Conservative> Linda Chavez> The Sound Of Silence

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The Sound of Silence

Arizona has been ground zero in the fight against illegal immigration — but a funny thing happened this week when a new anti-illegal alien state law went into effect. Nothing.

The law, one of the toughest in the nation, requires jurisdictions to investigate complaints by ordinary citizens against local businesses that may be employing illegal aliens. But apparently most Arizonans have better things to worry about. A spokesman for the state attorney general said his office had received about a half dozen calls. Some jurisdictions, including Pima County, which runs along the border with Mexico, received no complaints. It's not exactly what you'd expect if Arizonans were chomping at the bit to run illegal aliens out of the state and punish their employers.

A new study out by the conservative think tank Americas Majority Foundation (www.amermaj.com) suggests a possible explanation why more Arizonans aren't rushing to run off illegal workers. It turns out Arizonans may be better off — not worse — because of the presence of so many immigrants in the population.

This sounds counterintuitive, at least if you believe current political rhetoric and tendentious research by anti-immigrant groups like the Center for Immigration Studies, NumbersUSA, and the Federation for American Immigration Reform. But the Americas Majority Foundation data are pretty persuasive. States with the highest percentage of immigrants or the largest recent influx of immigrants —19 High Immigrant Jurisdictions (HIJs) in all — are wealthier, have better employment numbers and most have better crime figures than those with fewer immigrants.

In Arizona, for example, personal income is higher, as is the gross state product, the measure of all economic activity in the state. Unemployment is lower, as is household poverty. And crime is lower than both the national average and the average among states with fewer immigrants.

And, the trends for HIJs are every bit as good as the absolute numbers. Not only are GSP, personal income, per capita personal income, disposable income, per capita disposable income, median household income and per capita median personal income higher than in other states, but they have been growing at faster rates between 1999 and 2006 than in other states.

In the area of crime, the trends are especially encouraging for HIJs.

The 10 high influx states, those that experienced the most dramatic percentage increases in immigrant population from 2000-2007, had the lowest rates of violent crime and total crime, according to FBI figures. In 1999, the 19 HIJs did have higher crime rates, but the rates declined much faster than they did in lower immigration states over the next seven years: 13.6 percent faster compared with 7.1 percent in total crime and 15 percent compared with 1.2 percent in violent crime, leading to lower crime rates overall in HIJs in 2006.

These statistics don't suggest that illegal immigration is not a problem for many jurisdictions. Illegal immigrants do impose costs, including increased health care and education expenses. Ironically, one of the growing costs is for incarcerating illegal aliens picked up in immigration raids or for offenses that usually don't justify jail time. These increases are a direct result of efforts to crack down on illegal immigration. And if states like Arizona decide to vigorously enforce their new laws, we can expect to see these costs go up without much, if any, offset in savings to those jurisdictions.

The immigration debate is likely to continue untempered by the facts the Americas Majority Foundation has pulled together, at least through the political primary season. But the overwhelming majority of Americans — two-thirds to three-fourths, according to most polls — have no wish to see most long-term illegal alien residents rounded up and sent home. What they do want is a more concerted effort to secure the borders so the numbers don't keep increasing.

Citing a November Los Angeles Times/Bloomberg poll, the Manhattan Institute's Tamar Jacoby noted recently that "63 percent of Democrats, 64 percent of Republicans and 57 percent of independents favor allowing illegal immigrants who meet certain conditions — registering, being fingerprinted, paying a fine and learning English — to earn citizenship over time."

Jacoby points out that the politicians don't seem to be listening. But if we can get through 2008, maybe the sound of silence emanating even from places like Arizona will finally be heard.

Linda Chavez is the author of "An Unlikely Conservative: The Transformation of an Ex-Liberal." To find out more about Linda Chavez, visit the Creators Syndicate web page at www.creators.com.

Comments

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Ms. Chavez, like the corrupt government leaders of Mexico and Latin America refuses to address the facts, they desperately need to twist and manipulate things to their own advantage. Also, like the slave masters, not only of old in the US, by like those who exist today around the world, friends of hers, and her pal, George Bush's, she needs to pit one group of poor people against another as an attempt to distract and divide us.

Whatever "silence" Ms Chavez seeks to hide behind is only proof that the legislation wasn't as Chavez has sought to protray it as being.. something rabid and racist. It's a sound, common sense law that will do what needs to be done. To protect the citizens of Arizona from illegal aliens undermining American citizen workers ability to work and to earn an American wage standard. Knowing that Ms. Sanchez was an appointee by the Bush administration to the Dept of Labor, and who herself helped undermine citizen workers protections under the law underscores her disrespect for the rule of law, and the civil and human rights of citizens.

She, like those corrupt foreign leaders see Mexican nationals as something to exploit to drag down US wages. It's how she makes millions of dollars for herself and her friends. Those illegals should be in their own home countries, working hard to bring about change there. They could bring about higher wages and opportunities for themselves there. Instead they come here, and Chavez assists them in this, and then laughs when they under cut American wages and the American taxpayer has to subsidize the cheap wages those illegals themselves bargained for. It's just more of the same corporate welfare Chavez loves, because there is a payoff for her in it as well.

What is apparent is that Chavez hates America, and our citizens, and wants to subvert our nation down to third world status.

Comment: #1
Posted by: JennyP
Sat Jan 5, 2008 9:09 AM