There are no "facts" when it comes to illegal immigration numbers. All the organizations that spout numbers with authority are usually advocacy groups or similar that try to minimize the numbers.

I extrapolate my numbers based on the immigration arrests per month, per state. I then assume that they are only catching, at best, 10% of those crossing the borders during that time. It's safe to assume that the US illegal population is well over 50,000,000 people. Numbers like this are farcical. I could point at statistics that support my assumptions all day, but all you really need to do is open your eyes. Just like made in China products, Mexican illegals are working all over the US now in huge numbers. Our population's birth rate gains are almost solely dependent upon the high reproduction rate in the southwest by illegal immigrants. The population growth here is all around me - and well over 50% is driven by a booming illegal Mexican population.

Food services. Almost any low paying job is now held by a hispanic of Mexican origins. It's literally almost impossible to find anyone else in these positions anymore because the crooked employers want to cheap out.

I visit the hospital and see them waiting hours for assistance. Our state has set up a freebie health care system for them and all the forms are already conveniently printed in Spanish. Taxpayer dollars subsidize the healthcare of 500,000 of these illegals in Phoenix alone.

The housing industry here is a microcosm of the nation.

What happens in Arizona & CA will happen to the rest of the US only slightly later. ANd here the housing market was driven up by illegals needing housing.

The bubble was justified because each month at least 30,000 new illegals are arriving and need places to live across the state.

Think about that:

A small city of housing needed in just one month.

I've watched whole neighborhoods "turn Mexican" in less than a year - where almost no Mexicans were before! All those folks who quickly evacuate such neighborhood takeovers and sell their homes need to find NEW ones - this drove the housing boom. I know three families, personally, that did just that and moved north into new cookie cutter housing tracts between 2003-2005.

And make no doubt about it: it's an invasion. Small armies of "friendly" non-citizens settle our nation every single month.

50,000,000 is probably a lowball estimate - 70,000,000 may be closer to the mark. Our jump from 200 to 300 million in 1990-2000 decade was primarily illegal alien driven.

Just wait till the next census. Then lots of eyes will be opened as to just how America has become 1/3 Mexican.

Very soon, I would estimate in 5 years, we will have a Mexican population higher than Mexico.

The numbers on the money and jobs they consume still stand - they are pushing half of America into lower paying jobs by diluting the work force with endless sub-minimum wage labor.

But, to be quite honest, explaining to the folks here what's going on doesn't do diddly to solve the situation and my ego isn't deflated when folks don't believe me.

So you and your brother, or Tom, or anyone else here can believe what you want.

Believe that it was military expenditures, GWB's tax cut - whatever.

Better brush up on your Spanish - I can assure you, at your age, you will live to see the day when English is our second language and universal poverty is the rule - not the exception.

;-)