Obama made a political speech at the National Hispanic Prayer Breakfast at the Mellon Auditorium in Washington, and stated that immigration reform is a 'moral imperative.' He wants to pass immigration laws that would allow over 11 million of them to gain citizenship in the U.S. He wants us to 'love thy neighbor,' and see these illegal residents as one of our ancestors with hope in their eyes for a new beginning and better means of living.
More information on Obama's reform is in this blog, Obama on immigration.
I, however, have a problem with the way he is going about allowing immigrants freely into our country.
They seem to pose for hurt on our country than good. Although I do sympathize with their wants to a better life, I think they should do it in a legal way because they in turn hurt our resources as a taxpayer.
When a business hires an illegal, they drive down wages. It hurts the tax payer all in the name of low cost labor, and it winds up that our already hurt unemployed are out of work and can't find a job to feed their families, while the illegals are working (if even not for much) and are able to send the money back to their families in their home country.
This is yet another problem for our economy. We obviously are still in a recession and need spending to stimulate business as much as we can. If illegals are sending money back to their families, we are not circulating it through our own economy and it’s causing us to dig a deeper hole in our already failing businesses.
The biggest concern I have has to do with treating the illegal residents in an American hospital with not cost to them, but it falls on the tax payers, so not only are we paying for it out of pocket, but hospitals are losing money from charity work. I heard a story the other day about a woman, who happened to be an illegal resident, who gave birth in a U.S. hospital and was able to walk out at no cost to her. I think this is absolutely absurd! I hate when residents of our country live off the government and have children scott free because of Medicaid, so I become even more infuriated when illegal aliens do it. It isn't right at all!
Then, on the basis of education, we are spending money we don't have, because of budget cuts to teach non-English speaking students. I am an English education major and I think it's ironic how now ESOL is endorsed for my classes I need to take in order to get my degree. It isn't fair to our students who were born and raised in this country and we now have to alter our system because the government deems it necessary to turn our school system into charity work!
I feel if we stuck to the laws this country was founded on and the immigrants came about it the just way then we wouldn't have so many people upset and our country could prosper again. I understand this country is based off the 'American Dream,' but to what extent do we put a limit on the means of obtaining it?
This is such a touchy subject, I commend you for writing about it. I think the issue here is that many Americans are finding themselves (myself included) torn on the issue. There is obviously a problem at hand but no one wants to be the one to solve it. It's a difficult dilemma to work out especially since we are a country discovered and built by immigrants, so how can we become a country that no longer allows them? You have some valid points about how much many of them are costing us and obviously this needs to be dealt with, but how? I am not going to pretend to have an answer because I don't, but I'm not too sure our country will either, any time soon...
ReplyDeleteAll I'm trying ot say is that if you want to come over here you should do it the right way. Americans are having a hard enough time as it is trying to find jobs and supporting families. Immigrants that come over illegally really puts our country in a deficiet not to mention it hurts our economy because our taxes are supporting them.
ReplyDeleteOn the Center for Immigration Studies website, Households headed by illegal aliens imposed more than $26.3 billion in costs on the federal government in 2002 and paid only $16 billion in taxes, creating a net fiscal deficit of almost $10.4 billion, or $2,700 per illegal household.
And that was back in 2002, can you imagine how much it has jumped!
I think the borders do need ot be secure. I think we need to work on ourselves first before we go around helping other people from other countries.