Sunday, April 15, 2007

Why open-borders and unfettered immigration is wrong

Immigration is about jobs; culture and security.

by StFerdIII

In the extremist world of ‘centrist’ politics, race and compassion are two of the most important and defining characteristics of ‘culture’. Or so the race-baiters and moral relativists believe. Politicians buying ethnic votes; populists abusing minorities to gain power; minority leaders desiring public money and status; the Church and open borders advocates along with businesses seeking cheap labor; all form an unholy alliance advocating massive immigration that is counter to society’s interests. Immigration including the ongoing illegal invasion is costly, a threat to national culture and security, and economically unviable.

In an age of advanced education where economies have to change and reinvent themselves to stay competitive, ‘immigration’ by itself, as a ‘theory’ to either combat low birth rates or buttress GDP growth, is a myth. It depends on the type of immigration. Educated immigrants that fill needed jobs and trades are an obvious benefit. Illegal immigrants who are unskilled and uneducated are an equally obvious negative. The former produce net tax revenues, the latter produce only fiscal deficits and put pressure on native born low wage earners.

No, you don’t need illegal Mexicans working in the service industry to keep your economy afloat. ‘Jobs only Mexicans will do!’ is a myth created by the illegal loving media and their political friends. Holding a gun to society’s collective head and screaming, ‘if you toss out the immigrants we will all die!’ is hardly part of an intelligent debate. It is just race baiting and race politics – the lowest denominator of the cultural Marxist political creed. Or worse it is just naivety and nescient nostrums emanating from the open borders, ‘let the illegal immigrants flood the land’, crowd. Illegal immigration brings costs, drugs, crime and cultural annihilation.

In the past 10 years there have been various studies which estimate the cost of US immigration at more than $60 billion per annum, roughly split between 50 % for legals and 50 % for illegals. These studies indicate that immigrants with college education and above contribute a net surplus to society. Legal and illegal immigrations with high school or worse education consume state welfare budgets.

The noble idea that Canada and America ‘must’ welcome ‘most’ immigrants who wish to fulfill their fantasies by joining North American society is ridiculously unsophisticated, and worse it distorts the debate. Immigration is a cultural and jobs issue first and foremost. It has nothing to do with romantic ideas of penniless immigrants arriving on the boat in the rain wearing threadbare clothes, ambitious to achieve the American dream.

The economic, legal and social factors comprising the 19th and early 20th century immigration waves are far removed from today’s reality. These experiences do however indicate one critical point – that without cultural and societal assimilation any immigration program fails. This is why the multi-club of cultural relativity is so dangerous. The entire ethos of the multi-cult is to dismember the existing state of affairs in Canada and the USA. This must be rejected.

Immigration without a cultural and jobs focus quickly leads to chaos and crushing welfare payments. Illegal immigrants and legal immigrants without a college degree impose a stiff $50 billion or worse bill on US taxpayers and about $6 billion on Canadian taxpayers. About two-thirds of illegal aliens do not have a high school diploma. There is a direct link between low education levels and low incomes and, thereby lower tax payments. Illegals have access to various government programs including health care and education, yet pay little if anything in direct taxation.

For example, both Canadian and U.S. law forbids any hospital in the country, whether private or not-for-profit, to refuse medical care to anyone regardless of their inability to pay for that care. Needless to say, illegal immigrants (and legal immigrants who have no health insurance) take full advantage of this law. A common tactic by illegals is to have a child in Canada or the US, in a state managed hospital. By law this child is immediately a citizen and by extension the parents can claim citizen status [though admittedly not an easy process]. In most cases the parents are never deported [unless they are considered a terrorist threat].

In education we see the same burdens with all the attendant problems that an alien cultural background brings into the public school system. It is unfair to teachers, parents and legal residents to encumber school systems with the various costs imposed by educating illegal children who need to be schooled in English and who have problems assimilating to the local culture.

This says nothing of the lives wasted when illegal immigrants kill innocents; the crime wave in drugs and illicit contraband that follows the illegal immigrant wave; the creation of lawless gangs and ghettoes thanks to uneducated, low-income immigrants; nor of the increase costs in policing and in the prison system to address a concomitant increase in crime and murder. The rights of native born North Americans are simply being ignored.

What to do?

First make immigration a jobs and cultural issue. Canada’s immigration level is far too high and is the highest per capita in the industrialized world [1 immigrant per 100 people each year] but it has long encouraged immigration as a vehicle for economic growth. Canadian immigration policy places a greater emphasis on economic needs as a basis for recruitment of new immigrants. Good. But this still only accounts for 40% of immigrants to Canada. The rest are there on family reunification programs; and refugee claims. This says nothing of the tens of thousands of illegals that have literally disappeared into Canadian [or US] society.

Canada needs to decrease its total immigration level, reorient its focus to Europe and the USA and expand its guest worker program. Canada runs a successful 8 month guest worker program which allows workers to temporarily immigrate for work opportunities [mostly in agriculture, mining, oil industry and construction] and then return to their home country at the firm’s cost. This is effective and addresses fluctuating labor demand.

The US should copy Canada’s guest worker program and its immigration program’s emphasis on job skills. It is literally easier getting a visa as a ‘student’ from a Muslim country, to the US, then it is as a highly educated and skilled European professional. Something is seriously deranged in the US immigration system when it takes Canadians 4 times longer than third-world applicants to receive a positive answer, and Canadians need to pay U$4000 on average for the pleasure of either being told no, or being told to wait years before being granted immigration status. This is not how adult nation states need to behave in a globally competitive labor market.

As well the USA obviously needs to seal off its southern border with Mexico by building a series of walls and fences; and ensure better border policing through a tripling of the 3000 border agents currently working the southern border. Likewise both Canada and the US should enforce their existing laws and deport all illegals found in the country as well as imprisoning and fining any business employers who hire illegals. Political will to do this is lacking but surely the people can put pressure on their representatives to secure the country and enforce its laws.

In short immigration needs to address the security, cultural and economic needs of the nation state. It is not a post-modern, a Marxist, or a program of inane moral relativity. Immigrants do not have a ‘moral’ right to enter the US or Canada as they please. Native born North Americans have every moral and political right to demand that immigration fulfills job, cultural and security requirements. In the meantime make it easier for highly trained and qualified North Americans and Europeans to immigrate to and between Canada and the USA. This is a paramount and mandatory shift in immigration focus in a competitive global market.

Sources:
-1997 National Research Council report, "The New Americans."
-1998 Urban Institute study, which examined tax payments by illegal aliens in New York State.
-US Inspector General's Office of the Department of Treasury in 2004 study of Illegal immigration’s net cost.
-http://www.cis.org/articles/2004/fiscalexec.html
[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.]
-http://www.newsbatch.com/imm-illegalop.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economic_impact_of_illegal_immigrants_in_the_United_States