People have full-time jobs. That's why they don't take temporary ones. Why not let someone who wants a temporary job that happens to live 500 miles away take it?
just like our ancestors??? man, i don't know about yours...but mine hopped a boat to get over here from Ireland. to escape starvation and war. the got off a boat in Philly and at least one was immediately enlisted in the Civil War on behalf of the Union. they didn't hire attorneys to help them immigrate. had they needed to, they wouldn't have been able to. it's a bureaucratic nightmare. comparing immigration then to now is a joke. i see a protectionist viewpoint here that i find frightening...we talk about culture...and yet our nation's icon is the Statue of Liberty which reads.......well, you know what it says. so the very icon of this culture we celebrate speaks to this very issue.
exactly. again...3.9% unemployment. friends, that's people in between jobs and college kids just looking.
yup...and right next to that statue is an island where people registered once they arrived. there is a difference between illegal immigrants and legal immigrants. Its not about protectionist...its about at least having an idea of who is entering a country and to do so by the law. People arent saying that no one will be allowed to come and become an american citizen...i dont know where you got that idea from. and i wouldnt doubt that when your ancestors arrived in philly they showed up to the immigration station.
And at the same time, the border that we are talking about was completely uncontrolled. Oh, yeah, and we don't have an island where they can register now. If we had a way that immigrants could just register, and we could screen for diseases, then the concept of illegal immigration wouldn't be so ridiculous.
I think you meant to say, "then the concept of legal immigration wouldn't be so rediculous." D&D. Dream and Yao... Replicant Fantasy.
All I want to protect is workers rights, fair wages and safety. There was much sacrifice involved for us to obtain these. Illegal markets, sweatshops fly in the face of these ideas. I don't want to support that.
Here's my question: why is it that the its ok for every other country to have strict immigration policies, where you can be deported simply for not registering at a police station 3 weeks after you move, but its not ok for the United States to control immigration here at all because it benefits the economy? Yes, we need immigrants, we always have, but we also need some system of control. Right now the border is a free-for-all, and like anything else, too much of anything is dangerous. If people weren't so quick to jump the border then maybe the government wouldn't be so slow to issue visas.
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great..let's start with granting them the right to be here without a ridiculous bureaucratic process and then we'll get working on that, too. very valid concern.
Let's see, nearly the lowest unemployment in the world (New Zealand's is lowest at 3.2%), a great track record with immigrants in the past, a relatively generous and open population that would tend to take those immigrants in, a strong economy that immigrants could benefit from, our closest neighbor is a corrupt country where a small few control most of the money. Give me some time to think, I could add to this. As Americans, we rarely look at the rest of the world to determine our action. I don't think we should in this case.
what do you mean by generous and open? what are their laws? do they turn their backs while people run across the border (or swim)? Do they have millions of people illegally entering there every year? i dont quite get your point.
I was talking about the US. I only mentioned NZ because the US's unemployment isn't quite the lowest in the world. We help out poor people here. The private sector does it better than any other country in the world. We tend to assimilate immigrants that want to assimilate well (or at least we have in the past). Our economy is strong enough that they can come and take jobs without hurting anyone else. There really are few negatives to immigration to the United States, especially in a growing economy.
i agree, there are few negatives to immigration. But thats not what we (or at least me) are talking about. Im worried about the Illegal immigrants flooding into the country. There has to be a distinction made. Also, im affraid america is now being assimilated by illegal immigrants. Im sick of everything being in spanish. I understand to a certain extent i agree, but its gone a little overboard.
do you understand "natives" have been saying this for centuries now? did you see Gangs of New York? it was the Irish...the Italians...the Poles...they lived in their own communities and didn't assimilate enough. this is a recurring theme in america. and by the next generation, their kids are American-born...and their grandkids are pissed about the next wave of immigrants and how they haven't assimilated.
What process would you then suggest? No process? That isn't a realistic solution. I am all ears for a better solution, but nobody has been able to dream one up yet. Illegal immigration cannot be countenanced though. Too many risks now that did not exist 200 years ago. What we don't want are everybody else's criminals...everybody else's diseased...everybody else's (insert problem here), with no way of even knowing that they are here.
I'm not coming from Donkey's angle on this at all, but those immigrants you mentioned overwhelmingly came into this country legally. D&D. Dream and Yao... Replicant Fantasy!
And in much smaller numbers. The entire population of Ireland in the 1800s is the same as Mexico City now.
