Last year around this time, we were having the same debate about amnesty for illegals. I wrote about how some Republicans want to treat labor as a commodity. Again, the amnesty is back. Bush has teamed with Kennedy to create a monsterous bill. For many conservatives, this is the last straw of support for Bush.
The Wall St. Journal's editorial board has been notably in favor of illegal immigration. Since the Wall St. Journal likes to talk about economics, we will put the debate in a language they can understand. The Wall Street Journal and some Republican politicans have ignored both the explicit and implicit costs of the amnesty bill.
Explicity, legalizing millions of unlawful aliens will increase costs to the rest of the American populace. This includes the added strain on health care facilities and our ailing social security system whom the illegals would have claims to.
Implicity, there is added risk to society when illegals with criminal records are also given citizenship. The US bureaucracy will also have a mere 24 hours to perform a background check on illegals applying for the Z-visa. Since it is unlikely that the system can properly do background checks in such short order for so many people, the risk of violent criminals obtaining visas will increase expotentially.
The immigration bill will also produce negative externalities. The 12.5 million illegals are a greater population than all but 5 of the large states. Large enclaves of Hispanic communities with little pressure to adopt American values will lead to the balkanization of America.
Finally, the often-quoted 12.5 million illegals could rapidly increase after the bill's passage. As the benefits for crossing the border illegally increase and the risks decrease, the supply of illegals will also increase.
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