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Focus- Violence against illegal border-crosser has become a regular occurrence around land and sea borders over the past decade

*  Southern Border Hazards

Smugglers and immigrants will go through dangerous and deadly areas to get through across the borders. A study by the American Civil Liberties Union and Mexico’s National Human Rights Commission estimates that 30 percent of the 390 people whose bodies were recovered in 2008 died due to exposure to extreme heat. Those left behind often lack food and water, and face little chance of survival

*  Kidnappings

Criminal gangs have also been known to lie in wait near immigration checkpoints where illegal immigrants will hop off the train to avoid identification.. Assuming the average ransom price has not risen even further since 2009, and a possible 22,000 kidnappings annually, these smugglers and criminal organizations could be making more than $50 million a year from ransoming their victims.

*  Sexual Violence and Trafficking

One in every five aspiring immigrants passing through Mexico is female, yet as many as 60 percent of these women and girls will experience sexual assault during their journeys. There are a number of ploys used to lure women into human-trafficking rings—the promise of marriage or a job, or scare-warnings of being kidnapped by traffickers while traveling unaccompanied to the U.S., or running out of money on the journey north to the U.S. border.

* Tragedy by Sea

In 2010, the U.S. Coast Guard interdicted 2,088 illegal immigrants off the coast of the United States. While the number of interdictions has consistently declined over the past six years, previous estimates count as many as 50,000 people attempting to make the maritime journey illegally from the Caribbean each year. The majority of these travelers set sail from Cuba, Haiti, and the Dominican Republic.

*  Societal Costs

The damaging effects of partial-family migration are also of serious concern. The absence of a single family member, such as when a father leaves a family, can cause an acute vacuum within the family. For a wife losing her husband, or a child losing his father, the psychological impact can be enormous. A young boy may well base his philosophy on education, work, and personal responsibility on his father’s actions, which may eventually result in him emulating the father’s illegal migration.

*  U.S. Response

The human tragedy of illegal immigration has been called a humanitarian crisis by groups from the American Civil Liberties Union to the Immigration Policy Center. Rather than proposing serious solutions for securing the border and combating violence and human smuggling, however, this designation has been used to draw the wrong conclusion—that the U.S. needs less, not more, border enforcement.

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How does immigration affect National Security?

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How does immigration affect National Security?

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*In 2016, the Senate presented the "Gang of Eight" immigration-reform bill. The current law requires biometric at all entry points, but the proposed bill requires the completion of an electronic biographic entry-exit system at seaports and airports but does not include 106 land-border entry points. Along with this, the bill only allows application information to be turned over to law enforcement or intelligence agency if they request it for on ongoing investigation.
*This is concerning to people because terrorist or drug cartel members who have not been finger printed would be able to enter the country and apply for amnesty under a false identity and be issued official ID and travel documents.

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Do Illegal Immigrants Actually Hurt the U.S. Economy?

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Do Illegal Immigrants Actually Hurt the U.S. Economy?

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Positive Effects of Undocumented Immigrants:

Giovanni Peri, an economist at the University of California concluded that in states with more undocumented immigrants,  skilled workers made more money and worked more hours; the economy’s productivity grew. From 1990-2007, undocumented workers increased legal workers’ pay in complementary jobs by up to 10%

Heidi Shierholz, an economist at the Economic Policy Institute, told me. Shierholz also said that “there is a consensus that, on average, the incomes of families in this country are increased by a small, but clearly positive amount, because of immigration.

The benefit continues to increase over time because as the baby boomers retire, the post-boom generation’s burden to finance their retirement is greatly alleviated by undocumented immigrants.

Stephen Goss, chief actuary for the Social Security Administration, claimed undocumented workers contribute about $15 billion a year to Social Security through payroll taxes. They only take out $1 billion (since very few are eligible to receive benefits). So overall all, undocumented workers have contributed up to $300 billion, almost 10%, of the $2.7 trillion Social Security Trust Fund.

Negative Effects of Undocumented Immigrants:

Undocumented workers undercut wages and take jobs that would otherwise go to Americans

Many undocumented workers use social programs (hospitals and schools) that cost taxpayers and add to our $16 trillion national debt.

Similarly skilled native-born workers must choose between accepting lower pay or not working in the field at all and labor economists have concluded that undocumented workers have lowered the wages of U.S. adults without a high-school diploma which is about 25 million of them, by 0.4% to 7.4%

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Illegal Immigration Backlash Worries, Divides Latinos

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Illegal Immigration Backlash Worries, Divides Latinos

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*Latinos are divided over what to do with illiegal immigrants in the United States. 53% say they should pay a fine but not be deported, 13% say they should be deported, and 28% says they should not be punished.
*More than six-in-ten Latinos say that discrimination against Hispanics is a major problem
* Latinos are the nation’s largest minority group
*38% of all Latinos are immigrants, and an estimated 19% are unauthorized immigrants
*Among Latinos, about eight-in-ten (82%) of the native born and nine-in-ten (90%) of the foreign born say they support providing a path to citizenship for illegal immigrants.
*Half (49%) of all Hispanics say that Americans are less accepting of immigrants now than they were five years ago. One-in-five (20%) believe Americans are more accepting, and 28% say they see no change.
*More than six-in-ten (61%) Hispanics say they disapprove of building more fences on the nation’s borders.
*A majority (58%) of Hispanics say they approve of a proposal that would require all U.S. residents to carry a national identity card.
*Half (51%) of Latinos say they have more confidence in the Democratic Party’s agenda on immigration than in the Republican Party’s agenda, while 19% say they have more confidence in the Republican agenda on immigration.

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The Contributions of Immigrants to American Culture

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The Contributions of Immigrants to American Culture

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*When immigrants come to America, they throw themselves into a brand new environment and have to adapt instantly in order to make it. This is hard to do because they leave everything and everyone they know in order to try and achieve a better life.

*This particular article pinpoints instances where immigrants come to America and find what their purpose and talent is. For example, Asa Yoelson from Russia came to America in 1886 and quickly discovered that he was very good at singing. Whatever it is, these immigrants need to find a skill and find it fast in order to make it.

*Another is example is Al Jolson who came to America and found his talent to be an entertainer.

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Adding Up the Billions in Tax Dollars Paid by Undocumented Immigrants

Undocumented immigrants still pay taxes

$11.6 billion in state and local taxes (2013)

Ways to increase tax pay from immigrants

Legalization

They become legal and get better jobs, therefore increasing their tax payment.

Executive Action (DACA, LPR, DAPA)

They also pay more but only 5 of the 11 million people would get into those programs.

Though undocumented, immigrants "are adding value to the U.S. economy, not only as taxpayers, but as workers, consumers, and entrepreneurs as well."

"If they had legal status, they would contribute even more."

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The Department of Labor reports that 53% of farm laborers are illegal immigrants.

Pew Research claims that illegal immigrants represent 5.2 percent of the US labor force.

Texas Comptroller Susan Combs says that illegal immigrants make up 6.3 percent of the Texas workforce and help produce 2.1 percent gross state product.

National Milk Producers Federation said that milk prices would rise 61% if its immigrant labor was removed.

Illegal immigrants have contributed nearly 10% of the funds in the Social Security Trust Fund.

A letter to President George W. Bush signed by about 500 economists read “While a small percentage of native-born Americans may be harmed by immigration, vastly more Americans benefit from the contributions that immigrants make to our economy, including lower consumer prices.”

In a pew research poll, 75% of participants stated that they believe that illegal immigrants help the economy by providing cheap labor (Pew Research, 2007).

In a separate pew research poll done in 2011, 40% of participants stated that they worried that illegal immigrants were a burden on government services (Pew Research, 2011).

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*Out of the 33 million immigrants admitted into the United States from 1982-2016, 20 million were
chain migration immigrants.
*Admission rates In the U.S. are rising
*1,125,000 immigrants were  approved in 2016 (7% higher than 2015).
* The largest category of chain migrators is parents and spouses of naturalized citizens.
*Admission of these categories are unlimited by law.
Each new immigrant sponsored an average of 3.45 additional immigrants.
*Mexico has the highest rate of chain migration.
Enacting an amnesty for illegal immigrants is likely to add double the number of original immigrants because of chain migration . . *Amnesty is allowing illegal im migrants to remain legally in the United States.

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*Juan Varela was shot in the neck in his front yard in Phoenix, Ariz., last May by his neighbor Gary Kelley. Kelley yelled, “Go back to Mexico or die!” Varela was not an undocumented immigrant, but a fifth generation American of Mexican descent.

*In May 2009, 9-year-old Brisenia Flores and her father Raul Flores were murdered by members of a Minuteman vigilante group. The child and her father were both American-born U.S. citizens. In 9-year old Brisenia’s murder, the Associated Press reported that Shawna Forde was motivated to break into the Flores home because she “considered Raul Flores a drug smuggler and wanted to use his drug proceeds for a paramilitary organization to seal off the border to immigrants.” According to CNN reports, no drugs were found in the Flores home.

*Last November, two Mexican nationals, cousins Alex Cauich and Jose Omar Cauich, were brutally assaulted by a group of white men while standing in front of a bar in San Francisco. Witnesses on the scene heard the assailants yelling “run like you ran across the border” during the incident.

*anti-Latino hate crimes rose disproportionally to other hate crimes between 2004 and 2008. The study estimates that in 2003 there were 426 hate crimes against Latinos, while in 2007 there were 595 nationally.

*According to the same study, California and Texas saw the most anti-Latino hate crimes

*Latinos, and in particular undocumented immigrants, are among the least likely to report hate crimes because they fear deportation

*reporting around the immigration debate has led directly to a more hostile environment for Latinos in America because it “focuses a lot of negative attention around Latinos.”

*According to a 2009 study, more Americans think that Hispanics are the targets of discrimination in American society than say the same about any other major racial or ethnic group

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*Hispanics are the largest and youngest minority group in the United States. One- in-five schoolchildren is Hispanic. One-in-four newborns is Hispanic.
*Two-thirds of Hispanics ages 16 to 25 are native-born Americans.
*Asked which term they generally use first to describe themselves, young Hispanics show a strong preference for their family’s country of origin (52%) over American (24%) or the terms Hispanic or Latino (20%).

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* In 2011, nearly 400,000 immigrants were deported by the US government, the largest group on record in a single fiscal year.
* Only 55% of these exported were criminals, committing crimes such as murder, drug violations or drunk driving.
* When Obama assumed office, only about 30% of the immigrants being deported were criminals and this leads to people arguing about whether it's a good use of national security funds to deport law abiding illegals who are simply looking for work and a better life.

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Balancing National Security and Public Safety

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Balancing National Security and Public Safety

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- Immigration reforms alone cant address all the security threats our country faces. A lot relies on defense, intelligence, and law enforcement apparatuses.However,
the United States should develop practical immigration
and border changes that can improve upon the existing
security measures while recognizing other important
national interests in economic security and meeting its
humanitarian obligations.
-"The current level of
investment in border security
resources, including
agents, fencing, and surveillance technology, particularly
at the southern border, reflects a dramatic increase
over the past two decades. The total number of border
agents has more than doubled since 2002 from 10,000
to nearly 21,000 agents."