On Illegal Immigration; Right or Wrong

It may well be unfair -- but by your account, it is unfair in the direction of making Mexican immigration look less attractive. And even with the exploitation, the discrimination and all, you're still saying that your ancestors did the right thing when they came over, for themselves, and presumably for America. ("Presumably", because you didn't explicitly say so.) Do I understand you correctly on this?


Thanks. Any preference between the two? My own preference is strongly in favor of opening the borders officially.

If the law is changed to have an open border, I agree 100 percent.

au1929 wrote:

thomas wrote


Thomas
Generally there is a wage rate give or take for a specific category of job in a particular area. That is what sustains the standard of living of people employed in the area. These people take the jobs at whatever rate and condition offered. In effect they destroy the wage structure of the American worker. That is absolutely unacceptable. Thus we get the statement they take the jobs that Americans will not. At the present time the uproar in Germany is about Polish plumbers kicking he hell out of German plumbing companies.
thomas wrote


The concern is for the American worker not for the excess profits for the American capitalists. As for the illegals much of their earnings flow back to Mexico. In addition they pay little tax and overburden our school systems, hospitalsand other social service. Which the over burdend American taxpayer must support.

It find it fascinating that our federal government wants to seek out people who use cannibus for their illness, but will let illegals come into this country. Something is drastically wrong!

I don't think the federal govt wants to seek out people who use cannibus for their illness, I think you are exaggerating the point to further some goal or agenda against the current administration you have.

Actually McG I would exaggerate almost any point to further my dislike for the Bush administration. But then I not so much of a moderate as you are, my bias are always quite clear.

I am only moderate when compared to some.

I think we can agree to that

The likes of McG will never understand how a president that puts so much effort into saving one brain dead woman but allows the children of this country to go without health insurance and the deaths caused by his war in Iraq on false justifications are contradictions of the highest order. Since all life is so precious to this president, he doesn't allow stem cell research he considers huiman life, but refuses to help the people in Africa.
Bush is a joke; it's a wonder more people haven't figured out this guy is a fraud.

I admit that immigrants decrease the wages of American workers, but they don't "destroy the wage structure" because the process is self-limiting. The historical record shows for the era of almost perfectly free immigration from ca. 1850 to 1920. There are also microeconomic reasons for this; but going into them would be a 400 word post, and I assume you're not interested in that.

I also note that in effect you have now defined "slavery wages" as wages significantly below the "wage rate give or take for a specific category of job in a particular area". This definition strikes me as very broad; so broad that I have no problem with slavery wages as you define them. (I emphasize that second part in case the first part comes back to bite me at some time.)


Yes. I welcome Polish plumbers too, as do most German who are not plumbers. Unlike German plumbers, Polish ones tend to show up at the agreed time, to be friendly, and to deliver their money's worth in work. The uproar you correctly observe is mostly limited to organizations of German plumbers dedicated to political lobbying.


Fair enough, but that's a statement about America's domestic income distribution, which is conceptually independent of immigration.


... from where they come back as Mexicans in Mexico buy American goods. This "what goes around comes around" argument is another 400-word post, but I'll be happy to write that post if people are interested.


If there is indeed a significant "overburden" of the kind you describe, I would see that as a valid argument against illegal immigration. Can you give me a reliable dollar estimate of how big this "overburden" actually is?

Federation for American Immigration Reform




Thomas
FYI. From the internet. There is plenty more if you care to look.


The Costs of Illegal Immigration to Californians




Unfortunately, the Federal government has consistently failed to respond to the needs of state and local communities struggling to stay afloat on account of the growing costs of illegal immigration. And all too frequently, local communities are forced to shoulder this burden alone.

—Senator Dianne Feinstein on the Local Emergency
Health Services Reimbursement Act of 2003
March 4, 2003



Executive Summary

Analysis of the latest Census data indicates that California's illegal immigrant population is costing the state's taxpayers more than $10.5 billion per year for education, medical care and incarceration. Even if the estimated tax contributions of illegal immigrant workers are subtracted, net outlays still amount to nearly $9 billion per year. The annual fiscal burden from those three areas of state expenditures amounts to about $1,183 per household headed by a native-born resident.

This analysis looks specifically at the costs to the state for education, health care and incarceration resulting from illegal immigration. These three are the largest cost areas, and they are the same three areas analyzed in a 1994 study conducted by the Urban Institute, which provides a useful baseline for comparison ten years later. Other studies have been conducted in the interim, showing trends that support the conclusions of this report.

As this report will note, other significant costs associated with illegal immigration exist and should be taken into account by federal and state officials. But, even without accounting for all of the numerous areas in which costs associated with illegal immigration are being incurred by California taxpayers, the programs analyzed in this study indicate that the burden is substantial and that the costs are rapidly increasing.

The more than $10.1 billion in costs incurred by California taxpayers is composed of outlays in the following areas:
Education. Based on estimates of the illegal immigrant population in California and documented costs of K-12 schooling, Californians spend approximately $7.7 billion annually on education for illegal immigrant children and for their U.S.-born siblings. Nearly 15 percent of the K-12 public school students in California are children of illegal aliens.


Health Care. Uncompensated medical outlays for health care provided to the state's illegal alien population amount to about $1.4 billion a year.


Incarceration. The cost of incarcerating illegal aliens in California's prisons and jails amounts to about $1.4 billion a year (not including related law enforcement and judicial expenditures or the monetary costs of the crimes that led to their incarceration).

State and local taxes paid by the unauthorized immigrant population go toward offsetting these costs, but they do not come near to matching the expenses. The total of such payments can generously be estimated at about $1.6 billion per year.

The fiscal costs of illegal immigration do not end with these three major cost areas. The total costs of illegal immigration to the state's taxpayers would be considerably higher if other cost areas such as special English instruction, school feeding programs, or welfare benefits for American workers displaced by illegal alien workers were added into the equation.

While the primary responsibility for combating illegal immigration rests with the federal government, there are many measures that state and local governments can take to combat the problem. Californians should not be expected to assume this already large and growing burden from illegal immigration simply because businesses or other special interests benefit from being able to employ lower cost workers. The state must adopt measures to systematically collect information on illegal alien use of taxpayer-funded services and on where they are employed. Policies could then be pursued to hold employers financially accountable.

The state could also enter into a cooperative agreement with the federal government for training local law enforcement personnel in immigration law so that illegal immigrants apprehended for criminal activities may be turned over to immigration authorities for removal from the country. Similarly, local officials who have adopted "sanctuary" measures that shield illegal aliens from being reported to the immigration authorities should be urged to repeal them.

Haven't you caught on to the fact that the government likes illegals?

Atkins, It's quite obvious that the government (and many Americans) likes illegals. Otherwise, there wouldn't be any illegals entering the US.

Did anybody else see the media report on the Cubans trying to sail to the US on a car-boat? They got caught and sent back to Cuba.

And they sank the car/boat.

continued
http://www.usnews.com/usnews/opinion/articles/050613/13edit.htm

Yes. I was hoping they'd make it without getting caught.

JW, I don't care for illegals into our country, but I admire them for the risk they take to come to this country, and if they had made it, I'd welcome them too!

New Tack Against Illegal Immigrants: Trespassing Charges

By Michael Powell
Washington Post Staff Writer
Friday, June 10, 2005; Page A01



NEW IPSWICH, N.H. -- The police chief of this tiny whitewashed New England town has crafted his own border-control policy -- he has charged illegal immigrants from Mexico with trespassing in New Hampshire.

The novel legal strategy has made a minor celebrity of W. Garrett Chamberlain. The 36-year-old police chief hops to his feet and deposits a pile of letters on his desk, from Alaskans and Californians, Border Patrol agents and soldiers in Iraq, all applauding his initiative. Fox News commentators have called, too, seeking his views on national immigration policy.

Chamberlain, who has served as chief for three years, describes his actions as born of frustration with the federal government. His officers had discovered illegal immigrants several times, but immigration agents declined to detain them.

"I'm just saying: 'Wait a minute. We're on heightened alert and it's post-9/11, and I'm going to let an illegal immigrant who I don't know from Adam just walk away?' " Chamberlain said. "That's ridiculous. If I find you are in my country illegally, I'm not going to worry about political correctness. I will detain you."

So another shot is fired in the often-testy debate over U.S. immigration policies and border security, a battle fraught with political and ethnic anxieties. Already, another police chief, Richard E. Gendron in nearby Hudson, N.H., has followed suit. A few days ago, Gendron brought trespassing charges against two illegal immigrants from Mexico after his officers stopped a van with a broken headlight. Several police chiefs in New Hampshire have suggested that they might pursue such tactics in the future.

For now, however, their eyes are trained on New Ipswich, a town of 4,200 people set in green hills just north of the Massachusetts border. The Mexican immigrant, Jose Mora Ramirez, faces trial on the trespassing charge in July. The two Mexicans arrested in Hudson will be tried later that month.

The Mexican consulate has hired an attorney for Ramirez, fearing that a court may uphold the trespassing charges and so set a national precedent.

"The Mexican government was understandably worried that this could become the charge du jour across the country," said Claire Ebel, executive director of the New Hampshire American Civil Liberties Union, which helped find the lawyer for Ramirez. "They worry about vigilante police chiefs who will round up people based on the color of their skin."

New Hampshire is 96 percent white but has seen a swell of immigration from south of the border in recent years. The Latino population, in particular, has grown in Manchester and Nashua. These two cities have at least 20,000 Latinos, of Uruguayan, Puerto Rican, Dominican, Mexican and Central American descent, and there are now two Latino members of the 424-member state House of Representatives.

"The $64,000 question is why these police chiefs are doing this," said state Rep. Hector M. Velez (D), who was born in Pennsylvania and served in Operation Desert Storm before moving to Manchester, about 20 miles northeast of New Ipswich. "They talk terrorism, but none of these guys were looking for anything except hard work. You ask me, some people are afraid of the unknown."

The two police chiefs insist that racial and ethnic considerations played no role in their calculations. (The populations of New Ipswich and Hudson are 98.6 and 96.3 percent white, respectively.) They note that their officers made the arrests during routine traffic stops at night.

"Look, if you came here legally, fine," Chamberlain said. "I greet you with open arms."


Continued
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/06/09/AR2005060902035.html?referrer=email&referrer=email

Should the US give temporary legal status to undocumented immigrants already in the country so they may work without fear of arrest or deportation?


Question of the day posed by 1010 WINS
http://1010wins.com/?can_view=161095843

The response has been overwhelmingly NO.
How would you vote?