Issues and Solutions

Immigration

Joe Biden and the Democrats want an open southern border to bring in their new future voters at the expense of American citizens who have paid taxes for all their adult lives. As of March 2024, every taxpayer in New York and Massachusetts is paying on average $60 a day to feed, house, educate and provide healthcare to illegal immigrants who have no asylum claim under U.S law. Florida has over 1.6 million illegal immigrants costing Florida’s legal residents almost $6,000 each a year. Fortunately, in 2023 the Florida legislature passed a law requiring employees to have legal status to work and made it a crime to bring illegal immigrants into Florida. We certainly don’t want sanctuary cities or be a sanctuary state. We see where that path leads. If we don’t have strong Republican majorities in our state government, Democrats will continue to vote for these measures and they will turn Florida into New York, California, Illinois, and the list goes on. Our safety nets are breaking in our hospitals, schools and social services due to the over 11 Million illegal immigrants who just walked over the border, not to mention the crime, drugs and diseases we haven’t seen in decades. Think about that 11 Million number. It is more than double the population of all Miami-Dade and Broward counties combined. None of these people are vetted and now we have tens of thousands of Chinese young, adult males entering though the southern border, obviously sent by the Chinese Communist party. For what purpose?

Legal immigration is a great asset to our country. Illegal immigration is decidedly detrimental to American taxpayers. People are not racists or xenophobic because they want a lawful, orderly process for entering and living in the US. What about all the immigrants who have followed the rules and waited their turn in line? Isn’t it discriminatory to those legal immigrants being processed according to our laws to allow groups flooding across our borders from Central and South America, Haiti and all other parts of the world to be allowed entry before them? In the Build Back Better/Broke Bill, that did not pass, Democrats proposed granting amnesty to approximately 6.5 million illegal immigrants, if they have been living illegally in the U.S. before January 2011. We can’t have a reward system based on length of time someone is able to getting away with breaking the law. 

In 2022, illegal immigration net total costs on a federal and state level are estimated to be $150.7 billion dollars for 15.5 million illegal immigrants.  That figure takes into account any taxes having been paid by illegals. With thousands more illegals entering the US every day at the Southern Border, these numbers are increasing exponentially.  In 2022 in Florida alone, there are over 1,000,000 illegal persons who cost the taxpayers of Florida $5.46 billion dollars to provide schools, healthcare, welfare and other government services. We also have to consider the strain on our criminal justice and prison resources as of 2023 the cost is $47 billion dollars annually for federal, state and local agencies. 

First and foremost, the asylum regulations have to reflect the realities at the border. Biden allowing all persons crossing the border illegally to stay in the U.S. and be provided with housing, health care, education, etc. is the worst incentive for illegal immigration. These immigrants are given a piece of paper which frequently does not even have a court date for their case or a date 10 years in the future, for which virtually no one shows up. It’s ludicrous. 

Additionally, in 1997 the Flores Settlement, which limits detention of minors to a 20 day period, was agreed to by the U.S. Government. This Settlement is being abused as a loophole to avoid detention while awaiting a hearing on an immigrant’s asylum claim. The cartels are trafficking and renting children to immigrants, who are not related to these trafficked children, so that adult illegal immigrants can be released rapidly into the U.S., never to be seen again at their asylum hearings. These rules have to be changed.

WE NEED MORE IMMIGRATION JUDGES and/or MAGISTRATES,  ESPECIALLY AT THE SOUTHERN BORDER. Presently, there are about 600 immigration judges and 68 immigration courts. We need to double that number and hear the asylum cases quickly without releasing illegal immigrants into the country. Almost all the immigrants from Central and South America and Haiti do not qualify for “asylum” under federal immigration laws. They would have to be fleeing “persecution on account of race, religion, nationality, membership in a particular social group, or political opinion” to qualify for asylum. Economic hardship is not a legal consideration for being granted asylum.

Reinstatement of the Remain in Mexico Policy has to be enforced. The U.S. and Canada have a first entry agreement that states the immigrant seeking asylum must be processed in the first country they enter. If not, the immigrant is sent back to the country of first entry. The European Union has the same first entry policies for immigrants entering from non-EU countries. Remain in Mexico is the correct policy because if the immigrant is fleeing persecution in their home country, by arriving in Mexico, “persecution”, as it is defined under asylum laws, is no longer an issue.