"Gotta seal the borders"--Hey, waittaminnit here.

[Jackpine Radical]

Wow--am I the last to see the irony of this man taking such a position when he is the grandchild of a family who fled across the then wide-open border with Mexico (albeit in the other direction) to escape what they perceived as religious persecution?

How hard would it be to convert a system intended to keep others OUT into a system for keeping us IN?

[spin]

1. Interesting point ...

I would personally like to see our nation develop a rational immigration policy that would allow people that we have allowed to receive college educations in our nation to remain here, if they wish, and help us to advance our society.

I also feel that such a policy would enable foreign workers who have less skills to enter the United States in order to do lower skill jobs that most Americans are loath to do.

I personally am upset at the danger and expense that illegal immigration imposes on many who enter our nation from Mexico. Illegal immigrants serve our society for our benefit but many die in the attempt to cross our border in hostile environments and many are abused the the coyotes who smuggle them in. Once here they lack the protection of our legal system and suffer from their employers who often take advantage of their status and treat them as a modern slave class. They are also hesitant to contact our legal authorities when they find themselves victims of crime.

As a nation with the Statue of Liberty as one of our most important symbols we can do far better.


Statue of Liberty Inscription
..."Give me your tired, your poor,
Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,
The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.
Send these, the homeless, tempest-tossed to me,
I lift my lamp beside the golden door!"

[SickOfTheOnePct]

2. There is only one way to seal the border

Take away the incentive to come here by implementing and enforcing harsh financial punishments on companies that hire illegal immigrants. Right now, companies are so unlikely to be caught, and the punishments are so weak if they are caught, that it's a gamble they're willing to take and they see it as a cost of business.

Make the punishments so harsh that companies face bankruptcy if caught, and they'll think twice about doing it. That will exert upward pressure on wages, and more Americans will be willing to do the work.

I don't fall for the "work Americans won't do" meme...it's work American's won't do for slave wages.

[Wounded Bear]

9. Actually, no....

The only real way to stop people from coming here is to improve conditions in their home country so they don't want to come here to escape.

Not our business, one might say, but our current policies re: drugs and guns merely fuel the fear and despair in Mexico, making their people want to escape to here. Ironically, of course, the violence and fear tends to follow with them, intended or not. And Mexico is far from the only place where American policies on a broad range of issues create oppression and poverty that encourage emigration.

I'll go along with punishing employers who exploit the system more, but the real root cause isn't really there. That's more of a symptom than a cause IMHO.

[Jackpine Radical]

10. Yes, you're playing my tune.

For starters, we ought to decline to trade with (or use tariffs as punishment for) countries that exploit their workers & fail to meet environmental standards. This move would simultaneously put American workers on a more level playing field and fill our treasuries, while improving the lot of workers across the world. This, in my opinion, ought to be the driving goal behind a 21st-century Unionism.

[SickOfTheOnePct]

11. Fair point but you can't deny the fact that as jobs dry up here, illegal border crossings decrease

I don't believe that conditions in Mexico have improved to the point that it's better there than it is here, yet as the US economy has stagnated, illegal immigration has decreased.

If the jobs aren't available here, they won't come, at least not in large numbers.

[HillWilliam]

3. Given the way selfservatives screw with words

you have to wonder if "seal the border" is meant to keep strangers out or prisoners in.

[Romulox]

4. Cheap labor is not a right. nt

[KharmaTrain]

5. Mittens Always Speaks With *

The only thing that matters in Rmoney's world is $$$$$ and power. When you look at what he says through this prism it shows what he really means. We "seal the borders" as to keep the cheap labor rolling...internally and externally. Willard knows that illegal immigration adds a lot of money into the pockets of his fat cat billionair buddies. They build the houses, pick the produce, clean the pools, work the minimum wage jobs and without having to pay benefits...just dump 'em on the local social services and let the taxpayers take care of the rest. They also love the cheap foreign labor that guarantees increased profits and outsourcing (especially union jobs). That's all that matters to Mittens...pretend to be "tough" on immigration yet look the other way. This also goes for those who aren't Hispanic who let their green cards lapse but aren't under the political and racial microscope.

[lame54]

6. 20 Feet High - 2 Feet Thick...

20 Feet High - 2 Feet Thick
Barbed Wire - Razor Blades
The Wall Was Built
To Keep Them Out
While Keeping Us
In Goose-Step Parades

We don't question what we become
We march to the beat of the same Indifferent Drum

[NNN0LHI]

7. And the real irony here is that his family fled to Mexico to avoid abiding by U.S. laws

Laws like not being able to have a harem for instance.

Don

[treestar]

8. The idea is stupid anyway

There is no way to "seal the borders." Not without a major military state. For a country this size with such long borders, it just can't be done even with that.

Just make the rules more rational, or a better fit for who comes to the U.S.

As to the Rmoneys, yeah, typical, the border need not be sealed in the US to Mexico direction, however.