No Debates About The Illegal Immigrants Issue?

[bsnyder]

no one has suggested that they are. They are a drain, because the cost of schooling and emergency room visits are sky-high, and the wages they're making dollar contributions on are beneath the floor. But for SS and Medicare specifically, it's a gain.

But any group of workers you look at would be a gain to the revenue side, as long as you omit the benefit side. I don't see the point.

 

[Laugh O. Grams]

Laugh O Grams and LakeAriel (or anyone else who wants to defend it), I'd love to know what exactly it is you like about the Judiciary Committee's reform bill.

What I'm taking away from it is that it's a virtual bonanza of amensty and attempts to legalize every illegal alien who is in the country or is even thinking about entering the country.

Am I missing something?

You are totally missing it. First off, the bill is hardly amnesty.

Each illegal alien is required to register and provided that they pay a $1000.00 fine and pass a criminal background check (not every illegal immigrant, as you fear, bet), they will be given a temporary work visa (not citizenship, bet) that expires in 6 years. After the 6 years, provided they pay back taxes, prove that they have learned English, and pay another $1000.00 fine, they will be placed at the back of the line, behind all other immigrants looking for citizenship. Under the Kennedy-McCain Bill, these illegal immigrants are not simply getting some kind of handout from the US government, they are being required to to earn their citizenship. If they fail to come through on any of these requirements, they will be deported.
The bill also more than double the amount of border patrol officers by 2011, and allows for a guest worker program for an estimated 1.5 million farm workers, who can also eventual earn perminent residency. All in all, a viable and realistic plan, if you ask me.

Secondly, the alternative plan, which makes felons of those who aid these people, from ER doctors who treat them in hospitals to priests who give them Holy Communion in church, is beyond reprehensible, and in my opinion, totally unAmerican.

 

[CheshireVal]

You are totally missing it. First off, the bill is hardly amnesty.

Each illegal alien is required to register and provided that they pay a $1000.00 fine and pass a criminal background check (not every illegal immigrant, as you fear, bet), they will be given a temporary work visa (not citizenship, bet) that expires in 6 years. After the 6 years, provided they pay back taxes, prove that they have learned English, and pay another $1000.00 fine, they will be placed at the back of the line, behind all other immigrants looking for citizenship. Under the Kennedy-McCain Bill, these illegal immigrants are not simply getting some kind of handout from the US government, they are being required to to earn their citizenship. If they fail to come through on any of these requirements, they will be deported.
The bill also more than double the amount of border patrol officers by 2011, and allows for a guest worker program for an estimated 1.5 million farm workers, who can also eventual earn perminent residency. All in all, a viable and realistic plan, if you ask me.

But how are they possibly ever going to even hope to enforce that. If these immigrants were that eager to get caught up in the immigration paperwork in this country, they would have tried to do it the legal way in the first place.

How can the government ensure that people are actually registering for the guest worker program? And, to be more frank, will the government even care who is registering and who isn't?

Obviously the government knows that they can go to any gas station in Atlanta on any given morning and round up hundreds of illegal immigrants. But they don't.

 

[bsnyder]

You are totally missing it. First off, the bill is hardly amnesty.

Each illegal alien is required to register and provided that they pay a $1000.00 fine and pass a criminal background check (not every illegal immigrant, as you fear, bet), they will be given a temporary work visa (not citizenship, bet) that expires in 6 years. After the 6 years, provided they pay back taxes, prove that they have learned English, and pay another $1000.00 fine, they will be placed at the back of the line, behind all other immigrants looking for citizenship. Under the Kennedy-McCain Bill, these illegal immigrants are not simply getting some kind of handout from the US government, they are being required to to earn their citizenship. If they fail to come through on any of these requirements, they will be deported.
The bill also more than double the amount of border patrol officers by 2011, and allows for a guest worker program for an estimated 1.5 million farm workers, who can also eventual earn perminent residency. All in all, a viable and realistic plan, if you ask me.

Secondly, the alternative plan, which makes felons of those who aid these people, from ER doctors who treat them in hospitals to priests who give them Holy Communion in church, is beyond reprehensible, and in my opinion, totally unAmerican.

In other words, nothing will change. Nothing.

There's no way we'll ever deport large numbers. It's just not going to happen. And this bill does absolutely nothing to turn off the spigot or dampen the enthusiasum on iota of those who will surely want to follow....

and pass a criminal background check (not every illegal immigrant, as you fear, bet

Not sure what exactly you meant by this because it's not clear, but if you're implying that I fear they are a bunch of criminals, you 'd be completely wrong.

Refusing to willingly commit demographic and economic suicide is not unamerican. There is an unlimited number of our fellow citizens of the world who would like to work here and share in our prosperity. It's not possible to accomodate all of them. And for three decades we've had the tap running at full blast. We've got to find a way to turn it off, temporarily. There's absolutely nothing in the committee bill that does that.

 

[Feralpeg]

You are totally missing it. First off, the bill is hardly amnesty.

Each illegal alien is required to register and provided that they pay a $1000.00 fine and pass a criminal background check (not every illegal immigrant, as you fear, bet), they will be given a temporary work visa (not citizenship, bet) that expires in 6 years. After the 6 years, provided they pay back taxes, prove that they have learned English, and pay another $1000.00 fine, they will be placed at the back of the line, behind all other immigrants looking for citizenship. Under the Kennedy-McCain Bill, these illegal immigrants are not simply getting some kind of handout from the US government, they are being required to to earn their citizenship. If they fail to come through on any of these requirements, they will be deported.
The bill also more than double the amount of border patrol officers by 2011, and allows for a guest worker program for an estimated 1.5 million farm workers, who can also eventual earn perminent residency. All in all, a viable and realistic plan, if you ask me.

Secondly, the alternative plan, which makes felons of those who aid these people, from ER doctors who treat them in hospitals to priests who give them Holy Communion in church, is beyond reprehensible, and in my opinion, totally unAmerican.

I find it hard to believe that many of the illegals are going to be able to come up with $1000. I can't see them lining up to be processed. It will be up to the government to track them down. Businesses who are breaking the law employing them now are not going to report them. Even if they did initially register, what is going to ensure that they don't just disappear when the period in which they are supposed to have met the requirements expires? There are too many holes in this plan.

 

[bsnyder]

Bordering on the Absurd

By Robin Koerner

I am a grateful guest in a great country.

That is why I have never complained about what I’ve had to go through to be allowed to come to reside in the United States, conduct business here, invest in this country, and contribute to your Treasury and the evolving, vibrant idea of America.

But as I watch the debate about the current immigration bill, I don’t know whether to laugh or cry. The absurdity of the contradictions that are being suggested would be unimaginable if they weren’t, well, about American immigration policy.

I’d like to say something about an aspect of America that alien residents tend to know a lot more about than American citizens – immigration law - in the hope of showing how the current debate, which is largely about Latino illegal immigrants by default, totally misses the fundamental contradictions in U.S. immigration policy, and may, if it results in “comprehensive immigration reform” that is in fact anything but “comprehensive”, deepen those contradictions.

First, you need to know something about me. I have three degrees from the University of Cambridge, a European Ivy League institution. They cover the physical sciences and liberal arts. I have no criminal record. I have a background in business strategy and am a small-time but successful investor. Accordingly, I was able to put just shy of $100,000 in a company bank account in the U.S. before I applied to set up a business here. I spent thousands of dollars and hundreds of hours putting together the application for the visa (with the help of professional consultants). The paperwork was extensive – and that is proverbial British understatement.

I was therefore delighted and relieved to receive my visa (L1A, Executive Manager’s visa) just over a year ago. Despite the above credentials, I was given (as is typical) only a one-year visa to start and maintain a business. I could only even be considered for such a visa because I served as the executive manager of an affiliate company with the same ownership structure as the new company in America for three years before I came to the U.S. (Take a moment to consider just how restrictive that condition is.) Any readers who are businesspersons may also be wondering how an immigration office can assess the viability of a start-up business in just a year from authorizing its principal director to start work. Right now, as those authorities ponder the renewal of my visa, I wonder the same thing.

While I am allowed to conduct business, this visa does not allow me to work as an employee of an American company should I want to do some part-time work to help support myself or my new business.

Now, the following may surprise you: to obtain this one-year visa to set up a business and bring money into America, I had to renounce any intention to seek citizenship.

Despite the emotional resilience required to build a life without knowing if you’ll have to leave the country in a year, I’ve had a wonderful and productive time in the United States. I have successfully conducted my small property business, investing in a great project to build high-quality homes for Americans who’ve never owned one. I have contributed significantly to the cultural, political and intellectual fabric of this nation through cofounding and managing www.WatchingAmerica.com, which has led to my being interviewed extensively by the American media.

All the while, to fulfill the conditions of my visa, I’ve had to administer my business in such a way that I have had to pay tens of thousands of dollars to the Treasury (in taxes and fees) that an American who was conducting identical business would not have to pay.

I don’t resent one cent, and I never stop being thankful for this wonderful privilege to take my shot at the American Dream.

So you might expect that I just need to fill in a few forms to get my visa renewed for a few more years to that I can nurture my business and projects to self-sufficiency, and contribute more to the United States. You’d be wrong. Two months ago, I submitted my application to renew my visa: it was just shy of 700 pages long (which, for fun, is roughly one page for every ten Mexicans that come across the border each day), including copies of documents that capture every detail of what I’ve been doing in my first short year here.

The authorities are considering that application. I am waiting for their response.

Why is all this important?

President Bush is currently considering allowing illegal immigrants to “not jump the line” but at least “get to the back of the line” to citizenship – for just $3000.

I expect you see why I am still trying to get over the shock…

There is no line to citizenship that I, an educated Brit, can even get to the back of... I’ve already spent my $10,000s. I’ve already put in my thousands of pages of paper work. I’ve already invested greatly in your economy. I am using my education directly to benefit hundreds of thousands of Americans who are using the service I provide (for free, by the way), and yet American law requires me to state an intent not to stay permanently. May I humbly ask this country for at least the same rights as an illegal Latino? Now, I’m guessing the word “Mexican” isn’t going to appear anywhere in the legislation, so should I just let my visa expire; go quiet for a while; become an illegal British immigrant, and then get all the rights for which I’ve been spending so much time and money, as well as some rights that I cannot have as an alien executive manager, by registering as a guest worker? If it wasn’t so serious, it would be funny.

So watch out for your next immigration crisis, America. You will see a new phenomenon: legal alien residents like me will be trying to find ways to become illegal immigrants just so we can join the same line to citizenship that is denied to us as legal productive alien residents … And it will be the best $3000 we’ve ever spent – a small fraction of what’s it’s already cost me to conduct business here for just a year. I wonder if I’ll have to learn Spanish to fill in the forms?

Once the word is out that America has created a line to citizenship for a cool 3000 bucks, it won’t just be America’s southern border that you’ll need to worry about. You’ll have tens of millions of Europeans and Asians flooding in (on airplanes, of course) and looking forward to the expiration of their tourist visas to join the new line as illegal immigrant guest workers, waiting for citizenship. Then watch out: the Europeans, at least, will be white, so no one will notice when they take the good jobs that upstanding Americans do want to do.

God bless America. Immigration is an important issue that demands, if you’ll forgive a British phrase, “joined-up” thinking. America owes it to itself.

--Robin Koerner

 

[Teejay32]

But any group of workers you look at would be a gain to the revenue side, as long as you omit the benefit side. I don't see the point.

I don't think it explains everything, it's just one component. SS and Medicare are fixed supposedly self-perpetuating systems, we cannot alter them, we're not supposed to notice problems looming where beneficiaries outnumber workers, it's just something Bush cooked up to benefit Wall Street, etc...

this does not explain why we're absorbing education & Medicaid costs. Though as I've said, the ones I knew of weren't toting their families around with them, and I'd have to see proof to believe these people are actually receiving Medicaid benefits over and above some antibiotics once in a while. Furthermore, this was all a response to efforts to criminalize illegal immigration. "Illegal" is not necessarily "criminal." We're here because people want to criminalize & prosecute illegal immigrants, so there goes the savings on health care spending, over to law enforcement & legal costs.

 

[bsnyder]

Some eye opening statistics from the non-partisan Center for Immigration Studies. There's no reason to think these unprecedented percentages have done anything but grow larger in the last half decade.


WASHINGTON (June 4, 2002) — The U.S. Census Bureau released today the count of the foreign-born population from the 2000 Census. To provide some historical perspective, the Center for Immigration Studies has analyzed these numbers and found that both the size and growth of the immigrant population is without precedent in American history.

The Center's analysis reveals the following:

The 31.1 million immigrants found in the 2000 Census is unparalleled in American history. It is more than triple the 9.6 million in 1970 and more than double the 14.1 million in 1980.


The 11.3 million (or 57 percent) increase, from 19.8 million in 1990 to 31.1 million in 2000, is also without precedent in our history, both numerically and proportionately. Even during the great wave of immigration from 1900 to 1910, the foreign-born population grew by only 3.2 million (or 31 percent), from 10.3 million to 13.5 million.


The immigrant share of the total U.S. population is also growing at a rate heretofore unknown. The foreign-born population grew from 7.9 percent of the total population in 1990 to 11.1 percent in 2000. If current trends continue, the percentage of the population that is foreign-born will surpass the all-time-high, reached in 1890 of 14.8 percent, by the end of this decade.


"The new figures released by the Census Bureau indicate that we are currently in the midst of a huge social experiment. No country has every attempted to incorporate and assimilate 31 million newcomers into its society," said the Center’s director of research Steven A. Camarota. "And the experiment is by no means over. If current policies remain unchanged, at least 13 million legal and illegal immigrants, and probably more, will likely settle in the United States over the next decade."

Center analysis also shows:

At least 1.3 million legal and illegal immigrants settled in the United States each year on average in the 1990s, again a level of immigration never before seen in U.S. history. We know this because 13.2 million immigrants indicated in the Census that they came to America in the 1990s. The 13.2 million figure is roughly the size of the entire immigrant population in 1910.

Immigration has become the determinate factor in U.S. population growth. The 13.2 million immigrants who arrived in the 1990s account for about 40 percent of U.S. population growth in the 1990s. Moreover, other Census Bureau data indicates that there were roughly 7 million births to immigrant women in the 1990s. Thus new immigration and births to immigrant women accounted for at least 60 percent of U.S. population growth over the last decade.

The new data show that immigration to the United States continues to become less diverse. People from Latin America now account for the majority of the foreign-born population (52 percent in 2000), up from 31 percent in 1980 and 42 percent in 1990.

Immigration has enormous implications for America, creating very real costs and benefits. Although the issue would seem to be of obvious importance, the nation has not had the kind of vigorous and open debate on the subject that is necessary. This is unfortunate because the growth in the immigrant population reflects specific policy choices made by the United States government, both in terms of the number legal immigrants accepted and the level of resources devoted to controlling illegal immigration. Whatever one thinks of current policy, the number released today by the Census Bureau indicate that the nation faces enormous challenges in integrating the tens of millions of immigrants allowed into the country, and those challenges will only grow if current policies are allowed to remain in place.

 

[ecr110]

I posted the SS and Medicare numbers to show that while illegal immigration is a drain on many resources, they do provide valuable benefits to society. Yes, the surplus to SS won't benefit anyone in particular, it does play an important role in the government's budget and forecasted budget. It helps to keep the SSA solvent.
I did find a study done by the Center for Immigration Studies that has a number of interesting findings in it. Illegal immigration does have a net drain on the economy (the difference between tax revenues and costs is about $10 billion per year). However, lower income households use more government resources than higher income families, and that's without regard to legal status. And by making their status legal, they'll be paying accurate taxes, but will have access to a lot more aid programs like EITC, SS, and others, causing a deficit growth to $29 billion. What the study concludes basically is that legal status isn't determinative on the amount of resources consumed or revenue earned, but the fact that the immigrants tend to be unskilled, manual low income labor which inherently has a lower tax burden and a correspondingly higher government cost. The study is here: http://www.cis.org/articles/2004/fiscalexec.html

 

[Teejay32]

Some eye opening statistics from the non-partisan Center for Immigration Studies. There's no reason to think these unprecedented percentages have done anything but grow larger in the last half decade.

I'm foreign-born too. They raise some good points, but foreign-born is not the greatest indicator.

 

[bsnyder]

I'm foreign-born too. They raise some good points, but foreign-born is not the greatest indicator.

The greatest indicator of what?

 

[Teejay32]

well, anything. Language, earning power, time needed to assimilate into society...

 

[PixieDust32]

I find it hard to believe that many of the illegals are going to be able to come up with $1000. I can't see them lining up to be processed. It will be up to the government to track them down. Businesses who are breaking the law employing them now are not going to report them. Even if they did initially register, what is going to ensure that they don't just disappear when the period in which they are supposed to have met the requirements expires? There are too many holes in this plan.

Oh yes, they will. I know that some of them can make that in a week, if the finish 2 houses in a week. I know that b/c DH was doing some home inspections last year, they work hard, Monday -Saturday from 5 or 6 AM until dark, but they get good money, of course without taxes.

 

[Laugh O. Grams]

In other words, nothing will change. Nothing.

You know...I stated the points that the Kennedy-McCain Bill covers. We obviously have differing opinions, and hey, that's fine with me.

I happen to think that this bill can change America's immigration policy for the better. President Bush has publicly supported the points of the bill, and if he signs it into law, it could quite possibly cement President Bush as the compassionate reformer he always dreamed he would be, before his failed SS reform, and Iraq, and Katrina, etc. You think that it won't work, so be it, but I have no wish to debate this topic into exhaution. It is what it is...and it's now up to Congress to hammer out the details.

 

[TDC Nala]

finally, a thread where a Washington bureaucrat can be sort of useful.

There isn't an INS any more. The agency involved with immigration issues is BICE, the Bureau of Immigration and Customs Enforcement, a component of the Department of Homeland Security.

 

[disneyaggie]

Oh, you will love this!

I sent scathing, yet factual, letters to LULAC "leaders" letting them know we as Americans do not appreciate the disrespect of the Mexicans who march with the Mexican flag, holding signs saying, "Viva Mexico". I asked these so-called "leaders", "So where are the American flags with the signs that read, "Thank you America. Thank you for all of our opportunities".

Well, Jesse Diaz, President of LULAC, sent me a very, brief though crude response (with lots of grammatical errors, I will add). I have sent his response to the local media to let them see what he sent, which is a total embarassment to LULAC. What an idiot!

 

[MommyPoppins]

I just love the picture of your tot with a rifle. I just love your psalms. I love what a rascist you are!
Illegal immigrants need to be returned but boy does this topic show peoples true colors! Do you think Jesus only cares about YOUR white children?

I just LOVE how because my child can shoot a dasiy bb gun at cans, totally monitered by his father makes me a racist in your eyes. What's that make you? I don't know what that or my psalms has anything to do with me being a rascist? I believe illegal immigrants, are just that, illegal, and it should not be allowed. Anyone who wants to come to this country and make a living and pay taxes and contribute can do just that, legally, if not they don't belong here. It's wrong. I don't know what that has to do with Jesus, as I'm sure He's in mexico, south america and all the caribbean islands as well as America.

 

[In a hurry]

So, if my little brown daughter shoots a Pellet gun...what does that make her? Or does it confuse matters when I tell that her daddy is legally a Native American?

Lake Ariel, have you figured out yet that the original Americans came from Europe?

 

[LakeAriel]

Don't forget you can actually get cash from the government too.

DH and I were just talking about this the other day. It is SOOOOOOOOOO frustrating, we hate it when people are like,"They just want a better life, its hard where they come from, everone deserves a better life." That's a load of CRAP! Them just being here and living in a shack in the USA instead of where ever they came from is a better life. They want to leach off the government because, well that's okay. Since they aren't white(because europeans can't live here illegally) the government just gives them hand out after hand out. Around here there are more hispanics than anything anymore and while I realize that they aren't all illeagel, it's maddening none the less when standing in line behind them at walmart with their 2 baskets full of grocerys, paying with their foodstamps and loading those grocerys up into their new SUVS and big trucks.

This was the post I was responding to. Sounds rascist to me!

 

[Bravosntha2g]

Giving any rights to people who came here ILLEGALLY is a JOKE. How unfair is this to those in other areas of the world who want to come here under the confines of the law??

It would be like me vacationing in France and asking for all the benefits their government possibly gives out.

Absolutely disgusting that they wave the flag of their actual country, while whining they don't get the rights of a country that they are illegally in!