And thats just crime.

•In Texas, where the state comptroller estimates illegal immigrants cost hospitals $1.3 billion in 2006,

Thats just Texas.

I lived in Cal. for about 13 tears total and witnessed much the same as you and worked with a lot of illegals. I have all the sympathy in the world for them but with other costs in the country growing as they are maybe we need to make a priority somewhere.

As far as the drain on the taxpayer I think a far bigger problem are the people on welfare producing nothing and living off the state often form one generation to the next. I think there are more US citizens causing a drain on the taxpayer than illegal aliens. If we reformed the welfare state then the illegal aliens would not be a drain on the taxpayer nor would the people who have grown up here.

I used to view the immigration issue somewhat indifferently as you do now, but I am more and more in Tancredo’s camp. Kudos for the respectful, mildly amusing dialogue…. I think if the conversation had lasted longer, then some other important points would have been addressed.

Namely, the pressure illegal immigration puts on the criminal justice system continues to grow more and more intense. The threat to safety from organized crime setting up shop throughout the border states is highly understated. It’s easier to get more alarmed by Islamofascism you hear discussed on FoxNews while in the comforts of your whitebread apartment than feel the real dangers that, although quiet and perhaps easy to deny, are endangering the lives of thousands of innocent people caught in poverty and living in immigrant gangland havens in L.A. and elsewhere.

My intentions aren’t to characterize all illegals as agents of evil, most are just looking for a chance to work because their own country has failed them miserably. They are able to find it here quite easily despite the economy that Bush has supposedly “destroyed.” But a few bad apples, unfortunately, justify tightening the belt and cracking down. “Jamiels Law” is a perfect example…. a 17-yr old football star living in the wrong neighborhood, shot down by a gang member in the country illegally.

The argument that there is an economic benefit to illegal immigration that outweighs the threats to public safety and the burden on public finances is inherently flawed… unless you prescribe to the same ideology that justified slave labor pre-Civil War. Sure, I like my cheap lettuce as I’m sure most enjoyed cheap cotton in the 1800s, but morally we should not stand for it. The working conditions for most immigrants here in the US are below deplorable and they are regarded by their employers as less than human.

Before we turn over more power to the federal government bureacracies to clamp down on business, making matters worse in the name of trying to fix the problem, the clear solution is to put a stop to illegal immigration altogether. It will be nearly impossible to seal the borders, and efforts to circumvent will get more and more sophisticated, but if we don’t now then there will be a much greater cost in lives and resources trying to reclaim neighborhoods down the road that we are losing today.

Not trying to get too preachy here… but this is a big issue that “PC” politics is really forcing us to brush under the rug. As nice of a fellow as Tancredo sounds, there needs to be a more viable polticial leader that can tackle this head on…..

“Some of them vote illegally…”

You know, I’ve heard this myth repeated even more than the expression “you know.” I have never seen any evidence of it, and on top of that find it ludicrous at best to think that an “illegal” alien would risk his anonimity to bother to vote. It’s just silly. Yet another pseudo-”issue” of the far-right.

JMJ