Several readers have written to inform me, with varying degrees of gentleness, that they thought I really didn't explain myself very well in the post titled Build The Fence!! They remarked that as tragic as the murder of this young woman was, murders happen all the time, and it's a bit of an over-reaction to demand a border fence just because one illegal alien has committed a terrible crime.
I confess that there's more I probably should have included in the post for the benefit of those who may not have been following the issue of illegal immigration very closely. So, herewith some facts to illustrate the gravity of the problem and why I think a border fence is necessary:
- In Los Angeles 95% of all outstanding warrants for homicide (between 1200 and 1500) target illegal aliens.
- Two thirds of the fugitive felony warrants (17,000) in L.A. are for illegal aliens.
- 12,000 members of the 20,000 members of the violent 18th St. Gang in southern California are illegals.
- Between 10% and 20% of all Mexican, Central American, and Caribbean peoples have moved to the U.S.
- One in twelve illegals caught by the border patrol have a criminal record. That comes to 70,000 apprehended trying to cross the border every year. It is estimated that 300,000 felons have slipped across the border into the U.S. in the last five years.
- In 2005 there were 687 assaults on border patrol officers.
- Mara Salvatrucha, a gang responsible for numerous rapes, murders, mutilations, and other crimes, has 8,000 to 10,000 members in 33 states. The illegal aliens in this gang, called MS-13, are all but immune to police arrest and deportation because they operate in cities which have "sanctuary" policies that prevent illegals from being arrested unless they commit another crime. The gang is comprised primarily of El Salvadoran illegals.
- Illegals are bringing in diseases that had been all but eradicated in the U.S. Malaria, polio, hepatitis, tuberculosis, leprosy, syphillis and other diseases are all skyrocketing in the southwest. From 1960 to 2000 there were only 900 cases of leprosy reported in the U.S. In the first three years of the 21st century there were 7000.
- Since few illegals have health insurance and since hospitals are obligated to care for them, 84 California hospitals closed their doors between 1994 and 2003 because they could no longer afford to provide free medical care for the numerous illegals who needed it.
- Immigrants in general and illegals in particular are depressing the wages of low-skilled Americans by almost 8% according to Paul Krugman of the NYT.
- It is a myth that immigrants help the economy by paying taxes. The cost of schooling, health care, welfare, social security and prisons, plus the costs of pressure on resources like water, land, and power far exceed the revenue that immigrants, legal and illegal, contribute. The net cost to the economy, imposed by immigrants, has been estimated at around $108 billion for 2006.
- One in every ten babies born in the U.S. is to an illegal alien and these babies are automatic citizens, entitled to all of the benefits of an American citizen, even though many of their mothers came into the U.S. solely for the purpose of having their baby here so that it would be a citizen.
This is but a fraction of the information that Pat Buchanan has laid out in his book State of Emergency: The Third World Invasion and Conquest of America. I don't know how much of what he says in the book might be questioned by those more expert than I, but if only half of what he writes is accurate, we have an extremely serious problem on our hands. And unless our leadership in Washington is made to understand this problem and commits itself to doing something to rectify it, our children and grandchildren are going to grow up in a very different country than their parents did.
I, for one, don't wish to see that happen which is why I feel strongly that we need to stop the flow of illegals, and a high tech border fence appears to be the best way to do that. The fact that both Vicente Fox and his successor in Mexico City oppose it counts as evidence for me that the fence would probably be effective.