An initiative has been launched to create two kinds of birth certificates; one for children of illegal immigrants and another for everyone else. Anti illegal immigrant activists are pushing this effort to ensure that public funding will not be available to children of illegal immigrants born in the USA. However opponents say that it is discriminatory and highly unconstitutional.
The initiative has been endorsed by many officials, some of them including former state senator Bill Morrow and former US attorney Peter Nunez. If the initiative is approved parents would have to show proof of legal residency before receiving their child’s birth certificate. Those who cannot prove this will have to pay an additional $75 to the country registrar and provide proof of employment, two passport sized photographs of the mother and the mother’s fingerprints. The county registrar is then under obligation to report this case to Homeland Security. For parents who do not possess a valid residency, the county will not provide a birth certificate for their child, instead provide a “birth to foreign parents” document.
Although this initiative is being carried out with the aim of deterring illegal immigrants from entering the USA, it appears that treating children differently on the basis of their parents immigration status is a violation of the equal protection clause of the US constitution.
With anti illegal immigrant sentiments on the rise and governments becoming more concerned over the money spent on them, localities such as Santa Ana are making every effort to make sure all residents are counted in the 2010 survey. Although a difficult task, the cost is significant since federal government grants take into account the number of residents and an improper count could mean a difference of several billion dollars. Homeless people and illegal immigrants have been the two groups that have been the hardest to count in the past.
The census committee has made sure that the census questionnaire will arrive in mailboxes early next year, in every single home. However, they still have not come up with a fool-proof way of making sure that every resident is counted. The one thing they do plan on doing is getting out on the street, within the communities and promoting the census forms. They even plan on hosting a census parade in order to educate people and convince all residents to participate. One thing that would be useful to illegal immigrants who are afraid of filling up this form is that federal law prohibits the census burea from sharing any individual information it collects even with the police or immigration agencies. Since a census is conducted only once every 10 years, the number that the Santa Ana committee comes up with will be the basis for funds distribution for the next decade.
Within arguments and debates about the issue of illegal immigrants, countless points have been raised that illegal immigrants do the jobs that no one wants to do. Does this mean that US citizens will not do do the unskilled work that is being carried out by illegal aliens if they were not present? Or does it simply mean that employing illegal immigrants cost much less?
There are many US citizens who are do jobs that they do not want to do and the reason they do these jobs is because the wages, compensation and/or benefits of these jobs are good. Most employers hire illegal immigrants because they are willing to do these jobs at a lesser wage with minimum or no benefits. The fact remains that if there were no illegal immigrants there would be US citizens who would do these jobs. For an example, if picking fruit or vegetables paid $10 an hour and included performance based incentives and included other incentives such as healthcare, wouldn’t Americans do these jobs? This however would increase the cost of vegetables, like in any free market, but there would be more citizens working in these fields allowing them to afford these costs and bring down unemployment. In any case, a portion of the tax payer’s money goes to pay farm subsidies and social services that are currently being utilized by illegal immigrants.
Therefore the fact remains that it is not “jobs that no one wants to do” but they are “jobs that no one wants to do because they don’t pay enough”. If the borders were shut and the wages and benefits increased, these would be jobs that citizens will do for the right price.
One of the biggest issues plaguing the INS and other agencies nowadays is that Illegal immigration and identity theft go hand in hand. Recent arrests have revealed that illegal immigrants posses fraudulent identification, usually for the primary purpose of securing employment. The problem is that illegal immigrants require a social security number for them to get a job and this information is either stolen or forged.
According to records, every year nearly nine million people pay their taxes using the wrong social security number, and the names on the W-2 forms submitted by the employers and names on file at the Social Security Administration do not match. When this happens the wage credits are not deposited to either of the accounts. This collected money ends up on something called the Earnings Suspense File. Since 1984, nearly $500 billion has ended up on this file. It is believed that the bulk of these unclaimed credits and funds are due to identity theft by illegal immigrants.
There are many illegal immigrants who use fake social security numbers to secure employment. However there are many more who use someone else’s identity and social security number to obtain employment. Some of these victims may not necessarily be alive, they could be diseased. However the worst affected are the victims who are alive. There are thousands of identity theft victims who have no clue that they are sharing their identity with someone else because there is no way to find out, unless the identity thief has not paid taxes or bills or fines, which prompts the authorities to go looking for the actual owner of the identity.
The US constitution states that it will protect all citizens from invaders and illegal immigrants should be classified as invaders since they cross US borders illegally. The problem occurs when state sectors such as healthcare and education are drastically affected by the plethora of illegal immigrants claiming it for free.
In California alone, some 50 hospitals have been forced to close down due to the fact that they could not turn a profit. This was mainly due to the free care given to illegal immigrants. Also Illegal immigrants’ children born in the US are American citizens and they often attend US schools. Research indicates that illegal immigrant parents want their children to be educated in Spanish and not English, forcing these schools to spend millions of dollars on Spanish education. Some illegal immigrants cause violent crimes and end up in US prisons, paid for by US taxpayers.
Some research states that more illegal immigrant mothers gave birth in California alone than American taxpaying citizens. When an illegal immigrant gives birth within the United States the baby is a citizen of America and therefore cannot be deported. However since the baby requires a primary caregiver, generally the mother and some relatives also become citizens. Although the US constitution states that illegal immigrants cannot enter the country and live in the US, limited resources allow them to migrate and make use of the rights and facilities given to and paid for by US citizens.
Illegal immigrants are those who cross national borders in a way that violates immigration laws of the destination country. The Illegal immigrant population of the United States of America is estimated to be between 12 and 20 million, with the majority of illegal immigrants are from Mexico and the rest of Latin America.
Illegal immigrants compete with the citizens of the said country for jobs, causing problems with unemployment in the host country. These immigrants usually settle for undesirable or hard jobs at very low wages. This allows illegal immigrants to secure jobs that citizens cannot, based on the simple fact of cheap labor. Many of the illegal immigrants that get through easily secure jobs as maids, toilet cleaners, ditch diggers, fruit pickers, pool cleaners, carpenters, brick layers and roofers. Although some of these are sufficiently compensated middle-class trades, illegal immigrants are able to do the same work for very low wages, thus artificially depressing the local job economy. The afore-mentioned trade aside, illegal immigrants pose another problem to governments as they will do anything to find work after getting through. Some of these immigrants are employed in the sex trade increasing illegal prostitution and the eventual threat of sexually transmitted disease.
Within the current economic conditions there are many employers who are willing to employ illegal immigrants for the lesser wages they would work for. Therefore the incentive for people to cross borders illegally is presently more than it has ever been before.