Is there room for honest disagreement on

[Sailor for Warner]

Illegal Immigration. I am the son of immigrants and by no means am I denying that. But I am honestly not 100% on board with Amnesty. Living in Florida I have seen alot of the debacles cause by illegal immigration. Not to the same degree as say Texas, but you havent lived until you have been working as a lifeguard on a beach and watched 120 Hatians go speeding past you into downtown Miami being chased by the INS. There is a serious concern to be addressed here and I dont think that ignoring it helps.

Before I get fragged for being "racist" and wanting to go back to "whites-only" facilities and other such business which I know is going to come my way from some here let me preface. I have worked as a volunteer in Immigrant-focused charities for years all over FL and VA. My wife is a Public Defender and she deals with illegals or their families all the time. I dont think that they are sub-human or anything like that. However there are indeed laws in this country that have been broken by these peoples very presence. A very large portion, not a majority, but a significant numbers break the law plenty more times before they are caught and deported.

Also the issue of culture CAN NOT be ignored. For the most part there is a difference in attitude and intent in the immigrants of today and the immigrants of my fathers generation. I have seen far less willingness to become part of the American "culture". I see much more an intent to work and get enough money do confortably go back to Mexico. There seems to be no permanence in their mindset but that is what they become.

I dont know what the solution is, but I am not convinced that "canned citizenship" to lawbreakers is the solution.


The sailor

[Rosemary2205]

1. hey, I'm with you.

I don't want parents and children separated but I do want the laws already on the books enforced -- mostly with regards to punishing businesses that knowingly hire illegals and posted such at more length in a previous thread and was flamed mercilessly.

Just keep a bucket of ice handy :)

[Sailor for Warner]

2. Gracias

I feel the same way. That is my only sticking point to just deporting them all and starting fresh with bigger legal immigration quotas and stricter enforcement.

[Selatius]

3. I've seen no DUer here call for blanket amnesty

My position is this:

1. Secure the borders, seaports, airports. More manpower. More technology. This comes first.
2. Identify all illegal aliens inside the US. Register them.
3. Punish employers who use illegal labor.

If they want to work in the US but don't want to become citizens, then give them work permits. When the permits expire, they can reapply or leave. If they don't reapply, then they will be deported if they don't leave. If they want to become US citizens, then they should get in line like everyone else. I think the immigration process should be reformed and streamlined, but that does not mean I am in favor of dumbing down requirements. What I am saying is getting rid of bureaucratic waste and parsing down immigration backlogs. You shouldn't have to wait several years just for your application to be reviewed; that's absurd. I also think employers should be fined out the ass for knowingly hiring illegal aliens.

These employers use contractors who often sub-contract out the work, and they sometimes even sub-contract further. What is created is a buffer zone between illegal aliens and employer accountability. If a sub-sub-sub contractor uses illegal aliens, then the company, say, Wal-Mart can claim plausible deniability and pass the blame on to somebody else. It's a shell game.

It is vitally important the nation's territorial integrity is secured first if the goal is a functioning immigration policy. If you cannot police your own borders, how could you even tackle immigration reform?

Of all the things people seem most angry at, it's the illegal immigrants themselves who seem to be getting most of the anger, not the capitalists who play one worker against another.

[Sailor for Warner]

5. I can see that

I just wanted to see some different ideas because it seems like the President is just kind of doing his own thing, and hes all chummy with ol' Vincente down there, i really hate him on this topic in particular.

[Xipe Totec]

4. You really need to read up on the subject

"I have seen far less willingness to become part of the American "culture". I see much more an intent to work and get enough money do confortably go back to Mexico. There seems to be no permanence in their mindset but that is what they become."

Please tell me how they can willingly become part of the American "culture", if there is no path to citizenship?

On one hand you want to kick them out. On the other, you resent them for not staying?

[Sailor for Warner]

6. Clearly you need to read my post a little better

Yes I want to kick out the ones not here legally. Coming into hospitals recieving medical care and not paying because they dont pay into the system. Not paying taxes but their kids still get a free education. The issue of culture is important with respect to if we do increase the legal quotas and let them in will they become part of the culture or not integrate. There is a reason we have immigration quotas, so that groups of persons can become part of society without overwhelming it.

[Xipe Totec]

14. Read the law if you want to talk about illegality

Do you even know what an H2-A visa is?

If you don't, then you don't wkow what makes these people legal or illegal immigrants.

[William769]

9. There is a path to Citizenship.

Being smuggled in is not one of them.

[Xipe Totec]

12. Show it to me

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=364x1087228

[William769]

13. Ask and you shall recieve.

http://www.usimmigrationsupport.org/

[Xipe Totec]

17. Sorry, the door was closed

Did you even read the post before responding?

If you had, you would see it already has a link to the INS website.

To save you the trouble, here it is:

http://www.uscis.gov/graphics/howdoi/LPReligibility.htm

[William769]

18. How is the door closed?

My partner is from Nicaragua, He is here legally and works legally. Surly you can do better than that.

[Xipe Totec]

20. Read the post

then answer the question.

The door is always open for the privileged few.

The question is how does a poor peasant who just wants to pick lettuce to feed his family become a US citizen?

[William769]

22. He come from a village that didn't even have electricity,

He found a way to get the money by going to his capitol & working till he had money to come to a new land where he could be what ever he wanted to be. If you really want something, you will work your ass off to get it.

P.S. I did read your post, and it still has fallen on deaf ears.

[Xipe Totec]

24. And all you had to do was come out of your mother's womb

Wow, that's a real level playing field :eyes:

No wonder immigrants legal or illegal are kicking the collective asses of the local population.

No competition.

[William769]

28. That would be my Native American mothers "womd" to you!

:eyes:

ON EDIT: I know it hurts when your argument get torn to shred.

[Xipe Totec]

31. What argument? You made my point

You're here not because you're the best, but by biological accident. Skill, ability, wisdom, none of it matters.

I'm an Ahmurican because my mommy is an Ahmurican.

It is Jim Crowism.

[Sailor for Warner]

33. Once again, what is your solution?

Noone is born american? If you are born in this country at all you are a US Citizen, it has NOTHING to do with your parentage unless you are born to US citizens on foreign soil. Soooooo we should all just be non-citizens until we turn say 16 and then we can apply for a visa to work in our own country. sorry Charlie, thats not how you run an immigration service.

[Sailor for Warner]

30. Sorry it cant be as hard for all of us

Why dont we just grant everyone US Citizenship and start sending checks to the whole world. Lofe sucks, sometime you have to overcome.

[Xipe Totec]

32. Thus speaks the voice of privilege and entitlement

I got mine...

[Sailor for Warner]

36. I grew up dirt ass poor

Yeah im mighty entitled. I had to spend most of my life working in high school and studying hard at my crappy ass high school in the ghetto and then I joined the Navy, had good enough grades to be an officer and now I live in my privelege and entitlement that my children will indeed enjoy.

You dont know me so dont pretend that you do.

[William769]

38. Why argure with someone who point is baseless?

The persons mind is made up and no amount of reason is going to change that.

[Sailor for Warner]

39. True

I was just pretty offended.

[Sailor for Warner]

19. I dunno

My family were dumped in a number Godforsaken "friendly" countries as well and they came over with legal visas which they waited for for 3 years and then they were processed, lived here for 7-11 years, learned the language, renewed their visas as necessary, didnt commit any crimes, took their tests and took the oath of citizenship. Seems like a path to me. Keep in mind they were almost all VERY poor for most of this time, but they did all right.

[Xipe Totec]

23. The question is when? What year? What country?

And how many times have the so-called laws of immigration changed since then?

Do you realize we have a quota system? So many from this country, so many from that...

And the quotas change at the whim of Congress depending on the political atmosphere.

At one point it was the law of the land that chinese could not immigrate to the US. Period.

[Sailor for Warner]

26. Not too much it was only

30 years ago.
And yes I realize that there are quotas, why do you think it took so long for them to get visas.

[Xipe Totec]

27. Well the problem, then is not enough visas

Don't you think?

[Sailor for Warner]

29. AND ONCE AGAIN I REFER YOU

To my post on the topic of increasing legal immigration.

[alvarezadams]

43. Not enough visas... yet

http://search.yahoo.com/search?p=us%2Bvisa%2Blottery&sm=Yahoo%21+Search&fr=FP-tab-web-t403&toggle=1&cop=&ei=UTF-8

Watching MTV on cable in Spain I am always shocked to see private companies' ads... complete with a waiving American Flag and the Statue of Liberty... saying "you too can get a green card or student visa..." It appears to be a pretty big business.

[zeemike]

7. My solution is simple

Raise the minimum wage to $10 and hour.
I am not worried about open boarders. They will not come unless they can get work, and if they can't undercut the wages of citizens there is no incentive for the employers to hire them.

[larrysh]

8. One suggestion......

As someone who comes from a family whose Democrat loyalty dates back to
before the Civil War, it appears to me that one possible solution would be to license employers who use migrant labor. Employers would be responsible for screening their migrant labor, providing transportation
from the border to wherever they would be used, and would be allowed to use this migrant labor for a spcific period of time, only, and at a set rate agreed to by the government. At the end of the contract, the employer would be responsible for returning the migrants to the border.
Now, I understand that organized labor are BIG supporters of the Democrat party, however, I am not a union member, and neither are my family members, nor are any of my friends. So, unions do me no good whatsoever. What would help me, and thousands of non-union Democrats
like me (especially working poor and middle class) would be for
companies like GM, Ford, and Chrysler, to be able to contract with the government to bring in migrant labor to work on their assembly lines.
Pay scales would be cheaper, say, $10.00 per hour vs. current union scales of $18.00 per hour. As the contracted migrants would work for a specific period of time (say two years) there would no need for 401K's,
profit-sharing, pensions, etc. No social security, unemloyment, etc.
would need to be paid by the employers. Health benefits could be
limited to very basic care. At the end of the two years, employers
could bring in a new batch of workers, thus allowing more migrants to receive at least two years employment. This would bring the price
of new cars down to the point where even the working poor could afford
a new car every few years. Multiply this across all industries that
employ union workers and the cost of living for middle class and working
poor non-union members would be reduced tremendously!!!
There would be some pain to union members, of course, but the government
could provide re-training in a new field, and the re-trained union members would benefit from the resulting lower cost of living as well!!!

[Sailor for Warner]

10. Good plan, I like it.

So your Dem loyalty goes back to the "Bad Dems" that opposed the 13th and 14th amendments? Ewwwwwww :evilgrin:

[larrysh]

16. Facts are facts

Yes, my family fought for the South and some family members owned slaves. Doesn't cahnge the fact that I am a Dem and my family has always been Dems and will probably always be Dems. Dont' forget,
there's a US Senator who used to recruit for the KKK who is the most powerful man in the US Senate (and a Dem), so I don't see why what
my family did a hundred years ago should be held against me. Robert Byrd voted against the Civil Rights Act, just 40 years ago!

[Sailor for Warner]

21. Oh no It wasnt a critisism

It was just an observation, I am a student of history so I find family history like that intruiging. The flip between the Dem and Reps is very interesting.

[William769]

11. I'm with you on this one.

I have no problem, with legal immigration. I also live in Florida & have seen the plight which you speak of.

And before I get flamed by anyone, I AM NATIVE AMERICAN!

on edit: SPELLING

[H2O Man]

15. There should be debate.

There is lenty of room for debate on this topic. There is no one "correct" answer. The important thing, in my opinion, is to keep an open mind. I have learned a great deal by reading the DU threads on the various aspects of this very complex issue, including by reading some posts by DUers that I do not particularly care, for with an open mind.

[Nay]

25. I'm with you, too, as the child of an immigrant. A legal immigrant.

Blanket amnesty will solve nothing, and will encourage more illegal immigration. That's what the neocons want, folks. Even more desperate people, willing to work for food.

[sweetheart]

34. Hadrians wall

The northern edge of civilization, after the economic collapse,
after the prison state lockdown in the northern fatherland,
and the poor will be trying to escape over the wall their
ancestors built to keep the southern people out, not realizing
they had constructed their own concentration camp.

But the wall is to the south, not the north, had hadrians wall as
well, kept the romans to the south, imprisoned in poverty,
or injustice.

[Minnesota Libra]

35. Sailor for Warner Welcome to DU and as someone who has been.............

...flamed numerous times for my views on illegal aliens I agree with a few of your points.

First of all, I think it says a lot when a country - any country - has one very strict set of rules governing their illegal aliens but want the US to adopt an open border policy for people from that same country. A prime example of this is Mexico's very strict illegal immigration policy governing their southern borders yet they yell to high heaven if we even consider adopting the same policy.:wtf:

Second, I completely agree that there is a big difference between the immigrants of our fathers and grandfathers generation and today's immigrants, especially those coming over our southern borders. They come here with an attitude of "you owe me something and I'm going to collect". We don't owe them anything at all, they owe us for wanting to be in our country.

As for illegal aliens who came here and then had children in the US, the children should indeed enjoy duel citizenship but the illegal alien parents need to apply for legal citizenship and they need to do it from their own country. They should be given priority but definitely not blanket amnesty.

The cure for all this is indeed physically controlling that northern and southern border by whatever means necessary. Just as important is to level huge fines against companies (corporations or mom-and-pop) that hire illegal aliens. Apartment and home owners/managers should be fined as well for renting/selling to illegal aliens.

Yea, I know these aren't popular views but oh well.

[Sailor for Warner]

37. Ive seen the way that Mexico treats those poor

Hondurans crossing the border and they dare ask us for better. Wierd. Thank you for your post, very thoughtful.

[Sailor for Warner]

40. One of my relatives

Even came through Canada, became a canadian citizen and THEN came to american on a Canadian visa and because a US Citizen. You do whatcha gotta do.

[TreasonousBastard]

41. I am deeply troubled by the debate, which doesn't...

address several things that bother me.

The first problem I have is that being born in the US, Japan, France... is like winning the lottery or being born to royalty. One simply won at a crapshoot and whether or not one "deserves" it or appreciates it, is still the winner. While any neutral tests of citizenship that ignore where one if born will probably never happen, we could at least have some effort to even things out a bit. Better wage and hour laws and enforcement would be a good start, by reducing the incentive to use immigrants as a wedge to to reduce wages, benefits, and conditions.

Historically, nations have looked outside their borders when they needed more workers. We used to send agents to Eastern Europe to get workers in the meatpacking and auto plants, and we brought in thousands of Chinese to build the railroads. Germany, Japan, and many oil countries have long brought in foreign "guest" workers to fill the factories. It is somewhat informative to look back and see just how we treated these workers in the past-- while Germany and Japan never offered them citizenship at all, our path to citizenship was often far worse than simply remaining guests.

But, now we have several things happening at once. For one thing, we don't need so many guest workers because our job creation isn't as high as our population growth. For another, our own population has higher expectations than picking onions, mowing lawns, or cleaning toilets. We're talking about our kids going to college, not being auto mechanics or hotel maids. Though we scoffed at the "doing jobs American don't want to do" comment, it does have a ring of truth.

We also still haven't properly addressed welfare and other assistance programs to put many of our own people back to work. While we've managed to throw a bunch of people off the dole over the past 10 years, we haven't really
tracked how well they're doing. And, for those still on, we haven't made it much easier for the to start working.

[alvarezadams]

42. Another perspective

At present most 1st world nations are having problems keeping up with an ageing population and lowering birth rates. Putin is currently begining a program that will financially benefit "large families" while much of Europe is at around ZPG even WITH immigration.

One of today's explosive items is SS and retirement ages. The neolibs like to point out that SS is unsustainable and that people will have to retire at an older age... which clearly shows that government is failing its duty in seeking the common wealth of all citizens.

From a Malthusian POV, immigration solves many of society's most pressing problems.

Yet before going into such details, it should be remembered WHY people immigrate. It isn't because foreigners "envy our freedom" - it is because they can't make a living at home and are willing to risk their very lives crossing a desert or a river to have a chance. And one of the reasons why this happens is because of the West's continuing economic colonialism that keeps the 3rd World ... in the 3rd World.

As for details - I wonder what the anti-immigrants' stance would be if the immigrants came from Kent or Wales or Cork... or even Frankfurt.