by James Glaser
October 4, 2003

No, I am not talking about Iraq, although I do believe we are losing that one too. I'm not talking about Afghanistan either as I think we lost that over a year ago. Remember Osama bin Ladin and Mulla Omar? I seem to remember the President saying some thing about "dead or alive," but we left Afghanistan before we finished the job and American troops are still getting killed over there.

For sure I am not talking about the War on Drugs as we lost that many years ago. Sure we were able to transfer billions of tax dollars to some very rich Americans and tell the people that we were trying to stop the flow of drugs, but we never even made a dent in that flow. Today drugs can be bought in every city and town in this country, no matter how small they are. Our country is saturated with whatever you want to smoke, snort, or shoot.

How about the War on Poverty. We started that war when Lyndon Johnson was President and last year over one million more Americans fell on to the poverty rolls. That sounds like a loss to me.

What I am talking about, is our war on the millions of illegal aliens coming into our country across borders our government claims they guard. George Bush has told us that he has budgeted $9,000,000,000.00 dollars for this job. Niko Price a correspondent at large for the Associated Press reports that "A crackdown along the US- Mexico border designed to prevent terrorists from entering the United States hasn't stopped even one known militant from slipping into America since Sept.11." Nor has it stopped the flow of millions of third world people coming here for work.

In Niko's report People-smugglers say. "As for terrorists, they say none would even think of crossing from Mexico." "They have visas. They fly in" says Victor Saravia, a Tijuana-based people smuggler since 1970. Tens of thousands, maybe hundreds of thousands of illegal aliens are still pouring into our country every year.

Mexican workers are coming here to take low paying jobs and many American Corporations are happy to provide them. Illegal workers can not complain about pay, safety, or anything else that American workers take for granted.

With Bush's increased security at border check points, migrants have been pushed into even more remote desert crossings where they face bandits, snakes, dehydration, and heat exposure. Since Oct. 2001 at least 742 of these people trying to get into our country have died.

There is a way to tell if our efforts to close our borders are working and that is by how much money these illegal workers are sending back to Mexico and in the last year that amount has grown from $10 billion last year to $12 billion this year.

Migrants say as long as the job markets stay unequal, people will continue to come to the United States no matter how hard anyone tries to stop them. No one knows for sure just how many illegal migrants have come it America over the last several years, but most estimates put the figure at 10 to 12 million..

While it is true that these people have taxes taken out of any check paying job, millions work for cash and those with deductions are at the low end of the pay scale, so few taxes are taken.

The cost to the American people comes from the education of these people's children, their medical care, and the fact that American worker's pay does not rise, because of all of these workers from Mexico willing to work for any amount.

Another aspect of all of these illegal aliens that most people don't like to talk about and that is the loss of our culture. This year was the first time I ever heard of any one running for President having a Spanish debate. The Democrats did this year. In the California recall election it was reported that ballots were printed in thirty seven languages. Right here in Minnesota, at the State Drivers License Bureau, they have interpreters there to help you if you can't read or speak English. I always wonder how those people read the road signs or the drivers manual.

This is my personal opinion, if you want to become an United States Citizen, then learn to speak and read our language, English. I don't think that is asking too much. At one time I wanted to go to Germany and live for a year and I wrote to the German embassy asking if that would be OK. They sent me these forms and what I needed was a letter of credit from a bank stating that I had enough of my own personal funds to live for that year and I would have had to sign a form that I would not seek any form of social service help from the German government. I wasn't offended. What I thought was that these people have it together when it comes to immigration.

I think it is being polite to take the time and effort needed to learn the language of the country you want to live in. I do not think that is asking too much. These people say they want to become Americans, but do they really? I think what they want is a little piece of their country in ours so they don't have to put the time and effort needed to learn our ways. Their children can, because they will learn it all in our schools.

Our country is changing. I see nothing wrong with a person like my grandparents, moving here and going to night school and learning everything they need to become citizens. When millions of people sneak in to our country and can hide out in their own ethnic sections of every American city, it hurts us all. It really hurts the people coming here legally, because they get branded as being illegal. So what is Washington doing about this war on illegal aliens?

We are sending billions of dollars to Iraq, trying to close their borders, when we have no idea how to close ours. We are telling every other nation in this world how to run their countries, while back here in the good old USA we are losing war after war, on poverty, drugs, the massive influx of illegal we have, and the assault on our culture and language. Just maybe we should work on our own problems before we go off telling others what to do.