Illegal Immigration Costs North Carolina More Than $1.2 Billion Annually Finds

Contact: Jack Martin of FAIR, +1-202-328-7004, jmartin@fairus.org

WASHINGTON, Jan. 13 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- A report by the Federation for American Immigration Reform (FAIR) finds that illegal immigration costs North Carolina more than $1.2 billion a year. An additional $1.2 billion earned in the state is denied to the North Carolina economy by illegal aliens who sent remittances abroad. The report, The Costs of Illegal Immigration to North Carolinians looks at just three essential state services and programs: education, public health, and incarceration of criminal illegal aliens. Those impacts are:

    --  K-12 Education. The estimated 120,000 children of illegal
        aliens in public schools cost taxpayers more than $1 billion
        annually.
    --  Health care. Uncompensated health care for illegal aliens costs
        North Carolina an estimated $130 million a year.
    --  Incarceration. Besides the human and economic costs of crimes
        by criminal illegal aliens, incarcerating the perpetrators
        carries a $49 million annual price tag.

According to the report, tax collection from North Carolina's illegal alien population amounts to about $225 million annually. However, if those jobs currently held by illegal aliens were filled by legal workers, often at higher wages, those taxes -- and probably additional taxes -- would be collected anyway.

The release of The Costs of Illegal Immigration to North Carolinians coincides with worsening fiscal news for the state. While the state spends more than $1.2 billion on services for illegal aliens, North Carolina is faced with a budget shortfall of $3 billion -- about 10 percent of the total budget.

"The staggering $1.2 billion price tag for North Carolinians demonstrates the extent to which illegal immigration has become a nationwide phenomenon and a burden on American taxpayers in every region of the country," noted Dan Stein, president of FAIR. "It is a burden that is especially onerous given the impact that the current economic crisis has already imposed on millions of American families and the havoc it is playing with state and local budgets."

After years of ignoring North Carolina's growing illegal immigration problem, the state now has more local police trained to identify and detain illegal aliens than all but one state, and has ended the practice of granting driver's licenses to people who cannot prove they are legal residents. "As has been demonstrated in other states, consistent state-based policies can reverse the flow of illegal migration. North Carolina's new governor, Bev Perdue, can ease the burdens on North Carolina taxpayers and reduce the state's budget shortfall by continuing and strengthening state efforts to discourage illegal immigration," Stein concluded.

About FAIR

Founded in 1979, FAIR is the country's largest and oldest immigration reform group. With over 250,000 members nationwide, FAIR fights for immigration policies that serve national interests, not special interests. FAIR believes that immigration reform must enhance national security, improve the economy, protect jobs, preserve our environment, and establish a rule of law that is recognized and enforced.

The full report is available at www.fairus.org.

http://protectourborder.net:80/numbersusa

Ask Not What Your Country Can Do For You...

According to the polls, 80% of Americans know that Illegal Immigration is wrong and must be stopped. The problem is that some Americans still believe that this problem can be solved with a secure border and NO interior enforcement. The reality is that even with a secure border, anyone in the world can still fly in as a tourist, work for a relative for cash, have anchor babies, and stay forever. Even More importantly, amnesty for 15 million more illegal’s actually means amnesty for 50 million more when you consider the children that they will have, and their relatives that will be allowed in due to chain migration. This will give them even more political power to try and legalize Illegal Immigration.

If Illegal Immigration is legalized, that means the whole world will export their unemployment problems here, and our country will quickly degenerate to a third world country due to shortages of natural resources, and enormous drains on our social services, especially our healthcare system that is already on the brink of collapse. The next decade will determine whether this nation survives as a sovereign nation, and whether the coming persecution of Christians and Traditionalists in America will be averted. The situation is critical, but between the two groups we have 80% of the population on our side. There is absolutely no reason for us to ever give up. Every loyal American must do whatever they are capable of doing, no matter how large or small it may be, and this is your opportunity to stand up for your descendants.  

Popular policy and proven enforcement tool

RALEIGH -- Judging from all the negative attention the federal program known as 287(g) has attracted lately, you'd think it was responsible for the recession, global warming and the state budget deficit.

The 287(g) program is a federal-local partnership that trains local law enforcement to enforce immigration law. Seven North Carolina counties, along with the city of Durham, currently participate in the initiative.

In February the American Civil Liberties Union, joined by law students at UNC-Chapel Hill, charged that 287(g) encourages racial profiling. A few weeks later the federal Government Accountability Office advised the Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency to do a better job of monitoring 287(g), including clarifying whether enforcement should be limited to serious criminals. Finally, the U.S. House Committee on Homeland Security recently held hearings on 287(g), concluding that it is unclear whether the program is a success.

At the same time, polls in North Carolina show overwhelming support for 287(g). Likewise, almost every county in the state is working with ICE in some capacity to help deport criminal illegal aliens.

So what we have here is an extremely popular policy that, according to the ACLU and others, is evil and ineffective. I, for one, side with the voters on this one. These are four reasons why:

We need 287(g).

Members of the open borders lobby have taken to arguing that in return for a "pathway to citizenship," they will agree to increased border security. They made this same promise in 1986; the border is still not secure. In any case, even the Reagan amnesty did not include felons.

Moreover, federal law already stipulates that the following classes of persons are ineligible for entry into the United States: most criminals, terrorists, spies, drug dealers, drug addicts, smugglers, pimps, prostitutes, communists, Nazis, persons likely to go on welfare, persons with a communicable disease, persons lacking documentation proving they have been vaccinated, and those with a physical or mental disorder that threatens the safety and property of others. That is to say that even under the most liberal immigration policies imaginable, we would still need a program - either 287(g) or something very similar - dedicated to deporting criminal illegal aliens and others barred from legally entering or remaining in the United States.

Illegal immigration is still a crime.

One of the primary accusations leveled against 287(g) is that ICE has marketed the partnership as being aimed at "serious" criminals; yet most 287(g) arrests are for misdemeanors and traffic stops. Never mind that most arrests, period, are for misdemeanors and traffic stops. What the opponents of 287(g) really mean here is that illegal immigration is not a crime.

Likewise, they would have us believe that those activities - identity theft, driving without a license or insurance, and tax evasion -- perpetrated by the majority of illegal aliens so as to conceal their status are not really crimes, either. Yet the language authorizing 287(g) in no way limits the program's applicability to "serious" criminals but is specifically intended to encourage local law enforcement to help enforce immigration law.

In other words, Congress' intent in passing 287(g) was not merely to target serious criminals, but to use local resources to discourage illegal immigration.

Immigration is a local issue.

Although the federal government is responsible for setting immigration policy, local governments have an important role to play in enforcing immigration law. To begin with, state law requires every elected and appointed official to swear an oath supporting the U.S. Constitution. Second, the costs of providing public services -- education, law enforcement, and health care -- to illegal aliens fall primarily on local budgets. Third, whatever the ACLU might say, surveys show that most N.C. voters think their local government needs to do more to combat illegal immigration.

The rule of law is the best protection against racism.

It is telling that the ACLU's report does not cite any definitive evidence that 287(g) encourages racial profiling. At best, it suggests that because most 287(g) arrests are for misdemeanors and because some sheriffs have made racist remarks, there is a strong likelihood that racial profiling is occurring.

Setting aside the fact that the ethnic category "Hispanic" encompasses people of different races, one gets the impression that the ACLU is upset that traffic violations are leading to the enforcement of immigration law. Again, the message here is that some groups should get a pass. Under the rule of law, however, no one gets a pass; everyone is treated the same, regardless of race or, even, immigration status.

Undocumented Illegal Aliens in North Carolina Face Deportation

You too can go on a border watch right from your computer. Click on link below and register

  http://www.blueservo.net/vcw.php

The North Carolina Minuteman patriots are neither anti-immigration nor anti-immigrant. We are against people coming here illegally.
    We know why they are coming, but that is no excuse for breaking our laws. We have a rather liberal immigration policy. People are allowed to come here for myriad reasons and stay for different lengths of time.

The constant mantra - they do work Americans won't do - is maddening to real Americans who do all those jobs, just at a better wage.  There's not a  job Americans won't do. It is a job Americans won't do for suppressed wages.

    Immigration drives down wages, and illegal immigration drives down wages even more. Americans work more hours per week than any other industrialized country. I wonder why illegal's don't work as hard to change the problems in their country as they do to sneak into ours.

    The reason Americans are unhappy with the influx of immigrants is the amount of money spent on them. Most of the jobs that illegal immigrants get do not offer benefits. When an illness happens, they go to emergency rooms for help. They cannot pay that bill, so that drives up health care costs to paying Americans.

    It is the cost of everything for illegal immigrants that Americans resent. What does it cost to have special classes for Spanish-speaking children? What does it cost in free lunches? It is the cost, always, that irritates hard-working, tax-paying Americans.

    Yes, it is sad when children of illegal immigrants return to an empty house after their parents have been detained. Yes, it is sad these children have to be taken somewhere to be cared for. It is all sad, and it is fixable. Stop coming here illegally. This is not our fault. We did not ask these people to come here without documentation.

    Americans always are expected to be guilt-ridden because we have more. We have more because we work more. We don't take days off to celebrate a saint's day. We don't have time to march in the streets when we are unhappy. We don't sneak into another country and ask for rights we don't deserve.

    Breaking the law should carry a price. These people gambled and lost. Are we monsters for finally noticing that 12 to 20 million people don't belong here? No, we are law-abiding people, and we expect the same from anyone choosing to live here with us.  

Laws are on the books already, just enforce the existing Immigration Laws. Enforcing them is what would be fair and honest to the American people. lack of enforcement is exactly what caused the problem in the first place. Nothing is broken except our border. Build all of the fence that has already been signed by the president, enforce that law. Get us Inland Enforcement immediately, deport all of them and immediately close the borders. The border patrol says they can deport 20 million in a year, just get their supervision off their backs.

 Stop the North American Union, stop the Partition  Treaty which gives our Social Security to illegal aliens. Pull us out of N.A.F.T.A., Stop the superhighway.

 There are far more productive duties our representatives could be doing. Kick the Mexican Consulates out of our country along  with the illegal aliens. 

 Immediately make English America's official language.

  From 2001 to 2003, seven federal agencies, seven states agencies and three local governments employed thousands of people using Social Security cards clearly marked as non-work documents. The government has issued 7 million such cards, certain foreign nationals are eligible for them so they can get public benefits. But it is illegal for them to work. Yet the government over three years illegally employed more than 49,000 such card holders.