What should be done about illegal immigration?

Way too many fence sitters in the U.S. today, that is what ebp is counting on. Pansy ass fence sitters. Time to take the country back - pansies and hippies suck - yet they control congress - sorta.

This is a canard. Poor hungry people never have and never will care about immigration laws, with or without amnesty... nor would you or I.

The only effect the recent increases in security and moreover security talk; is that more illegals are staying year round instead of returning home in the off season. Congratulations racists; you're already succeeding in keeping families from seeing each other... all because they were born on the wrong side of an arbitrary line we established when we stole their land. Aren't we special?

Congrats for disqualifying yourself from the discussion by playing the race card.

And yes we are special. Very special. So much so that the world is filled with jealous rage, and will do just about anything to steal what we have worked so hard for. The fact you cannot understand that is very disturbing.

Racists? I expect that from the rabid liberals, Bill. I did not expect that from you. You have gone over to the dark side.

There are lots of haves and have nots in the world and the have nots outnumber the haves. You're okay with any have not breaking into your home or place of business, and, just because you don't have a maid or butler or janitor at the moment, taking that job and requiring you to provide all manner of benefits in addition to their wages? And if you don't have a job for them or they don't like the available job, you have to provide the benefits anyway?

Are you okay with accepting anybody who just shows up because, after all, they are poor? The chances are pretty good that the person is just poor and will do you no harm. There is also a chance this person is a thief or sex offender or worse. Are you willing to take that chance just because he is poor? And you are okay with this person accusing you of racism if you decide you want to choose who will be allowed into your house or workplace?

Meanwhile the place where this person came from has no incentive to clean up its own act, provide or improve the lot of anybody or correct the problems that encourage their people to leave. Why should they? All they have to do is send them to your house where you will be required to take care of them.

There are billions of have nots in the world, Bill. I think it would be wonderful if you and ebrown and all other truly caring people would sell all that you have and devote your lives to alleviating their poverty. I am not willing to do that myself, but I do give a substantial chunk of my income for that purpose every year--money that is available year after year because I don't destroy the means that produces it.

Don't think you're doing the white, black, brown, polka dot or striped poor of the world any kindness by encouraging them to just take what they want. I can't think of any surer way to diminish this country so that it approximates the one they left in the first place.

I suggest we do it reasonably, and sensibly, and control who will and will not be allowed into our country and in the great scheme of things, this will benefit the most in the best possible way.

Racist? You owe everybody an apology for that one.

Brown
I just thought I should again remind you:

Illegal Immigration is a Crime


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Each year the Border Patrol is making more than a million apprehensions of people who flagrantly violate our nation's laws by unlawfully crossing U.S. borders to work and to receive publicly-funded services, often with the aid of fraudulent documents. Such entry is a misdemeanor and, if repeated, becomes punishable as a felony. Over eight million illegal immigrants live in the United States -- some estimate even more.

In addition to sneaking into the country in violation of the immigration law that requires that aliens be documented for legal entry (referred to as "entry without inspection -- EWI"), others enter with legal documentation and then violate the terms on which they have been admitted by taking jobs that are not authorized or overstaying the authorized period of stay in the country. The INS estimated in 1996 that about 60 percent of the then estimated five million illegal immigrants were EWI and 40 percent were overstayers. Both types of illegal immigrants are deportable under Immigration and Nationality Act Section 237 (a)(1)(B) which says:
"Any alien who is present in the United States in violation of this Act or any other law of the United States is deportable."

ILLEGAL IMMIGRATION IS NOT A VICTIMLESS CRIME
Apologists for illegal immigration like to paint it as a victimless crime. But in fact, illegal immigration causes substantial harm to American citizens and legal immigrants, particularly those in the most vulnerable sectors of our population--the poor, minorities, and children.

Illegal immigration causes an enormous drain on public funds. The seminal study of the costs of immigration by the National Academy of Sciences found that the taxes paid by immigrants do not cover the cost of services received by them. We cannot provide high quality education, health care, and retirement security for our own people if we continue to bring in endless numbers of poor, unskilled immigrants.

Additionally, job competition by waves of illegal immigrants willing to work at substandard wages and working conditions depresses the wages of American workers, hitting hardest at minority workers and those without high school degrees. Ý

Illegal immigration also contributes to the dramatic population growth overwhelming communities across America--crowding school classrooms, consuming already limited affordable housing, and straining precious natural resources like water, energy, and forestland.

Au,

All the more reason to provide them a path to legalization and citizenship.

O'Bill,

Welcome to the Dark Side... bwahhhahhaaa.

Looks to me like someone hacked Bills account.

O'Bill, I think I like you again.

All the more reason to send them back. Why should the US reward people for criminal behavior?

ebp is the epitome of all that is wrong with our democratic process. And he flaunts it. Everyone should be pissed at his antics. Why aren't you????

One simply does not reward law breaking, most particularly when it would serve to encourage other people to break the very same law.

There are lots of things that are illegal. Instead of locking people up for commiting crimes, are you suggesting that we change the laws so less people get in trouble for breaking them?

If you notice I didn't state what kind of laws or crimes we should change, I will leave that up to you.

Foxy, my house or place of business isn't the same as my country. Want proof? Easy. People have to meet different criteria to be welcomed in each. Any man, woman with or without child who wants to come to my country is welcome if they have no criminal past... beyond immigration nonsense in this country of immigrants.

CJhsa is disturbed because I can't understand that he thinks people are trying to steal what we've worked so hard for. Theft? Says who? Illegal immigration for decades has essentially been decriminalized... and is a minor inconvenience for the sake of putting up a silly front about closed borders that have never been closed and never should be. This is perhaps the greatest country in history precisely because our freedoms create opportunity that attract the best and the brightest from around the world. Ever notice how many of our greatest works were done by people not native to this soil?

Century's ago our forefathers committed genocide against some of the rightful owners of the land you seek to selfishly keep for yourself. F*ck the Red man right? His hereditary rights are no good, why? He isn't white. Others we picked a fight with, pretty much for the purpose of stealing their land, but f*ck the brown man right? His hereditary rights are no good, why? He isn't white. You really don't think it's about race?

The brown man seeks only work and an opportunity to provide for his family on the land his forefathers owned. You can't even allow him this?

Arbitrary lines in the sand are essentially just something to fight over. Rather than beefing up the border we should be working toward doing away with it. Yes, Mexico is poor and needy and so what? Remove the border restrictions equilaterally and watch their economy pick up as United States dollars find their way there as fast as poor hungry people currently find there way here.

Among the principals this country was founded on is that there is not a finite amount of money in the world. That's the beauty of currency. Yes, there are billions of hungry people out there, and they won't all fit here. So what's the solution? Build a wall to keep the have nots out and utterly ignore their plight because there's nothing we can do about it? Bull Sh!t.

Our gift doesn't have to be money. Grant them opportunity to mature into economies that rival ours. How? Stop being so friggin selfish. You don't have to stand on another man's neck to make a buck in this country. There's room for competition and more help benefits employers and employees alike, whether it be here or in a resort property that is established there.

In general terms: The best and the brightest will always excel. The mediocre will always be mediocre and those with the least aptitude will always be poor. Opportunity is kind of like love in that when you give more; it doesn't mean you have less. Quite the opposite, in fact. I'm not suggesting we GIVE anyone anything beyond the same opportunity that you and I enjoy. What is there to be afraid of? If more immigrants succeed, they create more opportunity for those they've bested. Rags to riches stories define these United States, and the more often that happens, the more our economy grows.

When it comes to race; it's high time we stop squabbling over such petty differences of color and nationality and recognize we all belong to the human race. I am at times a driven man, who seeks to conquer in business. That never means I wish to conquer my competition; only to out-perform them. The more people who succeed, the bigger the pie gets. I don't need to limit the size of your slice to increase mine.

Now, truth be told, in my fairytale global economy; citizens of the United States on the average may take a bit of a hit, as citizens of other countries prosper. Information and service industries don't rely on the gold mine of resources we call home as much as they used to. So be it. I am not and never will be comfortable being the citizen of the rich country if to maintain that status we continue to stand on the necks of the poor. Believing that is fair and just is the height of hypocrisy in this land of opportunity.

No one is asking you to give up your job or your business... just that you level the playing field for those who are poor, through no fault of their own, for having been born on the wrong side of some arbitrary line in the sand. Only those on the very bottom of the aptitude scale should fear the competition... and even then they are not justified in doing so if a line in the sand is their only excuse. You talk about entitlements for immigrants. That is a problem with entitlements, not immigrants. I've known a great number of immigrants, both legal and illegal and can tell you collectively they work harder and save more than your average American. This is bad? Why? Because the lazy white man may have to work a little harder to continue to earn his position? Talk about an ill-gotten entitlement. I'll eat my words the day a company (or the economy at large) suffers because there are employees willing to produce more for less. That day won't come. This effectively increases the opportunity for everyone, while shutting out no one, for no good cause.

It sickens me to here people talk about preventable disease as an excuse to keep people out. They're people for Dog's sake and immunization simply cannot be that expensive to produce on the scale that it is required. I'm no fan of entitlements myself... I prefer hands up over hands out, but there are certain realities that are simply inexcusable. No man woman or child should suffer for lack of an easily produced vaccine and no one should have to go hungry. Seems impossible because people like you want to limit the opportunities for wealth to people born on the appropriate soil... and the burden is just too big for us to shoulder. Bull Sh!t. Remove the inhumane restrictions on opportunity and watch the overall quantity of wealth in the world start accelerating at a ludicrous pace.

I contribute to charities in a variety of ways as well, but this amounts to small handouts rather than a hand up. It's tough to feel good about giving a man a fish while denying him the opportunity to fish for himself. If people could just collectively understand that there is not a finite amount of wealth to be had; they probably wouldn't be so fiercely selfish about denying the next man a level playing field. Perhaps somebody smarter than me (like Thomas) could explain the dynamics of currency in a way that would put the idiotic notion that you have to deny another man opportunity to maintain your own. Short term hits on some people would result in a net gain for more people. This, is the American way. This is nature's survival of the fittest embodied in a philosophy that rewards production, not birth-rights for the weak, or lazy. Stop fearing the black and brown man from other countries. You need not take food off your plate in order for him to eat. And, Great Walls are not for civilized countries. A truly civilized country shouldn't require one.

Yeeks, I'm rambling. Sorry about that.

ebp has been promoting exactly that since his appearance here on A2K and I've called him on it repeatedly. This is why he says that "cj is anti-american and (epb) is anti-cj'.

Well, if Bill won't let us build a a fence/wall, I suggest we nuke 'em.

Bill, it is for the reasons you have listed we have LEGAL immigration procedures. Our countries doors aren't closed to immigration. To come to our country illegally is to break our laws. Breaking laws can not be allowed to go unpunished and ignored.

I also do not think it's about race. I want all the illegal aliens from Canada and Europe sent home as well. That Mexicans are brown has absolutely NOTHING to do with our immigration laws.

Absolutely! Please remove every single law designed to protect me from me for starters. Next remove as many obstacles for opportunity as possible. Switch to a Sales+Death tax that taxes success while increasing opportunity for everyone. Every legal restriction should serve to increase rather than limit opportunity wherever possible. Calling a man who wants nothing more than to work hard to feed his family a criminal is obscene. Calling a man who chooses a different recreation (drugs, gambling, prostitution etc), who is harming the general public not at all is just about as silly. Meanwhile; concentrate law enforcement on those that choose to harm people directly. Violence should be an almost unthinkable extreme measure, not a way to get your kicks on a Friday night. Yes; people rob people to buy drugs. They also rob people to buy beer, snowmobiles and theatre tickets. Go after the thieves themselves, not the man who may or may not become one. Go after the violent offenders themselves, not the man who may or may not become one. Guns don't kill people; people do and we should go after those who do... and temper the activity by better enforcing anti-violence laws that tend to precede the ultimate offenses. Eliminate the worst from the herd altogether. These are the things we need protections from... not the giggling stoner, the man who wants to protect his property, the fellow who enjoys century old games for money, and certainly not the man who seeks to work hard to provide for his family.

Do you know what these are? Do you know the costs associated with them? What it boils down to is that people who have money can afford to come here legally. Those who don't, can't.

Unless Bank of America has their way. You need a credit card Mr. Illegal? We'll send you one and you can charge your way across the border and through the legal system.

Yes, because you're not a true American unless you're up to your eyeballs in debt. Welcome to the American Dream.