Encouraging illegal immigration

Fighting the good fight

[Reprinted from Issues & Views November 29, 2004]

On November 16, twenty-two members of Congress, led by California's Rep. Elton Gallegly, sent an urgent letter to Secretary of State Colin Powell and Homeland Security Secretary Tom Ridge, expressing their concern over the amnesty/guest worker discussions going on between the Bush Administration and Mexican officials. Warning that such discussions encourage further illegal immigration, they suggested that Powell and Ridge encourage Mexico's political leaders to stop their nationals from entering the U.S. The letter reads in part:

It is our hope that in future discussions with the Mexican government, you will encourage Mexico to do its part to address illegal immigration rather than encourage their citizens to illegally enter the U.S. Cooperation with our close neighbor Mexico is essential, but we also feel that Mexico must respect our sovereignty and our laws, and should encourage its citizens to do the same.

Granting amnesty by legalizing illegal immigrants is detrimental to our national and economic security. Hospitals are closing across the country due to the burden of illegal immigration, college students find that summer jobs have dried up due to illegal immigration, and wages across the board are depressed by the overwhelming influx of cheap and illegal labor. Amnesties only encourage more people to cross the border illegally, as proven by the twofold increase in illegal immigration after the 1986 amnesty.

Today, national security also dictates that we gain control of our borders. As the 9/11 Commission and many security professionals have noted, terrorists can easily blend in with the thousands of Mexican nationals who attempt to--and succeed in--crossing our border surreptitiously every day. Our policies are providing cover for our enemies.

And Phyllis Schlafly separates a phony issue, like Social Security privatization, from a real one, like burdening the Social Security system with illegal aliens. In "Totalization: Sellout of American Workers," she writes:

The code word for this racket is "totalization." The United States has totalization agreements with 20 other countries, which have been reasonable and non-controversial, but totalization with Mexico is TOTALLY different.

The idea behind totalization with other countries is to assure a pension to those few individuals who work legally in two countries by "totalizing" their payments into the pension systems of both countries. All existing totalization agreements are with developed nations whose retirement benefits are on a parity with U.S. benefits, and the affected employees work for companies that have been paying taxes into the other countries' retirement systems.

Workers from the other 20 countries come with documents from their employer verifying that they are authorized to work in the United States. Only a minuscule fraction of Mexicans enter with such documents.

The legitimate goal of totalization with other countries is to avoid double taxation for retirement when employers assign their employees to work temporarily in another country. Reciprocity works because there is rough parity between the number of U.S. workers in the 20 other countries and the foreigners from those countries who work in the United States.

But this goal has no relevance to Mexico. There is no parity whatsoever between the number of Mexicans working in the United States and the number of U.S. citizens working in Mexico, and absolutely no parity in the social security systems of the two countries. Mexican benefits are not remotely equal to U.S. benefits. Americans receive benefits after working for 10 years, but Mexicans have to work 24 years before receiving any benefits.

The Bush totalization plan would pay out billions in Social Security benefits to Mexicans for work they did in the U.S. using fraudulent Social Security numbers, something that Americans would go to jail for doing. It would pay Social Security Disability benefits to Mexicans who worked in the United States as little as 3 years.

The Bush totalization plan would lure even more Mexicans into the United States illegally in the hope of amnesty and eligibility for Social Security benefits. The Bush plan would even cover the Mexicans' spouses and dependents who may never have lived in the United States.

Since few if any of the illegal aliens have built up any equity in the Mexican retirement system, what is there to totalize? Totalization is a plan for the U.S. taxpayers to end up assuming the entire burden.

Schlafly urges American citizens to let Congress know, in no uncertain terms, that they must prevent this "billion-dollar sellout."

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