Preventing Vote Inflation

It’s clear now that President Obama, Leader Reid, and Speaker Pelosi have thrown their party under the bus in order to achieve the mother of all government takeovers.  Mr. Obama still has almost three years left in his one term presidency, and Nancy Pelosi will likely represent that nutty district until she expires, but Harry Reid and scores of other Democrats in Congress have almost certainly sacrificed their congressional seats for the “win” on socialized medicine.  It should now be clear to any objective observer that the Left is going for broke while they still have power, obviously believing that their new government programs will cement future dependency-based power.

It is very important to remember that many members of the House and Senate see the same polls that we are reading.  Many of them know that their chances of reelection are slim.  Will they care how their constituents feel on other critical issues between now and next January, when the next Congress is seated?  Or will they vote with party elites who remind them that future employment prospects could depend on it?  On the heels of the power grabs over our health care and the student loan program, many feel it likely that the next legislative push will pursue the long term statist goal of voter inflation using the familiar vehicle of so-called immigration “reform”.

Whenever a politician uses the word “reform” you should be very suspicious, and immigration reform is certainly no exception.  When they talked of campaign finance reform they really meant free speech restrictions designed to protect incumbent politicians.  When they talked of health care reform they actually intended a government takeover of the health care system in America.  And when they talk of immigration reform, what they really mean is capitulation.  It is nothing less than amnesty, and it sheds light on their real motives.

Like most positions of the Democrat party, their insistence on immigration “reform” is actually power politics wrapped up in false compassion.  Just as it was in 2007 when America last soundly rejected it, this so-called reform will essentially be an amnesty for those who are in our country illegally.  In fact, though disguised with compassion-filled clichés about seeking to help people “come out of the shadows”, the real goal of those who seek a “path to citizenship” for illegal aliens is their well founded belief in the simple math of voter inflation.  The only reason that the Democrats want immigration reform is to put more voters on the rolls because every new such voter dilutes the power of the votes of American citizens.  Their underlying assumption, which is that most of these new voters will be the sort of societal parasites who will perennially vote Democrat to keep the hog trough full, should in fact insult every hard working immigrant in America.

I married into an immigrant family more than two decades ago.  Though my wife was born in America, both of her parents are legal immigrants from Latin American countries and have been citizens for decades.  My father-in-law served in Vietnam as a Sergeant in the US Army only a few years after legally immigrating to America from a country sinking into the abyss of communism.  Two of my great grandparents were immigrants from Europe.  Through my wife’s family I have met more Spanish-speaking immigrants in the last twenty years than I could ever hope to count, and as a result I am predisposed to believe that most of them are hard working people who love their families.  I believe that historically speaking immigration has been good for America and has helped make us the incredible country that we are.  Having said all of that, I have been opposed to illegal immigration for a very long time and remain utterly unconvinced of the wisdom of immigration reform, i.e. amnesty.

I believe that the goal of the Democrat party is to get as many current non-citizens, including illegal aliens, on the voting rolls as quickly as possible.  Imagine what a boost it would be to Barack Obama’s reelection chances if a few million new immigrant voters were added to the rolls by November of 2012.  In fact, I absolutely believe that any legislation that includes a “path to citizenship” for people who are in our country illegally will be a foot-in-the-door vehicle for an intentionally engineered voter demographic shift.  As soon as there is any deal that would allow those people to apply for citizenship in the future the politicians will immediately start compassionate sounding talk of giving them credit for the time that they have already spent in our country illegally, fast-tracking them towards citizenship.  Would anyone who has watched the actions of the ruling party for the last year doubt that at all?

Unfortunately, I think that the belief on the part of the Democrats that illegal aliens would vote for them is not necessarily incorrect, at least if you believe that lower income, less educated people are more likely to support the party of income redistribution.  In fact, as an excellent article by Robert Rector points out, illegal aliens are far less likely to be educated than either legal immigrants or native-born Americans.  This chart from that article shows that illegal aliens are five times as likely to be high school dropouts as are native-born Americans and twice as likely as legal immigrants:

Not only does Rector show that illegal immigrants are far less educated, he also shatters the myth of the productive, tax-paying, unskilled immigrant contributing to the economy.  He painstakingly makes the case that contrary to the conventional wisdom unskilled immigrants are a rather large net drain on the taxpayers.  His study of unskilled immigrants, as opposed to simply illegal immigrants, found that the average unskilled immigrant household costs the taxpayers almost $20,000 per year!  From the section titled Net Lifetime Costs:

Receiving, on average, $19,588 more in immediate benefits than they pay in taxes each year, low-skill immigrant households impose substantial long-term costs on the U.S. taxpayer. Assuming an average 60-year adult life span for heads of household, the average lifetime costs to the taxpayer will be nearly $1.2 million for each low-skill household, net of any taxes paid.

Think about that.  By paying such low wages and providing no real tangible benefits, employers of illegal aliens are quite often simply transferring a portion of the cost of employing that person onto the backs of the US taxpayers.  The results: American taxpayers are subsidizing cheap nannies and maids for the wealthy and are footing the bill for thicker profit margins for contractors and builders.  Americans who have never employed an illegal alien are subsidizing landscapers for yuppies who all too often could really stand the exercise of mowing their own grass.  At the same time, many citizens convince themselves that they are taking advantage of the wonderful “cheap labor” of “undocumented workers” without realizing that all taxpayers are making up the difference on the back-end.

Legality Without Citizenship

We are never going to round up illegal aliens and deport them.  It is simply not going to happen.

My solution is to offer legality without citizenship.  The proposal is to draw a hard line, codified by law, which states that no one who is in this country illegally is ever permitted citizenship.  However, those who remain in the country illegally can turn themselves in with the agreement that they will be allowed to stay.  Those who do not want to take the legality-without-citizenship deal can remain in the shadows or go back to their home country and apply for legal immigration.  Those who take the deal with also forgo any and all rights to chain migration and the use of family reunification to enable others to immigrate.

The plan:

• People living illegally in the country turn themselves in with the agreement that they will not be deported.
• These people get a new status that will never allow citizenship or any voting rights.
• These residents pay taxes and can then receive government benefits after a penalty period of five years.
• These newly legal residents forgo any rights to use chain migration or family reunification laws to bring any more people into the country.
• After a defined period, any illegal aliens caught in the US would be deported immediately.
• The border with Mexico is improved and defended.
• Penalties for companies who employ illegal aliens get draconian, something like a fine in the amount of 10 times the yearly salary paid to the undocumented worker.

Finally, do not let anyone accuse you of being racist simply because you oppose illegal immigration and proposed amnesty for those already in our country.  Let’s remember that only one side in this debate has a legitimate group that calls itself The Race.  Seriously.  Enough said.