This section of DiscoverTheNetworks examines how illegal immigration has imposed enormous costs on American society -- in terms of the high rates of violent crime committed by illegals, and as a result of their high rates of dependence on social welfare benefits funded by U.S. taxpayers. In her Winter 2004 article, "The Illegal-Alien Crime Wave" (published by City Journal), Heather MacDonald writes:
Some of the most violent criminals at large today are illegal aliens. Yet in cities where the crime these aliens commit is highest, the police cannot use the most obvious tool to apprehend them: their immigration status. In Los Angeles, for example, dozens of members of a ruthless Salvadoran prison gang have sneaked back into town after having been deported for such crimes as murder, assault with a deadly weapon, and drug trafficking. Police officers know who they are and know that their mere presence in the country is a felony. Yet should a cop arrest an illegal gangbanger for felonious reentry, it is he who will be treated as a criminal, for violating the LAPD's rule against enforcing immigration law.
The LAPD's ban on immigration enforcement mirrors bans in immigrant-saturated cities around the country, from New York and Chicago to San Diego, Austin, and Houston. These "sanctuary policies" generally prohibit city employees, including the cops, from reporting immigration violations to federal authorities. Such laws testify to the sheer political power of immigrant lobbies, a power so irresistible that police officials shrink from even mentioning the illegal-alien crime wave....
Police commanders may not want to discuss, much less respond to, the illegal-alien crisis, but its magnitude for law enforcement is startling. Some examples:
* In Los Angeles, 95 percent of all outstanding warrants for homicide (which total 1,200 to 1,500) target illegal aliens. Up to two-thirds of all fugitive felony warrants (17,000) are for illegal aliens.
* 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.
* The leadership of the Columbia Lil' Cycos gang, which uses murder and racketeering to control the drug market around L.A.'s MacArthur Park, was about 60 percent illegal in 2002, says former assistant U.S. attorney Luis Li. Francisco Martinez, a Mexican Mafia member and an illegal alien, controlled the gang from prison, while serving time for felonious reentry following deportation....
The sheer number of criminal aliens overwhelmed an innovative program that would allow immigration officials to complete deportation hearings while a criminal was still in state or federal prison, so that upon his release he could be immediately ejected without taking up precious INS detention space. But the process, begun in 1988, immediately bogged down due to the numbers—in 2000, for example, nearly 30 percent of federal prisoners were foreign-born. The agency couldn't find enough pro bono attorneys to represent such an army of criminal aliens (who have extensive due-process rights in contesting deportation) and so would have to request delay after delay. Or enough immigration judges would not be available. In 1997, the INS simply had no record of a whopping 36 percent of foreign-born inmates who had been released from federal and four state prisons without any review of their deportability. They included 1,198 aggravated felons, 80 of whom were soon re-arrested for new crimes....
In the article, "The Crushing Economic Burden of Illegal Immigration" (published by FrontPageMagazine.com), Jim Gilchrist writes:
You know this illegal alien issue veils dozens, literally dozens of issues. Some of the more salient ones are faltering schools, bankrupt hospitals, crime rates, and an infusion of the MS13 gangs into our communities.... 18,000 gang members just from El Salvador alone. I wonder how many more we have from other countries? You know, have you ever thought of what the cost of carrying maybe as many as 30 million illegal aliens in your country is?...
In California alone it's at least $1,500 per taxpayer, depending upon what tax bracket you're in. If, of course, you're making over $300,000-$400,000 a year, then you're probably paying about $12,000 a year in support payments for the illegal alien benefit programs. If you're making only $30,000 a year, you're probably only paying about $200. But roughly it averages out to at least $1,500, and maybe $1,800, per taxpayer in California … and that's just for California benefits.
Let's talk about the total cost. I had to make my own estimate, since the government will not give me these numbers, nor does it care to calculate them. It also doesn't care even to determine how many people in the United States are murdered by illegal aliens -- I've tried to get that information, too; it doesn't exist.
I've come up with my own numbers. And I will stand by these numbers. The annual gross cost to U.S. taxpayers to provide schooling, hospitalization, and whatever plethoric benefits are out there for the 30 million illegal aliens is approximately $400 billion per year funded by bona fide U.S. taxpayers. That's $400 billion per year and going up.
The amount of taxes provided (including the underground economy) by the illegal alien residents of the United States is less than $20 billion as sales taxes and Social Security taxes. The government loves to get the $8 billion or $9 billion a year of Social Security taxes that are not claimed because of illegal aliens not filing tax returns, but is that a fair trade off? That's $9 billion to put your entire nation of 300 million people under threat? I don't think so.
The net cost to us ... is $380 billion a year. That's just for the benefit programs, the education, the hospitalization, food stamps, Section 8 subsidies, rent subsidies, mortgage subsidies, etc.
Bear Stearns has found another tax loophole for the illegal aliens and some Americans, too, who work in the underground economy: Because they might be deported they're afraid to come forth and present themselves, so they stay underground and hidden. They don't want Social Security numbers revealed; they don't want to file tax returns; they don't want to report their income.
That cost to the U.S. Treasury is $500 billion; that's one-half trillion dollars per year. And that is increasing annually. We're talking close to $1 trillion additional deficit to our U.S. Treasury. This is something that we're going to have to pay for, or our heirs are going to have to pay for. We'd better think about what the consequences are of uncontrolled immigration.
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