"According to a combined study conducted by three US government departments, immigrants entering the United States illegally are responsible for an extremely high number of crimes. The study was based on a sample of 55,322 illegal immigrants incarcerated in US prisons. Members of this group were arrested 459,614 times—an average of eight arrests per person. About 45 percent of the arrests were for drug or immigration offenses. Another 15 percent were property related—burglary, larceny-theft, motor vehicle theft, and propertydamage. About 12 percent were for violent crimes, including murder, robbery, assault, and sex offenses. The balance of the arrests were for fraud, forgery, counterfeiting, weapons violations, obstruction of justice, and traffic violations, including DUI.23
Another rising problem with illegal immigration is its effect on social and government services, which include medical care, education, welfare, policing, and incarceration. Hospital emergency rooms have become the primary care facility for those here illegally. By law, hospital ERs cannot turn away anyone in need. Yet the sheer number of immigrants often clog ER waiting rooms in metropolitan hospitals. When ER beds are filled, ambulance patients are often diverted to more distant hospitals, which can result in worsening conditions or death.
Dallas' Parkland Hospital offers the second-largest maternity service in the United States. In one recent year, sixteen thousand babies were born at Parkland, and 70 percent of them were to illegal immigrants at a cost of $70.7 million. Because few of these patients speak English, the hospital now offers premium pay to medical employees who speak Spanish. This need has forced the University of Texas Southwestern Medical School to add a Spanish language requirement to its curriculum."
The cost of educating the children of illegal immigrants in the United States was estimated at $52 billion in 2010, while the overall cost of all services combined was estimated at $113 billion. This says nothing about the cost in educational quality and efficiency when schools must make special accommodations for significant numbers of students who speak no English.25
Many US cities, counties, and states are facing severe financial shortfalls—even to the point of looming bankruptcy—brought on by the cost of providing free social services to illegal immigrants. This drain on resources may well reach the point that we no longer have the means to provide the blessings that immigrants come here to find. One of the most disturbing aspects of illegal immigration is simply that it is illegal. The apostle Paul was quite emphatic in commanding Christians to obey governmental laws (Romans 13:1-7). He explained that God ordained governments to keep order and protect citizens.
