Off limits

We have two presidential candidates who are in favor of amnesty for illegal aliens. Some people play fantasy football; I’m going to play fantasy election for a moment.

What would the debate last night have been like if we had a candidate who understood immigration? Well, here’s a sample.

On the energy crisis…
America is often accused of using 25% of the world’s energy. But all the growth in this country in the past generation has been from immigration. All of it. Without immigration, both legal and illegal, we would have enjoyed a stable population level. Excessive immigration levels coupled with illegal aliens is on pace to add 100 MILLION people to our nation within the next 20 years.

We all scratch our heads with the fact we are driving cleaner, more fuel efficient cars and yet the problem continues to get worse. Imagine an America with a population of 220 MILLION instead of 305 million. What would the impact be on oil consumption? It can’t be our factories; they are all shutting down.

Ditto for the pollution problem and urban congestion.

On trade…
Senator Obama talks about building more cars rather than buying them from Japan and South Korea. Is he ready to create a tariff system that protects our jobs? I am. Today. And to make the point I won’t be writing as many foreign-aid checks either.

On health care…
According to the Census Bureau over 12 MILLION foreign-born individuals do not have health insurance. 45% (over 9 MILLION) of non-citizens are uninsured. They are clogging the emergency rooms with backaches and sniffles. In some cases the level of charity care has caused hospitals to close altogether.

Clearly our immigration system is broken. We are supposed to screen immigrants to make sure they are self-supporting and will not be a burden on the taxpayers. Obviously, we have failed to do that.

On schools…
Our worst-performing schools are also our bilingual schools. They are in enclaves in major cities throughout the country. And the need for bilingual classrooms is ever-expanding to other communities. Bilingual education requires two of everything. Two teachers, two classrooms, two sets of textbooks, even two sets of bus routes in some areas.

Imagine what we could do if those resources were channeled to teach our own children rather than the children from the third world.

While I’m on the subject of education, the federal government has NEVER helped public education. We would be far better off if Washington were to simply disappear from their lives. It is true we provide perhaps 5% of the funding to local schools. But we also provide hundreds of rules and regulations that tie the hands of local educators.

Here’s a sample: ADA compliance. Special Education. School Lunch. Anti-discrimination. Bilingual ed requirements.

Now, I’m not opposed to Special Ed. Don’t get me wrong. But it is federal law that requires a small school district to write checks for $100,000 a year to special ed programs for just one student simply because it says you must. Imagine a small suburban district spending $5,000 a year per student with a mandate to pay for special ed services 20 times the average amount for regular students. Such arrangements are not unusual.

On the subprime mortgage crisis…
I am calling for an investigation to determine how much of this mortgage mess is attributable to fraudulent Social Security numbers and ITIN holders. Some claim it to be as many as five million mortgages. We need to know the truth and prosecute all those involved, from realtors to mortgage companies to lawyers who presided over the paperwork. This is unacceptable and those responsible will serve time.

If necessary we will enact legislation requiring buyers to prove lawful presence before purchasing a private residence.

On crime…
Just last month in Lake County Illinois an audit of prisoners showed that 21% of them were illegal aliens. Phoenix Arizona has a similar problem. If we were honest with ourselves similar data would come from California, Texas, Florida, New Jersey, and New York.

And the foreign-born among us are key contributors to our problems with gangs and drugs. Why on earth do we continue to tolerate this and sweep it under the rug of “multiculturalism”?



…well, that’s my fantasy candidate. And we didn’t even get to comprehensive immigration reform. That one’s simple. A cap of 200,000 immigrants per year based on self-support and skills rather than the family tree.

Alas, there are no votes in ideas like that.