Stay Home.

[delalluvia]

Perhaps, and this is just a thought, if they're lving in such terrible conditions, maybe they shouldn't have had children.  I mean, that's what other people do.  If I can hardly feed myself, why would I want to reproduce and have even MORE mouths to feed?

del, that makes perfect sense, and i totally agree with it, but things don't always work out that way.  some people get married, buy a house, have kids, and then lose their jobs.  or run themselves up with debt and file for bankruptcy.  or one of the parents goes crazy and kills someone.  or one of the parents gets eaten by a shark.  i mean we can plan as much as possible, and most people probably don't plan, things just happen and they work with what they have.

Hiya little,

I wasn't exactly talking about those people in particular.  I have relatives in Mexico.  I saw dirt dirt dirt poor people and I wondered - even as a kid - why the frick did they have so many chlldren?  Unfortunately that ties into Catholicism and the 'be fruitful and multiply' thing.  The church leaders have a lot to answer for for all the children living in poverty and parents forced to do illegal things to keep them fed.

However, the parents aren't idiots.  They know how babies are made.  If they're living in dire straits, perhaps a little foresight might have done them better than jumping in the sack, you know?

people should not be punished for things that happen that are out of their control.

Don't know what to say to this little.  Almost all life is out of our control.  Are we to do whatever we want whenever we feel that life has treated us badly?  Life is shit sometimes.  No one escapes that.

as far as illegal immigrants being, well, illegal, if we enforced every law, this country would not be in the state it is now.

Sure, but is that to be rewarded?

but instead CEOs run companies to the ground and make out like bandits, corporations outsource illegally do avoid paying taxes, there's fraud, embezzelment, you name it corporate america has done it.  but thanks to lobbyists and no-bid contracts and so on it usually ends up going under the radar, unless you're a woman (see: martha stewart).

Yep, and are they to be rewarded and everyone say, 'Well since you've gotten away with it for so long and you DO contribute to the economy, that makes it OK." ?

and we are talking billions up here.  BILLIONS.  but people don't care about that.

Don't know where you live little, but me and my firends and co-workers cared a great deal about this.  We wrote our representatives and sent scathing editorials to news agencies, making sure they were aware that we - as Jane Q. Public - were not going to let them weasel out of paying for it.

there are SO many issues with this that will take forever to correct.  we just have to remember that we are all human, and as long as we ain't hurtin' nobody, there's no reason to hate eachother.

It's not about hate, it's about the law.  I certainly don't hate immigrants, legal or illegal.  I resent the hell out of some of them, but not all of them.  There's a difference and it's pretty big.

the land doesn't belong to any one person more than the next, regardless of where they're from.

Umm, I think you'll have some people disagree vehemently about this.  Many people from Israel for example, Afrikaaners, Native Americans, etc... 

[sparkle_motion]

Is it just me or it’s really hot here?   

lol!  so much to respond to, i don't know where to begin.

Perhaps, and this is just a thought, if they're lving in such terrible conditions, maybe they shouldn't have had children.  I mean, that's what other people do.  If I can hardly feed myself, why would I want to reproduce and have even MORE mouths to feed?

del, that makes perfect sense, and i totally agree with it, but things don't always work out that way.  some people get married, buy a house, have kids, and then lose their jobs.  or run themselves up with debt and file for bankruptcy.  or one of the parents goes crazy and kills someone.  or one of the parents gets eaten by a shark.  i mean we can plan as much as possible, and most people probably don't plan, things just happen and they work with what they have.  people should not be punished for things that happen that are out of their control. 

as far as illegal immigrants being, well, illegal, if we enforced every law, this country would not be in the state it is now.  but instead CEOs run companies to the ground and make out like bandits, corporations outsource illegally do avoid paying taxes, there's fraud, embezzelment, you name it corporate america has done it.  but thanks to lobbyists and no-bid contracts and so on it usually ends up going under the radar, unless you're a woman (see: martha stewart). 

and we are talking billions up here.  BILLIONS.  but people don't care about that.  they care about the mothers on welfare, and the immigrants getting healthcare on their dime.  if we had any say of where out tax dollars went, then maybe an argument about taxpayers money would hold up, but we don't.  i'd rather have my tax dollars going to schools, immigrants, and welfare than war-mongering, churches, and paying right-wingers paychecks.  but what do i do?  quit my job?  live on the street?  as a form of protest?  props to anyone who can do that, but i can't.

nipith got everything right.  i used to wonder the same thing myself when i was younger, why not just come legally.  but when you've been around enough immigrants, you begin to see how hard it is. 

i don't even want to TRAVEL to a non-english speaking country before knowing at least the basics of the language.   but that's just me, and some countries do require you to speak the fluent language, but we can not force people to learn english.  that's what translators are for.  if someone doesn't want to learn, or have the resources to learn english, they should have a say in the matter.  would learning the national language enhance your experience?  yes.  we have to remember that most illegal immigrants come here without high school education, let alone college education.  again, we don't know WHY, every person is different.  i dropped out of high school because i hated it.  i couldn't afford to go to college, and i was born here! 

anyway, back to the argument of "just don't do it".  if i had a dollar for every pregnant teenage american i've met i'd be rich.  so few people plan families, they just happen.  it's the middle class american way.  someone brought up native americans, i mean come on!  by these standards we should all be speaking the dialects for our regions.  and the vietnamese immigrants!  my second family immigrated from vietnam illegally, it took them years, but they finally became legal.  but shit!  if we lived in vietnam after what we did to that country, getting papers would be the last thing on my mind. 

there are SO many issues with this that will take forever to correct.  we just have to remember that we are all human, and as long as we ain't hurtin' nobody, there's no reason to hate eachother.  the land doesn't belong to any one person more than the next, regardless of where they're from. 

sorry, i feel bad.  you all articulate responses, i rant 

Thanks for this. I wish I could be as articulate as you.

[juneaux]

I didn't stay home from work yesterday but I did take a few hours of leave to join the march at the Capitol. 

[littledarlin]

thanks for the responses del!  i don't think illegals should be rewarded necessarily, but they shouldn't be punished either.  but they should be guided, helped, to become legal.  instead of being shipped back to where they came from like freight.  there are millions of illegal immigrants in this country!  that is no small feat.  is it their fault for coming here, or is it the governments fault for letting them?  for not keeping the borders secured?  for not keeping immigration under control, even with legals?  it's not that it isn't an issue, i think we can all agree it is, it's how it's going to be handled.  it has just now come to the forefront of public view because the administration thought they could use it to their advantage, it's political.  as most problems are, and that's why they never get solved. 

as far as my comment on land, all political and religious ideals aside, it's just there.  the government grants itself control over the land, and deals out the property to those who can afford it.  but what it comes down to is it belongs to no one and everyone.  i know this is not the case in reality, but just for perspective. 

and on "breaking the law" or calling an illegal immigrant a criminal, i mean let's be honest here.  the law is relative.  whoever is enforcing the law chooses whether or not to do so.  anywhere from corporate scandals to speeding tickets.  it's luck.  it's coincidence.  people can even get away with murder if they have enough money to spend.  it's sad, but it's true.  i know it's orwellian, but some laws or more "breakable" than others.  i think it's unfair to criminalize illegal immigrants who are civil, decent people just trying to make a living.  but if someone breaks the law beyond that, then by all means punish them.  but it's such a double-standard.  i mean our own government is breaking the law every day.  wire-tapping, spying, outing cia agents, torture, fraud, stealing elections.

i don't disagree with you, it's just not a situation that can be taken at face value.  it's much deeper and complex than "they're breaking the law". 

[starboardlight]

To cross a border illegally to better one's life?  Um, if they wanted to better their lives, why don't they come here legally?  To come to a nation to better one's self and start this experience by breaking the laws of said country, not paying taxes and using up social services isn't the way to do it and is a slap in the face to this country.

because it takes money to do it legally, money that they simply don't have. much less the understanding of the US bureaucracy to even comprehend the complex process. Have you looked into what it takes to get a work visa for the US?

Bingo!  Exactly.  Guess what.  Sometimes you don't get what you want in life because it's out of your price range.  Is it therefore justifiable to obtain it illegally?

Ends justifying the means?

That's a can of worms you don't want to open otherwise there's quite a bit in life that I would like but the price range is out of my league.  By this standard, it's OK for me to pursue this desire by any means available, legal or illegal.

I was watching the news and listening to a comment one woman said about keeping her children home so she could show her support and prove to her children that their mother wasn't a 'criminal'.

Then the news went on to comment that the woman had gotten here illegally.

Um, what part of 'breaking the law' concept did she fail to grasp?  This flexibility in ethics/morals is what gets my family bashed by uninsured motorists who happened to be illegal aliens because obeying laws of traffic and getting insurance is something they can take or leave when it suits their purpose.

You're right, del. the ends don't justify the means. I'm saying, as i said in my first post, the reforms being talked about don't address the heart of the issue. The legal routes aren't accessible to these people who are in very desperate situations. How do we hold that regal route in their face, when they have no way to reach it? If you look at it from their point of view, what do laws matter if you can't feed your children? To make it matter to them, we have to have a law that recognize their plight. Tighter borders won't change their situations. Punishing employers won't change the situation for them either. It's too easy to just say they're criminals breaking the law, but that won't solve the situation. The real solution has to come from compassion and humanity. That's not what I'm seeing from our leaders, at all. There has a be joint effort on both sides of the border. Perhaps a deal where, in exchange for a guess worker program, Mexico has to do more to stem the tide of immigration, such as offer assistance to their poor in find jobs, housing, etc. That would be a start maybe, but still a long way from solving the situation. I just don't see the debate really addressing the cause. We're just looking at the symptoms.

Perhaps, and this is just a thought, if they're lving in such terrible conditions, maybe they shouldn't have had children.  I mean, that's what other people do.  If I can hardly feed myself, why would I want to reproduce and have even MORE mouths to feed?

that just gets into a whole other can of worms. Remember Mexico has a large Catholic population, whose spiritual leaders tell them they can't use any kind of contraception. This is where my resentment of the Church rears its head. For the largely under-educated, there isn't much alternative. Using condoms and pills means eternal damnation, but no one tells them what are the alternatives. We know that the sexual urges is primal and essential to human existence. To ask people to deny that is just plain stupid. In countries where children are born everyday into poverty, the church must take responsibility in controlling that situation.

[delalluvia]

Hiya star and little,

Yep, it's a big issue and a complicated issue.

Goodness no.  Whoever suggested 'shipping 'em all home' was a maniac.  11 million people?  OK, Stalin and the Nazis managed to do it, but train cattle cars is waaaaaaaaay beyond the pale here.  But something has to be done, because it is a sticky wicket.  While some illegal immigrants are practically the proverbial American success story, others can and do make negative impacts in local economies, they can and do overwhelm social services and public schooling.  They're nearly impossible to police since they don't speak the language, are extremely mobile, don't abide by many of the laws, do spend a great deal of time hiding from the authorities.  What the government is proposing in immigration reform won't do the trick.  Problem is, I'm not sure what will.  It's impossible to police our borders, but with all the terrorism dangers, it's imperative that we do. 

As far as economics, I just was on another board and read this:

If the argument is that "migrants do the work that Americans won't", then won't they cease to be willing to do the work once they are Americans? That is, once they have rights, why would they work there?

Other poster:  They drive wages down, Americans won't work for the wages these illegals do, therefore creating the jobs that Americans won't do, whereas BEFORE they were here and driving wages down, Americans DID do those jobs.

Other poster:  They will pay more in taxes, some will form unions, migrate to other (better paying) work, some go on social secutiry, etc. Yes, wages will start to rise in low skilled jobs and then new illegals will flood into the US, displacing the them and the prior native workers. Then, like Cesar Chevez, they will realize that "new" illegals are economic threats to "old" illegals.

This had occured to me as well.  If all the illegal immigrants become legal, won't they start demanding the same pay scale and job protections as other Americans?  Suddenly it won't be so cheap to hire them as unskilled labor and businesses that thrive because they hired illegals and had no overhead (a friend of a friend is making a killing in a landscaping business.  He has hard working illegals working for him and he doesn't give them anything beyond what he promised to pay them - no insurance, no benefits, no 401K, nada, nothing.  I wonder how long he'd stay in business if he suddenly had to start coughing up health insurance.) will suddenly have problems staying in the black.

It's a big deal economically speaking and that always trumps compassion and humanity.  The illegals are here to make more money than they could at home.  Hardly any compassion there - strictly cold hard numbers.

Yes, laws can be relative, but they don't have to be.  It can be just that simple.  They're breaking the law.  I work for a law firm.  I hear many many many sob stories about how people ended up in the situation they did.  Every lawbreaker out there has a sob story.  If we're going to give EVERYone the benefit of the doubt, why have laws?   

If legal relativism becomes more common, then the laws no longer have teeth and we're no longer in a society that upholds the law.  We're now a 3rd world country or Capone's Chicago where we can just buy off a policeman or fireman or government clerk and get whatever we want done regardless of the legality of it.  We're almost there now and it isn't a pretty picture.  Yes our government has shown the ugly face of spying on its own citizens.  But of course, if you read the rationale, it makes perfect sense why they do.  Is it right for them to do so?  Depends on what you're trying to accomplish.  The old 'yelling fire' in a crowded theater example comes to mind when I consider that.

Yes, the better lawyer you have the more often you get off from any charge.  But what is that but rampant capitalism?  You get what you can pay for.  Can't get more 'American' than that.

[JennyC]

Phew, that was a lot of discussion since I checked this thread .  We all obviously feel passionate on this issue.  Read through the posts, I think everyone agrees that deportation is not the solution for the existing 11million illegal immigrants (or undocumented workers).  Hopefully, we can settle that argument.

On the future prevention side, the center issue is whether it’s justifiable for people to come here illegally to improve their life and that of their children’s.  The arguments on both sides have been presented.   It’s not the motivation that has been questioned here, but the means of carrying out such motivation.  I know, I know.  We talked about there is no legal way for these immigrants to come here, or they can not afford to come here legally.  Then this is something that should be changed to provide an affordable and practical way for low skilled immigrant workers to come here legally. 

The thing is there are more people want to come to US than the US economy and resources can ever absorb (well there are some people here who want to move to other counties after the election, but that’s another issue ).   When you talk about the illegal immigrants from Mexico and other close by South American counties, think about the people who also want to pursue the American dream in Africa and in Asia.  They are certainly at the disadvantage here since it’s far more difficult for them to come here, legally or illegally.  So let’s see what the options we have here:

1.   Open the door to welcome everyone (I mean EVERYONE) who wants come here to pursue the American dream and be a contributing member of the society.
2.   Let proximity play its charm: if you manage to get to US, then we will recognize you and give you legal status.  For the sisters and brothers in Africa and Asia, sorry you guys are at disadvantage here since you are too far away.  By the way, since we already have so many immigrants within the region, we really can not afford to have more from your country, even legally.
3.   Since resources are limited, then some rules need to be set up in terms of how you can come here, and how many US can accommodate.  This means not everyone’s requests will be accommodated, but everyone should get a fair chance.  If you don’t play by the rule, then there should be some consequences, otherwise it’s not fair to other people who play by the rule when you gain unfair advantage over them.   

Seriously, there is no perfect solution that makes everyone happy.  It’s the typical dilemma between ideology and reality. Unfortunate, reality is what matters the most.  You have to pick, not between good and bad choices, but lesser of the evils.  You have to go with one that is practical and relatively fair to everyone.

Let me just add one last thing. Once we sort out who can get here and how, let’s all work even harder to treat everyone fairly and do not discriminate them.

[starboardlight]

Phew, that was a lot of discussion since I checked this thread .  We all obviously feel passionate on this issue.  Read through the posts, I think everyone agrees that deportation is not the solution for the existing 11million illegal immigrants (or undocumented workers).  Hopefully, we can settle that argument.

On the future prevention side, the center issue is whether it’s justifiable for people to come here illegally to improve their life and that of their children’s.  The arguments on both sides have been presented.   It’s not the motivation that has been questioned here, but the means of carrying out such motivation.  I know, I know.  We talked about there is no legal way for these immigrants to come here, or they can not afford to come here legally.  Then this is something that should be changed to provide an affordable and practical way for low skilled immigrant workers to come here legally. 

The thing is there are more people want to come to US than the US economy and resources can ever absorb (well there are some people here who want to move to other counties after the election, but that’s another issue ).   When you talk about the illegal immigrants from Mexico and other close by South American counties, think about the people who also want to pursue the American dream in Africa and in Asia.  They are certainly at the disadvantage here since it’s far more difficult for them to come here, legally or illegally.  So let’s see what the options we have here:

1.   Open the door to welcome everyone (I mean EVERYONE) who wants come here to pursue the American dream and be a contributing member of the society.
2.   Let proximity play its charm: if you manage to get to US, then we will recognize you and give you legal status.  For the sisters and brothers in Africa and Asia, sorry you guys are at disadvantage here since you are too far away.  By the way, since we already have so many immigrants within the region, we really can not afford to have more from your country, even legally.
3.   Since resources are limited, then some rules need to be set up in terms of how you can come here, and how many US can accommodate.  This means not everyone’s requests will be accommodated, but everyone should get a fair chance.  If you don’t play by the rule, then there should be some consequences, otherwise it’s not fair to other people who play by the rule when you gain unfair advantage over them.   

Seriously, there is no perfect solution that makes everyone happy.  It’s the typical dilemma between ideology and reality. Unfortunate, reality is what matters the most.  You have to pick, not between good and bad choices, but lesser of the evils.  You have to go with one that is practical and relatively fair to everyone.

Let me just add one last thing. Once we sort out who can get here and how, let’s all work even harder to treat everyone fairly and do not discriminate them.

that's just it, there is no solution if we only look at immigration as the issue. let look at why people want to come. people are in desperate economic situations where they live, and they think the answer is here in the US. That's why Mexico as a country need to address this issue too, and we're not pushing the Mexican leaders hard enough to deal with it. The tide of immigrants will decrease if people feel like they have a future in their home country. How we achieve that is not in border patrol and criminalization of people. It's going to take a serious and different approach to what's being discussed.

[delalluvia]

It does beg the question though, is there a particular reason in this country that we NEED to have an open door immigration policy anymore?  I can see the need in some instances, persecution, etc., but why else?

How many people do we need in this country?  We already have 400 million people in this country, I'm not sure if that number includes all the undocumented aliens.  I'm sure 400 million people will have no trouble reproducing.

Are we really lacking in manpower in this country that we need more new immigrants?

For people in desperate financial straits overseas, is there nowhere else for them to go but here?  Surely there are more options for them closer to home.

[starboardlight]

I'm not sure the term "open door" is even applicable to the the policy as it exist now. it's more like "invitations only". As i've described, the legal immigration route is accessible for the most part only to those whose skills are in the labor markets that are experiencing low labor supply. The tech sector, despite what the hubbub, still don't produce enough Americans engineers and scientists. The creative services sector also go through periods of ups and downs in available labor supply. Nursing as industry is looking at a major shortage in the near future. These are just examples. And of course the low skill labor supply is an economic issue that America has yet to really tackle. In order to fill our needs for workers and continue our economic progress and technological leadership, America needs to replenish it's labor supply.

Two other routes are something I have looked into very much. Talent based visa, for athletes, singers, actors are obviously highly selective. I don't know how that all works. And then we have immigration through family relationships. We have a policy that anyone born on American soil automatically becomes a citizen, parent can then petition to for green cards themselves. And of course getting green cards through marriage. I don't know how significant a number of immigrants take these routes. It's talked about but no one seems to present any numbers on this.