Republicans trying to burn the Constitution and disgusted by immigrants

The birthright citizenship is a right as stated by the US Constitution.

This may not apply to you so pardon my general rant. This is another thing that bothers me about this issue. You have conservatives like Boehner who cry about the sanctity of the Constitution now pushing to change it because they find it inconvenient.

 

I don't have statistics on this so this is only anecdotal but I have met several Europeans working illegally on tourists visas and overstaying their visas. Generally these are in service industries and seem to be somewhat prevalent in bars in Boston and NYC.

 

The very language you use and the negative stereotypes that you propagate and base your argument off of is xenophobic. Sure a country has a right to protect you sovereignity but at the same time doing so has a costs in regard to economic and social realities. Our immigration laws are out of touch with those realities and merely trying to close the border puts it even further out of touch.

Why then did you say I could apply for citizenship? But more importantly why should any child be concerned about citizenship? Why should you have a birthright to citizenship as a multi-generational American more than I as a first generation?

True they are but then again have you ever sped or jaywalked? If you have you are a criminal too.

This gets to why our laws our out of touch with reality. We can define our laws all sorts of way but to what extent they are followed or can practically be enforced does depend on how close they are to reality.

As far as national security implications I have seen a lot of speculation, laced with xenophobia, but not much facts. As I noted we know for a fact that terrorists have attempted to cross from the Canadian border. I haven't sen much evidence of them coming from the Mexican border.

How come then when the US was at technically full employment did we have even more illegal immigrants? If we are at full employment and we still have a lot of illegal immigrants I don't see how they are taking US jobs. We have high unemployment now but at the same time I am not aware of them taking jobs that Americans otherwise would be taking. If you have some evidence of that I would like to see it.

As for protecting the American worker from foreign competition I presume you do understand why Protectionism harms our economy, any economy really, over the long run.

Good for you that you don't support the AZ law but in terms of practicality of asking for documentation when stopped for something else, do you carry a birth certificate or passport with you all the time? If a cop pulled you over and asked for you to prove you are an American citizen how would you do it?

Do you have statistics to showing that illegals earn half of what the average American earns? Even if so what is stopping Americans from working that way either? As a teenager I worked for cash and a lot of American citizens work for cash in all sorts of businesses as adults.
True working for cash doesn't pay income taxes but that isn't a problem that is limited to illegal immigrants. Also as you note many of them are working with fake SSI documents in those case they are paying income taxes and also SSI, which they cannot collect.

Its not but it is granted to those born here as a right and you want to take that away. You see immigrants and first generation Americans as a burden I am telling you that immigrants and first generation Americans have built this country.

That's fine. Perhaps we can re institute slavery for future born and say well I'm not advocating taking away people's freedom who has it now just those to be born. There is a principal involved here.

Anyway once you change the Constitution what is to say we don't change it further?

When sodomy was against the law in Texas did you consider people who did it to be criminals that should've been prosecuted against the force of the law? Do you consider yourself a criminal for speeding?

And if someone was proposing that people like you shouldn't be citizens you would be fine with that?

Honestly but you should learn more about American history. Following the 14th Amendment there actually were laws that do what you suggest, remove the birth right citizenship. Do you know who those laws applied to? Chinese and Native Americans. To me this is like telling someone who is black that maybe we should restore Jim Crow laws.

This is about what it means to be an American. If it was people like you wouldn't you be crying about that?

As even your own example showed these aren't really immigraton problems but problems with how health care and education is paid for.

And other than paranoid and xenophobic speculations about MS13 and people getting C sections I have yet to see any serious problems.

Here is what I am seeing businesses are hiring illegals so in that case they have been invited by our economy. While we had essentially full employment during the boom of the late 90's we had possibly more illegal immigrants than we do now, at the same time we had a construction boom in places like Az and Las Vegas. That tells me that such development wouldn't have happened without illegal immigrants. I would say that makes immigration including illegal, a net positive to our economy.

 

How the hell is that a solution to anything? Look I agree we need secure borders (not because I'm offended by the presence of illegals in this country but a porous border makes it easy for terrorists and drug cartels that might actually do us harm)

That said, all of these tough regulations to crack down on illegals dont do anything to quench the need for cheap labor in this country. That is something that has to get solved whether you want to admit it or not. When people talk about comprehensive immigration reform they speak of doing things like securing the borders BUT that has to be in conjunction with a guest worker program that allows companies to legally fill their need for labor and I know the word amnesty is a dangerous word but the fact is we cant just deport millions of illegals overnight. That would rip apart our economy to just remove a labor force that large. Some sort of pathway to citizenship (provided you havent committed crimes, and have shown oneself to be responsible) is needed.

Security is important and I'll be the first to say we need to secure the borders but to pretend that is all we need to do is ridiculous. I'd figure conservatives would understand market forces but in the case of immigration they pretend that you can actually defy the markets and deny the market a labor source it needs. Go figure.

Lastly, you missed the entire point of my post. My post was about our immigration laws as a whole. You say people should come here legally but when we still have archaic quotas based on numbers developed in the 1920s, do you really think the rules make any sense today? All the law that was passed in the 60s did, was remove the eugenics based racial quotas and instead make them into hemispherically divided quotas. We're still operating on quota numbers developed in the 1920s so you tell me how that makes any sense in the context of modern immigration.

Point being, you cannot start crafting a solution to immigration by simply saying "enforce the rules" when the rules are completely outdated. Hell even the H1B visa program that has brought millions of talented foreign graduates to the US was an accident that thankfully turned out well. Originally it was intended to bring western European experts but the provision was so vaguely written that it was interpreted to apply to anywhere in the world. We are reaping the benefits off of the failure of our past governments to write in proper nativist immigration policy. And to revert back to that type of obsessive nativism is naive and dangerous.

Bottom line, if you're going to start talking about enforcing the rules, know what the rules are in the first place. And more important to me, try defending them to me and then you'll convince me that the solution to our problems is just to enforce the rules on the books. Until then, no solution to illegal immigration will ever simply be "enforce the rules"

 

This is a fringe opinion of the far right. The GOP is split itself on this issue and it's going to hurt them down the line.

 

fringe opinion?

The minority leader of both houses is calling for hearings

 

No I can't and neither can you determine who's a well meaning hard working Mexican. You're just talking out of your ass. It's a fact that illegal immigrants commit identity theft in order to cover the fact that they're here illegally. You can color it however you want but it's a fact.

There are plenty of Canadian criminals and yet for every illegal Canadian there are ONE HUNDRED illegal Mexicans. Common sense dictates who should be getting the focus of our efforts.

 

And foreign nationals are violating our laws to take advantage of our birthright citizenship laws so they can chain migrate here. Gee, what should we do about that? Let's do nothing, that will surely resolve the issue.

 

Again you're blowing smoke. I haven't used any negative stereotypes. I've presented documentation to just about everything I have talked about. If it's true, it's true. I'm talking about illegal immigration and the 14th amendment, I'm not giving an opinion on what nationalities or cultures are bad and which are good.

First generation or multi-generational doesn't matter, how you got here matters. If you break US law to take advantage of US law then you should be penalized for that.

I LOVE this argument. All the people of the world are criminals. Do you know what the difference between an American citizen criminal and an illegal alien criminal is? American citizen criminals do the time and pay the fines for the crimes they've committed. They're held account for their behavior. Illegal aliens? Not so much.

Ninety-eight percent of those arrested between Oct. 1, 2000, and Sept. 30, 2005, were never prosecuted for illegally entering the country, according to an Associated Press analysis of federal data. Those 5.2 million immigrants were simply escorted back across the Rio Grande and turned loose. Many presumably tried to slip into the U.S. again.

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,264658,00.html

This is another argument that I love. In a post 9/11 world we have no idea what the terrorists look like, this is why we don't racially profile Muslims. Richard Reid, Timothy McVeigh, etc. NOW you want to b**** that we're not watching the Canadian border closely enough though we know there are ONE HUNDRED TIMES as many Mexicans here illegally and there is an extremely violent drug war going on in Mexico where officials and police are routinely murdered. What a joke. You can't have it both ways.

You think this because you're stuck in a world where answers are at the poles. Truth is there is such a thing as fair trade where our government decides what's best for our economy and not what's in the best interests of Wal-Mart, China, and the illegal immigrant.

I have a driver's license. You can't get a driver's license in Texas without a social security number and proof that you're here legally. Are you serious with this?

http://pewhispanic.org/files/factsheets/foreignborn2008/Table 34.pdf

If you want to re-institute slavery then good luck to you but I have it on good authority it didn't work so well the first time we tried that.

What's wrong with changing the Constitution? We have a bunch of amendments already. You think we should scrap all those amendments for the sake of stability?

If by people like me you mean people who broke the law to sneak into the country then yeah I'd be fine with that.

I should learn more about history because by "illegal immigrant" we really mean anyone who doesn't speak proper English. You got me. It's crystal clear this is just my attempt to back up Pat Buchanan's cleansing of America.

Net positive is a BS term. Reminds me when the Bush administration was talking about outsourcing and how it didn't cost us any jobs but what it did was turn middle class jobs into $7 an hour jobs at Lowe's. Let's lay it out in real terms. On day one you have 500 American children in a border town school who receive property tax funding from parents who on average earn $40k per year. Each child receives a proportional amount of funding in essence. Let's say the school tax rate is 5%. That means each of the 500 children has $2k available for their education. On day two, 200 illegal immigrant children enroll in this school and their parents earn an average of $24k per year. That means the 200 children and their parents generate $1200 per child of funding. Now add it all together and the combined funding for the 700 children is $1771 per child. Less than the funding per child without the illegal immigrant population. This doesn't even account for the special needs that illegal immigrant children will assuredly have in not being native English speakers. So there's less funding per child, more services and specialists required, and you're just supposed to be cool with that because otherwise you're a xenophobe!!! The net positive to your children being afforded a lower quality education is that your strawberries are going to cost less.

edit: I should have used property taxes for this example to be more accurate but the principle still applies.

 

This is great. This lady not only admits that she lied to immigration officials about why she was coming to the US she also admits she's going to do it again and that maybe one day her son will sponsor her to move here.

http://www.cnn.com/2010/US/08/11/hispanic.study/index.html?hpt=C1

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One of about every 12 babies born in the United States in 2008 was the offspring of unauthorized immigrants, a Pew Hispanic Center study released Wednesday concluded.

According to the study, an estimated 340,000 of the 4.3 million babies born in this country that year had parents who were in the United States without legal documentation.

According to the study, 79 percent of the 5.1 million children of unauthorized immigrants in the United States were born in this country, making them U.S. citizens.

More than three-fourths of all unauthorized immigrants in the United States in March 2009 were Latinos, the researcher said. And nearly one of every four children under age 18 in the nation was a Hispanic.

That trend is likely to continue, the study concludes.

"Overall, Hispanics who live in the U.S. have higher rates of fertility than do whites, blacks or Asians," the report states. "And among Hispanics, the foreign born have higher rates of fertility than the native born."

 

Another kind of lunatic - is this where the teabaggers are headed?

 

I am listening to a discussion on this topic on Public Radio and one of the guest who is a professor of law from Emory University just pointed out that the idea of "anchor babies" isn't correct when it comes to children of illegal immigrants.

According to professor Polly Price the US government can still deport the parents who are illegal immigrants even if they have a child born here in the US. If the children are still minors they are deported along with the parents. The children have a right of return when they turn 21 that is subject to State Department approval.

All this argument about changing the 14th Amendment seems to be a solution to a problem that doesn't exist.

 

I love this part of your argument. You are simultaneously complaining in this thread that illegals are a drain on the economy because of the services they obtain without paying AND that the US government is deporting illegals rather than spending taxpayer money to keep them in US prisons for their crimes.

 

And by your own admission you are talking out of your ass. You don't see how that is xenophobic and racist? Its a fact that blacks disproportionately to their population size are imprisoned and make up inner cities gangs. When you see a group of blacks do you think to yourself "How many of those are Crips, bloods or crack dealers?"

That is what you are doing here. Yes it is a fact that there are Mexicans who are violent criminals. That doesn't mean that all are or the presumption should be that any particular Mexican or group of Mexican is. That presumption is clearly racist.

And you have yet to address the fact that the terror threats we have dealt with have come from the Northern Border and not the southern.

 

Oh really? What about presuming that the Mexicans that I saw at San Ysidro were gang members, drug dealers or here to get C Sections? How is that not an argument based on a negative stereotype?

Again when you see a group of blacks do you wonder how many are gang bangers? Your argument is complete based on negative stereotypes.

How I got here was I was born here and under the Constitution that makes me a US citizen. What this thread is about is changing the Constitution.

 

I don't why my post above didn't show up but trying again. It looks like it was too long so pardon me while I break it up.

Oh really? What about presuming that the Mexicans that I saw at San Ysidro were gang members, drug dealers or here to get C Sections? How is that not an argument based on a negative stereotype?

Again when you see a group of blacks do you wonder how many are gang bangers? Your argument is complete based on negative stereotypes.

How I got here was I was born here and under the Constitution that makes me a US citizen. What this thread is about is changing the Constitution.

 

So we don't know what terrorist look like so we should crack down on people coming from the Southern Border? How does that make sense?

Yes there is a violent drug war in Mexico but statistics show that violent crime in border states are dropping.

Anyway I'm not saying we should watch the Canadian border more closely than the Southern Border I am just pointing out that if you are arguing about national security when we know for a fact that terrorists have been caught coming from Canada.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ahmed_Ressam
Ahmed Ressam was captured trying to drive a van loaded with explosives coming from Canada into the US at WA State.

So you are for protectionism then? Why focus on illegal immigration then since globalization as a whole is a far greater threat to American labor than illegal immigration. Would you support then putting massive tarriffs on foreign goods?

I don't know about Texas Law but a drivers license isn't proof of citizenship. Anyway as you note illegals can get social security numbers. Leaving aside Texas what happens when you go to Az or another state? And I am serious with about this since the only legal proof of citizenship is a birth certificate and a passport. How often do you carry those with you?

My point is that if the Az law is actually enforced across the board a lot of American Citizens should spend time in AZ jails, no matter what the ethnicity, since most people don't carry around birth certificates or passports.

I will accept you table but as you note many illegals do obtain social security and other documents and as such pay into SSI and other payroll taxes without collecting the benefits. Another poster in another thread even stated that he helped illegal immigrants file tax returns which in that case means that they are paying income taxes.

continued.

 

And neither will this.

Where did I say anything about scrapping the amendments? Your argument is that we should scrap a key provision of the 14th Amendment.

As far as changing the Constitution you keep on talking about the rule of law yet this argument is about changing that when its inconvenient. How is there a respect for the rules when you just change it because you don't like it?

Except that this change would apply to more than illegal immigrants. The argument put forward by Graham et al. isn't just about illegals its about people like my parents who were invited into this country.

Frankly that does seem to be your argument.

Good that is an economic analysis and not just rhetoric and I will respond in kind.

The problem with your analysis though is that it is not dependent upon illegal immigration. Anytime a large group of poor people move into a community you have the same problem. So if say a bunch of poor people from Michigan moved to Minnesota we would have the same problem, actually an issue that has been brought up in Minnesota politics.

The other issue is that you are looking at it solely from the outlay side and not looking at it from the input side. The people that are coming in are also working so they are adding into the tax base. While yes they are earning less they are still putting into the economy. Again this is a problem that is not tied to illegal immigration but would have to do with any movement of people. At the same time in a situation of a growing economy there is a need for more inputs of labor. For example when Las Vegas was developing rapidly they needed a lot of people to do the construction. If you cut off the supply of labor you end up choking off the development that just means that the economy doesn't develop and your tax base shrinks and you can't fund services even for those you have.

In regard to low cost strawberries you are falling into a protectionist argument. Yes there is suppression of wages but at the same time lower costs mean that less money has to be spent on those goods in services which means that more money can be spent on investment and development. For instance I have a project where the labor cost is high. Now this project might not happen because labor costs are high in which case no project happens and no one works. I will not deny that globalization has had negative affects but at the sametime we know protectionism doesn't work. Just look at what happened to US car companies.

Illegal immigrants that own property still pay property taxes. If the concern is that we are not collecting enough taxes from illegals, and others who don't pay income taxes because many American citizens don't either, a locality could use sales taxes.

 

Heh. Generally, it seems the people who talk about "freedom" or declare themselves "patriots" have ulterior motives: money. They don't care for the law, they don't care for others; they just want money and any fictitious power they can grab. Some people go to extreme means to get it (like the "sovereign citizens"), some simply whine and cry in order to get their way (like the "tea partiers"), but they're all under some sort of buzzword banner ("patriots", "tea party", "freedom", "liberty", "sovereign", etc.). It's all the same. They want more money.

At least the drivers behind these movements have these ulterior motives. There are a bunch of stupid people in the country that buy into this stuff simply because of the buzzwords; I like to think of them as ignorant worker bees, mindlessly doing their masters' job unquestionably and unthinkingly. They don't think about or realize these true motives that drive those leading these "movements": money. Power. Greed. They're ignorant and happy in this ignorance.

Harsh, I know, but I've grown weary of beating around the bush with what I think of these people.

 

The primary "rule" I'm concerned with is people being in the US or coming to the US without permission. Immigration isn't a right, as I already mentioned. If people don't like the rules on immigration then companies and foreign governments and immigration associations can work to streamline them. If you don't like the rules here, immigrate somewhere else. This isn't the only country in the damn world. Once our borders are secured and illegal immigrants have no incentive to come here illegally then we can work on the "rules" of immigration so that they're fair and equitable to people from around the world.