Roy Exum: Illegals Cost Us Billions

  • Monday, February 20, 2017
  • Roy Exum
Roy Exum
Roy Exum

We learned over the weekend that John Kelly, our new Secretary of Homeland Security, has just prepared two strongly-worded memos that could greatly enhance federal authorities to detain and/or deport illegal immigrants both inside the United States and those caught at our borders. All rational United States citizens know we have a horrible problem with illegals – in 2010 the annual cost to U.S. taxpayers was $130 billion (with a “b”) with the biggest burden being education at $52 billion (with a “b”) so you can imagine what it is today.

Our nation has just elected a President who has the courage and the skin thick enough to do something about it yet when he sent about 700 convicted felons and their immediate associates packing, these protesters rained down to create senseless havoc and discontent over what? The very people who broke the law to get here and then committed felony crimes once they got here and were then convicted by a jury. Is this nuts or what?

Unbelievably, those felons who are convicted by United States juries are not sent to United States prisons. Instead they are returned to the Immigration authorities and, pre-Trump, the last President deported very few of these criminals. Instead, we let them go free with no jail or fines. Then the cycle started over – more crime, a new sentence, set free … And people want to fight for these illegal people’s rights at the cost of American citizens?

So now may be a good time to explain the Immigration and Nationality Act of 1952, an almost 65-year-old law that allows the “suspension of entry of imposition of restrictions by the president, whenever the president finds that the entry of aliens, or of any class of aliens into the United States would be detrimental to the interested of the United States.”

You will note neither “legal” or “illegal” is mentioned anywhere in the document, also called the McCarran-Walter Act of 1952. It does say: “The president may, by proclamation, and for such a period as he (singular) deems necessary, suspend the entry of all aliens, immigrants or non-immigrants, or impose any restrictions on the entry of aliens he (singular, not Congress) may deem to be appropriate.”

The reason you have not heard of the 1952 act is because it was only used once – that was in 1979 when Jimmy Carter forced 15,000 Iran citizens to depart to the roaring applause of the nation. The 1952 act set quotas based on population and abolished race requirements from the U.S. Code. In 1965 the Immigration and Nationality Act was amended to abolish national-origin quotas and in 1980, the Refugee Act made the definition of a “refugee” match the United Nations standards.

In 1990, liberal senator Barbara Jordan chaired The U.S. Commission on Immigration Reform and its purpose was “people who should get in, do get in; people who should not get in, are kept out; and people who are judged deportable are required to leave”. Since more stringent rules were passed in 1996, over 2 million (with a ‘”m”) have been deported like the 700 or so Trump nabbed last week.

In recent years, the United States has legally naturalized between 500,000 to about a million people each year and, yes, will continue to do so but only in the proper way. Then these people must follow the strict standards set by the Immigration and Nationality Act of 1952 before they can become U.S. citizens:

* * *

“The Immigration and Nationality Act of 1952 requires an alien to apply for a petition for naturalization. This form may be obtained from any office of the Immigration and Naturalization Service, a division of the Department of Justice, or from any court authorized to naturalize aliens.

“Before applying, an alien must be at least 18 years old and must have been lawfully admitted to live permanently in the United States. He (or she, or GLBT person) must have lived in the United States for five years and -- for the last six months -- in the (same) state where he seeks to be naturalized. In some cases, he need only have lived three years in the United States.

“He must be of good moral character and ‘attached to the principles of the Constitution.’ (no, Sharia law doesn’t apply). The law states that an alien is not of good moral character if he is a drunkard, has committed adultery, has more than one wife, makes his living by gambling, has lied to the Immigration and Naturalization Service, has been in jail more than 180 days for any reason during his five years in the United States, or is a convicted murderer.”

* * *

No murder, no foul? That how it reads. Donald Trump is doing what he said he would do. Is there anyone among us who can’t see what $52 billion (with a “b”) could do if we could plow it every year into our public education systems instead of “English as a second language?” I am far from proposing we kick every illegal out of the country but we must give them a formula -- with rules and taxes – for them to stay. The “free welfare” line should be cemented shut.

Public school education is funded primarily by state and local government and, just when you least expected it, taxpayers in Tennessee are getting hammered for crippling education coasts we can’t possibly recoup until all of us help pay for it.

I’m for helping anyone who needs medicine, food, or shelter temporarily but the time is past due to act on what we should have done 65 years -- and many billions (with many “b’s”) -- ago. All immigrants should either join us with a full and willful heart or go back to where you came from. You want our milk and honey – then pay your families’ share. And, as it stands today, every household headed by an American citizen is paying an estimated $2,000 a year for every household that is not.

royexum@aol.com

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