letter on immigration

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Sally Meisenhelder and Christine Eber's compassionate observations about migrants returned to Mexico after apprehension by Immigration may move you, but it angers some among us. One letter writer accused them of willfully "deceiving" readers about "illegal immigrant invaders" Judge for yourself.

Lost in the Desert

By Sally Meisenhelder
and Christine Eber

Then Jesus was led by the Spirit into the desert to be tempted by the devil.

Matthew 4:1

They come toward the tents clutching plastic bags containing their possessions, including shoe laces and belts that immigration agents require them to remove while in detention to prevent them from hanging themselves. Sometimes they don’t get their shoelaces back, perhaps because they don’t know to ask for them, perhaps because when you’ve almost died in the desert you aren’t thinking about shoe laces. Up to a thousand a day, they are Mexican refugees returning from the Promised Land.

download article (40 KB Word doc)

Help stop the politically driven hysteria on Immigration

Though personal contact with immigrants and not making points in arguments is what will most change people's attitudes, it is important to counter the claims of those who strongly attack undocumented immigrants before they influence others to form opinions based on fear.

To do this we have to counter claims of harm that immigrants do to our country with chapter and verse about the benefits these people bring us. A simple Google search on "undocumented immigrant contributions" brings some interesting results. A sample follows:

http://www.uic.edu/cuppa/uicued/npublications/recent/undocimmigrants.htm

This study done at U. of Illinois indicates that 70% of Chicago's undocumented pay taxes. It also indicates low unemployment, low use of social services and a $5.45 billion addition to the gross regional product.

http://www.legis.state.ia.us/lsadocs/IssReview/2007/IRKRJ002.PDF

This pdf download of a report by the Iowa State Legislature's research service estimates that undocumented immigrants pay up to $70 milliion in tax payments and require $107 million in social seervices. However this assumes that immigrants use the same amount of social services as other parts of the population and other studies have shown that they use less.

The estimates also leave out the contributions immigrants make to the economy. But it also points out another problem: while most immigrant income taxes go to the Federal Government, most social services must be covered by the states. This is a big problem in highly impacted states like California and some formula should be found to reimburse states for some of these costs.

http://www.ailf.org/ipc/factchecks/UndocumentedasTaxpayer.pdf

This pdf download by the Iowa Policy Project, a non-partisan non-profit, looks at the same issues as the above, with similar estimates on taxes paid. By a more precise breakdown it estimates less expenditures on social services for this population. And it points out that many documented families in Iowa pay for only a small portion of the social services they use and that broader and more long range contributions need to be considered.