What should be done about illegal immigration?

It's them blond, gun-totting anarchist, frito-pie eatin' fools that's got me worried . . .

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Thomas has made a good point. This nation can easily absorb several million immigrants. We can easily feed a billion people, and we're not even a third of the way there. As i've pointed out in more than one place in these fora, my take is to heavily patrol the borders, while opening them to anyone who shows up with "clean" luggage (no smuggling) and who is not on somebody's wants and warrants list, nor terrorist list. We could employ tens of thousands of people just patroling the southern border.

Then we could address an issue Fox simply will not address. The gold-plated sonsabitches who employ illegals, all while making heavy contributions to their local neighborhood Republicans.

Just checking the border states, the King's College numbers probably reflect year 2000 census numbers.

King's College shows Arizona prison population to be 26092.
Arizona Central shows the population as of March 2006 to be 30021 or 26% more.
http://www.azcentral.com/specials/special21/articles/0321azprisons21.html

King's College shows New Mexico's prison population to be 5113.
The NM Dept of Corrections shows the 6-30-05 population to be 6595 or 29% more.

I couldn't find current numbers on California or Texas, but it is a safe bet that these numbers are probably higher as well and, as they are two of the nation's largest states, if the percentages are comparable, the numbers would be huge.

This of course is the problem with throwing numbers around as if the exact number was important against the principles represented.

Hint to the peanut gallery: you'll find the employers in the fourth option in the poll. I believe I commented on this particular component of the equation in some detail earlier in the thread as well and also posted some links addressing it.

The link you gave



is three years older than you quoted.

Would you mind given the 2006 link?

You're right. So the King's College numbers are off probably even more wouldn't you say? I misread that "Wednesday" to mean recently. But there is no 2006 link or at least I don't have one yet. It's a safe bet that Arizona's prison population has not gone down between 2003 and now.

No idea. I can't read out of glassbowls or coffee ground.

Nevertheless: the increase of foreign prisoners from 6 point to over 30% of the prison populations within three yearswould be more than surprising.

But since you relatives told you such, I'll believe it.

My relatives didn't tell me such. Arizona Central which is at least as reliable as King's college did. If you want to say that the NM Dept of Correction numbers are suspect, okay, but at any rate, Walter, the point is that King's college numbers appear to be outdated and I didn't mention foreign prisoners at all. I have no idea what they mean by 'foreign prisoners', but it is a pretty safe bet that we have a lot more illegal immigrants incarcerated here than we have tourists. Whether Thomas's source (posted by me) stating it's not illegals but green card holders who are the problem re felony offenses remains to be seen. It doesn't compute with the other sources I've looked at but I don't have a crystal ball about these things either.

I choose not to believe just the strictly politically correct version and dismiss all the conflicting observations.

My relatives and friends who are in law enforcement do see more of a problem here than you Europeans seem to wish to see.

And, as a recently reformed insurance adjuster working mostly in workers compensation, I was responsible to see that four work comp payments were forwarded to inmates in prison during one six-month period. All four were in prison for felonies unrelated to illegal status, but all four were in this country illegally just the same.

None of this is pertinent re what, if anything, should be done re illegal immigration in the United States. But it is illustrative of just one of the many issues involved.

Extremist politicians have tried to brand Bush's plan as an Amnesty Plan, it is not and they know it. Amnesty implies wrong doing and forgiveness for such acts and this political tactic being used is two pronged. First the extremist want to fire up that small base of vigilantes with the hope of gaining their vote by reason of them being "law and order" types. Second they wish to make Bush appear soft on law and order and willing to let undesirables stay in this country.

The Bush plan is a reasonable one that works towards resolving our illegal immigration "problem". The good news is that our problem in this country is not with emigration but immigration. When it comes to the American economy, standard of living, and form of government it is a seller's market (some may point to the two former being the main reason here but they would probably be less attractive without the presence of the latter). Personally, I might soften some of the requirements demanded of those potentially choosing to participate merely to encourage more to do so. Eleven years probation seems a bit long; perhaps this could be shortened in conjunction with the ability to pay fines, back taxes, etc. But the plan is a sound and fair one.

We can fix the specific situation along our southern border but because this will be impossible to do before the November elections we have seen this issue turn into a political football just like the Dubai Ports World debacle. The latter was a shameful episode of pandering to the fears of those U.S. citizens ignorant of the advantages of globalization and had little, if anything, to do with national security. Our politicians seem to be following the tactics of French politicians and Arab world leaders. When things turn politically sour or political expedience beckons, they deflect blame towards foreigners (usually Americans), although the main thrust of this was, deep down, posturing for the next set of presidential elections by members of both parties.

Important in all this is the concept of enforcing those immigration (or any) laws presently in effect. There are few practices worse than passing laws that are not or cannot be enforced. In the long term we should work towards this enforcement or change or repeal the laws so that they do not appear to be a joke. This concept demands that INS (Immigration and Naturalization Service) beef up its enforcement and tracking of those individuals whose student or work visas have expired. Success in this area would have removed the likes of the 9/11 suicide bombers that had expired visas. Also working towards this end, a plan to increase border security with the object of preventing terrorists from crossing into the U.S. would have the desirable side effect of preventing illegal immigration. However this is a long term effort. We could go the Israeli way with a fence. This solution has definite possibilities and has proven positive results?-the Israeli model has significantly decreased the number of terrorist bombings and made possible the capture of many who would have succeeded, sans fence, thereby allowing the gathering of further intelligence on such organizations as Hamas. I know this Idea is somewhat repugnant to many but should a dirty bomb sneak across the Rio Grande this attitude would change quickly. Further it would not be necessary to build a fence along the entire 2000 mile border. The fence concept should be viewed in the context of creating smaller zones of heightened surveillance. Physical barriers should force any illegal traffic away from high crossover points towards these high electronic surveillance areas (low population and underdeveloped) accomplished by electronic sensors based both on the ground and in the air. The barriers would also funnel legal traffic towards security checkpoints with increased scrutiny aimed at preventing illegals and terrorist contraband from entry.

Denying social services to illegals would probably be counter productive, especially that of formal schooling. However, this situation argues in favor of a realistic and properly enforced immigration policy. If properly executed such a policy would negate or greatly reduce the need for such services and those still needed would be supported by tax paying legal residents.

At present it looks like there is a serious push for legislation that would punish businesses that hire illegal immigrants. This is wrongheaded thinking on two counts. First this puts the responsibility of enforcing immigration policy on individual businesses. This is not what private business (unless specifically hired for) is supposed to do?-it's not their raison d'etre. Second this would punish businesses for doing what all successful commercial concerns naturally do: seek higher productivity with the end goal being increased profitability.

The responsibility lies with Government to protect its individual citizens from harm and provide an atmosphere of security for productive commerce. When it comes to business, Government should encourage a climate that promotes a chance of success. Alternatively, Government should not be pursuing punitive measures towards businesses when it fails to meet its primary responsibility towards them.


JM

You are always the first to whine about insults, but look at this "peanut gallery" horseshit.

As i pointed out, your fourth poll option could as easily be applied to a church congregation which helps a Spanish-speaking family enter the country to escape alleged political oppression at home. I already noted that, and you had no reply. Your poll, as usual, is sufficiently vague that it is meaningless.

Would not coming into a country illegally; i.e. in violation of that country's laws, qualify as 'wrong doing'? If the country's government then opted to 'forgive' the offense and arrange a way for the person to avoid the stated penalty for the offense, what else would you call that other than 'amnesty'?

Amnesty means "no punishment".

If someone speeds (i.e. drives in an illegal manner) you could give them a fine, or you could put them in jail, or you could shoot them.

Giving people a fine is a punishment, not an amnesty.

You don't call it amnesty just because you aren't punishing them with the harshest measures available.

Well the short definition from Merriam Webster is:


No provision for a fine exists in the applicable law at the present time. If a new law is adopted to keep from having to apply the penalty required by the existing law for a crime that has already been committed, we are definitely in a gray area there don't you think? It would be like changing the rules in the middle of a basketball game to provide a 2-minute bench penalty so that the star player wouldn't foul out.

When a lesser penalty is applied in order to give the law breaker what s/he wanted to accomplish by breaking the law in the first place, it sure looks like amnesty to a lot of people.

as the lady says, I don't mind the negroes so much as long as they remain legal and protest from the back of the bus, why, some of them are my best friends (from the back of the bus).

Here's another useful definition right out of Merriam Webster directed to nobody in particular but if the shoe fits:

What are you, Dys... some sort of Commie?

Rosa Parks broke the law... Illegal is Illegal!

And Rosa Parks paid the penalty for breaking a bad law.

I think you would have a hard time now finding anybody who wouldn't agree that it was a bad law. They didn't write a new law to keep her from paying the penalty for breaking the law, however. They changed the law so that people who did what she did wouldn't be breaking the law any more. It was a good thing.

Now we have to decide on a different issue. Is it a good thing that we have no laws restricting people who live elsewhere from coming to live in the United States? Or are some laws appropriate? What laws? And what should be the penalty for breaking them?

Are the present laws outlining the requirements for entering the U.S. legally bad law?

indeed

How come us Commies ain't dead already?

The operative word there is "now". Back then people who didn't agree the law was bad were easy to find.

You keep ignoring the fact that these are real people whose only crime is crossing a border. The punishment you propose (or don't propose, I still haven't figure out what you stand for) will break families and disrupt lives.

I have faith that this social movement isn't going away.

But, rest assured there were people who felt about the illegal Bus Boycott of the "Negros" the same way that you (or not you, but some people) feel about the "Illegals" and their immigration protests.

(incidently the bus boycotts were also ruled illegal... conspiracy or some such thing).