My youngest daughter Katie was killed when an intoxicated illegal immigrant slammed into the back of the vehicle she was riding in at nearly 80 miles an hour while it sat idle at a stoplight. Ever since, I have been trying to understand how reckless public policies allowed something so horrific, and so preventable, to happen.
Katie’s death forced me to look beyond slogans and political talking points and ask harder questions about what America’s immigration system has become, who benefits from it and who ultimately bears the costs when governments refuse to enforce meaningful standards.
The more I examined the data, the more I began to notice an aspect of the problem that often seemed ignored or dismissed in public debate. Perhaps because acknowledging it had become politically uncomfortable.
According to recent data from the Center for Immigration Studies, newly arrived immigrants now possess significantly lower levels of educational attainment than earlier waves of immigration.
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During the border-surge years engineered under the Biden-Harris administration and overseen by Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas, the composition of migration shifted heavily toward poorer regions of Latin America, bringing larger numbers of individuals with limited formal education and fewer workforce skills needed in a modern, technology-driven economy.
That matters because advanced economies increasingly depend on productivity, skills and institutional capacity. Educational attainment strongly correlates with earnings, poverty rates, tax contribution and long-term dependence on public systems.
America in 2026 is not the industrial America of 1920. Low-skill labor no longer guarantees upward mobility, even for many native-born Americans struggling under rising housing costs, inflation, healthcare expenses and stagnant wages. Yet policymakers continue expanding migration flows while insisting there will be no meaningful fiscal or social consequences.
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But consequences exist whether political leaders acknowledge them or not.
Lower educational attainment is closely associated with lower earnings, higher poverty rates and greater demand on public systems. School districts shoulder the costs of language services and educational remediation, often straining already struggling districts. Hospitals provide emergency care that is frequently never fully reimbursed, with taxpayers ultimately covering much of the burden. Cities face mounting housing pressures, while welfare systems expand to accommodate growing needs.
My own family has lived both versions of America’s immigration story. Decades ago, my parents came to the United States legally for the opportunity this country offered and not for benefits or special privileges that increasingly incentivize lawlessness surrounding immigration today.
This is personal for me.
Katie’s killer, Julio Cucul-Bol, a Guatemalan national who used a Mexican alias while in Illinois, admitted through an interpreter in state court that he had no formal education and was unable to meaningfully communicate in either English or Spanish.
So, I have to ask the question Democrat Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker and many other politicians never will: What purpose did allowing Bol into this country actually serve? How did it strengthen America, improve our communities, or better the lives of American citizens?
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My daughter is dead.
Reasonable people can debate immigration levels and legal pathways. But no serious nation can maintain public trust while weakening enforcement and insisting there are no downstream consequences for public institutions, fiscal stability, or social cohesion.
Many countries benefit enormously from large-scale emigration. Remittances from migrants working in the United States generate billions in foreign income while also relieving domestic political pressure.
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In effect, the United States increasingly subsidizes the consequences of governmental failure abroad. Rather than fixing conditions for their own citizens, struggling governments can export portions of their poverty to the United States while importing remittance dollars back home.
That dynamic may benefit political elites on both sides of the border, but it does little to encourage long-term reform, self-sufficiency, or stable institutions. In many cases, mass unmanaged migration may actually delay the economic and civic improvements those societies ultimately need most.
A truly moral and compassionate approach should not simply encourage people to flee struggling nations indefinitely. It should encourage the development of lawful, stable and prosperous societies where citizens can build meaningful lives in their own countries with dignity and opportunity.
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The United States should be an example to be emulated; a nation built on lawful behavior, strong institutions, accountability and opportunity. Not one that increasingly allows itself to be taken advantage of by governments unwilling to fix conditions for their own people.
Migrants should be drawn to America because of the opportunities created by economic freedom and social stability, not enticed by self-serving politicians offering taxpayer-funded benefits while refusing to address the consequences of weak enforcement.
States like Illinois increasingly respond to the departure of productive citizens not by confronting the policies driving people away, but by attempting to replace those losses through mass migration encouraged by expansive benefits and weakened standards. Administrations like Biden-Harris accelerated that approach nationally during the border-surge years.
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That is not a serious long-term strategy for national prosperity or institutional stability.
Every public policy carries tradeoffs, and citizens should not become collateral damage to reckless immigration policies pursued for short-term political gain.
A serious immigration policy would begin with honesty: honesty that educational attainment matters in advanced economies; honesty that mass low-skill migration creates fiscal burdens; honesty that weak enforcement and sanctuary policies carry real-world consequences; and honesty that America cannot permanently function as the economic and social safety valve for the developing world without eventually weakening itself.
Compassion without limits is not governance. And no nation can indefinitely absorb the unresolved economic and institutional failures of other countries while expecting its own stability, cohesion and prosperity to remain strong forever.
