11/16/2009 10:05:00 PM Editorial: Immigration calls for action
The Daily Courier
While health care and the economy continue to toil and dominate every American discussion from chambers of Congress to dinner tables, reform of another kind still dominates Arizona - immigration.
Department of Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano gave a border battle update Friday, which included a call to Congress to strengthen the laws of the land.
Consider that at least 12 million people are living in America illegally, according to the former Arizona governor. And news to no one, legal citizens are subsidizing their stay.
More locally, the Arizona Hospital and Health care Association reports that providing care to illegal immigrants costs state hospitals about $150 million annually. Furthermore, the Congressional Budget Office has projected that many of the people who will remain uninsured - even if health care legislation gets its approval - will be illegal immigrants. Yavapai County Sheriff Steve Waugh says that illegals jailed for criminal acts or under an Immigration and Customs Enforcement hold average 11 percent of the jail population. With a $16 million annual jail budget, that means they are taking up $1.76 million out of that budget annually.
In early 2007 when The Daily Courier published a multi-part series on "The Cost of Immigration," criminal justice officials said the cost of prosecuting illegal immigrants was about $6.6 million in early January of that year. The cost for translators increased in one year from $57.000 to $207,330. In that same January 122 illegals were among the 2,000 individuals on supervised or intensive probation in the county and 127 illegals were among the 600 individuals on unsupervised probation.
It's a situation Napolitano on Friday called "a status quo that is simply unacceptable."
As for the Department of Homeland Security, it's making progress.
The DHS has expanded the Secure Communities program, which identifies illegal aliens booked into local jails. Thursday marked the end of the first year for the program, which 95 jurisdictions use and has identified more than 111,000 criminal aliens. To crack down on illegal labor, Immigration and Customs Enforcement audited more employers suspected of hiring illegal labor in a single day in July than it had audited in all of 2008. And by expanding the E-Verify system - an Internet-based system that allows participating employers to verify electronically the employment eligibility of new hires - the program has grown at the rate of nearly 2,000 employers per week.
Those are the security measures. Now we need tougher laws from our legislators.
"In order to have fully effective law enforcement, we need Congress to create the legal foundation for bringing the millions of illegal immigrants in this country out of the shadows, require them to register and pay all taxes they owe, and enforce the penalties that they will have to pay as part of earning legal status," Napolitano said. "Let me emphasize this: we will never have fully effective law enforcement or national security as long as so many millions remain in the shadows."
Catching illegal activity in the act is one thing. What we do then defines our solution.
Reader Comments
Posted: Friday, November 20, 2009
Article comment by:
Foolishness
honkybrujo: Your posts just get more and more ridiculous. The idea that Prescott is some kind of HQ of the KKK is absurd. You just sound foolish...mostly because you are.
Posted: Wednesday, November 18, 2009
Article comment by:
honkybrujo
I'm staying right here and doing what I've done in the past fighting the ignorant, and racist. Time is slowly clearing this area of teabaggers and the klan, one more generation and Prescott will rejoin the United States.
Posted: Wednesday, November 18, 2009
Article comment by:
I'm just sayin'
Dare you dream of a blue state Arizona? You must love the way California is doing $21Billion in the red. Why don't you just move to a real live liberal blue state where obviously you'll be much happier. You complain so much, it must be just awful living in Arizona. I'd go where my values are reflected. Sounds like yours are in San Francisco. Go already. Nancy Pelosi will welcome you with open arms.
YES, LOOK, LOOK CLOSELY at HOW the dedicated "Efforts" of George W. Bush and Republican geniuses, REAL "Leaders" like Arizona Senators Jon Kyl and John McCain have "Vastly Improved" Border Security and Illegal Immigration circumstances over "THE LAST EIGHT YEARS" all for Arizona, HAVEN'T THEY??
After ALL, What's Good for Republicans and is Good for Business, and Good for Profits, is Good for Arizona, ISN'T IT??
Posted: Wednesday, November 18, 2009
Article comment by:
Amen! Except you got it wrong.
Clock wrote: "these illegal aliens don't care at all about the stability and dignity of this nation. They ONLY care about what they can get for themselves". Sounds like right wing mouthpieces Rush, Coulter, etc. except they hide behind country and people are too stupid to see it's all about creating their empire - not creating a stronger, better nation.
Posted: Wednesday, November 18, 2009
Article comment by:
No name provided
Chistopher, I appreciated your post- it was thoughful, rational and intelligent. I do however disagree that people like "watching the clock" can grow. He/she is a racist-pure and simple. It is not the legal status he is opposed to, it is their national origin- translation: he hates mexicans. These people will never change. He/she the same type of person who hates homosexuals, muslims, jews, blacks and feminists. Thanks for your insight but save your breath.
Posted: Wednesday, November 18, 2009
Article comment by:
Anon E. Mouse
Donkeyburpo - Having read your posts here, I vigorously encourage you to dream, because it is clear that thinking rationally is not your cup of tea, bagger.
Posted: Tuesday, November 17, 2009
Article comment by:
honkybrujo
Arizona, A Democrat "Blue State" dare I dream?
Posted: Tuesday, November 17, 2009
Article comment by:
Christopher
Watching Clock, the issue by design is the limitation on the numbers of the work visas. Yet the demand for the labor in Arizona has gone on longer than I've been here, and far exceeded the available work visas. I'm an old Arizona boy and have seen this labor force and who was hiring. They were some of the largest cattle and farm operations and some of our most revered Politicians of the Phoenix 40 era. The demand for labor was purposefully kept cheep and illegal (but not so illegal for the companies). So, this is not a new phenomenon nor was it a Democrat vote appeaser, quite the opposite, if you knew the parties. It was always about cheep labor. The immigrants who lined up the work had to get here by their own means and not through the port of entries. This is the illegal labor problem and easily conflated with the criminal and contraband problem. The problems can be better contained by increasing the work visas for Mexico residents, sufficient to meet the demand. At the port of entry, the names can be run against the international and US crime data bases. The illegal entries made through the desert would be more likly be the criminals, drug runners and/or
terrorist. Mexico has a work visa system, and you best not be caught working without one. There is a very different problem of illegal permanent residents, these folk often have family ties or children and unlike the work visa itinerant workers, live on here on a more permanent basis and have assimilated. I believe the problem or opportunity will never be resolved by enforcement or higher walls and to continue that path only exasperates the criminal enterprises, some created out of necessity. Like Europe we should consider transitioning to open borders with Mexico and Canada with reciprocity for US citizens. When the economy was expansive and before the Great Recession, the going rate was $10 per hour. Anybody making minimum wage could have easily competed for the day labor pool. The fact that the going rate exceeded minimum wage suggest the demand for labor was not-met and not taken from US citizens. Although you reveal some personal biases, but people can grow.
Posted: Tuesday, November 17, 2009
Article comment by:
More Democrats
You know what Grassroots, you just might be right. And I think that issue is what has so many Republicans shaking in their boots -- more Democrats, lol. I love it!! Things are changing. It is not going to stop. (Life is always changing.) Why not try and handle the change with some dignity and grace?
Posted: Tuesday, November 17, 2009
Article comment by:
Grassroots
The Obama administration with, Janet as the mouthpiece, wants to get the amnesty rolling so the Democrats will have "12 million" (it's way more) new Democrat voters to keep the gimme class on the Democrat plantation.
If politicians would just enforce existing immigration laws, it would be better for everybody. Come into this country legally and nobody has a problem. REAL immigrants don't need an amnesty.
Posted: Tuesday, November 17, 2009
Article comment by:
Wage corrections are a just part of the economic correction cycle
Yep the day of paying someone $25 per hour to put a fence post in are gone. And it has nothig to do with the illegals. You can blame it on them but when they are gone it ain't gonna change nothin. Legals and illegals don't have the bucks to spend that kind of change for labor. The time for out of whack wages are over.
Posted: Tuesday, November 17, 2009
Article comment by:
Far more pressing issues!
I'll worry about illegal immigration when my healthcare insurance and budget/employment issues are resolved. Plus I'll want resolution of the $3 BILLION plus in Medicare overcharges resolved too. Until then there are far more pressing problems than worrying about illegal immigration (which, by the way, recent numbers have show have dropped significantly). Maybe it is time the editor/writer got out among the working class and stopped obcessing about this particular issue. It is akin to picking at a scab!
Posted: Tuesday, November 17, 2009
Article comment by:
Granpa
If you really want to understand the consequences of uncontrolled immigration, ask an American Indian to explain it to you.
Posted: Tuesday, November 17, 2009
Article comment by:
Don't believ Janet, she has been lying about this subject for years
Speed: Because they really don't want to solve the problem. They just wish to pay it lip service while insuring it continues. Democrats count on the Hispanic vote, and buy it by being as soft as possible on illegal immigration (they will also push for amnesty planning on more Democrat voters) and too many Republicans like to employ illegals at a lower cost than legal workers. The problem would be actually pretty easy to solve if anyone in power really wanted to solve it. Your idea is good one. There are other very simple things that could be done. Make it a crime punishable by a minimum of year in jail for employing an illegal immigrant for instance. Like all other crimes, make ignorance of their actual status no defense. Have this apply to even someone that hires day labor to do yard work and then enforce it relentlessly. Take the ability to work away, most will go home.
