Relocating to California was once the goal of many Americans. But in recent years, the luster of living in the “Golden State” has dimmed considerably. Those who still desire to move to what was once widely viewed as a semi-paradise on the West Coast might want to assess what they’ll find before pulling up stakes and heading there.
The Los Angeles Times has surveyed and published some unnerving California developments. In the area served by this newspaper, Times investigators discovered what certainly should be termed failing grades if the region were an educational institution. It’s not, of course, but over recent months, the hard truths they found include:
• 95 percent of warrants for murder in Los Angeles and 75 percent of those on the “most wanted” list contain the names of illegal immigrants.
• Over two/thirds of the births in L.A. County are from illegal immigrant parentage and are paid for by taxpayers.
• Nearly 35 percent of inmates in the state’s detention centers are illegal immigrants.
• According to the FBI, half of the gang members in Los Angeles are illegal immigrants from south of the state’s border.
• In Los Angeles County, 5.1 million people speak only English and 3.1 million speak only Spanish.
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This information came from the mass-circulation newspaper known for its liberal stance on almost all issues. Featuring information about the effects of illegal immigration isn’t its usual practice. The numbers we have cited didn’t appear in a single article. The bad news compiled in this column was spread out over time. The bad news has led many Californians to relocate themselves and their businesses to other parts of the Golden State, even to other states.
Rather than simply accept the conclusions reached above, I decided to ask a close friend who lives in Los Angeles County if all of it was verifiable. He responded: “Yes it is. But there are bigger problems that weren’t mentioned.” For instance, he pointed to the growing number of vagrants living — and defecating — in the streets. He said the water at the beaches is becoming hazardous to health and dangerous for swimming. He told of business owners who have to get their sidewalks cleaned each morning. And he reported that rats and disease-carrying insects have proliferated. Los Angeles, he assured me, is filled with tents and absolute filth.
He then added the following:
Illegals are registered to vote. Many are without a driver’s license and they get around in dilapidated autos without insurance. A large number of these individuals find jobs and demand to be paid only in cash. That way, there are no taxes paid or reported. While many illegals are hard-working and otherwise model citizens, they are encouraged to skirt the laws that everyone is supposed to obey. Even they would confirm what the LA Times reported.
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi has responded to the situation by calling for the imposition of a new “windfall tax” on retirement incomes and stock market gains. She wants to distribute the funds to unemployed illegal immigrants. Wasn’t it Karl Marx who suggested this as the way to solve such problems (“From each according to his abilities, to each according to his needs.”)?
Pelosi regularly scoffs at President Trump’s plan to build a wall at the border. She never airs the most important reason for her opposition to keeping illegals from simply walking into the United States. But her reason for such a stance is obvious: She expects that the illegals who have already arrived and those who continue to cross into the United States will vote for Democrats. And she’ll do whatever she can to care for them, protect them, and urge their relatives to cross the border as well. Illegal immigrants, like many legal immigrants and native-born Americans, are overwhelmingly ignorant of limitations on government that made America great. As soon as they are given the privilege of voting, they will speed the conversion of California and the entire United States into a duplicate of Venezuela or Cuba where central governments have total power.
Sad to state, California isn’t alone in suffering from these problems. Pelosi’s home city of San Francisco is close behind Los Angeles in its degradation. Other cities are close behind. The entire nation seems determined to commit suicide. Illegal immigration must be eliminated.
John F. McManus is president emeritus of The John Birch Society.
