From the Mind of Abouna: CHAIN MIGRATION

"JUST HITTING ANOTHER
BRICK WALL"

CHAIN MIGRATION

Chain Migration is something that the liberal idiots want and intend to push for, but do you know what it is and what the cost will be to the American taxpayer? If not, then you better read the following and educate yourselves.

Chain Migration refers to the endless and often-snowballing chains of foreign nationals who are allowed to immigrate because previous immigrants can send for ADULT relatives, which means that they can bring in their aunts, uncles, cousins, in-laws, grandparents, etc.

Chain Migration is the primary reason that legal immigration in this country has quadrupled from the 1960s. As such, it is one of the chief culprits in America's current record-breaking population boom and all the attendant sprawl, congestion, environmental habitant losses, school overcrowding and failure to meet pollution goals.

Chain Migration is about “family reunification” beyond the nuclear family. Until the late 1950s, America's immigration tradition of family unity had only included spouses and minor children.

But since then, immigrants can also send for their sibling, parents and adult children. Because each of those can then bring in their own adult relatives and nuclear family, a single immigrant can eventually be responsible for the arrival in the United States of his/her aunts, uncles, nephews, nieces, first cousins, second cousins once-removed, in a spiraling chain that eventually could reach most of the world's 6 billion-plus residents.

The claim that Chain Migration is about “family reunification” ignores the fact that each immigrant who comes to the U.S. “disunites” another family by leaving some new relatives behind. If a person really wants to live near his/her extended family, he/she should remain in the country where that extended family lives. Except for the very small percentage of each year's newcomers who are refugees, nobody is forcing immigrants to leave their families.

Chain Migration was cited by the bi-partisan Commission on Immigration Reform, chaired by Barbara Jordan, as an essential device that runs immigration numbers so high that they create economic injustice against vulnerable American workers.

Chain migration happens because present U.S. immigration policy is based on the principle of broadly defined family reunification; immigrants are able to sponsor their relatives back home to be admitted as immigrants here. In other words, most immigrants are admitted simply because they have a relative here who sponsors them, not because of what they might be able to contribute to our society.

Since most immigration categories have a limit to the number of people who can be admitted each year, immigrants' relatives back home must often wait for years to be admitted. Because of chain migration, over three million aliens have been told they are eligible to immigrate but have to wait. Many of them do not, figuring that, since they are eligible anyway, they should not have to wait for the U.S. government to get around to doing the paperwork. In this way, chain migration-and the expectations and long lines it produces-increases illegal immigration.

The problem will get worse. The illegal aliens given amnesty by Congress in 1986 are now fueling naturalization in record numbers. As these former illegal aliens become citizens, all of their immediate relatives qualify to come immediately to the United States, and start new migration chains of their own.

Unfortunately, Congress has not yet acted to eliminate either the immigrant backlog, nor, more importantly, the system of chain migration that causes it. Ignoring the recommendations by the bipartisan USCIR that would have begun to rationalize the system, Congress has failed to fix the soaring levels of immigration which it created.

The United States now accepts over one million legal immigrants each year, which is more than all of the other industrialized nations in the world, combined. The sheer number of immigrants has simply overwhelmed our country's ability to continue to provide for newcomers and natives alike, and in many cases has only added to America's problems. We need to focus attention on the fact that legal immigration is three times as great as illegal immigration and accounts for 55%-75% of the multibillion dollar annual costs. The most current data show that this wave of legal immigrants is far more likely to use welfare, receive higher direct cash assistance, and use taxpayer funded social services. Our country is already burdened by under funded schools, overcrowded prisons, persistent unemployment, and increasingly violent crime, accelerating resource depletion, an ever-growing budget deficit and a rapidly decreasing quality of life. Adding over one million immigrants to our country each year only makes there problems much more difficult to solve.

Given that the projected net cost to taxpayers of legal immigration alone will be $932 billion over the next ten years, at an average of $70 billion a year, a moratorium on immigration in excess of 100,000 per year is essential to cut the budget deficit. If immigration levels remain at the same or greater rate, most of these multibillion dollar costs would continue to be borne by taxpayers.

While setting levels of legal immigration, enforcing immigration law, and controlling U.S. borders are at the discretion of the federal government, state and local taxpayers end up paying the majority of the costs. For instance, in 1996 legal immigration alone cost Floridians $6 billion, up 77% from 1992. Legal immigration cost Texans $7 billion, New Yorkers $14 billion and Californians an amazing $28 billion. These are the compounded costs of Public Schools, Bilingual Education, Medicaid, AFDC, Social Security, Supplemental Security Income, Housing Assistance, Criminal Justice, as well as job loss by Americans and other programs, for a total cost to American taxpayers of $136 billion dollars.

American workers suffer $133 billion in wage losses resulting mainly from immigrant competition. Blacks and other minorities, including other recent immigrants, are historically the most adversely impacted by current high levels of immigration. Beyond the millions of workers who have been displaced by immigrants, countless other Americans are bing affected by declines in working conditions and depressed wages due to immigrant competition in the labor market. Unfortunately, the enormous numbers of low-wage, low-skill immigrants are displacing many American workers, with a disproportionately negative effect on America's native-born Blacks. It has been estimated that 2.35 million American workers were displaced from their jobs as a direct result of immigration in 1993 alone, with these displaced workers requiring public assistance at a cost of $11.92 billion.

We Americans should not be made to feel obligated to reunify all the world's families who separated at their own volition. With the possible exception of certain immigrants with a genuine fear for their own safety, families could also be reunified if they returned to their country of origin or attempted to settle in a third country. An additional option during separation could also include visits on temporary visas. Given the gravity of America's budgetary, social, resource, and other problems, preference for the limited number of newcomers we can sustain ably accept each year should go to the spouses and minor children of U.S. citizens. It simply does not follow that because someone chooses to leave their country of origin (thus voluntarily splintering their family) to come to the United States (among their several destination options) that the United States is obligated to accept all of those who desire to come here and eventually often admit and support many of their additional family members.

We simply cannot afford to continue with unchecked “chain migration” and allowing millions of illegal immigrants to continue to flood across our borders every year, just to have each new administration grant them amnesty every four to eight years. When our political leaders and immigrant lobbyists come and tell us that we need more and more immigrants, legal or illegal, because we have the lowest unemployment rate and we need the immigrants to fill the new jobs that are being created, that is a LIE, plain and simple. Come on people open your eyes and check the facts out for yourself. Where does the government get its unemployment figures from? Those figures come from the number of people receiving unemployment insurance. They do not count those who are still unemployed but whose unemployment insurance has run out and have been unable to find employment.

Another lie that we are being fed on a daily basis by our elected officials is that the illegals are hard working “citizens” who are only taking jobs that Americans refuse to do. This is not true many of the jobs that the illegals are doing are in construction and roofing along with many other jobs that Americans had done until the employers decided that they no longer wanted to pay benefits, such as health insurance, unemployment insurance, sick days, vacation or holidays. Also, they decided that they did not want to even pay a decent living wage, so they started to hire illegals to do the jobs. The illegals have also been taking jobs away from American teens who looked forward to jobs during the summer, to help earn money toward college.

Every day that we remain silent in the face of these lies, every day that we continue to allow unfettered immigration (legal and illegal), every day that we continue with our internal policy of multi-culturalism and do not pass a law making English the official language of the United States, every day that we allow more and more immigrants to live off of the tax-paying citizens, puts us one step closer to losing our country. We must stand up and put a stop to this now.

No More Illegal Immigration, No More Chain-Migration, No More Unlimited Immigration!!

It may sound selfish to those on the left, but “CHARITY BEGINS AT HOME”, It is about time that we start to take care of our own FIRST.