What should be done about illegal immigration?

My head was in the sand about immigration issues too. One part of me said, something should be done and the other said, "leave them, (immigrants), alone"!
Jobs are scarce, we're in a depression, 2 wars, illegal holding of foreigners without prosecution and on and on! I don't even know how we operate as a Nation, with so much going on and now, the first Black President, has ALL of this on HIS plate and Bush walks away scot free!

I'm now trying to live on a "fixed" income, since I retired and I don't even know where I fit in, anymore! Where did we go so awfully wrong?

Change how so. Do you have a crystal ball that give you insight regarding Obama's response to the foreign invasion from the south.
I believe he voted for the fence on our southern border.

Let's encourage them to come here for work when we need their cheap labor, and then when we want to get rid of them send them back even if that entails separating them from their American-born children. Amoral utilitarianism.

You have sufficient training in statistical methods (at least I think so) to know that demographic projections are calculated over the lives of the persons involved AND THEIR DESCENDANTS.

To attempt to dissimulate that BASIC FACT by quoting CURRENT statistics (delta T = 0, instead of integral over at least a CENTURY, as Advocate is very properly doing)borders on FRAUD that's BEFORE adjusting demographic projections for the sub-set's fertility rates, mortality, morbidity and so on.

If nothing else will make you grasp the gravity of the illegal immigration problem, consider that the local people have started to cross into criminality by taking immigration enforcement matters into their own hands - do you really want this to continue, or even escalate? Perhaps you do!
http://able2know.org/topic/127767-5#post-3532073

That's an interesting question High Seas.

About 99% of Americans are descended from immigrants (legal or illegal), that makes about 300 million (more or less) of us. What percentage of us do you think are descended from ILLEGAL immigrants?

I am not sure how this proportion would mean anything (since the Constitution says a citizen is a citizen), but the hypocrisy inherent in your argument is interesting at the very least.

You want my views on Cauchy distributions, instead of focusing on the blood and guts problem +as per link I just posted?! Important things are seldom urgent, but let me post the link again in case you missed it the first time:
http://able2know.org/topic/127767-5#post-3532073

Urgent problem my butt.

You guys have been railing about this for at least 100 years. It never changes with you.

The Irish were lazy and crime-ridden. The Italians would make us all papists or anarchists. The Poles, the Germans can't assimilate. The Chinese will bring crime and disease. And let's not talk about the Jews.

Hispanics have no genetic predisposition to crime, any more than any of the other waves of immigrants that we were descended from.

Now... please tell me how what you are saying right now is any different from what Nativists and Know Nothings were saying 100 years ago.

Truly you have run out of ANY logical argument - quite apart from demographics statistical functions, which you conveniently "forgot" all about - if you're now trotting out cliches that were OLD even in my parents' day, let alone mine.

The longer you refuse to respond to the blood-and-guts issue on link, btw, the more probable it seems that you WANT such behavior to continue in hopes of generating sympathy for your cause. Your call, Mr. Brown-Munoz - you have been warned.

What "blood and guts issue"? You present a link of a Mexican committing a heinous crime... and want me to believe that Mexicans have a genetic predisposition to violent crime?

In spite of your link, I do not believe that Mexicans (or anyone else) have a genetic predisposition to violent crime.

"Blood and Guts issue" is just another way to say Bigotry.

I don't think that's the case. The link was actually to an article about seven American kids who killed Ecuadorian immigrant Marcelo Lucero.

From the article:




The argument, it seems, is that all of this is the fault of the victim because he was an immigrant.

The interpretation of history by some is interesting at least.

Some of our ancesters were slave owners.
Translation from one type of argument being made here: We should be sympathetic to slave owners now.

Some of our ancesters were Puritans who practiced religious intolerance to the extreme.
Translation from one type of argument being made here: We should be tolerant of religious intolerance now.

Some of our ancesters were bank robbers or horse thieves who for whatever reason were forgiven of their crimes.
Translation from one type of argument being made here: We should be sympathetic to bank robbers and horse thieves now.

Some of our ancesters arrived here illegally (after immigration laws were in place.)
Translation from one type of argument being made here: We should accept all immigrants who want to come here and the law should not be a consideration.

The other side of the coin evaluates the consequences of certain kinds of tolerance. Tolerate slavery and the unalienable rights of people are violated.

Tolerate government enforced religious intolerance and the First Amendment goes right out the window.

People robbed banks and stole things because they needed the money. Accept bank robbery and thievery out of compassion for needy crooks, and all are far less safe in their persons and/or possessions.

Accept all immigrants who want to come here with no expectations of any kind assigned to them and no consideration for how they will be educated, housed, employed, and otherwise assimilated into our culture and we become not a better country but one more emulating the places that people wish to escape from. And without sensible laws that are enforced they will come to the eventual detriment of all.

Compassion does indeed appear to be in the eye of the beholder.

My impression is that everyone is talking (shouting?) past each other here.

Immigration has long been the basic fuel for the American economic & social engines. That is as true today as it was a century ago when waves of Poles, Chinese, Jews, Irish, and Italian immigrants were arriving here (some illegally).

The nativist criticisms we hear today about immigrants; their supposed ineducability and affinity for crime, and their corrosive effect on our social fabric; are virtually the same as those voiced over a century ago by the "Know-Nothings" of the time - just as e brown wrote.

The statistical facts of the association between recent immigrants and crime & other social pathologies are about the same today as they were a century ago when Jewish, Irish, and later Italian and Chinese gangs dominated crime in our cities.

The only problem with "illegal immigration" is that it is illegal - we have either instituted unenforcable laws; or wrongfully failed to enforce them; or in (perhaps half-heartedly) trying to enforce them, found that they violate our basic values and therefore didn't push the attempt. This is certainly a problem that deserves fixing. However the resolution of it will require things far more fundamental than just a fence and more cops.

teenyboone, There are jobs even legal citizens of this country will not apply for, and that includes the food industry. Speaking from personal experience, my siblings and I worked with Hispanics and blacks harvesting fruits during the summer months when we were children. Its hard work that required long hours from sun-up to sun-down. We were never aware whether those working with us were legal or illegal immigrants.

It's no different today; many of our fields and farms will be empty of workers without those willing to work hard and long hours to feed all of us. People who purchase fruits and vegetables can't seem to realize the obvious when they go to the supermarket to buy produce.

Nobody asks if they were harvested by legal or illegal workers, but complain about illegal workers.

As georgeob succinctly put it, it's a political issue that our government has failed to enforce for good or bad. Those looking at the new immigrants as creating most of the crimes are dead wrong.

It's a simple matter of looking at the large cities of our country where most of the crimes are committed; they are not the new generation of "Americans" who commit the majority of them. If one looks at California as an example, most coming from the Far East usually end up going to the best colleges and universities of this country. I'm also sure there are incidences where they also commit crimes.

Welcome to America.

Another point of fact; most of the current economic troubles were not created by recent legal or illegal immigrants. Some people refuse to see the trees for the forest.

Agreed George. I am 100% in favor of immigration that brings in people that can be assimilated seamlessly into the American culture and who contribute to and build up the whole. For the most part--except for a comparatively small criminal element--that is what immigration of our not-so-distant past was all about. But then those who came were expected to learn English or at least there was no requirement to accommodate them in their first languages. They were expected to work for their food, housing, medical care etc. and they did. There was no massive social services network and no mandates to take them in as welfare recipients nor did they expect or want that.

I think the fence is an exercise in futility. Somebody once said that if you build a 20-foot fence, the 22-foot ladder business booms. I think it is important to enforce the immigration laws as much as possible just as it is important to enforce all our laws, but I agree that we would have to dedicate all our law enforcement resources to immigration alone in order to make much of a dent in the current problem.

So I think it has to be restructured to a) make it unprofitable and unattractive for people to come here illegally, and b) make it easier for people to immigrate legally who want to be productive Americans and/or come in as necessary temporary guest workers.

Even putting considerations of national security aside, we simply cannot take in all the world's poor and oppressed without reducing or destroying our ability to be of help to anybody.

Foxy,

You got that exactly wrong.

The slave owners received amnesty (i.e. reconstruction) even after they staged a bloody rebellion against the US. Their descendants are now considered full members of society.

The descendants of Puritans bank robbers and horse thieves are considered just as American as any of us.

High Seas seems to be saying that allowing descendants of Puritans, slave owners or bank robbers to live their lives as full American citizens damages the country irreparably.

Be careful what you wish for.

That isn't what she said or implied at all.

Thank you, Old Europe, for proving conclusively that one of the following 2 apply:
1. Either Mr Brown-Munoz cannot READ
or
2. He can read, but is suffering from DELUSIONS.

And to think, the link was posted twice, and mentioned in 3 separate posts