February 27, 2003
Action Alert

BALANCE Needs your help NOW to
say "NO" to AMNESTY and
NO to SOCIAL SECURITY BENEFITS for ILLEGALS

— Pelosi Pushes S.F. Federal Building Matricula ID Card Acceptance —

The Open Borders Lobby is hitting our side from every angle, and we need all of our activists to kick into high gear now to help stop the following threats from becoming a reality.

1. Imminent Legislative Amnesty Threat:

Teaming up with members of the Bush Administration — including Tony Garza, U.S. Ambassador to Mexico, and key Democratic Congressional leaders — Mexican President Vicente Fox is starting 2003 by pushing harder than ever for amnesty for illegal aliens. An amnesty would pardon millions of lawbreakers and allow them to live legally in the United States. Our view is that they'll try to disguise the legislation as a benign appearing "migratory agreement" or as a "guestworker program".

2. Urgent "Back Door" Amnesty Threat:

Also known as the "stealth amnesty," this is an even harder enemy to fight. The use of "matricula consular" cards — identification cards used by the Mexican government to illegal aliens residing in the United States — is helping illegal aliens gain access to taxpayer-funded services and other privileges previously reserved for U.S. citizens and permanent resident aliens. Increasing numbers of American corporations, city governments, law enforcement agencies and even banks now accept these cards as valid U.S. identification — despite the fact that it is illegal to open a bank account without a Social Security card.

Shockingly, House Minority leader Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) is pushing acceptance of the matricula consular as valid identification at the San Francisco Federal Building. If continued, this practice would legitimize the ability of a foreign government to give its citizens, many of whom are illegally in the U.S., access to U.S. taxpayer-funded (that's us!) social services and privileges without requiring a U.S. Government Agency issued ID for access to such services and privileges.

After Pelosi's action the General Services Administration, apparently with a "prompt" from Colin Powell's State Department, temporarily suspended recognition of these matricula ID cards at all Federal facilities (Hooray for the GSA!) pending investigation of the obvious security and fraud issues. Because the suspension is temporary it is crucial that you ask your representatives to make the ban permanent, and to support legislation forbidding their use by other government agencies and by large corporations such as banks.

3. Social Security for Illegal Aliens?

Sounds like a bad joke, but the Bush Administration is now negotiating a deal with the Mexican government to further strain our Social Security system. The agreement would grant full Social Security benefits to hundreds of thousands of Mexican citizens living in the United States, and to Mexican citizens who once worked in the U.S., legally or illegally who are now living in Mexico. And this deal is being negotiated despite the fact that many American citizens can't get adequate Social Security funds. The Center for Immigration Studies estimates that the cost would be $1 billion annually.

Even more outrageous, it is proposed that "totalization" would be the basis for such an agreement. This means that even if a Mexican citizen did not work long enough in the U.S. to receive Social Security benefits, the number of years worked in Mexico would be added to the number of years worked in the U.S. (legally and illegally — some workers use false social security numbers) to determine eligibility. If eligible, the Mexican worker would be eligible to receive cash transfers from the United States. In the end, it is estimated that this agreement could end up costing the United States between $5 billion and $10 billion per year, further threatening the viability of our Social Security System.

The Costs of Adding Millions

Can we afford any of this? Can the environment afford it? Can our Governments afford it?

The Environment

Consider that for every person added to the U.S. population, one acre of farmland or wild land must be converted into developed land. Do we really want to see millions more acres of U.S. land developed to accommodate illegal newcomers?

• About half of all urban sprawl nationwide is related to U.S. population growth according to a scientific analysis of Census data. And nearly 87% of U.S. population growth results from mass immigration.
• For the last thirty years, Americans have been having replacement level families — an average of two children per family. The average number of children in an immigrant family is nearly four.
• If current immigration and related trends continue, 200 million more people will be added to the U.S. population over the next 50 years and will require approximately 30 million new housing units to be built for them.
• More than 100 million Americans live in urban areas where the air is officially classified bye the EPA as unsafe to breathe.
• Forty percent of immigrants live at or below the poverty level.

Do you want your hometown overwhelmed by urban sprawl, traffic and pollution?

Economic Effects of More Mass Immigration: Crucial Facts for Your Faxes

• American workers pay, and pay big, for mass immigration: over $93 billion per year net (i.e. after subtracting taxes immigrants pay) in taxes and $152 billion in annual wage depression. Do we need more "cheap" labor when a weakening American economy has put 8.5 million American citizens out of work with thousands more being laid off every day.
• Immigrants account for 30 percent of our medically uninsured population.
• The health care systems of high immigration states are collapsing. In California, 40 percent of Medi-Cal recipients speak a foreign language, and 82 percent of the state's emergency rooms operate at a collective loss of hundreds of millions every year for treating the uninsured. Florida, Texas and Arizona face similar problems.
• Border hospitals spend about $200 million annually to provide emergency health care to illegal aliens.

And then there are the issues of in-state college tuition and drivers licenses for illegal aliens, the higher use of welfare by immigrants, school overcrowding — and so much more.

Bottom Line: An Amnesty Now would Push Millions MORE Citizens Out of Jobs and Push Our Economy Closer to Collapse and Encourage Even MORE People to Come Illegally to the U.S. in the Hopes that THEY TOO Shall be Amnestied.

Please do the following NOW to STOP these threats and their consequent costs:

1. Contact your Representative and Senators today.

Tell them you are opposed to amnesties, matricula cards, and Social Security benefits for illegal aliens — and that you want a moratorium in the form of H.R. 2712 (the bill introduced in the last session) amended to impose a 100,000 per year annual all-inclusive cap. Find your representatives at: http://www.house.gove/writerep/ . Pushing a moratorium is the best way to increase downward pressure on the numbers.

2. Help BALANCE continue to say "NO" to amnesties and "YES" to a moratorium.

Send BALANCE a special donation today to help us intensify our fight for you on Capitol Hill. Gift memberships are especially important to help us build grassroots support. With your help, we can win this struggle.

3. We stopped the amnesty last year. We can do it again, but we must have your help now!