An Illegal Alien Population Threatens the Financial Solvency of the U. S.

Illegal Aliens DriveUp National Debt

July 22, 2011  By: James Walsh

 An illegal alien population threatens the financial solvency of the United States.

Back in September 2010, the Pew Hispanic Center placed the total number of undocumented foreign nationals residing in the United States at 11.1 million.

The actual count today could be three times this estimate. Pew also referenced an estimate of unemployed illegal aliens at 10 percent, likely the result of recession-caused layoffs mainly in construction and factory work.

The illegal aliens in the United States at any given time and their costs to U.S. taxpayers remain ghost numbers. Look around, illegal aliens are here, but their exact numbers are hidden. The costs to U.S. taxpayers for the education, healthcare, incarceration, and welfare benefits for illegal aliens, employed and unemployed, can only be estimated. For years now, a segment of immigrant advocates downplay illegal migration, its causes, and the cost to U.S. taxpayers.

Douglas S. Massey, demographer at Princeton University and co-director of the Mexican Migration project, believes that Americans have a skewered view of Mexico; that it is underdeveloped with a population desperately seeking to come to the United States.

He states, “That’s just not true at all.” In 2006, Massey opined that Mexican migrants were not fleeing poverty but instead were seeking social mobility. He noted that their decreasing interest in migrating to the United States was the result of Mexican families having fewer children, border crime linked to growing drug cartel violence frightening many from attempting a crossing, educational and economic opportunities in Mexico, and a business slow-down in the United States.

These positions, advanced by Massey and accepted as gospel-truth by many illegal alien advocates, create assumptions that are passed off as etched in stone. It is true that the Mexican life-style is improving, except for the drug cartel massacres. If, however, the fertility rate among women in Mexico is decreasing, why is the fertility rate of Mexican women in the United States exceeding that of U.S. citizens?

Demographers agree that the Hispanic population rise in the United States is caused by immigration and the births of anchor babies. A more recent Pew Hispanic Center study (July 14, 2011) found that Mexican births in the United States have surpassed immigration as the main driver of Hispanic population growth.

Numbers on illegal aliens in the United States remain estimates and will continue to be so, until an accurate method for counting illegal border crossers and visa overstays is established. The best numbers on illegal immigration come from U.S. Border Patrol apprehensions. U.S. Census numbers remain notoriously inaccurate with regard to illegal alien counts, largely because members of the ghost population choose not to be counted.

Meanwhile, back on the border, apprehensions of illegal border-crossers are down for the years 2008 through 2010. According to U.S. Border patrol official figures, a total of 447,731 apprehensions of illegal border-crossers were made in 2010, down from the 540,865 apprehensions made in 2009. In comparison, between 2000 and 2006, the average apprehensions per year were 1.1 million, with 95 percent of them occurring along the Mexico-U.S. border.

U.S. Border Patrol estimates are that for every apprehension of an illegal border-crosser, three persons evade apprehension. Some Border Patrol agents estimate that five to seven persons enter illegally for each person apprehended. If the number of apprehensions in 2010 is down to half that in earlier peak years, still at least 1.2 million aliens are entering the country illegally each year.

For decades, “Other Than Mexicans” (OTM) has been a category for border-crossing apprehensions. In the past two years, the number of Central American illegal border-crossers has risen, as have those from “special interest countries” that sponsor terrorism against Western nations, including the United States.

The National Public Radio (NPR) recently quoted an illegal border crosser from Guatemala, who said that no matter how many times he is caught by the Border Patrol, he will continue to attempt a crossing, because it is difficult to find opportunities in his country.

An El Salvadoran Non-Government Organization (NGO) official states that Salvadorans migrate to the United States because of the lack of jobs and opportunities in their homeland. He failed to mention that El Salvadorans in the United States have founded one of the world’s largest criminal gangs, MS-13.

Rather than consider remedies, such as a modernized “Bracero” program to document Mexican farm workers, President Barack Obama prefers the pabulum of comprehensive immigration reform with its pathway to citizenship for all comers.

The president refuses to acknowledge that the United States is faltering under the weight of an escalating national debt of $40 trillion within a decade. He refuses to acknowledge that the national debt is increasing partly because of the escalating numbers of undocumented aliens — a ghost population that threatens the financial solvency of the United States.

All About Employment Verification & In State Tuition

Greetings CCII Supporters & Friends,

 

ICE employer audits, employment verification and the California "Dream Act" are in the forefront of the news the past few days. ICE has been busy auditing business I-9 forms nation wide and it came close to home recently when the results of an on-going audit of the employment practices at The Grand America Hotel in SLC (The only 5 star hotel in Utah). At least 120 individuals were found to be employed without the proper verification of their I-9 form entries. In other words, people employed that had no right to be working in the U. S.  Okay, I'll be blunt, they may have been illegal aliens. It is now up to unemployed citizens to apply for the vacancies. It is also up to the employer to implement proper employment practices such as, not to violate U. S. immigration law 8 USC Section 1324a, pay a decent salary and get back to doing the right thing the American way, instead of the greedy way - hiring illegal cheap labor.

 

Senator Orrin Hatch introduced the Dream Act in Congress 10 years ago, (It failed to pass). Representative David Ure (R-Summit County) introduced Utah HB 144 in 2002 Legislative Session (Instate Tuition for Illegal Alien Students), the one page bill passed with the assumption the Hatch bill would eventually pass. The Dream Act has been introduced by Senator Dick Durbin (D-Ill) every year but it fails to pass the Senate. Presently eleven States offer Dream Act in-state-tuition to illegal alien students in opposition to 8 USC Section 1623. The provisions of in-state-tuition are broken on the State and Federal level, and have been for at least 10 years. 

 

California has been involved with this problem for a very long time. The Golden State has 10 % of the U.S. population and with >10 % of the population in the State illegally, is it any wonder the golden brilliance has become tarnished. One-Bill-Cedillo has introduced in-state-tuition in the California Assembly year after year. Newly elected Governor Jerry Brown said he would sign the measure. Just what a broke, bankrupt State needs; to provide tens of millions in grants and scholarships to law breakers. Resident citizens and out-of-state citizens can take a flying leap for all the California Democrat Assembly cares.     

  

CCII attempts to do all we can to keep you informed about this terrible devastating dilemma. Illegal immigration may be the straw that breaks the nation's back but we shall keep up the fight, in spite of a federal administration that fails to do the will of the people. 

 

Best Regards, 

An Endless Game of Cat and Mose

 

A Desert Monument to Failure

An Endless Game of Cat and Mouse

The United States wanted to send to potential illegal immigrants from Mexico a clear message: There's no way in. More than 1,100 kilometers of permanent fencing were meant to prevent access to the country, but it has still failed to stem the tide of Mexicans seeking a better life north of the border. Sept. 11 was to blame. The United States recoiled in on itself after the 2001 attacks. Whether it was terrorists, drug smugglers or illegal immigrants, the country needed to be secured against them.
Of particular interest was the overland route, specifically the 3,141-kilometer-long (1,952 mile) border the southwestern US shares with Mexico. This desert frontier, which marks the southern limit of the states of California, Arizona, New Mexico and Texas, is notoriously porous. Authorities had already erected a 23-kilometer corrugated iron fence near San Diego in the 1990s which became known as the "Tortilla Wall." Since then, the nickname has often been applied to the US-Mexican border as a whole.
In 2006, the US Congress authorized the construction of a total of 700 miles (1,126 kilometers) of permanent fencing to seal off the border with Mexico. This would cover only about one-third of the border's total length: A "virtual fence" would come into play as well to plug any gaps with the latest technology.
Arizona Governor Janet Napolitano, a Democrat, cast doubt on the sense of the project at the time. "Show me a 50-foot wall and I'll show you a 51-foot ladder," she said. In fact, those who wanted to cross the border illegally turned out to be exceedingly inventive. They built tunnels under the fence. They catapulted their drug shipments over it. Gangs of human traffickers would take $200 (€140) from Mexicans trying to escape hardship. Many trying to cross lost their lives in the process, either dying of hunger or thirst, or getting shot by American vigilantes.
Yet all the US presidents have kept on building: Bill Clinton, George W. Bush and Barack Obama. Whenever they stepped up checks with patrols, fortifications and the most modern technology, those trying to cross the border illegally simply went elsewhere. It was an endless game of cat and mouse, while in Washington every political attempt at immigration reform floundered.
It was only in January of this year that Napolitano, Secretary of Homeland Security since 2009 and now far less critical of the fence, finally abandoned the project. A billion dollars were pumped into the "virtual fence" alone, and yet it still proved to be ineffective and too expensive. Border patrols now have to make do with more standard methods: binoculars, night-vision devices and firearms.
And mass migration across the US-Mexican border has abated: The number of people crossing the frontier fell by 60% between 2006 and 2010. But migration experts attribute this to improved living standards in Mexico and the abysmal US labor market. They say it has nothing to do with the fence. Nevertheless, Arizona isn't giving up. In 2010, the states Republican governor, Jan Brewer, rolled out the toughest immigration legislation in the country. Arizona wants to finish building the wall on its own, and the government is calling for donations via its website. On the first day, it raked in more than $40,000.

Call It What You Want, It's Still Selective Amnesty

Greetings CCII Supporters & Friends,

 

Call it what you will; Administrative Amnesty, Back Door Amnesty, Obama Amnesty or Selective Amnesty; providing a pathway and work permits to the "American Dream" to law breakers is still against the rule of law. It flies in the face of those millions of people waiting in line, paying the full price of fees and dues to abide by the rule of law, waiting their turn and following immigration directives.

 

The federal government created the illegal immigration problem by refusing to abide by its own laws, rules and regulations. Now it finds itself in a pickle with a humungous back log of immigration cases. So the current federal government administration does what government does best, create another corrective action in the form of "Administrative Alternatives to Comprehensive Immigration Reform". This June 17, 2011 Memorandum appears to have been produced to provide options (Page 4 of the document) to the DHS to carry out the administration's mis-guided vision of large scale amnesty. It clearly states that "The following options, used alone or in combination have the potential to result in meaningful immigration reform absent legislative action".

 

Think about it, is that Executive Agency circumventing the Legislative process or what? Here is another question, "How much of this nonsense are we going to take, without doing our best to counter this unconstitutional action unveiled by Obama to his DHS to implement "Prosecutorial Discretion"?

 

Please read Representative Candice Miller's (R-Mi) web site page and click on the link at the bottom to view her 3 page 12 question letter to Secretary Napolitano and the Secretary's one page 2 paragraph response. This response is absolutely sickening! It's another example of government run amok. Miller wrote her letter on August 9, 2010, asking for a response by September 3, 2010. Napolitano finally answered on September 8, 2010. Are we mad yet?

 

This message is another in a string of messages we have sent to keep you informed about what is going on while Congress is on vacation, the President is on vacation as the nation wallows in the cesspool of confusion, corruption and destructive debt. The Department of Homeland Security (Is that an oxymoron, or what?) continues to ignore the will of the people, circumvent our Legislative process and grant a pathway to citizenship and work permits to people who have broken our immigration laws and ram amnesty down our throats. Here is another question, Is Congress irrelevant? If not, where is Congress?

 

CCII has taken the liberty to use funds to do our part. We have prepared a Resolution and it will be printed in The Spectrum on Wednesday August 24th and Saturday August 27th. I have attached a copy for you to read, print copies and distribute to your neighbors and friends. Our goal and objective is to do all we can to educate the residents of Washington County about this horrendous and devastating action by the Executive Branch of our federal government.

 

If you desire to express your concerns, contact your elected officials:

 

Contact Governor Herbert Administration Specialist at andreahansen@utah.gov, telephone 1 (801) 538 1000, or 1 (800) 705 2464.

 

Contact Representative Jason Chaffetz, Contact Representative Jim Matheson, Contact Representative Rob Bishop

 

Contact Senator Orrin Hatch, Contact Senator Mike Lee

 

Contact ICE Director John Morton (Only a letter address and a 1 (202) 732 4242 public affairs phone number, no email address)

 

I have entered a copy of the resolution at the end of this message, in order to place it on our newsletter, twitter and facebook page. Please do all you can to assist in the dissemination of this information, we must ALERT everyone about this unconstitutional action which must be stopped. 

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CITIZENS COUNCIL ON ILLEGAL IMMIGRATION OF

WASHINGTON COUNTY

Resolution demanding Department of Homeland Security stop selective amnesty such as implementation of “Parole in Place”, “Deferred Action”& “Prosecutorial Discretion”

Whereas, the Citizens Council on Illegal Immigration has always supported the rule of law and strict enforcement of the law; and provided a forum for Washington County residents to oppose illegal immigration, propose solutions to elected officials to implement corrective actions; and

Whereas, illegal immigration into the United States is a violation of the laws of the United States, creates disrespect for the rule of law, and has imposed significant financial burdens on the State of Utah, its cities and counties, in the areas of law enforcement, education, social and welfare services, and health care; and

Whereas, the Federal Executive Branch has refused to enforce existing immigration laws, thereby aiding and abetting the invasion of our nation by infiltration of millions of illegal aliens; and

Whereas, the Obama administration has unveiled what it terms a “Common Sense Approach” policy to provide a work permit to those in the United States illegally who have not committed a felony and legal status to many who meet specific criteria such as the DREAM Act; and

Whereas, the memorandum submitted by ICE Director John Morton on June 17, 2011 provides guidance to be considered when exercising prosecutorial discretion listing at least 19 relevant factors on a case by case basis; and

Whereas, the Latino/Hispanic legal & illegal population & the cost factor to the U. S. taxpayer are ghost numbers, no one really knows for sure. Our nation is experiencing a financial crisis and the question arises; how will DHS implement Memorandum provisions on a case by case basis; when the cost will be prohibitive; and   

Whereas, this action by the Obama administration usurps Congressional responsibility, will of the people and creates an utterly unprincipled enforcement strategy, undermining the rule of law and authority of Congress. 

Be it resolved: The Citizens Council on Illegal Immigration of Washington County, respectfully and sincerely encourage our elected officials including City Mayors, Councilpersons, Washington County Commissioners, Utah State Legislators and the Utah State Governor to request ICE Director John Morton (www.ice.gov/contact/) immediately rescind the provisions as described in the subject memorandum, and put an end to prosecutorial discretion.

Proclaimed August 22, 2011 by The Citizens Council on Illegal Immigration Working Group:

www.cciiwc.com  cciiwc@mindspring.com

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Interesting News Items

Greetings CCII Supporters & Friends,

 

On Fox News at 7:00 PM this evening, Sean Hannity spent the majority of his hour reporting on "Operation Fast & Furious". It was a very informative program. In the past we have sent a number of news articles and links to internet sites telling you what it is all about. It's another government agency operation gone bad, with at least 2 CBP Agents killed in the line of duty by weapons distributed in Mexico through this operation. The program will be repeated at 11:00 PM tonight.

 

Obama spent 3 days campaigning and traveling around the midwest in his armoured Prevost, then boarded his other ultimate means of transportation to take him on a 10 day vacation to Martha's Vinyard. Before he closed the door, he unveiled a "selective amnesty" (My description, not his) policy to provide a pathway to citizenship for those illegal aliens who meet the specific criteria (Such as the Dream Act) and a work permit to a few hundred thousand illegal aiens who fall in at least one of 19 other catagories as listed in the DHS Memorandum submitted by Director John Morton on June 17, 2011. The 19 individual catagories can be found on page 4 of the document. It's amazing! It includes nursing mothers.

 

I don't think there is a person in the USA that has not heard about Rick Perry Governor of Texas. Obviously he is the choice of the Star Chamber elites to be the next President of the country. This Washington Times news article provides some insight on his platform on illegal immigration.  The Texas Association of Business (TAB) supports him. That endorsement should tell you something. His spokeswoman and a political consultant praise his stance on illegal immigration, but don't let that fool you. William Gheen of ALIPAC doesn't have anything good to say about him. Read this article and draw your own conclusions. 

 

There is a lot of study within the paragraphs of this message. Spend a couple of hours on it this weekend. Remember, this battle is not a spectator sport.

 

Best Regards,

A Great Perspective on the U. S. Mexican Border

Our Borders, Ourselves   

www.claremont.org   -  Part IV of IV -  By Angelo M. Codevilla May 24, 2011

False Security

Why do so many Americans demand further militarization of the Mexican border when such militarization cannot protect us from terrorism or criminals, does nothing to stop the flow of drugs, turns good labor-seekers into bad imitations of immigrants, and turns a friendly neighboring state into an unfriendly one? So-called border security is attractive because it lets Americans imagine that someone other than ourselves is responsible for several of the country's biggest problems, and that the U.S. government can deal with them in a value-free, politically neutral manner.
Yet even if our southern border were completely closed off and there were no Latin America on the other side, it would do nothing to change the fact that mind-altering drugs have become morally and politically acceptable to mainstream American society. As a society, we have recoiled from the only alternatives for sorting out drug users from the rest of us: either total legalization, meaning an unfettered cheap supply of the deadliest, most debilitating stuff, which would sort out in a Darwinian manner those who gorge on it; or serious criminalization of possession, Singapore-style, which would send users to prison for years of hard labor and corporal punishment, or to the gallows. America's assumption that restricting supply can somehow make it safe for us to tolerate widespread drug use has itself proved to be a habit-forming narcotic that has reduced our sensitivity to moral rot.
Nor would somehow magically eliminating Mexico renew American society's appreciation for manual labor and those who perform it. After all, the presence of Mexicans among us eased but did not cause our national revulsion to getting our hands dirty. Something deeper had to be at work to reverse the reverence for labor that used to be the hallmark of American life. Benjamin Franklin described America as "the land of labor," and even John C. Calhoun, in the course of an apologia for slavery, reminded his listeners (including John Quincy Adams) that he, like his father, had put his hand to the plow. Almost certainly the change in our habits of the heart has less to do with any racist feeling toward Mexicans than with the spreading myth that Americans are special, privileged persons, entitled to the good things of life without much sweat. We don't have to make things or fix them or clean them. More and more of today's Americans feel entitled, period, and when they don't get what they want, demand it of someone else.
Republicans and Democrats vie to give the impression that, if America's schools, hospitals, and social services were available only to legal residents, our welfare state would be solvent, or at least closer to solvency. The evidence? "Illegals don't pay taxes." In fact, although illegal laborers seldom pay federal or state income taxes they inevitably pay sales taxes, social security, and Medicare taxes—for which they receive zero benefits—on all but occasional labor. Even if low-income illegal laborers were to file returns, few if any would be liable to income taxes; just as half the legal population is no longer liable to them. They would be eligible for our tax system's various income redistribution programs. No, the welfare state is another problem made in America, by and for Americans.
Controlling the border is also an illusory surrogate for upholding the rule of law and good citizenship. In the modern administrative state, the rule of law is an increasingly hazy memory, and citizenship is confined to obeying rules that come down from unaccountable bureaucrats. The Congress and state legislatures, alongside such private "stakeholders" as they choose, pass so-called laws that are hundreds, even thousands, of pages long, which authorize administrative agencies to make such detailed rules as they like. Judges make up and strike down these rules as pleases them and their friends. Our schools teach increasingly that the American people have always been a blight on the planet because they have distinguished themselves from other nations. It is nonsense to think that cracking down on "illegal immigration" will renew the respect for law that mainstream American society has cast aside.
Not so long ago, our unguarded Mexican border was a sign of security and friendship. Not so long ago, the United States did not have a drug problem. Because we did not, Mexican drug cartels did not exist. Americans by and large did our own work. That may be why we did not feel threatened by Mexicans who came and went as seasonal work forces. Americans didn't start to worry about foreigners exploiting our welfare state until citizens had already done so. Nor did Americans worry much about foreigners flouting the rule of law here until our officials, high and low, had shown the rest of us how to do it for fun, profit, and prestige. Within living memory, true citizenship, complete with flag-waving patriotism, was something that Americans expected of each other and of anyone who came to live here.
Were Americans once again to take citizenship seriously, to dismantle the welfare state's bureaucratic and psychological culture of entitlement, to dismiss the image of themselves as white-gloved administrators, and to banish America's drug culture, then Americans could safely stop worrying about our southern border.

A Great Perspective on the U. S. Mexican Border

Our Borders, Ourselves   

www.claremont.org   -  Part III of IV -  By Angelo M. Codevilla May 24, 2011

Drugs, Terrorism, and Crime

The reason why the "dang fence" and its infrastructure would do nothing to stem the flow of drugs into the United States is that America's millions of drug consumers have deep pockets. About half of the roughly $60 billion they pay for illegal drugs every year crosses the border into Mexico. A few thousand tons of cargo, worth billions of dollars are easy to move, and the drug cartels can easily pass on the cost of moving them to their rich American customers.
The very same changes that decreased the supply of domestic labor in American society at the same time increased its appetite for mind-bending drugs. Drug use was rare among the roughly 4 million Americans who attended college in the early 1960s, and truly exceptional in the high schools. Today, well over half of the roughly 18 million who attend college admit to having used illegal drugs in high school, and perhaps half of these continue to use after college. According to World Health Organization statistics, 16.2% of Americans admit to having used cocaine, and 42% marijuana. The world's second highest rate of cocaine use was New Zealand's, at 4.3%. Since the early 1960s American society has moved from harshly punishing users to considering drug use a treatable disease or a youthful indiscretion (we elected a president who admitted using cocaine). Few if any parents, upon discovering that their precious ones are using, call in the police, or even cut off their kids' funds. Congress crafted the Social Security Supplemental Income program, in effect, to relieve drug addicts of the burden of earning a living. Whereas songster Tom Lehrer's "old dope peddler" sufficed in 1960 to supply America's few, marginalized drug users, by 1980 multi-billion dollar cartels were needed to supply what had become a mainstream habit. The drug supply industry is clandestine and foreign-based strictly, exclusively, only because American society continues to pretend it is making "war" on drugs when in fact it is doing nothing of the sort.
Breathless commentaries by politicians and the media about the danger of Mexican "drug violence" spilling over the border ignore the fact that drug violence exists in Mexico strictly, exclusively, only because some Mexicans fight others for the privilege of supplying America's appetite for drugs, in exchange for which their American customers give them enough dollars to pay for thugs and officials on both sides of the border. These dollars, and nothing else, are responsible for the near collapse of law and order south of the border and for the insufficiently publicized corruption on the northern side. (The Border Patrol and the Immigration and Customs Enforcement bureau's internal investigations for corruption have risen threefold in the last three years.)
The Mexican people are confronting the unpleasant alternatives that these dollars force on them. They can—as they have done with increasing vigor since the election of the country's first conservative president in 2000—pursue drug traffickers on their side of the border almost as if Mexican policemen were adjuncts to the U.S. Drug Enforcement Agency. But this has proved both costly and futile. The drug cartels have reacted to the pressure by fighting each other and the government for operating space, and have increased the money they spend corrupting officials. Tales of mayhem in Mexico are not overblown. The drug war has cost some 30,000 lives since 2006 and has made Mexico's northern states into a war zone, in which noncompliance with the drug cartels ensures a grisly death. The war has even disrupted and dispirited the Monterrey area, Mexico's economic engine and social model. And as transporting drugs across the border has become marginally more difficult, the traffickers have reacted by beginning to develop a domestic Mexican market.
Years of bloody effort have made no dent in the cartels' power because there is no sign that Americans will stop financing the cartels. Given the growing sense that Mexico is bleeding for the sake of an American problem while the Americans sit back and blame Mexico, the country's traditional leftist establishment, the Revolutionary Institutional Party (PRI), is quietly but surely putting forward another alternative, namely, withdrawing from the U.S. "war on drugs" and choosing mutual nonaggression with the cartels. As the PRI has absented itself from the "war" and expressed ever-harsher attitudes toward the U.S., it has risen in the polls. The party now holds a plurality in the Mexican congress and is poised to win the 2012 presidential election. Its old-style politicians argue that relieving pressure on the cartels will reduce the violence on the southern side by freeing the drug runners to concentrate their violence and corruption within the U.S. Why not let the gringos deal with the consequences of their own habits? Why suffer for them? Mexicans know that such a modus vivendi with the drug lords would lead the Americans to tighten the border some more. But the Americans are doing that anyway.
Heads nod whenever politicians and the news media point to pictures of Mexicans scaling the border fence or scurrying through the desert as evidence of how easily terrorists could enter the United States. Of course the 9/11 terrorists entered legally. So do thousands of students every year from Muslim countries. It takes little sophistication for any terrorist organization to put together identity packages that ensure legal entry. Going through the deserts of the American Southwest is the hard way. But even the Berlin Wall's visual surveillance, constant illumination, and death strips—measures far more stringent than any security conceivable at the Mexican border—didn't prevent about a thousand people from getting through. The "dang fence" will be irrelevant to terrorism.

For the same reason, it must also be irrelevant to serious crime. Criminals, like animal predators, are few in number and go where the pickings are easiest. Although an honest Mexican laborer who can look forward only to minimum wage will balk at paying the human smugglers' high rates, a criminal will not hesitate to pay the price of admission so long as he sees far richer victims and a far more permissive environment north of the border. What Mexican criminal would not prefer to prey on rich Americans, or risk apprehension, trial, and imprisonment among them rather than in Mexico? More border security is likely to increase the proportion (if not the number) of criminals coming across even as it reduces the number of honest laborers.