Willravel

If someone broke into my house and cleaned it up and charged less than my cleaning lady, I don't see myself pressing charges. But that's a really good argument (seriously). I had to think about that one for a minute. I understand what you're saying, but I put a great deal of interest in how we can live like friends in our global neighborhood. I want us to be a good neighbor, and we can't do that (right now) by shutting down our borders and kicking them out. A better way to do this would be to retool CAFTA and other trade agreements
in order to benefit everyone, not just the few. When Clinton loaned Mexico $50b in the 1994 devaluation of the peso, it was a fantastic start, but the real process of healing the Mexican economy is going to take decades of hands on work. I know, Mexicans aren't the only immigrants, but I know a ton of Mexicans, and I'm pretty sure that Mexicans represent the largest illegal population in the US. We should be helping them because it's the right thing to do. Imagine if we took 100m of the hundreds of billions of dollars sent to Iraq and helped to build a school infrastructure in Mexico.
I suppose there's very little evidence of anything of this nature because the US had never done this (that I'm aware of).

ratbastid

Great. So in dksuddethland, high school activists speak for all immigrants and the entire immigration reform lobby. THAT'S what I call credibility on immigration!

Push-Pull

I imagine that the rich in Mexico would only get richer.

I agree about helping them, but throwing money at the problem isn't the answer. I mean, aren't we trying to help already by opening various manufacturing plants there that employ Mexicans? Isn't there plenty of high-dollar tourist spots that employ Mexicans? Yes, you could argue that these very examples are "throwing money at the problem", but it's not a hand-out, it is capitalism. And I'm sure that Ford and other major companies are contributing something at the local level at their Mexico plants. At any rate, I feel this is a better approach than simply giving them money.

__________________
"No laws, no matter how rigidly enforced, can protect a person from their own stupidity." -Me-

"Some people are like Slinkies..... They are not really good for anything, but they still bring a smile to your face when you push them down a flight of stairs." -Unknown-

DAMMIT! -Jack Bauer-

Willravel

Touche. If someone can figure out a way to make the rich actually want to allow for the growth of the middle class, besides liberal guilt, I'm all ears.

dksuddeth

I'm disinclined to acquiesce to your request.

far be it from me to level personal attacks.....ok, just kidding on that one, but seriously. This was a NATIONAL protest that occurred in several big cities and in california alone there were 500,000 people protesting this. I pick one incident as representative of the whole thing and all you have to say is it's just a bunch of high school activists? My previous statement about intellectual honesty still stands. So does my evaluation of your credibility.

__________________
"no amount of force can control a free man, a man whose mind is free. No, not the rack, not fission bombs, not anything. You cannot conquer a free man; the most you can do is kill him."

ShaniFaye

as I have said, more than once...Im not sure how else to say it to get it across to you. WHERE I LIVE, the illegals I see are HISPANIC....I have stated more than once I dont know about other places, I can only attest to what I HAVE SEEN WITH MY OWN EYES.

How do I know they are illegal? well I guess it would be the scattering like ants when the cops show up at a store parking lot where they are looking for day work, or the fact that the ones they are loading up in the roundups certainly dont look asian to me.

I cant help that where I live....its the "brown" people as you put it, that are rounded up, I cant help that its the mexican billard halls, and mexican restuarants that are raided day in and day out. I cant help that when its written about in the county paper they are being shipped back to *gasp* MEXICO. Hell even the legal Mexicans are getting sick of it, there are some places you find signs on their doors specifically stating they only employ LEGAL aliens.

__________________
I want the diabetic plan that comes with rollover carbs. I dont like the unused one expiring at midnite!!

abaya

My answer to the thread title: No, there is not a problem. At least, no more of a problem with immigration than has ever existed in the history of the United States. Do I have to put up my cartoon about the Native American chief standing on the shore of America, watching the English ships come in, thinking aloud, "Not more illegal immigrants!"

That said, I don't want to get into a huge point-by-point discussion about immigration again. Didn't we just go 'round this topic a few months back? But I will quote from one of the best current sources of grounded, factually-based research on immigration in the US: A book called Immigrant America, by the very respected sociologists Alejandro Portes and Ruben Rumbaut. They, along with Douglas Massey, are the triumvirate of scientific immigration research in this country, and while they are still academics (and I never trust any academic completely), their results stand up to as much criticism as you can hurl at them. This includes Samuel Huntington's nativist treatise, Who are we? (he basically freaks out about America losing its so-called identity) and perhaps even George Borjas' indictment of immigration on economic grounds. There is a lot that could be said (which I already said in the earlier thread on immigration, and don't feel like typing again), but I'll stick with this simple idea from Portes & Rumbaut: And, if you're not too bored yet, some more quotes included by the authors in their conclusion... And to answer that...

__________________
And think not you can direct the course of Love;
for Love, if it finds you worthy, directs your course.
--Khalil Gibran

ShaniFaye

I really fail to understand how someone can say ILLEGAL immigration here isn't a problem.

__________________
I want the diabetic plan that comes with rollover carbs. I dont like the unused one expiring at midnite!!

abaya

What can I say, Shani... alright, here is my previous post on the topic, from the thread http://www.tfproject.org/tfp/showthread.php?t=112318 earlier this year... maybe it helps to explain where I'm coming from.

__________________
And think not you can direct the course of Love;
for Love, if it finds you worthy, directs your course.
--Khalil Gibran

ShaniFaye

in all due respect...no that doesnt help me understand how someone can say there is no "illegal immigration problem" when we have people blatantly crossing borders without regard to our immigration laws. I dont care they want to come here....I care that they obey the laws and go thru the proper channels.

__________________
I want the diabetic plan that comes with rollover carbs. I dont like the unused one expiring at midnite!!

Willravel

Sorry, dksuddeth, you have zero credibility on the illegal immigration issue.

abaya

Ah, but what about the employers who are blatantly hiring these people without regard to our immigration laws? What about the employers who do not go through the proper channels? You cannot have illegal immigrants without people who are willing to hire them. The labor system of the US is as much to blame for its "illegalism" as you might want to blame the immigrants for being "illegal," when in reality they are responding to a demand. They are the supply for the labor demand that is very clear in the US.

If I was going to say that there is a "problem" related to this topic in the US, I would say the problem is with the entire immigration system, not just with illegals. The whole damn thing is broken. So I could surely say that there is perhaps a system-wide crisis related to immigration policy and its enforcement in the US, as well as a nativist backlash that only makes things worse... but I cannot say that there is an "illegal" problem. That is only one piece of a very large and complicated puzzle.

__________________
And think not you can direct the course of Love;
for Love, if it finds you worthy, directs your course.
--Khalil Gibran

Kadath

I think there is a speeding problem in this country. People blatantly exceed the speed limit with no regard to our driving laws. There are more than 40,000 people killed in the US every year in automobile accidents. I don't care that people drive -- I care that they do it legally.

All this is by way of saying that illegal immigration is a less significant issue than politicians are making it out to be. It's another version of gay marriage, used to divert public attention from more significant issues, and from issues that don't have easy answers (such as the war, the economy, the education gap between the US and other nations, the healthcare industry, etc) . Don't buy into it.

__________________
it's quiet in here

roachboy

i'm picking out shani's posts above to work off from below--i could have picked out dk's or tellurides or any number of other folk--but i thought that shani's responses, based on her relation to her community was most interesting, and probably is the most difficult to get at from the outside. since this topic has come up repeatedly and like many others in politics, debate about it shows no signs of progression, i figure going after the most difficult version of it at least makes this sad topic marginally interesting to go through again again again....

there is no illegal immigration "problem"--there are undocumented workers. these people come to the states because firms will hire them.
to call these flows of people in (AND OUT) of the us "illegal immigrants" is to fundamentally distort the question that the term is used to address.
but "illegal immigration" does get the nativists riled up: it sets up yet another Them which threatens US somehow--perhaps via their brown-ness, perhaps by way of their spanish-speaking-ness.

once you buy into this category--that it refers somehow to something--then it is easy to organize your perceptions of your community around it--the term functions primarily to structure your projections and so voila--in this thread post after post based on nothing but projection and that whcih is projected through it, anxiety.

what are you looking for as "data" when you do this?
that folk speak spanish?
the assumptions seems to be that if folk spoke english fluently, then they'd be "legal immigrants" but since they dont...they are--well what? what exactly can you determine from language competences? how hard have you tried to make any determinations based on something that goes beyond projection? any? it is not enough to just gather a bunch of aggregated infotainment off of far right anti-immigrant website and map it wholesale onto the spanish-speaking people that you now imagine are "invading your community" with the intent of "taking it over."...

it is absurd.

you want to complain about something, then complain about how capitalist labor markets are presently operating. it is now somehow rational for a firm to locate facilities or to tie themselves to subconractors/suppliers who locate their facilities in place with the lowest possible wages and the most repressive anti-union regulations. it is now somehow rational and acceptable for firms to exploit transnational labor flows within the united states in order to "maintain a competitive advantage" by paying below minimum wage, using forced overtime, shitty working conditions, totally deskilled work, etc etc etc,..people like to imagine that the economic systems within which they operate is organized on the same lines as those which they prefer to think obtain in the world--well, it doesn't. it hasn't for 40 years (if it ever did). for example: at the public corporation level, stock has traded internationally since the early 1970s--firms that trade publically are not in any meaningful way owned by amuricans.
another fine feature of the capitalism that has somehow dropped out of the debate about this non-issue of "illegal immigration" is old -school:
capitalism treats territories as interchangeable, as abstract, and working people as numbers, as extensions of the machines, as abstractions: that a community within the states would find its population being reorganized along the lines that shani (to take one example) is freaking out about has to do with the changing character of capitalist relations of production and nothing--AT ALL--to do with any imaginary invasion of the land of White People by some new brown Plague. this is a labor pool dynamic that you are seeing. nothing more, nothing less. and if it bothers you--for whatever reason--the problem is not american border "security"--but rather the patterns of hiring that the firms which operate in your community have chosen to adopt.

so this is a LABOR ISSUE, and NOT an immigration issue.

typing the word ILLEGALS in caps, according to the collective preference of those who are bugged out by this sorry non-question changes nothing at all.
(where did this tick come from anyway?)

let's play a little game of perceptual organization:
you can organize what you see in any number of ways...that you "see" a phenomenon does not mean that it exists in any meaningful way--you can describe a common feature in your visual field in any number of directions--what would let you evaluate one over another would be the extent to which each description aligns with EXPECTATIONS ABOUT your experience--so it is entirely possible that you could have a number of ways of framing the same experience each of whcih would be internally as compelling as the other--so the question of how one reacts based on the category "illegal immigrant" vs. "undocumented worker."

i could look around the room i am sitting in now and isolate all the black lines that run through or around features in the images that hang on the wall: i could extend them in my imagination and decide that this room is filling with barbed wire. if i posted something about my anxiety over being forced out of my space by an influx of barbed wire and someone were to respond "uh--what are you talking about?" i could make the same claim as shani does above, which amounts to "this is MY space, i have lived in it for years and there IS an influx of barbed wire you dont know what you are talking about"

the material that i would be using exists in my space: there are many images on the wall and lots of black lines running around them. the extension of that material into an invasion of barbed wire would be a function of (a) the category that i was using implicitly to organize that information (the black lines) and (b) the anxiety that enabled this category to have some effective hold on how i thought. from an outside viewpoint, what would link the material (the black lines) to their results (barbed wire spilling into my space) would be a breakdown in edge recognition. if a situation were to exist where i could go online and find a bunch of websites devoted to fighting the scourge of barbed wire, i would probably feel that my connecting-together of surface features of my experience was now legitimated. and the invasion of barbed wire DOES lean on an aspect of my experience (the black lines in the images on my wall) and i know those images in the same way that i suspect shani (and others above--i really am singling shani out because her posts are difficult to get to and for no other reason) knows this population she talks about--i look at them from a distance..

the point is that the fact that you SEE what amounts to social data does not mean that you KNOW anything about the elements that you group together to make that data. teh category that you use does that work for you.
the response "i know what i see, asshole.." or a variant doesnt actually address the problem.

the problem is that this category "illegal immigrant" organizes a certain amount of visual data--and in the main it IS visual data. you have a spectator relation to it. you know this information in the way that i know the black lines in the images on my wall: except less intimately.

it doesnt really matter then that you try to push the debate back onto your community. all it really points to is the effect a category like "illegal immigrant" can have in ordering what is experentially close to you. you SHOW why this category is dangerous. you DEMONSTRATE its danger.

rather than think about the labor market in your area, it is enough to imagine that your area is being invaded and to blame the people who are drawn to your area by its labor market for the labor market itself. it seems a screwy way to think.

__________________
a gramophone its corrugated trumpet silver handle
spinning dog. such faithfulness it hear

it make you sick.

-kamau brathwaite

ratbastid

Feel free to have whatever opinion of me and my honesty and my credibility that you want to have; what you've said in this paragraph is a lie. If you actually read the Snopes article that surrounds that picture, you'll see that it was 800 to 1000 high school students from a mostly hispanic high school who were protesting for immigration reform. They were responding to other students' walkout over proposed immigration reform legislation. They came to the campus of this other high school--which went on lockdown--and did this to their flagpole. The student (note the singular) who did it was disciplined, and the incident blew over, except for this picture, which became conservativefodder.

But hey, by all means, do what Bill O'Reilly does and spin that picture as evidence of some massive culture-war conspiracy. It isn't honest OR credible, but as long as you keep that finger firmly pointed at others, nobody'll probably notice.

ShaniFaye

I give up on this discussion. As far as typing illegals in caps, it was my impression that this thread was about illegals....not legal immigrants and responses to things I've said have called me racist and bigoted against immigrants and MY beef is the thousands of illegals that have invaded our county in the last 15 years. Having worked for a payroll company for over 10 years I am WELL aware of the companies that hire illegals to work for x amount of months for them to make money only to go back across the border when the "season" is over. On a daily basis I had to check and report bad SS#'s used by "employees" of landscape/construction etc companies. And then deal with the backlash from the company because I reported "Jose Lopez" was using such and such a number and they were raided by the INS

I dont care who's fault it is....they are still here

__________________
I want the diabetic plan that comes with rollover carbs. I dont like the unused one expiring at midnite!!

shakran

If you want to avoid being branded as racist then you should be more precise in your wording.

Either you are saying that the problem is the hispanics, or that the problem is the illegals. Which is it? If you are saying hispanic people are the problem, then that is in fact racist. You can make all the excuses and justifications you want, but if you brand one specific race as the cause of problems, you are being racist.

If, however, you mean the ILLEGAL immigrants are the problem, no matter where they come from, then you should avoid calling them hispanics. There are plenty of hispanics here who are here legally. Lumping them in with the illegals is not only asinine, but also racist.

Perhaps instead of getting angry, you should clarify your position.

ShaniFaye

how many friggin times to I need to clarify? I used "immigrants" AND hispanics in my very first post

then was told I was coming across racist and bigoted

y'all really need to make up your minds and quit knitpicking

ok to clarify one more time. In Gwinnett county where I live, it illegal problems are the mexicans, they are ones reported constantly and the ones rounded up by the INS. I cannot say another culture is the problem in Gwinnett County because I do not see/read about it.

Is that clear enough?

__________________
I want the diabetic plan that comes with rollover carbs. I dont like the unused one expiring at midnite!!

roachboy

my basic point, shani, is that if you referred to these same people as undocumented workers, your reaction would be totally different. and that category is more accurate than your preferred "illegal immigrant" of ILLEGAL or whatever.

since the category "illegal immigrant" or ILLEGAL is less accurate than "undocumented worker" in capturing what is actually happening, it follows that the reasons for preferring ILLEGAL to undocumented and IMMIGRANT to worker is that "illegal immigrant" must be more fun, in a strange kinda twisted way. it gives you something to be afraid of. and this is amurica, where being afraid of something is as important as buying things as expressions of what passes for freedom here.

so by all means, indulge it if you find it fun: imagine you are beseiged by ILLEGALS. but maybe it also makes sense to wonder about why that category is so much fun to have around--and it must be fun otherwise you wouldnt defend it--given that it is less accurate than undocumented workers as a blanket description of a complex situation.

__________________
a gramophone its corrugated trumpet silver handle
spinning dog. such faithfulness it hear

it make you sick.

-kamau brathwaite

ngdawg

Uh...how is 'undocumented' not comparable to 'illegal' in immigration discussion?
There are procedures and laws...if you are not a documented worker/immigrant, you're illegally here working or whatever.
Using the driving analogy from earlier, if I never got a license or tags and got into the car and drove around, I would not be an 'undocumented' driver, I'd be driving illegally.
Same thing.

__________________
Don't blame me. I didn't vote for either of'em.

ShaniFaye

ok, 99% of the undocumented workers in my county that I've had to report for stealing social security numbers or using fake ones have been mexicans


is that better?

__________________
I want the diabetic plan that comes with rollover carbs. I dont like the unused one expiring at midnite!!

roachboy

ng: the terms are not really interchangeable.
in the term "illegal immigrant" the charge that seems to freak people out is in the second term, which presupposes that the folk who are here to work intend to stay here.
that is false simply because "reverse immigration" rates are not factored into the debate. even amongst documented workers, the rate of return is very high.
amongst the undocumented, the rates are probably higher still.
so there is no reason to think of these folk as an immigrant population: they are parts of a migrant labor pool.
so the analogy is false.

so say that if you are driving without a license makes you an illegal driver is much more limited: it simply states that at the time you were presumably busted, you were driving. calling an undocumented worker an illegal immigrant makes a whole sequence of other assumptions that the term "illegal driver" does not make.

seriously: without the category of "immigrant" the entire fantasy of being-invaded by Them falls apart. you could still get riled up on legal grounds, if you like: but the way that would work logically (and politically) would be totally different. it would be much harder to move from "these people do not obey the rules" to "these people are trying to take over the heimat"....

__________________
a gramophone its corrugated trumpet silver handle
spinning dog. such faithfulness it hear

it make you sick.

-kamau brathwaite

Push-Pull

Agreed. Lay off ShaniFaye. Illegal and undocumented are two different ways of saying the same thing depending on your POV.

__________________
"No laws, no matter how rigidly enforced, can protect a person from their own stupidity." -Me-

"Some people are like Slinkies..... They are not really good for anything, but they still bring a smile to your face when you push them down a flight of stairs." -Unknown-

DAMMIT! -Jack Bauer-

roachboy

again, equating "illegal immigrant" to "illegal driver" is wrong.
the analogy is false.
it is not a matter of one's "POV"--it is a false analogy.

there is logic. there is a requirement that terms used to describe a social phenomenon minimally correspond to that phenomenon. the term "illegal immigrant" does not meet that requirement.

to the extent that there is an "issue" being discussed here, it has been framed in a fundamentally disengenous way. most of the more noxious aspects of this thread have followed directly from a simple mapping onto the social world of the consequences of this disengenuous framing.

__________________
a gramophone its corrugated trumpet silver handle
spinning dog. such faithfulness it hear

it make you sick.

-kamau brathwaite

shakran

Marginally. Your trouble is that in earlier posts you told us that the hispanics were the problem. The hispanics as a whole are not the problem. The *illegal immigrant* hispanics are the problem. There is a difference. I'm sure that right there in your town, there are hispanics who are here legally. To lump them in with the illegals is unjust. You should consistantly refer to the troublemakers as *illegal immigrants,* not hispanics.

After all, to rip another story from the headlines, you'd probably be annoyed if I looked at Paris Hilton and her little Nicole friend and proclaimed "Women are the troublemakers and are a great example of everything that's wrong with this country." But by your reasoning, saying that would be fine, because those two are women.



That said, getting mad because Shani didn't call them undocumented is stupid. They are here illegally. They are illegal immigrants. Let's call them what they are instead of wrapping the issue in feel good politically correct bullshit.

Be thankful we don't call them foreign invaders, because that's what they are as well. The idea that illegal immigrants are law abiding productive members of our society is inherently flawed. If you broke the law to be here, you cannot be considered a law abiding individual.

roachboy

for fucks sake, there is no reason to assume that these people are moving here to stay.
so there is no reason to categorize them as immigrants.
there is no reason to think about them as an immigrant population.
this has nothing to do with "politically correct"---whatever that means.
it is a simple question of logic--you know, the idea that there should be some minimal correspondence between a term used and what it purports to describe.

the terminology matters because people use it to organize their experience---they do not KNOW what they are organizing--they appeal to political categories that enable them to order certain aspects of what they see and from there they generally simply run out the effects of the CATEGORY.
so without this fatuous, empty category of the "illegal immigrant" organizing this information, we wouldn't be having this debate.

if you think that categories are not fundamental to how people organize their experience, then you haven't actually thought much about it.

this is growing tedious really fast.

__________________
a gramophone its corrugated trumpet silver handle
spinning dog. such faithfulness it hear

it make you sick.

-kamau brathwaite

Walking Shadow

I'm reading a new book about the press and it's interactions with the Civil Rights movement and segregation and you're "trying to take over" bit is pretty much an exact quote of what some of the most virulent racist sgeragationists and i might add, law enforcement officials in georgia said back in the early 1960's. 'Course back then they were referring to and I quote, "[I]them goddamn niggers[I]."

I'm curious, what proof do you have that illegals are trying to "take over?

How exactly would they do this?

You need proper documentation to get a drivers license etc and most illegals don't have the kind of resources to get even legal documentation. let alone "bootleg" shit.

Illegal aliens can't run for public office and they certainly aren't organized enough to start a mass revolution in the US.

So how exactly are they "taking over?"

mixedmedia

Wow.

I've been in this discussion on another thread and it's one that gets my goat, so to speak, so I'll just say here that I'm throwing the weight of my sentiment behind abaya and roachboy. Fight the power, people.

__________________
Most people go through life dreading they'll have a traumatic experience. Freaks were born with their trauma. They've already passed their test in life. They're aristocrats. - Diane Arbus
PESSIMISM, n. A philosophy forced upon the convictions of the observer by the disheartening prevalence of the optimist with his scarecrow hope and his unsightly smile. - Ambrose Bierce

dc_dux

I've been through this fight too many times as well.

My two cents - I thought the compromise bill, while far from perfect, was the right way to go to address the problems of border security and illegal immigration.

It provided stricter border enforcement (focus on hi tech not chain fences) than currently in place and with the funds to support it), stricter penalities for employers acting ILLEGALLY in hiring undocumented workers, a gues worker program for jobs not otherwise likely to be filled, and a comprehensive penalities and requirements towards citizenship (fines, back taxes, proof of employment, etc IS NOT AMNESTY) for those undocumented workers who commited a misdomeanor by entering the country illegally or overstaying their visa.

The mulit-level approach in the bill is a step in the right direction and in the best interest of our national security, our economy, and the country as a whole.

__________________
"The perfect is the enemy of the good."
~ Voltaire

flstf

It seems to me that if employers were fined heavily and/or given jail time for hiring undocumented workers then many of those in our country illegally would have less work here and many would leave and fewer would come. No need to round up and deport many of them.

To those who are in favor of the amnesty bill: Do you think there are any restrictions on immigration (legal and otherwise) that we should enforce?

Willravel

I think undocumented workers who become criminals (other than being here illegally) should be deported and banned from entry. If undocumented workers enter our country and sell cocaine, or rob old ladies, then they aren't welcome in my eyes. Other than that, I don't see their helping our economy and adding to our culture as bad things. I think this is like the prohibition on marijuana and other bullshit laws and regulations that have no purpose. Kicking out undocumented workers does not serve the public good.

Shauk

so... I don't honestly care if mexicans wanna come in and join the workforce legitimately, I just hate the gang bangers and drug dealers and gun runners that work out of mexico too.

Like it or not, there is definately an unfavorable element that comes in under that carpet. Unfortunately, it would be 2 faced of me to not recognize that there are legal residents here that also support that unfavorable image of "thug life" regardless of nationality.


I think what I'm really trying to say is, I don't care if they're mexican, I just hate the media's adoption of hip hop culture as something favorable, where the artist do nothing but bitch about how crappy and hard thier lil thuggin lives were and how people died and all that noise, yet people try to downgrade thier quality of life and adopt it as a cultural influence straight out of thier middle class suburb into the ghetto. I honestly hope those people are the ones who wind up getting shot for voluntary retardation.

infamatory? maybe, off topic? it may be a tangent, but honestly, Its more of a problem now than it was 30 years ago because of the gang element, dont kid yourself. The only reason the gang element continues to rise is because of the media portrayal in hip hop culture/music videos. "bling blinging straight thuggin etc etc"

I live in north idaho and there seriously whiter than white kids who act like this. I'd beat the eyeballs out of my children if I had any if they started acting like that.

ngdawg

You are making an idealistic assumption that anyone that comes to the US illegally is here to make a few bucks and go home. There's really no statistics to back that up. And it wouldn't matter any way as those that are here illegally are, well...illegally here, be it any amount of time.
I'm the granddaughter of immigrants-my grandfather's name is on the Immigrant's Wall on Ellis Island. I have no beef at all with documented (read-legal)workers, whether here for a month or a century. As Shani pointed out, their SS numbers, their papers et al, are legit, they're productive and not a drain on social services as they pay taxes to support those services.
My beef is with those who, regardless of origin of country, cross into the US, encourage employers to pay substandard wages, thereby depriving legal citizens of jobs, who drain and steal from social services, create dangerous situations for themselves and others(the NY Daily News did a series on illegals and the construction industry and their high injury/death rate and substandard work/conditions there). Cases in point: The 'winner' of a first baby contest turned out to be an illegal-who paid for the hospital expenses when the baby was born? An illegal family from Mexico makes public appeals to save their daughter via a multiple organ transplant. Only after the transplant was done was it discovered they'd entered the country illegally. Costs that weren't covered by public donations were borne by the medical community. These were widely publicized stories, but they reflect a larger problem in the shadows. We have an economy that's stagnant at best, American families are struggling just to get by and corporate heads are just getting greedier by the minute. Add to those problems we currently face the lure of someone coming in freely to earn less than minimum wage because some company owner can save a few bucks on his payroll and the $2 an hour is more than double what could be gotten back home. It's exploitation, it's bucking the law and it's dangerous, just like driving illegally.
Those that are of the thinking of 'taking over', I would call racist to some extent at least. But I don't necessarily think the fears of being pushed aside economically via jobs is a totally unrealistic fear as it happens every day. Why would Mr. Smith pay me $7 an hour when he can get someone for $2, no questions asked? And you think they'll just take that $2 for a few weeks and go home? Is that the right thing to do at any rate?

__________________
Don't blame me. I didn't vote for either of'em.

Infinite_Loser

The way I see it everyone, save the Native Americans, are illegal immigrants.

__________________
I believe in equality; Everyone is equally inferior to me.

Telluride

But the real question is not whether you or I would choose to press charges. It's whether or not the action would be illegal in the first place.

I'm certainly not against trying to be friendly neighbors with other nations, but an important part of that is respect for your neighbor's rights. If I had a neighbor who was constantly entering my property illegally (regardless of his or her reasons for doing so), I would say that he or she is a very bad neighbor. Not necessarily a bad person, but definitely a bad neighbor.

Just to clarify; I don't want American companies to go out of business or even suffer financially. But I don't think the American government should allow the decisions of corporations to hamstring us when trying to assert sovereignty over our own country.

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"I am certain that nothing has done so much to destroy the safeguards of individual freedom as the striving after this mirage of social justice." - Friedrich Hayek

Willravel

But, as I was saying before, laws are in place for a reason. A law with no purpose is not much of a law. Obviously undocumented workers are undocumented. I'm not suggesting that they aren't breaking the law. I'm saying the law is unfair and should be fixed, and deporting people or persecuting them would be a step in the wrong direction.
...but is it our place to punish, especially when we have the power to help? The Mexican government couldn't slow immigration if they wanted to.
I completely agree corporations should be involved in matters of state.

jorgelito

Absolutely the employers of illegal immigrants or illegal aliens should be fined and prosecuted to the full extent of the law, and in some cases, they have. I am just as furious, actualy, no more furious with the emplyers and enablers of the illegal crisis. The problem is holistic, not just confined to one variable of illegals (though they are not off the hook).

The system being broken is another good point. We need wholesale reform and a new immigration policy that fits the needs of our nation in the 21st century.

Add to that, (and this is bordering a thread jack), we need to look at our foreign policy as well. Our current Grand Strategy is too narrow and overly focused on onle terrorism. We need to revist NAFTA, CAFTA etc and figure out how we want to interact with our immediate neighbors. Ideally, a free trade or open border movement should work in all directions. Obviously the first few years would be a bit hairy but I am willing to bet it would even out. Again, here, the key is partnership and cooperation. Canada and Mexico need to do their part as well.

The only place where I would disagree with your very fine post Abaya, is that I am inclined to agree with the many others that there is yes indeed, an illegal immigrant, illegal alien problem.

Also, people, please understand the difference between legal immigration and illegal immigration. In defense of Shani, she is not against legal immigrants, but the illegal ones as are many, many people.

roachboy

ng: i agree with most of your post--except the first sentence. fact is that there are reverse migration stats and that if you juxtapose them with immigration stats it turns out that the inflow and outflows are not terribly far apart--i knew a guy once who was doing research on this topic==i dont remember the population he was tracking exactly--maybe germans==but i do remember that it was a long-term project (it covered about 150 years up to either the 1995 or 2000 census)--his basic claim was that reverse migration account in the aggregate for about 75-80% of the inflow for the population he was studying. that's bloody high....but thing is that this data would cover only "legals"...but from that, you can assume (i think) that the numbers for the undocumented would be much closer to the same (in other words, i would expect that the net gain of population would be close to zero in the aggregate.) so there is data out there, numbers in the census--all that is required is juxtaposing categories that normally aren't juxtaposed for some reason.

so it is not only a speculative issue, this. and it is not idealism to assume that many--if not most--people who come into the states leave again, in the aggregate at any rate. it does seem a bit idealistic to assume that the united states is some kind of nirvana such that everyone on earth wants to live here. that seems more than idealism--it seems like narcissism. but that i dont particularly impute to you--it's more an amurican kultcha thing.

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a gramophone its corrugated trumpet silver handle
spinning dog. such faithfulness it hear

it make you sick.

-kamau brathwaite

jorgelito

Will, that's a tough place. I think you would need to separate the issues. I too am sympathetic to the illegals in their motivation. But I don't think breaking the law is the right solution. Changing the law is. I would agree we need to change and fix etc.

The "power to punish vs power" to help is a bit more blurred. I think you can punish the law violators and reform the law while implementing a more sensible foreign policy.

I disagree with you that corporations should be involved in matters of state. That's dangerously close to okaying Halliburton's actions.

Telluride

We may have to agree to disagree. I think that exercising strict control over our borders serves a very valid purpose. (By "strict control" I don't necessarily mean that nobody should ever be let in the country, but rather that nobody should be let in without permission from the government.)

Absolutely. I can understand why many people from other countries may want to move here, but I don't think that gives them a right to ignore any law that hinders their attempt to relocate. It's sort of like the breaking and entering example I brought up before. I can understand why a homeless person would want to get out of the cold and rain on a winter day, but that doesn't give him or her the right to break into someone's home in search of shelter.

I'd even consider some sort of temporary worker program if it was determined that it was truly necessary. But no person who is here illegally now or who had been caught here illegally in the past should be eligible, in my opinion.

I'm not too big a fan of corporations being involved in the affairs of the state. I don't like the idea of the state meddling in the affairs of corporations, either.

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"I am certain that nothing has done so much to destroy the safeguards of individual freedom as the striving after this mirage of social justice." - Friedrich Hayek