In light of current lack of enforcement of federal immigration laws and government entitlement programs encouraging illegal immigration implemented by the Obama Administration, there has been significant fallout from these policies. Local law enforcement officials are locked into a losing battle with little assistance from federal authorities. Todd Starnes at Fox News reported on August 3, 2012 that a U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agent is facing punishment for arresting an illegal immigrant. The agent was ordered by supervisors to release the individual because he was not a “priority target.” When the officer balked, he was threatened with a three-day suspension and the illegal alien was let go. 

  According to Bakersfieldnow.com, in California, more than 29 percent of inmates in the prison system are immigrants. Housing of these inmates costs almost one billion dollars per year according to Bakersfield Assemblywoman Shannon Grove (R).

Music is always a reflection of popular culture, and what is actually happening in society. One of the most popular genres of music among immigrant populations is the narcocorrido or drug runner ballad. According to John Burnett at NPR.org, The composer of The Ballad of Caro Quintero, which is an older narcocorrido about the 1985 arrest of a Mexican druglord who is also under indictment in the U.S. for the torture and murder of DEA agent Enrique "Kiki" Camarena in Mexico. Its writer and composer is one of Mexico's most prolific corridistas: Reynaldo "El Gallero" Martinez — a 71-year-old fighting-cock breeder with a pencil mustache and a gambler's grin. "The kids of Reynosa and Matamoros and many parts of Mexico learn the words to a corrido before they learn the National Anthem," Martinez says. The popularity of the music of the corridistas among the immigrant population at the very least suggests that the narcotraficantes or drug runners are considered by them to be folk heroes. This is alarming, because according to Mr. Burnett's October 10, 2009 article Narcocorridos: Ballads of the Mexican Cartels, drug mafias like the Sinaloans, La Familia and the Zetas have grown more powerful than the police or even the Mexican army. On May 14 of this year, David Agren of USA Today reported that 49 mutilated bodies were found about 95 miles south of McAllen, Texas in Northern Mexico. According to the article,the killings were attributed to Los Zetas, which dominates the drug trade and other criminal activity along the eastern side of Mexico. Gary Martin at Chron.com reported on Dec 22, 2011, that ICE Special Agent

Jaime Zapata, 32, of Brownsville, Texas, was gunned down Feb. 15 by members of the Los Zetas drug cartel.

According to an August 16, 2010 article by Daniel Hernandez of the ..., Los Tucanes de Tijuana was banned from performing by police chief Julian Leyzaola because of their shout out onstage to the city's most notorious and wanted men, "El Teo and his compadre, El Muletas."

Although it is true that many immigrants risk their lives in crossing the border, are not criminals, and work extremely hard in order to send money back to their impoverished families, America still pays a heavy financial price for the presence of illegal aliens in the workforce. An investigation conducted by WTHR News in Indianapolis (an NBC affiliate), exposed how millions of undocumented workers get their ITIN ( Individual Taxpayer Identification Number) applications approved using phony documents. The investigation also revealed that many illegal immigrants use ITINs to get tax credits and refunds they're not entitled to. Reporter Bob Segall of WTHR, interviewed an illegal worker at his home in southern Indiana,  who admitted that his address was used this year to file tax returns by four other undocumented workers who don't even live there. Those four workers claimed 20 children live inside the one residence and, as a result, the IRS sent the illegal immigrants tax refunds totaling $29,608.

13 Investigates saw only one little girl who lives at that address (a small mobile home). We wondered about the 20 kids claimed as tax deductions?

"They don't live here," said the undocumented worker. "The other kids are in their country of origin, which is Mexico."

He later explained none of the 20 children have ever visited the United States – let alone lived here.  Russell George, the United States Department of Treasury's Inspector General for Tax Administration (TIGTA), Last year, released a new report showing the problem now costs American tax payers more than $4.2 billion annually. The steady flow of people flowing across the border with fraudulent identification, massive tax fraud, crime spillover from the drug cartels, and general lawless attitude of many who manage to make it across the border, as evidenced by immigrants composing 29 percent of the prison population in the state of California, underscores that without question, securing our borders should be the top priority of our federal government. It is both a national security issue and a fiscal survival issue.