Illegal Immigration!

[hemi68charger]

And these on the Southern border:

We had these guys on our perimeter in Iraq, very effective.......... 

[bull]

To my mind the practicalities of governing the land outweigh the raw moral principles behind the laws.  (Just barely)  

Therefore, if 10% of the population is not legal, and if we're not going to deport them all immediately, then we need to start writing the laws to accommodate them.  And the people in power all agree that they're not going to deport these 30 million people immediately.  

The US citizen population might want them all deported.  But the citizens don't want it badly enough to stop electing either Democrat or Republican candidates year after year, so the public's opinion doesn't matter.  (Yet)

The reason the law is not being enforced, as is the wish by a majority of US citizens, is because certain individuals in power with certain political agendas have a vested interest in the laws being ignored. Democrats ignore the laws because typically the people that are coming here illegally will eventually be able to vote and will vote for the party that promises the most handouts. Republicans ignore the laws because typically the people that are coming here illegally provide cheap labor for small businesses and corporations, which also translates to votes. It's not about what's best for the country and its citizens and what those citizens want, it's about agendas, power and money.

[PocketThunder]

Remember the movie Gangs of New York?  There was a quote in that movie that relates yet today.

"An Irishman will do for a nickel what a ****** will do for a dime or a white man for a quarter".

[Mike DC]

The reason the law is not being enforced, as is the wish by a majority of US citizens, is because certain individuals in power with certain political agendas have a vested interest in the laws being ignored. Democrats ignore the laws because typically the people that are coming here illegally will eventually be able to vote and will vote for the party that promises the most handouts. Republicans ignore the laws because typically the people that are coming here illegally provide cheap labor for small businesses and corporations, which also translates to votes. It's not about what's best for the country and its citizens and what those citizens want, it's about agendas, power and money.

. . . Or we could say immigration patterns aren't very different than previous times, but the govt has stopped legalizing most of them now.   



 

[bull]

. . . Or we could say immigration patterns aren't very different than previous times, but the govt has stopped legalizing most of them now.    

Patterns may be similar but there's enough of a difference in the US today to make illegal immigration more of an issue. For one thing our national debt was a tiny fraction of what it is today. Adjusted for inflation the national debt in 1860 was about 1.5 billion (compared to something like $12 trillion today) and the population then was about 3.5 million. There are an estimated 15-20 million illegal aliens in the US today so right now there's roughly 6 times as many illegal aliens in the US are there were legal residents in 1860. And how many more social programs are there today than there were in 1860, all of them dipping into the empty well of cash we don't have? Just a guess here but I'd say thousands. Then there's other issues that weren't present or as prolific back then such as land space, crime, traffic, pollution, noise, natural resources, etc. I'd say there's way more to this than you think.

[Mike DC]

We haven't been making it easy to immigrate legaly for decades.  A couple generations, really.  That practice has gradually amassed 30 million illegals.  30 mil today = 10% of the us population. 


I once saw a figure somewhere that around 30 million immigrants showed up in the USA between the 1830s and WW1.  Compare that the entire population of the USA, which was probably less than 100 million by WW1.  Going by percentages this reflects a lot more total recent immigrants back then compared to now.  Maybe even double the current ratio or greater, depending on how you crunch the data and which years you measure. 

(And BTW, I know many people think the illegal nature of current immigrants will predispose us to more lawless life-gambling types than in previous times.  I disagree, just from looking at the death rates for the cross-atlantic voyages in the 1800s.  Probably 10-15% didn't make it.  Crossing the mexican/amercan border today has gotta be much, much less risky in that sense.) 

This is most definitely not an "unprecendented invasion" of immigrants today when you go by percentages of the population instead of raw human totals.  I question the intellectual honesty of anyone in the media screaming and yelling that today is so unprecedented. 



As for the social & financial problems that immigration inflicts, I don't make light of them.  We are less able to handle immigrants than ever before. 

                       

[bull]

As for the social & financial problems that immigration inflicts, I don't make light of them.  We are less able to handle immigrants than ever before.  

Then we agree on that point at least.

On a similar note: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=53A2jpDqV3w

[hemi68charger]

Wife went to school yesterday with my 9 year old for his "meet the teacher and classroom" day. What normally would have taken 30 to 45 minutes turned into a royal spectacle because two of the children's parents couldn't speak a lick of English... FINALLY, it was determined that the kids weren't even zoned to be in Jacob's school.... 

Learn English !!!!! with OR without legal status (granted, most are true for the later)... More of my tax dollars could be saved if everything was printed in one language....  And, wouldn't it be nice if we all didn't have to choice between "1 for English", "two for Spanish"...

[The70RT]

Wife went to school yesterday with my 9 year old for his "meet the teacher and classroom" day. What normally would have taken 30 to 45 minutes turned into a royal spectacle because two of the children's parents couldn't speak a lick of English... FINALLY, it was determined that the kids weren't even zoned to be in Jacob's school.... 

Learn English !!!!! with OR without legal status (granted, most are true for the later)... More of my tax dollars could be saved if everything was printed in one language....  And, wouldn't it be nice if we all didn't have to choice between "1 for English", "two for Spanish"...

I hear ya. That chaps my ass at work when a kid gets in trouble and they have to get an interpeter to come in and translate what is going on. What's rediculous is when some can speak english they still speak spanish among themselves......like they are gonna go around all their lives speaking it.....I guess they will if they don't practice english