Is Unlawful Entry a CRIME?

Zero tolerance for immigration-law violators! No amnesty, no "stealth-amnesty." No "change of status," marriage fraud, "exceptional leave to remain," no "Temporary Protected Status." If you break the law, depart or be deported. Illegal aliens kill more US citizens each year than the war in Iraq has killed in four years. Apologists for illegal immigration like to paint it as a victimless crime. But in fact, illegal immigration causes substantial harm to American citizens and legal immigrants, particularly those in the most vulnerable sectors of our population--the poor, minorities, and children. Additionally, job competition by waves of illegal immigrants willing to work at substandard wages and working conditions depresses the wages of American workers, hitting hardest at minority workers and those without high school degrees. Illegal immigration also contributes to the dramatic population growth overwhelming communities across America--crowding school classrooms, consuming already limited affordable housing, and straining precious natural resources like water, energy, and forestland. Taxpayers are being forced to pay for the free health care, education, and other welfare programs being given to illegal aliens; Those tax dollars could be given back to U.S. taxpayers or used to keep our borders secure; They may be here illegally, but they sure know how to "work the system" to collect "free" medical care, "free" education, "free" food, Section 8 housing vouchers and other housing assistance, and hundreds of other social services. It costs citizens additional hundreds of billions of tax dollars at every level: local, state, and federal. It gobbles up billions of our charitable contributions. And much of that money ends up siphoned out of our economy and into offshore accounts. Illegal aliens, over half of whom work "under the table" with neither job nor income reported (nor taxed), are not counted as employed or unemployed. But some of those day-labor and off-the-books "job-lets" would be "real" jobs - available to American citizen job-seekers - if employment regulations were enforced. Illegal aliens can get away with tax evasion, et al., which citizens cannot. In short, we have too many workforce entrants and too few jobs created. The ratio works out to roughly 7-10 workforce entrants per job created. If all illegal aliens depart or are deported, all legal immigration halted, and all temporary employment visas abolished, we still have a problem with more US-born workforce entrants than new jobs created. Illegal immigration damages our country and our citizens every day at every level. And not even the attacks of 2/26 and 9/11 have awakened many Americans to the vast dangers illegal immigration poses to our selves, our families, our communities, our society, our values, our principles, our civilization. Zero Tolerance for Immigration-Law Violators! We must remember the lessons of 2/26, 9/11, and the costs we bear every single day. God Bless the U S A !

I believe that the operative word here is "unlawful"