Jay Ambrose: Illegal immigration cannot be long ignored
By: Jay Ambrose
Examiner Columnist
November 4, 2009
It's a heartwarming story, it comes from The New York Times and it tells of how lax enforcement of illegal immigration statutes in New York City may well have been crucial in the rescue of a child kidnapped by her father and tucked away in China.
If city officials hadn't been willing to turn a blind eye toward the mother's illegal status, she could not have secured the help she needed from a variety of sources, a lawyer tells the paper.
The father is now in a city jail and the daughter is home with the Mexican mother, who has obtained a green card that was important in achieving this happy ending and will allow her to stay and work in the United Sates.
Now here's another story about hands-off, sanctuary policies as practiced in Virginia Beach and Chesapeake, Va., and their consequence for someone else's daughter. A 16-year-old girl, she was out driving with a friend, stopped at a red light and then was rear-ended by another car going 70 miles per hour. She and the friend were killed.
As told by the girl's father in Human Events magazine, the unharmed driver of the other car was an illegal immigrant drunk out of his mind. Twice before, he had been arrested for drunk driving, but officials didn't even glance at his status.
So yes, it can seem harsh to actually figure out whether people are here illegally or not and then make them pay the penalty of going back home if they are, but it can be even harsher to others in the country not to do that very thing. Look, for instance, at two issues the country is now very much focused on, health care and jobs.
For some reason, I had not realized until recently told by a nurse that large numbers of illegal immigrants receive benefits from Medicaid, the federal-state program that serves the poorest people in our population. Checking the Internet, I found that a three-year study of 50,000 Emergency Medicaid patients in North Carolina showed that 99 percent of them were in fact undocumented workers.
I also found a study observing that Medicaid for the illegals amounts to some $2.5 billion a year on top of many billions for other welfare help, and that's just the start of how this group consumes this resource. If you want to fix an important part of what ails our health care system, the nurse had said to me, you really need to deal with the illegal immigration problem.
Then we get to jobs and the myth that you can't find Americans to take on the unpleasant, low-paying work done by illegals. Yes you can. These jobs are mostly in fields dominated by American citizens more than happy to earn this pay, especially in these recessionary times. Even though some illegals have headed home during this period, they still hold millions of jobs Americans would eagerly grab if they could.
Cities should cut out the sanctuary programs and the federal government should step up already improved efforts to prevent entry to the country and the hiring of illegals, always acting with caution, with concern for these often hard-working, mostly decent people, but understanding that exaggerated permissiveness takes its toll on others, on the citizenry, and especially on those Americans who are the most disadvantaged.
Amnesty would be a disaster, terribly costly and an invitation for others to come here illegally as well, and the Democrats should give up this hunt for votes, just as Republicans ought to quit seeking out cheap labor for business constituents.
Examiner Columnist Jay Ambrose is a former Washington opinion writer and editor of two dailies. He can be reached at: Speaktojay@aol.com.
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