Let's Blame the Immigrants!

The US economy is in the crapper, everyone's feeling the squeeze, so of course it's time for the next round of "Let's Blame Immigrants for All Our Problems!"

The following post has been making the rounds on Facebook (again):  SO LET ME GET THIS STRAIGHT ... If you cross the North Korean border illegally, you get 12 yrs. hard labor. If you cross the Afghanistan border illegally, you get shot. Two Americans just got eight years for crossing the Iranian border. If you cross the U. S. border illegally you get a job, a drivers license, food stamps, a place to live, health care, housing & child benefits, education, & a tax free business for 7 yrs ...No wonder we are a country in debt. Re-post if you agree. 

Let's look at this piece by piece.

As far as I can tell, the claim that you get 12 years of hard labor for crossing illegally into North Korea is based on two American journalists who received that sentence in 2009 for "illegal entry and 'hostile acts.'"  What were the 'hostile acts' they committed against North Korea?  That government never specified, but convicted them anyway.  (I wonder if it had anything to do with the fact that the two journalists were reporting on the trafficking of women.)  In any case the two journalists were pardoned and deported two months later when former President Bill Clinton visited that country and requested their release.  In the last couple of years, four Americans have been arrested and convicted of illegal entry, and all four have been pardoned and released.  Most recently, in April of last year, an American was accused of illegal entry and 'an unspecified hostile act' (he was a Christian missionary).  He was sentenced to eight years of hard labor, but also received a pardon and deportation.

 It's difficult finding news about Afghan shootings that don't involve US soldiers and/or the Taliban, but I did find something claiming that the penalty for resisting arrest in Afghanistan is being shot.  The only story I could find about the shooting of migrant workers illegally crossing the Afghan border involved Afghan migrant workers sneaking across the border out of Afghanistan into Iran, where they were shot.

The two Americans who just got eight years for crossing the Iranian border actually got three years for crossing the border, and five years for 'spying for the United States.'  They are also political tools for the Iranians to highlight the alleged mistreatment of Iranians in US prisons, and most likely will be released as bargaining chips for something else the Iranians want.

Those are the facts regarding those three countries.  Now the obvious question: DO WE REALLY WANT TO PATTERN LIFE IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA AFTER NORTH KOREA, AFGHANISTAN, AND IRAN???!!!  Are these countries we wish to emulate?  If so, then why are two of them part of the so-called (by us) Axis of Evil?  And Afghanistan?  Talk to any American vet who's been over there, and ask him if he was there fighting so that we could be more like them.  I dare you to.  And if you've posted this quote on Facebook, or supported someone who did, don't try to claim now that no one is saying those countries are better.  That's exactly what you're saying when you state or support such comparisons.

As for the welcome wagon that is supposedly waiting just this side of the border handing out free housing, health care, jobs, education, et al to the sneaking illegal immigrants--um, really?  What jobs?  Below-minimum wage under-the-table jobs where they're little more than slaves, constantly living under the threat of deportation if they complain?  Or maybe you're referring to those who tried the indentured servant route, and are now working in sweatshops or brothels?  Or maybe you're talking about the migrant workers who do back-breaking work at the fruit farms of Georgia for minimum wage plus performance bonuses, which sometimes earn them upwards of $20 per hour.  Yeah, them.  When Georgia recently passed a new law designed to drive out the illegals, farmers were unable to hire enough local legal workers to do the work, even though Georgia's unemployment rate is over 10%.  More Americans would rather collect unemployment that work at Federally-approved pay levels with the potential of earning nearly three times that rate, if their performance warrants it.  When crops were rotting in the fields because there weren't enough workers to harvest them, the farmers hired probationers, a group of people who usually have a very difficult time finding work.  Most of the probationers quit, and the very few who stayed weren't nearly as productive as the illegal immigrants who had done that work before them.  Crops are still rotting in the fields.  There is no special employment plan for illegal immigrants at the expense of American citizens.


Who's just handing out drivers' licenses?  I've been licensed in four states, and all four times I had to provide a birth certificate and/or a Social Security card and/or a US passport (plus several other documents to prove residency).  It's true that some illegal immigrants may be forging or buying stolen identification papers in order to get their licenses, but that's not the same as just being handed the licenses.  Oh yes, and those licenses obtained with forged or stolen documents?  Those allow the illegal immigrants to work at legitimate jobs where they pay taxes that benefit all Americans, including Social Security and Medicare, which, because of their phony SSNs, illegal immigrants will never benefit from.


Qualifying for food stamps varies from state to state, but I believe income verification and proof of identity are universally required.  And I also wonder--whether a person's here illegally or not, do we really want people starving to death within our borders?  What does that say about our national values?


The only free housing I'm aware of in the United States are homeless shelters, and the only ones envious of people living in homeless shelters are the people living on the streets because there's no room available in those shelters.  And those people aren't likely to be reposting anti-immigration rhetoric on Facebook while they wait for a bed to become available.


There is definitely no free health care here.  Most people without health care, whether they're illegal immigrants or American citizens, don't go to the doctor until it's such an emergency that they have to go to the emergency room, where they have to be treated regardless of ability to pay.  Doctors and hospitals charge a much higher rate to the uninsured than their 'negotiated' rates with the health care providers, and that virtually guarantees that individuals without insurance won't be able to pay for the emergency services they received.  This isn't an immigration problem; it's a health care problem.


I've already addressed housing, and I'm not sure what child care benefits the post is referring to.  Exemptions for children in the tax code?  They're paying taxes, and they have children.  I don't think that children here illegally are any cheaper to care for than those with American citizenship, and the important point to remember here, again, is that they're paying taxes.

The belief that illegal immigrants receive free education can be attributed to two things.  One is the K-12 public school system, in which case the assertion is true.  It's also true that each of those illegal students is responsible for money going to their school system, thanks to the prevalence of attendance-based funding formulas.  If you want to see a school system tank, yank out all the undocumented students, and see what's left for the citizens in that district.   The other possible source for this belief is the controversy over allowing undocumented students to pay in-state tuition for state-run colleges and universities.  I know of one person in Massachusetts who has repeatedly lamented the fact that she has to pay for her kids to go to college, while the illegals get in for free.  In truth, the program (at least in Massachusetts) is that all Massachusetts students who attend a Massachusetts community college and graduate with a 3.0 or higher GPA can enroll at UMass Amherst and have the in-state tuition waived (though they'd still be on the hook for the $10K in additional fees per year).  The controversy stems from the fact that most of the community colleges aren't very diligent at determining the residency of their students, so out-of-state students and illegal immigrants might slip in, too.  (Granite Staters and Mexicans together at UMass--oh the horror of it all!!!)  The people who are complaining about having to pay aren't sending their kids through community college and expecting them to make the grade; that's why they have to pay, not because illegal immigrants (and New Hampshire residents) are hogging all the free tuition.  There is no free tuition.

I have to claim complete ignorance on the tax-free business for seven years.  My husband and I have set up our own company, and I don't remember seeing any exemption in the corporate rules that said if we could prove illegal status, we wouldn't have to pay corporate income tax.

Some of these claims that I don't know about may be because they're holdovers from the Canadian, UK, Australian, or even Indian versions of this electronic rant.  It's been circulated in all those countries.  Sorry folks, you're not that original.

And as a final note, I've noticed that there are a quite a few Christians getting behind this post, usually the same ones who use the bible as justification for denying marriage to gay couples.  Please take out your bibles and read Leviticus 19:33-34 (it's just a little bit past that verse you love so much that proclaims that a man lying with another man is an abomination): "When an alien resides with you in your land, you shall not oppress the alien.  The alien who resides with you shall be to you as the citizen among you; you shall love the alien as yourself, for you were aliens in the land of Egypt: I am the LORD your God."  If you're going to demand biblical authority for the laws of this land, then start with this one.  The treatment of the alien is mentioned far more often than homosexuality, and much less ambiguously.


There are real problems facing this nation, but blaming illegal immigrants for them won't solve anything.  I don't know if it's accurate or not, but a number I've seen invoked is $113 billion being spent on illegal immigrants.  $113 billion seems like a big scary number.  But our total national debt is over $14 trillion (and rising), and that $113 billion is less than one percent of that.  Now, I'm a big fan of 'every little bit helps,' but I'd be willing to bet that illegal immigrants contribute much more than $113 billion to the US economy.  So let's stop with the hate and the blame, and take a hard look at they systemic failures that got us here.  And then let's figure out what we can do about it, rather than just point to people we don't like and make them our scapegoat.


And if you want to repost something because you agree, please check the facts first, rather than continuing to spread misinformation that detracts from finding real solutions.