Should Florida State Government be allowed to Enforce Illegal Immigration?

Thesis Statement

Florida State Government should not be allowed to Enforce Illegal Immigration.

Illegal immigration presents an ever increasing economic burden on the United States economy. Several of the Border States have been fiscally impacted by the influx of illegal immigrants in terms of public benefit, education, and incarceration costs. Some observers contend that the federal government has scarce resources to enforce immigration law and that state and local law enforcement entities should be utilized.

Florida State Government should not be allowed to enforce illegal immigration because thousands of non-citizens are registered to vote in Florida, and tens if not hundreds of thousands in total may be present on the voter rolls nationwide. These numbers are significant: Local elections are often decided by only a handful of votes, and even national elections have likely been within the margin of the number of non-citizens ille­gally registered to vote. Right now, once aliens enter the Florida, it is almost impossible to deport them, even if they have no valid documents. Thousands of those who enter illegally request asylum only if they are caught. The review process can take 10 years or more, and applicants often simply disappear while it is under way. Asylum cases are piling up faster than they can be cleared, with the Immigration and Naturalization Service falling farther behind every year. (Borjas 59-68)

Providing health care for illegal immigrants costs Florida tax payers 400 million dollars annually. Illegals drain about two billion dollars a year for incarceration, schooling and Medicaid from the budgets of such major destination states as Texas, Florida and Florida. For Florida alone, a 1993 study by the Florida Legislature estimates criminal justice costs involving illegal immigrants to be 385 million dollars to the state, with an additional 112 million dollars ...