WASHINGTON – The millions of Mexican illegal aliens in the United States endanger national security by creating a demand for false identity documents and smuggling networks that could also assist terrorists, experts said Tuesday.
The three experts, speaking at a panel hosted by Nixon Center and Center for Immigration Studies, also said that amnesty for Mexican illegal aliens in the United States should not be considered until immigration enforcement at the U.S.-Mexican border is strengthened.
Robert Leiken, a guest scholar at Nixon Center, said that Mexican illegal aliens themselves did not pose a terror threat. But operating in the shadow economy, they help to undermine the rule of law in the United States and in Mexico, he said.
“Mexican immigrants are not a direct threat to homeland security,” Leiken said. “The real problem is that a large illegal population creates an active market for illegal documents.”
Leiken said that helping Mexico guard its borders should be one of the most important items on the U.S.-Mexico foreign relations agenda, especially in light of Sept. 11. Another critical aspect of control should be increased immigration law enforcement within U.S. workplaces, he said.
“Earned legalization must be sufficiently stringent as to discourage illegal immigration, something the 1986 ‘amnesty’ failed to do. That is why the program must be linked not only to shared U.S. and Mexican border responsibility but also to regularly enforced employer sanctions,” he said.
George Grayson, a professor of government at the College of William and Mary, said that the Mexican Ministry of the Interior needed to improve the reach and the behavior of its border agents.
His 2001 study of the conditions for illegal aliens at the Guatemalan-Mexican border showed that more than 100 criminal organizations continue to move migrants across the frontier, at times through the assistance of corrupt border officials.
Middle Eastern, African, and Asian aliens are among the many passing through from Central America, creating a U.S. security threat, the experts said. Despite recent enforcement reforms and crackdowns by the United States and by Mexican President Vincente Fox, illegal immigration continues steadily, they said.
‘A Sieve Blasted by Buckshot’
“The Mexican-Guatemalan border is a sieve blasted by buckshot. There are more than 200 clandestine crossing points,” Grayson said.
Post-Sept. 11 border security has been a major consideration to the Bush administration. The president’s 2003 budget contained money to double the size of the U.S. Border Patrol and major increases in Immigration and Naturalization Service.
Under Bush’s plan for a Department of Homeland Security, all border and port security would be handled in one agency and the administration anticipates far greater control over who enters or leaves the country. The annual legal quota for Mexican immigrants is 75,000. Before Sept. 11, Fox and other Mexican officials requested that the quota be raised to 250,000, even if the Mexicans were permitted in only as temporary guest workers.
An amnesty program for the millions of illegal Mexican workers in the United States was a key Mexican request at a February 2001 presidential summit between Fox and George W. Bush. But since Sept. 11, amnesty and legalization programs have taken a back seat to border enforcement, the experts said.
In his remarks, Leiken also said he believed more Mexican illegal aliens should receive legal spots in the United States to reduce the pool of illegals.
But Steven Camarota, director of research at Center for Immigration Studies, an organization that is often critical of open immigration policy, said he thought U.S. policy should focus on reducing the number of Mexican and low-skill immigrants.
Taxpayer Subsidy to Cheapskate Employers
His research showed that Mexican immigrants, legal and illegal, were costing U.S. taxpayers millions of dollars a year though their use of public assistance. He thinks their benefit to the economy is small.
“In effect, Mexican immigration acts as a subsidy to businesses that employ unskilled workers, holding down labor costs, while taxpayers pick up the costs of providing services to a much larger poor and low-income population,” he said.
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The illegal Mexicans are so stupid thinking they are on their homeland, when they are a MIXED race of people to include Spainard, Italian, Caucasian and different types of Natives of America.
Their homeland was lost when they were enslaved and brought here on slave ships to work the land.
Learn YOUR history and you’ll find your great-greats were SLAVES brought here on slave ships.. you have NO HOMELAND!!!!
It’s such a sad thing to read your comments, on both sides you’re full of hatred and prejudice. Here are some FACTS, not opinions about illegal migration to the US.
http://americanapparel.net/contact/legalizela/
The US is a country of immigrants, since the first English that came to this continent up to the Mexican that started migrating because of US policies, they let them come because they NEEDED them to activate their economy- and now they say they’re a danger to their country? come on!
the real danger is POVERTY, IGNORANCE and HATRED, those are the real reasons of violence and insecurity.
So we can live in MEXICO not in the USA….
MEXICO is and always will be ALL West USA basically….so..uhh
famous ex…for you fanatics out there….(i hate bringing MJ into this but here it goes, sorry MJ)
Michael Jackson…born black…turned white…people WILL always treat him as black, his birth certificate says BLACK/AFRICAN
Whatever it appears to be is different from WHAT IT IS.
Plus the USA “American Dream”is all a big lie anyways. if your not in the top 10% of the rich ppl you know what am talking about freedom is NOT freedom…and NOTHING is free. NOTHING. If anything BUT free.
Tibor…..please please please, are you seriously, seriously trying to tell me that your precious USA has not mass murder?? *cough cough* 9/11 quick ex….corruption…DRUGS??? Aha, the US is THE NUMBER ONE CONSUMER! we only sell them cus you buy em….WE DONT HAVE OUR ONW LANGUAGE??? WOW! we speak over hundreds of dialects…we have millions who dont even speak spanish, we speak Nahuatl which is the most common…WE CAnt run OUR OWN COUNTRY. For the love….WE CREATED the FIRST major city in THEE world…TENOCHTITLAN!! Which TODAY is the biggest fucking city IN the world. Which IS the first MAN MADE land EVER. The whole city is standing on top of a lake…THIS is NOT white man’s land….NUH UH baby…this is OUR land. we COME because IT IS OURS.
Nican Tlaca (by the way its NAHUATL for indigenous..)
Sorry, for the typos…
What would be here today (in USA) if we Whites wouldn’t come here? You can NOT run your own country, that’s why you come here by the millions, so what do you think you could do better in the White Men’s land? You come here but that’s not enough you demand rights and things we don’t want here in the USA. You can’t run a government in your own country mexico without corruption, massmurder, drugs and in fact, you don’t even have your own language. You speak Spanish, which is a European language and was given to you by your Masters.
You have big mouth in America, bc the filthy jews let you do it. Otherwise, you still live in the caves and eat rats. Period, senorita.
What would be here today (in USA) if we Whites wouldn’t come here? You could NOT run your country, that’s why you coem here by the millions, so what you think you can do better in teh White Men’s. You can’t run a government in mexico without corruption, massmurder, drugs and in fact you don’t even have your own language. You speak Spanish, which is a European language and was given to you by your Masters.
You have big mouth in America, bc the filthy jews let you do it. Otherwise, you still live in the caves and eat rats. Period, senorita.
You can live in MEXICO not in USA. You are Mexican so u must live in Mexico. Period.
Correction. Germany not France.
No mamen Gueyes!
Mexicans ARE IN THEIR HOMELAND. Defeated or not, this is their home no matter what. God made created US here and we will remain here. Just because France was defeated in WWII it doesnt mean French are no longer able to live in France now does it. THis is our mother land forever. Our land. Our people. Our continent. Indigenous people are the natives. Nican Tlaca pride honor and Joy.
Realize the obvious gueritos putos culeros rasca nalgas.
The feds some times get paid to look the other way, this is pretty hard for any one to stop!
Illegal immigration is a serious epidemic in the U.S. Illegal hispanic aliens make up the largest group of border breeching criminals. Illegal hispanic aliens are bringing crime, gangs, diseases, fraud, tainting of the voting polls, and overcrowding of our schools, hospitals, jails, and prisons. All this is happening right under our noses, as the average American citizen sits idly by and does nothing. It is time that we U.S. Citizens stand up and let our government know that we want our borders secured and our immigration laws enforced, not played with. Let our government know that we want ICE expanded, Border Patrol expanded, and cheap illegal foreign hispanic labor stopped and the businesses and people who hire them to be held accountable for their lawlessness as well, and NO TO F(*&(*&G AMNESTIES!!!
And we U.S. Citizens want our local and state law enforcement able to arrest and start the deportation process. If illegal immigration is a federal issue, then Feds START DOING YOUR JOB!!!, and FIND AND DEPORT THESE ILLEGAL ALIEN CRIMINALS!!!!
Rhonda, don’t worry I’ve got your back, and so do many like me.
I am part Cherokee, part Scottish, and I don’t hide, and I don’t back down to these illegal hispanic criminals.
Contact groups like http://www.fairus.org, The Dustin Inman Society in the Southeast, and Numbers USA and get involved in our fight to save the United States from the ravages of illegal hispanic aliens thugs. Also go to WeHireAliens.com.
Border Stats:
http://bit.ly/cFmV9
I can’t stand illegal mexicans!
I’m in my homeland, Cherokee, Comanche!
You were defeated at the Alamo! This is NOT YOUR HOME, IT’S MINE By Blood and Gun! Your destroying my land, stealing, raping, killing! Illegals are NOT Welcome guests!