Three weeks ago, a neighbor found several illegal immigrant women at her back door. They needed to charge their cell phones so they could call someone to meet them. I live 40 miles from the Nogales border, they had crossed illegally and were making their way to Tucson.
What would you do?
The neighbor brought them into her home. They were cold, hungry, and scared. She provided blankets to warm them, soup, and a way to charge their phones. Then she called the Border Patrol. As they left, she became concerned that her home had now been tagged for others as a safe place to ask for help.
Compassion? Yes. We live close to the border and are firsthand witnesses to many things others in the country do not see or believe are happening.
Compassion is balanced with caution each and every day. Beyond day-to-day encounters, how can we not think and be concerned for our own homeless citizens living on the streets? The U.S. homeless are the veterans, the mentally ill, those living with drug and alcohol addictions, runaway children, and those who have been abandoned through lost family ties. Solutions and assistance for our own homeless are diluted as the focus is turned to the issues of out-of-control illegal immigration.
Every day I think about the real cost and impact of the unsecured Southern Border. I measure this not only with the statistics and financial costs but also in the stories and the impact on our country. Individually statistics and news stories are pieces of information we absorb each day. Brought together, the cost and impact to our country and to those making the journey to our border are stunning.
The complete fiscal impact of providing benefits to illegal aliens cannot be determined, since government revenues attributable to illegal aliens are unknown. All of this is paid through U.S. tax dollars. Illegal aliens and their U.S. children are eligible to receive:
- Emergency and Medicaid service. American taxpayers are funding over $300 million a year for health care services to illegal aliens in the custody of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE). This is according to the ICE agency year-end report.
- Primary and secondary education
- School nutrition services
- Aid to Families with Dependent Children (AFDC)
- Food stamp benefits
- Mobile Phone
- Free emergency housing in some cases
- Transportation to other areas within the United States (airline and bus transportation)
- The number of illegal immigrants entering our country is unsustainable. The fiscal year ended on October 31, 2022, with 2.76 million illegal immigrants entering the U.S. through the southern border.
Our homeland's security is at risk as terrorists worldwide exploit entry into our country. One hundred and sixty-five individuals on the terrorist watchlist attempted to enter our country illegally through the southern border in 2022. These are the individuals they detected. How many were undetected and what are they planning?
Mexican drug cartels and violent gangs have come to our country. Drugs being smuggled across the border has multiple impacts.
- Deaths due to drug overdose or accidental ingestion.
- Drug seizures at border crossings and smuggled into the U.S. continues to rise.
- Drug Cartel debt bondage in exchange for being transported illegally into the U.S. into the drug business.
- Increasing danger to the Border Patrol agents as drug cartels move to control our border.
Sex Trafficking has increased through utilizing the open border has resulted in vulnerable women and children being separated from their parents or sent on the journey to the border alone being sold into sex trafficking bondage. In 2021, 10,359 situations of human trafficking were reported to the U.S. National Human Trafficking Hotline involving 16,554 individual victims.
Each day brings an increase of danger and vandalism to ranchers and those living close to the southern border.
Illegal immigrants, who have nowhere to go, are living on the streets in border towns and throughout the U.S.
The distance that has unfolded in addressing immigration reform and securing our border continues to grow. There is no desire to find areas of agreement and begin the process of addressing these very serious problems. Our elected officials have abandoned their oaths to serve and protect our country. This is one of many symptoms of the failures of our federal government.
Now is the time to take action. Now is the time to change how our federal government, paid for through our taxes, operates. Here at Convention of States, we have a solution as big as the problem. An Article V Convention of States is called and controlled by the states and has the power to PROPOSE constitutional amendments. These are our three simple talking points.
1. Limit the power and jurisdiction of the federal government (including the president).
2. Limit the terms of office for federal officials.
3. Limit the ability of Congress and the president to spend and waste our hard-earned money. What can you do? Sign the petition:
Let your legislators know you want them to take action. Sign the petition here.
U.S. Customs and Border Patrol Statistics for FY2022 can be found here.
