an economist at Cal State San Bernardino, said it's
difficult to determine the impact of immigrants on unemployment because the illegal
population fluctuates depending on the economy.
"It's not like you have a fixed pool of immigrants, particularly illegals," Pierce said. "What seems to be happening now is that some people might be
returning to the countries they came from because of the lack of employment opportunities ."
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Illegals Good – A2 hurt Cali econ
Immigrants don’t hurt the Californian economy
Yamamura 6 – 6 – 09 Staff Writer, Sacramento Bee
[Kevin Ymamura, “ Governor defends Hispanic illegal immigrants,” http://thelatinojournal.blogspot.com/2009/06/governor-defends-hispanic-illegal.html]
Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger on Friday disputed claims that illegal immigrants caused California's $24.3 billion deficit, while he
praised their economic contributions and said he is "happy" they have access to services.
The Republican governor, answering wide-ranging questions from The Bee's editorial board and its readers, also vented about roadblocks to his authority posed by political foes and
warned that government can't sustain the current level of "unbelievable benefits" for public-sector workers.
In response to dozens of questions from readers who say the state ought to wipe out the deficit by eliminating services for illegal immigrants, the governor said it is a "myth" that those
immigrants are to blame.
He said the cost of services to illegal immigrants, which has been estimated at $4 billion to $5 billion annually, is a "small
percentage" of the deficit California faces.
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Good Shell – Mexican economy
A. Increases in illegal immigration prevents Mexican economic collapse
Littlefield 3-5-09 Council on Hemispheric Affairs Research Associate
[Edward W. “As Mexico’s Problems Mount: The Impact of the Economic Recession on Migration Patterns from Mexico” COHA Publication March 5th,
2009 http://www.coha.org/2009/03/as-mexico’s-problems-mount-the-impact-of-the-economic-recession-on-migration-patterns-from-mexico/] JH
Although this decrease is less than that which the Banco de Mexico forecasted, the financial crisis paints a bleak future for the Mexican economy, whose expected negative growth of 0.81.8 percent would represent the sharpest decline since that of 7 percent in 1995. Independent economists are even less optimistic - United
States investment bank
JPMorgan predicts that the Mexican economy will contract by 4 percent in 2009. These decreases will have negative consequences
for a country whose development, as a result of economic integration with the United States, has become dependent upon the legal
and illegal export of cheap labor and remittance seekers. In an article published by Migration Information Source, Ral Delgado-Wise and Luis Eduardo Guarnizo
present Mexico's cheap labor / export-led model of remittance-dependent development as having "imposed unsustainable economic, social, and political costs upon Mexican society,"
including the exodus of its domestic labor force and the ensuing relentless impoverishment of rural areas.
The Colegio de la Frontera Norte (COLEF) recently reported a 24.5 percent
increase in Mexicans returning home from the United States in 2007. Whether or not such a trend is true for 2008 and 2009 is as of
yet unknown. Nonetheless, if the economic recession and lack of employment opportunities in the U.S.compels Mexicans to
further repatriate, the country would become increasingly vulnerable . According to London's Latin News Daily, "Mexico would be
unable to cope with a mass return of migrant workers. For one, unemployment figures would rise at a much faster pace and any
further social unrest on the back of this could destabilise the government."
Even a mass repopulation would not avoid straining the Mexican economy.
Harsh economic conditions on both sides of the border also promise to leave the 11.8 million Mexicans, or 10 percent of the Mexican population, living in the United States and their
southern dependents in desperate situations. In general, Hispanic unemployment in the United States rose from 5.1 percent in 2007 to 8.0 percent in 2008. Hispanic immigrants are heavily
concentrated in the industries left most vulnerable by current conditions, such as construction, manufacturing, leisure and hospitality, and support and personal services. Americans'
increased concern with job availability during the crisis further limits the economic livelihoods of migrants and their families. The remittance flows of other Central American states with
large migrant populations in the United States, such as El Salvador, Guatemala, and Honduras, are not expected to be as severely effected as those of Mexico. Many of these immigrants
are granted temporary protected status under special arrangements with the United States, making their countries less vulnerable than Mexico to northern political, legal, and economic
fluctuations. The fact that the United States and Mexico constitute, according to the World Bank, the "largest immigration corridor in the world" further illustrates the profound effect the
decrease in migration and remittances may have on both sides of the border.
Implications for Mexico and the United States
Evidently, through migration, remittances, and NAFTA-induced trade integration, the
Mexican economy has become increasingly dependent upon that of
the United States, making the former extremely vulnerable to the effects of the current financial crisis. The decrease in migration
flows and remittances is thus implicit in the current debate about Mexico's descent into being a "failed state." A Mexican economic
collapse, spurred by a decrease in the migrants and remittances upon which the country' s economy is reliant, would weaken the
state's capacity to finance counter-narcotics activity, increase pay-rolls to prevent political and military officials from corruption
related to drug trafficking, recuperate the depressed economy, and keep their best and brightest at home. These series of developments would
have a negative consequence for the United States economy and the Obama administration, as well. Mexico is the United States' third largest
export market, and the cheap labor that Mexican immigrants provide, although not nearly as coveted given the current recession, is
an important part of the national economy. Additionally, Mexico's potential economic and military collapse deserves to be viewed
as a national security threat to the U.S., given the spread of drug-related violence to border states such as Arizona, where authorities blame
a rise in home invasions and kidnappings on organized crime from south of the border.
B. that collapses the global economy
Dallas Morning News 95
(Nov. lexis)
With the exception of 1982 - when Mexico defaulted on its foreign debt and a handful of giant New York banks worried they would lose billions of dollars in loans - few people abroad ever cared about a weak peso.
This time, the world is keeping a close eye on Mexico's unfolding financial crisis for one simple reason:
Mexico is a major international player. If its economy were to collapse, it would drag down a few other countries and thousands
of foreign investors. If recovery is prolonged, the world economy will feel the slowdown. "It took a peso devaluation so that other
countries could notice the key role that Mexico plays in today's global economy," said economist Victor Lpez Villafane of the Monterrey Institute of Technology.
"I hate to say it, but if Mexico were to default on its debts, that would trigger an international financial collapse" not seen since the Great
Depression, said Dr. Lpez, who has conducted comparative studies of the Mexican economy and the economies of some Asian and
Latin American countries.
But now it's different, experts say.
Nuclear War
MEAD ’92 Fellow, Council of Foreign Relations
[New Perspectives Quarterly, Summer, p.28, walter Russell]
Hundreds of millions –
billions
But what if it can’t? What
India –
– of people have pinned their
hope
s on the international market
economy
. They and their leaders have embraced the international market economy – and drawn closer to the west – because they believe the system can work for them.
if the global economy stagnates
we will face
international conflict:
with their
nuclear weapons will pose a great danger to world order
these countries
– or even shrinks? In that case
billions of people and their
a new period of
much
er
South against North, rich against poor.
Russia, China,
than Germany and Japan did in the ‘30’s.
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Mexican Econ Growing
Mexican economy improving now
WALL STREET JOURNAL 7 - 7 - 09
http://online.wsj.com/article/BT-CO-20090707-711080.html
Mexican President Felipe Calderon said Tuesday that the economy is showing early signs of bottoming out amid the worst
recession in more than a decade.
"This cycle is showing signs, still sporadic, incipient, but encouraging that it is reaching its end and that the worst is behind us,"
Calderon said during an event.
Calderon said 20,000 new formal sector jobs were registered with social security agency IMSS last month. "Of course it's not the
scale we need ... but it is an encouraging figure," he said.
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Illegals key to Mexican econ
Losing illegal immigrants is key to sustaining the Mexican economy
Hanson 2007 professor of economics in the Graduate School of International Relations and Pacific Studies
[Gordon H. Hanson, “The Economic Logic of Illegal Immigration” http://www.cfr.org/content/publications/attachments/ImmigrationCSR26.pdf.]
Illegal immigration also brings low-skilled workers to the United States when the productivity gains of doing so appear to be
highest. During the past twenty years, Mexico has experienced several severe economic contractions, with emigration from the country spiking
in the aftermath of each downturn. In terms of the economic benefits, this is exactly when one would want workers to move—when their
labor productivity in the United States is highest relative to their labor productivity at home . Long queues for U.S. green cards
mean there is little way for legal permanent immigration to respond to such changes in international economic conditions .
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