Native American Shuts Down Anti-Immigration Protest

thread title is inaccurate, it's an anti-illegal immigration protest

 

Well there isn't really much you can say to him... breh's gotta point.

 

So what, the guy used the words "illegal immigrants" to make his point, but it would be equally valid against either kind of protest.

Yeah, not much those folks could say. "I'm part Cherokee!" :grin:

 

Point remains exactly the same, lol.

 

Agree his point is the same, but the protest itself was mischaracterized as anti-immigrant.

 

In my (totally anecdotal, non-scientific) experience, both sentiments are held by the same people (the "we speak English in America!" folks). They just use anti-"illegal immigrant" rhetoric when they explicitly articulate their views because they know some people will see it as more defensible. In truth, they don't like any newcomers from certain parts of the world.

 

Nah, it's more of a way to discredit the other side without debating the issue on the merits.

Problems with uncontrolled illegal immigration include the burden on the entitlement system, the potential for bad actors to enter undetected, and a lack of assimilation into American society/culture.

But much easier to just say "anti-immigrant bigot" and feel superior.

 

Maybe where you live, dude.

Btw, the illegal immigrants I've worked all contributed far more to this country and took far less than your average citizen.

 

^worked with (as a volunteer)

 

People like you who believe and this dude do are making a bad faith effort to debating the issue on the merits because your viewpoint will never change and you tend to overstate the negative affects of undocumented immigration while ignoring the positives, the need for their labor, and economic reality. Additionally you seem unwilling to understand that any negative impact they have on the health care “entitlement” system is exacerbated because of people who resist providing lawful status. This makes people conclude (perhaps wrongly) that there seems to be some other non-empirical factor driving your decision making. e.g. anti-immigrant bigotry.

1. Burdens to the” entitlement” system must be broken down by state and federal and then further categorized into health care, and social welfare (you might include education or police services as an entitlement, but I will try no to unless you really want to insist).

Health care system – slight negative
http://www.rand.org/news/press/2006/11/14.html

Obviously this is just LA, but just a small fraction of the enormous health care costs are coming from public coffers. Of course if they were legalized, they would actually have a higher likelihood of demanding higher pay and paying for insurance coverage, but they might also have a higher likelihood of seeking medical services than they do currently.

Effect on Social Security – positive
http://ssab.gov/Documents/IMMIG_Issue_Brief_Final_Version_000.pdf

For Social Security, undocumented individuals pay in large amounts and do not typically collect because most are never eligible for status under the current immigration regime. If we were actually to make these previously “illegal” individuals “legal” by providing them some status we would still be helping the social security system pay for our aging baby boomers because they skew younger and would also start paying in at higher rates in above the table jobs.

Federal Taxes in general
http://www.cbo.gov/sites/default/files/cbofiles/ftpdocs/87xx/doc8711/12-6-immigration.pdf

This leaves 5 million as not paying taxes of which 2 million are children. If your issue is them paying taxes at a higher rate – legalize them, LPRs pay income tax at a higher rate than undocumented people for all the obvious reasons.

State Taxes - slight negative
http://www.cbo.gov/sites/default/files/cbofiles/ftpdocs/87xx/doc8711/12-6-immigration.pdf

Obviously this is only 1 state in 50 and the gap might be slightly larger in some states, but that is a tiny deficit – nothing that should be the deciding factor. The bottom line with social services, “entitlements” as you call them, is that undocumented immigrants like other impoverished households will always take out more than they pay in to the system because the system is explicitly set up to spread costs from high income households to lower income households. This isn’t some bug; it’s a feature and part of our social contract. If you wanted them to do better for themselves and their children and thus get to the point where they pay more into the system than they take out, you would legalize them to give them more stake in this country and better opportunities for upward mobility. Of course once they got to that point, we’d have a new set of new arrivals taking slightly more out than they put in.

2. Potential for bad actors is vastly overstated. Nothing about legalizing undocumented people would result in an increase of bad actors crossing into their country. In fact, it might even serve to allow us to spend more time and money chasing after bad actors that are already here when we don’t have to waste federal money and time on low-priority immigration enforcement and we don’t have to waste local funds abiding by unfunded mandates like Secured Communities (S-COMM. In this way, continuing to keep undocumented people undocumented without legal status is actually counterproductive to your stated concern.

3. Lack of assimilation – well, no ****ing kidding, you keep people from taking full part in society and of course they will take longer to assimilate – first generation immigrants also almost never fully assimilated, but who cares about that because their kids always do thanks to our public education system. Spouting exclusionary rhetoric like protestors in the video and being exclusionary through policy and then complaining about lack of integration on the part of 1st generation immigrants is like always taking a dump on your own floor and then complaining that it’s always covered in ****.

Bottom line is that, if those are your stated concerns, you should be protesting the fact that we have not given them status, not complaining about them being “illegals” and also fighting their legalization. Given that this dude in the video and people like you are not in favor of giving undocumented people status and given the fact that your stated concerns are overblown and your policy perspectives antithetical to your concerns, it’s natural that people begin to think that maybe “anti-illegal immigrant” individuals are actually just being controlled by their prejudices.

 

It's such a silly argument, but I suppose one rebuttal would be that if you must make that comparison then take a look at how well native Americans are doing now to see how it worked out for them.

Illegal immigration represents cheap labor for big business, yet it's the public who has to foot the bill for education, social services, emergency services, all of it. It's the ultimate form of tax cuts for the 1% yet Democrats are too cowardly to do anything about the problem except offer gushing platitudes to millions of low income families who they are grooming to be future Democrats. Republicans aren't any better. Most want to please their corporate masters and will happily vote for amnesty and more legal immigration. It's only their noisy pissed off constituency keeping them from doing it.

As usual, neither party cares about the impact on the middle class, not when there's cheap votes and a corporate gravy train to be had.

 

Yes, illegal immigration is cheap labor for some big business, like agribusiness and construction. But, it does not represent cheap labor for big business in many other sectors. Honestly, more than anything illegal immigration is cheap labor for small/medium business owners. Every single asian/indian/taqueria/club is completely staffed by undocumented cooks and busboys, similarly tons of fly-by-night sub-contractors are able to keep costs low on construction because of undocumented individuals. This brings costs of food and eating out down allowing middle class Americans to afford to go out to eat, it also brings the cost of housing down so that middle class Americans can actually afford new houses. Given that consumption related to housing is so important to our economy, it's actually beneficial for middle class America.

Most big service industry companies are disincentivized from hiring undocumented people unless they can get away with misclassification as independent contractors. Opening yourself up to public ridicule is not usually good for the image for companies operating on a national scale.

As the RAND corporation, SSA, and CBO pieces I linked earlier demonstrate, the negative effect of undocumented individuals on social services is overblown. Yes, they take some public monies for medical services that they do not pay for, but they take medical care at a lower rate than citizens at the same socio-economic bracket because they are healthier and younger than the average American poor person. Yes, undocumented students take education funds, but they also pay for public education by paying rent goes to people who are paying property taxes - though once again because their portion of property taxes is low and they tend to have more kids (though many of their kids are citizens by birth and should not be counted as a negative unless you are for whatever reason against USC kids) they do take more than they give into the system.

As far as social services, well undocumented people aren't even eligible for Social Security or SNAP, so I'm not sure what other things you are lumping into social services. While not even being eligible for Social Security, many pay their Social Security taxes that they will never ever cash out. As the SSA has indicated, even if they were legalized, they would be a way for us to cut into the deficit currently facing the system as the baby boomers work their way through. Perhaps you mean police services? If you are just talking about security services, well undocumented individuals pay sales tax and a large portion pay federal taxes so much of what they use is covered at a similar level as American citizens or LPR at their same socio-economic bracket.

So, no, it's not really the ultimate form of tax breaks for the 1%, though it is beneficial for certain 1%ers in construction or agribusiness - low prices on food and housing mean money in the pockets for middle class Americans. You might have more of an argument to make if you were talking about poor Americans who are in competition for those jobs that undocumented people are likely to take, but you aren't for some reason. The labor supply that undocumented people represent is already here living and working among us, so why don't we just wake up to reality and legalize them so we can at least start taking away the other downward pressure on unskilled wages that their lack of status and lack of options represent. At least a part of why employers can get away with paying workers less and working them harder in agribusiness and construction is that they can't adequately stand up for their own rights due to fear of deportation.

Why do you seem to think they are hurting the middle class? The only thing you seem to be truly right on is education. That is the area where they take the most out and put the least. For other social services they seem to put more than they take. The people that hurt the most from legalization would be the American poor and even there the negative affect is marginal since they are already being hurt unless we legalize and at the same time try to keep eroding and eroding our tax base for social services.

 

Not really. Every human who left Africa is an immigrant. After that it's just about who had the best guns.

 

How about we make them legal to put them on the record for taxes? That should force them to demand higher wages to account for the taxes. The now-legal immigrants will pay their fair share and the corporate pigs won't be able to get super cheap labor. What do you think?

 

How well it worked out for them? You mean for the one percent that survived?

 

Nah, it's more like conservatives rely on code words and things like the southern strategy to push a hate filled agenda because they're too chicken **** to just blatantly say what they think.

 

Can't speak for Raven but I fully endorse just making a law that enforces equal wages for everyone including illegals. This nonsense about the agricultural industry "needing" cheap labor has gone on long enough.

We have allowed a slave class to emerge and it is a crime against humanity. No one in the US should be paid so little.

Liberals talk about how history will look on current events, our generation will be fried for allowing entire families to work all day and be paid only based on the amount of fruit harvested.

 

I'd have no problem with that; it is appalling I agree. I just don't know how you could get around that. Most illegal immigrants are going to be working off the books, and therefore it's basically impossible to ensure they are paid a living wage.