by Edgar Frost

Created on: September 01, 2008

The United States is required to provide education to children who are illegal aliens and emergency medical care. Those are the only benefits that an illegal alien should receive. To be honest, I'm shocked that there are so many people in suport of illegal aliens and would want to extend benefits to them.

Let's look at the term "illegal alien" for a moment. Illegal means against the law, while alien means foreign or doesn't belong. For the life of me, I don't know why every honest, tax-paying citizen of the United States doesn't cringe when someone suggests extending benefits to illegal aliens. Here are a few reasons why illegal aliens should not receive benefits.

First, they are here illegaly, and giving benefits would just be rewarding bad behavior. If you've ever studied psychology, or have the slightest bit of common sense, you would know that rewarding a behavior encourages more of the behavior. If you give illegal aliens benefits, then even more will attempt to come here. As this happens, the system will be overwhelmed my too many recipients and too few supporting the system.

Second, local, state, and federal governments only have so much money. As legal residents continue to need help due to the tough economy, should tax dollars go to people who don't belong here? Who would you rather help, a legal resident or an illegal alien? If we did offer help to these people, which I would vehemently oppose, wouldn't our taxes need to be raised to accomodate the increased spending? I don't know about you, but my tax bill is high enough!

Third, extending benefits to law breakers devalues our laws. How does it look if our government is actually helping the very people who broke its laws? I think it makes us look like fools. What's next? Giving 1000 shares of stock to everyone found guilty of securities fraud? How about a brand new Porsche 911 for everyone found guilty of grand theft auto? After all, if they had a nice car, maybe they wouldn't steal yours!

Actually, I think I may have been too harsh. I do think we should extend two additional benefits to illegal aliens. First, we should provide them with the same benefits we could expect to receive if we were in their country illegaly, which I assume would be nothing. Second, we should give them a one way ticket back to their homeland. Now that's a benefit!

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