With an unemployment rate one-third higher than that of natives, immigrants often turn to crime to supplement their welfare. The number of aliens in Federal prisons more than quadrupled between 1984 and 1994. Due to this growth, the INS has announced that it will not take into custody illegal aliens arrested for local offenses. This means that if an illegal alien commits a crime in your neighborhood, he will not be deported and will be free to continue to commit crimes. Even when immigrants do get jobs, they are often taking a position away from that of a union worker.
Businesses love immigrants because they are willing to work for less than union wages.
This means that hard-working citizens are being put out of a job because an immigrant will work for lower pay. In addition, affirmative action programs are keyed to race and ethnicity without regard to American nationality, so that recently arrived immigrants receive special consideration when applying for jobs. Since the original intention of affirmative action was to remedy years of discrimination against minority Americans, this practice of extending it to immigrants seems rather ludicrous. Since most immigrants arrive without a working knowledge of English, schools are forced to run bilingual programs to assimilate immigrant children into American culture. Considering the recent hubbub about the poor quality of schools, it seems as though all the money spent on these programs would be better used to improve the regular education that the average student receives.