are you kidding me? do these people not pay for water? or rent? or gas? or cars? or buses? or food? or electricity? or toys? or clothes? if they wish to send their excess money to mexico its their damn perogative. plus my money taht i spend here probably all goes to china anyway.
Someone mentioned this earlier but it doesn't hurt to restate it: Fouteenth Ammendment to the US Constitution Section 1: Section 1. All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the state wherein they reside. No state shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any state deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws. What that means is that first off it would take another Ammendment to the Constitution to change the birthright to citizenship. Not something easily done just ask those trying to stop flag burning or the ERA. Even if nativists views became as widespread nationwide as it appears to be on Clutch D & D its very doubtful that the 3/4 of the states would vote to ratify. Especially since there are many voters, like myself, who got their citizenship because of the birthright benefit. One poster asked earlier what was the benefit of having the birthright benefit and as another poster pointed out it is to prevent subject definitions of what is citizenship. If you look at the situation prior to the 14th where blacks and even Native Americans were denied citizenship, I mean how native can you get than Native American, citizenship was essentially arbitrarily determined. Even after the 14th there were attempts to deny immigrants, notably Chinese, citizenship even if they were born here under the same arguments being proposed on this thread. The problem with restrictions such as saying that only children born to legal immigrants or citizens already is that the standards of legal immigration are themselves somewhat arbitrary and highly subject to prevailing political winds and prejudices. Illegal immigration is tangential to the subject of birthright but I'm largely with Hayes on this. That doesn't mean that we shouldn't control our borders better but as long as there is huge differences between the economies of the US and neighboring countries there will always be illegal immigrants. There will be immigrants looking to make more money than in their own countries while there will be employers here looking to hire cheaper labor. While many might complain that illegals are using up benefits I doubt that there are many complaining that produce, construction and menial services aren't more expensive.
Yes I don't care about this country because I want to keep it so that people like me have citizenship even though they were born to parents who weren't citizens and because I want to allow people who want to take meniel jobs at lower wage rates keeping down inflation. Yes I really don't care about this country.
Is this going to be your usual proclamation form now on if somoene disagrees with your political view? You are turning into Bigtexxx.
I simply do not understand why people support ILLEGAL immigration. If there is a need for migrant workers - and I don't think that need has been demonstrated - why should we reward people for breaking the law? We live in a time where national security is such a critical issue, and we have to know who is coming into this country and for what purpose. To have millions of people coming into this country each year illegally - without documentation and any kind of screening - is simply irresponsible. To further reward such acts is stupifying in my opinion. I completely support the GOP agenda here, and do not think the constitution has to be altered. Immigration is a critical part of what makes the country great - but it must be done in a controlled and structured manner - not by anyone flooding into the country. How fair is it that someone with an advanced degree has difficulty getting into the u.s. when someone who is potentially a criminal can get in by jumping a fence??? Besides, laws that support illegal immigration only further strengthen the hand of illegal human trafickers and opens the door to further exploitation.
Many of those in the agricultural sector disagree with you. I saw a story on ABC news awhile back that said that in many states the agriculture industry couldn't survive particularly the fruit industry where there is little mechanization. As far as rewarding people for breaking the law unless you consider the mechanics of supply and demand rewarding no one is deliberatly rewarding them. Like I said there are a lot of complaints about illegal immigration but I have yet to hear anyone complaining that we should be paying more for produce, construction and other menial services because that would be the result of curtailing illegal immigration. Again this is a function of supply and demand. We demand lower cost goods and services and there's a supply cheap labor ready and willing to do it. That may seem stupifying to you but then again you might find capitalism stupifying. Many do. I'm not disagreeing with you that there aren't important security issues but to state that market forces make it almost impossible to stop the illegal immigration because you're trying to artificially control something that there is a huge demand for in the countries where the immigrants come from and in the form of low prices that our country demands. The person with the advanced degree can jump a fence too and potentially a criminal can get in legally also. Ever hear of the Mariel Boatlift? All that given I'm not for totally open borders but I think that building a wall isn't the answer and practically we have to face the reality that there are huge impetuses on both sides of the border for relatively free immigration. My solution would be to have a guest worker program somewhat similar to what GW Bush proposed along with a reconsideration of the minimum wage laws. Keeping an artificial floor on wages increases the incentive for under the table work. As long as there are people who want to come and work for low wages and there's a demand for that we need a way to meet that need and bring them into the system.
good post buddy... plus, there are a number of LEGAL AMERICAN Citizens that have roots to another country who send their money back home as well... its something thats called their own damn money, they can do whatever the hell they want, anyone who argues against that is mentally unstable.
Hold on I just noticed something. Immediately followed by: Judging by your use of the term "propaganda" you don't believe that illegals will return to their own country yet you next say that their money is flowing out of the country. Why would immigrants planning on staying in the US for the rest of their lives be sending so much money back to Mexico?
As already pointed out, I support open borders (with the exclusion of mentally ill, criminals). That would solve the illegal immigration problem. You got a problem with that New Yorker?
If the borders are "open" then how in the crap are you going to dictate who crosses? If the border is open you can't exactly run a background or health check everytime someone crosses, and even if you did have that at the checkpoints those people would just cross the way they are crossing now since there are no barriers to keep them out.
Which countries have open borders? Every country wants to maintain its own identity and every country wants to give preferential treatment to its own citizens. And as much as illegal immigrants have contributed to our economy, we should not encourage further erosion of our laws by letting everyone in. And who exactly would be coming here? doctors and physicists?
That's just what the policy is called. It doesn't mean you don't monitor the borders. In fact, when you have an 'open borders' policy you end up concentrating your resources keeping out the criminals and terrorists instead of people who want to come here and become hard working members of the US. Currently the INS, Customs, Border Patrol etc are overstretched. You can instead have a singular easy process to allow immigration and let those agencies spend their resources on keeping real badguys out.
Not sure. They wouldn't be illegal immigrants so what's the problem. How does that 'erode our laws'? Lots of different people. Lots of Latin Americans, although not the flood some people imagine. We had an open borders policy for awhile and we didn't suddenly run out of space or crumble as a society. In addition to low level workers however, there are plenty of skilled people out there who are trying to get here. I say let 'em in. Better they build businesses here than business's elsewhere that compete with us.
So what happens when you have 1,000,000,000 people ready to cross from almost every South American country, half of Africa, and many parts of Asia? And how do we get background checks on someone from Uganda?
I think the US is the best place on the planet, but to assert that one fifth of the planet would pick up and move here is a little silly. The same way we do background checks on legal immigrants now.
And how much of the world's population is at or near poverty levels? Obviously it may not be 1,000,000,000 but it's going to be a lot higher than legal immigration. The reason we can do a check now is you eliminate a lot of potential candidates because they have to have money to apply for a green card and have the patience to go through the process and some contacts in the US. Even then it takes a heck of a long time from start to finish. If we allowed everybody to come in, our systems would be overloaded. Just imagine how many people we would have to hire just to do the background checks. How many people from Latin America alone would want to be here? We do have jobs in this country but not enough where if we suddenly added 1,000,000 people, there would be no reprecussions. At some point it would displace our current citizens. We do not exist as a safeguard for other countries' economic failures.
So you're saying an "open border" as long as you pass a background check first? Do you have any idea how silly that sounds? That sounds a lot like what we have now. Do you have any idea how long the naturalization process takes and how much money it costs the government to do so? Multiply that by millions and millions each year and we will be in even a bigger financial crisis due to immigration then we do now with illegal immigration. We DO have an open border policy, come on over if you want as long as you go through the right process... we don't turn anyone away if they've done their paperwork and aren't on a terrorist watch list. If you simply allow whoever you want to come over with no questions asked then you aren't going to be a country for long... you'll lose your identity. Next thing you know people will be speaking 10 different languages and have their own little countries within countries... you have to maintain some kind of organization and structure. There is a reason no prominent country has an "open door policy."
Yes, it would be higher than now - that is true. But the overwhelming wave you predict is not backed by any evidence. We had an open border policy with the Caribbean for a long time but the rate of immigration was something like .006%. "Most people are not about to leave their homeland, their friends, and their culture to come to a country where language and culture are so different and where the work environment is "root hog or die." People who come under these conditions would most likely be the risk-takers, the hearty, the entrepreneurial - the very type of people every society should relish." [End the Immigration War and Open the Borders] If the focus was on keeping out only the criminals there would be more resources for background checks. We wouldn't be paying INS agents in Detroit to hassle hispanics coming out of churches, for example. Further if immigration is open and legal there is no reason to try and circumvent the system. No reason for someone who wants to come not to fill out the paperwork. What having money for a greencard has to do with this I don't know. Many illegals pay 10 to 50k to get smuggled into the country. Open borders smashes this illegal blackmarket - another huge benefit to open borders. Nope. You actually free up resources when you focus the process on undesirables. We add more than a million in legal immigration every year. That hasn't collapsed the economy yet as far as I can tell. The burden is on you to show there would be an overwhelming flood of immigration. Good luck. What kind of argument is this? Do you mean we'll run out of land? Please provide some support for this. Our Anglo-European population is actually declining not growing, so there will be MORE room in the future, not less. Not like the brazen giant of Greek fame, with conquering limbs astride from land to land; Here at our sea-washed, sunset gates shall stand a mighty woman with a torch, whose flame is the imprisoned lightning, and her name Mother of Exiles. From her beacon-hand Glows world-wide welcome; her mild eyes command The air-bridged harbor that twin cities frame, "Keep, ancient lands, your storied pomp!" cries she with silent lips. "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-tost to me, I lift my lamp beside the golden door!"
