A major problem that forces employers to hire those here illegally is the enormous rise in federal disability recipients. Currently there are 8.9 million on disability with almost 4 million having claimed “mood disorder” or back pain, representing over 5% of those age 24-64. In March 2013, 88,000 jobs were added and 81,800 were added to the disability rolls. Currently organizations are assisting California welfare recipients who have maxed out their five years on welfare to transfer to disability. Between November 2011 and February 2013 there was a 25% increase in disability medical reviews in California compared to 1% nationwide (U-T San Diego, 4/22/13).

The lack of entitlement reforms and helping our own labor force have attracted migrants, primarily from Latin America. Many have customs similar to those which transformed large populations from the sending countries into trans-generational impoverished status. Director Ted Hilton has witnessed and studied these problems in Latin America and in Los Angeles.

This website’s information states the facts. The problems reviewed are more severe than most media will expose. These concern illegal migrants with high teenage birth rates, births to unmarried parents, low levels of education; all of which translate to high poverty, government dependency, crime and incarceration rates.

Please read the SOLUTIONS page to this crisis and the ARTICLES page with newspaper commentaries and letters on these subjects.

Educator Keith Ballard stated in March, 2012 on San Diego’s KUSI TV: “We are on the eve of a modern fall of Rome.”

(When you have a few minutes, please continue reading about the very serious problems confronting our nation, otherwise go to Solutions.)

Mr. Ballard attributed his statement above to the high dropout rates of both Latinos and Blacks. Education researchers Patricia Gandara and Frances Contreras wrote that we are heading toward a “national catastrophe that imperils our very democracy” due to education problems of Latinos. They warn that states with a high number of Latino students will experience substantial economic declines, as occurring now for California.

The Gandara and Contreras report is entitled: Unmanageable and Unsustainable: A Review Essay on “The Latino Education Crisis: The Consequences of Failed Social Policies.” It reveals that the Hispanic dropout rate is close to 50%, many are socially isolated, have high poverty rates, and given current trends the U.S. will experience a significant decline in skills and income while the Latino school age population increases from 19% to 25% by 2025. Their primary focus is on those from Mexico who reside in California; Mexicans comprise over 60% of all U.S. Hispanics.

Gandara and Contreras cited a study by the National Center for Education Studies which found that less than 20% of Hispanics were deemed proficient in reading and mathematics by the fourth grade, dropping to 15% for reading and 13% for math by the eighth grade. Another study by the Comprehensive Test of Basic Skills reported similar results.

Those statements are the wake-up call to all of America. If we do not resolve this crisis we will allow a “Third World” underclass that will negatively impact the future of the United States of America.

Teresa Watanabe of the Los Angeles Times wrote an article on October 2, 2011 concerning the education gap among illegal migrants’ kids. The LAT article revealed that students with legal immigrant parents graduate at higher rates than those of illegal migrant parents. The majority of students of illegal migrants do not graduate high school according to the study by Professor Frank Bean, University of California Irvine. There are now 3.8 million of these students, of those 80% were born in the U.S.

The predominant group entering illegally today is from Mexico with an average 6^th grade education from a country with a 44% high school graduation rate. California’s dropout rate is 30%, but for San Diego Unified Schools it is 40.1%, Fresno, 48.8%, Los Angeles Unified School District, 59.4%, which is the second highest dropout rate of any school district in the nation, and has the largest concentration of unauthorized aliens in the U.S. Only one in ten Hispanics obtains a GED, General Education Development credential, compared to two in ten for Blacks, and three in ten for Caucasians who have previously dropped out of school.

The overall California high school dropout rate for Latinos is at 41%. Here is the hidden and shocking part: the state does not factor in those who never enter high school. When middle school dropout rates are estimated the statewide Latino dropout rate is closer to 50%. Gandara and Contreras noted a Boston study that found 14.4% of Hispanics did not enroll in high school.

This is what high dropout rates cause: Over their lifetimes, only one class of dropouts costs the state of California $24.2 billion according to the California Dropout Research Project at the University of California, Santa Barbara. Multiply that figure times four years of dropouts and the cost is almost $100 billion. These taxpayer funds are primarily attributed to criminal justice, incarceration and victim costs.

Nationwide, high school dropouts commit 75% of the nation’s crime and comprise 70% of the U.S. prison population which was 2.5 million people in 2008, up 300,000 from 2005. That is the largest number of incarcerations per population of any country in the developed western world. In perspective, one of every thirty two adults in the U.S. is behind bars for crimes committed.

There are also an additional 4.5 million on parole or probation; up 400,000 since 2005, for a total of 7 million in America’s criminal justice system. Juvenile crime costs are noted at $8.9 billion. The direct costs for courts and incarceration are $1.1 billion. One year of dropouts will commit 113,954 violent crimes with an estimated 15,000 occurring in California. (All figures from the CA Dropout Research Project of UCSB cited in the San Diego Union Tribune, Nov. 3, 2011.) There is sadly no indication of any current or looming crisis by our elected officials or from the media.

In California, 6% of the state’s total population is here illegally, but represent approximately 15% of the prison population. That costs state taxpayers almost one billion annually. A significant percentage of all gang members in Los Angeles are estimated to be here illegally, many local gangs are now controlled by transnational gangs in foreign countries.

The San Diego Union Tribune reported on January 2, 2011 “…a devastating 39% increase in drug use among Hispanic teen boys between 2008 and 2009, according to recent statistics from the Office of National Drug Control Policy.” The illegal drug problem is fueling the dropout and crime rates.

Jack O’Donnell, State Superintendent of Public Schools was quoted in the San Diego Union Tribune on 12/26/’10 “…if black and Latino student performance had matched that of white students by 1998, our national gross domestic product in 2008 would have been $1.3 trillion higher.” The San Jose Mercury News reported real estate values can drop due to the state’s low education levels. Nationwide there are $300 billion in lost wages estimated due to dropouts annually. The high school dropout rate is negatively impacting on our economy.

The National Center for Public Policy and Higher Educations warns: “If California does not immediately begin preparing more underrepresented students for higher education, by 2020 the state will experience an 11% drop in per capita income resulting in serious economic hardship for the state’s population.”

Teresa Watanabe’s LAT article previously referenced, commented on Patricia Quijano, born here of illegal parents. Her father works for cash with an average monthly income in the winter of $200 and $800 in the summer; the mother is un-employed. How do they survive?

This raises the entitlement and welfare issues along side education. The children born here of illegal migrants are declared citizens despite no U.S. Supreme Court decision stating they are. The Dept. of Social Services then allows the illegal parents to apply for welfare, public housing, food stamps, school breakfast, lunch, and other benefits. In the Los Angeles Unified School District 79% of the students either have reduced or free lunch. Patricia attends Edward Roybal Learning Center near downtown Los Angeles which has a high school graduation rate of 56%. But most of the high schools in this area with a high illegal migrant population have a lower graduation rate and when factoring in middle school dropout rates some of these schools have graduation rates around 30%.

An Institute on Assets and Social Policy at Brandeis University reported in 2008 that only 18% of Latino families had the combination of assets, education, income and health insurance to ensure middle class security. Since the recession 41% of these are in danger of falling out of the middle class. Robert Samuelson wrote in Newsweek, September 5, 2007, that between 1990 and 2006 the number of Hispanics in poverty increased by 3.2 million, from 6 to 9.2 million people. All other ethnic groups had declining poverty numbers in the same period.

We have cited the evidence that illegal migrations are a contributing factor to the high dropout rates and increased poverty in the United States which are detrimental to our nation’s future.

In 1970, California had the seventh highest educated workforce, very sadly today California is fiftieth, the last in the nation.

First and foremost, there are 23 Million under-employed or unemployed Americans who can be required to do the jobs held by over 7 million EMPLOYED unauthorized aliens. Four million unauthorized aliens are either not working or are children.

It is difficult to believe that legalizing illegal migrants will make the aforementioned problems better in the future after understanding what happened after the November, 1986 amnesty which Pres. Reagan said would be the last.

Dan Walters’ article, “California’s Demographic Time Bomb” in the Sacramento Bee, April, 20 1993, revealed that the California teenage birthrate in 1987 was below the national average, and by 1992 was twice the national average and the highest of any state. Why? Because public benefits, including prenatal care, for illegal migrants started in 1988. Welfare payments for children born to illegal migrants at this time quadrupled. After the 1986 amnesty illegal migrants were pouring across the border.

The welfare dependency problems persist today. In June, 2011, La Raza sent out an email blast to their supporters urging them to demand that they contact their local lawmakers and congressmen with the message: “Save our babies! Stop extreme cuts to the WIC program.” The La Raza email blast pointed out that nearly nine out of ten Latino infants born in the United States participated in and relied on the Women, Infants and Children welfare program in 2008. The above quote and information are from City Data Forum, June 20, 2011.

Latinos are 12% of the nation’s population but comprise 42% of all WIC recipients. People having children when they immediately need public welfare connotes self-inflicted poverty. The Pew Hispanic Center reported that the number of children born to illegal migrants increased from 2.7 million in 2003 to 4 million in 2008, 260,000 per year; Tampa Tribune, 4/15/09.

San Diego Union Tribune, May 20, 2009: “Half of all welfare mothers had their first child as a teenager.” Sixty percent of teen mothers giving birth are in poverty. Ninety percent of women leave poverty through marriage. Seventy nine percent who gave birth as teens never marry.

The U.S. has the highest teen birth rate of any developed western nation. California official birth statistics for 2011: 8.5% of all births are to teenagers; 1.5% of Asian births are to teenagers, 12.1% to Blacks, 3.8% to Caucasians, 12.4% of Latino births are to teenagers which represent 73% of all teenage births.

Nationwide Hispanic teenage births are twice the national average. The Center for Disease Control has reported the Latino teenage birthrate is the fastest growing segment of the U.S. population. This is behavior passed from generation to the next that is taking hold in the United States. Amy Hinojosa, a Latino leader working on the teenage pregnancy problem stated: “It is an understatement to say we are in a crisis.”

In 1980, 18.8% of the Latino births were to unwed mothers, today nationwide the Latino unmarried birth rate is at 54% of all their births. The birthrate to Latinos has skyrocketed, with illegal migrants from Mexico averaging 3.5 births compared to 2.3 in Mexico and 2.06 in the U.S.

Hispanics here illegally are approximately 18% of the Hispanic population and have one third of all Hispanic births according to the Center for Immigration Studies. The teenage birthrates vary significantly among Latin American nations. The teenage birthrate, age 15-19, for Puerto Rican descent is 60.8 per 1,000, for Central and South American, 60.4% per 1,000, for Mexican descent, 93.2 per 1,000. The Center for Disease Control now predicts by 2020, one quarter of all U.S. teenagers will be of Latino descent.

From the National Campaign to Prevent Teen and Unplanned Pregnancy:

“Despite having a rich culture and growing influence, the Latino community disproportionately suffers from a variety of troubling social indicators. At present, less than 6 in 10 Latino adults living in the United States have a high school diploma and Latino teens are more likely to drop out of high school than their non-Hispanic counterparts. In 2005, more than 1 in 5 Latinos were living below the poverty level compared to 8 percent of non-Hispanic white and 24 percent of blacks. Furthermore, 30 percent of all children living in poverty are Latino. Preventing teen pregnancy and parenthood is one of the most direct and effective ways to improve these trends.”

The Los Angeles Times reported on Dec. 12, 2010: “Studies show that adolescent pregnancies feed a vicious cycle of social problems, including poverty, violence and low levels of education.”

Nationwide, the public costs for births to teens 17 and younger are $28 billion which include health care, welfare and prison costs; “The calculation includes both the lower taxes that these often-impoverished families contribute and the extra social services they require;” SDUT, 10/24/08. For a single mother, the cost to raise a child to age 17 averages $142,000 or $8,000 per year.

In the mid-1990’s one third of the births were to unmarried women of all ages, today it is 41%, with 53% of those births to unwed women under age 30. California’s official 2011 birth statistics for unmarried mothers of all ages: Asian, 14.4%, Blacks, 69.3%, Caucasian, 23.5%, Latinos, 52.8%; the latter represents 65.8% of all unmarried women in the state. Many want to accept this as “the new norm” but it will be the demise of the United States if it is not stopped, that is unequivocal.

The warning signs were proclaimed in the 1960’s when former Senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan who as Secretary of Labor stated that the welfare state would continue to expand with the rising number of fatherless homes. His major concern was for the 25% of Black births to single mothers, today that nationwide figure is at 73%. Moynihan spoke of the lack of male authority and the pathology of what it would cause for which he was severely criticized. But he was 100% correct.

The crisis that effects us now and will effect the U.S. to a detrimental degree in the near future is that these unwed or illegitimate births cause more poverty, welfare dependency, school dropouts, emotional and behavioral problems, and much higher crime rates.

As the U.S. middle class decreases and the rich and poor expand, studies of nations with these same large income gaps show there are more consequences of higher teen pregnancy, infant mortality, obesity, mental illness, drug use, imprisonment and homicide, than in nations where wealth is more evenly distributed.

In the 1970’s Ted Hilton taught fourth grade Mexican American students to read in Los Angeles and was concerned why some could not learn. Then he discovered that several could not see because they needed glasses. Ted called the parents and spoke fluent Spanish to discuss this need. He was told that “Mexican children don’t wear glasses.” He could not convince the parents of the importance to use glasses to read.

Ted has learned that this situation is still occurring. One teacher in a Latino barrio has stated that he buys the glasses, and for the most part those are either lost, broken or not worn. Seventy five percent of California’s fourth graders recently scored below proficient in reading. The schools are continuously blamed but it is some parents who bare a significant fault in both the student’s education and teenage pregnancy problems. Ted also taught Hispanic students in Boston and holds a degree in Mexican American Chicano Studies.

Americans will continue to see increasing problems if the ones caused by uncontrolled migrations are not immediately reversed and solved. A major contributing factor to the problems reviewed are from unauthorized aliens from Latin America where Ted Hilton has studied. He has observed the same behavior types in Latin America that caused it to have a “Third World,” or under-class, that are now taking hold in the United States with a trans-generational under-class. Please read the Articles Section of this website for how the problems are addressed and also the Solutions Section which gives us hope for the future if these recommendations are followed.