Saturday, January 05, 2008

The Issue of 2008: Immigration

If terrorism isn't the most important issue in the 2008 election, what is? A strong case can be made that the most important issue is immigration.

Of course, the issues of terrorism and immigration are interrelated. Most terrorists are foreigners. They can't attack America if they can't get here.

It is truly bizarre to hear the argument against pulling out of Iraq that "they will follow us home". How? They certainly can't follow us home if we don't let them in. The neoconservative invade the world/invite the world strategy is nonsensical.

Several of the 9/11 hijackers were known terrorists, but they were let in anyways. Several were stopped by the police, but their immigration status was not checked. The immigration bureaucrats sent them visas months after the 9/11 attacks.

The problem is similar for many other actual and potential terrorists in America.

Why would anyone who is serious about fighting the war on terrorism support a candidate who defended sanctuary city policies, or who led the fight for amnesty, or defends in-state tuition for illegal aliens?

The problems caused by immigration extend far beyond terrorism. One estimate shows that illegal aliens murder 4000 Americans every year. This is far higher than the average annual death toll from terrorism. There are further costs from gangs, drug smuggling, and increased rates of drunk driving.

There is essentially no economic benefit to immigration, at least as it currently exists in America. However, it has significant economic consequences. Importing millions of low-skilled workers increases the labor supply and hence reduces wages. The same is true for higher-skilled workers like engineers and programmers thanks to H1B visas. Immigration may economically benefit a few business owners, but it hurts the rest of America.

There are also huge fiscal costs to immigration. Both legal and illegal immigrants cost taxpayers money by taking more government services. These include public schools, emergency medical care, social security, medicare, police services, and more. Many hospitals near the border have been shut down by such mandates.

Immigration also has political effects. Legal immigrants can vote, and hence help to decide all the other issues. Illegal immigrants may commit voter fraud, and the longer they stay, the more likely they are to receive amnesty, along with the power to vote.

Thus immigration affects all the other issues. The culture of a nation is the sum of the actions of its people. The government of a nation is generally a product of what the people support or will put up with. Thus we can see roughly how immigrants will vote by examining their home countries.

Given America's current sources of immigration, we can expect immigration to lead to bigger, more corrupt, more socialistic government. Gun rights will be endangered. Family values will be threatened as well.

There are 12-20 million illegal aliens in this country. This is a problem that needs to be addressed. Ron Paul, Duncan Hunter, and Fred Thompson are on the right side of this issue. John McCain, Rudy Giuliani, and Mike Huckabee are on the wrong side. Mitt Romney has a mixed record.

America can ill afford to make the wrong choice.

1 comment:

Dan Roth said...

The thing about immigration and this lack of effort for people to speak english is that I don't think we see that it will end up dividing our country. Don't believe me? Look at Canada. Quebec is a highly french speaking part of the country. What have they had numerous close votes over? Leaving the country! If we have a section of America (the Southwest) where we allow people to flow in illegally, then we'll have a complete part of this country that will become socially, politically, and economically its own. If we want to keep the U in USA, we need to do something about illegal immigration.