Many people, including some bloggers on this site, seem to think that illegal immigrants should be simply deported to wherever they came from. This is a horrible idea, both for our government and for our culture. One, to deport the approximately 10 million illegal immigrants, even if we knew where they all were, would cost billions of dollars in buses, gas and food. Where would we get that money? (Iraq. I know. Still, there are better uses for that money than Iraq and than deporting workers - Education, for instance)
Also, what harm are these immigrants doing us? Yes, they broke the law. I realize that. But I probably broke about 8 laws in the past week, including some federal felonies. However, how did they hurt us? They certainly contribute to our economy - after all, they buy things, start businesses, rent houses (which is important in today's shitty housing market). Yes, some illegal immigrants commit crimes. But so do legal immigrants, as well as the descendents of the Pilgrims. I fully support deporting illegal immigrants who are rapists, murderers and the like. However, most illegal immigrants (Undocumented Workers?) are just ordinary people who seek to better their lives and those of their children, which is certainly the most American of any goal.
Consider an America without illegal immigrants. Let's examine our farms first. Who will be picking the crops? Americans used to working in offices, or even as janitors or McDonalds workers, are not going to be willing to work 10 hour days in the Florida heat picking oranges for minimum wage in substandard housing. To get enough workers, farmers must be willing to pay two, three, or many more times the wages they pay now. Farm products, therefore, will cost two, three or many more times what they cost now. Are you willing to pay $10 for a bunch of bananas during banana season? I thought not. Even if you were, enterprising merchants would simply import foreign bananas and undercut the prices of American farmers. To deport illegal immigrants, therefore, would be to kill the American family farm. That surely isn't your intention?
The same thing applies in cities. Would Mr. Merrill and Mr. Lynch of Merrill Lynch be willing to vacuum their own office? I doubt it. Mow their own lawns? Nope. While they would be able to pay for it, commodity prices would rise for you and I. We'd end up with hundreds of unclean offices and unmowed lawns. Is that worth having a few fewer Spanish-speakers in America?
These immigrants will integrate into American society in a few generations anyways and become as tightly woven into our societal fabric as the German and Italian immigrants of the early 1900s were, just as the Irish of 1860s before them were. Just like today, xenophobes claimed that the members of whichever immigrant group was demonized that week would never integrate into America, that they were destroying our American way of life, and that they would never learn English. Each time, however, the second-generation was bilingual, speaking English outside of the home, and Italian, German, Polish, Yiddish, Russian, Gaelic or some other language in the home, while their kids spoke English and only a few words of the language of the "home country."
The benefits of keeping the immigrants coming in, from whichever country seeks to provide them, keeps America a prosperous nation with one of the greatest standards of living in the world. Yes, we must deign to hear someone talking in some horrible, guttaral, ugly dialect, but we can take comfort knowing that they are surely talking about the same I thing I was just talking about with my friends, who hooked up with whom, who is sick, who's grounded, which store has the best clothes for cheap prices, or some other cotidian discussion.
America stands for acceptance and cultural diversity, we are truly a melting pot. Emma Lazarus had a reason for writing what she did on the base of the Statue of Liberty: "Give me your tired, your poor,
Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,
The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.
Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me,
I lift my lamp beside the golden door!"
"Where would we be without illegal immigrants?" WHAT? Immigrants are a WONDERFUL thing, ILLEGAL immigrants are a PROBLEM!!!!!!!!!!
Ellis Island-legal immigrants. There are immigrants coming in legally ALL the time, and they have cards (Visas and Green Cards) that hold them accountable and gives us a count, etc.
Illegal immigrants jump past the legal ones and CHEAT. They make a name, a bad name, for immigrants that wait in line to get here, and the people going about it the right way deserve the freedoms this country offers. We don't give amnesty to murderers and rapists just because...These people have BROKEN the law to get into the country and are criminals not immigrants. Immigrants have paperwork and a responsibility to the country they have chosen to love.
Illegal immigrants are able to commit heinous crimes and go back, we have not recovered murderers to be brought to justice because they slip back over the border...That's wrong.
Legal immigrants are able to jump over the border too, if they commit crimes. American citizens are able to jump the border, if they commit crimes. This is nothing specific to illegal immigrants.
Illegal immigrants jump past the legal ones and CHEAT. They make a name, a bad name, for immigrants that wait in line to get here, and the people going about it the right way deserve the freedoms this country offers.
In my opinion, breaking a law is nothing, but doing something immoral is very wrong. If I have children to feed and educate, should I wait ten years to maybe get a visa, or just jump the border and do it? Morally, I've gotta feed my kids, laws be damned.
Also, in my perfect world, anyone who wanted to come to the US could show up at a crossing, fill out some papers and get a visa. We'd have a count and be able to keep track of people. Now that we have illegal immigrants, they are an active and necessary part of our economy. Pragmatically, we can't get rid of that part of our economy and pretend that our economy won't suffer for it.
We don't give amnesty to murderers and rapists just because...These people have BROKEN the law to get into the country and are criminals not immigrants.
That's a false analogy. Murderers and rapists hurt people. Illegal immigrants hurt nothing but maybe your sense of propriety. Do you condemn me for going 50mph in a 45mph zone? I have "BROKEN the law" as well...
Ellis Island-legal immigrants. There are immigrants coming in legally ALL the time, and they have cards (Visas and Green Cards) that hold them accountable and gives us a count, etc.
The main visas which allow people to work in the US are called H1-B visas. These are granted on the basis of skills and value to the US economy. Not surprisingly, most of these go to East European or East Asian technology workers needed to fill the engineering gap here in the states. They are keeping wages and prices low, but only for certain electrical engineering, high-wage, high-skilled jobs. A manual laborer from Latin America has pretty much a snowball's chance in hell of getting into America. Again, when you have 10 starving kids to feed, the immigration laws go out the window, as they should.
Your kids don't deserve what belongs to mine because you broke the law. Not only civil but religious. You make a mockery of American laws and religion. You have nothing to support your views except selfish preservation. And that's exactly the opposite of any 'moral' rules at all. You live by the law of the jungle instead of the law of the land. If you were interested in justice, you would stay in your own country and fight the corrupt examples of leadership that you now copy. You don't have a moral leg to stand on.
Zena WARRIOR princess...get 'em.
Imagine two 4-year-old children, Ana and Anna, in the future. Both were born at Durham Regional Hospital, in Durham, NC, the same hospital where I was born. Neither Ana nor Anna chose her parents, of course. That's just not the way things work.
Anna is the child of John and Jane Doe, both citizens of America. Anna will begin attending E.K. Powe Elementary school next August, for free. Right now, she attends a Head Start preschool, for free. Two years ago, when Anna fell off of her tricycle, and her parents, who were both between jobs, couldn't afford treatment, she still got world-class care.
Ana, too, would start at E.K. Powe next August. She would have attended preschool. She would have gotten care for her fall, but instead, has two chipped teeth and a lisp. She has trouble talking, and will have trouble going much of anywhere in life. All because her parents were illegal immigrants.
Is this fair? Is it Ana's fault to whom she was born? Why must Ana suffer for the choices of her parents? Can you honestly and morally say that you want the children to suffer? That's no morality to me.
If you were interested in justice, you would stay in your own country and fight the corrupt examples of leadership that you now copy.
If only we were all blessed with the courage to stand up to injustice. I've seen plenty of injustice: racial, economic, sexual. I could have stood up to the jock football player picking on the small gay kid. No, I should have. But I didn't. We can't all be the Mother Teresa's and Martin Luther King's of the world. Staying to fight requires a serious sacrifice, not one that everyone is willing to make. These parents, the illegal immigrants, have chosen to make a better life for their children in America.
Now that you live in America, do you take its ideals for granted? America stands for welcome, for freedom, for self-improvement. Will our generation be the one that changes that to a message of haughtiness and hubris?
We are truly blessed by having been born in America (Yes, I'm an American.) and we must work our hardest to make sure that everyone else who wants to live the American dream of making a life for oneself can do so.
Now imagine the scenario that you just created; only INSERT an AMERICAN family who can't get the help they need because it's ALL going to illegal immigrants. Obviously you have no concern with anyone but your people. But you already stated that didn't you? Well that's EXACTLY why we don't need you. We called ourselves the "UNITED STATES' for a reason. But apparently you don't understand the concept nor care to. I'm done. I now know more about you and your people than I ever cared to.And I am repulsed.
Zena - I don't believe such a situation would occur. Of course, priority in aid should be given to citizens. But I don't see welfare boards running out of money. I don't see food stamp boards running out of stamps. I don't see emergency rooms refusing care to anyone.
If you should decide to come back, I would encourage you to look at this issue with open eyes and an open mind, and do some research to find an instance of this situation occurring anywhere in this great nation.
And I would remind you, that yes, I am sticking up for "my people" - I'm sticking up for human beings. Human beings who have the right to an education, to healthcare and to food. Oh, and like I just said, I'm not hispanic. I'm not an immigrant. I'm one-half English, one-quarter Polish and one-quarter Russian by ethnicity, and American by birth and by choice.
No one is refused in the emergency room and no one said anything about that. You are arguing for the full enstatement of an illegal into the system to demand what is not our politicians to give because it belongs to American people. And don't tell ME what the system does and doesn't do....I been there, was born there and I have experienced being denied help when a illegal mexican came in before me. And if you've never been poor, experienced our system, been a woman in redneck country, beaten, abused and cursed, don't you dare moralize to me. I know what they've done to me, my family, and other WHITE AMERICAN citizens by their demeaning and condecending ways. I have nothing to feel guilty about...but PLENTY to be enraged about. You can stick your 'Moral superior stick' where the sun don't shine. And you just kicked your other moral-less leg out from under yourself. Why don't you go see if you can live on 400 dollars a month and THEN come back and teach me some manners. ( And by the way, while you're at it, make sure you have 3 or 4 kids to support.)
I don't understand why you feel that as a "WHITE AMERICAN" you have the right to quicker care than this "illegal mexican" who got in line before you.
I don't understand how you know that this Hispanic person was illegal and how you know they were Mexican. (Mexican is an insult among Hispanic people. A friend of mine is Venezuelan, and is insulted when people call him Mexican)
I finally don't understand why you believe that you should get preferential care. If someone is hurt or sick, it shouldn't matter what their name is. It shouldn't matter what color their skin is. It shouldn't matter who their parents are. All that should matter is that they are a human being in need of help.
When you know you're wrong and losing, you delete the whole blog. That's the kind of people we DON'T need in AMERICA.
I don't understand what your referring to. I didn't delete anything. Yes, I waited a few hours to respond to your post, but I've been busy and away from the computer. Please forgive me, and in the future, don't assume the worst.
I totally get that zena but it's too friggin expensive! To get in this country legally is ridiculous coming from mexico. I don't agree with illegal immigrants either....but from reading newspapers and etc, Mexico is trying to get in the right path...their government has bad seeds (just like our gov't, lol) that are essentiallys sucking their people dry. I don't know what the answer is, but to just deport everyone our economy is going to go waaay down. Mark my words, in the next year or two we're going to still be going down...right now the euro is trumping our american dollar and inflation is going up...
It's become quite clear and said by many Mexican citizens here that they plan to take over this country. Their trashy war-like music, their immoral rascist men. They are bringing in illegal drugs to make our people sick, (ingredients for crack) and taking our benefits, our land, and any chance of having our own businesses. The huge numbers of them coming in makes it impossible to control the deadly drugs their mules bring in. They have also taken away American's chance to demand a fair wage, when businesses hire them and force OUR government to pay for their food, medical, and housing needs, while Americans go without. How dare you. This is nothing less than war, as the politicians who are of mexican ancestory have made very clear with their support of mexicans over Americans. It's just a matter of time before violence breaks out.
If you don't believe me, watch this series of FRONTLINE 1-5 on LiveLeak.com:
http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=07f_1191033890
That's patently absurd. Mexicans are not trying to take over America.
Their trashy war-like music, their immoral rascist men.
I have rich, white friends from Long Island who listen to that "trashy war-like music." Also, most Latin Americans are church-going Catholics, who generally seem pretty moral to me. I hope you'll forgive me, but your comment seems to make me think that perhaps you are the racist, if you are making these generalizations about an entire group of people.
This is nothing less than war, as the politicians who are of mexican ancestory have made very clear with their support of mexicans over Americans.
I've never heard that. Could you provide me with some sort of proof of Mexican-American politicians declaring support for Mexico taking over America?
If you don't believe me, watch this series of FRONTLINE 1-5 on LiveLeak.com:
http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=07f_1191033890
Those videos seem to be about Methamphetamine abuse, not illegal immigration. And apparently, most of the meth users seem to be lower-class white Americans.
Honest question, Are you an illegal immigrant?
No. I'm a 4th-generation American - meaning my great-grandfather immigrated here. From Canada.
Paternally, my great-great-great-...-great-grandfather arrived in Newburyport, Mass in 1629 to found that town.
And you are trying to call ME a rascist??? Takes one to know one doesn't it.
Well, in the video, most of the people pictured arrested for meth possession were white and lived in a trailer park, which leads one to believe they are probably lower-class.
There is a clear difference between making an observation based on race and proof (most meth users shown in the video seem to white) and a generalization based on, well, nothing. (all Mexican men are immoral.)
There are five vids in this to make a whole. I guess you don't want to hear the rest. You only have compassion for your mexican people but none for ours, huh? Well, that figures. It just proves what I've been saying.
I couldn't find any more than the first one. I'm not familiar with the site you linked to, and couldn't find the second through fifth. If you would link to them, I'll watch them when I get the chance. However, I found nothing relevant in the first, as I mentioned. Please direct me to the ones most relevant to the topic at hand, not the entire series.
http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=dd4_1191034200
http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=8ab_1191034518
http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=2a4_1191034824
http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=f6f_1191035069
If you want to bother...
I watched them.
It seems that, yes, Mexican or other Latin American drug cartels are importing meth. Therefore, yes, a small subset of immigrants are bringing drugs into this country. However, a small subset of Americans also bring drugs into the country or make their own. Should we deport our own citizens for making drugs?
We must decide whether the benefits of having cheap labor (that is, labor the costs of which are closer to its actual worth, without the artificial inflation of wages caused by stuck-up Americans) are outweighed by the costs of having a larger illegal drug supply.
Um, most of the worse drugs that come in here illegally is from South America. Mexico is in Central America.
or any other taxpayers that these Mexicans have 10 mouths to feed. Maybe they should get some birth control...I don't get my bills paid by taxpayers for any reason, yet we let them deplete our funds because they can't take care of themselves? Not my problem, they do it because it is EASIER...EASIER...get it. I know immigrants that have gotten their citizenship, and bring family over after, and they LOVE this country. I don't have a problem with them...I have a problem with people that are able bodied and want it easier...do not fool yourself, there are things they can do in Mexico....If they would do more in their country, maybe it would be as great as ours.
Would you morally be OK with starving children because their parents are in this country without proper documents?
Please just answer that question.
Why are they starving in yours? Because the people are too cowardly to defend themselves against crooks and it's easier to come here and intimidate the kindness of strangers? It's just so easy to take advantage of such a people isn't it?
I'm not Mexican, damnit. I'm a freakin' East European Jew.
People are starving in Mexico for various reasons. Those are irrelevant. You didn't answer the question. If a 5-year-old American citizen is starving on the street in America, should he be fed or not?
STILL hungry and homeless people on our streets. MANY with children. (ANY is too many!) A responsible parent wouldn't give his child's food to another and make his child go hungry...I expect the Same from my nation ESPECIALLY when it bills itself as a christian nation. Our nation at present is like an unfaithful husband who spends all his money on his mistresses.
First, America doesn't bill itself as a Christian nation. Find me one mention of Jesus in any governmental documents.
This is not an "either-or" situation. We can feed both the homeless Americans and the homeless Americans-whose-parents-are-Mexican. You seem to be advocating only feeding the Americans, while withholding available food and resources from the children of immigrants.
Yes. Just becasue the children are starving is no reason to break the law.
Nicholas Aden
Self-Promotion
The law seems to be all important to you people. (Pardon the generalization)
If the law says its illegal for a black man and a white woman to have relations, is it wrong? Of course not. If your interpretation of the law allows you to starve children, children who are American citizens, does that make it right? Of course not.
How can you actually support starving kids? I'm suffering from some cognitive dissonance here - these are small children, who are going to die in America because they don't have food, and you are OK with this?
I do not believe in right and wrong. As previously stated, they are simply human constructs used to describe and generalize events and happenings.
Do I support starving kids? No. It's a shame that they're going to die, but their parents made a choice. They chose to have these children. They knew they couldn't support these children. Sorry, but God is a malevolent bastard. (I don't believe in God either.)
As per your analogy, well, yes. If the law said so, the sure, it can be "wrong." This doesn't mean, however, that they (the black man and white woman) cannot immigrate to Canada and have relations.
Nicholas Aden
Self-Promotion
Alright, that's fine. You seem like you actually have researched your positions a little bit. While I disagree with your overall rejection of morality, I respect that.
I'm afraid without a moral basis on which to argue, we don't have much common ground on which to base a discussion. I guess you and I (but not others with less considered positiongs) will have to agree to disagree.
living down from me are chunky little shits...
The essay above is constructed on lies and memes put out by the corporate controlled US Chamber of Commerce, and the lobbies they subsidize.
Let's deal with some facts
In 1979 testimony to Congress, Chavez complained, "... when the farm workers strike and their strike is successful, the employers go to Mexico and have unlimited, unrestricted use of illegal alien strikebreakers to break the strike. And, for over 30 years, the Immigration and Naturalization Service has looked the other way and assisted in the strikebreaking. I do not remember one single instance in 30 years where the Immigration service has removed strikebreakers. ... The employers use professional smugglers to recruit and transport human contraband across the Mexican border for the specific act of strikebreaking..."
In 1969, Chavez actually led a march to the Mexican border to protest illegal immigration, accompanied by Sen. Walter Mondale and Ralph Abernathy, whom alert readers will recognize as Martin Luther King's successor as head of the Southern Leadership Conference.
Chavez demanded that the federal government close the border, routinely reported suspected illegal immigrants to immigration officials, and put his brother in charge of Minutemen-like border patrols which on more than one occasion resulted in the beatings of intruders.
The collapse of the Mexican economy in 1982 sent a flood of illegal immigrants north of the border, driving down wages, and making border enforcement politically problematic. As one economist noted, "We have essentially privatized the immigration policy of this country, and left it in the hands of California's growers."
While cheap labor does reduce the cost of, say, strawberries, it does so only minimally. This economist noted that perhaps 7 percent of the price paid by shoppers for strawberries actually goes to pickers. Meanwhile, citizen taxpayers are forced to pick up the tab for workers' medical care and social services and their children's schooling. The National Academy of Sciences estimated in 1997 that an immigrant without a high-school degree ultimately costs America $100,000 more than he contributes.
During Chavez's day, legal migrant workers earned a decent wage, and had earned benefits. The cost of produce and other farm products were not as expensive as they are today. We also did NOT have the problems with e-coli, salmonella and listeria outbreaks in our food supply that we do today. What's more, we pay higher taxes to subsidize what corporate and other business interests don't have to pay in wages.
The same corporate interests who want to replace American citizen workers, and legal migrant workers with illegal alien labor, are the same ones who have crushed our food regulatory safety protections and inspections. Supporting amnesty and waves of illegal aliens crossing our borders is supporting corporate control and fascism.
American citizens who are working poor and struggling middle class, who are black, brown and white, suffer from a severe, long term lack of access to jobs. Those jobs have been declining since outsourcing started in the 1980s. Now, what jobs are left behind, are being given to foreign workers whether through the visa programs or illegal aliens who enter our country. They aren't jobs Americans won't do, they are jobs corporations and businesses do not want to pay American wage standards for. We do not lack enough workers for the jobs, we lack government that would enforce the laws and penalize corporations and businesses for vioating those laws. Take away access to jobs, take away access to welfare, food stamps, free health care and housing subsidies that illegals have been allowed to break other laws to benefit from, and they would self deport. If you are afraid of the cost of sending illegals home, you are mindless. It costs far more to subsidize them, than it would to deport them all.
We do need to end NAFTA and other similar trade deals. We are told NAFTA is to blame for illegal aliens coming here, so let's end it. We should also stand with the people of Mexico, Central and South America to demand they raise wages and opportunity for their own people. I have to ask why La Raza, MALDEF, and othe Hispanic groups do not do so? Perhaps the millions of dollars the US Chamber of Commerce pays them every year, ensures that they are less interested in the human rights issues of poor Hispanics, and more in exploiting them for their own power and profit?
The late Robert F. Kennedy said:
“Yet the gross national product does not allow for the health of our children, the quality of their education, or the joy of their play. It does not include the beauty of our poetry or the strength of our marriages; the intelligence of our public debate or the integrity of ourpublic officials. It measures neither our wit nor our courage; neither our wisdom nor our learning; neither our compassion nor our devotion to our country; it measures everything, in short, except that which makes life worthwhile. And it tells us everything about America except why we are proud that we are Americans.”
After Kennedy ran for the senate, he introduced several projects in the state of NY, including assistance to underprivileged children and students with disabilities. He established the Bedford-Stuyvesant Restoration Corporation to improve living conditions and employment opportunities in economically depressed areas of Brooklyn.
Robert F. Kennedy addressed the needs of the poor, the young, racial minorities and Native Americans. It was a bit over 41 years ago, that he raised the awareness of the American people, and challenged them to consider the plight of the poor by going into urban ghettos, Appalachia, the Mississippi Delta.
Robert Kennedy was committed to the advancement of human rights worldwide. He traveled to Eastern Europe, Latin America and South Africa to expound upon his belief that all people should have a basic right to participate or criticize their government without fear.So it is extremely troubling to me that his brother, Senator Ted Kennedy can not spare the time to travel even to the impoverished cities and towns in his own state, Massachusetts. Where far too many American citizens, of all races and ethnicities suffer from the hardships and privations of dire poverty. Given that he has abandoned any goal of resolving the severe problems of un and under employment brought about by the outsourcing of jobs that stared in the 1980s.
The senator, who supported George Bush’s disastrous “No Child Left Behind”, has embraced the Bush administrations, and the U.S. Chamber of Commerce’s drive to erode American wage standards and workplace laws and protections.
Given the stands taken by his late brother Robert, one has to ask why the senator from Massachusetts ignores the suffering in his own backyard? The late RFK believed in championing the causes of those in poor countries to help empower them to stand up against the dictators and despots who sought to oppress them, to demand better standards of living.
Senator Ted Kennedy, seems more interested in providing cover for those same types of despots and dictators by assisting George Bush in imposing third world wage suppression in the U.S. . The masses of illegal aliens imported into the country are being exploited to expend their energy to create the same types of economic conditions here that exist in their home countries. They are being used as pawns in a game that will lead to their own further exploitation. Immigration law is not domestic, but foreign policy. Those who seek to treat it as domestic policy do so because they wish to adopt the greedy and cruel policies of the third world.Driving down wages, increasing poverty and extinguishing hope. What this tells me is that the senator is the sort of man his two late brothers, President John F. Kennedy, and Senator Robert F. Kennedy, would have railed against.
I don't always care enough to leave it long like this, but I know the reasons....You brought them in detail.
How many Americans, white, black, or brown, are willing to pick cucumbers at minimum wage? Not enough to harvest all the cucumbers we produce. We need the cheap labor, or else the rest of the Americans involved with farming will be out of a job. I don't care whether or not you and I pay an extra $100 in taxes for these workers, our economy would collapse without these workers
at McD's for minimum wage...waitresses work for less and the tips, if they get them. Our economy would not collapse, farmers would have more kids, and give them an allowance. ..or we wouldn't get to eat as many cucumbers...get over it.
It's more than cucumbers. Its everything you eat. There is not a supply of legal workers or kids willing to do the work needed to supply America with food.
Waiting tables or flipping burgers is far less rigorous than picking crops for hours a day in the hot sun. Most Americans are too comfortable to pick crops. They (we) simply aren't willing to do it for a wage that farmers can afford.
For example, how much would you have to be paid to pick tobacco in the North Carolina heat? Not just the first day, but for a month? I'll bet its nothing the farmer can afford.
Besides, I still haven't heard why these illegal immigrants can't stay. What are they hurting?
Good job. Like your viewpoint...They make between 2 and 3 dollars an hour...some as little as 25 dollars a day...we exploit them, as we should, and they are stupid enough to submit to it. So Illegal aliens as the new slave trade? You may be on to something...
I guess they are. In a strange sort of way. Although it is certainly different, because, at least in most cases, the immigrants are free to come and go as they please, quit their job as they please and return to their home country as they please. They also showed up of their own free will.
As you should be more than well aware. The US provides visas and waivers for millions of workers each year to legally come here to work. There was never a need for massive waves of illegal aliens to come here to work.
FYI, farm workers only account for 2% of the illegal aliens here. What's more, the illegal aliens who work picking crops, displaced the legal migrant workers, and cost them their jobs.
Also, jobs that used to lift American citizens out of poverty, construction, electrical work, plumbing, roofing, painting, landscaping, carpentry, masonry, are now being taken away by illegal aliens, and dragging the wages down. We have too many young American citizens graduating from high school with no job opportunities.
Perhaps they aren't entitled to human rights considerations in your not so humble opinion? Why are you indifferent to the very real poverty faced by American citizens? Do you profit from undermining American wages by hiring illegal alien labor?
Do you have any evidence or proof that farm workers account for only 2% of illegal immigrants in America?
Do you have any evidence that Americans can't find jobs in construction etc? I have at least anecdotal evidence of friends of mine making quite a bit of money at construction.
That's a myth designed to argue against deportation. The economy would only collapse if we allow things to go on as they have.
Prove the economy will collapse. I've given you clear reasons why I think the economy would suffer given this type of drastic governmental interference. Please do the same for me.
The "Chavez" I referred to, was the late labor leader Cesar Chavez. I was cooking dinner while posting the response and was distracted.
Illegal aliens (because they aren't truly immigrants) are a terrible thing. The way you describe their usefulness and function is as if they were simply here to do the jobs Americans are too stuck up to do. You know what? Fuck Americans. I am one, so I can say this. Why can't we do our own damn work? Sure, I don't plan to pick the cotton, but I know that some homeless folks in NYC, LA, Chicago, etc. could. Why do we need aliens when we can make the homeless do it? What's keeping them from doing it?
You say it would cost too much money to ship them away. Bull. We can divert the money that goes towards keeping them here and use it to ship em out. Amnisty doesn't work, won't work, never will work. All it does is say to these illegals is "It's ok to break the law." Breaking the law is wrong. Sure, I don't believe in the law, but I'm sure as hell gonna follow it so I don't end up in prison. There's another group of people to do the jobs Americans are too damn stuck up to do: People in prison. Start cultivating crops in large electrically fenced in areas and make the prisoners take care of them!
Basically, there is not one decent reason to keep them here. Ship them out.
Nicholas Aden
Self-Promotion
I agree 100%.
That's an interesting idea. I doubt that we have enough homeless folks willing to work farm labor. However, using the prison populations for farm work might work. However, we must consider whether we want to be transporting prisoners all over the country to work in open areas with our food supply. Remember, prisons tend to be concentrated in urban areas, and farms, obviously, in rural areas.
Consider, also, the fact that prisoners may be less motivated to do a good job. Immigrants are motivated by the need to earn money to feed themselves and their families. Prisoners would be motivated by what?
According to Wikipedia, 2.2 million Americans were imprisoned in 2006. Barring those who are in facilities, such as supermax prisons, who could not be released for farm work, and the sick or aged, who cannot work, I would estimate that we have about 1.9 million prisoners able to do work. Never mind the number of jobs filled by these immigrants now that would go unfilled (license plates and cleaning products, for instance, are manufactured by prisoners in NC), but the illegal migrant farm worker population is estimated (google it, I could find no definitive statistics) at about three million. Obviously, in order to meet that 1.1 million worker gap, we would need to let in many more immigrants or imprison a bunch more people.
You don't need to use the homeless and prisoners to pick crops. You attempt to divert us from the facts. Legal migrants have been coming to the US for seasonal work, and until people like you sought to undermine even their wages, earned a good living and their pay included benefits. You want farm workers to earn pennies and be subsidized by struggling tax payers.
Unfortunately for you, the American citizens are well aware of the fact. We need to implement what the late President Eisenhower did, go after employers and start a well organized, systematic round up. Back then, in a day, with 750 border patrol agents, the INS rounded up 50,000 illegal aliens, put them on a huge navy ship and sailed them 500 miles south into Mexico and let them off in a town. There was no catch and release, it was auto deportation. If they are deported they lose whatever they had gained, the multitude would willingly self deport in a week or two.
The person who said that our economy would collapse if we continued as things have been allowed to go was correct. History is full of similar examples of governments who sought to create slave nations among their people through the use of alien labor. Without exception those nations collapsed because those corrupt mindsets destroyed the true strength of the country, the citizen workforce.
BTW, anyone can edit the data on wikipedia. There is a reason colleges and universities do not allow wikipedia to be cited.. it's little more than a propaganda machine to be fed by those with a desire to promote revisionism.
Do you have any data on these legal migrants? If there really are enough, show me where they are.
History is full of similar examples of governments who sought to create slave nations among their people through the use of alien labor.
Slave nations? Illegal immigrants are, as we speak (err.. type?) bettering themselves. As their children learn English and learn to succeed, they will better themselves, just as the Irish, Germans, Polish, and all other immigrant groups did before them.
You only refuted my sarcastic idea to use the prison population. And who cares if the homeless aren't willing to do the work? Make them. We (as Americans) are always so concerned about the poor people yet all we ever do is give them money. Make them work.
There are a lot of stupid people in this nation; It's time we do our own damn work. Why do we need to be so stuck up? The homeless are every bit as capable as the aliens AND they can speak english.
There are ways to cultivate land in the cities. There're buildings in some countries where they farm the land indoors, and instead of acres, they use floors.
Nicholas Aden
Self-Promotion
I am sick of PC...truth reigns.
Sarcastic? Your idea regarding the prison population didn't seem sarcastic. It seemed like a decent idea, but unfortunately not feasible.
Using the homeless seems like an even worse idea. "Make them work" - This is America, not Nazi Germany. We reject the idea that "Arbeit Macht Frie" (Work makes you free - the slogan written over the gates to Auschwitz.)
Sure, cultivating land in the cities is a TERRIFIC idea. I'm not even kidding. However, shifting our food production into urban areas would require a massive restructuring of our economy, and I don't see why it would be necessary. People here seem to take it for granted that illegal immigrants are bad. No one has convinced me that they don't help our society.
Ok, so let's not make them work. Let the economy fall into recession! It's so fucked anyway because of our dependence on illegal work. They're nothing short of slaves for what they're being paid! We need to get rid of them. They can come back if they follow the law and get a work visa/ come back legally. I don't really care, I just want people who break the law to be shipped to their country of origin.
I think that if we give the homeless a distinct opportunity to work they'd take it. There are so many things wrong with this nation it may not work at first. We need the amendment that allows direct taxation repealed. We need the IRS to be dissolved. We need to get rid of welfare. We need a better way of doing things.
And work DOES make you free: look at the illegals you're inviting! You're giving them freedom here so long as they work...Now who's the Nazi?
Nicholas Aden
Self-Promotion
Well, my family had a few...stone me. But...Damn...lost my train of thought...OHHHH...Nic, lawbreakers need to be sent back to their country of origin, so for sex offenders and rapists HELL is the final destination. Let's kill them. I don't mind murderers or drug dealers, I know quite a few and they are outstanding people.
Nick.Nick.Nick.Nick.Nick.Nick.Nick.Nick.Nick.
Nick.Nick.Nick.Nick.Nick.Nick.Nick.Nick.Nick.
Nick.Nick.Nick.Nick.Nick.Nick.Nick.Nick.Nick.
Nick.Nick.Nick.Nick.Nick.Nick.Nick.Nick.Nick.
Nick.Nick.Nick.Nick.Nick.Nick.Nick.Nick.Nick.
Nick.Nick.Nick.Nick.Nick.Nick.Nick.Nick.Nick.
Nick.Nick.Nick.Nick.Nick.Nick.Nick.Nick.Nick.
Nick.Nick.Nick.Nick.Nick.Nick.Nick.Nick.Nick.
Nick.Nick.Nick.Nick.Nick.Nick.Nick.Nick.Nick.
Nick.Nick.Nick.Nick.Nick.Nick.Nick.Nick.Nick.
Nick.Nick.Nick.Nick.Nick.Nick.Nick.Nick.Nick.
Nick.Nick.Nick.Nick.Nick.Nick.Nick.Nick. There is a K. Nic is pronounced "Nice." Ahh...I'm picky about that.
No such thing as hell, but I'm all for killing sex offenders on the spot.
Nicholas Aden
Self-Promotion
and trying to read everything...AGH. I am bent on the sex offender thing...MAN. If our punishment met the crimes...we might not have so much crime...it's so easy. Public hangings, tar and feather...that shit got attention.
Ok good point. Work does make the illegal immigrants have a better life.
Homeless people, however, aren't homeless for lack of opportunity. Most homeless people, or at least the chronically homeless (the panhandler guy), suffer from sort of mental disorder that without proper treatment prevents them from functioning as productive members of society.
To repeat myself, to deport all the illegal immigrants, regardless of what happens afterwards would cost so much money. And for what benefit? To please our morals about following the laws?
is WAH WAH WAH- I don't know what the hell I'm talking about WAH WAH WAH...
Anyone else hear that obscene whining that makes no sense?
Keep it civil. I'm serious. We are not children and we will not stand on our soap box shouting "neener neener neener!"
Nicholas Aden
Self-Promotion
I didn't mean you, it's just frustrating when people are so bent on being right when they are being told things they obviously don't know. I will admit when I am wrong. This blog has brought some GREAT conversation, but it is getting out of hand. What's wrong is wrong...plain and simple. Sorry ya'all.
Right and Wrong are human constructs to describe and generalize about events and happenings.
Nicholas Aden
Self-Promotion
You make me laugh. Didn't you read the part that says: THE MEXICANS ARE GETTING ALL THE MONEY. Only the very little that's left, MIGHT go to people with children. Then there are those of us who the EMPLOYERS just don't think are GOOD enough to work for them, or just might question their crooked ways. You would just as soon as all of us lived under a bridge, wouldn't you??? OH yeah, it's ILLEGAL to sleep under a bridge. People have gotten thrown in jail for having to sleep in a park or a ditch somewhere. DO YOU THINK THAT'S FUNNY?
Huh? Was this directed at me?
Nicholas Aden
Self-Promotion
Nick, I'm pretty sure this was directed at me.
Zena, I realize you made the allegation that all welfare money is going to the Mexicans. That doesn't make it true. Please do your best to prove that, before you expect me to believe it.
And Zena, also, please keep it civil. I'm not going to call you names. No matter how much I disagree with you, since I believe in civil discourse, I will not call you stupid or yell at you. Enough with the passive-aggressive, caps-lock-crazy "DO YOU THINK THAT"S FUNNY"-type yelling, please.
But our economy is fucked if we follow your directions. And do you know how many prisoners would escape if we had them "till the land"? Dig a ditch and they're outta here. When you mentioned that I see prison guards with whips and dogs. The only bright part of that idea is that whites and blacks will be picking cotton, together, at last!
Notice, I said "electrified" fence. It can be deep in the ground and high above it...and then we attach some voltage to it...Ahh...barbecue prisoners. I can see the problem with giving prisoners tools, so I should suggest we only use those of "nonviolent" crimes, like tax fraud or insider trading. Shit, make Marth Stewart do it.
Our economy is already fucked. We need to get rid of the aliens. I'm all for immigration, fuck, we need immigrants. We don't need aliens. They can apply for a work visa for all I care, but follow the damn law.
Nicholas Aden
Self-Promotion
We don't have enough prisoners to do it. See my post above, we would have a deficit of at least a million workers.
Never mind the inhumanity of "barbecuing" prisoners...
There's nothing inhumane about allowing prisoners to jump at an electrified fence...It's actually quite funny.
And yes, I do laugh at dead baby jokes.
Nicholas Aden
Self-Promotion
I like it.
Oh, they're funny in the abstract.
"What's worse than a hundred dead babies in a trash can? One dead baby in a hundred trash cans." is plenty funny. However, if I were to actually encounter a series of trash cans contained portions of a deceased child, it wouldn't be funny. Likewise, the idea of people jumping through an electric fence is quite hilarious, but it's certainly not right to endorse that kind of cruelty.
Surely there would be warnings in Espanol and English so they would be at their own risk...DUH? Babies have no choice whether they are one hundred in one trash can...see abortion clinic...or one in a hundred...see prom night babies...Not funny...but it exists...Life sucks. Let's all go commit suicide...Cyanide laced punch anybody?
Jokes about dead babies, dead immigrants and dead prisoners are great. However, Nick's idea still won't work - we don't have enough prisoners.
Enough about the prisoners. I'll pick the damn oranges! We don't need illegals, we need immigrants.
And yes, I would find adults jumping into an electrified fence hilarious.
Nicholas Aden
Self-Promotion
Y'all...Come on...Insert-we appreciate your blog, as it created great conversation, but obviously no one agrees...Check your facts and try again. The rest of us feel passionately about our stances, as you feel passionately about yours, but illegal means that. Please stop making excuses for criminals. Those jobs get done, everybody knows it...I think that you are a sweet individual that cares about people, and that is a great quality but if the Mexicans focused on their economy and the state of their government they may be in better shape.
Americans have made Mexico a hopping tourist country...Maybe they could have an entrepreneur class and learn how to provide for themselves.
Just because everyone disagrees doesn't mean I'm wrong. I know plenty of people who do agree with me. (Including commenters on a site on which I cross-posted this same piece) Remember, Sir Isaac Newton was the only one who believed that the earth revolves around the sun, and he ended up being right.
As I've said before, just because something is illegal doesn't make it wrong. Is it wrong to smoke marijuana? Does it harm anyone, besides yourself? It doesn't, so is it wrong? Is it wrong to gamble, if everyone involved has consented? Who does it harm who doesn't know the risks? No one, so is it wrong? I feel that illegal immigrants, for the most part (drug smugglers, violent criminals excluded) have made the most logical, moral choice to feed their kids, and THAT is what matters.
I think that you are a sweet individual that cares about people
:)
I think, too, that Mexico should focus on developing its own economy. This has been done, to a point, in areas like Cancun. However, 99% of the country is still horribly poor. They need an influx of cash to invest in more efficient means of production, etc. Some of this comes from charities, but a huge portion comes from the earnings of Mexican immigrants, both legal and illegal, in the United States. If we let the current crop of illegal immigrants stay and work, they will better their home and will probably return, or become totally integrated into our society.
In other words, if we send a few million indigent Mexican workers back to Mexico, we'll hurt the Mexican economy even further, as there will be less cash inflow to invest and more mouths to feed. So unless we ship a few billion dollars worth of foreign aid along with them, we'll be simply shooting ourselves in the foot and setting ourselves up for another, larger, influx of migrants. Of course, that foreign aid must be "teaching them to fish" rather than giving them a few metaphorical "fish." I'm now accepting donations for that spare billion or spare manufacturing equipment you've got sitting around.
Because morally I think it is right? Nope...murder is still against the law. And it does hurt us that they are here...We pay taxes for PRIVELEDGES that they have NOT earned nor do they deserve them, yet the ILLEGALS take ADVANTAGE of MY tax money that funds the programs they use, and do NOT contribute to. On this one, I ensure you are wrong...
"Y'all...Come on...Insert-we appreciate your blog, as it created great conversation, but obviously no one agrees..."
So that means stop talking, insert. lmao, keep up the good fight!!!!