At Last! All Illegal Immigrants to be expelled.

[DawnCt1]

Don't forget the amount of money that has to wasted on dealing with the whole illegal system in the first place.

Sometimes I wonder if it would be more economical to protect the borders rather than deal with the aftermath.

A BIG FENCE sounds good to me!

 

[Belle for President]

What about the moral responsibilities of those who illegally enter this country? I suppose in your reality moral responsibilities only lie with the U.S., not with anyone else?

So I suppose in your reality all laws enacted by government are moral?

Thank God for American citizens who weren't and aren't afraid of civil disobedience to make our government act with moral responsibility to our citizens.

If a parent illegally enters this country to put food in his/her child's mouth so they will survive, I consider that a moral act. And I expect my government to recognize this situation and treat these people with humanity.

 

[momof2inPA]

A BIG FENCE sounds good to me!

Michael Chertoff, build that wall.

 

[dcentity2000]

A BIG FENCE sounds good to me!

lol, yeah!

[EDIT]: This subject is a tough one, innit? On the one hand, you have a simplisitc, gotta-enforce-the-law principle. Then all these threats of death occur. Suddenly, we have to wonder about the difference between legality and morality.

Ugh. I'm off to go get some orange juice.



Rich::

 

[DawnCt1]

So I suppose in your reality all laws enacted by government are moral?

Thank God for American citizens who weren't and aren't afraid of civil disobedience to make our government act with moral responsibility to our citizens.

If a parent illegally enters this country to put food in his/her child's mouth so they will survive, I consider that a moral act. And I expect my government to recognize this situation and treat these people with humanity.

They, hopefully, will be humanely escorted back to their own homeland. Just what do you expect of the President Foxe? Does he have an obligation to his own citizens? Do not assume that most illegals are entering the country to "feed their child". Many of them are here breaking and entering, dealing drugs and committing crimes.

 

[DawnCt1]

Michael Chertoff, build that wall.

That's a good one!!! I couldn't have said it better!

 

[momof2inPA]

If a parent illegally enters this country to put food in his/her child's mouth so they will survive, I consider that a moral act. And I expect my government to recognize this situation and treat these people with humanity.

When you are stealing money from the wallets of the U.S. populace and food from the mouths of the working poor of the U.S., who can often not afford to own their own homes, that is immoral. Undermining the economic system of the United States of America is immoral. They should work and fight to improve conditions in their own country. Basically, your hunger is not our problem, and if you can't afford to feed your kids, don't have them.

 

[paigevz]

They, hopefully, will be humanely escorted back to their own homeland. Just what do you expect of the President Foxe? Does he have an obligation to his own citizens? Do not assume that most illegals are entering the country to "feed their child". Many of them are here breaking and entering, dealing drugs and committing crimes.

Yes, but many of our legal people are doing that too. I think we should give a "moral test" to everyone, and send all immoral people back to their ancestors' country of origin, then let all moral people who want to come in, THEN close the border!

Yes, of course I'm not serious, but I know lots of illegal people here for the very reason of feeding their children.........their mouths, their minds, and their opportunities. Sure they are illegal, but would we do any less for our kids in their place? I would do anything I could do, and they did.

Personally, I would be out of a job if there were no illegal immigrants coming in. Our school population would be drastically cut. Many of our children of illegal immigrants are the very children who do not cause any trouble, do try their best and are model school citizens........this because their parents demand it of them, and they themselves do the same. They would pay taxes if they could without being caught. They would love to be "legal' and have that opportunity, taxes and all.

My dh's father came illegally. He is legal now, but had he not come, my dh and I would never have met. This is a very personal issue to lots of people. I don't think there's a perfect solution. However, please keep in mind, "there but for the Grace of God, go I"............easy to say keep others out of this green pasture, when you are in it. Harder if you were in the dry pasture.

 

[CheshireVal]

I think the gov't here needs to help its own citizens put food in the mouths of their children before we all start spouting off about how moral it is to allow illegals to work here and drain our tax money. Morals really don't have much to do with it.

We're talking government here.

It's a personal issue for me, too, btw. I'm a first generation American (well, my mom was a citizen, dad wasn't... don't know what that makes me!) My family and my husband all jumped through hoops to come here legally. If they can do it, dangit, so should everyone else.

 

[DawnCt1]

Personally, I would be out of a job if there were no illegal immigrants coming in. Our school population would be drastically cut. Many of our children of illegal immigrants are the very children who do not cause any trouble, do try their best and are model school citizens........this because their parents demand it of them, and they themselves do the same. They would pay taxes if they could without being caught. They would love to be "legal' and have that opportunity, taxes and all.

.

Paige, I don't think that the American taxpayer should have to pay billions of dollars so you can have a job, I don't care how well behaved your students are. There parents can make annonymous donations to the US Treasury Dept and the State Revenue Services if they are so motivated to pay taxes. I will bet you that the coffers won't see one dime of the illegals money. I wouldn't mind having the same rights and benefits as an illegal alien. Sounds like a good deal to me.

 

[Charade]

You are hiding behind legality and ignoring the moral responsibilities that lay beneath such terms.

OMG! Hiding behind legality?!?!? Where's THIER (the immigrants) moral responsibility kick in? Before they decided to cross the border ILLEGALLY is when it should have.

Ok, so just what are immigration laws for anyway? Let's just toss them into the circular filing cabinet and be done with it. Problem solved.

 

[Charade]

No personal moral responsibility to protect illegal immigrants? So, you do have a moral responsibility to protect someone here legally, but if they are illegal, your moral dilema, because their human status has changed in some way, no longer exists. So, I guess a dog here legally deserves more protection than that human being.

They should be treated (except their children BORN *IN* the US) like any other criminal and process accordingly.

 

[Charade]

If a parent illegally enters this country to put food in his/her child's mouth so they will survive, I consider that a moral act. And I expect my government to recognize this situation and treat these people with humanity.

I don't blame people for wanting to feed their families but entering our country illegally doesn't mean people don't care about them. Give them a bottle of water, a sandwich and send them BACK where they came from.

It really sounds like you have total disregard for our immigration laws. Would you prefer them to be abolished?

 

[sodaseller]

Apropos

They say immigrants steal the hubcaps
Of the respected gentlemen
They say it would be wine an' roses
If England were for Englishmen again

Well I saw a dirty overcoat
At the foot of the pillar of the road
Propped inside was an old man
Whom time would not erode
When the night was snapped by sirens
Those blue lights circled fast
The dancehall called for an' ambulance
The bars all closed up fast

My silence gazing at the ceiling
While roaming the single room
I thought the old man could help me
If he could explain the gloom
You really think it's all new
You really think about it too
The old man scoffed as he spoke to me
I'll tell you a thing or two

I missed the fourteen-eighteen war
But not the sorrow afterwards
With my father dead and my mother ran off
My brothers took the pay of hoods
The twenties turned the north was dead
The hunger strike came marching south
At the garden party not a word was said
The ladies lifted cake to their mouths

The next war began and my ship sailed
With battle orders writ in bed
In five long years of bullets and shells
We left tem million dead
The few returned to old Piccadily
We limped around Leicster Square
The world was busy rebuilding itself
The architects could not care

But how could we know when I was young
All the canges that were to come?
All the photos in the wallets on the battlefield
And now the terror of the scientific sun
There was masters an' servants an' servants an' dogs
They taught you how to touch your cap
But through strikes an' famine an' war an' peace
England never closed this gap

So leave me now the moon is up
But remember all the tales I tell
The memories that you have dredged up
Are on letters forwarded from hell

The streets were by now deserted
The gangs had trudged off home
The lights clicked off in the bedsits
An' old England was all alone

 

[cardaway]

Yes, what about the people here who can barely make it, but have to pay higher taxes because they have to jump through every legal hoop. Same issue, taking the money away that raises these children.

I would love it if every child in every country never went hungry, but sadly that isn't the world we live in, and we are forced to fend for our own as well.


I have a feeling even the "let em in" folks here would have to change their tune of tens of thousands lined the border and wanted in all at once. Then you would have to ask the difference was... the timing?

 

[Charade]

I think we should give a "moral test" to everyone, and send all immoral people back to their ancestors' country of origin, then let all moral people who want to come in, THEN close the border!

Everybody takes a moral test everyday when they obey the laws that govern them.

Personally, I would be out of a job if there were no illegal immigrants coming in. Our school population would be drastically cut. Many of our children of illegal immigrants are the very children who do not cause any trouble, do try their best and are model school citizens........this because their parents demand it of them, and they themselves do the same. They would pay taxes if they could without being caught. They would love to be "legal' and have that opportunity, taxes and all.

You don't see your school being mostly populated by illegals and they would pay taxes if they could as a problem?? Who's paying for their education if the parents aren't paying taxes??

I don't care if they are model students. If they weren't born HERE, they are criminals. Send them back.

My dh's father came illegally. He is legal now, but had he not come, my dh and I would never have met. This is a very personal issue to lots of people. I don't think there's a perfect solution.

Pulling on the heart strings I see.

 

[disneyfreakjackie]

I'd love it if the government decided to actual *do* something about all the illegals, but I'll believe it when I see it.

Me, too!!

 

[sodaseller]

Another perspective from the Jesuits

Link

Catholic social teaching calls us to identify with newcomers, who together with those long settled enjoy a litany of rights based on our common human dignity. Migrants serve as the church’s analogy for itself (a pilgrim church) and for the human condition (a pilgrim people). They recall our ancient heritage of exodus and exile, the Holy Family’s flight to Egypt and our evangelical history beginning with St. Paul. We oppose speaking of migrants in “us or them” terms because, in the Catholic view, “we” are “them,” and “they” are “us.” We identify with “strangers” as our brothers and sisters, and welcome them because they are an image of our God (Mt. 25:35). We try to carry on Christ’s work of “gather[ing] together into one the scattered children of God” (Jn. 11:52). In our tradition, therefore, to be anti-immigrant is to be anti-person. But nothing upsets some Catholics so much as Catholic social teaching, and the church’s teaching on newcomers admittedly presents challenges.

Immigrants have always been more or less part of the American landscape. How different are we today from earlier periods of immigration? Can you guess which era of our nation’s history has the following characteristics:

• the highest percentage of foreign-born persons in U.S. history

• immigrants from different countries than their predecessors

• immigrants who renew the United States with their hope, family values and hard work

• who endure abysmal wages and working conditions in many industries

• who strain the social service infrastructure of the communities in which they settled

• during a period of economic revolution and prosperity, but also gross poverty, disparity between the rich and the poor, and family disruption

• when the foreign-born comprise the majority of Catholics

• and nativist movements succeed in passing anti-immigrant legislation in California (much of it held unconstitutional), which paves the way for discriminatory federal legislation?

If you think I am referring to the present era, you are mistaken. I was referring to our nation’s second great wave of immigration, which ran from roughly 1890 to 1920. The reason you guessed wrong is that all the characteristics I listed are true of today except the first. Although today we have the highest number of immigrants ever, in the earlier period the percentage of the population who were immigrants was larger.

The foreign-born comprised nearly 15 percent of the U.S. population at the turn of the 20th century. At present, more than 28 million foreign-born persons comprise 10 percent of our nation. But in other ways, the two eras are quite similar. Unlike their predecessors, who came from northern and western Europe, the immigrants of the period 1890 to 1920 came primarily from southern and eastern Europe. Likewise, current immigrants come from places like their predecessors—in descending order from Mexico, China, the Philippines, India, Vietnam, El Salvador, Korea, the Dominican Republic, Cuba, Colombia and other countries.



Catholic teaching requires effective action. It has never been enough to think highly of newcomers; we must also welcome and defend them. In response to our nation’s last great wave of immigration, the church created or dramatically expanded all the Catholic institutions we now take for granted. The number of parochial schools grew from 2,246 with 405,234 students in 1880, to 5,687 with 1.54 million students in 1916. By 1910, 285 Catholic orphanages cared for 51,938 children. Catholic hospitals grew in number from 75 to 400 between 1872 and 1910. National parishes thrived, comprising 30 percent of all parishes from 1880 to 1930. In 1916, 49 percent of Catholics attended a parish that used a language other than English. By 1902, the St. Vincent de Paul Society, which established itself in the United States in 1845, had 428 parish branches. In the 1890’s, Catholic lay women created charitable settlement houses for immigrants. By 1915, 27 houses provided health care, education for children, English-language classes and other services for immigrants.

In the 1920’s, moreover, the National Catholic Welfare Council’s Bureau of Immigration met ships, helped immigrants through reception, provided loans, protected them from fraud, provided guidance on resettlement and arranged for their transportation and reception at their final destinations. Today the church’s ministry to our newly arrived brothers and sisters includes, for example, the 130 local Catholic legal immigration programs that my agency supports. An overlapping network helps thousands of refugees to resettle in the United States each year.

 

[cardaway]

Personally, I would be out of a job if there were no illegal immigrants coming in. Our school population would be drastically cut.

Maybe, maybe not. The tax dollars would essentially be the same, since the legal students wouldn't be going anywhere. If anything, it would give the kids in that area to get the education they deserve given the taxes their parents pay. If you were one of the better teachers, you would be kept around.

 

[momof2inPA]

sodaseller,

What your Jesuit letter fails to address is the difference between the legal immigration of the late 1800's and early 1900's vs the illegal immigration of today. There were quotas then, yet, there are no limits on illegal immigration, now. It goes unchecked. I would expect the Catholic Church to embrace immigrants, both legal and illegal, as it stands to benefit financially from their presence in the U.S., but that doesn't make their stance the correct one. It's self-serving and not in the best interest of the U.S. citizenship and our economic system.

However, on a personal one-on-one basis, I will embrace my neighbor, whether here legally or illegally, but I do not embrace the practice of illegal immigration.