Illegal immigrants

Why should people who just happened to be lucky enough to be born here but are undereducated, poorly skilled and have bad attitudes BY THEIR OWN CHOICE be given preference over people who took the initiative to come here, at great expense and risk to their lives, and are willing to work very hard to make better lives for themselves and their families?

I'd take illegal immigrants over welfare leeches any day.

Why should people who are lucky enough to be born here get a substandard education, no healthcare, and laid off when there company moves overseas or hires immigrants because it's cheaper? I think it's a bad assumption to say everyone born in America and is not educated or skilled became that way because they just don't have the initiative. But, I do see your view, Terry.

I think there's a happy medium which we have not found because of the welfare overload and the immigrant overload (some of these immigrants are also welfare leeches). Meaning - you can't make everyone happy all the time, but we spend plenty of money trying.

I also agree that illegal immigration should be curbed, but not at the expense of immigrants who never gain legal status because of paperwork or immigrants that are migrant workers. Most illegals don't enter the system through the front door. Many of them are boat people from Cuba, Haiti, Dominican Republic and China. Maybe change the "hit the beach" rules? Once people from these countries are on American soil they cannot be turned back because of the "political asylum" status of those countries. There are no background checks, names taken, etc. for any of these people.

There are also illegals that have that status simply because they came here, got a job, have friends and family here, and their visas expired. The sea of paperwork and red-tape almost guarantees a rejection of reissue, so many don't bother and just try to stay under the radar. It would be better for us to keep them legal (if they are not criminals, etc.) and have them pay taxes.

Hi terry: I looked at some of your recent posts. You are obviously well educated, and likely have some skills and a reasonable attitude, so your employment might be displaced by a legal alien, but very few illegal aliens, even with amnesty could replace you. Perhaps 90% of us born to USA parents are not as employable as you and a recent immigrant could easily replace us. Don't you understand why all but the intelegencia are at risk from 50 million immigrants? Neil

Sugar is correct: we should make it easy for a reasonable number of migrant farm workers to come to the USA temporarily.and legally We should make the renewal of green cards easy and all but certain for persons who are obviously outstanding. Ill even condone giving asylum to those who are outstanding, regardless of past offences, such as using bolt cutters to get in the USA.
However we must deport 99% of those we catch who are illegal or we send a message, "You all come" Neil

Born with a winning lottery ticket that you don't deserve....

The sense of entitlement exhibited by many Americans merely for being born here is such that I wish we could trade them for some of the "illegals".

Re: Illegal immigrants


How do you determine the quantity that can be "handled"? What's "a few thousand"? Is it 2,000, 50,000 or 650,000?



How do you determine the 50 million figure? What is a "bad attitude"? Is it not being nice enough to Superior US Citizens and Law Enforcers? Is it not speaking the language properly? Is it prefering spicy food over Big Macs?



What is a "marginal human"? How many of those American "marginal humans" on welfare are willing to take the jobs the immigrants grab?

"Marginal persons who have USA citizens for parents", you write. This means, there should be three castes in society: First Class Citizens, Americans who have USA citizens for parents. Second Class Citizens, Americans who have foreign parents. Semihumans: non-Americans.



What's "semi-humane"? Not qite humane, I guess.




LOL. Daaah!

Most of them go to the US precisely because they don't have money, assets or property.

Can you imagine the US government trying to seize some communally owned rural property in Michoacán, Mexico?

All I can smell in your post is racism.

Yes being born in America is similar in many ways is hitting the lotto. So is being born into a wealthy family rather than a poor one, being born healthy rather than sickly. Well, you get the picture. Should we be ashamed of our good fortune? Is it so unusual that people want to protect what they have? I think not. The proposals that Bush puts forth are not in the interest of the American citizen neither those born here or naturalized. The governments responsibility is first and foremost to it's citizenry. We should not be the police force for the rest of the world nor should we be it's employment office.

Jobs Americans Won’t Do
Voodoo Economics from the White House.



http://www.nationalreview.com/comment/krikorian200401070923.asp

Certainly not. And I've never advocated that.

But the sense of entitlement can lead to the racist pronnouncements against non-Americans such as that by neil.

There's a difference between concern over the logistics and practicality of mmigration and the racist xenophobia against immigrants.

I was unaware we had a choice...

What if us real 'Murricans are forced to endure both?

News Home | Today's News | Yesterday's News

Immigration Reform Advocates Criticize White House Proposal
(CNSNews.com) - Advocates for tougher enforcement of U.S. Immigration laws say the White House has put "a lump of coal in the stockings of American workers" with a Christmas Eve proposal to allow more foreign workers to enter the country and amnesty for some workers who have already entered illegally.


Activists working with the administration told the Washington Post Wednesday that the president is working on a strategy that would let foreign citizens enter the U.S. legally, with few restrictions, if they have a job waiting for them. The newspaper's sources said the White House also wants to find some way to grant amnesty to at least some of the nine to 11 million illegal aliens currently in the U.S.


Dan Stein, executive director of the Federation for American Immigration Reform, scoffed at the proposal.


"This Christmas Eve announcement amounts to a lump of coal in the stockings of American workers," Stein said, "while illegal aliens and their employers find expensive gifts, tied up with fancy ribbons and bows, waiting for them in the new year."


The Bush proposal would reportedly allow employers to advertise jobs on a taxpayer sponsored website. The jobs would first be made available to U.S. citizens but, if there were no takers, could then be opened up to citizens of other countries. The plan would also allow many, if not most, of the nine to 11 million illegal immigrants currently living in the U.S. to be "reclassified" as "guest workers."


"The White House diligently avoided using the 'A' word in its announcement," Stein said. "But no matter how much Karl Rove wishes to torture the English language, a program that rewards millions upon millions of people who have cheated to get into this country, who have cheated by working off-the-books and avoided paying taxes, and who have cheated by using billions of dollars in public services ... is still an amnesty."


Bush tried to avert such criticism at a Dec. 16 press conference in which he teased the proposal.


"We need to have an immigration policy that helps match any willing employer with any willing employee," Bush said, quickly adding, "This administration is firmly against blanket amnesty."


The leak of Bush's plan to reporters came two weeks after Homeland Security Secretary Tom Ridge said current immigration law, which mandates that illegal aliens return to their home countries to apply for legal status in the U.S. is "not workable."


"The bottom line is, as a country we have to come to grips with the presence of 8 to 12 million illegals, afford them some kind of legal status some way," Ridge told those attending a town hall meeting in Miami Dec. 10. "But also as a country [we have to] decide what our immigration policy is and then enforce it."


Phil Kent, executive director of the American Immigration Control Foundation, said the former Pennsylvania governor should resign his position.


"Ridge is clearly incapable of overseeing homeland security," Kent said. "Aside from dynamiting the rule of law by rewarding lawbreakers, how would security interests be served by simply granting legal status to foreigners whose identities and criminal histories can't be verified?


"Besides, this would only serve as a magnet for more illegal immigration," Kent predicted, "as the foolish congressional amnesties of 1986 and 1990 underscore."


Stein warned that the Bush proposal would have a serious economic impact on American citizens and immigrants who have entered the country and obtained permission to work legally.


"In addition to legalizing millions of illegal aliens and countless additional family members, the 'guest worker' provision of this proposal will sound the death knell of the American middle class," Stein predicted. "Employers will never again have to compete for workers by offering better pay or benefits. They will simply have to look across the border, or across the ocean to find an unlimited supply of workers willing to accept whatever they are willing to pay.


"Upward mobility, for most American workers, will become something they study about in history class," he concluded.


Stein said the White House wants to "reward illegal immigrants and punish American workers," when it should be backing Republican proposals to "protect American workers and send a signal to illegal aliens and their employers that U.S. immigration laws have some meaning.


"There are several critical pieces of legislation that would enhance our immigration enforcement capability, improve our antiquated documentation system, and protect American workers, all introduced by congressional Republicans that the Administration should be championing instead of capitulating to the illegal immigration lobby," Stein said.

My single voice on legal or illegal immigration will bow to what our government has done in the past and will continue to do in the future, simply because it's out of my control. It's not a matter of whether I support it or not; I don't have a choice.

Money & Business 1/12/04
By Lou Dobbs
The politics of immigration
In his year-end news conference, President Bush called for an "immigration policy that helps match any willing employer with any willing employee." We already know there are plenty of employers in this country willing to break the law and hire illegal aliens. And there are 8 million to 12 million illegal aliens already living in this country, so we know there are plenty of willing employees.


I'm sure the White House staff will clean up the language a bit in the coming months. But for all the world, the president's idea of an immigration policy sounds like a national job fair for those businesses and farms that don't want to pay a living wage and for those foreigners who correctly think U.S. border security is a joke and who are willing to break our laws to live here.
Bush's plan would be the most aggressive immigration reform since the controversial bill signed by President Reagan in 1986 granting amnesty to millions of illegal aliens. That was widely criticized for rewarding illegal behavior and virtually ignoring those who had been waiting for legal entry into the United States. The chief Senate sponsor of the bill, Alan Simpson from Wyoming, admitted at the time that the legislation's effects were unclear. "I don't know what the impact will be," he said, "but this is the humane approach to immigration reform." The former senator and all the rest of us now know what the legislation's effects were. Eighteen years later, there are an estimated 8 million to 12 million illegal aliens in this country.
And now there are those in Congress who want to solve the problem by simply making illegal aliens legal. Republican Sen. John McCain of Arizona is sponsoring the Border Security and Immigration Improvement Act to make it easier for foreign workers seeking U.S. employment opportunities and to simplify the permanent- residency application process. Similar legislation, the Agricultural Job Opportunity, Benefits, and Security Act of 2003, is sponsored by Republican Sen. Larry Craig of Idaho and Democratic Sen. Edward Kennedy of Massachusetts. It would allow undocumented farmworkers and their families to qualify for permanent residency after a specific tenure of work.
And Republican Sen. Orrin Hatch of Utah has introduced a bill called the Dream Act that would allow states to grant in-state tuition rates to children of illegal aliens. Meanwhile, out-of-state parents of legal residents would get no such break. Each of these politicians is doing nothing more than pandering to the business and agricultural lobbies, and none of these legislative initiatives addresses the economic and social impact of their passage. The powerful lobbying groups have a lot to gain from illegal immigration, while the burden of the real costs falls on the rest of us taxpayers.
Lost wages. Over the past 10 years, more than 2 million low-skilled American workers have been displaced from their jobs. And each 10 percent increase in the immigrant workforce decreases U.S. wages by 3.5 percent. Steve Camarota of the Center for Immigration Studies says our lawmakers don't understand what unchecked illegal immigration is doing to workers. "To them it looks like immigrants are doing jobs nobody wants," he says. "But what they really mean is that they are doing jobs that they as middle- and upper-class people don't want."

The average working American knows what our political leadership is ignoring. Illegal immigration carries a steep cost to society. States spend more than $7 billion each year on K-12 education for illegal aliens and hundreds of millions more in treating illegal aliens in border-state hospitals.

More than three quarters of Americans say we need stricter controls on immigration. However, a Chicago Council on Foreign Relations survey found that only 14 percent of our political leaders agreed that current immigration levels represent a critical threat. I can think of no issue on which there is greater disconnect between our political leaders and the American middle class than illegal immigration.Congress and the president must create a national immigration policy that is far more than a job fair for illegal aliens and a gift of citizenship to those who break our laws. We desperately need a national immigration policy that is effective in securing our borders, rational both economically and socially, and, as Simpson said 18 years ago, humane. The only way we can meet those goals is for our politicians to rise above pandering to lobbyists and special-interest voting groups and to talk honestly about the issues that now confront us. Don't hold your breath.

Hi fbrazer: I confess I did not put a number on few thousand until you asked. The old definition of few, perhaps 4000 illegal immigrants. I think you will agree one person whose parents were USA citizens with an IQ under 95 would fail to find employment because of the competition. Surely you will agree, at least one and a penny more tax average for the 300,000,000 USA taxpayers if 100,000 illegal immigrants. Probably close enough to negligible to label "handle" The 100,000 illegal immigrants per year may be the smallest achievable influx possible even with quite brutal treatment of the few that are caught.
I can't prove one million per year will cause great grief to 200 million persons whose parents were USA citizens, but it seems a reasonable projection = guestimate to me and half the persons who posted here. Neil

C.I.

Are you telling me that yours is just a voice in the wilderness?

This is nonsensical. The current LEGAL immigration quotas are set at 378,000 people with "Refugee" status plus 170,000 people under the H-1B program. That's right at a half-million LEGAL immigrants a year right there. Estimates of illegal immigration peg that number at about 700,000/year so your 1 million number is already being exceeded and has been every year since 1990 and we've hardly been in a period of "great grief" since then because of it.

Thank you AU for a professional and convicing analysis. I trust your projections way more than the projections of our media. Neil

au, A voice in the wilderness has sound. My voice as a citizen of this country is silent. Our government will do what they think is to their own political advantage. Tell me different, if you can.

C.I.
If a tree falls in the forest snd no one hears it does it make a sound? If you cry in the wilderness and no one hears it does it have sound?

Whether it will do any good or not I e-mailed both senators and my congressional representative and gave voice to my opinion regarding Bush's latest legislative abortion.