US Immigration Policy Debate

[Swiss Miss]

Yesterday many immigrants started protesting around the US about the new immigration policy that was put in place "that would make it a felony to be in this country illegally and would make it crime to dispense aid to the nation's 11 million illegal immigrants."

What do you guys think about this policy?

My opinion is that these people are already here, and imposing the new law kind of traps these people and makes them instant felons! I think it's pretty harsh for us to do this. This country has always been a melting pot for immigrants from all over the world for many decades... Sure there are some that may take advantage of "the system" but I think we should be focusing on fixing the loopholes rather than imposing such a strict immigration policy. To the people that may argue that these immigrants do nothing but take over our jobs, consider this: they are mostly jobs that Americans don't want to do anyway and I think that it is actually better to do this than outsource the jobs to another country since the profits of the employment will remain in the US economy... think about it.

There is also legislation that penalizes employers that hire illegal immigrants...

Just to paint a picture of my perspective: one of my good friends is 24, she's a graduate from UCLA with a 3.9 GPA and came in this country at the age of 17 and has been unable to get her citizenship in the US... Because of this, she has had a really tough time finding a job after graduation... whereas my lazy *** with a barely 3.0 GPA has really no problems... this is the kind of situation I see that makes me feel that these policies are a bit too harsh and really penalize people unjustly.

What do you think?

Source: http://www.cnn.com/2006/POLITICS/03/....ap/index.html

[Martin]

I think its just our government using an excuse to combat Terrorism. As long as they include the word "Terrorism" in their new laws and such...They usually get their way.

If 9/11 never happened, would this debate be going on today?

Maybe next were going to ban cigarettes....saying that these purchases finance terrorists..

[Free-range Toilet Roll]

Originally Posted by Martin

Maybe next were going to ban cigarettes....saying that these purchases finance terrorists..

You've obviously never been to northern ireland then...

On the immigrant thing... well you can yap about how costly the war on terror is but it's financial drain on the US pales in comparison to the amount of money doled out to people who show up and then decide not to work... I think that if an immigrant goes for a job they should get it over an identical applicant of US-origin simply to keep them in the country, but if they don't look for a job they need thrown out on ther arses

Looks like we could save money by deporting illegal aliens...

14 Reasons to Deport Illegal Aliens
June 23, 2007

1. $11 Billion to $22 billion is spent on welfare to illegal aliens each year. FAIR: : Immigration and Welfare

2. $2.2 Billion dollars a year is spent on food assistance programs such as food stamps, WIC, and free school lunches for illegal aliens.
http://www.cis.org/articles/2004/fiscalexec.html

3. $2.5 Billion dollars a year is spent on Medicaid for illegal aliens.
http://www.cis.org/articles/2004/fiscalexec.html

4. $12 Billion dollars a year is spent on primary and secondary school education for children here illegally and they cannot speak a word of English! CNN.com - Transcripts

5. $17 Billion dollars a year is spent for education for the American-born children of illegal aliens, known as anchor babies.
CNN.com - Transcripts

6. $3 Million Dollars a DAY is spent to incarcerate illegal aliens.
CNN.com - Transcripts

7. 30% percent of all Federal Prison inmates are illegal aliens.
CNN.com - Transcripts

8. $90 Billion Dollars a year is spent on illegal aliens for Welfare & social services by the American taxpayers.
CNN.com - Transcripts

9. $200 Billion Dollars a year in suppressed American wages are caused by the illegal aliens.
CNN.com - Transcripts

10. The illegal aliens in the United States have a crime rate that's two and a half times that of white non-illegal aliens. In particular, their children, are going to make a huge additional crime problem in the United States. CNN.com - Transcripts

11. During the year of 2005 there were 4 to 10 MILLION illegal aliens that crossed our Southern Border also, as many as 19,500 illegal aliens from Terrorist Countries. Millions of pounds of drugs, cocaine, meth, heroine and marijuana, crossed into the U. S. from the Southern border. Homeland Security Report: http://tinyurl.com/t9sht

12. The National Policy Institute, "estimated that the total cost of mass deportation would be between $206 and $230 billion or an average cost of between $41 and $46 billion annually over a five year period."
http://www.nationalpolicyinstitute.o...eportation.pdf

13. In 2006 illegal aliens sent home $45 BILLION in remittances back to their countries of origin. Wooldridge - How Much Further Into This Nightmare?

14. "The Dark Side of Illegal Immigration: Nearly One Million Sex Crimes Committed by Illegal Immigrants In The United States".
http://www.drdsk.com/articleshtml

So, using the LOWEST estimates, the annual cost OF ILLEGAL ALIENS to the American taxpayer is $338.3 BILLION DOLLARS A YEAR! So if deporting them costs between $206 and $230 BILLION DOLLARS, Hey get rid of em', We'll be ahead in the 1st year!!! Heck, We could even put the $100+ billion savings each year into Social Security and bail out the system!!

... and 15th reason to deport all illegal aliens is 48,000 Americans killed by illegals since 9-11-01 and 14,600 women/children raped and molested.
traitors

See also:

Another good idea shot down...

Plan to Send Immigrants Home Defeated
Jun 27, 2007 - Senate Kills Bids to Make Legalization More Difficult for Unlawful Immigrants

The Senate on Wednesday killed a Republican proposal to require all adult illegal immigrants to return home temporarily in order to qualify for permanent lawful status in this country. Also defeated was a Democratic bid to restrict legal status to those who have been in the United States for four years.

The vote was 53-45 to table an amendment by Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison, R-Texas, to require that illegal immigrants go home within two years in order to qualify for a renewable Z visa to live and work lawfully in the United States. The bill, which could grant lawful status to as many as 12 million illegal immigrants, requires only heads of household seeking permanent legal residency to return home to apply for green cards.

Senators also voted 79-18 to kill a proposal by Democratic Sen. Jim Webb, D-Va., that would have allowed only those who had been in the country for at least four years to gain lawful status. The bill would make anyone here by Jan. 1, 2007 eligible for legalization. Both amendments were designed to respond to conservatives who decry President Bush's immigration bill as a form of amnesty.

More ABC News: Plan to Send Immigrants Home Is Defeated

Granny says, "Tough cookies"...

Senate Blocks Immigration Bill
June 28,2007 - The Senate drove a stake Thursday through President Bush's plan to legalize millions of unlawful immigrants, likely postponing major action on immigration until after the 2008 elections.

The bill's supporters fell 14 votes short of the 60 needed to limit debate and clear the way for final passage of the legislation, which critics assailed as offering amnesty to illegal immigrants. The vote was 46 to 53 in favor of limiting the debate. Senators in both parties said the issue is so volatile that Congress is highly unlikely to revisit it this fall or next year, when the presidential election will increasingly dominate American politics.

A similar effort collapsed in the Congress last year, and the House has not bothered with an immigration bill this year, awaiting Senate action. The vote was a stinging setback for Bush, who advocated the bill as an imperfect but necessary fix of current immigration practices in which many illegal immigrants use forged documents or lapsed visas to live and work in the United States.

It was a victory for Republican conservatives who strongly criticized the bill's provisions that would have established pathways to lawful status for many of the estimated 12 million illegal immigrants. They were aided by talk radio and TV hosts who repeatedly attacked the bill and urged listeners to flood Congress with calls, faxes and e-mails. The bill would have toughened border security and instituted a new system for weeding out illegal immigrants from workplaces. It would have created a new guest worker program and allowed millions of illegal immigrants to obtain legal status if they briefly returned home.

MORE

Mexicans tunneling across the border...

Feds Find Hidden Tunnel on Mexican Border
June 29,2007 - Agents Sealed Off the Route; Don't Believe Smugglers Had Chance to Use It

A small house on the Arizona border was hiding a big secret: the entry to a tunnel to Mexico. The nearly 100-yard-long tunnel was discovered by agents from the Drug Enforcement Administration and Immigration and Customs Enforcement when they searched the home late Thursday afternoon. U.S. Customs and Border Protection and Border Patrol assisted in the investigation, which began in April when agents put the residence under observation.

The search team found the tunnel's 3-foot by 3-foot entrance hidden underneath sheets of plywood in a utility room. They don't believe the passageway, which was rigged with a lighting system, had become a smuggling route yet. "Quick action by law enforcement ensured that this tunnel wouldn't be used," said Alonzo Peña, special agent in charge of ICE's Arizona investigations branch.

The Nogales, Ariz., house was largely empty when agents entered -- except for tools that appear to have been used in the excavation. Picks, a jack hammer and various other items were strewn across the floor, the DEA noted. In a parallel investigation, Mexico's Sonoran State Police searched a home across the border in the Mexican town also called Nogales; the home obscured the tunnel's other portal. Mexican law enforcement arrested five suspects at that house.

More ABC News: Feds Find Hidden Tunnel on Mexican Border

Disclaimer: The following post may contain puddin'-headed lefty liberal comments...

Illegal immigrants face growing backlash across US
Sunday 1st July, 2007 Bustling around his tiny Mexican restaurant, Jesus Hernandez briefly pauses during his 10-hour workday to complain about Americans who say illegal immigrants steal US jobs.

'I think Americans don't want to do those jobs,' says the 29-year-old, who opened his business this year. 'Mexicans work harder here than in Mexico. You can't take a siesta when you're in America.' Few would dispute that. Yet Latin American immigrants face an increasingly chilly mood across the United States - even in states like New Hampshire, 3,000 km north of the Mexican border.

Some Republican presidential candidates have turned the nation's 11-12 million illegal immigrants into their signature campaign issue for 2008, supported by conservative talk show and television hosts. A private group best known for patrolling the Mexican border, the Minuteman Civil Defence Corps, is expanding northward. It set up a state chapter in New Hampshire last year to recruit self-appointed guards for the rural border with Canada.

Equally frustrated by what they see as the federal government's inaction, a number of state and local authorities have passed laws and rules designed to get rid of illegal immigrants. How to deal with illegal aliens has bedevilled US politicians at least since the 1980s. After President George W Bush this week failed to win over Republican lawmakers for a plan to legalise all migrants, some activists worry about the emotions whipped up by the debate.

More Illegal immigrants face growing backlash across US

So... like, was the minimum wage raised too?...

While Nation Debated Immigration, House Gave Itself a Raise
July 03, 2007 - As last week's battle over immigration reform focused the country's attention on the Senate, the members of the House of Representatives were also busy -- voting themselves a pay increase of $4,400.

Last Wednesday night, just hours before the Senate voted to kill a controversial comprehensive immigration reform bill, the House voted 244-181 to kill a measure that would have prevented a cost-of-living adjustment (COLA) of 2.7 percent from going into effect when the new fiscal year starts on Oct. 1.

Democrats voted 145 to 83 in favor of allowing the COLA pay increases to go into effect. Republicans were virtually split, 99 to 98, in favor of the increases. The timing of the House and Senate votes wasn't a coincidence, said Pete Sapp, vice president for communications of the National Taxpayers Union, on Monday. It also wasn't "the taxpayer's idea of bipartisan cooperation," he added.

=snip=

"So far in this decade, Congress's average inflation-adjusted pay level has hovered close to a postwar record," he stated. "When combined with a generous pension package and other perks, members are already compensated at an amount more than twice as high as median-income households in the Washington metropolitan area's affluent suburbs."

FULL

[waltky]

Sendin' `em back to where they came from...

US deportation of illegal immigrants to hit record level
12 August 2007: US authorities are stepping up efforts to return illegal immigrants to their home countries under "Operation Return to Sender" and 2007 looks set to be a record year for deportations.

Critics said the government is shifting away from only pursuing illegal aliens with criminal records to arresting all undocumented migrants regardless of background.

=snip=

The US Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency (ICE) said in a statement to VOA that it only deports individuals who are in violation of their immigration status or were ordered to be deported by a judge. ICE said it is simply enforcing laws as expeditiously and with as much dignity as possible. It denied there has been a change of emphasis towards deporting illegal immigrants regardless of their criminal history.

The rise in deportations is welcomed by Mike Jarbeck, who heads a Florida chapter of the Minuteman Project – an activist group that opposes illegal immigration. He said: "I want to see every last illegal alien rounded up, identified and sent home. US government statistics show that of the 150,000 illegal immigrants removed between October 2006 and June 2007, around 90,000 had no criminal record.

FULL

[waltky]

Drug war refugees...

Mexicans Moving Across Border to Flee Drug Crime
20 June `08 - A growing stream of Mexican professionals are relocating to the USA to get away from Mexico's drug wars, USA Today reported.

In February, Salvador Urbina decided he was tired of the shootouts, the kidnappings and the military patrols in the Mexican border city of Ciudad Juárez. So he put his house up for sale, packed up his car, and moved his wife and children across the border to El Paso, joining a growing stream of professionals who are relocating to the USA to get away from Mexico's drug wars.

"I didn't want to leave," said Urbina, a lawyer. "But there's a very deep psychosis developing in Juárez. Criminals are taking advantage of the situation there. Every day I worried about the safety of my wife and family." In U.S. cities along the border, middle-class Mexicans are buying homes or renting apartments and even moving their businesses across the border, say real estate agents, chambers of commerce and city officials. Many are getting investor visas for a long-term stay.

Dropping housing prices in the USA are part of the draw, said Mireya Durazo, a real estate agent in San Diego, across the border from Tijuana. But the main impetus is a wave of violence unleashed by Mexico's 18-month-old crackdown on drug cartels, she said. "First it was the dentists, then lawyers and doctors … now it's teachers, owners of little stores, people from the working class," Durazo said. Drug gangs are increasingly bringing civilians into the fray as they battle soldiers and each other for control of drug smuggling corridors, known as "plazas."

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