Illegal Immigration

[Lord Rahl]

I'm surprised there isn't a thread about this already so I am making one. I haven't dipped my head in here for awhile so maybe it is time for some light pwnage brought by myself. I wish to bring to attention the subject of illegal immigration that is currently making headlines in the United States within the last month or so. There has been a steady stream, nay, a flooding of illegal immigrants into the United States mostly by Mexicans crossing the 2,000 mile border between the United States of America and Mexico. Illegal immigrants are demanding the same rights as American citizens at the same time that some in the United States government are trying to make immigrating to the USA illegally a criminal offense. However, there is currently a proposal that has been brought forward by Mr. Chappaquiddick...oh sorry, I mean Senator Ted Kennedy and Republican Senator John McCain.

About the proposal,

The bill contains a guest worker proposal that would have allowed immigrants who entered illegally to stay legally in the country to work and obtain green cards after six years. It also would have let any illegal who arrived before Jan. 7, 2004, to get on the path to citizenship if they maintained jobs and met other conditions. Those include paying back taxes and a fine and being English proficient.

However the compromise measure proposed, first proposed Monday night by Republican Senator Mel Martinez of Florida, himself an immigrant, and Chuck Hagel of Nebraska, would create a three-layer system for current illegal immigrants to gain legal status in the country. The cutoff date plan, known as the "roots concept" by Republicans, would favor those who have lived in the United States longer than five years.

Currently there are mass demonstrations going on in over 90 cities across the United States with pro-illegal immigration demonstrators waving both American and Mexican flags. Here are some facts about those backing the demonstrations,

http://www.washtimes.com/national/20...4710-4817r.htm

One of the key organizers of the immigration protests and rallies nationwide, including yesterday's in Washington, is a group whose leaders are tied to the Workers World Party, a Marxist organization that has expressed support for dictators Kim Jong-il of North Korea and Saddam Hussein of Iraq.
Act Now to Stop War and End Racism (ANSWER) Coalition, which also has proposed a nationwide boycott on May 1 to protest congressional efforts at immigration reform and border security, is an offshoot of the International Action Coalition, an anti-capitalism group founded by former Attorney General Ramsey Clark.

Now onto my thoughts,

If these illegal immigrants want the same rights as me when I pay for their health care, their education, etc, and oh yeah, I forgot to mention that they don't have to pay taxes, then they can go back to Mexico. People say they will work jobs Americans won't work. That is a bunch of bull. Employers pick them to work because they'll work for cheaper than an American citizen and the don't even have to pay payroll taxes to the government on top of that. People say that they these illegal immigrants don't get any money yet billions of dollars are sent back to Mexico each year. They are helped over the border by "Coyotes" that have the latest in night vision goggles and other hi-tech equipment that helps them move groups of around 20 people across at a time. Oh, and I forgot to mention that these "Coyotes" also rape women and girls and leave them out in the middle of the desert to die. Now someone please tell me why my tax dollars should be helping these people and why they deserve what a law abiding immigrant gets. Can anyone disagree with me? Thoughts please...





EDIT: Here are some articles to read,

http://www.oregonlive.com/commentary...440.xml&coll=7

http://www.washingtontimes.com/natio...3506-1297r.htm

[Libertine]

can't really say fa`irer than that. Britain has some nasty immigration problems but we dont even have a small scale idea about what to do about it

[Torment]

And I hear Americans complaining that Europe is letting so many foreigners in. Some might claim that Europeans will be speaking Arabic in 20 years, us Europeans can just as easily claim that you'll all be speaking Spanish in 10...

Anyway, I doubt Bush is going to give into these demonstrations. Hopefully things will not escalate as much as they did in France...

[danzig]

And I hear Americans complaining that Europe is letting so many foreigners in. Some might claim that Europeans will be speaking Arabic in 20 years, us Europeans can just as easily claim that you'll all be speaking Spanish in 10...

Yeah but we've been aware of our problem for awhile but the difference is our immigrants want mow our grass while Europe's wants to blow stuff up and convert everyone to Islam! A joke btw in case anyone missed it

You guys are showing illegal immigrants as a horde crossing a border, burning and pillaging as they go. Funny, I don't see huge ships full of illegal immigrants carrying the "millions of illegals". I think everyone is blowing this way out of proportion. People say that they steal your job, they do this and do that, they find one immigrant who committed a crime and act like they all do it. Just remember this is how anti-Semitism in Germany began

Nah because most people have no problems with the people themselves but rather the way they come here, I think its rather telling that *legal* immigrants who went thru the process and are American citizens oppose illegal immigrantion as well. To me the only logical solution is to offer some brief period of time to allow illegals in the country now to apply/fasttrack American citizenship provided they meet basically requirement (ie not criminals) then declare being here illegally after the period a felony. Of course it requires we actually monitor our damn borders even if it requires military presences. I have no desire to make life tough for people who dont have much as it is but the fact is we simply cannot allow millions of unknowns to run around the country and any country that refuses to enforce its borders is going to ultimately be doomed.

[LiciniusII]

In the first place we should insist that the immigrant who comes here in good faith becomes an American and assimilates himself to us, he shall be treated on an exact equity with everyone else, for it is an outrage to discriminate against any such man because of creed, or birthplace or origin. But this is predicated upon the man's becoming an American and nothing but an American. There can be no divided allegiance here. Any man who says he is an American but something else also, isn't an American at all. We have room for but one flag, the American flag, and this excludes the red flag which symbolizes all wars against liberty and civilization, just as much as it excludes any flag of a nation to which we are hostile. We have room for but one language here, and that is the English language...and we have room for but one sole loyalty and that is a loyalty to the American people.

We can have no "50-50" allegiance in this country. Either a man is an American and nothing else, or he is not an American at all.

Need I say more?

[hacker90]

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[vanionBB]

Mexico's immigration laws are much tougher than ours. It is kind of a double standard that Mexico wont allow us to send our unemployed to them but they can send theirs to us, in fact they encourage them to come to the USA.

In Mexico, it is a FELONY to be an illegal immigrant (stay in the country 60+ days without a visa). If you had a extended vacation in Mexico you could get arrested and sentenced to 2 years in jail. It should be a felony here! I agree that some of the illegals should be given a chance, but IMO we should close the borders and ENFORCE the laws ON THE BOOKS before we go passing more legislation. Just fund the damn INS and give them back the ability to do their freaking jobs.

Child Protective Services will come knocking on your door in hours if they find out you left your 10 month old in the car sleeping for 5 minutes while you ran in to get eggs from the store, but the INS doesnt do **** about illegals that are reported for WEEKS. The INS needs some CPS freaking motivation to get the job done. Maybe they need more money or just a kick in the pants.

No need for new laws, just enforce and fund the ones on the books. Once we get the borders under control, THEN we can talk about guest worker programs among other things.

[Shadows]

I can't stand all the controversy over this issue. They came here illegally and should not be allowed to stay unless the come back legally. I've been watching the news on this topic and its brings some good questions to mind. Firstly, if they want to become americans, why the hell are so many of them waving mexican flags(some wave other country flags too, but the Mexican one is most prominent)??? Some women say they were forced to come over with their husbands or they came over as children. WELL HELLO, go to the immigration police, they will send you home for free, absolutley free, just show up, say hey I'm illegal and bam your on a free trip home. I'll type more later, got soccer practice now.

[Hub'ite]

What I think should be done is close down the border immediataly to stop millions of more illegals from crossing. Then start dealing with the millions of illegal Mexicans already here. Then we should send most of them back, and educate the rest to become citizens. Teach them English, our laws, make them pay taxes, in other words Americanize them. Then we should invade Mexico and steal their oil so I don't have to pay $2.69 a gallon.

[invictus]

Nonononono, you guys show too much mercy. What we do is, since they all want to work,, we force tem to work in camps to our benefit. Then once they are useless simply kill them, more will come to replace them adn thus, overpopulation is controlled, and no1 complains. -Leon

[removeduser_426582376423734]

You guys are showing illegal immigrants as a horde crossing a border, burning and pillaging as they go. Funny, I don't see huge ships full of illegal immigrants carrying the "millions of illegals". I think everyone is blowing this way out of proportion. People say that they steal your job, they do this and do that, they find one immigrant who committed a crime and act like they all do it. Just remember this is how anti-Semitism in Germany began

[the_mango55]

It is a smaller problem than some make it out to me, but it is still a problem. There are an estimated 12 million illegal aliens in the country, that is a lot.


This map shows the percentage hispanic. Just freaking look at the states bordering mexico, some places are more than 60% hispanic.

IMO we should offer all of the illegal aliens work visas, and get them to pay taxes and social security.

[Ricimer]

I hate to not argue, but... I agree, the illegals need to be sent home. They do in fact take jobs because they will work for much less than a citizen, even below minimum wage which is in itself illegal, but employers get away with it all the time and so they love illegals.

They utilize our countries resources without contributing, and a huge chunk of the money they do make as group they send home. Mexico is putting pressure on the U.S. over this issue because they want that foreign currency coming in. Mexico's emmigrant workers are taking U.S. money and pumping it into Mexico's economy. This in no way benefits the U.S.

The thing I find really annoying is the waving of the Mexican flag. They say they want to be citizens here? They want all the rights of being an american, but.. they don't want to be american? They want to remain mexican? That is what their waving the Mexican flag says to me. I find it repulsive.

[Erik]

This map shows the percentage hispanic. Just freaking look at the states bordering mexico, some places are more than 60% hispanic.

Excuse my ignorance but weren't those states Hispanic long before the USA even existed?
Are all Hispanics recent immigrants? Or are some just decendants of families who lived there for centuries?

Anyways my opinion:
CLOSE THE FREAKING BOARDER!
How hard can it be?
The US is a very big country and big countries have relatively short boarders.
Plus: most of their boarders are with Canada (not such a problem) or with Oceans.
Why can't they secure that short piece of a boarder where almost all the illegals cross over? (I'm speaking relatively, I know the boarder is long in absolute terms but it's very short compared to the number of people living on both sides)

Only after they closed the "tap" can they solve the problems with illagal immigrants.
And with no or very few new illegals coming in it would be best to give the existing ones citizenship so they wil start paying taxes and fully integrate into American society.

[danzig]

Excuse my ignorance but weren't those states Hispanic long before the USA even existed?
Are all Hispanics recent immigrants? Or are some just decendants of families who lived there for centuries?

Popular of hispanics in those regions were high but now a days its pretty much out of control with illegals. Hehe one small town in Texas has an offical population of like 1500 people but the actual town population is closer to 10k...all illegals and because funding for police is assigned by offical population there is like one sheriff for the entire town.

CLOSE THE FREAKING BOARDER!
How hard can it be?
The US is a very big country and big countries have relatively short boarders.
Plus: most of their boarders are with Canada (not such a problem) or with Oceans.
Why can't they secure that short piece of a boarder where almost all the illegals cross over? (I'm speaking relatively, I know the boarder is long in absolute terms but it's very short compared to the number of people living on both sides)

Because you dont understand American politics, anytime someone mentions closing the border, increasing armed INS agents or even gasp using the military or building a wall groups scream and invoke these images of pregnant women crossing the border with 4 kids being arrested by big, mean soldiers/agents. The border COULD be closed your right with no problem but we are 'trained' to feel guilty about it so we dont. I mean sheesh we live in a country where you can burn the American flag fine but burn a Mexican flag and get arrested for inciting a riot or racial hatred as one man was arrested yesterday for.

Only after they closed the "tap" can they solve the problems with illagal immigrants.
And with no or very few new illegals coming in it would be best to give the existing ones citizenship so they wil start paying taxes and fully integrate into American society.

I agree, close the border give the ability for those already here to apply for American citizenship and be done with it. Problem is some want to give those already here the ability to be here legally before solving the border problem and its painful obvious what will happen if we do that...so many people will attempt to rush across the border to take advantage of it.

[Marcus Trajan]

Excuse my ignorance but weren't those states Hispanic long before the USA even existed?
Are all Hispanics recent immigrants? Or are some just decendants of families who lived there for centuries?

I believe a few of them are indeed decendants of families you mentioned, but majority of them are recent immigrants. Many of them were origianlly illegal but made legal afterwards.

CLOSE THE FREAKING BOARDER!

It will sove only part of the problem. There are other ways illegal immigrants come to U.S. Although I aknowledge that it will significanltly decrease the number of them.

[Lord Rahl]

You guys are showing illegal immigrants as a horde crossing a border, burning and pillaging as they go. Funny, I don't see huge ships full of illegal immigrants carrying the "millions of illegals". I think everyone is blowing this way out of proportion. People say that they steal your job, they do this and do that, they find one immigrant who committed a crime and act like they all do it. Just remember this is how anti-Semitism in Germany began

I lived in Texas for 13 years and I've dealt with many an illegal immigrant. They work hard. I know that. However, illegal immigration has also brought about higher crime rates, more drugs, bring diseases, and they do take away jobs from Americans. Why would a company want to pay Americans twice as much when they could just pay the Mexicans little money and on top of that not have to pay any payroll taxes? This wouldn't be as "blown up" as it is now if these immigrants were actually legal. They didn't come in here the way our laws say to so, they broke the law. We are a country that makes us need to have "Don't fall" signs beside the Grand Canyon because if someone fell, oh...since there wasn't a sign there someone should pay! And now we have millions of illegal immigrants taking our hard earned tax money, sending it back to Mexico, not having to pay their own taxes, and people think it is ok that we just let them stay here and do what they do. This isn't a problem of today. This is a problem that our grandchildren will have to face if we don't do something about it now. Millions more cross the border every year. With all of the evidence put forward I cannot see how you can say anything against what I state.

http://www.cis.org/articles/2001/mexico/numbers.html

A Rapidly Growing Population. Partly as a result of reforms in immigration law in the 1960s, the level of immigration has increased dramatically over the last three decades. This influx has caused an enormous growth in the nation’s immigrant population, from less than 10 million in 1970 to more than 28 million today. Mexican immigrants have accounted for a large and growing share of this growth. Figure 2 reports the number of Mexican immigrants living in the country over the last 30 years. Since 1970, the size of the Mexican immigrant population has increased 10-fold, from less than 800,000 to nearly eight million today. The number of immigrants from countries other than Mexico has increased less dramatically, from 8.9 million in 1970 to 20.5 million in 2000. Overall, the growth in the Mexican immigrant population accounts for 37.8 percent of the total increase in the number of immigrants living in the United States.

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Mexican Immigration Has Dramatically Increased the Number of Dropouts. In terms of its impact on the U.S. labor market, the large number of Mexican immigrants with low education levels means that Mexican immigration has dramatically increased the supply of workers without a high school degree, while increasing other educational categories very little. Figure 6 shows the percentage of each educational category comprised of Mexican immigrants. The Figure shows that immigrants from Mexico account for more than one-fifth of all workers who lack a high school education in the United States. In contrast, they account for only 2.7 percent of workers with only a high school education and less than two percent of workers with some college. For workers with a bachelor’s degree or higher, Mexican immigrants represent less than one percent of all those in these higher-skilled categories.

http://uscis.gov/graphics/shared/abo...s/Illegals.htm

[invictus]

Nononono, the most insulting thing from them is that they assume american "hispanics" should agree with them. Did i miss something? You broke the law, now you want to be treated like us.....sorry bud but isnt there a place called jail and prison for peopel who break the law? -Leon

[Marcus Trajan]

Nononono, the most insulting thing from them is that they assume american "hispanics" should agree with them. Did i miss something? You broke the law, now you want to be treated like us.....sorry bud but isnt there a place called jail and prison for peopel who break the law? -Leon

This is exactly Romans said about Italians right before Social War. And, after suffering the devastating war, what Romans did? They end ed up offering citizenship to all Italian allies.

Aknowledge the truth. Even if you don't like current situation, illiegal immigrants are de facto a part of United States and United States economy actually depned on them great deal. When you say to send them all back to their country, it doesn't solve anything. First of all, how can we send all 1.2 billion people back to their country and second of all, even if we can do, it will cause devastating effects on United States economy.

Law-makers know this fact, so that's why they're trying to make a way to incoporate illiegal immigrant legally.

You say Mexicans apply double-standard because they treat illegal immigrants as felons but when you think about reality, they don't afford nor need immigrants and their economy doesn't depend on them. Rather illegal immigrants are burden to their economy. Whereas, United States afford and need immigrants and their economy depends on them a great deal even if they are illegal.

One of the key organizers of the immigration protests and rallies nationwide, including yesterday's in Washington, is a group whose leaders are tied to the Workers World Party, a Marxist organization that has expressed support for dictators Kim Jong-il of North Korea and Saddam Hussein of Iraq.

This kind of attack on protestors are disgusting and doesn't solve the problem if not worsen the situation.

[Yorkshireman]

Aknowledge the truth. Even if you don't like current situation, illiegal immigrants are de facto a part of United States and United States economy actually depned on them great deal.

It's not really the economy that benefits from illegal workers but the companies that employ them. Paying lower wages to unregisterd labour only increases their profits, not the nations as a whole. Illegal workers don't pay tax on their earnings and I'm sure their employers don't pay it on their behalf.