Time To Get Tough Part 5

IT'S CALLED ILLEGAL IMMIGRATION FOR A REASON We've been inundated with criminal activity.

It's just-it's been outrageous.1

-Arizona Governor Jan Brewer Illegal immigration is a wrecking ball aimed at U.S. taxpayers. Was.h.i.+ngton needs to get tough and fight for "We the People," not for the special interests who want cheap labor and a minority voting bloc. Every year taxpayers are getting stuck with a $113 billion bill to pay for the costs of illegal immigration.2 That's a bill we can't afford and wouldn't have to pay if people in Was.h.i.+ngton did their jobs and upheld our nation's laws.

Too many Republicans in Was.h.i.+ngton turn a blind eye to illegal immigration because some of their business supporters want artificially cheap labor. Liberal Democrats, on the other hand, look on illegal immigrants as another potential Democrat voting bloc eager for their big government agenda of welfare handouts, cla.s.s warfare, and "affirmative action." What do taxpayers get? They get the shaft.

Illegal Criminals Have Got to Go

Both sides need to grow up and put America's interests first-and that means doing what's right for our economy, our national security, and our public safety. According to a Government Accountability Office (GAO) 2011 report, America's prisons house 351,000 criminal aliens who committed a crime after having already broken the law by entering America illegally. Making taxpayers pay for 351,000 criminals who should never have been here in the first place is ridiculous. The GAO says that the annual price tag to incarcerate these thugs is $1.1 billion. And get this: criminal aliens have an average of seven arrests.3 That's at least seven crimes committed against American citizens by each of these criminals who should never have been allowed across our borders.

According to the New York Times, one out of every three federal prison inmates is a Latino, and three quarters of these are here illegally.4 As one Phoenix, Arizona, a.s.sistant federal defender put it, "I have Anglo and Native American clients who tell me about being the only non-Spanish speaker in their pod. Ten years ago, it just wasn't that way.... A lot of times the guards don't speak the language. How do you safely guard people who may not understand your orders?"5 A better question is why should we have to guard them at all? Have we suddenly become an annex of Mexico's prison system? If so, Mexico should pay for it. I actually have a theory that Mexico is sending their absolute worst, possibly including prisoners, in order for us to bear the cost, both financial and social. This would account for the fact that there is so much crime and violence.

We shouldn't want lawbreakers as citizens-and that's what illegal immigrants are by definition: lawbreakers. Yes, America is a nation of immigrants, but that doesn't mean we have to offer citizens.h.i.+p to everyone who crosses our borders. I'd guess just about every poor person in the world wants to come here. Who wouldn't want to come to the greatest nation on earth? But that obviously is crazy. What is not crazy is having an immigration policy where we decide which potential immigrants are ent.i.tled to citizens.h.i.+p, where we choose the best and most productive people who want to come here for that honor. We should not let ourselves become the dumping ground for other countries' undesirables. Instead we should roll out a welcome mat only to those who can make our country better-and illegal immigrant criminals don't do that.

The illegal immigrant crime problem is far more serious and threatening than most people understand. Along our southern border, our citizens, police, and border patrol agents are being attacked with increasing brutality and regularity. Did you know that three border patrol agents are a.s.saulted every day along America's southern border? And it's getting worse. According to the Justice Department, a.s.saults against U.S. border patrol agents have spiked 46 percent.6 Then there is the "most dangerous gang in the world," the Mara Salvatrucha, more commonly known as the MS-13 gang. The gang, comprised mostly of Central American immigrants, is known for its extreme viciousness. Besides smuggling (and abusing) illegal immigrants into the United States, MS-13 might be conspiring with terrorists. Al Qaeda is always looking for a way to smuggle terrorists into our country, and American officials know that a top al Qaeda lieutenant (who had also been in Canada seeking nuclear material for a so-called "dirty bomb") met with leaders of MS-13 about ways to infiltrate America through our border with Mexico.7 Intelligence agencies have also spotted several known members of the Somalia-based Al Shabaab Islamic terror group in Mexico and have warned that they are planning to penetrate the United States.8 MS-13 represents a lethal threat to both our citizens and illegal immigrants. The gang brags that they are "immigrant hunters." They lie in wait at immigration checkpoints knowing that illegals will jump off trains. MS-13 then holds the stranded illegal aliens for ransom. With 22,000 illegal immigrant kidnappings occurring each year, it's estimated that gangs like MS-13 could be raking in upwards of $50 million annually.9 Obviously not all illegal immigrants are members of violent gangs. Many aliens are just seeking a better life for their families. Who could fault them? But again, we cannot become a repository for all the poor and desperate people of the world. For America to change its culture and way of life, to give away American jobs at a time of high unemployment to non-citizens who have broken the law to come here, is to commit economic and cultural suicide.

And not enforcing our laws leads directly to the deaths of American citizens. Here is a poignant example. In 2010, Carlos Montano, an illegal immigrant, killed a 66-year-old nun, Sister Denise Mosier, and critically injured two others when Montano was driving drunk in a Virginia suburb. Incredibly, Carlos Montano had been arrested not once but twice before on drunk-driving charges and had other traffic-related arrests. But when Montano got handed off to Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) for deportation, the Department of Homeland Security inexplicably let Montano walk. "We handed him over to the feds a.s.suming he would be deported," said Corey Steward, chairman of the Prince William County's Board of Supervisors. "But instead federal authorities released him back into the neighborhood and he killed a nun. . . . Blood is on the hands of Congress for not properly funding immigration enforcement."10 The needless death of Sister Denise Mosier is hardly an isolated case. There are countless stories of driving fatalities and serious injuries by people who should not have been on American roads in the first place. When liberals like Barack Obama hear tragic stories like that of Sister Mosier, they come back with, "Yes, and that's precisely why we should grant 'undoc.u.mented workers'"-that's illegals to you and me-"driver's licenses and teach them the rules of our roads!" It's a level of cluelessness that borders on delusion.

Look, my wife is an immigrant-a legal immigrant. Did she have to jump through legal hoops? Of course. Did she complain about it? No, she didn't. She is grateful for the chance to live in America. So she complied with the laws of the land. She worked hard to become a U.S. citizen-and the U.S. got a good one.

Illegals Are Breaking Our Bank

In purely economic terms, however, one of illegal immigration's biggest costs to taxpayers involves the monies paid to educate the children of illegal aliens. Illegal immigrant children often require special cla.s.ses and language specialists, and take time and resources away from our own students. On this point I strongly disagree with Governor Rick Perry. The Federation for American Immigration Reform (FAIR) reports that U.S. taxpayers sh.e.l.l out $52 billion annually to educate illegal aliens. Liberals like to say that illegal aliens pay taxes too in the form of sales taxes and the fees and taxes that get folded into the costs of things like gasoline. But this argument fails-big time. According to FAIR, on average, less than 5 percent of the public costs a.s.sociated with illegals are regained through taxes paid by illegal aliens.11 The fact is when it comes to taxpayer-provided social services and welfare, illegal aliens have elbowed their way to the front of the line. In 2011, the Houston Chronicle reported that 70 percent of the illegal immigrant families living in Texas received welfare a.s.sistance. That's compared to the already too high 39 percent of native-born Americans who receive welfare.12 That's insane. People who broke into the country use our social safety net with greater regularity than our own citizens! How can we ever expect to get a handle on the illegal immigration crisis when we incentivize and reward it with free welfare checks and health care?

"We can no longer afford to be HMO to the world," says Los Angeles County Supervisor Michael Antonovich. He says that the total cost to taxpayers for illegal immigrants in Los Angeles County is $1.6 billion, "not including the hundreds of millions of dollars for education."13 The root cause of all the welfare payments to illegal aliens is the so-called "anchor baby" phenomenon, which is when illegal immigrant mothers have a baby on American soil. The child automatically becomes an American citizen, though this was never the intention of the Fourteenth Amendment, which states, "All citizens born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and the state wherein they reside." The clear purpose of the Fourteenth Amendment, ratified in 1868, three years after the end of the Civil War, was to guarantee full citizens.h.i.+p rights to now emanc.i.p.ated former slaves. It was not intended to guarantee untrammeled immigration to the United States.

Some 4 million anchor babies are now officially U.S. citizens. This has to stop. The only other major country in the world that issues citizens.h.i.+p based on where one's mother delivers her child is Canada. The rest of the world bases citizens.h.i.+p on who the kid's parents are, which is of course the only sane standard.14 If a pregnant American mother is traveling to Egypt on business and goes into delivery, do we instantly declare her child an Egyptian? Of course not. But that's precisely what goes on every day in America: women who have zero connection to the United States cross the border, deliver a baby, and their kid magically becomes an American citizen eligible to receive all the rights and benefits of those who have lived, worked, and paid taxes in our country.

Republican Senators John Kyl of Arizona and Lindsey Graham of South Carolina have discussed introducing a const.i.tutional amendment to clarify and restore the original intent of the Fourteenth Amendment. It's long past time that America joins the rest of the world in granting citizens.h.i.+p along rational lines.

Liberal Myths

But in restoring sanity to the interpretation and enforcement of our laws, we'll have to fight liberal myths every step of the way. We've all heard a million times: "We need illegal immigrants because they are willing to do jobs Americans just won't." To that one I say, "Says who?" We have 25 million citizens who need jobs, and 7 million illegal immigrants holding American jobs. Do the math. If illegal aliens weren't holding these jobs, American citizens would, because these jobs need to be filled, and guess what? Those jobs would pay more than they do now, because illegal low-wage workers drive down wage rates. Even the Was.h.i.+ngton Post has conceded that "an influx of immigrants has helped depress the incomes of low-skilled workers in recent decades, many economists agree."15 As research by Harvard University economist George J. Borjas has shown, "the primary losers in this country are workers who do not have high school diplomas, particularly blacks and native-born Hispanics." Borjas found that from 1980 to 2000, illegal immigrants lowered the nation's average wages some 7.4 percent for America's 10 million native-born men who lack a high school diploma.16 You would think that Obama, who talks a good game about caring for the poor, would try to help raise wages for people at the bottom of the economic ladder. But with black teenage unemployment now at a staggering 46.5 percent, and with the overall black underemployment rate at a breathtaking 18.8 percent, it's outrageous that the president continues to mock Republican efforts to reduce illegal immigration and boost wages.17 "All the stuff they [Republicans] ask for, we've done," said Obama at a 2011 immigration rally in El Paso, Texas. "Maybe they'll need a moat," Obama said to laughter. "Maybe they want alligators in the moat! They'll never be satisfied."18 Mr. President, you might think the border deaths, narco terrorists, and waves of violent illegal criminals into America are a joke, but the people who live along the border and the communities under siege do not. We need a president who will get tough, enforce our laws, protect our people, and pull wages up.

One of the biggest myths we have been told is that illegal immigrants actually produce a net gain economically. This is a cute argument, but it's a complete joke. It a.s.sumes, among other things, that illegal workers keep their money here in America. But they don't. In 2006, 73 percent of Latino immigrants regularly sent money back to their home countries, amounting to $45 billion. For countries like Mexico, illegal immigrants in the United States are a cash cow. In fact, Mexico's second biggest source of foreign income, just behind oil exports, comes from-you guessed it-remittances from illegal aliens. In 2008, Mexico got $25.1 billion in money sent back home. Remittances have skyrocketed over the last decade. They went from $9 billion in 2001 to $26 billion in 2007.19 That's money that American workers could be earning, saving, and spending here in the United States.

So what to do?

Reform Our Illegal Immigration System

Before I lay out what needs to be done to get our illegal immigration mess fixed, it's worth first discussing what America needs to do with our legal immigration system. It, too, is backwards and in need of a total overhaul. Thankfully, our neighbors to the north, Canada, have a smart, merit-based plan that America should adopt.

Canada's legal immigration plan starts with a simple and smart question: How will any immigrant applying for citizens.h.i.+p "support the development of a strong, prosperous Canadian economy"? Economic benefit should be our chief aim. America doesn't need freeloaders who come here to live off our welfare system. We need legal immigrants who bring skills, prosperity, and intellectual capital. In Canada, aliens applying for permanent residence are awarded points based on their skills and how they will benefit the Canadian economy. Only 40 percent of the overall determination on whether permanent residence will be granted depends on family relations.h.i.+ps or refugee status. The remaining 60 percent of the decision hinges on how the immigrant will add value to Canada's economy. Our system is almost exactly the opposite. In fact, it's worse. Seventy percent of the one million permanent resident admissions the United States grants every year are based on family relations. Only 13 percent depend on employment (the remainder are for refugees and diversity visas).20 This makes no sense whatsoever.

For a Canadian applicant to be considered for permanent residency, he must score a minimum of 67 points out of 100. He must also have a minimum of one year of full-time work experience in a desired skill area within the last ten years. The better the immigrant's attributes, the higher the score. If the alien doesn't earn 67 points and is serious about wanting to live in Canada, he can work on developing his marketable skills until he does qualify. For example, if the applicant isn't a college graduate, he can go home, get a college degree, and add 25 points to his total and reapply. As a result, roughly half of Canada's immigrants have a bachelor's degree.21 Canada's legal immigration system also requires that before an immigrant qualifies for Canada's equivalent of Social Security, he has to have been resident in the country for at least ten of his adult years. In America, we only require five years.22

Work Visas

Our country's leaders are just so plain stupid. As an example, foreign students come over to our colleges, learn everything there is to learn about physics, finance, mathematics, and computers, and graduate with honors. They would love to stay in this country, but we don't allow them to. We immediately s.h.i.+p them back to their country to use all of the knowledge they learned at the best colleges in the United States back in their country rather than keep it here in ours.

When we have gifted people in this country we should cherish them and let them stay. But instead we fling our arms wide open to the lowlifes, the criminals, the people who have no intention to contribute to our country. We spend billions of dollars taking care of them as they, in many cases, run rampant through our streets, doing many things you're not supposed to do. But the great ones, we immediately expel.

Wouldn't it be better if we invited foreign students graduating from our colleges to stay to build American companies, instead of foreign companies that will be wreaking havoc against Boeing, Caterpillar, and many other of our great American companies in the future?

If we adopted this commonsense merit-based approach, our immigration policy would be guided by what benefits America. That's the way it ought to be. If American businesses need immigrants with particular technical skills, by all means, let's hire them. The privilege of becoming an American citizen should be about the value an immigrant brings to our country, not about an open door for anyone and everyone who wants to come here.

Bottom line: living in America is the greatest blessing a person could ever receive. If people want to live and work here, they should bring something to the table, not just be feasting off it.

The 5-Point Trump Plan

Now, as for what to do about illegal immigration, we should follow the repeal of the anchor baby provisions with a five-point program to create a smart and humane plan to get illegal immigration under control. It starts with securing our borders. Look, if a nation can't protect its own borders, it ceases to be a country. We're not just some landma.s.s that anyone who wants to can trample on at will. I believe America is an exceptional nation worthy of protection. That requires getting tough on border enforcement. We can and should have a robust debate over whether that means continuing to build the physical border fence or utilizing "virtual fences" that use lasers as trip wires to monitor illegal border crossings.

From the research my people have shown me, I'm not impressed with the mediocre success rates of the current crop of virtual fences that have been developed and tested. I am, however, impressed with the success of the double- and triple-layered fence in places like Yuma, Arizona. The wall there is a serious 20-foot wall. It has three walls separated by 75-yard "no man's lands" for border agents to zoom up and down in vehicles. It also has cameras, radio systems, radar, and pole-topped lights.23 "This wall works," says U.S. border patrol agent Michael Bernacke. "A lot of people have the misconception that it is a waste of time and money, but the numbers of apprehensions show that it works." After the triple-layered fence was installed, the 120-mile stretch of the U.S.-Mexican border known as the Yuma sector experienced a 72 percent plunge in illegal immigrant apprehensions. Before the fence was installed, 800 people were apprehended attempting to enter America each day. Post-fence, that number was 50 or fewer.24 Some say Yuma's flat terrain makes it a special case and that other parts of the border aren't conducive to that kind of fence. In that case, we just need to be ready to build other kinds of fences, too. The point is that properly built walls work. We just need the political will to finish the job. And by the way, finis.h.i.+ng the job will employ a lot of construction workers. Moreover, I call on Congress and the president to hire another 25,000 border patrol agents and give them the aerial equipment they need, such as Predator drones, to provide real-time aerial reconnaissance information to agents guarding the border wall.

Second, we need a president who will enforce our laws. Right now, in a sneaky attempt to appease the strong and well-organized pro-amnesty lobby, the Department of Homeland Security has, on Obama's orders, put a freeze on the deportation of 300,000 illegal immigrants. The administration says it wants to review each case individually and will only deport illegal aliens with criminal records, and that "no enforcement resources will be expended on those who do not pose a threat to public safety."25 This wholesale abdication of a president's const.i.tutional duties is as shocking as it is foolish. It's political pandering of the worst kind. Worse, Obama has said these aliens who were slated for deportation can obtain work permits !26 So in Obama we have a president who is not only not enforcing our laws, he is helping illegal immigrants to break them further! Obama wants to reward illegal immigrants by giving them the chance to take yet another American job. "The lesson for illegal aliens," says James R. Edwards Jr., coauthor of The Congressional Politics of Immigration Reform, is that if they get "caught, they can escape immigration trouble, win legal status and seek a work permit."27 How can we ask our brave U.S. border agents to risk their lives when the commander in chief is just going to shrug his shoulders and let 300,000 illegals make a mockery of our laws? It's a total disgrace. Obama should be ashamed to play politics on an issue of such national importance. But he's not. He thinks it's cute and makes jokes about it, and he thinks it will win him votes on the insulting a.s.sumption that Latino Americans don't care about America's laws. The evidence is clear that President Obama certainly doesn't care about America's immigration laws. After all, two of his relatives-his uncle Omar Onyango Obama (arrested for drunk driving in Ma.s.sachusetts) and his aunt Zeituni Onyango-are illegal aliens who have magically avoided deportation, with his aunt having finally been awarded asylum. Republican Congressman Steve King of Iowa has called for congressional hearings into whether the White House intervened on behalf of President Obama's relatives. But of course the bigger scandal is that it is Obama administration policy to give special treatment to all illegal aliens-to treat them as if they are legal.

You just can't make this stuff up. Can you imagine the national firestorm the liberal media would have stoked had President George W. Bush had not one but two illegal immigrant family members who had received special treatment and been permitted to stay in America?28 Or what if President Bush had failed to enforce environmental laws and gave orders to federal agencies to help businesses break such laws? Democrats would have called for Bush's impeachment. But not this president. The liberal media protect Obama every way they can.

The third thing we need to do is overturn Obama's insane new ICE recommendations for illegal immigrant detention facilities. In an effort to coddle illegal aliens, officials at nine detention facilities have now been instructed to make the following changes: * Soften the look for the facility with hanging plants, flower baskets, new paint colors . . . wall graphics and framed pictures on the walls, and enhance the aesthetics of the living areas....

* Expand programming for detainees to include movie nights, bingo, arts and crafts, dance, walk and exercise cla.s.ses, health and welfare cla.s.ses, basic cooking cla.s.ses, tutoring and self-paced computer training on portable computer stations....

* Provide celebrations of special occasions and [allow] a detainee to receive outside, packaged food for celebrations....

* Provide fresh carrot sticks and celery or other vegetables in a bar format....

* Provide self-serve beverage bars....

* Offer water and tea in the housing area at all times.

* Provide a unit manager so detainees have someone available to talk to and to solve problems in the facility other than the immediate guard....

* Survey community-based immigration advocacy groups and immigration attorneys for suggestions that may improve communication and ease of access....

* Increase availability of legal supplies and postage ... for legal correspondence.

* Add research resources at the law libraries....

* [Provide] non-penal clothing for detainees to wear.

* Eliminate lock downs and lights out....

* Reduce the frequency of and . . . wholly eliminate pat down searches....

* Provide four hours or more hours of recreation in a natural setting. . . .

* Provide internet-based free phone service.

* Provide email access for detainees....29 That's right, your government now requires resort-like accommodations-paid for by you, the American taxpayer-to reward the flood of people entering our country illegally. Obama has turned America into a laughingstock. Our next president must stop this insanity.

The next part of my plan involves opposing the so-called DREAM Act, which grants in-state tuition benefits at public colleges and universities to illegal immigrant college students. The Development, Relief, and Education for Alien Minors (DREAM) proposal is yet another attempt by Obama and his pro-amnesty pals to create new anchors and rewards for those who defy our laws.

So get this: under the DREAM Act, if you're not a citizen but a child of illegal immigrants, then you get in-state tuition benefits, but if you're a legal citizen living out of state, you have to pay higher tuition. So an American student in Texas who wants to go to college in Arizona will have to pay more in tuition than a non-citizen student living illegally in Arizona. How fair is that? The fact that legislation like the DREAM Act has even seen the light of day shows you just how upside down our immigration policies have become-and just how far politicians are willing to pander to what they see as a Latino voting bloc. Sacrificing American laws on the altar of political expediency is immoral. If Congress is ever foolish enough to pa.s.s legislation that grants tuition breaks for illegal aliens, America's next president must have the political courage and const.i.tutional conviction to veto it.

Democrats need to respect our laws, respect the fact that Latino Americans are as interested in the rule of law as anyone else, respect the immigrants who are patiently and lawfully standing in line for legal citizens.h.i.+p, and most of all respect our own citizens who should not have the rule of law, their jobs, even their lives and their nation's future put at risk by irresponsible Was.h.i.+ngton politicians. That's the sort of "hope and change" we need, not a commander in chief who thinks border security and the rule of law is a joke.

TEN.

THE AMERICA OUR CHILDREN DESERVE.

Freedom is never more than one generation away from extinction. We didn't pa.s.s it to our children in the bloodstream. It must be fought for, protected, and handed on for them to do the same.

-President Ronald Reagan Barack Obama has done an incredible job of tarnis.h.i.+ng our kids' futures.

He's saddled our children with more debt than we acc.u.mulated in 225 years in America. He's bowed down to China and allowed them to steal our economic future through currency manipulation and ripping off our technological and military secrets. He's failed to stand up to the Middle Eastern oil mobsters known as OPEC who think they can hold us hostage through higher prices at the pump. He's unleashed Obamacare on our small businesses and brought job creation and hiring to a screeching halt.

And he's created an economic climate where young people out of college face incredible uncertainty. Three years ago, 90 percent of college graduates landed a job out of college. Today, under the community organizer, that figure is a depressing 56 percent.1 I love America. I'm saddened by what I see happening to our country. We're being humiliated, disrespected, and badly abused. Obama was a leftist experiment that has failed and gone horribly wrong, and everyone knows it. Even friends of mine who voted for the guy privately admit that he's been a huge disappointment. We cannot afford four more years of this mess. Our children's futures are on the line-and we have to come through for them. We have to get tough so that our country can be great again.

We have to get tough on OPEC. These oil thugs rip us off year after year. We've had no leaders.h.i.+p in Was.h.i.+ngton willing to stand up to them and put a stop to it. We have spent hundreds of billions of dollars and thousands of lives in Iraq, and now Libya, and gotten nothing in return but disrespect and ingrat.i.tude. That must end. Now. I say we take the oil. No more free military support. Either you pay us to defend you or we take the oil. It's fair and smart, which is probably why the politicians in Was.h.i.+ngton haven't implemented it.

We have to get tough on China. For every one American child there are four Chinese. China is out to steal our kids' jobs, and so far they're doing a tremendous job of it. They've manipulated their currency to such an unbelievable degree that they have destroyed our manufacturing sector. It's time to bring American manufacturing back to life. It's encouraging that the U.S. finally did as I have been saying for over a year and got tough on China's currency manipulation. The president should sign that measure into law effective immediately. Unfair trade is not free trade. China cheats and wins to the tune of more than $300 billion a year. No more. They either must play by the rules or they pay the price. End of story.

It's time our leaders in Was.h.i.+ngton wake up and realize that China's ma.s.sive military buildup is producing weapons with our names on them. Our kids are the ones who will be facing down the Chinese in the years to come. If we don't get tough and put a stop to their rampant theft of our military and technological secrets, we will have failed the next generation of Americans miserably. Those who pretend China is our friend are either nave, incompetent, or both. The Chinese can be reined in easily-we are their biggest customer. All we need is a president willing to stand up, not bow down, to China.

I believe we are at a monumental fork in the American road. I always say that the next election is the "most important election" in our lifetimes. Our national debt is at $15 trillion. Just imagine what Obama will do if he knows he's not facing reelection? What kind of damage to our national security and international standing will we suffer over the next four years with Obama bowing down to a rising Russia and China? It's horrifying to think about.

America the Exceptional