Illegal immigration costs North Carolina taxpayers $1.3 billion annually. Read the full report to learn more about the impact of illegal immigration on NC.

NC Listen advocates these 4 basic immigration policies to combat illegal immigration and increasing legal immigration:

1. Enforce Immigration Laws and Control Our Borders
2. No More Amnesties
3. Return to Lower, More Sensible Legal Immigration
4. No More “Guest Worker” Programs; Require E-Verify – Americans Need Jobs

You can learn more about these policy recommendations on our Policy Page.

The NC General Assembly says it is serious about “Job number 1 in North Carolina” — helping citizens get jobs. Why then does North Carolina House Bill 786 gut and dismiss state law just passed in 2011 to deny jobs to illegal immigrants? Why does H.786 attempt to give unscrupulous employers the green light with no penalties if they hire illegals in violation of federal law? Not to mention that illegal immigration is costing NC taxpayers over $1.1 billion net each year. Every dollar going to illegal immigrants and their dependents is one less dollar going to our own poor.

The main reason the NC Sheriffs Association does not support H.786 is because it gives legal driving privileges to illegal alien immigrants. H.786 should be a state immigration enforcement bill only. Part IX should be removed in its entirety, which allows illegal aliens to acquire a legal driving permit (aka NC driver’s license that you can’t use as an ID to vote maybe).

The Real ID Act passed by Congress after 9-11 says States should not give legal driving privileges to illegal aliens. Not only is it bad public policy to give illegal aliens a drivers’ permit, but it also has homeland security concerns as stated in the Read ID Act. Why would NC legislators pass a bill to in part weaken homeland security?
The last time our state gave legal driving privileges to illegal aliens during the Easley administration, our state became a magnet and illegal immigration soared by more than tenfold from tens of thousands to four hundred thousand. It would be a disaster again as we would be the only state in the southeast to provide such legal driving privileges for illegals and one of only four other states in the entire USA to do so. And illegals could easily get forged documents like utility bills pretending to prove residency. Look, we’ve been down this road before and the experience gives us a preview of what actually did happen in North Carolina earlier. Why would we expect a different outcome?

One of the problems on our roads would be illegal aliens (and some citizens) driving without a license and insurance. Note what AAA has to say:
AAA spokesperson Jodi Woolard said in a recent WNCN report concerning people in NC driving without a valid driver’s license and insurance, “we believe we would see a big difference if the penalties were more severe.” She went on to say that North Carolina is one of the most lenient states when it comes to cracking down on such offenders. H.786 could address this problem in Part X without providing legal driving privileges to illegal aliens.

First of all we must reject the Gang of Eight national immigration bill (S.744) as currently written. It is a replay of 1986 in which the US Congress granted an amnesty for illegal immigrants with only promises to control our borders and more promises to do real enforcement of our laws. The promises were not kept and there is no reason to trust Congress this time. The Gang of Eight bill actually increases legal immigration to two million immigrants each year when we have over 20 million citizens who are either unemployed or cannot find a full-time job. This is nothing less than ridiculous.

It is a both a right and responsibility of our government to manage immigration so that it serves the national interests of the USA, as eloquently spoken by the late Congresswoman Barbara Jordan and former Chairperson of the US Commission on Immigration Reform. Obviously we need to stop illegal immigration (steps to take on page 2), but we also need to reform legal immigration for our knowledge-based society and have it built upon very high skill-levels and advanced education with the exception of allowing a traditional number of refugees per year. Less legal immigration, almost exclusively based on very high skills and advanced education, would benefit the USA. The key point is advanced skills and education, the smartest of the smart. Outside of some small shortages of STEM workers in spots around the nation, there is no shortage of college educated workers in the USA. One can look at statistics as real proof. And we have over twenty million citizens who are either unemployed or cannot find a full-time job. In the past we have had too much unskilled legal immigration and illegal immigration. Mass illegal immigration in particular has caused an increase in unemployment and driven down wages for low-skilled citizens and created more poverty. Among the top legal immigrant sending countries of legal immigrants, welfare is the highest for households headed by immigrants from Mexico (57%), Guatemala (55%), and the Dominican Republic (54%).

Should we consider a pathway to citizenship (amnesty in reality) for illegal immigrants? Robert Rector, a senior research fellow of the Heritage Foundation, says legalization of illegal immigrants will cost more than six trillion dollars net over their lifetime for the total public benefits they will be entitled to receive minus taxes paid. How will we really determine the amount of “back taxes” owed by illegal immigrants to the federal government…..under which illegal immigrant’s fake name? How much will this analysis cost the taxpayers? How do we do an effective background check since again illegals have so many aliases? How much will that investigative work cost taxpayers? What is the amount of the so-called fine the illegals will pay? How many would-be legal immigrants waiting in line now would gladly pay a “fine” to be able to jump in the front of the line of others? And the biggest insult is the notion of illegals getting in the back of the line. Is it the end of the line that would-be legal immigrants enter while still in their native country? Or is it the end of an imaginary line inside the USA as if the illegals had green cards? We have a backlog in paperwork and processing today while admitting one million legal immigrants each year, but how is it that we have plenty of time and money to process paperwork for thirteen million illegal immigrants, while at the same time, continuing to admit the one million legal immigrants each year? Isn’t it interesting that those proposing amnesties never mention the punishment that citizens will endure with an amnesty, only the suggested “humanitarian” benefit the illegals will receive? Citizen taxpayers are being punished by having to fund the huge cost of public benefits of illegals and their dependents. And every social services dollar going to illegal immigrants and their dependents is one less dollar going to our own poor, since there is not an unlimited amount of taxpayer money. Low-skilled citizens are punished by lost jobs and driven-down wages due to illegal immigration. How humanitarian is it to keep granting amnesties (since the IRCA amnesty in 1986 the USA has granted six “mini-amnesties”) while would-be legal immigrants wait years and years in line? Any action other than illegal immigrants returning to their native country and getting in the back of the line is in fact an amnesty.

Should consideration be given to the so-called “Dream or Achieve” Act amnesty? Both of these are marketed as helping children of illegal immigrants. Children aren’t really deported. They simply follow and go with their parents. 18-32 year old persons are adults, not children. As young adults, those illegally in the USA can go back to their native country to attend trade school or college and/or work legally. The only persons hurt with such an amnesty are young adult citizens who, one for one (as college is a selection process), will be disenfranchised for every illegal immigrant allowed to enroll in a U.S. college or take a job in the USA.
We need to reduce legal immigration and make it much more advanced education-based AND diverse (ten sending countries hog most of the legal immigration slots). More diversity automatically makes it likely that legal immigrants will learn English and not easily reside in ethnic enclaves in America. Use the opportunity of reforming immigration to do welfare reform at the same time. Reduce legal immigration to a total of 150,000 per year until our high real unemployment rate (use U-6 data per the Dept of Labor) is significantly lowered. Why are we allowing nearly one million legal immigrants to the USA each year to include this year, while over 20 million Americans are either unemployed or want and cannot find a full-time job? Maybe we need to listen to citizens instead of the whining of the US Chamber of Commerce and other cheap labor advocates.

Concerned Citizens and Immigration Reformers,

Illegal immigrants hold over six million non-agriculture jobs in the USA.  Yet President Obama continues to press to spend $447 billion [yes with a b] to allegedly create 1.3 million new jobs.  If it would actually work (no pun intended), that’s at a cost of over $343,000 per job.   For less than $5 billion we could finish building a dual layer fence on our southern border and fully implement the federal E-Verify System to make sure only legal residents in the USA are hired, and then begin to check the immigration status of existing workers to include real workplace audits and punish employers who then knowingly hire illegals.   Illegals would have a tough time remaining in the USA without a job and especially if they knew they could not continue to cross the border at will.

Unfortunately the US Senate and the US House will not require E-Verify and has yet to even allow it to be used (even voluntarily) by companies to check the status of existing workers.   The US Chamber of Commerce (aka United Nations Chamber of Commerce) is partially responsible for this.   The US House is controlled by the Republicans, but legislation that would require E-Verify without state preemption is not on the radar screen.

The Republican Presidential frontrunners are rated good at requiring E-Verify, but Cain won’t take a position on punishing businesses who knowingly hire illegals.   Being for E-Verify is really no good if one is not going to punish businesses who then knowingly hire illegals.   More to follow.

Concerned Citizens and Immigration Reformers,

H.R. 2164, a bill by Congressman Lamar Smith who has fought for immigration enforcement for years, would require all businesses nationwide to use E-Verify and it has some great enforcement features, HOWEVER there are two clauses that MUST be amended if we are to continue to support this legislation.

The bill will be considered by the U.S. House Judiciary Committee and we need to press them to adopt these two amendments to H.R. 2164, the Legal Workforce Act, authored by Congressman Smith.

We must contact all Republican Members of the House Judiciary Committee, (list below) and ask that they support these two amendments in committee that do the following to H.R. 2164:

From the Center for Immigration Studies:

“While it is sometimes assumed that minorities, particularly Hispanics, favor increased immigration and legalization for illegal immigrants, a new Zogby survey finds that minority voters’ views are more complex. The poll of Hispanic, Asian-American, and African-American likely voters finds some support for legalization. But overall each of these groups prefers enforcement and for illegal immigrants to return home. Moreover, significant majorities of all three groups think that the current level of immigration is too high. These views are in sharp contrast to the leaders of most ethnic advocacy organizations, who argue for increased immigration and legalization of illegal immigrants. The survey used neutral language, avoiding such terms as ‘amnesty,’ ‘illegal alien,’ or ‘undocumented.’”

To read the full article and view the poll results, read “An Examination of Minority Voters’ Views on Immigration.“