Other countries facing decline wish they had an immigration problem
Editor:
Mr. Lauricella recently posted his concerns on the matter of immigration. It’s a serious subject requiring deliberative thought and actionable solutions. Our United States immigration policies unquestionably require considerable and comprehensive reform if they are to stand any chance of working. Given that, however, Mr. Lauricella merely retreads the same tired, worn and stereotypical opinions that have been entirely disproven over the past 150 years. That Mr. Lauricella also does not provide any support for his positions is personally disturbing.
I could offer to Mr. Lauricella that Republican President Ford created the “Domestic Council Committee on Illegal Aliens” to study the effects of undocumented workers in the United States. The results of the study showed that immigrants were good for the economy and they gave more in taxes than they took in welfare or health care.
I could add that as a result, during the Reagan administration the Immigration Reform and Control Act of 1986 was passed. It allowed legalization of status for both undocumented people who had lived in the United States before 1982 and agricultural workers.
Mr. Lauricella may care to recall that in September of 1996, the Democrats were done with liberal Reagan reforms so the Clinton administration passed the Illegal Immigration Reform and Immigrant Responsibility Act of 1996. The bill intended to make deportations easier and focused on immigrants with criminal convictions. It also penalized employers who hired undocumented workers.
Mr. Lauricella is undoubtedly aware that during the Obama administration more immigrants were deported than in any other presidential administration in history. Most of those caught were within 100 miles of the border and the Obama administration required that all were finger-printed and thus had formal criminal records attached to them. This last fact may not fit neatly into Mr. Lauricella’s preconceived notion of the Leftist Democrat Socialist vote.
It’s true that immigrants use state and local resources. Quite a few native-born American’s exploit and take advantage of government programs too. However, take a high-immigrant state, like North Carolina, and we see immigrants utilized $900-million in available state programs. On the other hand – those same immigrants paid out nearly $4-billion in state and local taxes and contributed an additional $14.2 billion in spending power. This is data, Mr. Lauricella, not opinion.
I would add one additional and widely overlooked argument for why immigration as a whole to this country is worth keeping an open mind about. This has to do with our national security – but not in a way you may be thinking. When national security analysis are created, the United States makes net assessments against our near-peers– specifically China and Russia – and our near-peers do the same.
When Russia and China view the United States, it is not our weapons systems, our technology or our military budget that scares them most – it is our immigrants. Russia’s population is unhealthy and declining rapidly. China’s population is aging out rapidly. When China and Russia look at the United States they see millions of mostly young people from all over the world flocking to our shores and not theirs.
Our exponential expanding manpower assisted by immigration is the one thing neither of these other countries can reproduce, reengineer or compete against and they know it. From a long-term national security viewpoint, China and Russia would consider themselves blessed to have immigration problems to concern themselves with.
Darren Wilson
Lyndonville
