The Illegal Immigration Battle: The War Rages On

Posted on November 1st, 2006 by Christine.
Categories: Current Events & Politics, Pissed Off & Proud of It.

Just when you think it can’t get any more complex… the war against illegal immigration decides to throw another log into the fire.

Now for those of you who’ve read my previous posts on illegal immigration, you know where I stand. I believe that illegal immigration (and our lazy approach to preventing it) is having a tremendously negative impact on our economy, our public education system, day-to-day business, and health care benefits that were designed to assist low-income Americans who couldn’t otherwise afford it. I am all for building walls, arming our border agents, and telling people who come here and want to have babies at free clinics so that taxpayers can pick up the tab, to turn around and go back home.

If you’ve been keeping up with the news, you know that the latest measure in preventing illegal immigration came from Hazleton, Pennsylvania when the City Council approved measures that impose fines on landlords that rent to illegals, and could revoke business permits from companies that hire them. The measure was overturned by federal judge today, after a group of restaurant owners, business owners, and landlords in Hazelton filed a lawsuit (backed by the ACLU) saying Hazelton had overstepped its bounds by creating such a measure since it would impose on the federal government’s right to regulate immigration.

Hrmmm…

Well, the question becomes… is this really a matter of business or of immigration. Since the sanctions apply to business-owners, and do not impose sanctions at all on illegal immigrants that attempt to rent apartments or apply for jobs, it sounds to me like this is a matter of business. And states, counties, and cities do have a right to control business operations within their jurisdictions.

I understand why the business owners, landlords, and restauranteurs were upset. For one, it sort of seems like government is saying “Hey, we’ve done a shit job trying to keep illegals out, but instead of addressing that, we’re going to pass the buck on to you and make you enforce it for us.” After all… if the federal government was successfully keeping illegal immigrants from crossing the border, there’d be no illegal immigrants turning in applications for apartments or jobs. And I whole-heartedly agree with the backlash from that… but I don’t think that’s why most of them are up in arms.

The truth is… if a landlord has an open apartment, he’d rather rent it to an illegal immigrant who will pay him rent, than let it sit empty for another month. From a business standpoint, that makes pretty logical sense. If a business owner can hire an illegal for $3 an hour instead of paying an American $7 an hour, or letting that job sit vacant while he waits for an American to apply, from a business standpoint, that makes sense too.

But maybe we should all step back and use our “business sense” to examine what’s happening to this country by the influx of illegal immigrants… Maybe saving that $3 an hour won’t be worth it when you have to move your two kids to private schools at $10,000 a year because the public education system is overrun with children who don’t speak English. Maybe that extra $600 in rent that you received because you rented the apartment to an illegal immigrant in July instead of having to wait for another renter to come in August won’t be worth it when your taxes continue to go up to compensate for the all the medical care we dispense through free clinics through people who don’t give back to the system.

Maybe we all just need to look at the bigger picture. Because if we don’t do something now… if we don’t make people accountable now… someday, it will be too late. And if you want to come back at me with how these laws are racist, I’ll tell you to save it right now. Illegal immigrants are illegal. No matter what country they come from. Legal immigrants are of all races. And are welcome to live and work anywhere they please. These laws wouldn’t affect legal immigrants in the least.

The scariest part… here’s what Witold J. Walczak, legal director of the ACLU of Pennsylvania, said about this most recent “victory”…

“I think what’s important is the judge recognized that this ordinance has the potential to cause real harm by costing people their jobs, their houses and requiring children to leave schools.”

?????? You mean we shouldn’t want illegal immigrants to have to give up jobs, houses, and free public education that they received by coming here illegally? We shouldn’t???? Not only do I want them to give all that up, but I want them to get on a bus and go back to their own countries, and stop mooching off a system supported by hardworking American citizens. I want them to go back and work on developing a system to fix their own countries instead of coming here and bogging down ours. I want Americans to wake the hell up and realize that whole is bigger than the sum of its parts. Illegal immigration is a problem here. It’s a problem for every single one of us.

My offer to Mr. Walczak… if he believes that they deserve jobs and housing and public education funded by American taxpayers who not only have to find jobs, pay for housing, and pay taxes toward the education system, then I suggest he get out his checkbook and take care of the drain that these illegals are costing us so the rest of us don’t have to. If he did that, he can have as many illegals here as he wants… but I have a feeling, that isn’t going to happen any time soon.

So… nice try, Hazelton. At least you’re trying to make a difference.

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