Corajudo
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| #1 Posted on 26.8.04 1050.06 Reposted on: 26.8.11 1050.10 | Responding to some of the more ridiculous claims in Pool Boy’s post on the second page of a separate thread (found here: http://the-w.com/thread.php/id=21873). I could add more, but I’m trying to keep it brief as possible.
Then there is the Illegal Immigration issue. During Reagan… we would tighten our borders so that illegal immigrants would never be a problem again. Well, clearly, that never happened. Bush … refuses to seal our borders. I am not saying "keep the Mexicans out"
The fact is that as spending and staffing for the border control has increased, so has illegal immigration. Experience and studies have all shown that increased spending on the Border Patrol has done nothing to stem the rate of illegal immigration. Instead, they increase the death rate of illegal immigrants trying to enter. Here’s a National Bureau of Economic Research study showing that spending on border control has no impact on the rate of illegal immigration: http://ideas.repec.org/p/nbr/nberwo/7054.html (it also finds that wages in border areas are unaffected by illegal immigration.). It’s all about the incentives; any economics class will tell you that (see also Drugs, War on).
Illegal immigrants are a drain on our economy, services, and resources, which is bad enough, but in a time of War, our open border policy is a big invitation to any terrorist who can get into Mexico to come strolling across.
Over 40% of illegal immigrants come via a legal visa and then do not abide by the terms of their visa, including all the terrorists involved in Sept. 11. I’m not sure how we could stop that by increased militarization of the border. Also, even though many people hate to admit it, we like the lower priced food, manufactured goods, houses, home improvement, etc. that result from illegal immigration. Many studies have shown that illegal immigrants have a net positive impact on the economy (in fairness, other studies have shown the opposite to be true).
Our acceptance of a Matricular Consular card allows Terrorists to fake Mexican Birth Certificates, and get a form of legal ID without so much as a background check. Add to that the ridiculous proposals which seek to give illegal aliens the gold standard of ID in this country, driver's licenses - you can see why it is a far worse situation than just wanting to keep those illegals out who are "here to work."
Bush did none of these things, and the Matricular Consular has been issued for around 150 years; the Treasury Dept. just formalized what banks and businesses were already doing. Also, I can’t speak for anyone else, but I didn’t have to go through a background check to get a legal id, so I’m not sure what you’re proposing here, aside from a crushing new level of bureaucracy.
The fact is that Bush has tightened the border and has yet to actually push through and sign a law that would increase immigration (from Mexico or wherever). These complaints are just hype and not based on truth or facts. It’s ironic. I hate Bush’s immigration policies because he has not done as promised and worked to come up with a sane immigration policy that would allow unskilled workers to immigrate legally and fill the jobs for which we need them.
Promote this thread! | | Pool-Boy
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| #2 Posted on 26.8.04 1426.47 Reposted on: 26.8.11 1427.17 | Man, are you misinformed. And seeing as you live in Texas, a hotbed for this sort of thing, I am surprised you don't know more about the topic.
The border HASN'T been tightened. Nothing at all has been done to stem the tide of illegal immigration, nothing. And you rightly pointed out that Bush is not directly responsible for a lot of the weaknesses I pointed out in our immigration policy, but he is in charge, and the Republicans control both branches of government, so there is no excuse not to fix the problem.
I am not going to debate with you the motives of illegals for coming into this country. Maybe they are just coming to work - who knows. But I do know that there are lines of people trying to come into this country LEGALLY, and to accept those who broke the law in coming here over them is a slap in the face. And yes - I support increasing the numbers of legal immigrants, but not until this border problem is solved.
As to the cost of illegal immigrants to our country, to even suggest that they pay more into the system than they take out is absolutely false. At the peak of California's recent deficit, the costs of services to illegal immigrants accounted for a full half of it. There people just don't go on Welfare, they use the roads. Their children attend our schools. They are a huge drain to our hospitals (they make up half of the population of the uninsured, and go to the emergency room for health care. As a result, Emergency Rooms are closing left and right), and illegally take advantage of Section 8 housing, making one less spot available for an eligible US Citizen.
Yeah, I am pro sealing up the actual border itself, but I want to see more than that. What about employer enforcement? Why aren't companies who hire illegals being punished? You can make all of the arguments about people "liking cheap food," but I am sorry, I am willing to pay a little bit more for a melon (I can't find the link right now, but there was a study some months back that showed the cost increase of hiring LEGAL workers would inly raise the price of a melon something like 10 cents), than pay the outrageous tax burden of supporting these workers in services. The fact that some people, on one hand, can say that cheap, illegal labor is a boon to the economy, but WalMart's low wages are hurtful to the local economy is silly. And WalMart employees make well over minimum wage! Employers who hire illegals should be at the very least severely fined, and in some instances jailed. You can't say American's won't do the job - who mows lawns and harvests food in Montana? Americans. If someone who is out of work refuses to take a job picking strawberries when that is the only job available, they don't deserve a cent of unemployment. I do not support opening our borders to illegals just become some Americans are lazy and full of themselves. Plus, aren't some Democrats complaining that we don't have enough jobs? Then why the hell would any of them support giving jobs to Mexicans over Americans, no matter what the job is?
So what else can we do? For one, if an immigrant has overstayed their visa, they should be deported. I am sure you all heard about the "Syrian Band" on the Detroit -LA flight. Turns out ALL of them had expired Visas. Why weren't they deported?
Then there is the internal sweeps issue. Illegal aliens SHOULD be deported, no matter where they are in the country. But if you look at a recent case in California, A twelve person task force rounded up 450 illegals in 3 days. Baca got the sweeps stopped. Why?!?! They are illegal aliens. They are breaking the law. Why should they be allowed to remain in the country, even when we CATCH them?
Or course, if you are a police officer on the streets of LA, and you see a known gang member that you KNOW to be an illegal alien who was previously deported, you can do NOTHING about it.
I really could go on all day. But this is what I get from the open borders crowd - you can't stop them at the border, because if you make it hard for them to cross, they could die. You can't deport them when they get here, because it is wrong to destroy a person's life who has actually made it across the border. You can't punish a business for hiring them because we want melons for a dime cheaper, and if they break any more laws, you can't deport them because it is racist to do so.
What the hell do we have laws in the first place for, then?
I support increasing the number of guest workers and legal immigrants into this country, but only AFTER our ridiculous open border is closed. Especially now in a time of was, when terrorists see this huge gaping hole in our defenses, and are pouring right in.
I seriously could give you hundreds of links regarding the problem, but I have to actually get some work done today. This site has some interesting stats though.
I don't think it is wrong to want to have control over the numbers of people who come in this country. And you can make the claim that illegal immigrants are a boon to this nation, but the facts simply don't back that argument up. Open borders are not only a detriment to our economy, our school suffer (how much money is spent on ESL programs now?), and our national security suffers. I think it is about time someone fixed the existing problem before we even start talking about relaxing the rules for legal immigration... | Corajudo
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| #3 Posted on 26.8.04 2250.30 Reposted on: 26.8.11 2250.34 | Pool-Boy--I bet to disagree with you. At the risk of boring everyone else on the board, I'll go one by one on your sources and some of your arguments until I run out of steam:
The border HASN'T been tightened. Nothing at all has been done to stem the tide of illegal immigration, nothing.
Aside from increase the budget for the border patrol, increase the staff and give them more power, nothing has been done to tighten the border.
As to the cost of illegal immigrants to our country, to even suggest that they pay more into the system than they take out is absolutely false. At the peak of California's recent deficit, the costs of services to illegal immigrants accounted for a full half of it. There people just don't go on Welfare, they use the roads. Their children attend our schools. They are a huge drain to our hospitals (they make up half of the population of the uninsured, and go to the emergency room for health care. As a result, Emergency Rooms are closing left and right), and illegally take advantage of Section 8 housing, making one less spot available for an eligible US Citizen.
There were three sources cited in this paragraph. The first is the Center for Immigration Studies, which is an advocacy group for decreased immigration (their mission claims to be low immigration and pro immigration), so this is hardly an unbiased source. Also, their methodology is far from robust (for starters, they estimate indirect costs but not indirect benefits). The second source is an op-ed. One of the claims in this one directly contradicts your first source. He claims that by ending benefits to illegals, California would have, in all likelihood, eliminated their $30 billion budget deficit (his words). Yet, the first study estimates that illegal immigrants cost $10.2 billion federally. That doesn't add up. As far as the ER thing, could you absolutely and quickly prove your citizenship if you were in the ER? I certainly couldn't (I'm guessing not many people carry a passport, birth certificate, naturalization papers or green card at all times). You cannot seriously expect hospitals or doctors to determine residency status before they give medical assistance to someone severely injured, just on humanitarian reasons alone (not to mention that little oath they take).
You make a valid point about punishing employers. And, I agree that any serious, sane policy aimed at reducing illegal immigration needs to include this aspect. Our current policies do nothing to reduce the incentive (which I'm sure you agree with). You can police the border all you want, but (short of a 2,000 mile wall) the border will never be sealed as long as the incentive to cross exists, at least not as long as jobs are waiting.
The main problem is that we have no policy to allow unskilled workers or temporary foreign workers into the country to fill needed peak time (such as harvest) job openings. The lack of this is a big contributing factor to illegal immigration. I think that Reagan had the right idea (at least in terms of stemming illegal immigration) when he gave amnesty to immigrants with jobs who had been in the country for a long time and tried to increase the penalties on businesses who hire the illegal immigrants.
Lastly, it's not that I favor illegal immigration per se, but that I want to see a rational immigration policy from the U.S. Our current policy is pure folly (I'm sure you're on board with that statement!). | Pool-Boy
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| #4 Posted on 27.8.04 0135.46 Reposted on: 27.8.11 0137.28 | And I am in agreement that we need a rational immigration policy. Problem is, I think we do, just no will to enforce it. I want to see actual enforcement on all fronts before I support allowing more guest workers in, is all. You point out increased funding, and that may be valid, but they aren't doing anything with it. 12 guys, just a dozen, were able to round up 450 people in one day, but that was stopped because it was deemed racist. I think a big first step would be to allow the border patrol to actually do its job.
As to my sources - well, as you pointed out, there were a lot. That post took long enough to put together, and I went with the fastest ones I could find. I don't really have the hours needed to provide a comprehensive list of sources, but I can say that I read or hear a story about this subject at least once a day. It is a pervasive problem here, and to say otherwise is simply naive. The point I was trying to make is that there is a wealth of data out there, and you might not like the motives of some of the sources, but if the facts are solid, it doesn't much matter. If anyone does a study and it supports an idea, you can say they are an advocate of that idea - this should not disqualify them. I think if you use a healthy dose of common sense you will see that illigal immigration is a problem. Unfortunately, you don't see that too much from the open borders crowd - they don't really provide any solid numbers proving that illegal aliens aren't a drain.
Even IF they aren't, it comes down to that word illegal. They broke the law in coming here. And if I can get a ticket for driving 10 miles over the limit, or parking in the damned street when a street sweeper comes by, I don't think it is too much to ask that people coming into this country be expected to follow the law. And the same goes for the companies that might hire them.
And I COULD produce proof of citizenship upon entering an Emergency Room - it is called a Driver's License, or a State ID. And yeah, maybe if I was in an accident, and my ID was destroyed, that might make it a problem. But we aren't talking about hoards of illegals who go to an emergency room for something like that - they go in for a cold, or some other minor thing, and hospitals are bound by law NOT to turn them away for something that minor. That is where the drain is coming from - and I don't expect it is too much to ask to provide legit ID if your life is not in immediate danger. | Grimis
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| #5 Posted on 27.8.04 0808.57 Reposted on: 27.8.11 0808.59 | In Maryland, we have proof of illegal immigrants getting drivers licenses illictly, while legislation has been introduced to allow them to have drivers licenses, so that isn't proof already over here. | DrDirt
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| #6 Posted on 27.8.04 0819.58 Reposted on: 27.8.11 0820.04 | If we as a country didn't need them to perform tasks we can't or wont perform, there would be no reason to come here.
And while it would be nice, I'm not sure how we end this mess. | Pool-Boy
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| #7 Posted on 27.8.04 1022.25 Reposted on: 27.8.11 1024.45 | Originally posted by Grimis In Maryland, we have proof of illegal immigrants getting drivers licenses illictly, while legislation has been introduced to allow them to have drivers licenses, so that isn't proof already over here.
Yeah, we have that here too. Doesn't mean you don't try - they don't ALL have fakes. Things like this are why you go for more than one method of enforcement. If a guy can get through an emergency room, would he make it past a run on his Social Security number at his job? Some people have radar detectors, but they still use radar to try and bust you for speeding...
Originally posted by DrDirt If we as a country didn't need them to perform tasks we can't or wont perform, there would be no reason to come here.
And while it would be nice, I'm not sure how we end this mess.
There is no such thing as a task we can't or won't perform. I can see it reaching a point where we might have need for some workers - then tap the immigrant pool. If it were me, and I was out of work, I would take any job I could if the market was tight. If you are right that some Americans have an elitist, lazy attitude that some jobs are beneath them, perhaps that is a cultural problem we need to fix. Besides, for a slightly liberal/humanitarian bent, if we bring these people in the country to do work we feel is beneath us, aren't we creating a serious underclass? Hey, that job is gross, lets just gets some Mexicans to do it!
How can anyone support an institution that, with a few extra steps, would be slavery? We pay them dirt, we get them from another country, most are poor and uneducated... turning a blind eye to this created a permanent underclass - and I had hoped we had grown past that.
I guarantee if we could make it so that ALL jobs got at least minimum wage, you would find that some of these jobs that Americans allegedly won't do suddenly get filled by Americans. | ALL ORIGINAL POSTS IN THIS THREAD ARE NOW AVAILABLE |
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