To begin to understand the scale of the immigration question, to comprehend the sheer numbers of illegal aliens stampeding north across the Mexican border into the United States, to visualize the breathtaking magnitude of the problem, one can look to the past. The distant past.Following the call of Manifest Destiny, countless Americans packed up everything they owned into wagons and handcarts to make the trek into the West. Over time, the iron "tires" of the wagon wheels wore deep ruts into the land. In places, the passage of iron wore ruts in the Oregon Trail that even today measure four to five feet wide and a yard deep. More than a century after the last wagon stopped in Oregon City, one stands in awe that so many men, women, children, horses, oxen and wagons passed to inscribe ruts into the land that have endured more than a century. It took 50 years for iron-clad wooden wheels to wear these ruts into the landscape.
These photos show just one popular route used by illegal aliens to cross on foot into the United States.
"Mr. Bush, Build Up That Wall!"
Some argue that constructing a wall between Mexico and the United States is "stupid," most recently, Mexican president Vicente Fox. Arizona's governor, Janet Napolitano cried, "Show me a 50 foot wall, and I'll show you a 51 foot ladder." Sure, human beings on foot might climb a wall, but it's pretty clear that it WILL stop drug dealers who may now conveniently drive their poisonous wares across the border and into American neighborhoods.
A wall may not stop every Tomas, Ricardo or Jose from trekking in search of a better life in the North, but it will greatly deter the high-speed drug-related shootouts that plague families in border communities. A wall will greatly slow the hemorrhage of drugs, most recently methamphetamine, into American communities by reducing the volume of drugs that can physically be carried across the border. Presently, methamphetamine cooked in Mexico rolls north in convoys of 4X4 trucks. This obviously is a far more efficient method of transportation than in the backpacks of illegals climbing a wall.
Aerial photography of the Mexican frontier with the United States illustrates the point. Trails, paths and roads cross the imaginary line between north and south of the border. Some of these appear to be cattle or game trails that conveniently connect on the north side of the border with a dirt, gravel or even paved road. This photo shows a section of the Chisholm Trail, beaten into the earth by the hooves of millions of cattle. These photos portray the damage and filth generated by thousands of illegal aliens crossing the frontier unimpeded in many places by so much as a barbed wire fence. Frequently the alien invaders are so numerous that they march single-file and simply walk across the border to be picked up by smugglers waiting on the adjacent highway.
Despite the evidence, some in Congress cry out against construction of a wall and won't even authorize funding for vehicle barriers to keep drug runners from smuggling thousands of kilos at a time of methamphetamine, cocaine, marijuana and other controlled substances. In many places Mexican roads continue across an invisible line marking the border with the United States, where drug-smuggling criminals armed with automatic weapons find no obstacle whatsoever to their vehicles heavily loaded with kilos of narcotics. Someone please show Governor Napolitano a drug-smuggler's truck trapped behind a vehicle barricade so she can begin to understand the effectiveness of a 50-foot wall. She needs to also see the interconnected networks of roads and trails that can be interrupted by a wall that keeps the drug-smugglers' high-speed shootouts south of the border and out of the neighborhoods of America's border communities.
An Invasion of Illegal Aliens, the Welcome Mat, and Word-of-Mouth Advertising
Babies born to illegal aliens on U.S. soil are presently awarded automatic citizenship—and eligibility for Medicaid, food stamps, public housing, and other so-called entitlement programs. It’s hard to find a more effective marketing strategy to encourage an illegal run for our borders than to provide better jobs and subsidized food and housing for those who succeed.
What many United States citizens may not realize is that people from Mexico, Mesoamerica and South America lack the education to comprehend that these benefits are not free. Many of these people are not literate even in Spanish, and the indigenous people may not speak Spanish at all. From their perspective, Norteamericanos are wonderful, generous people who help them apply for everything. Frequently, illegal aliens express pride that their often numerous children are U.S. citizens.
Moreover, once illegals establish themselves in the U.S. the first thing they do is contact their relatives back home to tell them where they are, how they got there, and who helped them. Suddenly that person has become a tremendous marketing tool and public relations person to advertise how to succeed at illegal immigration.
Some decry the movement to eliminate birthright citizenship and accuse its supporters of cruelty to children. However, they fail to account for human behavior in response to change. If birthright citizenship is eliminated, illegal aliens will be far less likely to drag their wives and children on a dangerous journey north precisely because the incentive to do so will have been eliminated for those coming just for public benefits. Thus, elimination of birthright citizenship could arguably save lives. Yes, life as an illegal without status, without access to free medical care, food stamps, subsidized housing, and other public benefits would be harsh, but those conditions would deter the free-loaders.
The other leg of the magnet attracting illegal aliens on the life-threatening journey north is unscrupulous employers who hire illegals, often under-the-table, and can therefore easily subject these people to unsafe or intolerable working conditions. Again, the way to turn off the magnet is to remove the incentive to hire illegals. Employers presently face such miniscule fines that they consider them to be an ordinary cost of business. However, should the fines contemplate the unfair economic advantage gained by the employer through their illegal activity, they will have less incentive to hire illegal workers.
Employers everywhere, especially those dependent on illegals for their economic advantage will invariably wail that they are required to collect documentation, not determine its authenticity. They’re right, sort of.
What they don’t bother to acknowledge is that there are people available who examine identity documents as a routine and have access to resources that permit them to determine in good faith an identity document’s authenticity. Notaries public, particularly those who are members in good standing of a nationally-recognized professional organization, such as the National Notary Association, routinely use identity document verification tools to ascertain the identity of persons. Such notaries are authorized to possess identity document authentication catalogs for both national and international documents. In many states, notaries are required to retain a copy of any document the notary authenticates.
Moreover, employers can check up to ten social security numbers a day free of charge to screen the number provided by an employee for validity and for the state of issue. More numbers may be checked with an inexpensive subscription. To discover whether the social security number belongs to a deceased person, an employer can also use the Social Security Death Index. While these are just screening tools, and quick-and-dirty ones at that, it’s better than making no effort at all. By simply mentioning a social security number check, employers can subtly encourage those about to present a bogus social security number to make a hasty exit while the employer is in the other room to use the computer. After all, persons with bogus social security numbers presumably know they’re fake and won’t want to risk prosecution and deportation. It all comes down to how lucky the illegal worker feels that day, who knows he or she doesn’t have a valid social security number, and now nows that the employer will instantly know that the number the illegal worker is about to present is fake and doesn’t match the worker’s name or belongs to a deceased person.
In short, the authenticity question is not sufficient to excuse employers from making at least a minimal good-faith effort to scrutinize identity documents. Calling on a notary public to authenticate identity documents, particularly driver licenses, is an inexpensive way to minimize acceptance of forged identity documents. Social security number verification tools provide an additional deterrent to presenting nonexistent numbers or those corresponding to deceased persons. Finally, the identity and work eligibility verification tools would be more effective deterrents if the employer involves a notary public and at least one social security number checking tool, and particularly if the employee knows in advance that their documents will be subjected to authentication.
