It will be great for our economy and big business to lower hard labor wages and create dynamic labor force legally. It only hurts (destroys) the middle class looking to get paid fair wages while actually supporting their family in this country. Not a family in a country with a much lower cost of living.
Immigrants send billions of dollars in income earned here to their home countries. Billions with a B. All of it is illegal income. All of it serves to diminish wages, destroy unions, and hurts the working class in America. I'd rather pay $6 for a pound of strawberries than have the working and middle class in America destroyed so that illegal immigrants can send money to their home countries. All people create demand, that doesn't mean we shouldn't have laws on immigration and create some ridiculous free for all.
If they were citizens, or on the path to being citizens, wouldn't they have more of an incentive to keep that money here in the US?
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How so? If you have relatives in Mexico that you send $500 a month so they can live they're not all of a sudden not going to need that money.
I would think being an American might change their priorities. Anyway, who are we kidding. Boehner couldn't even get a farm bill passed today. No way an immigration bill gets through congress with his leadership.
Respectfully, I find that really unlikely. What I find honestly much more likely is that those 10 million new Americans will try to bring their 30 to 40 million foreign relatives to the US with them. It's what I would try to do if I were in that position. That's a whole lot more likely to me than these people will stop sending money to support their families in other countries.
More democrat votes, excellent! But no seriously, I would have no problem with that if it in fact happened. My family was a nasty Irish immigrant at one time.
I find that unacceptable and irresponsible. If that's the goal then we shouldn't have an immigration bill. We should simply enforce a work verification system and let people leave on their own when they can't find work.
If those people are able to buy a house and have a bank account and credit cards and get loans and whatever else, they might be more willing to spend their money here. Why spend money establishing roots here when you could be sent packing any day?
If those people immigrated legally like a lot of other people do then they'd have no trouble doing so. Millions of people have made the choice to follow the law and enjoy the full rights and benefits of doing so legally. Don't break the law and then complain about what that entails for your lack of opportunities. That's absurd.
Certainly - but that's not the argument at hand at all. Where do you see illegal immigrants complaining about their lack of opportunities? You said that even if we made them legal, they would send all their money home and be a drain on the economy. I'm suggesting that's not true - if they were legal and didn't fear being deported, they likely spend more money establishing roots and a life here. As an illegal, their purpose in the country is different. I would think this could be proven one way or another by looking at spending habits or legal or illegal immigrants.
Convert people desperate to do anything to enter the country to those who can, and will contribute. If you don't want "convicts" sneaking in, don't make them have to be convicts in the first place. If you want to play that game, America was founded on Marshall declaring that America was "discovered" by superior Europeans and therefore tribal laws no longer applied. It's illogical, to say the least. So, in that sense, I can confidently say at least about 90% of all Fortune 500 companies, barring those with tribal blood, were founded by illegal immigrants.
Open borders have some subtle twists to them. As it is, I would settle for more of a EU system for NAFTA countries. Why goods and capital can flow so freely, but people can't, is beyond me. Illegal immigrants also pay payroll taxes, and take less than what they put in. That is a fact. http://www.globalaging.org/pension/us/socialsec/2005/illegal.htm though I suppose forcing them to quasi-dentured slavery is a way to save the working class of America
A lot of you act like this is a zero sum game that money sent by immigrants here back to their home countries hurts the US. It actually doesn't because the long term economic development of places like Mexico will help the US. It is also it's own solution to the problem of illegal immigration since if the economy of Mexico and other countries develop the less impetus there will be to come to the US.
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If you don't want criminals don't have laws? You don't seem to understand ow ridiculous you sound. There's a long ass waiting list of people trying to come here legally who are desperate to contribute. Frankly, people who have actual work skills and talents that would contribute more than low wage blue collar labor. We don't need to resort to looking the other way because people are able to sneak in illegally simply by the luxury and benefit of geography. I'm not playing a game. Every country on the planet has laws on immigration, many far more stringent than ours. I'm not going to engage in this ridiculous egg headed everyone is an illegal immigrant argument.
Legal immigrants pay payroll taxes. You apparently support fraud as a means to fund social security? That's awesome.
