Exactly how many illegal immigrants are living in the United States today? Well, that depends on who you ask.

If it's the government and academic circles, they'll tell you that there are around 9 to 11 million illegal aliens living in the United States. If you ask FAIR, the Federation for American Immigration Reform, they'll tell you that there are about 10 to 12 million. Of course you could also ask the Center for Immigration Studies and they'll say there are around 10 million.

How many more of these illegal immigrants are coming into the United States each year?

Once again, it depends on who you ask but a ballpark figure is about half a million. Half a million illegal immigrants coming into the United States every year! That's well over 41,000 arriving every single month!

Or about 1400 every day! So who are these masses of people who illegally invade our country every day? Where do they come from?

According to the US Census Bureau, the largest group is from Central America, almost 37%, Mexico being the largest contributor there. The next largest group is from the Caribbean with about 10%. Asia contributes a full 25% of the total with South America, Europe and other regions making up the rest.

So, does it matter? Is it important? Should we care about these facts? Why should the average American be concerned with illegal immigration? Well, there are, as you might have guessed, two sides to the issue. There are those who say that immigration, illegal or otherwise, is a good thing for America.

The proponents of immigration maintain that immigrants actually help the American economy by working diligently and filling low-wage positions that many others find undesirable. They state that the average American citizen benefits from a healthier economy and lower prices on goods and services due to the influx of cheap labor.

Then there are those who say that illegal immigration is detrimental to America's economy, society, and standard of living. The critics state that illegal immigrants take low-skilled jobs away from American citizens. Some also contend that the average wages of Americans without a high school degree have fallen because of competition with newly
arrived immigrants, who frequently work for less money.

As you probably know, the branch of the United States government that deals with illegal immigration was the Immigration and Naturalization Service (http://uscis.gov/graphics/index.htm). That's what they used to be called. Since 9/11 the INS was merged into the Department of Homeland Security and renamed US Citizenship and Immigration Services.
The USCIS employs about 18,000 employees and contractors through a network of local offices, application support centers, service centers, local area immigration services field offices, National Customer Service Call Centers, Forms Centers, and the Internet. If there were 18,000 people in a company, asking them to keep track of all 10 million customers would not be un-ordinary. It is commonly done every day in the business world.

Regardless of how you feel about these numbers, there are a lot of people who will agree with you, as each side has an approximately equal share of the population. There are those who feel that immigration is a good thing and, of course, there are those who think it's hurting America.

Consider the following facts:

Since October of last year the total number of illegal immigrants picked up, who have criminal records, is well over 8,000.

With every 1000 people in the United States you can expect about 48 of them to commit some form of crime.

Which means there are about 48,000 crimes committed for every million people. And, remember, there are over 11,000,000 illegal aliens in the country. The USCIS is currently looking for over 400,000 fugitive immigrants in the United States.

In one case, a 38 year old Mexican man committed a sexual assault on a child and then, of course, he didn't bother to show up for his court date. He was later caught in an apparent routine traffic stop.

In a similar incident, another 38 year old illegal immigrant video-taped himself having sex with a 12 year old girl. He was only caught because the woman he was showing the tape to, for God only knows what reason, called the police. This unwanted visitor to the United States is only one of 96 immigrants with criminal records for sex offenses recorded since only October 1st of last year.

Still further examples of illegal immigrants flagrantly violating America's laws stem from an incident in Laredo, Texas in February. A television reporter barely survived an assassination attempt because he happened to have that day off. Gunmen riddled his car with bullets in the early morning when they suspected he would be leaving for work. The reporter had shown a video of an interview with an informant disclosing information on a notorious Mexican gang who controls drug flow across the border from Laredo.

According to the San Antonio newspaper where this article first appeared, at least 25 Americans have disappeared in Laredo in the past 7 months. This gang is reportedly one of the most violent in America and they consist largely of members who are in the US illegally.

Among their other activities, they visited the house of a man who refused to pay them protection money.

"They went to his house, raped his wife, killed his mother and they killed everyone else and cut him into pieces and they set his house on fire", according to a former member who is now in fear for his own life.

These examples are only a small number of what goes on every week around the southern border of the US.

This is not just an issue of poor immigrants coming to America to find work. There is literally a war going on. America is being invaded by violent criminals and our government, who has sworn to protect its citizens, is aware of this fact. And yet it continues. Just as it has
for the past 20 years or more.

How long are we American citizens going to tolerate this abuse of our nation's laws and citizens? How many more innocent women and children have to die before Americans finally say that enough have died?

Now anyone who believes that another 9/11 can't happen at any time is simply not being logical. The leaders of the department of Homeland Security have said over and over that it's not IF another terrorist attack will take place, its WHEN will that attack occur. I urge you to contact your local representatives, your Senators and Congressmen, your local activist groups and let your voice be heard.

The only way our government is going to finally put an end to this intolerable situation is when the people who elected them stand up and demand that action be taken. We no longer have the luxury of standing by and waiting for the federal government to do the right thing. Next time, it could be your girlfriend, or sister, or mother, who gets raped and killed.