The Church sends 19-year-olds who are illegal immigrants on missions within the U.S. The Church knows of their status. What does that tell you about how the Church views the offense?
Official Church source please.
I hear you say that illegal immigration is a huge drain upon the U.S. economy. Certain sectors, that is true. But, in an aggregate sense, immigration contributes to the U.S. general welfare more than individual sectors are affected in the aggregate.
This is one really big cow pie in the sky. Here's the reality:
In FY 2004 there were around 4.5 million low-skill immigrant households in the U.S. containing 15.9 million persons. About 60 percent of these low-skill immigrant households were headed by legal immigrants and 40 percent by illegal immigrants. The analysis presented here measures the total benefits and services received by these "low- skill immigrant households" compared to the total taxes paid.
In FY 2004, the average low skill immigrant household received $30,160 in direct benefits, means-tested benefits, education, and population-based services from all levels of government. By contrast, low-skill immigrant households paid only $10,573 in taxes in FY 2004. A household's net fiscal deficit equals the cost of benefits and services received minus taxes paid. The average low-skill household had a fiscal deficit of $19,588 (expenditures of $30,160 minus $10,573 in taxes).
At the state and local level, the average low skill immigrant household received $14,145 in benefits and services and paid only $5,309 in taxes. The average low skill immigrant households imposed a net fiscal burden on state and local government of $8,836 per year.
The fiscal burden imposed by low skill immigrant households is slightly greater at the state and local level than at the federal level. The annual fiscal deficit for all 4.54 million low skill immigrant households at the state and local level in 2004 was $49.1 billion. Over the next ten years the state and local fiscal deficit caused by low skill immigrants on state and local governments will approach a half trillion dollars.
Current federal immigration policy permits a massive inflow of both legal and illegal low skill immigrants to enter and reside in the U.S. This imposes a massive unfunded mandate on state and local government which much bear the costs of that immigration flow.
Giving amnesty to illegal immigrants would increase the costs outlined in this testimony. Some 50 to 60 percent of illegal immigrants lack a high school degree. Granting amnesty or conditional amnesty to illegal immigrants would, overtime, increase their use of means-tested welfare, Social Security and Medicare. Fiscal costs would go up significantly in the short term but would go up dramatically after the amnesty recipient reached retirement. Based on my current research, I estimate that if all the current adult illegal immigrants in the U.S. were granted amnesty the net retirement costs to government (benefits minus taxes) could be over $2.5 trillion.
http://www.heritage.org/Research/Immigr ... 52107a.cfm
As I said previously, the average low skilled immigrant, legal or illegal, is consuming several times in taxpayer dollars what he pays in taxes, and none of this takes into account the displacement of indigenous workers by illegals and by a glut of legal immigrants, not to mention the lowering of wages created by the artificially high labor pool of unskilled or semi-skilled workers.
Then there is the primary difference between the present generation of immigrants from Mexico and those who came here in prior generations and people from other countries who came through Ellis Island in the Twenties, and that is that many of these people are balkanizing and tribalizing, having no desire and, regarding our own laws, no incentive to learn the language, history, and culture of America and become Americans. This is a symptom of the intellectual and moral disarmament this society has undergone due primarily to the success of the doctrine of Multiculturalism.
But, this board is a Mormon-oriented Board. I make the post to point out to you that the Church does not deny a temple recommend for immigrant status, nor does it care about immigration status when it calls missionaries to full-time status. Moreover, the Church's welfare system assists in a huge way the families of illegal aliens. Nowhere do Church authorities in their sermons denounce the law-breaking of illegal immigrants.
Shouldn't this point tell you that that spewing forth from some on this board about illegal immigration is just right-ring rhetoric the Church does not endorse. Shouldn't this also tell you that local authorities who deny economic or spiritual support to illegal aliens, or who tell them to return to their countries of origin, say things the Church does not teach?
I submit to you that essential Christianity requires us to open our arms to the poor and the needy and to impart of our substance irrespective of immigration status. Whether they be the children of Lehi or not (I believe they are, notwithstanding the popular works of the LGT), my position remains the same.
I submit to you that essential Christianity requires reverence and respect for the rule of law and equality under the law, concepts central to the Constitution, which official Church doctrine accepts as an inspired document. I submit that essential Christianity does not support criminality. I submit that foreign nationals who do not respect the laws of the countries they wish to inhabit divest themselves, at least to some degree, of the same consideration for citizenship as do those who come here legally and jump through all the hoops.
What is your official Church source for the Church's settled policy on illegal immigrants? Why has the 12th Article of Faith been waved for Illegal Mexican immigrants?
Why should I and my Children and their Children be required to contribute vast sums of the fruits of our labor to the support of people who are not even legal members of the American body politic?