Republicans trying to burn the Constitution and disgusted by immigrants

Well speaking as a former immigration attorney twenty years ago, let me explain based largely as the law existing then. There are a limited number of immigrant visas for each country. IIRC it was and perhaps still is 20,000 per country, though there has been talk and perhaps some change for countries like Mexico. That is or was the problem basically for Mexico. With a hundred million population and next door they have the same number as Israel or Iceland. Hence the wait for many years for Mexicans who are relatives, but not spouses of USC's , which leads to some of the "illegal" immigration for those with close relatives who don't want to wait the 10 or more years in some cases.

Israelis may not have the wait, but they can't just get an immigrant visa without either a very close relative petition or an employment based visa. Many Israelis can't get either, even if the line would be very short if they were ganted one or the other. I have Israeli close friends in Houston, though we don't discuss Israel. I notice that they try their best to get their relatives over here to enjoy our comparatively peaceful society, though they like to visit Israel and talk it up a lot.

 

What's too many illegal immigrants and their kids in this country mean?

By what standard? I mean, they are employed and making money and supporting your way of life. You send them all back and prices will go up. You realize that right? It would be inflationary.

I don't think it will encourage them to come here but rather discourage them. If you say a child has to be here for 5 years to be considered a citizen, then that will discourage illegals from coming here just to have a baby. It's a much bigger investment and risk of ending up empty handed.

And giving citizenship to illegals who worked here for 5 years and show they are Americans is fine by me.

It's not fair they broke the law? What, they cheated on their SATs? The whole immigration process depends on some arbitrary judgement on who gets to come here or not - it's intrinsically not a fair process to begin with. So how is it not fair to come here illegally?

In fact, what's not fair is that Europeans can come here illegally and stay here without risk of getting deported and work many jobs. They break the law and usually end up with citizenship through milking the system.

I saw, give the Mexicans a chance too.

 

That's about how I feel, too. Just because most of us are here because our forebearers came either legally, illegally or on a slave ship or whatever.

Something that I find interesting is that a lot of conservatives on the one hand always talk about the supposed unlimited opportunity for social mobility in this country and often belong to religions preaching the gospel of wealth, or the gospel of positive thinking, but yet feel threatened by immigrants and seem to have this view that economic life is a zero sum game and thus letting immigrants have an opportunity somehow limits them.

 

There is almost no risk at all, if they get caught we just send them back and they will try again and again until they reach that 5 years mark. This is much bigger than SAT. Given a chance, most people would love to live here, but can't due to all the red tape and something call the LAWS. So you should tell other people if you want to live here don't go through proper channel but just sneak in?

I understand about people wanting to live a better life, I myself am a immigrant and so is my parents. They came over here legally, obtain a green card for them and for my brother and me. When i turn 18 i applied for citizenship and at 20 became a citizen. By letting people coming here illegal and able to let them obtain a citizenship is like a slap in the face for all the things my parents has to go through,which is not easy from what i was told, to get us here legally.

I know most people on this board wants other people to have a better life, and that is not a bad thing. But if you compare US to a life boat and everybody else is drowning all around us, we can only save so many people and if we try to save them all we will drown too

 

Well said!

Since the Viet Nam war era ended, how many Americans have emigrated illegally to wherever? Surely there have been some.

 

Right now, all they have to do is come here and have a baby - there's a 1 day mark. Are you trying to tell me raising to five year is a bigger incentive? I don't understand your logic.

I come from an immigrant family. My dad was able to get in because he had a specialty that was in high demand. That's it.

I'm not looking to save people. That's not what I am advocating, maybe it's what you see it as. But immigration is the life blood of a nation. One of the reasons Japan's economy stalled is because people stopped reproducing and it's population actually started to shrink.

This country has a SHORTAGE of cheap laborers. That's what drives the illegal immigration. If there was no jobs here, they would not come and just sit around and do nothing.

No - they are looking for work. And finding it. I have no problem with someone trying to better their fortune in life through hard work and blood and sweat and sacrafice.

And that's what these Mexicans do in leaving their families and homes behind for the great opportunity to work their ass off picking fruit to make enough to better their own and their families lot.

 

That is why i propose that at least one parent has to be a citizen in order for the child to be one also, and i never said anything about stoping immigration just it has to be control and the laws enforce

 

That guy's link says 400,000 babies are born here to illegal immigrants every year and there's actually an industry apparently devoted to help people come to America to have their children born here. That's absurd.

I don't see it as a minor part of the illegal immigration problem. It's one of the main incentives for illegal immigration. Adding 400,000 children to our school systems and hospitals each year through illegal immigration is a major situation.

 

I saw, you learn how to spell.

 

I agree which is why I have argued for an immigration system that actually acknowledges reality than xenophobic fantasies.

I haven't broken any laws. This is about changing the laws. Anyway how would I as a baby apply for citizenship?

I don't doubt this has happened but at the same time have statistics have shown localities with high levels of illegal immigrants have experienced a drop in crime..

Let me ask you two questions. Do you think we should have minimum wage laws? Do you support construction unions?

Leaving that aside for the moment I will point out that given the construction boom experienced recently that might have been hampered if not for illegal immigrant labor providing labor. Even at almost full employment of the US we had even more illegal immigrants here than now, so they aren't taking jobs but were filling a need. At the same time most illegal immigrants working construction do not earn minimum wage so they are actually working for what the market will support.

And laws like AZ add to the situation by breeding distrust between the immigrant community, both legal and illegal. Also as I have said repeatedly before immigration laws that are out of touch with economic realities have largely created the situation we are in now.

Same response as above.

Sure we can do that but then lets then personalize it by looking at the taxes paid, SSI and sales taxes that illegals pay into the system that those people aren't going to get the benefit from back.

What about everyone else? Are you saying that I have not contributed to this country?

Except that the argument you are supporting would mean that I am not a citizen. You are asking to appeal to my patriotism for an issue that means that I and people like me are not citizens.

This is an old trope that has been addressed many times before. To summarize statistics show that localities with high levels of immigration, both legal and illegal, are showing a drop in crime. At the sametime a system that is out of touch with economic and other realities forces that activity largely underground where it is harder to track. Our own laws are what has created the underground movement of people.

Yes I do take offense. Why then should you be a citizen? There is no guarentee that someone whose family has been here for generations isn't less likely to be a threat. For instance McVeigh's wasn't a first generation American and that didn't stop him from killing 167 people.

Except this is about changing the rules. My family and I followed the rules. Not only that we worked hard and have added to this country. Now because of paranoia and xenophobia you want to change the rules. For reasons that are debunked and at best exagerated.

Do you not understand how that is offensive to someone like me?

 

Free health care is a different matter than birth right citizenship. It sounds like the hospital has enacted a sensible solution that doesn't alter the Constitution.

 

Even if his statement was true it sounds like the people who are willing to do this are the well off and well educated. Their children will likely be so too. Isn't this the type of people this country wants?

I mean my parents were invited here. They were granted generous scholarships to study here. It sounds like though many would prefer that we didn't come here even though we have rewarded the country that invited us here through our labors.

 

Under that reasoning any population growth, even from births of US citizens will be a strain. You might as well argue for zero population growth.

Those children will grow up to become productive Americans.

 

EXACTLY!

We like to talk about the value of hardwork and pulling yourself up by your bootstraps except that doesn't apply for everyone. Some people we have to put up legal barriers to keep them from doing so.

I will also just repeat again something that I said earlier.

This is not something new. We have had laws that kept Chinese born here from ever becoming citizens and if the Know Nothings had their way many of you descended from the Ellis Island immigration waves ancestors wouldn't have been citizens either.

This is personal to me but more than that this is a struggle for what it means to be an American. For those of you immigrants and first generation Americans who support this type of law because you feel that your family played by the rules remember, this is about changing the rules. Who says those who push this type of change won't just stop there..

 

Are you stupid? Are you seriously asking if 'I'm saying' something in particular when you could easily look at my last posts and see if I said it or not? Especially considering that in my last post I didn't say anything but just posted a link.

I know I know, your just trying to 'read in between the lines' right? Funny, if I were like you and 'tried' to read 'in between the lines' then imagine the things I could come up with for Obama.

Anyways although you have presented yourself as a complete douche I have decided to not judge you or classify you solely based on that post, I have chosen to not 'read in between the lines'. I have even chosen to answer your question.

Both of my posts in fact had nothing to do with each other. My first post I stated something I was told by someone who was paid and was strictly expressing my point of view, as was my second post. My third post was a link that I thought was quite interesting and had to do with US Immigration. It did not dispute my first post nor back my first post. I'm sure everyone has different stories and experiences.

Maybe you should stop trying to be Mr. 'Puzzler' and combining separate pieces together. Not everything goes together, even if they are similar.

 

Post #1: The Chinese government is paying people to come to the US to have kids as a way to undermine the US from within.

Post #2: Chinese citizens are paying to come to the US; the Chinese government may try to stop the practice.

Yes, these very much contradict each other. And you have yet to provide any evidence for your claim that the Chinese government pays for its citizens to come here to have kids. If you make up crap that is unsupported by the facts, I will continue to call you out on it. When you post the very facts that contradict your own ridiculous claims, it just makes it that much easier.

 

These are separate problems though.

Let's take the 400,000 number, which is a bit ridiculous on the surface. Based on the estimate of 10 million illegal immigrants in the country, if you assume 50% are women, you're talking about 5 million potential candidates to have kids. That number assumes 8% of them have a kid every single year. That's completely unrealistic.

Beyond that, however, we don't know how many of the 400,000 are only immigrating to have kids here vs how many just live here already and decided to have a kid. Changing the law will only stop that first group.

As far as the China thing, those immigrants are coming over legally so that's sort of a different problem there, though it would also be addressed by a change to the 14th Amendment.

 

Could you supply us with some data to back up your assertion about... "illegal Europeans come(ing) here illegally and stay(ing) here without risk of getting deported and work many jobs." The vast majority of Europeans I have known over the years in the States, or heard about in conversations with other Europeans, came here by working through the legal immigration system.

 

Here is a CBS News article that puts the figure at 300,000.

http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2008/04/07/eveningnews/main4000401.shtml

The birth rate in Mexico is 19.3 children per 1,000 people. If you have 10-12 million illegals and assume the same birthrate, that's roughly 193,000 to 230,000 children every year. And I would not assume the same birth rate because as I mentioned, being born in the US is an incentive to coming here and staying here. The illegal immigrant population probably skews younger than the regular population so more women fall within the ages most likely to have children.

We're adding a population the size of Pittsburgh to our schools and hospitals every year. Do you think the taxes paid by a fruit picker or a day laborer or what have you pay for that free c-section? A population the size of Pittsburgh being cared for by an illegal population the size of New York that earns wages half of that of the average American. A lot of those wages don't even stay here, they get wired back to whatever country these people have come from.

I'm not advocating just changing the law but changing it in combination with protecting the borders and streamlining the immigration process.

 

I know over a dozen illegal Europeans here in the states. They work in places like bars or clubs, or other places that pay cash. They bilk the system and have been here for years. No one is protesting or approaching them asking for proof of citizenship. The pass right through...fly around the country....even find ways to fly home and back. They just overstayed their original visas.

As a matter of fact, here's a stat for you - the biggest source of illegal immigration is from people overstaying their visas - that is, people who entered in legally to the country.

Illegal border crossing account for less than 5% of the illegals in this country. And the number of illegal immigrants has declined by 15% the past few years.

The whole "problem" of illegal immigration is a lie. It's all a distraction by the right to win elections.