What should be done about illegal immigration?

nimh wrote:

Foxfyre wrote:
The difference being that those who arrived on Ellis Island did so with legal permission to do so and were quite willing to abide by U.S. law and wanted to be Americans. That really isn't all that much to ask.

You've been trotting out, through this thread, the purported difference between those "good" immigrants back then and the bad illegal immigrants now time and again: they respected the law! They came legally!

Small problem in that logic; as Thomas already explained to you way in the beginning of the thread (on page 12), before 1922 there were no "legal permissions" handed out for immigration. Anyone (except Chinese) who was able-bodied, had no criminal record and had $20 on him, could enter - thats it! So what is this stuff about "they arrived with legal permission to do so"?

As for the other part of your demand, most illegal immigrants want desperately "to abide by U.S. law" too - they'd love to be legal immigrants, after all...

Foxfyre wrote:
[I think your primary problem is that you cannot articulate a reasoned response to my position(s) on this and therefore it is much easier to excoriate me. I have elected not to do that to you no matter how wrong headed I think your position is.

You mean, apart from a spate of digs like this?

Foxfyre wrote:
It is my opinion that it is possible to care about human beings AND obey the law, and this is what I have been advocating. That may be a concept that is foreign to you

(Trust me, I just read fifty pages of this thread today - there were plenty of snidenesses like that from you - mostly unprovoked)

I admit to being snide to those who decide it is more fun to focus on me and my perceived faults than it is to debate my opinion. If that is wrong I apologize, but I probably won't do it much differently in the future either.
But is generally those who demonstrate a good deal of snideness (ie snottiness etc.) who accuse me of same.

Re immigration policies or any other policies, can you name any country in the world who is doing business and operating under the identical laws or non laws that were in place 50 - 60 - 70- 80 - 90 - 100 years ago? Or do the laws and regulations and policies change as circumstances change? And yes, when others cite Ellis Island as the 'model of all virtue and compassion and acceptance', I am going to point out that those immigrants who arrived via that route did so in compliance with the existing laws and policies of that time.

I do not believe it it too much to ask that the existing laws and policies of our time also be respected and obeyed, and if they need adjusting, improving, amendment, etc., then that is exactly what I think this whole debate should be about.

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nimh wrote:

McGentrix wrote:
nimh wrote:
Well, its sure the opposite of what America's always prided itself of..

Which is what?

In countries like Germany, you have (or had, until very recently) to be of German 'blood' to get citizenship at birth.

America, with France, has always represented the opposite: anyone who is born there, is American (or Frenchman).

America the political nation (of citizens) - versus Germany (and the like), the ethnic nation. Thats been essential to the political identity of the US, to its very core values. Its not who or what your pa or granpa was or where he was from that counts - everyone gets an equal shot!

Myth as much as reality, but there it is: it's a quintessentially American myth. One you're ready to just do away with. Unamerican.

By doing so, you end the "think of the children!" portion of this debate. Have you heard the term "breeders" in regards to some immigrant women... why do you suppose this term came into existence?

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Since the 2004 submission of the 2003 W-3 Transmitttal of Wage and Tax Statements, employers have been required to verify that all employees names and social security numbers match the information on their Social Security cards by physical examination of those cards. I was obliged to require all of our employees to come to me with their Social Security cards to verify this information.

All you do, Fox, is continue to make the case that there are at least thousands, if not tens of thousands or hundreds of thousands, of employers who do not comply with the law, because they employ illegal immigrants. And the scope of your hypocricy grows, because you object to the illegality of the lowly immigrant, but are unwilling to apply the same harsh standard to employers.

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Fox, You must wake up to the realities of what our government does or doesn't do - even with laws already made on this topic. To expect that our government will comply with your wishes will go nowhere. Trust me on this one. You just create more frustrations for yourself, although I understand many of your points. Simply put, we're supposed to be acountry of laws, but it ends there.

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nimh wrote:

McGentrix wrote:
nimh wrote:
Well, its sure the opposite of what America's always prided itself of..

Which is what?

In countries like Germany, you have (or had, until very recently) to be of German 'blood' to get citizenship at birth.

America, with France, has always represented the opposite: anyone who is born there, is American (or Frenchman).

America the political nation (of citizens) - versus Germany (and the like), the ethnic nation. Thats been essential to the political identity of the US, to its very core values. Its not who or what your pa or granpa was or where he was from that counts - everyone gets an equal shot!

Myth as much as reality, but there it is: it's a quintessentially American myth. One you're ready to just do away with. Unamerican.

Another thing, no one is saying all immigration should stop, just ILLEGAL immigration. You seem to believe that by closing our borders to ILLEGAL immigrants that that is the same as stopping ALL immigrantion and that is just not the case at all. Obeying the law is a VERY American thing to do.

You seem to be trying to imply some subtle message that just isn't working. Keep in mind that I am in no way suggesting we stop immigration. You seem to have that idea in your head.

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Setanta wrote:

Since the 2004 submission of the 2003 W-3 Transmitttal of Wage and Tax Statements, employers have been required to verify that all employees names and social security numbers match the information on their Social Security cards by physical examination of those cards. I was obliged to require all of our employees to come to me with their Social Security cards to verify this information.

All you do, Fox, is continue to make the case that there are at least thousands, if not tens of thousands or hundreds of thousands, of employers who do not comply with the law, because they employ illegal immigrants. And the scope of your hypocricy grows, because you object to the illegality of the lowly immigrant, but are unwilling to apply the same harsh standard to employers.

I am not willing to apply impossible standards to immigrants and I am not willing to apply impossible standards for employers. I am willing to implement new policy that would make it possible for immigrants to get here more easily, and I am willing to implement policy that will make it feasiable for employers who operate within the law.

I have never asked to see a social security card from anybody I have hired nor has any employer ever asked to see mine. The last I recall, a social security card was not valid identification anyway. So far nobody has told me I have to do that and apparently there are a lot of other employers who don't do that either. Your hypocrisy is nitpicking a point, rewriting it, and trotting it out as my opinion while extolling your own superior knowledge gets very tiresome.

Whatever happened to the argument that the illegals are here to do the jobs that Americans won't do and the economy can't function without them? Seems like some were using that argument some pages back. Should the employers hiring those illegals be sent to jail or be assessed with huge fines now? Do you want those employers to have to fire the m all immediately even while the rules are in place that we have to educate, feed, medicate, and clothe them along with American citizens? Or should we first come up with a way for the employers to hire those necessary workers legally without compromising the control we have over our borders?

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We can't stop illegal immigration by creating a fence like Israel, because we have millions of people coming into our country of visitor's visas. Once they arrive, they can stay and hide in this country. Many overstay their visa. Now what?

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cicerone imposter wrote:

We can't stop illegal immigration by creating a fence like Israel, because we have millions of people coming into our country of visitor's visas. Once they arrive, they can stay and hide in this country. Many overstay their visa. Now what?

oh stop that.

How about we do one thing at a time and go from there. If we can stop the tide of illegals crossing the border, THEN we start investigating visa fraud, ok?

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Foxfyre wrote:

I wonder how many of the rest of you posting on this thread have been asked for ID before you were hired to do whatever you do?

Since 1885 (don't nail me on the exact year, it might have one or two years later/before), you can't work in Germany legally without giving the employer yours data (tax office nuber, health insurance company, social secirity company etc). And you don't have such, if you aren't here on legal basis.
(If you would deliver fake numbers - at least within a period of one month - at the latest! - that would catch someone's eyes.)

Thus, "illegal workers" aren't in first place those persons illegally here in this country but employed illegally by a single person, a firm, company ...
(And the employers get fined for that.)

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That's errant hypocricy, and your earlier posts give the lie to your statement about "impossible standards." You want to deport twelve million people, at the taxpayers expense. You have stated previously that those who knowingly employ illegals cannot be forced to obey the law. So you are lying when you contend that your attitude to one example of illegality is equivalent to your attitude toward the other example of illegality. You have said that they should be deported (at the taxpayers expense) and then allowed to re-enter the country as "guest workers," (the administration of such a program which would once more be at the taxpayers expense), effectively rewarding the employers who have employed them illegally.

I have proposed that they be allowed to stay, and provided a work permit, just as soon as they identify the employers who illegally employed them. Then said employers could be fined to defray the costs of the program, taking the burden off the taxpayer. That won't satisfy you, though, because you are obsessed with illegality, but only when it applies to those who have crossed our borders.

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Yeah, McG, tell that to the current legislators trying to create legislation on illegal immigrants. Hell, they can't even agree on what to include or exclude from the law now, and have not enforced anything they have written decades ago.

The only solution that I can see is to replace congress and this administration during the next election.

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cicerone imposter wrote:

Fox, You must wake up to the realities of what our government does or doesn't do - even with laws already made on this topic. To expect that our government will comply with your wishes will go nowhere. Trust me on this one. You just create more frustrations for yourself, although I understand many of your points. Simply put, we're supposed to be acountry of laws, but it ends there.

I don't buy that Congress is unresponsive to the will of the people if enough of us care enough to be heard, C.I. Their conviction that they want to be re-elected overrides any other conviction most of them hold. I never expect that the government will comply with my wishes. I do expect it to comply with the will of the majority within the scope of the Constitution. It just so happens that I think my wishes are the wishes of the majority on this issue, but I am not certain that apathy will not again subvert the majority will.

The debate will rage on, however, on what the law will be to satisfy the will of the people will look like. Even those of us on the same page re the necessity of us securing our borders are not yet in much agreement on how that should be accomplished.

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cicerone imposter wrote:

Yeah, McG, tell that to the current legislators trying to create legislation on illegal immigrants. Hell, they can't even agree on what to include or exclude from the law now, and have not enforced anything they have written decades ago.

The only solution that I can see is to replace congress and this administration during the next election.

What solutions have any politician given that would lead you to believe things will be any different?

If they have solutions, shouldn't they be trying to implement them now?

This is one of the reasons I rarely vote for incumbants. They only seem to have ideas during campaigns and then fail to implement any of them once in office.

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Setanta wrote:

That's errant hypocricy, and your earlier posts give the lie to your statement about "impossible standards." You want to deport twelve million people, at the taxpayers expense. You have stated previously that those who knowingly employ illegals cannot be forced to obey the law. So you are lying when you contend that your attitude to one example of illegality is equivalent to your attitude toward the other example of illegality. You have said that they should be deported (at the taxpayers expense) and then allowed to re-enter the country as "guest workers," (the administration of such a program which would once more be at the taxpayers expense), effectively rewarding the employers who have employed them illegally.

I have proposed that they be allowed to stay, and provided a work permit, just as soon as they identify the employers who illegally employed them. Then said employers could be fined to defray the costs of the program, taking the burden off the taxpayer. That won't satisfy you, though, because you are obsessed with illegality, but only when it applies to those who have crossed our borders.

This post is a beautiful illustration of how you distort what I have said and what I want. When you can accurately characterize my position, I will pay attention to what you say about it.

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Fox wrote:
I don't buy that Congress is unresponsive to the will of the people if enough of us care enough to be heard, C.I. Their conviction that they want to be re-elected overrides any other conviction most of them hold.

Fox, You probably missed the most important issue of our times; the high cost of fuel. The response by our congress to this issue is to give each vehicle owner a $100 check. Boy, are you nieve.

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Foxfyre wrote:

I do expect it to comply with the will of the majority within the scope of the Constitution.

(This has nothing to do with this thread, and is especially not pointed at you, Foxfyre, at all!)

I'm just thinking that some conservatives told me on another thread some time ago (about the French demonstrations) that such was a sign of a weak democracy/parliament when lawmakers did so.

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McG wrote:
What solutions have any politician given that would lead you to believe things will be any different?

You've probably missed all of my posts about the effectiveness of our government. But, my post before this one should answer it for you.

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Foxfyre,

You seem to think that you represent the will of the American public. I didn't see your response to the polling data that suggests otherwise.

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ebrown_p wrote:

Foxfyre,

You seem to think that you represent the will of the American public. I didn't see your response to the polling data that suggests otherwise.

And you have ignored polling data I have provided that strongly suggests that I am with the majority.

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I believe congress has a lower rating than Bush; that speaks volumes.

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What should be done about illegal immigration?

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