The real answer to getting rid of illegal aliens

[Joab]

Or, possibly put a little nicer, policies that would send illegal aliens back to their homeland. The first one is rather simple and basic, and as such would likely work. Fine the companies that hire illegal aliens enough to make it economically unprofitable to hire them. Better yet, in the case of big corporations that keep hiring them and paying the fines as a cost of doing business, put repeat offenders CEO's and the like in prison for a few years.

Another way to lower the number of illegal aliens in this country would be to support economic developement of their homelands so that they wouldn't feel so desperate to risk their lives in some cases to enter the USA illegally, seeking a living wage here. This is not easy to do, but if successful should result in at least far fewer illegal aliens. I really have nothing against illegal aliens wanting to make a better life for themselves and their families, the simple reality is that we can't afford the huge number of illegals coming into the country and in many cases having lots and lots of kids who automatically become U.S. citizens. While the USA has always been a nation of immigrants, it is a nation traditionally of legal immigrants allowed to come into the country when jobs were available and in a small enough number to allow them to assimiliate to becoming Americans. The huge influx of illegal aliens coming into the country from south of the border is not something we can afford in terms of social services, and the numbers are so huge that little assimiliation is taking place, we are in fact becoming a bilingual country. I don't want that, and I don't think the majority of Americans want that either.

 

[Aiki Lee]

I like the idea of economically supporting lower developed nations to assist them. Everybody desrves to live a safe and productive life.

You aren't accurate however on the social service side. It is very highly assumed that many illegal immigrants are on welfare, but speaking as a social worker, most illegal immigrants do not seek social service out of fear of being reported (which we won't do btw)

I think we should just make the process of legal immigration easier. Obviously dangerous people should be kept out, but those who really want in and aren't wanted criminals should be given the chance.

 

[Joab]

I've done further research on this and the cost of illegal aliens for social services seems to depend on whose statistics you believe. I would suggest anyone interested in this do your own research and come to your conclusions. There is certainly not a lack of info. out there on the web regarding this issue.

I still maintain the best way to lower the number of illegal aliens in the country is to fine employers so highly that it doesn't make fiscal sense to hire them. That, and attempts to develop those poor countries that illegal aliens are leaving to find a living wage in the USA makes the most sense to me regarding curbing the number of illegal aliens in the USA. I am not for an open border, I do not believe anybody who wants to live in this country should be allowed to live here even if they don't have a criminal history.

 

[blindsage]

Promoting "development" in Mexico has increased the illegal immigrant problem.

I am not for an open border, I do not believe anybody who wants to live in this country should be allowed to live here even if they don't have a criminal history.

Do you believe in free markets?

 

[Archangel M]

What exactly is it that these "immigration reform" protesters WANT?

It seems to me that they want anybody and everybody to come and go over our borders at will and that there be no repercussions for breaking our immigration laws.

 

[Deaf Smith]

I do not begruge those that come here, legaly, and start a new life.

But it's sneeking in, hiding out, no taxes, free schools, free food stamps, etc... and then DEMAND THEY GET TO STAY!

We made a big mistake 50 years ago allowing everyone to just cross the border so we could have cheap labor.

But with terrorist attacks, we MUST close the border and let only those in that are needed (just as we did with Ellis Island.)

Deaf

 

[David43515]

Promoting "development" in Mexico has increased the illegal immigrant problem.


Do you believe in free markets?

What do you mean promoting development increased the problem? I would think that policies like NAFTA which are there to create more jobs on both sides would have lessened any economic need to sneak across the border.

 

[Joab]

Promoting "development" in Mexico has increased the illegal immigrant problem.
How has promoting development in Mexico increased the illegal immigrant problem?

Do you believe in free markets?

Yes I believe in free markets, that does not mean anybody who wants to live in the USA who wants to should be allowed to. We have immigration laws and they should be honored. I don't want somebody living here who's very first act here is breaking the law. We are a nation of laws and our laws should be obeyed, I believe in rule by law, not anarchy.

 

[Joab]

I do not begruge those that come here, legaly, and start a new life.

But it's sneeking in, hiding out, no taxes, free schools, free food stamps, etc... and then DEMAND THEY GET TO STAY!

We made a big mistake 50 years ago allowing everyone to just cross the border so we could have cheap labor.

But with terrorist attacks, we MUST close the border and let only those in that are needed (just as we did with Ellis Island.)

Deaf

There's also health care costs. Illegal aliens can not be turned away from emergency rooms of hospitals, and that is overwhelming some hospitals and costing an enormous amount of money for those legally here. They have socialized medicine in Mexico...

 

[Bill Mattocks]

Grant amnesty to all the illegal aliens who are currently here who do not have outstanding felony criminal warrants here or in the country of their citizenship.

Doing this allows us to document them. That means we know who they are and where they are.

Doing this allows us to end the practice of illegal hiring using false social security numbers and ID, as legal hiring will be possible and easier.

Doing this stops the flow of illegal aliens through the border, because now they can come in legally. That means that people who continue to cross the border illegally are doing so for reasons we care about - terrorism, drug trafficking and so on. With millions fewer crossing illegally for work, our law enforcement agencies charged with policing our borders can do so.

Doing this puts the illegal aliens here already into a legal status that allows them to begin to pay taxes, have the services they use accounted for, and we can get a true picture of what immigration costs us.

Doing this allows us to apply rules of citizenship that require learning English and attending schools, because citizens and legal residents are not hiding out from law enforcement and have a reason to obey the law and not hide from it if they want to stay.

We can end this problem. It will not be as simple or as easy as I have said, but that's the right direction. Senator McCain described it and I supported it and still do. Building bigger fences won't do it. Locking up more illegals won't do it. They want to come in, and a huge number of us want them to come it (those who employ illegal aliens). There is no reason to keep them out; all the ills described are as a result of their illegal status, not as a result of the people themselves. Make them legal and those ills stop occurring.

The control of our borders is a national security issue. We cannot properly detect incoming drugs, weapons, and terrorists, when they can simply hide in the millions coming across for work. That flow is so heavy we cannot stop it. Rhetoric won't stop it. Patriot citizen border patrols won't stop it. More cops won't stop it. Approach the problem from the point of view of solving it instead of punishing people who are here illegally and we can do it.

 

[Joab]

Thanks Bill, but there are too many here to grant amnesty to all of them. They need to be sent back and to the end of the line while those who legally have gone through the process of becoming American citizens get the first chance. We are a nation of laws and we should reward those who follow them, not those who break them.

 

[Bill Mattocks]

Thanks Bill, but there are too many here to grant amnesty to all of them.

That's a nonsensical statement. How many is 'too many' and how do you decide how many is OK and how many is 'too many'?

They need to be sent back and to the end of the line while those who legally have gone through the process of becoming American citizens get the first chance.

Make them wait in line for citizenship but not for legal residency.

We are a nation of laws and we should reward those who follow them, not those who break them.

We grant amnesty for everything from draft-dodging to parking tickets to overdue library books to overdue taxes. We are a nation of laws, and we also have a modicum of common sense and a notion of how to solve problems without cutting our noses to spite our faces.

We're such a nation of laws, how come nobody follows the speed limit, pulls over for fire trucks, stops for school buses, pays their honest taxes, and so on?

Yes, we're all basically honest; we don't rob banks or kill people for the most part. But that old 'laws are laws' nonsense is only dragged out when people want a law enforced for another reason, a more personal reason. When it's convenient or it impacts ourselves, then we're a lot more flexible.

 

[Joab]

That's a nonsensical statement. How many is 'too many' and how do you decide how many is OK and how many is 'too many'?

We have immigration laws that address that. The number that is legally allowed.


Make them wait in line for citizenship but not for legal residency.

Wait at the back of the line for entering the country period.



We grant amnesty for everything from draft-dodging to parking tickets to overdue library books to overdue taxes. We are a nation of laws, and we also have a modicum of common sense and a notion of how to solve problems without cutting our noses to spite our faces.

Just because we have granted amnesty for certain crimes like moving to Canada instead of serving your country during the Vietnam war does not mean amnesty should be implemented in this case.

We're such a nation of laws, how come nobody follows the speed limit, pulls over for fire trucks, stops for school buses, pays their honest taxes, and so on?

Nobody follows the speed limit? I do. Nobody pulls over for fire trucks, stops for buses, pays their honest tax and so on? I do, which I would assume makes me a nobody following your logic. If you went on with your logic you could justify robbing banks, murder, child molestation etc. as "everybody" breaks laws so all laws should be allowed to be broken! Entering the country is a serious crime and should not be allowed to go unpunished. I think you would be surprised to find out how many obey the laws in this country. Hey, I even set my car or truck in cruise control to make sure I don't speed.

Yes, we're all basically honest; we don't rob banks or kill people for the most part. But that old 'laws are laws' nonsense is only dragged out when people want a law enforced for another reason, a more personal reason. When it's convenient or it impacts ourselves, then we're a lot more flexible.

No, it's a basic belief in rule by law as opposed to the anarchy you seem to be suggesting.

 

[Bill Mattocks]

No, it's a basic belief in rule by law as opposed to the anarchy you seem to be suggesting.

In what way am I suggesting anarchy? I am suggesting amnesty, which would be a law to regularize the status of currently-illegal non-criminal aliens in the USA. That too would be rule by law - a new law granting amnesty and creating a legal work/resident program for former illegal aliens who are not felons.

Was it 'anarchy' when President Carter granted amnesty to Vietnam-war draft dodgers living in Canada? Is it 'anarchy' when states grant amnesty to those who owe back-taxes, giving them relief from penalties and and interest in order to get them to simply what was owed originally?

Many times in life, we get stuck in situations that don't sit well with us. We'd like it if people and institutions faced the same consequences for their actions that the rest of us do. But the facts sometimes cause us to deal with life the way it is, as opposed to the way we want it to be.

The law serves us; we do not serve the law. If the law says we can't make illegal aliens legal, we can change it in order to serve our own best interests.

 

[5-0 Kenpo]

Promoting "development" in Mexico has increased the illegal immigrant problem.


Do you believe in free markets?

Everytime we have this debate you bring up the free market issue.

DUDE! We don't have a free market! So your bringing this up every time is irrelevant. Even if one does believe in a free market, the guy is only trying to solve a particular problem, not all of the ills of the world.

Even still, and what no one will address for fear of being labled a racist, is that there are cultural aspects to this as well. And no, we're not talking about whether Mexicans, or any other race is genetically inferior to another. But, there are cultural aspects of Mexicans that many Americans don't want to have here.

And commesurate with the majority of the immigrant Mexican population to refuse integration, what is bascially occurring is that the southwestern region of the United States is culturally turning into "Northern Mexico".

That's their fault, not ours.

 

[blindsage]

What do you mean promoting development increased the problem? I would think that policies like NAFTA which are there to create more jobs on both sides would have lessened any economic need to sneak across the border.

A lot of the development process in Mexico has forced previously agragrian citizens off the land and into the cities to seek work, and the number of jobs in the cities have not nearly kept pace, which leads to people seeking jobs elsewhere.

 

[blindsage]

Yes I believe in free markets, that does not mean anybody who wants to live in the USA who wants to should be allowed to. We have immigration laws and they should be honored. I don't want somebody living here who's very first act here is breaking the law. We are a nation of laws and our laws should be obeyed, I believe in rule by law, not anarchy.

I'm not necessarily saying I'm for open borders, but by definition in order to have free markets you must have free movement of capital AND labor. If you don't you do not have free markets, period. You can't have both rigid borders and free markets, it's either one or the other.

 

[Sukerkin]

There is no such thing as a 'free' market, no matter what certain political ideologies would have you believe.

The rules of the game are always regulated and slanted one way or another to favour those holding the most wealth. Those wealth holders like the freedom of no tariff imports and exports and love their ability to exploit the workers of non-Western nations because they are so much cheaper.

The export of jobs they don't care about and likewise the influx of nigh-on-slave-labour they favour too as it works to begin the erosion of income for the home-soil workers, thus enabling the next flip of import-export flows when the tipping point is reached.

If governments were free to make meaningful decisions I think you would find that it is perfectly possible to have regulation of markets with reasonable tariffs to level the playing field between developed and developing economies. Likewise is is possible to balance flows of labour by the same motivation i,e, make immigration less attractive as a career move and encourage internal improvement of the standard of living for workers on both sides of a border.

It's either that or so cripple your own economy and standard-of-living to the extent that it is objectively worse than that of the countries from which illegal emigration is a problem. Hardly an attractive option.

 

[5-0 Kenpo]

I'm not necessarily saying I'm for open borders, but by definition in order to have free markets you must have free movement of capital AND labor. If you don't you do not have free markets, period. You can't have both rigid borders and free markets, it's either one or the other.

You can have, theoretically, free movement of labor. But the point you are missing is that immigration is more then just about labor.

 

[Joab]

In what way am I suggesting anarchy? I am suggesting amnesty, which would be a law to regularize the status of currently-illegal non-criminal aliens in the USA. That too would be rule by law - a new law granting amnesty and creating a legal work/resident program for former illegal aliens who are not felons...



The law serves us; we do not serve the law. If the law says we can't make illegal aliens legal, we can change it in order to serve our own best interests.

If we granted amnesty to illegal aliens it would not be anarchy per se as the law would be changed. It would also make suckers of those who played by the rules and waited in line while trying to immigrate to the the USA legally. It would in reality be rewarding people for illegal activity and encourage other such actions in the future, I am completely opposed to granting illegal aliens amnesty.