Here I sit on a Sunday afternoon struggling with my words for this column. I know generally what I want to say, but the words aren’t coming with their usual facility. I guess I could blame it on the “brain fatigue” that comes with completing a substantial effort.
On Friday, our all day conference, “Do Ethics Really Matter” featuring former Attorney General John D. Ashcroft and “an all star cast” of participants got to the nub of that question and surpassed even my expectations with the power of their insight. We have over 8 hours of tape that we will reduce to two or three digestible doses for you to view on our website, and if we are successful in convincing educational television to carry an hour of it, we hope that its lessons can be carried state wide.
Initially I was intending to write on our crisis in illegal immigration and what it is doing to our country. I will get to that in a few paragraphs, but having already done two columns on that over the past two years, I find it difficult to shed more wisdom on that issue than I have already. As I catalogue “likely suspects” for this column, I find a common theme for most of what challenges us daily. That theme is the possibility that we may be the first generation in America’s history to leave the country in worse shape than it was when we received responsibility for its welfare.
A year ago I wrote of having become our parent’s generation. If that is so, we are the “in charge” generation. What does that mean regarding the heritage we are going to leave to our children? With the velocity of change that challenges us daily, we don’t have too much longer to refine the stamp of our generation on our country and our world. How will we be remembered? Is it going to be as the generators of back breaking individual debt that must be funded during our children’s lives? Are we going to resolve our culture war around a set of sustainable values that we can claim as “American” or descend further into “feel-good” chaos? Can we properly preserve a perspective on our ancestors that will help our children to hold them dear for their momentous accomplishments without punishing them or us for the prevailing attitudes of their times.
Most importantly, can we pass on to our children an acceptance of our own humanity and our responsibility to lead the rest of the world toward a better tomorrow? No other nation has the mix of idealism, strength and heritage to do so. Lincoln described us as the last best hope of earth. It was true in 1865, and it is even more so today.
The destructive power today of one individual or a few deranged individuals can be on a par with an entire ravaging army of times past. The corruption of our national values can be just as devastating to our society. Without national purpose we are left unable to exert the willpower required to prevent our own destruction and that of the civilized world that looks to us for leadership. A turning away today could see the world destroyed or pitched into a new dark age.
Space doesn’t permit my laying out here all our challenges and possible solutions for what ails us. The next several years will tell the tale whether we have the intelligence, character and “fortitude”…..(there is that word from the last column again), to leave the next in-charge generation a better republic than we inherited , or whether we will be the first American generation to fail in that regard. It is totally up to us.
In the last several months, we have discussed a number of issues like energy independence and the war in Iraq, and in the weeks ahead, we will tackle others. This week let’s turn back to immigration. I have done two columns about a year apart that both cite the inscription on the base of The Statue of Liberty, "Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free, the wretched refuse of your teeming shore. Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost (sic) to me. I lift my lamp beside the golden door!"
In a jointly sponsored event by The Free Enterprise Foundation and The Citadel on March 8, former Attorney General John Ashcroft referred to the same inscription and particularly to the reference to “wretched refuse” that we have historically welcomed with opportunity and transformed into solid Americans through their acceptance of our unlimited opportunity and the freedom to pursue their dreams while accepting our customs, laws and the responsibilities that being an American entails. My previous columns did not dwell on that reference, but it is just as apt today as it has been in the past.
We are the descendants of that “refuse” of prior generations. We are now all proud Americans. I have some doubt that this generation of immigrants will continue that history. They can! I hope they will! But we can only succeed if together we do not allow the wave of undocumented illegals to overwhelm our ability to assimilate them. In the past we had Ellis Island to process a 40 year stream of new Americans. Now we have undocumented immigrants coming by all means of conveyance including treks across arid and dangerous lands or shark infested waters, all willing to make the ultimate sacrifice to reach our shores.
Many in our society feel the battle is already lost. “How do we cope with 12 million souls already here with more coming in an endless stream?” Others respond, “What is the harm? Don’t we need them for jobs Americans and legal aliens won’t do?” I will tell you plainly that we won’t have an America you will recognize or one that will be able to live up to its traditional responsibilities, if we don’t control our borders soon. The flood of humanity is undermining the social safety net and tearing at the fabric of our society.
Here are some figures for you that come mostly from the Los Angeles Times. My original source was dated 1997, but my research assistant tells me they are still accurate and has supplemented them with others. 40% of all workers in Los Angeles County are working for cash and not paying taxes. They are predominantly illegal immigrants without green cards. 95% of the warrants in Los Angeles for murder are for illegal aliens. Two thirds of all births in Los Angeles are to illegal alien Mexicans on Medi-Cal whose births are taxpayer supported. More than 380,000 “anchor babies” were born to illegal aliens in the United States in 2005. 97.2% of all costs incurred from those births were paid by the American taxpayer. Total tax burden on U.S. citizens in 2005 was an estimated $11,000 for each of us. 25% of all inmates in California detention centers are illegal immigrants and half of all gang members are illegal aliens from south of the border.
This data can be compared to similar data for other states along our Southwestern border. Perhaps more importantly, these immigrants are not assimilating as did prior generations. 40% of Los Angeles’ ten million population are native Spanish speakers with minimal skills in English and still think of themselves as from their homeland. It is estimated that net of taxes paid by those that do pay, the annual cost to U.S. taxpayers of our uncontrolled immigration is $70 Billion.
Congress has made a down payment on controlling our borders with its passage last year of $1.2 billion that will create an impenetrable barrier along our entire southern border. That should be completed as soon as possible. Border Patrol, other enforcement personnel and judicial resources need to be allocated to process expulsion of those who have come here illegally and are continuing to flaunt our laws by their criminal behavior.
Respect for the law is not just a problem with the illegals. Knowing full well what they are doing, in some parts of our country, there is total contempt by the businesses that continue to employ illegals, There is no more efficient solution to our problem than closing this loophole. In fact there is no solution unless we do. An effective immigration control program begins with employers’ respect for the law.
The “opportunity” is the fuel for the hordes that besiege us. Providing for an effective guest-worker program to document those who hold such jobs, could be one of the most important actions Congress can take this year to recognize a chronic regional need while restoring order and respect for the law to our immigration program. While they are at it, Congress should provide incentives for employment south of the border for maquiladoras and Mexican entrepreneurs that will help employment on both sides of the border.
President Bush who initially proposed a process to allow those here to stay may have better luck with a Democratic Congress in fashioning a bill that will make it into law. To be effective, it needs to assure effective border control first so the problem doesn’t get worse before it gets better. Perhaps those who are allowed to stay under whatever process is ultimately agreed to should also be required to have an American citizen sponsor their continued status so that we effectively separate those who are productively contributing to our society from those who are not.
Robert E. Freer, Jr.
Free Enterprise Foundation Founder and President
Charleston Mercury, March 29, 2007; p. 16
