roachboy, are you serious?
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there is an obvious ideological aspect to calling them ILLEGAL immigrants as opposed to, say, undocumented workers--which is both more accurate and less inflammatory.
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It's more accurate? Hmm, yes, many of them DO work, however the lack of "documentation" proves their illegal status. That "documentation" they do not have is a social security card or a work visa, the two things that allow people to LEGALLY work in the United States. Also, they are here without proper doucments (stamped passports) and they are from another sovereign country, which makes them immigrants who are not here legally (when you take a business trip, you still get immigration/emigration stamps in your passport... those words have rather specific meanings). So how is illegal immigrant not accurate even by a smidge? Also, they don't ALL work. So, no, "undomuneted worker" is NOT more accurate. And as for inflamatory, well... that's splitting hairs.
Your point #2 does not hold up either. First of all, in our country consumers create work pools, not employers. If people didn't eat oranges and didn't drink orange juice, the orange farmers would have no need for additional, cheap labor. People, however, DO drink OJ and eat oranges and oragne flavored things. So citrus farmers need more people to pick fruits out of trees. They CHOOSE to illegally employ "undocumented workers of an unlawful immigration status". They CHOOSE to pay them cash under the table. They CHOOSE to not pay taxes, social security/FICA and the like on those workers pay. The employers CHOOSE to break the law and so do the illegal workers. Also, no, most do NOT "plan to return". Somehow they make a few thousand dollars, send it home to their families over MANY months and then go home to blow through it for a while and then come back in a few years? Obviously you've never lived in the southwest. They come here to make money, send some back and then pay coyotes to sneak relatives across the border. It happens every day and every night. Where do you get your information from? Most of it, so far in this thread, has been bad or false.
#3... "old-school capitalist-style class warfare"... Hmmm, well yes, there's nothing really "old school" about the capitalist class system we have in the US. It still exists as strongly today as it did 200 years ago. It dones't prevent these "work pools" from being ILLEGAL. If businesses are not punished as well, we will still have problems. Several people, including myself, have suggested STEEP punishments for companies who hire "undocumented workers of an illegal nature". I'm sorry, perhaps it'd be even less inflamatory if we called them "Undocumented Americans". Yes, that sounds much more liberal and supportive. Even though they aren't Americans. But, pishaw... that's just a small issue.
At any rate, even though pan and I are not usually on the same side of things, I have to say that he's more or less dead on. Your arguments don't really have any bearing on reality. While they are, to some degree TRUE (work pools exist, capitalism creates classes, et cetera), they are useless in the context of this thread. I think you're grasping at straw.