Someone should make a video/documentary film about the plight of US citizens. We have rampant homelessness, millions of unemployed and underemployed, millions who cannot afford health insurance (have you seen the long lines of people who show up when doctors and dentists offer free health care clinics in the US?), millions who cannot get enough to eat, our k-12 schools are a mess, higher education is unaffordable, and on and on. We need to help US citizens who desperately need help BEFORE we even consider helping illegal immigrants and/or amnesty.
Using e-verify to turn off the jobs spigot would be a start. Remember the first Super Bowl after 9/11? Employers were using e-verify and many illegal immigrants, who used forged documents to gain employment, were being ousted from the jobs they had attained with forged documents. Immigrants’ rights activists demanded that employers quit using e-verify because the illegal immigrants needed jobs to support their families. Why was there no concern for the US citizens who needed those jobs to support their families?
It is unfair to everyone who has come to the US legally to be denied and education, health care, housing, food, employment, etc., because we are spending our resources on illegal immigrants. In 1986, we were told the government would use an equivalent e-verify system and border security if we allowed one last amnesty. We allowed amnesty in 1986, but we still do not use e-verify and we do not have border security and now we have millions more who are illegally in the United States. We cannot continue giving amnesty to people who knowingly break our laws and overwhelm our system.
If humankind originated in Africa then every nation is a nation of immigrants. The US is the most generous nation especially concerning immigration, but we are a sovereign nation and we have a right to secure our borders and decide who becomes a citizen.
Why are illegal immigrants allowed to forge documents, steal Social Security numbers, take jobs, get college scholarships, get food stamps, get Section 8 housing, etc. yet we prosecute US citizens who use forged documents to get their children into better school districts? We prosecuted people who used forged documents to get benefits from the San Bruno gas line explosion, yet illegal immigrants forge document and receive benefits they are not entitled to with impunity.
How many students at Mountain View High School were not helped because Pat and Rich were spending so much time with Jose? How many people are denied college admission and scholarships because those spots and scholarships are taken by illegal immigrants with forged documents? How many people are unemployed because illegal immigrants with forged documents took their jobs? How many people cannot get housing, food, or health care because we take care of illegal immigrants first?
If Jose Vargas and other illegal immigrants will not try to make the countries they are from better then who will? Jose Vargas could go back to the Philippines and try and improve the Philippines, but it will take a lot of hard work.
The best foreign aid program the US could implement would be to deport all of the illegal immigrants and let them use their knowledge and skills to build and improve the countries they are from.
The US did not become a thriving nation overnight. It took many, many years and a lot of blood, sweat, risks, and tears. The US cannot be the only country where someone like Jose can succeed, but it will be as long as we allow illegal immigrants to come here without any consequences. (Why would someone quit breaking into the candy store when once they get in they can eat all the candy they want without consequences?) It is easier and more rewarding for illegal immigrants to break into our candy store and steal our candy, then fix the country they are from.