What should be done about illegal immigration?

Two in my opinion really interresting reports in today's Chcago Tribune:

IN THE US: Two sides of the fence - Texas verdict: `A big waste of money'

IN MEXICO: Two sides of the fence - Some see wall as proof nation has failed its poor

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Damned Chicago Tribune... Crying or Very sad

I hate this "subscription based" web newspapers.

But I echo the other one!

... Oh wait, its free! Yay!

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el_pohl wrote:

Damned Chicago Tribune... I hate this "subscription based" web newspapers.

But I echo the other one!

... Oh wait, its free! Yay!

You only have to register - it's too long to copy/paste everything.

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What if we powderized our spent nuclear fuel and used it to build an invisible fence/detection system? Those who tracked through it would "glow" for years and be easily tracked.

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cjhsa wrote:

What if we powderized our spent nuclear fuel and used it to build an invisible fence/detection system? Those who tracked through it would "glow" for years and be easily tracked.

Nice fantasy. But, you might consult georgeob1 for a primer on how much "glow" to expect from Uranium 238. I doubt there's much left of it after the immigrant takes a shower and puts his clothes in a laundromat.

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The idea of tens of thousands of glow-in-the-dark illegals out in the desert is a bit ghoulish to imagine anyway.

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The issue is compassion.

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ebrown_p wrote:

The issue is compassion.

Compassion with whom: with illegal immigrants, or with average American citizens, who feel knocked when their government takes their hard-earned tax dollars, then uses them to subsidize people for breaking the law? You know I'm generally on your side on this policy issue, but even I disagree it's as easy as compassion vs. bah-humbug-ness in the tradition of Mr. Scrooge.

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Thomas wrote:

Compassion with whom: with illegal immigrants, or with average American citizens, who feel knocked when their government takes their hard-earned tax dollars, then uses it to subsidize people for breaking the law? You know I'm generally on your side on this policy issue, but even I disagree it's as easy as compassion vs. bah-humbug-ness in the tradition of Mr. Scrooge.

Compassion with human beings.

Your use of the term "average American citizens" is problematic for a couple of reasons. You are going to at least need to define this.

The big issue for me is a path to citizenship. A majority of Americans say in polls they will support a solution that has a path to citizenship as part of a comprehensive immigration plan. Is the majority a good measure of what the average American citizen feels?

There are many American citizens who have families that came here illegally. There were hundreds of thousands of Irish and Italians and Jewish and Chinese immigrats whose anscestors came here illegally. Many people in these communities support compassion for today's immigrants for exactly this reason. Are they average Americans?

Our current Attorney General, Alberto Gonzales, comes from a family where three out of his four grandparents have no immigration papers. Is he an average American.

And there are thousands of American citizens who are in mixed-status families-- their mother, father, brother, husband or wife are here illegally. The current laws make this a very difficult situation. I assume these people don't fit into your "Average American Citizen" grouping.

This really is a matter of compassion. Many Americans see this which is why the Conservative Republicans have been unable to push through their un-compassionate laws. It is currently an issue being decided by locality-- some cities are clamping down, others are declaring themselves "sanctuary cities".

The political pressure keeping cruel laws from being enacted isn't coming from immigrants who are unable to vote... it is coming, both on the local level and the national level from citizens.

... and the issue is compassion.

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ebrown_p wrote:

The issue is compassion.

No ebrown, I don't agree with you either on that.

I am Johnboy and I am one of the more liberal folks on A2K. I have no time for the folks who advocate snipers or uranium dust on the border with Mexico, or who claim that 1 in 10 illegal immigrants is a rapist or murderer.

And this idea of a 700 mile fence is ludicrous. That piece of legislation was passed in the last day or two of the session before the November elections. No money was appropriated. Pure election year politicking.

Paraphrasing the thoughts of several folks here: there are many hoops to jump through and hurdles to get over to get innigration status and eventual US citizenship. Many people do that every year, and we welcome them.

But then the illegal immigrants get in, and they will continue to get in regardless of walls or fence, and there is this call for compassion. We said in the past that we will make an exception to the hoops and hurdles rule but then we will gety tough. We did the amnesty thing but we didn't get tough. Now there is the push to repeat the mistake.

The issue isn't about compassion. The issue about immigration, legal and illegal, is about money. There are help wanted signs in many stores around my town. But they are probably jobs paying at or just above the minimum wage. (Johnboy owns a retail chain. I have people come in and ask "You aren't hiring are you?" When I say they that that is correct, they pull out a form rfor me to sign stating they had applied for a job. A requirement, evidentally to remaining on the unemployment dole. They would probably run away if I said I was hiring).

So who ends up taking these jobs? The immigrants. Legal and perhaps illegal.

And this hew and cry goes out about immigrants taking jobs away from real Americans. And that, I reckon, is where the nose of racism starts to poke through a crack in the tent.

My suggestions>
-Have an immigration policy that is clear. compassionate and ENFORCED.
Legal immigration is good, but the hoops and hurdles are set and will not be waived;
-Discourage illegal immigration by imposing severe penalties on employers who knowingly higher undocumented employees;
-Raise the minimum wage;
-Increase the obligation on peopletwho receive unemployment to "earn" those benefits by public work projects, job-training. And fund those programs.

Damn, I sound like a conservative, but I actually am not.
.

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Ebrown, I wonder how many times you have posted the word "compassion" so far. It grows old after a while. Embarrassed

Just saying! But I'm with you in a way! Embarrassed

Well... probably its the thread going round and round.

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ebrown_p wrote:

Our current Attorney General, Alberto Gonzales, comes from a family where three out of his four grandparents have no immigration papers. Is he an average American.

I don't know if this is true -- but even assuming you are right on Gonzales's grandparents, I don't see how this is a relevant argument against me. Unlike Foxfyre, I'm not arguing for a repeal of the 14th Amendment, which would be necessary to deny Gonzalez his status as an US-American.

ebrown_p wrote:

And there are thousands of American citizens who are in mixed-status families-- their mother, father, brother, husband or wife are here illegally. The current laws make this a very difficult situation. I assume these people don't fit into your "Average American Citizen" grouping.

Indeed they don't. "Thousands" is negligible in a nation of 300 million. And it isn't the laws' fault their situation is difficult. It's the fault of the relatives who broke immigration laws -- which was entirely their choice.

ebrown_p wrote:

This really is a matter of compassion. Many Americans see this which is why the Conservative Republicans have been unable to push through their un-compassionate laws. It is currently an issue being decided by locality-- some cities are clamping down, others are declaring themselves "sanctuary cities".

My impression was that no laws were passed because Senate Republicans and House Republicans proved unable to compromise with each other. Also, my impression was that you would view even the Senate's bill as "un-compassionate".

ebrown_p wrote:

and the issue is compassion.

Repeating a claim doesn't make it true, as the Republican propaganda about Iraq shows.

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Quote:

Repeating a claim doesn't make it true, as the Republican propaganda about Iraq shows.

Just more truth-like.

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Thomas writes

Quote:

Unlike Foxfyre, I'm not arguing for a repeal of the 14th Amendment, which would be necessary to deny Gonzalez his status as an US-American.

This is an incorrect assessement of what I have said. I have never suggested a repeal of the 14th Amendment. What I suggest is amending the the first first line to something like:

Section 1. All persons born prior to 1-1-07 or children of United States citizens born after 1-1-07 or persons naturalized in the United States and subject to the jurisdidction thereof, are citizens. . . .

That is more awkward than the final wording should be, but that's the gist of what I want.

The amendment currently reads:

Quote:

Section. 1. All persons born or naturalized in the United States and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside. No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.

The one relatively minor change would remove at least one major incentive to get into the United States to have a baby and thus be able to tap the lucrative U.S. social services system.

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Foxfyre wrote:

The one relatively minor change would remove at least one major incentive to get into the United States to have a baby and thus be able to tap the lucrative U.S. social services system.

This minor change will lead to changes in Title 8 of the U.S. Code, Section 1401. (Children of military families, e.g., should to be considered natural-born, don't you think so?)

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I would presume that those in the military are U.S. citizens. Any child born to a U.S. citizen would be a citizen.

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Foxfyre wrote:

I would presume that those in the military are U.S. citizens.

Yes, according to Title 8 of the U.S. Code, Section 1401, which defines who is a citizen of the USA:

defines the following as people who are "citizens of the United States at birth:"

- Anyone born inside the United States
- Any Indian or Eskimo born in the United States, provided being a citizen of the U.S. does not impair the person's status as a citizen of the tribe
- Any one born outside the United States, both of whose parents are citizens of the U.S., as long as one parent has lived in the U.S.
- Any one born outside the United States, if one parent is a citizen and lived in the U.S. for at least one year and the other parent is a U.S. national
- Any one born in a U.S. possession, if one parent is a citizen and lived in the U.S. for at least one year
- Any one found in the U.S. under the age of five, whose parentage cannot be determined, as long as proof of non-citizenship is not provided by age 21
- Any one born outside the United States, if one parent is an alien and as long as the other parent is a citizen of the U.S. who lived in the U.S. for at least five years (with military and diplomatic service included in this time)
- Any person born before 5/24/1934 of an alien father and a U.S. citizen mother who has lived in the U.S.

And that's why I suppose, changes have to made there as well.

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Foxfyre wrote:

I would presume that those in the military are U.S. citizens. Any child born to a U.S. citizen would be a citizen.

wrong again, perhaps you presume too much. On July 3, 2002, President Bush recognized the contributions of immigrants in the U.S. Armed Forces by signing an executive order that provided for "expedited naturalization" of non-citizen men and women serving on active-duty status since September 11, 2001. The order granted some 15,000 members of the U.S. military who served fewer than three years the right to apply for expedited citizenship in recognition of their service

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There would certainly have to be some fine tuning of the law, however, such as legal papers (marriage certificate etc.) linking the mother/child to the U.S. citizen. In other words, buying your kid from a sperm bank wouldn't do it, etc. I'll leave it to legal eagles to work out the details. I just don't want citizenship to be automatic just because birth happens to occur in the USA.

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Foxfyre wrote:

I just don't want citizenship to be automatic just because birth happens to occur in the USA.

Pages back I said a couple of times that you want a change from ius soli/ius sanguinis to a law more connected to ius sanguinis only.

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What should be done about illegal immigration?

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