Wednesday, October 19, 2005
Immigration Reform
I oppose the president on countless issues, but I support his push for temporary guest workers. Thousands of Mexicans sneak into our country each year, and a large percentage of this could be eliminated if we provided a way for them to enter legally. This would make it easier to patrol our borders, and it would be more likely that border patrol agents could focus on drugs and terrorism. Let's face it, the Mexicans won't be taking away American jobs because they are already doing them. This way we will at least be able to monitor that activity. By separating those seeking work from the smugglers, we would also be reducing other crime. The business of illegally transporting people into our country would be significantly reduced. We would destroy the black market for labor, and could find ways to better manage the workers that are here.
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16 comments:
I only support a guest worker program after...
Locking down the boarder.
Rounding up all the Illeagals and shipping them back.
Then a guest worker program would be ok in my book. I do not support amensty. One it punishes all the people for following the rules. If you don't make it worthwhile for people to follow the rules then no one ever will. Two, it makes light of the current law by making the past laws unimportant, which will make no one follow the current rules.
Putting in a guest worker program has great advantages, but only if people actually use the program.
"Locking down the boarder."
Probably isn't possible and would cost more than the costs of having those immigrants here.
"Rounding up all the Illeagals and shipping them back."
Definately isn't possible. Even if it was politically feasible, you simply are not going to be capable of rounding up and 'shipping back' 10 million people. Isn't going to happen.
The only possible place to really enforce current law is get far more serious on businesses and individuals who employ illegal aliens.
I point the the minute men as an example of locking down the border.
Can't round up 10 million people. That is a load of crap. These people don't speak english, are normally a different color than the regualar americans, tend to travel in large groups.
If we can put up road blocks to catch drunks, i don't see why we can't do the same for catching illeagal aliens. I have not lost my rights so that politicans tell me things cannot be done.
Secondly, most illegal aliens are at work 10 to 12 hours a day. Pretty easy to catch when you know where they are.
Thridly, all you have to do is enforce the law at all levels, state, local, and federal and you would start catching as many that actually come in every day. Right now many states don't enforce the federal immrgration laws and if that does not change you are never going to solve the problem. I heard of local cops not even borthering to apperhend somone they know is in american illeagally.
One of the main reasons i am for a guest worker program, is because it will actually make it easier for the workers to get back home to their families, which makes them happier in the long run, and more productive.
You are right. We could find every Mexican in America and determine if they are in the country legally. We can also put chips in every American and arrest everyone that doesn't have one as the walk through large screening hallways. But both ideas are so expensive and drastic as to be impractical. Also, one reason that we haven't cracked down harder on illegals is that actually provide an important service by performing low cost labor on a large scale. The operating costs for a variety of industries would skyrocket if they were forced to hire US citizens and pay them minimum wage, and pay taxes on them.
I think it would be good if they could somehow target the ones already here first. Get them inroled and then move onto the ones that come after. Imigration laws are a joke in Houston. It is too much of a hassle to send them back.
So basically what I am hearing.
We can enforce the laws because A) it will hurt buniesses b) it is too hard to do it
I am looking at it from the Point of view if i were an Illegal.
What incentive (or disincentive) do I have to follow the law. Presently, they have none. Laws are not being enforced, they if they turn theirselves in they only get kicked out. They can't even begin to get into the system because the INS system is overloaded.
Giving the Amensty does not give them (or future illeagals) incentive to follow the law.
I am also looking at it from the Corpations point of view. They will follow the law only if they lose money, if they can make money breaking the law hey will.
But the standard liberal line of cracking down on the corparations is weak in this case.
1) because the corparations are only using the market inequality that exits because the goverment is NOT doing it's job.
2) If the corparations fire all those workers, you have how many unemployed workers (2 million, 5 million, 7 million unemployed mexicans living in america.) Those people are not going to go back home, because there is nothing there. I think our crime rate would go up if you started cracking down on the corparations with out any other solution.
Giving Amesty once is only going to make the immagration problem worse over time because it will furhter destory the respect for our laws. If thier is no incentive (or disincentive) to following the law, no one will.
The only option i see is locking down the border, then sending all illeagals back home.
If you want a guest worker program that only requires the workers to file out 5 mins worth of paper work at the border to be leagal after that, I am fine with that.
A guest worker program is only going to be successful if it offers benifts (of some kind), such as not being arrested and such as being able to get medicalal care. Under our present system, a guest worker program will be a failure.
We are talking about 10 million people. Rounding them up and shipping them somewhere would be an impossibility. It isn't going to happen. Any plan that depends on that happening is wishful thinking, not reality.
Many of these illegals have kids who are American citizens. What do we do with them? Deport the kids too? That would be illegal. Put them in foster care? Force families to split up? Deporting the illegal Aliens would end up being a horror, we would essencially have to establish concentration camps for millions of people as we processed them.
Yes, we do need incentives to make guest worker registration desirable. The best is cracking down on those who hire undocumented workers so that people will need to get documented.
"Yes, we do need incentives to make guest worker registration desirable. The best is cracking down on those who hire undocumented workers so that people will need to get documented."
That is not going to work. You cannot attack this problem just from the corparation side, though it is part of the soultion.
As to rounding up all 10 million. Starting with closeing off the border, then start rounding the up one by one. You would then deport them. Once the are deported they can come though the guest worker program to find work in america.
All these things must be done at once.
Cracking down on the corparations.
Rounding the illeagals up.
Closing off the border
Starting a guest worker program.
One of thoes things will not work alone. This problem is going to require more than one simple fix.
As to locking all of them up.
Heck we could put them to work rebuilding the gulf coast (leagally).
As to seperating the families - though luck, you break the law and you pay. I am all for letting them come forward so we don't have to hunt them down like criminals (which they are by law).
How do you propose to "lock down the border"? We can't even prevent Chinese illegals from coming over in boats that have to arrive in specific harbors. How are you going to control our lengthy border with Mexico? A giant fortified wall? As for incentive, I think that Mexicans would prefer to come into the country legally if that were an option. The conditions by which many of them enter the country are dangerous. I think if they could file for a visa and come over by themselves they would choose that option. Additionally, by entering legally they would be protected by our laws rather than living as fugitives, submitting to the pressures of the traffikers that brought them here.
The Census Bureau estimates the number of "undocumented immigrants" in the US between 10 and 12 million. Other sources report numbers up to 15-20 million. But if you want to find them all and send them back Cube, here you go, http://www.reportillegals.com/
You can start today.
locking down the border....automated machine guns.
Kill anything that comes across. (or just shoot it with bean bags, rubber bullets, knockout gas, or stun guns would be better methods
if the goverment gave rewards for catching illeagals (like it does bounter hunters) you would have them rounded up in days.
Also, the reward would not have to be much. young mexicans could make a fortune turing over their friends and then walking across the border and turning over the person who turned them over. Or you could turn yourself over.
As for the machine guns at our borders, are you aware that some animals migrate between Mexico and the US? And I am not sure about the exact figure on an automated machine gun, but an automated turret for the M249 SAW costs $17,500. Then you also need money for the gun. And then also some system to detect and fire upon targets. So let's say at least $50,000 per station. Maximum effective range for a point target is 800m. The border is around 2000 mi (3218 km). So around 4000 stations at 50k each is around $200 million. Plus ammo, installation, and maintenance. Then with the tip hotline, say the government spends only one million to promote it, and then pays out a measely $5k for each tip. 12 million immigrants will cost $60 billion. Plus staff, plus transportation costs, plus court costs if anyone fights the charges. Are you starting to understand why these are bad ideas?
You don't have to go into the cost of gunning down Mexicans at the border to figure out if it is doable or not, you can stop with if the American people would support gunning down Mexicans at the border or not.
We won't. End of discussion on that.
We won't round up 10 million people and put them in concentration camps, process them, and ship them across the border either. It will not happen.
Anyone whose plans for dealing with immigration and border control involve that sort of thing doesn't really have anything to contribute to the discussion. Talking about how the forces of Middle Earth should deal with Orc immigration to Gondor is just as relevant.
" Are you starting to understand why these are bad ideas?"
Hmmm Let me put this in perspective. How much did it cost to build the leeves in New Olreans. It cost a lot of money right. How much damage was done because the levees were not buildt. Many times the orginal cost of the levees.
I view our border along those lines. It may be expesnive, but in the end it the protection is going to be worth it.
Here are some numbers for you. Total tax recipts for the year 2004.
1,345,326,000,000
http://www.taxpolicycenter.org/TaxFacts/TFDB/TFTemplate.cfm?Docid=203
Total cost of eveything you mentioned. 60,200,000,000 - a mere 5 percent of the total tax recpiets. America could easily afford it if we wanted to.
"You don't have to go into the cost of gunning down Mexicans at the border to figure out if it is doable or not, you can stop with if the American people would support gunning down Mexicans at the border or not.
We won't. End of discussion on that."
I hope that it never comes to that. But Americans would easily support doing somthing like that if a suitcase nuke when off in a major city, pandemic sitiuation, or some other disaster that forces us to close our borders.
That is why it is so important that we find a way to lock the borders down now, before any of those things happen.
"We won't round up 10 million people and put them in concentration camps, process them, and ship them across the border either. It will not happen."
We don't have to pick up all of them, just enough to convice them that they need to register with our guest worker program, it would probably only take rounding up 1 million people, while stopping the influx.
But it would happen in a second if any of the major disasters i menitioned happen
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