You seem to have missed an interesting post above by dc_dux. Check out his source, I learned things I didn't know before.
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Originally Posted by dc_dux
I dont want to gve blanket amnesty to all 12 million... I want most to have the opportunity for citizenship...with penalties, recognizing that they came here illegally ahead of others who played by the rules but that they have been contributing to the country and the economy in a postive way. "Our assumption is that about three-quarters of other-than-legal immigrants pay payroll taxes," said Stephen C. Goss, Social Security's chief actuary, using the agency's term for illegal immigration.
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/04/05/bu...1dc383&ei=5090
And absolutely, tougher penalties and fines on employers as well as SERIOUS border security to prevent FURTHER people from just walking over.
Aside from that,I generally like our current policy of allowing about 1 million/yr - based on quotas from countries of origin and factors like family connections, meeting our employment needs, and/or need for personal asylum.
I just don't see what name-calling, misrepresentations and generalizations about the illegal immigration problem accomplishes. |
If you want to continue to hold onto the notion that illegal immigrants cost tax dollars, realize that they are being deducted from pay checks, just like yours and mines. So your hotel analogy implies that people come here and just take everything (parasites), when in fact they're contributing back. Where as in my analogy, work is done and there's an exchange between labor and money.
And as for your most recent analogy, I'll emphasize again that sneaking into this country IS ILLEGAL. Anyone caught doing is is braking the law. I'm not arguing for/against punishment for the act. Nor am I implying that it's any more legal for one situation than it is for another. But I'm not going to sit around and let some people continue regarding illegal immigrants as parasites, or a shit of a people, or selfish entities withing the country, or people who want to change this country to give them better benefits, or any thing like that, because simply, I don't believe this is the case.
So to explicitly answer your question, both should be punished equally.
I can see where you can use my previous "morality" argument for this case, since using the "morality" argument, you'd expect me to say that the criminal doing it to save his starving family is somewhat justified. This isn't the case though. Mugging someone is directly affecting that person, and hurting that person. My previous "morality" argument only holds water if the person is acting morally (as is usually the case with those who choose to come here illegally).
Therefor, if I was mugged by the latter mugger from you analogy, it isn't justified. It's directly stealing, which isn't the case with illegal immigration.
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As I understand it from the few immigrants I know, the kids pick up the language quickly without formal training. Its the adults who have the most trouble. When I visited some Czech communities with my wife the kids quite often function as interpreters for their parents and grandparents.
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That's correct. According to my family, I learned English in less than a year (I came when I was 3 yrs old). I've been the family translator ever since. Most of my family already knows English, but they rather have me take care of their dirty work since I'm so much more comfortable with the language than they are.
Children are much more capable of learning languages. They have a propensity for it, in fact. In Matt Ridley's book "Genome", he sites a particularly interesting case where children, when brought up in a situation where many different languages are used frequently by people who don't speak them all (imagine an island with 1000 people, 20% English, 20% Spanish, 20% Arabic, 20% Asian, and 20% African, all interacting together daily...The case was similar), synthesized a more efficient language, composed of all the languages. Each generation created a better and better language. It's truly amazing.
For the same reason, it's harder for adults to learn things like languages. The proverbial roots have already been anchored.