Muscatine

for all of us....illegal immigration.

I lived in the Southwest for 27 years and loved and respected the people, particulary the Spanish. One of my best friends considers me a ''gringo'' but I can eat food hotter than he can. The point I am making is that I respect the Hispanic Community but I am against illegal immigration. I am not sure if these facts are bonafide but I present them to you now for your comments.

Subject: Numbers and facts

So often, we get caught up in a debate over political semantics and end up ignoring the hard-shell realities of what we're talking about.
According to immigrationCounters.com,
Here are some of the realities that Flake-Gutierrez Bill would airbrush out of the picture:
Number of Illegal Aliens in the Country
20,807,645
Money Wired to Mexico City since January, 2006
$22,213,001,672.00
Cost of Social Security Services for Illegal Aliens since 1996
$397,450,739,563.00
Number of Children of Illegal Aliens in Public Schools
3,958,789
Cost of Illegal Aliens in K-12 Since 1996:
$13, 965,063,431.00
Number of Illegal Aliens Incarcerated
332,594
Cost of Incarcerations Since 2001
$1,398,127,429.00
Number of Illegal Aliens Fugitives
642,799
Skilled Jobs Taken by Illegal Aliens
9,872,838

Figures can trick your eyes.
Take particular note that items 2,3,5, and 7 reflect BILLION not millions of dollars --
And that item 3 exceeds one-third of a TRILLION dollars.
Can you imagine how much it will cost taxpayers if we triple the number of Illegal's entering this country!!

I consider this a prime issue to this election year. What can be done to correct this?

Well,

a depression here in the USA would slow things down.

Flow of Cash to Mexico Grows Slower

By Elizabeth Malkin
The New York Times

El Rodeo, Mexico -- For years, millions of Mexican migrants working in the United States have sent money back home to villages like this one, money that allows families to pay medical bills and school fees, build houses and buy clothes or, if they save enough, maybe start a business.

But after years of strong increases, the amount of migrant money flowing to Mexico has stagnated. From 2000 to 2006, the remittances grew to nearly $24 BILLION a year from $6.6 million, increasing more than 20 percent some years. In 2007, the increase so far has been less than 2 percent.

Migrants and migration experts say a flagging American economy and an enforcement campaign against undocumented workers in the United States have persuaded some migrants not to try to cross the border illegally to look for work. Others have decided to return to Mexico. And many of those who are staying in the United States are sending less money home.

Estrella Rivera, a slight 27-year-old in this stone-paved village in Guanajuato state in west-central Mexico, was hoping to use the money her husband, Alonso, sent back from working illegally in Texas to build a small clothing shop at the edge of her garden. But a month ago, Alonso Rivera returned home. His hours at a Dallas window-screen factory were cut back and rumors spread that he inevitably would have to produce a valid Social Security number.

Now, he works odd jobs or tends the cornfields, Estrella Rivera's shop is indefinitely delayed, a pile of red bricks stacked on the grass. Like Alonso Rivera, some of the men who went to work in the United States illegally have returned discouraged. And less work means less money to send home -- particularly from the southern United States and other areas where Mexican migrants are a more recent presence.

Until last year, the American housing trades absorbed hundreds of thousands of new Latin migrants, and the hardships of the trip north seemed to pale beside the near certainty of finding work.

Now, the construction slump -- along with a year-old crackdown on illegal immigration at the border and in the workplace, and mounting anti-immigrant sentiment in places -- has made it even harder for the Mexican migrant to reach the United States and land a well-paying job.

Fred Thompson

http://www.boston.com/news/nation/articles/2007/10/24...


Republican presidential candidate Fred Thompson yesterday staked out one of the toughest plans on the campaign trail to curb illegal immigration, trying to reignite the issue among the GOP faithful who rose up in revolt against a more moderate approach in Congress earlier this year.
Highlighting what he believes are key vulnerabilities for his main rivals, Thompson called for stripping federal funds from cities and states that do not report illegal immigrants and criticized Rudy Giuliani and Mitt Romney for allowing so-called sanctuary cities in New York and Massachusetts.




The first principle of Thompson's plan is ''No Amnesty,'' a clear shot at another rival, Senator John McCain of Arizona, who joined President Bush in trying unsuccessfully to push through a sweeping immigration overhaul bill that would have created a guest worker program and provided a path to possible citizenship for the estimated 12 million illegal immigrants in the country.


Thompson's plan provoked a new round of sparring among the contenders, underscoring that polls indicate that none of them has been able to emerge in the minds of Republican voters as the candidate best able to fix the broken immigration system.
Party officials in key primary states said yesterday that the candidate who can win voters' trust on immigration could make significant gains. Polls indicate that Republicans care more than Democrats about the issue and support a harder line against illegal immigrants.

interesting

Nedl, email me. We have lots to discuss concerning this. Thank you for the information.