US Immigration Policy Presentation at Ardsley HS

In the spring of 2006, I attended the trials of Ronald Douglas Herrera Castellanos, who brutally raped and murdered Mary Nagle, a wife and mother from Rockland, and Ariel Menendez who, likewise, brutally raped and murdered Elizabeth Butler, a Westchester high-school student.  Both Herrera and Menendez were illegal aliens who had previously been arrested—but not deported as they should have been according to law.  Unlike Nita Lowey, I will persist in demanding that federal immigration authorities remove illegal alien convicts immediately upon their release from prison.

Since illegal aliens usually do not have medical insurance, yet regularly use our medical and social services, they endanger the continued operation of our hospitals like Nyack Hospital, where my wife worked as a dietitian, and Westchester Medical Center.  If Congress allows an Amnesty Bill  to become law, it will be a disaster for our communities and for America.   

Free education to the children of illegal aliens is overcrowding our school systems, requiring special language classes, and increasing our school taxes.  The current legal interpretation that entitles every child born to illegal aliens automatic citizenship and a $200,000 education, as well as unlimited access to multitude of costly social services, is absurd and must be changed. The economic stimulus for illegal immigration can be reduced by repealing trade bills like NAFTA, which have undermined Latin American family farms, as well as American manufacturing jobs.  

I will also work to reform our system of legal immigration to better accommodate those residents of European nations who wish to emigrate legally to America, but, because of existing rules, are often unable to do so.  For example, although 10.8% of Americans claimed Irish ancestry in the 2000 Census, fewer than 0.2% (1,503) of the 1,052,415 immigrants who were admitted to the United States in 2007 came from Ireland.  Similarly, although 5.6% of Americans claimed Italian ancestry in the 2000 Census, in 2007, fewer than 0.3% (2,569) immigrants came from Italy. 

We must reverse the increasingly common trend of companies obtaining special visas for foreign workers, while they discard loyal, long-term employees.  Similarly, the outsourcing of American jobs to foreign countries must be stopped.  In 2007, our trade deficit with China grew to $259 Billion, up 11.4% from 2006, while our trade deficit with Mexico grew to $74 Billion, up 15.4% last year and up 64.4% over the past three years. We need a system of Fair Trade that protects middle and lower-income workers, so that one day soon we Americans can once again purchase clothing and necessities that proudly state on the label "Made in America."

One factor that is usually ignored, but that directly affects our environment and the demand for our energy resources, as well as our overall quality of life, is the rapid growth of our population, which is the result of Congress' neglect of our immigration policy. Unless we elect representatives who are prepared to deal forthrightly with both legal and illegal immigration, our population will grow from 305 million today, to over 400 million in approximately 30 years.  The social and economic effects of this kind of unprecedented growth could be disastrous for our neighborhoods and our nation.

An obvious result of rapid population growth is the over-development of our Westchester and Rockland communities.  It seems that new homes and offices are being built on every square-foot of available land, forever transforming the natural beauty of our neighborhoods and threatening the environment.