Time for Action on Immigration
By Carlton Huffman
North Carolina has experienced fast paced growth since the early 1990's. In many ways this is a blessing as new industry brings opportunity for all sons and daughters of the Tarheel state to build lives they can be proud of and to set the foundation for their children. However part of that growth has been a dark blight in the form of illegal immigration. Thanks to lax standards on driver's licenses and a need for cheap manual labor our state has grown into a mecca for illegal aliens. Their precense is a strain on our state's treasury, our infratructure, and most importantly our culture and it must be dealt with in the right manner.
As of 2005 North Carolina had an estimated precense of 405,000 illegal aliens, the ninth largest in the entire country according to the Federation on American Immigration Reform. It annually costs our state over $700 million just for educating illegal alien children in our school system and the children of illegal aliens born here. Altogether our uninvited houseguests cost the state over $1 billion when education, medical care, and incarceration our all measured. This is a tremendous burden that the people of our state ought never to have been forced to bear, but bear it we have thanks to the inaction of our government in Washington and paralysis in Raleigh.
Perhaps the most unfortunate and most threatening aspect of illegal aliens coming to North Carolina is the erosion of our culture. We didn't have to press 1 for English a decade ago, nor did we have Spanish television and radio on the air in this state. Now instead of having people coming to America, they are bringing the culture of Latin America to us without the slightest need or intention to change thanks to the accomodations given them by our government and the politically correct attitude that we can't expect people to shed their past cultures. It is a far cry from Theodore Roosevelt who proclaimed that immigrants must "be American and nothing but American. They must have but one language, the English language, one flag, and that is the American flag" Travelling through Hickory and on US-321 into Charlotte we see an abundance of other flags but they're from Mexico, Guatemala. Honduras, and El Salvador, not Old Glory.
It is imperative that action is taken to address this crisis of finance, demography, and culture. We have plenty of good examples to follow. In Arizona a tough law was passed and illegal aliens were lined up at the Mexican consulate looking for passports back to their home country. In Oklahoma the legislature acted in bipartisan accord and the reports couldn't miss the exodus from Tulsa. Prince William County in Virginia acted just recently and already the squat houses where up to a dozen people would cram into are emptying out. All over this great country we have examples of what can happen when a people act with resolution to enforce the law and have no apology for doing so.
For the sake of our schools, our jails, our roads, our natural environment, and the future of our state North Carolina must act. The General Assembly needs to say no to giving illegal aliens access to our higher education facilities as Governor Easely proposed. What we need to do on the state and local level is to give our state troopers and police officers to check on the immigration status of suspected criminals so that we don't allow those individuals who have no business in this country to begin with, a chance to vanish into society until they hurt someone else as has happened all too many times especially in North Carolina. Friends it will only change when you the people demand action on all levels of government and you can make it happen. It was the righteous anger of the American people that prevented the Senate from granting amnesty and citizenship to those who broke the law by coming here. If you want it to change then this November is your chance to do something about it. Tell them all now: secure the border, enforce the law, and deport those who broke the law by coming here.
North Carolina has experienced fast paced growth since the early 1990's. In many ways this is a blessing as new industry brings opportunity for all sons and daughters of the Tarheel state to build lives they can be proud of and to set the foundation for their children. However part of that growth has been a dark blight in the form of illegal immigration. Thanks to lax standards on driver's licenses and a need for cheap manual labor our state has grown into a mecca for illegal aliens. Their precense is a strain on our state's treasury, our infratructure, and most importantly our culture and it must be dealt with in the right manner.
As of 2005 North Carolina had an estimated precense of 405,000 illegal aliens, the ninth largest in the entire country according to the Federation on American Immigration Reform. It annually costs our state over $700 million just for educating illegal alien children in our school system and the children of illegal aliens born here. Altogether our uninvited houseguests cost the state over $1 billion when education, medical care, and incarceration our all measured. This is a tremendous burden that the people of our state ought never to have been forced to bear, but bear it we have thanks to the inaction of our government in Washington and paralysis in Raleigh.
Perhaps the most unfortunate and most threatening aspect of illegal aliens coming to North Carolina is the erosion of our culture. We didn't have to press 1 for English a decade ago, nor did we have Spanish television and radio on the air in this state. Now instead of having people coming to America, they are bringing the culture of Latin America to us without the slightest need or intention to change thanks to the accomodations given them by our government and the politically correct attitude that we can't expect people to shed their past cultures. It is a far cry from Theodore Roosevelt who proclaimed that immigrants must "be American and nothing but American. They must have but one language, the English language, one flag, and that is the American flag" Travelling through Hickory and on US-321 into Charlotte we see an abundance of other flags but they're from Mexico, Guatemala. Honduras, and El Salvador, not Old Glory.
It is imperative that action is taken to address this crisis of finance, demography, and culture. We have plenty of good examples to follow. In Arizona a tough law was passed and illegal aliens were lined up at the Mexican consulate looking for passports back to their home country. In Oklahoma the legislature acted in bipartisan accord and the reports couldn't miss the exodus from Tulsa. Prince William County in Virginia acted just recently and already the squat houses where up to a dozen people would cram into are emptying out. All over this great country we have examples of what can happen when a people act with resolution to enforce the law and have no apology for doing so.
For the sake of our schools, our jails, our roads, our natural environment, and the future of our state North Carolina must act. The General Assembly needs to say no to giving illegal aliens access to our higher education facilities as Governor Easely proposed. What we need to do on the state and local level is to give our state troopers and police officers to check on the immigration status of suspected criminals so that we don't allow those individuals who have no business in this country to begin with, a chance to vanish into society until they hurt someone else as has happened all too many times especially in North Carolina. Friends it will only change when you the people demand action on all levels of government and you can make it happen. It was the righteous anger of the American people that prevented the Senate from granting amnesty and citizenship to those who broke the law by coming here. If you want it to change then this November is your chance to do something about it. Tell them all now: secure the border, enforce the law, and deport those who broke the law by coming here.
posted by THE HICKORY DAILY RECORD at at
12:56 PM
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