For generations, America has served as a beacon of hope and freedom for those outside her borders, and as a land of limitless opportunity for those risking everything to seek a better life. Their talents and contributions have continued to enrich our country.

By encouraging its citizens to violate our border, Mexico is pushing a tremendous welfare burden off of its shoulders and onto ours, while also benefiting from the significant sums of U.S. currency that these workers will eventually send back home to their families.

The rapid growth in many of our suburbs has spawned a booming construction industry eager to hire low wage immigrants who gladly fill these jobs, many of them happy to be paid in cash, free of federal and state taxes.

As the number of available jobs has decreased in border states like Texas, cities halfway across America have begun to see an influx of illegal immigrants in search of employment.

Most illegals are without health insurance, and when these workers need emergency healthcare, the American taxpayer gets stuck with the bill.

In 2003, I introduced and passed The Tornado Shelters Act, which allows local governments to use Community Development Block Grant funds to construct storm shelters in manufactured housing communities.

Pre-teens, teens and college students have unlimited access to the Internet - 24 hours a day, seven days a week. Because of the repeated exposure they have to illegal Internet gambling sites, they fall victim by the thousands.