May I see your papers, citizen?

rein

Thanks for the correction!

Mctag is a smart ass. I would have spelled it the way you did. But than I cant spell worth a damn..

It's the law of the land, what do you mean? No enforcement?

McTag is quite generous that way!

That's the nicest thing anyone has said about me all day!

What part of the Constitution was that again?

The federal government has failed on a spectacular scale to deal with the problem, so that we now have 12 million illegal aliens in the country. They shouldn't be surprised if other municipalities, in alarm, step in to try to undo some of the damage.

Well, you can't really tell them that you're just visiting. Documents are required. They're very restrictive.

We are not trying to keep out immigrants, you fool. We are trying to keep out illegal immigrants, people who sneak in outside of the system. Every country on Earth maintains the right to regulate immigration. The US is under no moral obligation to let each and every person enter who wants to. Bigotry is saying that members of one group are worse, or better, or less desirable than members of another group. This has nothing to do with regulating how many people from other countries come in. We have the right to regulate the numbers, and we have the right to prevent so many people entering from a single country that we have in effect a foreign country within our borders.

That 's obviously right.

There is also the matter of whether (and how)
thay 'd CHANGE America.

In the last 400 years, excepting the last 30, the changes have been mostly beneifical.

Brandon, you are missing the point.

Homosexuality was illegal long before immigration was.

Many Americans wanted to get rid of homosexuals. We passed laws to root them out. We hyped up the public fear against them for political gain. We accused homosexuals of crime and blamed them for social ills.

And we used law enforcement in our bid to get rid of illegal homosexuals much the way we now use law enforcement to get rid of illegal immigrants.

Not only does cruelty disguised a law enforcement fail to get rid of what is a normal human behavior, the cost to society far outweighs any perceived benefit.

I am curious Rabel, what you think is different about the last 30 years.

The only real difference is that you can look at the last 400 years, excepting the last 30, with the benefit of hindsight.

Don't you mean he's missing you're point?

Bt the way, what is your point?

All immigration should be legal?

There is no illegal immigration problem, only a problem with Americans who hate Mexicans, other people of brown colored skin and minorities in general?

Immigration is not illegal now, so when do you believe it was made illegal? Immigration involves moving somewhere to reside, not to just visit and not to only work. There is a process for coming to America to reside that is legally sanctioned by the US government. Employing any other process violates US laws and is quite logically referred to as illegal.

The unsanctioned processes were not made illegal so as to identify a certain group of people as being illegal, to persecute that group or to drive that group from America.

I'm pretty sure that you are of the school of thought that holds being a homosexual is not a choice. However, unless one is a child, infirm or unwillingly under the control of another, coming to live in America through means not legally sanctioned by the US government is a choice, and it is a deliberate choice to violate the laws of a sovereign nation.

Back in the day when being a homosexual was illegal and and cops used the law to identify, persecute and rid the nation of gays, were there legal homosexuals? Who were they? How did one distinquish between legal and illegal homosexuals?

Since there very clearly is a way to legally emmigrate to the US, in order for what you seem to be alleging to have any validity, we need to be able to first identify the group of people who immigration laws are intended to target.

Who are they?

Since there are quite a few immigrants who have met the legal requirements to reside in the US, and quite a few of them who have become citizens, clearly the group being targeted is not "foreigners."

And since there are people of every race, religion, creed and nationality who have met the legal requirements for residing in the US,and quite a few who have become citizens, how could the group being targeted be any of these groups?

Maybe the target group is an amalgamation: Poor, Mexican homosexuals or Red haired Muslims without engineering degrees?

(We may have hit on something with the latter group because I have to admit, I don't see a lot of red haired Muslims without engineering degrees residing in the US. I didn't even know it was going on but I can see it's worked!)

I'm not familiar enough with the history of homosexuals in this country to know how effective the process of identification, outlawing, persecuting, and expulsion , that you described, actually was. Are there statistics?

I can tell you though that if this process is now being repeated in terms of immigrants in general or any group of immigrants in particular, it is not working very well. The estimates of immigrants illegally residing in the US seem to range between 11 and 13 million. That's a lot of people, and it's not as if they are hard to find. Some places consider themselves Sanctuary Cities wherein the local government will not seek to enforce federal immigration laws nor assist federal authorities in doing so.

If ICE was truly a cruel force of armed goons intent upon ridding America of immigrants, all they would have to do is send a few squads with a fleet of tour buses or tractor trailers to place like San Francisco, Denver, Minneapolis, Austin or Seattle and they would soon start to make a dent.



What is the "normal human behavior" the goons are trying to do away with?

Crossing the protected borders of soverign countries to take up residence within those countries and in violation of laws those countries specifically designed to govern immigration by foreign nationals?

What specifically will the ridding of illegal immigration in the US cost our society?

What makes the immigration issue different is the extremism behind it.

Americans break all sorts of laws. There are penalties and programs behind all sorts of things from stopping people from speeding to keeping people from smoking a joint or downloading music without paying. Yet people don't advocate these extreme measure to stop any of these things.

You would get fewer people smoking joints if police could randomly stop you on the the street to force you to pee in cups. Don't you agree this would be a problem? This would particularly be a problem if the people who were being stopped where all one race, wouldn't it? The fact that many of the people stopped were actually tested positive wouldn't matter would it.

I hope you understand why this is a problem. It is a basic part of our system of democracy that was key to our Bill of Rights.

Monoculturalism has always been a big part of the immigration debate. If people in America don't match a narrow idea of what an "American" should be then they are viewed as a threat. Of course Hispanics and homosexuals have historically been viewed as a threat in this way even when they are in fact American.

If you don't believe this, pick any random article about Hispanics on CNN or even Huffington Post and read the comments. Yesterday CNN ran an article that was on poverty. The comments included gems like.



The extremism on this issue is way out of balance with other legal issues and the rhetoric far exceeds discussion of the law.

I'm not trying to regulate private behavior in the slightest. I'm saying that the US has the same right as every other country in the world claims to decide who gets in and who doesn't. If it's cruel, then every country in history has been cruel. There is no reason why we should be compelled to remove all regulation about entry into our country and forfeit all right to track visitors, nor is there any reason why we should be compelled to allow so many people in from one foreign country or one region of related foreign countries that they begin to form a separate, unabsorbed country within our borders. Since the federal government has failed on a massive and prolonged scale to do its job in this capacity, the states have the right to step in and fix it. If the federal government wants sole authority to regulate this, then they have to begin to do the job. There are now 12 million illegal immigrants in America. The feds cannot simultaneously claim exclusive right to regulate while they fail utterly to regulate.

Brandon your are pretending that the immigration issue is black or white, yes or no. This type of thinking is not only extreme, it is wrong. It is not an either or.

The US can have a moderate immigration policy that regulates who gets in without being cruel. We can check visas at the border without shackling women to beds while they give birth or turning schools into federal agents to spy on students and their families.

But it is the level of hatred that far exceeds the legal issue that I find troubling. Anything Hispanic is now suspect, any story about Mexicans whether they are legal residents, undocumented immigrants or even Mexicans living in Mexico, gets vitriolic hate-filled comments.

Illegal immigration is being labeled an invasion, which is kind of funny since there has never been an invasion in the history of the world where the invaders washed dishes and did yard work. This isn't an invasion, and this isn't a crisis. It is just being hyped up for political gain. What about a sensible approach to the issue that respects the diversity of opinion among Americans and accepts that people speaking Spanish on the streets doesn't call for such drastic measures.

I want the immigration laws enforced, which means that someone, somewhere has to enforce them. For federal representatives to enforce federal laws on the books is perfectly reasonable. If you don't think that 12 million people in the country illegally isn't a crisis, then...how should I put it? I respectfully disagree. I want this situation fixed, and the federal government has failed utterly to do so over a long period of time. Furthermore, I have a perfect right to desire that there not be so many people in the country illegally from a single location that my culture is alterred to include, in essence, another country within our borders.

Any time I visit one of the pueblos, at least a few are complaining like you are, Brandon.
But somehow, you'll have to get used to it.