"America has constantly drawn strength and spirit from wave after wave of LEGAL immigrants...
They have proved to be the most restless, the most adventurous, the most innovative, and the most industrious of people. They are energizing our culture and broadening our vision of the world. They are renewing our most basic values and reminding us all of what it truly means to be an American."

History of  United States Immigration Law

The United States was founded by, essentially immigrants. For years, millions of people have arrived in the United States seeking a better life. Starting in the late 19th century, the immigration policy of the United States began to change.

From 1776 to 1875, the United States had an open-door policy towards immigration. The president could expel a foreign national who was deemed dangerous to the security of the Untied States but that was the only provision to limit immigration. The policy was so open-door that Congress passed a law in 1864 to encourage immigration to the United States.

The McCarran-Walter Act was passed in 1954. It provides much of the base structure of our immigration system today. It created special, race-based quotas for individuals from Asia. In addition, it created a preference system for those with special skills which is an equivalent to the current employment-based category system.

We are all for Immigration, Legal Immigration

Illegal Immigration to the United States

The Census Bureau projects that by 2050, one-quarter of the population will be Hispanic. In 35 of the country's 50 largest cities, non-Hispanic whites are or soon will be in the minority. In California, non-Hispanic whites slipped from 80% of the state's population in 1970 to 43% in 2006. California is beginning to look like Mexico. According to the same Pew Hispanic Center study as of March 2005, the illegal alien population had reached 11 million or more including more than 6.5 million illegal Mexicans.

Every day thousands of illegal aliens are crossing the southern border of the United States with Mexico, known as the Mexican border. These people cannot be called immigrants because immigrants enter the United States through ports of entry and obtain permission to live here, work here, and generally make the effort to become United States citizens, complete with speaking the English language. This is not the case with the thousands illegally entering the United States along the Mexican border. These people do not have permission to live here, work here, and generally make no effort to become United States citizens or speak American English.

The employer pays the illegal aliens lower wages, provides no benefits, but charges the same price as though he were; the profit going into the employer's pocket. Greed is the name of the game while, American taxpayers foot the bill for medical care, unemployment and welfare for these illegal aliens. Often the minimum wages in one country can be several times the prevailing wage in the unauthorized immigrant's country, making even these jobs attractive to the unauthorized worker. The Pew Hispanic Center notes that while the number of legal immigrants (including LPRs, refugees, and asylees) arriving has not varied substantially since the 1980s, the number of illegal aliens has increased dramatically and, since the mid 1990s, has surpassed the number of legal immigrants. Penalties for employers who hire illegal immigrants range from $2,000-$10,000 and up to six months imprisonment. However, these penalties are rarely enforced by immigration officials. It is a crime that the immigration laws are not enforced, this is mainly due to the power of immigrant lobbies, pro-illegal immigrants groups, and employers who employ the illegal aliens for cheap labor.

The Huge Impact of Illegal immigration on the United States

Using the U.S. INS statistics on how many illegal immigrants are residing in each country and the U.S. Dept of Education's current expenditure per pupil by state, the estimated cost of educating illegal alien students and U.S.-Born Children of Illegal Aliens in 2004 for the top five states was as follows:

The enormous impact of large-scale illegal immigration cannot be ignored.

1. 27% of all prisoners in Federal custody are criminal illegal aliens and the majority (63%) of those are Mexican citizens.
2. In 2004, the Federal govt. spent $1.4 billion to incarcerate criminal illegal aliens. Which was only 25% of the full cost.
3. The full cost of incarcerating the criminal illegal aliens was $5.6 billion in 2004.
4. All the incarceration costs, some $5.6 billion in 2004, are ultimately paid for by the taxpayers.
5. There are 2,158 murders committed annually by illegal aliens
6. Criminal aliens set free on the streets of America -- instead of being deported after serving their time - are being rearrested as many as six more times by U.S. authorities, according to a government audit. About 80,000 illegal criminal aliens, including convicted murderers, rapists, drug dealers and child molesters who served prison time and were released, are loose on the streets of America, hiding from federal immigration authorities.
7. Based on Census Bureau data, the study estimates that households headed by illegal aliens used $10 billion more in government services than they paid in taxes in 2002. These figures are only for the federal government; costs at the state and local level are also significant. The study also notes that if illegal aliens were given amnesty, the fiscal deficit at the federal level would grow by nearly $29 billion. Note that number is only for the direct costs and does not count all the indirect costs of the collateral damage being inflicted.
8. In Los Angeles, 95 percent of all outstanding warrants for homicide (about 1,200 to 1,500) are for illegal aliens. Up to two-thirds of all fugitive felony warrants (about 17,000) are for illegal aliens.
9. A confidential California Department of Justice study reported in 1995 that 60 percent of the 20,000-strong 18th Street Gang in southern California is illegal; police officers say the proportion is actually much greater. The bloody gang collaborates with the Mexican Mafia, the dominant force in California prisons, on complex drug-distribution schemes, extortion, and drive-by assassinations, and commits an assault or robbery every day in L.A. County. The gang has grown dramatically over the last two decades by recruiting recently arrived youngsters, most of them illegal, from Central America and Mexico.
10. For people living next to or near the Mexican border, living there has become a living nightmare with illegal aliens trashing land, homes, and outbuildings; killing landowners, Border Patrol agents, and tourists unfortunate enough to get in their way; killing or stealing livestock; stealing vehicles, guns, and anything else they can get their hands on.
11. Almost $190 million or about 25 percent of the uncompensated costs southwest border county hospitals incurred resulted from emergency medical treatment provided to undocumented immigrants.
12. In 2006, the Oklahoma Health Care Authority estimated that it would spend about $9.7 million on emergency Medicaid services for unauthorized immigrants and that 80 percent of those costs would be for services associated with childbirth.
13. The Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS) continues to bring injured and ill undocumented immigrants to hospital emergency rooms without taking financial responsibility for their medical care.
14. $2.5 Billion dollars a year is spent on Medicaid for illegal aliens.
15. $11 Billion to $22 billion a year is spent on welfare to illegal aliens.
16. $2.2 Billion dollars a year is spent on food assistance programs such as food stamps, WIC, and free school lunches for illegal aliens.
17. $12 Billion dollars a year is spent on primary and secondary school education for children here illegally and they cannot speak a word of English!
18. $17 Billion dollars a year is spent for education for the American-born children of illegal aliens, known as anchor babies.
19. An article in the Journal of American Physicians and Surgeons states that the burden of illegal immigrants on the health care system in the US has forced many hospitals to close due to unpaid bills and the unfunded mandate of Emergency Medical Treatment and Active Labor Act (EMTALA). Between 1993 and 2003, 60 hospitals in California alone were forced to close, and many others had to reduce staff or implement other procedures which reduced the level of service they could provide. The article attributes these closings mainly to illegal immigration.