MYTH: America has lots of room to double the population (The U.S. Census Bureau says that the U.S. population will double this century).
TRUTH: The open spaces one sees from an airplane are not where the 260 million new immigrants and their families will settle. They will settle in the already overcrowded urban areas of the country just like they always have. Much of America's open spaces are occupied by food production for our own people and to sustain tens of millions of people in other countries. Open spaces are also part of our national heritage of parks and wilderness. A U.S. Census spokesman recently said we shouldn't be very crowded even at twice the population because we still will have only about a fourth the density of England. This irresponsible "trick" statement averages our open spaces, much of which is farmland, parks, and otherwise uninhabitable land, into the equation. In the sections of the country where most Americans live, we are already very much as crowded as are Europeans. And do we want to live like Europeans who centuries ago destroyed most of their wild areas.
MYTH: Americans won't do the work that illegals do.
TRUTH: Prior to 1965 when the disastrous Immigration Bill was passed, there was very little immigration. In fact, between 1925 and 1965, there was even a period of net emigration out of the United States. During this time, our grass was getting cut, our meat was being packed, our children were being watched and our houses were being cleaned. The idea that somehow we suddenly can't run a country without an unlimited supply of foreigners is absurd.
Those in favor of foreign labor are corporations who are addicted to cheap labor. They are the ones who are benefiting. But their benefit comes at the American tax payer's expense when you consider that the American tax payer is virtually subsidizing the labor costs of the greedy corporations by supplying the illegal foreign workers and their families with welfare, free education, free medical, WICs, housing assistance, etc. -- something the corporations won't do.
Americans won't allow themselves to be exploited like illegals do, but they WILL do the work that illegals do for fair compensation and benefits. If Americans did the work that illegals do at higher pay, would that benefit the consumer? You bet it would in the long run. But many Americans who do not care about America's future are consumers who favor the idea of exploiting illegal workers because it keeps commodity and service prices down in the short term.
HALF TRUTH: illegals eventually become assimilated Americans.
TRUTH: Many do. But Most third world illegals come to the U.S. for personal economic reasons. Most do not come to cherish our democratic system. Many so called "immigration rights" groups "fan the fire" with their rhetoric which encourages immigrants to preserve their culture and language at tax payers expense. Among some of these groups, the word "assimilation" is considered xenophobic. When ultimately illegal immigrants and/or their children do become voting citizens, many vote in blocks (Mexican-American, El Salvadoran-American, Guatemalan-American, etc.), not for the good of America, but for personal economic gain usually at the expense of another group.
HALF TRUTH: Illegal aliens are better off in the U.S. doing lousy menial jobs than they are in their own country.
TRUTH: That may be true for the Illegal aliens in the short run (and businesses that hire them), but for many "undocumented immigrants" (Mexicans make up the majority), the "American legacy of exploitation of immigrants" remains in the minds of their children for many generations to come creating resentment of America and hinders assimilation of even their American born offspring. Resentment of America has created anti-American organizations such as MECHA whose nationwide college and high school members must pledge their support to forcefully take back what they call "Aztlan," the U.S. Southwest ceded in 1846 to the U.S. in the Mexican War.
HALF TRUTH: Illegal aliens pay taxes that benefit the economy.
TRUTH: Most illegal aliens do not receive a typical paycheck with tax deductions -- they are paid in cash and do not pay taxes. Even when they do pay taxes (only possible if they use fraudulent social security numbers or government assigned ID tax numbers), their meager income is not enough to pay for medical expenses and all the expenses for all the children they give birth to. You don't have to look at statistics -- just visit the maternal ward at the L.A. county hospital. There, illegal immigrant women are having thousands of children per year free of charge and can't afford them once they give birth, and that doesn't stop them from having even more children -- most learn how to work the system so that they receive cash assistance and food stamps.
A basic principle in economics is this: The more people that assimilate into the system the better -- if it creates a larger tax base. But here in California it hasn't. For example, the feds had to bail out the L.A. County hospital system several years ago and the county hospitals are now again headed for another crisis. The evidence shows that the net results are that illegal immigrants cost the taxpayer significantly more than they pay in taxes.
HALF TRUTH: Illegal aliens have a good work ethics.
TRUTH: It depends on what one means by "work ethic." If it means that illegals will allow themselves to be exploited, then they have a good work ethic. If it means that a group of day laborers would be consciences in the assembly of precision built automobiles, it might get an argument. But it is irrelevant if an illegal alien has a good work ethic -- they are working illegally!
MYTH: Illegal aliens don't affect politics because they can't vote.
TRUTH: Just by being counted in the census, illegals give political power to special groups. Many illegals fraudulently vote anyway and there is strong evidence that some key elections have been upset by illegal voters. Politicians represent the "people" even if those people are illegal aliens. Since the number of representatives in congress is fixed, any increase in population in California, for example, due to illegal immigration will require more representation for that group while taking away representation from people in other states. Most politicians that represent areas of large illegal population, vote in the interest of illegal aliens since they are the ones they represent. On the state level, it is clear that politicians like Governor Davis, California Speaker of the House Antonio Villaraigosa, California Senator Hilda Solis, California Assemblyman Gilbert A. Cedillo, etc., all want laws changed in the interest of illegal aliens.
MYTH: illegals go to illegal unlicensed medical clinics run by unlicensed quacks because they have no other alternative and because they are afraid of being deported.
TRUTH: Illegals know that they won't be deported simply for seeking medical help -- thousands go for free medical help every day. Obviously, the thousands of illegals who give birth in our county hospitals do not seem to be worried about deportation after their free delivery. The real reason many unsophisticated Hispanic illegals don't go to "free" medical facilities is because they actually trust "curanderos" ( type of witch doctors popular in Mexico) over licensed medical doctors.
HALF TRUTH: Illegals come to the U.S. for jobs to support their families, and wives and kids in there homeland.
TRUTH: Many do. But record numbers of those wives and kids are sneaking over the border to join their breadwinner in the U.S. But most alarming, is the record numbers of dead-beat dads that find an easy escape from their responsibilities in their homeland and in fact abandon their families. There is also strong empirical evidence that even illegal aliens who had good jobs in their homeland still want to be in the U.S. -- most of the world's people want to come to the U.S. because it is a very good place to be for many more reasons than just for a job.
MYTH: Pete Wilson's attitude towards illegal aliens stifled trade with Mexico. Governor Davis will change that.
TRUTH: Trade from California to Mexico increased 84.5 percent between 1992 and 1997 and did more trading with Mexico than any other state including Texas - all during the central years of the Wilson administration.
MYTH: Proposition 187 is unconstitutional because governor Davis says so.
TRUTH: Maybe 187 is unconstitutional. But it is not for the governor of California to decide that. That decision must come from the U.S. supreme court. Davis has preempted the supreme court and snubbed his nose at the voters of California by deciding on his own that 187 is unconstitutional -- contradicting a statement he made to the voters "I'm a governor, not a judge."
MYTH: The cost of not educating undocumented children is higher than the cost of educating them.
TRUTH: This kind of statement is absurd. It assumes that disallowing illegal alien children into our schools and/or deporting them is not an option. The idea that undocumented children are being punished for the bad deeds of their parents is ludicrous. Undocumented children already have citizenship in another country that is responsible for their education. California schools have a "don't ask, don't tell" policy regarding who gets to go to school. This policy is a powerful magnet that attracts illegals to California. The costs are enormous. Undocumented children are being rewarded, not punished.
Few disagrees that if the current rate of illegal immigration continues, a school a day will have to be built to accommodate the undocumented children and citizen children of undocumented parents.
MYTH: Record public school enrollment on a national level of 17.5 percent from 1983 to 1997, is a result of Baby Boomers.
TRUTH: Current Population Surveys (such as reported in the January 1999 Backgrounder) shows that 15.9 percent of the school-age population growth in 1997 had immigrant mothers. In California, officials say a new school each day -- or a new classroom an hour -- is needed to keep up with the growth (Since immigrants are just as likely (even more likely) than natives to go to public school, it's clear that nearly all the increase in public school enrollment over the past 15 years is due to federal immigration policy, not the Baby Boom generation.
MYTH: Issuing California driver's licenses to illegal aliens will make our roads safer because they would be trained to drive safely and would have insurance.
TRUTH: Giving illegal aliens driver's licenses will only make enforcement of our immigrant laws more difficult -- it would make it harder to detect them. It also "throws in the towel" and sends the wrong message to illegal aliens that they can change the law by breaking the law. Society must assume that anyone who would break the law and drive without a license, would continue to break driving and other laws even if they were licensed and most would not be any safer drivers. Moreover, it is laughable to think that these illegal aliens are going to run out and buy car insurance (one of more profitable documents now being sold to illegals, are fraudulent "proof of insurance" documents).
MYTH: Lack of academic achievement and high school dropout rates are caused by the poor economic conditions of immigrants.
TRUTH: This belief is another one of those "just accept this as truth" cliches." Poverty in itself does not cause school dropouts. This was proven in a report in Scientific American magazine (Indochinese Refugee Families and Academic Achievement, February, 1992). The article showed that many refugees from Southeast Asia with large families arrived in the U.S. with little more than the clothes on their backs and with no exposure to Western culture or knowledge of the English language. Yet their children display stunning scholastic achievement in American schools. In the U.S., the effect of poverty on education has been focused mainly on two ethnic groups, Black and Hispanics. Ironically, these groups have the most representation by their "leaders" who's livings depend on bringing high visibility to the children's penurious conditions -- instead of emphasis on the hard work it takes to succeed in academics.
But for the sake of argument, if poverty of immigrants is the cause of their lack of academic acheivement, why would the U.S. want to import poverty.
MYTH: Since illegal alien farm workers come to the U.S. for "jobs Americans won't take," they would not present a problem if they were given temporary visas to allow them to work the fields and then return to Mexico (or other country).
TRUTH: Millions of illegal alien workers who could be doing all the farm work that "Americans won't do" are already in the U.S. Almost all illegals who come to work the fields do not make a career of low paying, hard working farm jobs. The belief that only pitiful third world laborers can be content in doing menial farm work is obviated when it is seen that almost all of these workers sooner or later "head for the city" for the better jobs.
HALF TRUTH: Illegals are enjoying the fruit of the recent great American robust economy.
TRUTH: While many Americans are benefiting from a robust economy, government data shows that record numbers of Americans are falling into poverty in spite of overall good economic conditions -- and in spite of 35 years of record government spending on social programs. This down slide can be directly linked to illegals flooding the low scale job market -- virtually importing poverty faster than it can be irradiated. Had there not been any massive illegal immigration in the past 20 years, poverty in much of America may well have been reduced significantly.
MYTH: Employers are solely responsible for illegal immigration because they attract illegals by providing low paying jobs.
TRUTH: Illegals are directly responsible for their illegal presence. Blaming the entire problem on employers for illegal immigration is like blaming a women for her own rape because she dressed to sexy and the rapist couldn't resist her.
HALF TRUTH: Hispanic immigrants are family oriented and very religious catholics.
TRUTH: The vast majority of illegal entries from across our southern border are unsophisticated, poor, and uneducated, who do not necessarily hold to strong family values or the Catholic faith. This is evident by U.S. statistics showing that while unwed teenage pregnancy in the U.S. is decreasing as a whole, Latina unwed teenage pregnancy is on the rise. The illegal immigrants of today are not all the honest, hard working, American dream seekers. This is evident by record numbers of dead-beat dads who walk away from their responsibilities to their children by leaving their homeland and simply crossing the border.
MYTH: If the U.S. pumps money into Mexico and other third world countries for the purpose of improving their economies, it will create jobs thus eliminating the need to illegally immigrate to the U.S.
TRUTH: The only way that the improvement of other countries' economies would appreciably stop illegal immigration to the U.S., is if those countries' economies were to become as strong as that of the U.S. Thousands of visa over stayers from non-third world countries like Canada, France, Israel, are also part of the illegal immigration problem and those countries have good economies. The U.S. is not the only country to which illegal immigrants seek to immigrate. Countries all over the world are experiencing illegal immigration driven by "wanting a better life." As soon as Third World countries become even only a little bit more prosperous than their neighbors, they rush to keep strangers out. Mexico, for example, does not tolerate its border violations by Guatemalans. Malaysia recently announced that in the case of repeat offenders, it will flog illegal aliens, their employers, and anyone who smuggles them into the country. In early January, 2000, over 35,000 illegal Zimbabwean workers were tossed out Of South Africa. So forget it! The U.S. should be concerned with improving its own economy and strictly enforcing its immigration laws.
HALF TRUTH: Immigrants make good entrepreneurs.
TRUTH: The common belief that immigrants are natural entrepreneurs may have its roots in the observation of the thousands of illegal alien third world style illegal street venders now found in most large U.S. cities. This belief has been obviated by a wall street article in which recent data shows that native born Americans are more likely to be successful entrepreneurs. (Immigrant Entrepreneurs Slide From Their Top Spot, The Wall Street Journal, January 12, 1999).
