Where do you stand? 500,000 people marched in LA today... 20,000 (largest ever) in Phoenix on Saturday... it's obviously a hot issue right now so what do you think of it?
I think the law is a fraud. Everyone knows that the government is doing nothing to stop illegal immigration, and actually encourages it. Then big corporations hire illegals and pay them $6 an hour to do jobs American won't do. The government is trying to play illegal immigrants against American citizens. Once we start fighting, this will give the government an excuse to declare martial law and bring in a police state. If you aren't born here, you shouldn't be here. Illegal immigrants drive down the wages. I don't have anything personal against immigrants, but governments and corporations abuse them by making them slaves, pushing the US towards a third world country.
Put up the big fence, load em up and ship em back. If they cant do the paperwork needed to come legally, then they are already lawbreakers and should be sent home.
I haven't been able to form a conclusive position on this debate yet. It's a complex, 3-way balancing act of security vs. economic stability vs. who we are as a nation. Members of my own family tree migrated to America just about 100 years ago, several didn't gain legal status for decades after arriving. It's a common story in many American's ancestory and part of what has defined us. However, the 'jobs Americans won't do' or 'don't want' claims aren't quite accurate anymore--which is also part of the reason why this issue has become such a hot button. In the past, the majority of migrant workers were limited to certain jobs, working fields in the agriculture industry and peddeling fruit and produce at roadside stands and farmer's markets for the most part. Those were jobs Americans didn't want because they involved 10 to 12 hour work days and paid less than $2 per hour. They were also jobs Americans did want migrant workers to have because if you regulate these fields and require workers get minimum wages then a head of lettuce is going to begin costing $5 or more at the super market and nobody wants that. What's happened recently though, is companies in other industries have begun sliding more and more illegals into their general workforces to cut expenses, replacing higher costing American workers. Lower economical class Americans are losing these jobs. Jobs that they were and are willing to do. Middle class Americans see no obvious savings from these companies, not like the savings realized in the produce aisle of grocery stores from the agricultural use of illegals, so it's easy to get them behind the "stop hiring illegals" parade. So, the issue isn't just about jobs Americans don't want or won't do anymore.
So care explain to me why you were allowed and others should be denied. Aren't we all born to the same planet or am i missing something? Also please answer the question that a LOT of immigrants have right now: - Their paperwork for residence was submitted when they were here as tourists and they are awaiting a response, just a plain yes or a no. Why does it take 5 years for them to get a reply? And if they leave the country the process stops?
The planet is not a sovereign state, the United States is. As to immigration, the demonstrations show just how bad of a problem illegal immigration is. It does not matter though. The federal government is divided on the issue and big business loves illegals. Soon globalization will kill off a good portion of the jobs illegals do anyway (assembly). I guess if you are an American and do landscaping, maid work or pick fruit on a farm, the illegals will take your jobs. My only real concern is security.
I don't believe our government really wants to close the borders for good. There is so much work that needs to be done that the employers (such as farmer owners) don't have the funds for paying someone what Americans would demand.
I do agree until there. Why would we start fighting and do you really believe the government has a masterplan behind it to declare martial law? Come on, man. Honestly: have you ever driven from Northern Cali down to San Diego and seen the amounts of fileds with the masses of illegal aliens working on them? Who will jump in to fill their shoes if we close the borders? Some crackheads from downtown LA?
Mexican illegals vs. American voters It is lucky America has more than two centuries of mostly calm experience with self-government. We are going to need to fall back on that invaluable patrimony if the immigration debate continues as it has started this season. The Senate is attempting to legislate into the teeth of the will of the American public. The Senate Judiciary Committeemen — and probably a majority of the Senate — are convinced that they know that the American people don't know what is best for them. National polling data could not be more emphatic — and has been so for decades. Gallup Poll (March 27) finds 80 percent of the public wants the federal government to get tougher on illegal immigration. A Quinnipiac University Poll (March 3) finds 62 percent oppose making it easier for illegals to become citizens (72 percent in that poll don't even want illegals to be permitted to have driver's licenses). Time Magazine's recent poll (Jan. 24-26) found 75 percent favor "major penalties" on employers of illegals, 70 percent believe illegals increase the likelihood of terrorism and 57 percent would use military force at the Mexican-American border. An NBC/Wall Street Journal poll (March 10-13) found 59 percent opposing a guest-worker proposal, and 71 percent would more likely vote for a congressional candidate who would tighten immigration controls. An IQ Research poll (March 10) found 92 percent saying that securing the U.S. border should be a top priority of the White House and Congress. Yet, according to a National Journal survey of Congress, 73 percent of Republican and 77 percent of Democratic congressmen and senators say they would support guest-worker legislation. I commend to all those presumptuous senators and congressmen the sardonic and wise words of Edmund Burke in his 1792 letter to Sir Hercules Langrishe: "No man will assert seriously, that when people are of a turbulent spirit, the best way to keep them in order is to furnish them with something substantial to complain of." The senators should remember that they are American senators, not Roman proconsuls. Nor is the chairman of the Judiciary Committee some latter-day Praetor Maximus. But if they would be dictators, it would be nice if they could at least be wise (until such time as the people can electorally forcefully project with a violent pedal thrust their regrettable backsides out of town). It was gut-wrenching (which in my case is a substantial event) to watch the senators prattle on in their idle ignorance concerning the manifold economic benefits that will accrue to the body politic if we can just cram a few million more uneducated illegals into the country. ( I guess ignorance loves company.) Beyond the Senate last week, in a remarkable example of intellectual integrity (in the face of the editorial positions of their newspapers) the chief economic columnists for the New York Times and The Washington Post — Paul Krugman and Robert Samuelson, respectively — laid out the sad facts regarding the economics of the matter. Senators, congressmen and Mr. President, please take note. Regarding the Senate's and the president's guest-worker proposals, The Post's Robert Samuelson writes: "Gosh, they're all bad ideas ... We'd be importing poverty. This isn't because these immigrants aren't hardworking, many are. Nor is it because they don't assimilate, many do. But they generally don't go home, assimilation is slow and the ranks of the poor are constantly replenished ... [It] is a conscious policy of creating poverty in the United States while relieving it in Mexico ... The most lunatic notion is that admitting more poor Latino workers would ease the labor market strains of retiring baby boomers ? Far from softening the social problems of an aging society, more poor immigrants might aggravate them by pitting older retirees against younger Hispanics for limited government benefits ... [Moreover], t's a myth that the U.S. economy 'needs' more poor immigrants. "The illegal immigrants already here represent only about 4.9 percent of the labor force." (For all Mr. Samuelson's supporting statistics, see his Washington Post column of March 22, from which this is taken.) Likewise, a few days later, the very liberal and often partisan Paul Krugman of the New York Times courageously wrote : "Unfortunately, low-skill immigrants don't pay enough taxes to cover the cost of the [government] benefits they receive ? As the Swiss writer Max Frisch wrote about his own country's experience with immigration, 'We wanted a labor force, but human beings came.' " Mr. Krugman also observed — citing a leading Harvard study — "that U.S. high school dropouts would earn as much as 8 percent more if it weren't for Mexican immigration. That's why it's intellectually dishonest to say, as President Bush does, that immigrants 'do jobs that Americans will not do.' The willingness of Americans to do a job depends on how much that job pays — and the reason some jobs pay too little to attract native-born Americans is competition from poorly paid immigrants." Thusly do the two leading economic writers for the nation's two leading liberal newspapers summarily debunk the economic underpinning of the president's and the Senate's immigration proposals. Under such circumstances, advocates of guest-worker/amnesty bills will find it frustratingly hard to defend their arrogant plans by their preferred tactic of slandering those who disagree with them as racist, nativist and xenophobic. When the slandered ones include not only The Washington Post and the New York Times, but about 70 percent of the public, it is not only bad manners, but bad politics. The public demand to protect our borders will triumph sooner or later. And, the more brazen the opposing politicians, the sooner will come the triumph. So legislate on, you proud and foolish senators — and hasten your political demise. http://www.washtimes.com/op-ed/20060328-102545-2371r.htm
The US can't change the immigration problem. First off there is no money left to build the type of security that is needed, whether that is a wall or fence. Who are you going to get to build this great barrier? The Mexicans? Asians? Eastern Europeans? The US is broke. The other economic dilema is that Americans can't compete in the world market. If you get rid of the migrants in the farm fields, it will kill produce farming and guess who is going to supply us with produce after that? China? We already are in debt to China. The US dollar is weak, if China moves over to the Euro, our economy would plumit faster than Bush's approval ratings. The problem is that many poor Americans (not middle class, because middle class status has been going down for a long time now) are having real problems earning a decent living. They have seen factories close, their pensions cut, high medical costs, and have been stripped of many of the benefits that they thought were owed to them. They want to turn the clock back, but it is too late. I don't know of anyone in my office who would not hire an illegal alien to babysit their kids, the simple answer being that their job does not pay them enough to cover a regular daycare. The only people who can afford this are top management and even in their case, they rather hire an in-house sitter and they also don't want to pay the price of one, even though they can afford it. Even if we wanted to turn the clock back, how are we going to imprison or deport 12 million people? Where is the money for that? As for politicians, like it or not the latino vote will be the most important vote next to the senior citizens vote. The US is going through a culture change and it will have immediate changes on how politicians vote and who is elected. This is a difficult issue and I doubt any of our political officials have the actual intelligence, let alone bravado to actually fix it. I would settle for a more secure border both in Canada and Mexico.
Not correct. If I have to see more pictures of uneducated teenagers "protesting" something they, by in large, have little knowledge about, I will puke. Is it to late to outsource our teens?