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Legal on working papers only

Outsiders have invaded our country and begun taking our jobs, changing our economy and affecting our way of life. The solution? Start a program that makes it okay.

Illegal immigration, the unlawful entry into our country by foreigners, typically from our southern borders with Mexico, is not so much a problem of principle but of sheer numbers.

The number of illegal immigrants residing in the U.S. has been estimated to be over 10 million since 2008, according to a study by the Congressional Research Service published in 2010.

And since we can’t simply round all of them up and send them back it has been proposed that we institute a Guest Worker Program which would allow the unlawful employment of illegal aliens to become legal.

The program has been proposed numerous times, but most recently by former President George W. Bush. The obvious problem with the Guest Worker Program is illegals taking away jobs from American citizens.

My critics say jobs are not truly taken away, since illegals gain employment through industries most Americans find undesirable. This could be the case in times of economic boom when the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics doesn’t place the national unemployment rate at 8.8 percent.

However, in these harsh times it is a shame that unemployed citizens cannot support their families and a disgrace that homelessness is allowed to continue. Another problem that will continue to exist even when the Guest Worker Program is implemented is illegal immigrants’ effects on the economy.

Whether legally allowed to work here or not, immigrants taking the jobs of citizens force more of our residents into the Unemployment Program, which uses federal dollars that come from our taxes.

Speaking of taxes, it’s important to remember that even if these people became legal workers and paid taxes, the benefits they receive from healthcare to education and many other public programs would still be funded by the taxes we, the full citizens, pay.

These foreigners, even if legally employed, would be non-citizens using our resources, taking away housing, and infusing their children into the public school systems.

According to David W.Stewart, author of “Immigration and Education: The Crisis and Opportunities”, “The level of immigration is so massive, it’s choking urban schools ...It’s bad enough when you have desperate kids with U.S. backgrounds who require massive resources. In come kids with totally different needs, and it creates crushing burdens on urban schools.”

According to research done by the Federation for American Immigration Reform (FAIR), it costs $52 billion to educate the children of current illegals, a number that I don’t see changing once the children’s parents become legal workers.

Lastly, it is important to note the different culture that some immigrants bring over that clashes with our own. Among the Hispanics there is a group of young people calling themselves the Atzlan, after the territories of their ancestors which include the northern parts of Mexico absorbed into the U.S. after the Mexican- American war ended in 1846.

According to one plan located on El Plan de Aztlan, a website for the group, the Atzlan want to make these heritage lands free of ‘gringo’ (slang for foreigner) control, and letting power rest in the people, that they claim, have a birthright to it.

The Atzlans are not simply speaking of occupying heritage lands, but reclaiming them from the set boundaries of America which include populations of citizens. They also see themselves as an oppressed people willing to defend themselves which means they could be a threat to the livelihoods of the citizenry.

Aside from political groups such as the Atzlan, some illegals will engage in what the disenfranchised have done for decades. Form a gang.

According to the Northern Virginia Regional Gang Task Force, "Immigration has … played a major role in the rise and proliferation of Hispanic gangs in the region."

My opponents might think that I do not care that the condition of these people’s livelihood is poor in their home country. But that implies that the Guest Worker Program is the only viable option and my opposition is to foreign people attaining a better livelihood.

The truth is, instead of inviting foreigners as guest workers to improve their livelihood, some exchange should be done between American and Hispanic governments to investigate ways the poorer countries’ economy can be improved.

And if the governments do not communicate and prove to be inefficient, it is in the hands of the people to force change in their leadership and demand the results they deserve.

Let’s not feed the problem like a bad addiction, but instead cure the dependency of foreigners on the support of the United States.

Contact Robert Tierney at communitarian@mail.dccc.edu

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