These figures are from NewsBusters. Seton Motley exposed a problem with a CBS report that cited Rand Corporation study “that asserts that the cost to the taxpayer for health care for “all undocumented men, women and children” — their words, both spoken and in chyron — is $1.1 billion per year.” The problem with that study is that it examines only “nonelderly participants — those between 18 and 64″. What about the children? What about those older than 64? From the Center for Immigration Studies’ “Costs” report page:

Households headed by illegal aliens imposed more than $26.3 billion in costs on the federal government in 2002 and paid only $16 billion in taxes, creating a net fiscal deficit of almost $10.4 billion, or $2,700 per illegal household.

Now that’s more like it!

See MM’s May Day, May Day: All-purpose, left-wing grievance day

I am extending this invitation to you, my friends at Linkfest Haven Deluxe, in the hopes that you will join in this conversation on illegal immigration. It is my hope that we put the name calling aside and have an honest open debate about a very important issue that our nation faces. It is my wish that we put the proverbial sword down and take an honest look at the situation. Where are we, where do we need to go, how are we going to get there..

Thank-you!

Pam

Trackposted to Rosemary’s Thoughts, The Random Yak, 123beta, Right Truth, Maggie’s Notebook, Shadowscope, Oblogatory Anecdotes, Cao’s Blog, The Amboy Times, Phastidio.net, Big Dog’s Weblog, Conservative Cat, Chuck’s Place, D equals S, Nuke Gingrich, Wake Up America, Woman Honor Thyself, McCain Blogs, DragonLady’s World, The World According to Carl, Pirate’s Cove, Blue Star Chronicles, The Pink Flamingo, , Gone Hollywood, and OTB Sports, thanks to Linkfest Haven Deluxe.

AJStrata and Michelle Malkin are two bloggers that I have a great deal of respect for. I don’t always agree with everything either one says, but I do listen to them, and in this case, both are making valid points:

Michelle Malkin:

WRAL reports on a new statistical breakdown of illegal alien drunk drivers in North Carolina. It’s a blood-pressure-raising look at the deadly revolving door, catch-and-release, the deportation abyss, and the danger of sanctuary policies embraced by those sworn to defend and protect the public

AJStrata:

And the deportation abyss is because the laws did not get passed and there will be no new laws for years to come. This is as much Michelle’s fault as those she lambasts - she just won’t admit her efforts to stop the legislation kept the status quo in place. I want to remind people why I call Michelle and Tancredo and their ilk Amnesty Hypochondriacs….

Note how the WaPo makes it appear that the migrants are legal. Is the author referring to the 3 in 10 that are legal?

In January, the cash transfers, known as remittances, sagged almost 7 percent compared with a year earlier, the steepest monthly dip in at least 13 years, according to Mexican government statistics. Economists here believe the decline in remittances is already pushing thousands into extreme poverty and could lead to a significant increase in migration as desperate Mexicans, deprived of support from abroad, flee to an ever more difficult U.S. job market.

God forbid Mexico should actually develop an economy that is dependent on the citizen’s living within their borders.

Keyes singled out the nation’s present “border issue” as a reason he is leaving the GOP, saying it is a “threat to the sovereignty to the American people.”

‘Layup” in the Arizona Desert South of Tucson

This is a photo of a “layup”, a base camp for illegals who have made it across the border and need to rest before continuing on to their destination. What they have left behind as they passed through is a small symbol of what they will do during their tenure in America. And this is only one photo; this layup extends for a quarter mile. What you can’t see or smell in the photo is the disease and stench of the human waste accompanying this mess. Here’s our lovely desert, so prized and protected by Environmentalists that in Kalifornia Sen. Diane Feinstein got more than a million acres of the Mojave desert declared off limits to the public to “protect” it.

The “saturation patrols” must be working:

In an April 4 letter to U.S. Attorney General Michael Mukasey, Mayor Phil Gordon asked the agency and the Justice Department’s civil rights division to examine what he called discriminatory harassment and improper stops, searches, and arrests by sheriff’s deputies in Maricopa County, which encompasses the metropolitan area.

“Over the past few weeks, Sheriff Arpaio’s actions have infringed on the civil rights of our residents,” Gordon wrote. “They have put our residents’ well-being, and the well-being of law enforcement officers, at risk.”

Justice Department officials said they would review Gordon’s letter but declined to comment further.

Arpaio said it’s ironic that Gordon wrote the letter the same day U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials observed his deputies arresting residents and illegal immigrants in the town of Guadalupe and approved of the sheriff’s work.

Illegal Alien Deportations on the Rise! Yes, I am happy to see that we are deporting illegal aliens, but when looking at Employment Verification Could Cost $40 Billion, we have a long way to go!

The list of jobs that Americans are unwilling to do just keeps growing:

Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa is asking federal officials to rethink their policy on workplace immigration crackdowns that involve established businesses and to focus on employers that mistreat workers instead.

The mayor said in a letter to Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff that work-site raids by Immigration and Customs Enforcement could have “severe and long-lasting effects” on the local economy, the Los Angeles Times reported Thursday.

ICE made more than 4,900 work-site arrests nationwide in fiscal 2007, a 45-fold increase over the number in 2001, authorities said.

More than 130 undocumented workers were arrested at a San Fernando Valley manufacturing company in February and over 60 workers were arrested for immigration violations at South Bay-area warehouses last week.

Los Angeles companies such as clothing manufacturer American Apparel Inc. have reported being questioned by ICE officials about their hiring procedures.

Oh, how sweet it is!

I loved the picture from the slideshow, it shows them attending a session of Maryland’s legislature..

Good news:

President Bush overstepped his authority when he ordered a Texas court to grant a new hearing to a Mexican on death row for rape and murder, the Supreme Court said Tuesday.

In a case that mixes presidential power, international relations and the death penalty, the court sided with Texas 6-3.

Bush was in the unusual position of siding with death row prisoner Jose Ernesto Medellin, a Mexican citizen whom police prevented from consulting with Mexican diplomats, as provided by international treaty.

An international court ruled in 2004 that the convictions of Medellin and 50 other Mexicans on death row around the United States violated the 1963 Vienna Convention, which provides that people arrested abroad should have access to their home country’s consular officials. The International Court of Justice, also known as the world court, said the Mexican prisoners should have new court hearings to determine whether the violation affected their cases.

I warned you a few weeks ago in my post; Straight From The Donkey’s Mouth: We Want The Economic Stimulus To Fund ACORN And La Raza . Now take a look at the return the Democrats are getting on their potential investment.

I hope they do cut the funds. Here is a listing of cities and funds given to them via the Vehicle License Fee. Assemblyman John Benoit (R), is seeking to pull the funds:

For the City of Angeles, VLF money totaled $23 million last year.
For San Diego, it received $8 million.
And both San Francisco and San Jose got roughly $5 million.

Just another true story

MM : “I heard from a Senate source a few days ago about two very promising initiatives from conservative Senate Republicans committed to comprehensive immigration enforcement.

Not shamnesty.

I repeat: Comprehensive immigration enforcement reform.

This is good policy. Smart politics. And it’s about damned time.

The first initiative involves one of my favorite GOP Senate members, Jeff Sessions of Alabama. He is rolling out nearly a dozen different bills addressing specific border security and enforcement issues. ”

Details of the plan:

Senate Republicans are set to announce Wednesday the hardest-hitting package of immigration enforcement measures seen yet — one that would require jail time for illegal immigrants caught crossing the border, make it harder for them to open bank accounts and compel them to communicate in English when dealing with federal agencies.

Most of the bills stand little chance of being debated in the Democrat-controlled Congress, but the move by some of the Senate’s leading Republicans underscores how potent the issue of immigration remains, particularly during a presidential election year.

“If you can’t beat them, shut them up” seems to be the new motto of groups that have been continually losing in their attempts to pass an amnesty for illegal aliens.

(Here is an Associated Press story about this national censorship campaign.)

Led by the National Council of La Raza and the Anti-Defamation League, the open-borders groups have started a concerted campaign to persuade Cable TV executives to either bar me and our Director of Government Relations Rosemary Jenks from their shows, or to always introduce us as representing an “extremist” organization with ties to hate and racist groups.

Their characterization of NumbersUSA and our members is without any connection to reality, facts or even common decency. But if all of us remain silent in the face of this campaign of character assassination, we might indeed be silenced on TV and beyond.

The Katrina of All Fences, is one way to describe this cluster&$#@! $85.5 million dollars wasted.

Just last week, Chertoff said “I have personally witnessed the value of this system, and I have spoken directly to the border patrol agents…who have seen it produce actual results, in terms of identifying and allowing the apprehension of people who were illegally smuggling across the border,”

Today, we learn the truth.:

The Bush administration has scaled back plans to quickly build a “virtual fence” along the U.S.-Mexico border, delaying completion of the first phase of the project by at least three years and shifting away from a network of tower-mounted sensors and surveillance gear, federal officials said yesterday.

Technical problems discovered in a 28-mile pilot project south of Tucson prompted the change in plans, Department of Homeland Security officials and congressional auditors told a House subcommittee.

Just when you thought that a study couldn’t get any more ridiculous, out pops one! Crime, Corrections, and
California What Does Immigration Have to Do with It? By Kristin F. Butcher and Anne Morrison Piehl, attempts to paint a picture that just isn’t so:

We find that the foreign-born, who make up about 35 percent of the adult population in California, constitute only about 17 percent of the adult prison population. Thus, immigrants are underrepresented in California prisons compared to their representation in the overall population.

Isn’t that 17% sitting in prison representative of 50% of the foreign population of California? Note how they don’t call them illegals.

Thought this was a hoot:

and my experience was that most immigrant crime was either petty (drunk in public, DUI, shoplifting) or was within the immigrant community (both victim and perpetrator were immigrants.)

DUI is petty? Tell that to the parents of these children!

A controversial cartoon is making the rounds in the Valley after a brochure is released concerning illegal immigration.

Story