We used to say, “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 to me, I lift my lamp beside the golden door!” There was a time when people still actively described America as containing mountains of gold and opportunity and people flocked to our shores in droves. These people came to America with nothing but the clothing on their backs and the drive to build a life for themselves as Americans.

These individuals changed their names to sound more American. In the 1860’s my great, great -insert a few more- Grandfather, when entering this Nation from Ireland, changed his last name from the traditional Irish name he had all his life to something he felt would allow him to assimilate better into American society. They wanted to learn English and had a strong desire to fit into the new culture they were thrust into after leaving Ellis Island for the first time. It wasn’t an easy proposition to be dropped in the middle of a city, in a strange place where you’ve never been and can’t speak the local language but these people thrived. They learned the language, the customs and the system. They started businesses and became self sufficient. Some of the largest corporations we see today got their start in some small shop by individuals who came from a different land. Flash forward to today and things have changed quite a bit.

The immigrants that come to America today are not too terribly different than 150 years ago. More tend to be able to speak English than before and are, by the statistics, more likely to start a small business than even natural born Americans. What has changed in the 21st century is not the nature of immigrants, it’s immigration itself; the illegal immigration problem.

During the 1920’s, illegal immigration was the subject of heated Congressional debates. Edward H. Dowell, vice-president of the California Federation of Labor, testified before the U.S. Senate Committee on Immigration in February of 1928 about the burden of the unrestricted flow of Mexicans on the state’s taxpayers, prisons, hospitals and American workers’ wages. He estimated that while 67,000 Mexicans entered the U.S. legally the prior year, many times that number entered illegally.

Workers in the US were already feeling the crunch from the influx of illegals coming across the border to gain agricultural work to support their families in Mexico. By the time Eisenhower took office, the amount of illegal Mexican border crossings were estimated at exceeding 1 million annually. There is currently no way to reliably track these numbers. All figures are estimates and are refuted to be both much higher and also much lower depending on who is doing the refuting but one thing is for certain, this Nation has a real problem on their hands.

For some the issue lies within the employment sector of our economy, claiming these “migrant workers” are taking jobs away from Americans that need work but can’t find it. We have over 15,000,000 unemployed in the US right now and an estimated 12 to 30 million illegals working primarily in the lower skilled agricultural marketplace. Quite a bit of the money paid to these illegals ends up getting pulled out of our economy and gets sent back home to Mexico to help support their families. While the individuals are in our country, they take advantage of all the services we offer to citizens but pay very little out in taxes aside from meager sales tax revenue and gas sales. The larger issue here is not jobs, it’s the strain on our economy from the usage of services and the collection of monies from entitlement programs.

It was reported a few days ago that in Los Angeles County, California, 50 million dollars was spent in the support of anchor babies and their illegal immigrant parents just for the month of June. At the current rate, the county alone will end up paying out over 600 million dollars this year just to illegal immigrants and their American born children. These numbers do not include medical care, public safety costs or the costs associated with supporting those incarcerated within the county’s jail and prison systems.These individuals also take advantage of many other public, tax payer funded, services such as fire/EMS, law enforcement, public education, public roadway infrastructure, sewer/sanitation services and other often over looked services which have to be paid for through tax revenue collected at both the county and state level. When you factor in all the other services, the over all cost to the county skyrockets to a whopping 1 billion dollars. Another thing to be considered here is the interest that must be paid on the public debt incurred to provide the 1 billion dollars in services on the county level.

While contributing significantly less in tax revenue to the communities where they live, households comprised of illegal immigrants collect an average of 10,000 dollars more per year in welfare benefits than those who are here legally. While Americans tend to contribute more than they take during working years and take more than they contribute during their shorter retirement years, illegals who are low skilled workers tend to take more than they contribute to the public coffers right from the get go.

18-20% of our prison system’s population are illegal immigrants while they only account for 3 to 5% of the over all population in the United States. California’s prison system is now inundated with illegals, primarily from Mexico. As of 2005, 240,000 incarcerated nationally were illegal immigrants. The startling figure is that over 108,000 of them were incarcerated in California. Since 2005, these numbers have greatly increased.

Proponents of illegal immigration claim that these people, although a felon the second they cross our border illegally, are simply hard working people looking for a better life. I think the numbers speak for themselves and put that soundly to rest. The crime rate among illegals in this country is staggering. In the city of Los Angeles, 95% of the 1200+ outstanding warrants for homicide target illegal aliens. Up to two-thirds of the 17,000 fugitive felony warrants are for illegals.

I’m not sure I can feel sorry for California in all this considering how utterly welcoming they have been over the years, opening their arms wide to the problem with sanctuary cities and law enforcement scared of being accused of “profiling” people. They have allowed the issues in the front door and now they have an out of control shortfall topping well over 20 billion dollars and a Latino gang population bigger than most other states combined. They have some real issues that, if not dealt with quickly, will end the state as we know it. As of this writing, people are leaving California at unprecedented levels and soon they will be left with nothing but those sucking off the teet of their liberal disease. They must pass sweeping welfare and immigration reform now before it is too late. But what can be done?

The most prevalent thing I hear from the pro-immigration people is amnesty which will serve nothing but to legitimize the law breaking, society draining illegals and allow for massive chain migration. The immigrant population would double almost over night and our Nation doesn’t have the room nor the economic facilities to deal with that. We would see the welfare rolls exponentially increase as well as our local, state and federal publicly held debt. Think this recession is bad now? While all they have to offer is “legalize em’” to make the problem go away and create a new Democrat army of minority voters, they always complain that no one else ever offers a solution to the problem so I’ve decided to offer one.

It is important that those who need a safety net to maintain food for their children and a roof over their heads has that safety net but this is out of control and creating a great hardship for Californians and American’s in general. Welfare should be a temporary way for individuals to get back on their feet, not to support them for the long term. We need to be realistic here. Thinking with your heart is a great thing but only if the results are fiscally sustainable. In California, the current system is bankrupting the entire state.

I’m not against immigration and welcome those who wish to come to our country legally with open arms.

I am, however, against illegal immigration and something other than legitimizing them needs to happen. Immigration reform should absolutely NOT include amnesty.

Here we go…

1. Close the border and spend the money to properly patrol it. If you want to come in to this country, make it impossible to bypass law enforcement or border customs to enter.

2. Hold the Mexican Government accountable for fostering and encouraging the influx of their people coming across the borders into our Country. They give out guides on how to sneak into our country to their citizens and openly encourage it. We should use our trade with Mexico as a tool to send them a message that their encouragement of the behavior either stops or we sanction them, period. Withhold any and all financial aid if they don’t want to cooperate. We also need to REQUIRE that the Mexican Government pays for the costs associated with the internment of all the Mexican illegals within our prison system. Any other country in the world would have threatened military action against Mexico for this open violation of the sovereignty of international borders.

If these people could live as well in Mexico as they can here in the United States they would all HANDS DOWN stay there. Quite a large number of these illegal’s actually spend harvest here and then take their American dollars home for the winter to Mexico. If the Mexican Government could get a handle on the drug trade and start to create real honest opportunity for the Mexican people, the amount of people coming north would GREATLY fall off. One of the issues with the Mexican Government is their strong feelings of being elite and better than the people they govern. Not so different than here but our founders did a much better job of controlling the elitism with precepts contained within our founding documents.

3. Hunting down and rounding people up on buses is not logistically possible and the propensity for issues including abuse and lawsuits is huge. Instead, anyone caught in the commission of a crime or is otherwise found, through normal legal process, to not have legal status to be here should be deported immediately, including their American born minor children, unless deportation represents putting them in immediate harm’s way. NO SANCTUARY CITIES unless the cities giving sanctuary don’t mind a complete ceasing of any and all federal subsidies for their infrastructure and school systems. State Governors allowing their Mayors to create sanctuary cities should also see stiff penalties and sanctions when putting their hands out for federal assistance. This is a harsh way to do things but it still puts the ball in their court and allows them to make the choice themselves. Stop breaking the law or face these consequences.

4. Go after the employers who employ these individuals. If we take the reasons away that drive them here in the first place, less will attempt to enter the US illegally. Anyone who says, with over 15 million unemployed Americans, that they can’t find non-illegal laborers is full of horse hooky. Maybe we should be mandating that citizens who are currently on public assistance and unemployed should be out in those fields working instead of the illegals. If they don’t like the work, they can opt-out of receiving welfare checks and food stamps and find better employment elsewhere.

5. All encompassing term limits on public assistance, with the exception of people who are physically incapable of caring for themselves, i.e. mentally or physically disabled, elderly or the infirm. There is no reason why, within two years, an individual can’t become self sufficient in this nation to the point of not needing welfare. There is no reason why people can’t be responsible enough to know, if you have unprotected sex, you more than likely WILL get pregnant. We need a return of personal accountability and responsibility in this Nation and the only way that will happen is if our communities and Governments begin to HOLD THEM ACCOUNTABLE.

6. Streamline the process for those wishing to enter legally so the wait goes from 8 to 10 years down to a few. This is the Nation of Nations. I don’t hate Immigrants. Unless you’re full blooded Cherokee, your family’s journey started here through immigration as well. Both sides of my family immigrated here.

7. NO CHAIN IMMIGRATION. The only way a baby born in the US receives citizenship is if they were born to a US citizen. Period.

8. Develop and build an international network of free Nations willing to help give asylum to individuals from violent or tyrannical Nations. UNICEF would be an awesome organization to help spearhead this. America IS the land of the free and the home of the brave but we are but one Nation among many who should be helping to care for those at risk and in danger. Those truly needing political asylum make up a very small amount of our illegal immigration problem but this needs to be addressed just the same. This system would spread the burden thinner.

One way or the other, we need REAL reform and we need it NOW. We need reform that first and foremost addresses the economic impact of the situation and, 2nd, takes into account the needs of Americans before the needs of individuals elsewhere. We have people right here in this country that need a hand up and children about to apply for college without knowing how they’re going to pay for it.