Opinion

Running into a wall

Immigrants cost American tax-payers money

By Tonalea Chapman

Posted on April 13, 2006, at 12:00 a.m.

I will be the first to admit that the populace and progress of America since the 1500s has been entirely immigrant. And our original ancestors, beginning in 1492, did indeed come here illegally, assuming they had the God-given right through manifest destiny. But that didn’t make their actions right then and it certainly doesn’t make them right now. Since the first immigrants came here this country has evolved, establishing laws in which to help this country survive for years to come.

Those laws allow for the immigrants to legally enter American borders and become U.S. citizens. When those laws are broken, as with any other law, the results are a corrupted system that is unable to enforce essential protection for legal U.S. citizens. Herein lies the problem. There is a big difference between legal immigration and illegal immigration.

If someone is in this country illegally, they are not paying taxes, thus they are not supporting any government programs. If the illegals break any laws, they are virtually unstoppable and unpunishable, because they are so hard to find. They have no permanent address and therefore do not exist. However, the police force – that they don’t support – must be pulled from calls helping American citizens – that pay for the service – in order to spend their time and energy trying to catch people who don’t legally exist in America.

In some states, the ratio of illegal students in the school system whose parents don’t support the system in the school system compared to legal residents, whose parents pay for the right to education, is one to three. American taxpayers are forced to take money from children who are here legally and hand it over to people who refuse to become legal citizens and pay for that right. This means that your children will do without proper books, lunches and other school supplies, even though you have paid for those supplies. And the whole concept of giving work to the illegals because Americans won’t do the work is – excuse the language – a load of crap. Americans are more than willing to do the work, but they cannot do the work at slave labor prices. The illegal workers who are paid cash under the table and do not pay taxes are paid much less of an hourly wage. They do not have to pay for their children’s health care because legal American citizens pay for that, and they do not have to pay for their children’s education, again because the legal tax-paying citizen is paying for that. So, the illegal worker can afford to receive a smaller hourly wage. The American citizen however, who is paying taxes, and must pay for their health care and education cannot raise a family on the minimal pay that the employer offers and therefore they are forced to find work elsewhere.

America has always been a safe refuge for all nationalities and should remain open for all immigrants who want to come to America and become United States Citizens, but American citizens should not have to foot the bill for every illegal person who enters its borders refusing to support our great country. Every year, millions of tax dollars are spent supporting people who refuse to enter our country legally. America has legal citizens standing in soup lines, and children who cannot receive an education because the country cannot support them. Yet, millions of American tax dollars go to support people who enter this country illegally and refuse to follow the laws to become U.S. citizens. If you are unwilling to help support this great country, then you shouldn’t demand that it support you.

Tonalea Chapman is a history Ph.D. student.

This entry was posted on Thursday, April 13th, 2006, 12:00 am. You can follow any responses to this article through the RSS feed.