I don't have the answer in regards to immigrants but I do know this. I'd much rather share my country with undocumented folk that are hard working, law abiding people, seeking a secure future for their families than documented folk seeking gang affiliation and or expecting hand-outs from taxpayers for their lives.

I vote we trade the citizenships of our career criminals for the non-citizen wanting to be a good American. 

Michael Burns

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Of course, Michael, when you write “undocumented,” you mean “illegal,” so the “undocumented immigrants” are, by definition, not law abiding.

MIke Willingham

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They may be hard working, but undocumented Immigrants are not law abiding. Just the fact that they are undocumented “illegal” means they are not law abiding.

I don’t disagree with the fact that at least undocumented immigrants are not committing additional crimes and are hard working for the most part, but the ramifications of them being in our country illegally are far reaching beyond just crime.

For example, who is paying for their medical care when they go to the doctor or hospital? Answer, we are. They go to the local hospitals with no insurance or ability to pay and due to their illegal status they never do pay and thus the cost for hospital care goes up for the rest of us when the hospitals and doctors have to write of the loss.

Then there is the problem of undocumented immigrants driving without license and insurance. When one of them causes a wreck with either property damage or injury who do you think pays for the bill? Just in case you don’t follow along well, we do. Our insurance rates go up because our uninsured motorist insurance has to kick in not only for the car repairs but for the hospital and doctor’s bills as well.

Now what about all the undocumented students attending our schools without their parents contributing tax dollars to support the schools. According to the U.S. Census Bureau the 2009 national average expenditure per student was $10,499. With over 40,000 students in Hamilton County we are spending a lot of money on student’s education. So just imagine that we only have 50 undocumented students in Hamilton County schools and the tab for educating them would be $524,950.00. Admittedly I have no idea how many undocumented students we have in Hamilton County but I bet it’s more than 50. Now what about the free breakfast / lunch program that I bet most of these undocumented students are taking part in? You can easily see how the money just keeps adding up.

Although I do not like the fact of criminals in our midst I am not sure that it’s a good tradeoff for undocumented immigrants. Instead, why not put the criminals in jail and end the immigration problems as well. Give the undocumented immigrants a path to citizenship and those who do not follow the rules need to be deported.

Mike Cox