April 2005

ILLEGAL ALIENS PUT THE U.S. AT RISK!

FLOOD OF ILLEGAL ALIENS ERODES WAGES, INCREASES UNEMPLOYMENT, THREATENS HEALTH, ENVIRONMENT, and NATIONAL SECURITY

JOIN BALANCE IN OPPOSING ALIEN AMNESTY BILLS (H.R. 884 and S. 359) and IN PUSHING A SOLUTION

Illegal Alien Threats

"It's fair to estimate, based on a TIME investigation, that the number of illegal aliens flooding into the U.S. this year [2004] will total 3 million..." The Border Patrol apprehended more than a million. "But for every person it [the Border Patrol] picks up, at least three make it into the country safely." (TIME, 20 September 2004). The flood of illegal aliens continues unabated. Can we afford to allow 2 to 3 million people to enter the United States illegally every year?

The answer of the Bush Administration? Amnesty legislation for millions of illegal aliens. Masters of the euphemism, the administration and its supporters in Congress never use the word "amnesty.". Instead, they propose bills like H.R. 884 and S. 359: the "Agricultural Job Opportunities, Benefits, and Security Act of 2005." Don't be fooled. The details make it clear the bills are amnesties.

Day Laborer Centers: A Threat to the American Worker

Home Depot Stores Help Set Up Centers

THERE'S PROBABLY ONE NEAR YOU
A group of workers hopes to find work for the day. The center may be informal or organized. Often there are complaints: people feel intimidated by the workers, almost always male; sometimes there's drinking, gambling, fights; and workers desperate to get hired may create traffic hazards.

Home Depot, frequented by contractors and landscapers, has been providing support for day
laborer centers. Some stores reportedly partnered with an "immigrants rights" organization, allowing them to establish day laborer centers in Home Depot parking lots. In other locations, Home Depot agreed to fund the building of such centers and in another location donated nearby land for a center.

Home Depot and its affiliates have also been working with and contributing to several pro-immigration groups such as the National Council of La Raza (The Race), which do not appear to make a distinction between legal and illegal immigration. This may be good for some businesses, but is it in the interest of the American worker?

Pro-immigration groups consistently spread the myth that the economy requires cheap labor from other countries. We are now "in-sourcing" a staggering number of workers at the lower end of the job market. The net effect, is increased unemployment, depressed wages, and higher taxes.

• Competition from illegal aliens hurts American workers through depressed wages and lost jobs. Economists George Borjas and Edwin Rubenstein calculate, respectively, that Americans lose $190 billion to 203 billion a year.
  
  
• Economist Donald Huddle of Rice University estimated that American taxpayers pay $93 billion a year in taxes, net (after subtracting taxes paid by immigrants) to cover fiscal costs incurred by legal and illegal aliens.
  
  
• Millions of workers remain unemployed while illegal aliens willing to accept low pay and poor working conditions readily find work. (Steve
  Camarota, Center for Immigration Studies)
  
  
• Native born workers suffer virtually all the job loss which results from mass immigration. (Andrew Sum et. al., Northeastern University)

Illegal Aliens: A Threat to Public Health in the U.S.

IMPORTING DISEASE
What happens when millions of people cross national borders without any health screening? They reintroduce diseases long eradicated in the new country and bring with them new diseases. Re-imported or newly imported diseases include tuberculosis, sickle cell anemia, hepatitis B, measles, and a parasitic disease called Chagas.

• TB among foreign-born living in the U. S. is nine times that of native-born Americans.
  
  
• Measles, long under control in the United States, is being reintroduced, this time in versions that are resistant to vaccines currently available.
  
  
• Chagas, a parasitic disease which infects 15 million people annually in Latin America and kills approximately 50,000, was unknown in the United States until recently. In the U.S. it is usually spread through blood transfusions. The risk of a blood donor being infected with the disease is 1 in 25,000, but that number jumps in Miami to 1 in 9,000 and in Los Angeles to 1 in 5,400. Both cities, of course, are major illegal alien destination points. (Source: Centers for Disease Control)

The Arizona Minutemen Project:
A Response to the Illegal Alien Threat

ARIZONA: THE FRONT LINES OF THE IMMIGRATION CRISIS
A river of illegal immigrants crosses the border with Mexico every day. To stem this flood of humanity, concerned citizens have launched an extraordinary initiative called the Minuteman Project. A group of volunteers, who recognize that Congress has been derelict in controlling illegal immigration, is monitoring a 20 mile stretch of the Arizona - Mexico border during the month of April.

For more information, visit:
https://www.minutemanproject.com

NATIONAL SECURITY

The fact that over three million aliens flood into our country illegally each year, without screening, and in blatant and continuing violation of our laws creates a national security problem of monstrous proportions.

Indeed, the National Commission on Terrorism in June, 2000 indicated: "The massive flows of people across U.S. borders make exclusion of all foreign terrorists impossible"

Source: U.S. Department of Agriculture

Impact of Mass Illegal Immigration

Immigration, both legal and illegal, contributes about 90% of the more than 3 million annual population growth in the United States. We have long passed the national carrying capacity, i.e., the fund of natural resources needed to sustain a reasonable standard of living for the population over the long term.

Congress is doing very little to secure our borders or to save the environment. It seems blind to the strain continued population growth is placing on local schools and hospitals, on land and water resources, on the capacity of the United States to offer a good life for its citizens and for those who come in as legal immigrants.

It is not difficult to understand why concerned citizens put the Minuteman Project together. Nonetheless, it is even more important to note that the threat represented by the flow of illegal immigrants across the border between Arizona and Mexico is a symptom of a larger problem - in this case, the unwillingness of the United States government to deal resolutely with a failed immigration policy.

Photograph from a Minuteman Project Rally, April 2

H.R. 884 and S. 359: Illegal Alien Amnesty Bills -- Not a Viable
Response to the Illegal Alien Threat

The "Agricultural Job Opportunities, Benefits, and Security Act of 2005" (H.R. 884, Representative Cannon, R-Utah and S. 359, Senator Craig, R-Idaho) is a major congressional response to the crisis of
illegal immigration in the United States. It is also a good reflection of the Bush Administration's position. The most important provision sets up a process by which an illegal alien can gain temporary residence and "authorized employment." An illegal alien must be able to show that he or she worked at least 575 hours or 100 work days in "any 12 consecutive months during the 18-month period ending on December 31, 2004."

Some have termed the above "earned legalization," but it is very clearly AMNESTY. Admit you have worked in agriculture in the United States illegally and we will reward you with temporary residence and permission to work.

There's more. The newly legalized alien can, by working at least 360 work days or 2,060 hours over the 6 year period that begins with the date the legislation is enacted, eventually gain permanent residence status. Additionally, the spouse and minor children of someone who successfully gains permanent residence status also gain that same status.

If all goes according to plan, several million illegal aliens will gain legal status. The process can then be repeated in other sectors of the economy. They, too, will claim they will collapse if they cannot legalize their illegal alien workforces. The illegal alien problem will be "resolved." The reality, however, is a disguised amnesty that hides rather than solves the problem.

IT'S ALL ABOUT PRETENDING TO RESOLVE A CRISIS WITHOUT REALLY HAVING TO DEAL WITH IT.

MEANWHILE, MILLIONS OF CITIZENS OF LATIN AMERICAN COUNTRIES, NOW ON THE OUTSIDE LOOKING IN, WILL BE ENCOURAGED BY THE CONGRESSIONAL CAVE-IN TO FIND A WAY TO THE UNITED STATES, WHERE THEY CAN THEN WAIT FOR THE NEXT ROUND OF AMNESTIES.

The Moratorium Bill: A Solution That Will Dramatically Cut Legal and Illegal Immigration

Coming this spring: another version of the Moratorium Bill. It will reduce legal immigration to a number far below the present level of 1.2 million for a set period of time. This, together with a truly serious effort to cut off the flow of illegal aliens, provides a breathing space during which we could deal effectively with the problem presented by the very large illegal alien population already in the United States.

Enacting a Moratorium on legal immigration is essential to reducing illegal immigration because legal immigrants serve as a "family magnet" which encourages and facilitates more illegal aliens to come to the U.S.

Enacting a Moratorium is also essential because it calls the whole enterprise of mass immigration into question. The NeoConservative "management" approach of the Neocon reform lite groups fails to do this.

Finally, pushing a Moratorium solution increase the pressure to pass good bills, stop bad bills, and enforce laws against illegal immigration, even if the moratorium bill itself does not pass any time soon.

A moratorium also allows us the opportunity to make clear the connection between immigration and unsustainable population growth. Beyond the problem of a failed immigration policy is the problem of unsustainable population growth. We have overshot our carrying capacity by more than two times. This is the fundamental problem of the 21st century for the United States. It is why it is so vitally important to eliminate mass immigration, legal and illegal.

Why any kind of amnesty is dangerous: Millions of citizens of Latin American countries, now on the outside looking at the United States, will be encouraged by a Congressional Cave-in, i.e., Amnesty legislation, to find a way to this country, in order to wait for the next round of amnesties. They will have every reason to believe there will be more amnesties in the future.

An illustration from "The Guide for the Mexican Migrant," published by the Foreign Ministry of Mexico.

Take Action!

1) Write, FAX, call, or email your Representative and Senators (contact information is available at www.House.gov and www.Senate.gov) and ask them to do the following

• oppose H.R. 884 and S. 359, aka the Alien Amnesty Bills
  
  
• oppose any other amnesty for the 20 million or more illegal aliens; be on the lookout for code words such as "earned legalization" or "guest worker" program
  
  
• push for the enforcement of laws prohibiting illegal immigration already on the books
  
  
• support a moratorium on legal immigration in excess of 100,000 annually. Explain to your Representative and Senators that it is essential to reduce legal immigration in order to reduce illegal immigration - legal immigrants are family magnets encouraging many illegal aliens to join their legal relatives.

2) Multiply the impact of BALANCE by giving one or more gift memberships or by becoming a sustaining member or by making a special donation - take advantage of the PayPal feature on the BALANCE web site (www.Balance.org) or use the 800 number (1/800/866-6269 - 1/800-TOO MANY) or write to BALANCE at 2000 P. Street, NW, Suite 600, Washington, DC, 20036.

3) Join the ASAP! Coalition (Alliance for Stabilizing America's Population), an alliance of more than fifty groups from all sections of the United States; if you already belong to an existing group, let us know and we will plug your group into the ASAP! network; or form a group in your area, an effective way to work on the immigration issue on the local level, and let us know

THERE WILL NEVER BE A BETTER TIME THAN NOW TO DO SOMETHING ABOUT THE FAILED IMMIGRATION POLICY OF THE UNITED STATES AND ABOUT THE ILLEGAL ALIEN THREATS IT HAS CREATED

	POPULATION-ENVIRONMENT BALANCE Phone: 202-955-5700 FAX: 202-955-6161 E-Mail: uspop@us.net https://www.Balance.org

Population-Environment Balance is a national, non-profit membership organization dedicated to maintaining the quality of life in the United States through population stabilization.