Immigration Debate

The governement thus far has shown nearly zero interest in enforcing immigration law as it exists;why do you think they would start now?

The wall might be extreme but the continued influx of people who have ZERO interest in assimilating in a manner similar to the two waves of immigration in the late 19th/early 20th century may lead to a Balkanization that would be terrible for the United States. Evidence for this already exists in Georgia, and the southwest.

There is NO financial advantage to the United States in having tens of millions of low skilled immigrants suddenly legalized.

Ten questions I copied from a radio host's website. Good questions indeed.


1. There's a backlog of up to 6 million status change applications at ICE. ICE cannot locate 636,000 absconders whose cases have been adjudicated and who are supposed to be deported. GAO after GAO report has found that the ICE and Department of Homeland Security are bureaucratic disasters. So the question is, how will these bureaucrats handle tens of millions of more cases?

2. The bill provides that these bureaucrats will have only one business day to conduct security checks for each applicant. The federal government is incapable of conducting millions of security checks in such a time frame. So, how will these security checks be accomplished in one business day?

3. After the one business day, the bill provides that the government SHALL confer a probationary legal status on the illegal alien. If that's not amnesty, then how do you define amnesty?

4. If an illegal alien "renounces" his gang status, that's sufficient for receiving probationary legal status. How will you make sure that such a person is not, in fact, a gang member before conferring legal rights on him?

5. The bill allows for chain migration for EIGHT YEARS before a point system kicks in. You ask what we're supposed to do with the up to 20 million illegal aliens who are already in the country, and yet you provide for 50 to 80 million more aliens to enter. So, you're really talking about legalizing tens of millions of new aliens, including aliens who aren't even in the country yet. What is you public policy justification for this?

6. How can you deny that legalizing and importing tens of millions of mostly poor and illiterate aliens from the Third World won't be an economic catastrophy for the Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, Food Stamps and other entitlement programs? Even Milton Friedman said he would favor open borders but for the fact that to do so would be to massively expand the size of the federal government.

7. How can you deny that legalizing and importing tens of millions of mostly poor and illiterate aliens from the Third World won't drive more hospitals out of business and place enormous financial burdens on our school systems?

8. Why should American citizens believe you are serious about border security when the bill does NOT require more beds for temporary detention, more prison beds, or more fencing. In fact, CURRENT LAW requires more detention and prison space and more fencing than this bill provides.

9. The bill provides for a very low threshold when it comes to the kinds of documents you need to claim amnesty -- such as records from day labor centers, labor unions, "sworn declarations" from any non-relative (a co-worker or friend will do). How can the bureaucracy possibly determine the integrity of any of these documents?

10. The bill provides for free legal counsel paid for by the taxpayers of this country. Isn't this a boondoggle for the trial lawyers and doesn't this open the entire process to activist judges?

Can you elaborate on the Balkanization effect?

This is why I posted on Sowal - this is a debacle!

I veto free legal counsel (are you FREAKING kidding me), the gang provision, and the one day to investigate!

Good gravy, you can't get a passport renewed in less than 3 months, but you can become a legal citizen after 1 day!

Pre 9/11 a friend was a summer intern for the FBI and it took months for her to get security clearance - as a natural born american and daughter of a colonel! It took a day just for them to send out a field agent from the nearest office, interview me as a character reference, return to the office and type up a report!

Can you elaborate on the Balkanization effect?

Sure. We currently have a huge number of illegals that do not view themselves as Americans although they live and work in the US. They are more than happy to live in closed communities, make no attempt to assimilate, make no attempt to learn English, demand their kids be taught in Spanish (in our schools:bang: ) so as to ensure continued linguistic isolation, etc, etc. Government sanctioning and intensification of this phenomenon can only lead to trouble down the road.

This is why I posted on Sowal - this is a debacle!

I veto free legal counsel (are you FREAKING kidding me), the gang provision, and the one day to investigate!

Good gravy, you can't get a passport renewed in less than 3 months, but you can become a legal citizen after 1 day!

Pre 9/11 a friend was a summer intern for the FBI and it took months for her to get security clearance - as a natural born american and daughter of a colonel! It took a day just for them to send out a field agent from the nearest office, interview me as a character reference, return to the office and type up a report!

Exactly. This is an awful piece of legislation that the Senate and President are all too willing to plunge head over heels to pass. The only groups I can tell want this thing passed are political prostitutes who think they will enjoy the fruits of more voters and big industry who do not want an uninterrupted flow of semi-slave labor. Opposition comes from camps as diverse as the AFL/CIO and conservative political groups. If there was ever a time to contact your elected officials and let them know what is on your mind, this is it. As a citizen of Florida in about 90 hours, believe me, I noted how Mel Martinez voted on cloture yesterday and he will have a little bit of political hell to pay the next election cycle.

It's going to be the world's most expensive border fence. I keep thinking the Great Wall didn't work for China either. Maybe we could promise Mexico all our remaining factories. After all, Mexicans working at home assembling cars we buy make on average 3.00-3.50 an hour. What a deal for Ford, GM et al. My question is, what is there to debate about? Our southern border isn't really a border.

I see the NRA (National Restaurant Association) is unsurprisingly pushing for amnesty for illegal aliens.

A simple thought on this whole thing is that if we tell people it is wrong to do something, then reward them for doing the wrong thing, we are sending the wrong message. As a way to advance as a society, you reward people for doing the right thing, not the wrong thing. A CFD 101 (child family development) class or dog obedience class will easily help you understand that you reinforce the behaviour you want repeated by giving reward or taking away punishment. Creating amnesty for people who are here illegally, is rewarding behaviour that is stripping what America is supposed to be about. I know people who have been fighting for their Green Card for many years, and now we are going to allow the people who broke the rules, to be first in line for Citizenship??? :idontno: The answer is maybe to simplistic for politicians.

I did hear some comments that we should move all bomb testing to the Mexican border and if a Mexican makes it across, they get to stay. If I were Mexican, I would be running for the USA, too. Good pay (compared to Mexico), free health care at Emergency Rooms, and no punishment for wrong doings.

Exactly. This is an awful piece of legislation that the Senate and President are all too willing to plunge head over heels to pass. The only groups I can tell want this thing passed are political prostitutes who think they will enjoy the fruits of more voters and big industry who do not want an uninterrupted flow of semi-slave labor. Opposition comes from camps as diverse as the AFL/CIO and conservative political groups. If there was ever a time to contact your elected officials and let them know what is on your mind, this is it. As a citizen of Florida in about 90 hours, believe me, I noted how Mel Martinez voted on cloture yesterday and he will have a little bit of political hell to pay the next election cycle.

Mel Martinez is a hack, lightweight from O'town who will be moved out to slot Jeb Bush as senator for Florida. He can handle the job of Republican Chair in the same way Howard Dean was set aside.

I did hear some comments that we should move all bomb testing to the Mexican border and if a Mexican makes it across, they get to stay. If I were Mexican, I would be running for the USA, too. Good pay (compared to Mexico), free health care at Emergency Rooms, and no punishment for wrong doings.

There's a George Carlin email circulating. The gist is that instead of deporting illegals we send them to Iraq and have them serve in the army for 2 years (paying taxes on their pay) and then at the end of their term they get to be a citizen.

Because forced military service and an additional language barrier would really improve the current cluster!

We have got to get serious about securing our borders. I do not know if it is possible to accomplish with a fence, border patrol, drones, cameras, infrared security beams, motion detectors, etc....probably has to be a combination of all these things. The fact is that our government has NO CLUE who is coming and going across our borders daily. I am not worried about 'Mexicans' coming to pick lettuce or wash dishes as they are most likely to assail our wallets...I am worried about some truly evil souls making their way into the US with a backpack full of bomb components or other dreadful weapons.

I don't believe for one minute we can't secure our borders. Have you ever seen a TV show about Area 51 in the Nevada desert? If people even sniff the boundary to try to get a glimpse of the activity there, they are met by a Hummer full of heavily armed men who do not smile. There is no visible fence, strictly motion detectors and infrared 'tripwires'.

Time to research buying stock in commercial fence companies.

Here's who voted yea/nay to invoke cloture.

Am I the only one who sees Bush's strong push again for this now as a smokescreen for the lagging support in Iraq? :idontno: Is he looking for an American Revolution? :blink: Does anyone really think that just because this isn't an election year that we will forget how and who voted?

And then how far can this really go? The Senate still has to read over 300 pages of Amendments and vote again tomorrow. Those who voted yea will most likely vote nay if there amendment doesn't get approved.
The phone lines must be smoking in the Senate offices right now.

This should have been broken into 2 separate bills, Border security and immigration.

They are all nutz. They should be focusing on the issues at hand in Iraq and security right now.

We have got to get serious about securing our borders. I do not know if it is possible to accomplish with a fence, border patrol, drones, cameras, infrared security beams, motion detectors, etc....probably has to be a combination of all these things. The fact is that our government has NO CLUE who is coming and going across our borders daily. I am not worried about 'Mexicans' coming to pick lettuce or wash dishes as they are most likely to assail our wallets...I am worried about some truly evil souls making their way into the US with a backpack full of bomb components or other dreadful weapons.

I don't believe for one minute we can't secure our borders. Have you ever seen a TV show about Area 51 in the Nevada desert? If people even sniff the boundary to try to get a glimpse of the activity there, they are met by a Hummer full of heavily armed men who do not smile. There is no visible fence, strictly motion detectors and infrared 'tripwires'.

Tom Clancy wrote a book with that terror plot! I can't remember the title, but they paid coyotes to sneak them across, then rented cars and drove to their various destinations. Instead of bombs, they decided the most effective way to freak out Americans was to attack suburban malls w/ guns.

We have got to get serious about securing our borders. I do not know if it is possible to accomplish with a fence, border patrol, drones, cameras, infrared security beams, motion detectors, etc....probably has to be a combination of all these things. The fact is that our government has NO CLUE who is coming and going across our borders daily. I am not worried about 'Mexicans' coming to pick lettuce or wash dishes as they are most likely to assail our wallets...I am worried about some truly evil souls making their way into the US with a backpack full of bomb components or other dreadful weapons.

I don't believe for one minute we can't secure our borders. Have you ever seen a TV show about Area 51 in the Nevada desert? If people even sniff the boundary to try to get a glimpse of the activity there, they are met by a Hummer full of heavily armed men who do not smile. There is no visible fence, strictly motion detectors and infrared 'tripwires'.

I am not as concerned about a backpacker, as I am about securing our ports. Our port security is seriously lacking. They are a time bomb waiting to happen.

I think the Clancy book to which you refer is Rainbow Six, and they do some mall shooting, but it is not the entire plot, only a method to see how the US Gov't reacts to the situation, so they can carry out an even bigger plot.

Sure. We currently have a huge number of illegals that do not view themselves as Americans although they live and work in the US. They are more than happy to live in closed communities, make no attempt to assimilate, make no attempt to learn English, demand their kids be taught in Spanish (in our schools:bang: ) so as to ensure continued linguistic isolation, etc, etc. Government sanctioning and intensification of this phenomenon can only lead to trouble down the road.

One of my pet peeves is people who go to foreign countries and expect them to speak THEIR language. Usually this is an american tourist issue. I can understand preserving your cultural heritage, but you have to adapt to your surroundings (which is why before I lived in Europe, I became coversantly fluent in spanish & italian, and picked up a smattering of french, german, and greek for traveling). Darwinism people!

I think the Clancy book to which you refer is Rainbow Six, and they do some mall shooting, but it is not the entire plot, only a method to see how the US Gov't reacts to the situation, so they can carry out an even bigger plot.

Yeah, I think the border smuggling was a "pre-plot". I think it's the book after R6 - "Teeth of the Tiger". I get them confused.

"Rainbow six" plot was mainly european - they set up the military anti-terror squad in Great Britain (because their media laws were better) and ended up having a major op in some european theme park that terrorists targeted because a large military contracting firm was having a family day there so the hostages would be of more importance to the gov't.

I am not as concerned about a backpacker, as I am about securing our ports. Our port security is seriously lacking. They are a time bomb waiting to happen.

True dat. I often think about the potential that exists for catastrophe as I watch freighters flying every flag imaginable, stacked to the rafters with cargo boxes cruising up the Mississippi day and night.

Without reading this whole thing, is everyone taking the talk radio side of this? The winners are the ovarian lottery are the only ones who deserve to live in a shining city on a hill, and those damn Mexicans, Irishmen, and Italians can fend for themselves?

Without reading this whole thing, is everyone taking the talk radio side of this? The winners are the ovarian lottery are the only ones who deserve to live in a shining city on a hill, and those damn Mexicans, Irishmen, and Italians can fend for themselves?

Please read the whole thing! And the "world is flat" thread....

Skunkape posted what he thought were good questions in response to my request for info/opinions on the issue.

Your last sentence doesn't even make sense.

Please read the whole thing! And the "world is flat" thread....

Skunkape posted what he thought were good questions in response to my request for info/opinions on the issue.

Your last sentence doesn't even make sense.

Why would I read the world is flat thread? As for the last sentence, the assimilation/crime/language thread was made with the Italians and the Irish, now it's made with the Mexicans. The fence and security issue is a racist non-starter as long as the Canadian border is wide open. The port topic really has nothing to do with this, so I'm not sure why that's been brought up.

During the 1990s, an average of more than 1.3 million immigrants ? legal and illegal ? settled in the United States each year. Between January 2000 and March 2002, 3.3 million additional immigrants have arrived. In less than 50 years, the U.S. Census Bureau projects that immigration will cause the population of the United States to increase from its present 288 million to more than 400 million.
The foreign-born population of the United States is currently 33.1 million, equal to 11.5 percent of the U.S. population. Of this total, the Census Bureau estimates 8-9 million are illegal immigrants. Other estimates indicate a considerably higher number of illegal immigrants.
Approximately 1 million people receive permanent residency annually. In addition, the Census Bureau estimates a net increase of 500,000 illegal immigrants annually.
The present level of immigration is significantly higher than the average historical level of immigration. This flow may be attributed, in part, to the extraordinary broadening of U.S. immigration policy in 1965. Since 1970, more than 30 million legal and illegal immigrants have settled in the U.S., representing more than one-third of all people ever to come to America's shores.
At the peak of the Great Wave of immigration in 1910, the number of immigrants living in the U.S. was less than half of what it is today, though the percentage of the population was slightly higher. The annual arrival of 1.5 million legal and illegal immigrants, coupled with 750,000 annual births to immigrant women, is the determinate factor? or three-fourths? of all U.S. population growth.

The [ame="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pew_Hispanic_Center"]Pew Hispanic Center[/ame] state that 57% of illegal aliens are of [ame="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mexican"]Mexican[/ame] origin and about 24% are of non-Mexican Latin American origin. They also report that while the number of legal immigrants (including LPRs, refugees, and asylees) arriving has not varied substantially since the 1980s, the number of illegal aliens has increased dramatically and, since the mid 1990s, has surpassed the number of legal immigrants.