Encourage Legal Immigration, Not Illegal

I am in favor of LEGAL immigration. But, we have the right to determine who comes here, how many, and from where. As Ronald Reagan once said, “A nation without borders is not a nation.”

I do not believe that we should reward illegal immigrants with amnesty. Nor should we give people, whose first act in the U.S. is breaking our law, a fast track to citizenship. There are millions of people from around the world who are waiting for their turn at citizenship. Not only do these people respect our laws, but more often than not, they bring with them a higher education and skill level we should be encouraging to come to our shores. Legal immigrants should not be forced to wait in the back of the line in favor of recent arrivals who do not respect our laws.

If we make the mistake of granting amnesty to illegal immigrants the financial costs to the nation will be staggering. According to the Heritage Foundation, the long term net cost to taxpayers for retirement benefits alone will total at least $2.6 trillion. On average, each elderly low skilled immigrant would impose a net cost on taxpayers of about $17,000 per year. Most of this would be Medicaid, Medicare and Social Security.

These figures may significantly underestimate the cost because once here legally, current illegal immigrants will bring in millions more family members currently residing elsewhere.