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Open Borders Destroying America?...
Ask Your Children
August 29, 2003
By Jim Moore
Being a consumer, buy-now-pay-later society, when we wonder about what illegal immigration is costing this nation we get out the figures and start calculating the loss in terms of money.
Always money.
Seldom do we consider, or empathize with, the victims of this lawless, over-the-border explosion: the rancher who has his fence wires cut and his cattle driven off; the wife who is afraid to leave the house at night for fear of being assaulted; the farmer who has his croplands invaded and trampled flat; the homeowner who has to clean up the garbage the illegals dump and leave behind.
If you think this is an exaggeration, you haven't been in Arizona, California, New Mexico, or Texas lately. The horror scenes experienced, and reported daily, about the invasion of our borders is enough to turn stomachs.
Mine, for one, did a real flip flop when I read the latest report from WorldNetDaily of what illegal immigration is now costing America. And not just in money.
When I got to the part in the report about what the cost of illegal immigration was doing to the education of our children, I nearly retched. Having to subsidize mostly illiterate foreigners is bad enough, but lowering the boom on the necessary tools for educating our school children is an unconscionable act. Which I, for one, will never accept nor forgive.
Illegals are "busting the educational budget", reports WorldNetDaily, "to the tune of $7.4 billion", which is hurting American kids across the country.
You certainly don't have to be told that public schools throughout the nation are on shoe-string budgets, and are also facing continuing decreases in funding. What money is budgeted is used to accommodate mass illegal immigration. Result? American kids, yours and mine, are taking the hit.
That's not all. The budget shortfalls also mean reductions in child care and early childhood programs. The American Federation for Immigration Reform (FAIR) tells us that, "drastic cuts mean teacher layoffs, larger class sizes, fewer textbooks, elimination of sports, language programs, and after-school activities." All benefits that our own kids need, and aren't getting.
And to pay for all the things our kids are NOT getting, how much money is illegal immigration depriving the states of? California spends the most: $2.2 billion to educate illegal immigrant children; ranking second and third are Texas and New York.
Like it or not, that's only a small fraction of what it costs us to subsidize education for more than one million illegal immigrant children now living in the U.S. All children have a right to an education, no one can argue that; but not at the expense of our own kids.
A Supreme Court decision in 1982 forbade public schools from shutting out any children, regardless of citizenship status, from an education. That means that children of illegal immigrants are entitled to the same educational benefits as American children, without having to share in the cost.
The fact that ALL costs must be borne by American taxpayers didn't seem to bother the Supreme Court---or its supporters, who maintain that educating illegals is minimal compared to the $700 billion annual cost of public education.
But this lopsided giveaway is on the hot seat. More and more American families are getting fed up with providing free education, and other gratis benefits, to illegal aliens. With a million illegals taking up residence in the U.S. every year, Americans families are rebelling.
The latest polls show that 70% of Americans want a reduction of immigrants into the U.S. Over 80% feel that closing our eyes to illegals jumping the border will encourage more to break the law. And over 90% of Americans support military patrols of our borders. (Those soldiers that aren't somewhere else in the world protecting other borders, that is.)
With this illegal, foreign bombardment of America's education budgets, costs are exploding, debt is increasing, the money-well is running dry, and American children are the losers.
Are there any answers? Try these. Stop treating illegal immigration as a free lunch. Close the gaping holes in our southwest and northeast borders, and do it fast. Enforce the immigration laws that politicians seem to have forgotten are already on the books.
"If illegal immigration is not stopped at the borders," warns FAIR spokesman, David Ray, "its negative consequences, including bankrupt emergency rooms, and overcrowded schools, quickly become everyone's financial burden."
I have news for you, Mr. Ray.
It already IS everyone's financial burden. But more than that.
Since American kids are being cheated out of a full and proper education, the cost we will ultimately have to pay---because our next generation is being short-changed---will be a lot more than financial. A lot more.
If ever there was a time of reconciliation under crisis, this is it.
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