What should be done about illegal immigration?

The congress is going about it backwards.

The FIRST thing we need to do is secure the borders.
When you have a leaky boat,you need to plug the leak before you can get the water out.

The US is a leaky boat regarding immigration.
WE need to build fences,Use the NG to patrol the border,increase the border patrol service,and do everything possible to stop the illegals from coming across.

Then we can work on "guest worker" plans,"roads to citizenship",and any other kind of reward for breaking the law that you wanna give the illegals.

Actually the immigration thing is the only thing I think congress is going about close to right so far, depending on the house I guess.

Here's one for you MM. From my e-mail tonight is the solution proposed by an old classmate (now a Dentist in South Dakota):

"A win win situation. Dig a moat the length of the Mexican border, take the dirt and raise the levees in New Orleans, and then put the Florida alligators into the border moat! Any other problems you would like for me to solve?"

Cheers!

It was obvious that was going to happen...

The next step is going to be fun to watch (if you are a progressive or a Democrat that is)... The upcoming Republican catfight between moderate fiscal conservatives, and the right-wing religious bigots is long overdue.

Some of us on the progressive side are wondering if the best thing wouldn't be for the bill to die in the House. If the fact the Republicans block a major immigration reform and border security bill on an issue that the majority of Americans accept as part of a compromise (i.e. earned legaliztion)... this seems awfully good for the Dems going into an election where Congress and the Presidency are in control of Republicans.

By holding firm to harsh policies that ignore the needs of real people, Foxfyre may be doing me a big favor. She is hastening the implosion of the unholy aliance of fiscal conservatives with the radical Christian right.

The Senate bill has several features that I don't like... it get's rid of more due process for future immigrants and asylum seekers-- as well as militarizing the border.

I bet that with a Democrat controlled house next year, we can do better.

I don't think the republicans are that dumb to block a compromise on an election year.
I also wonder what the likes of foxyfire and chjsa think about the role of their beloved president Bush on this issue (a slightly positive role, IMO).

And I have a last question:
Will it be chicken enchilada or mole enchilada?
Will it have refried beans on the side?

I often make chicken enchiladas and I sometimes make my own tortillas. Haven't tried mole. My husband loves refried beans but isn't allowed to have many of them. I can have all I want but prefer beans in other forms.

I think the President is acting in good faith, and I think he is wrong on this issue for all the many reasons that have been stated again and again in this thread. I don't think he is evil because he is wrong, but I believe that wrong he is.

I think the GOP has far more to lose by not fighting the more objectionable pieces of the Senate bill than they have by fighting it.

I personally am encouraging my elected representatives to hold out for a win-win solution to this problem instead of the current proposal that will produce far more losers than winners.

I don't know what Foxy means by "win-win". She certainly doesn't include the hard working immigrants who I want to give protections to, the families that I want to save, or the honor-roll students want to give a chance to suceed.

But passionate hatred sometimes leads politicians to act against their better intelligence. The politicians are actually in a tough spot-- damned if they block the bill by losing support of the moderates, and damned if they don't block it by losing support of the Foxfyres.

But, I have hope that Foxy's elected representatives will listen to her, since blocking a bill will help the Dem's in the November election and keep the issue alive for next year. We can pass a bill more to our liking next year.

That would be win-win in my book.

ebrownp, what's more important, a deal that helps solve the inmigration problem with at least some humanity or to have a solid democrat majority in November?

Sometimes partisanship blurrs arguments, good arguments such as the ones you have defended on this thread.

Let me remind you that Senator Diane Feinstein's iniciative was much more humane, but some democrats who favored it in the Senate voted against, so to ensure a bipartisan aprooval of the bill. I think they were acting as Politicians, with a capital P, in the good sense of the word.

That is also why I hope conservative reppresentatives will not heed to Foxyfire's and other antimigrants' advice (besides, they know this right wing citizens will not vote democrat, anyway). I imagine most of them know at least the 101 in politics.

Fbaezer, do you apply the same sense of ethics and humanity to your own country's policies re people attempting to migrate north across your southern border? Will you accept poor people moving into your house without your permission and demanding whatever services you are providing for your family? And if they move in without your knowledge and stay awhile, will you just adopt them because it is inhumane to move them out?

If you decide to be compassionate and sensisble by allowing them to stay, will you be as eager to accept two, three, then times more that want to avail themselves of your hospitality?

Or by that time, would you be looking for a way to discourage people from moving onto your turf and hope for better policies that would make them want to stay where they are?

Do you really think the compassionate thing is to just empty all the poor people out of your country until all that is left are those who are making a decent living? Mexico is more affluent than some other countries and is blessed with a climate and natural resources that could make it one of the world's most properous economies. Will you favor Mexico taking in all the poor from those less blessed countries?

It's really easy to judge others for their policies when such policies don't affect you personally or are actually quite beneficial for you personally.

For me and all the Chaves, Jaramillos, Romeros, Lujans, and Melendrezes in my family, we love Mexico and her people. But we also favor the rule of law and a policy based on fairness and justice. We have no problem with reworking the rules to make it easier for people to immigrate or come here on temporary work permits, however, but we have a huge problem with tolerating and/or rewarding illegal behavior which has been our practice for some time and which now some would make policy.

I hope you understand.

Fox wrote:
For me and all the Chaves, Jaramillos, Romeros, Lujans, and Melendrezes in my family, we love Mexico and her people. But we also favor the rule of law and a policy based on fairness and justice. We have no problem with reworking the rules to make it easier for people to immigrate or come here on temporary work permits, however, but we have a huge problem with tolerating and/or rewarding illegal behavior which has been our practice for some time and which now some would make policy.


I couldn't agree more, but our government has failed us for too long; that's what created the problems present today of 12 miilion illegals in our country. Whether our government is up to the task of correcting this problem is not very good - IMHO.

As I see it, the number one priority is to seal the borders, but not by creating a physical fence. A free country should not have any symbols that would create a fence around our country. It must happen through the laws and enforcement of those laws.

Unfortunately, our governemt still can't agree on what those laws should be.

Of course a humane immigration policy is more important than politics. The issue is timing. It could be that we could have a better immigration policy if we just wait a year.

I think the conservative Republicans in the House are immoral. Thankfully they are on their way out. That is why I am weighing between a good bill this year, or the chance of a better bill (i.e. more compassionate for people here) next year.

I support the Senate bill. but if Foxfyre insists on derailing it at the cost of Conservative Republicans becoming politically weaker... I won't cry.



The right wing citizens are threatening to not vote. Period. Tancredo (my new favorite politician) is threatening to run in the presidential elections as a third candidate against the Republican nominee.

Don't underestimate the fanaticism of the radical right wing. They are not just worried about punishing immigrants for law-breaking. Look at the rhetoric.. they talk about the "invasion" and how Mexicans are ruining American culture. They are using imagery of the rampant disease and violent drug crime that immigrants will bring.

This is why Foxfyre is unwilling to accept any act of compassion for immigrants.

I've seen what could be illegals in Albuquerque; might be, some even attended a wedding mass, I've watched.

But I've never heard or been told that they behave in such a way as you described.

The reason certainly is that you kow more about them and the actual situation and aren't just a vistor to New Mexico, I know.

We do have a porous border with Central America.
It is not effectively guarded.
We expell about 150 thousand Central Americans every year. Supossedly our migration agents do not mistreat them, but sometimes they do.
But there are thousands of them working on the coffee plantations in the south, for a lower wage than the already very poor Mexican peasants.
And many many others who have mixed with the rest of the society. Some of them with fake papers.

We do have a big asylum tradition. Since the Spanish Civil War. Thousand of Spanish refugees came. Same with Jewish Poles during WWII. And Latin Americans from Chile, Argentina, Uruguay and Brazil, when those countries had dictatorships.
Same thing with Guatemalan refugees in the 80s. They came by the hundreds of thousands. A program was made with ACNUR (The Refugee Commisioner of the UN), since there were clashes between Mexicans and fleeing Guatemalans at border towns, and it was called an "humanitarian emergency". Guatemalans were given land in the states of Chiapas and Campeche. Many of them turned home about during the last decade, but many thousands became Mexican citizens.

We have many Cubans, Koreans and Eastern Europeans who have migrated recently to Mexico on temporary or tourist visas, and stay. Some action has been taken against Cuban and Eastern European table dancers (in truth, I believe it is because some corruption rings between people-smugglers/pimps and Mexican law enforcement agents brake in order to be remade again), Cuban musicians (because of union pressures), and Korean mafia members (THAT can become an issue in the forthcoming years), but the rest live quite easily.
And of course, we have millions of American retirees who are in Mexico because it's cheap, and often do not have papers (Americans don't need a visa to enter Mexico, and in some zones, do not even need a passport). But of course, American pensioners do not take jobs away, but spend their money in our economy.

The migration waves of Spaniards and Latin Americans into Mexico have been beneficial to our country (everybody agrees that the Spanish Civil War was a blessing to Mexico: they sent us their best, brightest people) also because of cultural and linguistic affinities that are not so evident in the US.
When tension has arisen, (i.e, when Mexicans feel their jobs threatened) a compromise has been reached. Plus, corruption sometimes makes things easier (in Mexico as in the US). I've met an Argentinian psychoanalist who, with a huge Buenos Aires accent, claim they were born in a Southern Mexican town-, and a Salvadorean union leader who has a birth certificate from another small town in the South of Mexico.

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I understand that, at this moment, the level of migrants in the US has reached its limit. I also understand that any nation has a right to control their borders (even if, logically, it's better that it is done bilaterally).
This particular issue is, mostly, a matter of logic. As I stated before in this thread: you may want the law to be upholded strictly, it is simple not feasable to do it. The law must be changed

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And finally, a lot has been said about legal migrants' rights being overcome by the illegal migrants pleas. No legal migrant has spoken (except Thomas, I believe).

My brother is as pro-American and conservative as you can imagine. He lives (happily!) in Wichita, Ks. where he works as a Flight Safety instructor. He'd most probably vote republican if he were American. And he's obviously legally in the US.
He is 100% in favor of a law such as the one passed by the Senate. His logic: there should be an end to the discrimination against Mexicans by the Migration Service. He has seen other instructors who arrived to the US later than he did been given their permanent resident papers before him, because the Mexican quota is too small in comparison with the demand. So he's stuck to the company who hired him, and to his specific job, and has had to refuse other offers (or so he says).

e_brownp:

I'm not sure that a better law can be passed by a democrat Congress. Not all democrats have the same views. I prefer a tablespoon of marmalade today than the promise of a jar of marmalade tomorrow.

And yes, I know some conservatives have this cultural threat fear. It's not as obvious with Foxyfire as with other posters. I believe they are clearly a minority in the US.

No, but that's not what they do. They move into their own houses and get their own jobs, and I have no problem at all with this. As to government services, I have no problem denying them to illegal immigrants, just as they can currently be denied to legal immigrants. (On one of the papers I signed to get my Green Card, I had to acknowledge I won't be eligible for welfare, Medicaid, etc.)

Foxfyre hasn't taken an "antimigrant" stance in this thread, though. If you read her comments more carefully, you'll see she's only been debating the question of illegal immigrants. There's obviously an important difference, even if you (and others here) aren't willing to address it.

SierraSong, That's how I read Fox's post also; she's talking about fair and legal immigration. I concur with that idea, but it's our government that's making the decisions difficult to achieve. They make the laws; they should also enforce it.

What was the ultimate decision regarding the Japanese?