Posted on 08/16/2005 12:49:34 AM PDT by Cincinatus' Wife
A busboy and a hairstylist can buy a house for $280K northeast of San Francisco?
We should make it HARD to get across the border illegally. Let me repeat that: We should make it HARD to get across the border illegally. And we should make it hard to stay, once you are here illegally. On that count, I am certainly with the "control the borders crowd."
My problem with many freepers is that they want to stop there. "Maybe we will think about reforming the immigration process later" is their response when challenged. I think this is an awful response, as well as stupid. While it should be hard to get here ILLEGALLY, it should be EASY to get here legally. We should have simple, if stringent, rules on entering. That means we DISCRIMINATE. We should be discriminating against disease vectors, criminals, leeches, and terrorists. That means health tests (in and out of the country), verifiable criminal records and deportation for those busted for criminal activity (including dui !), filing tax forms as a condition of remaining in the country, and open acknowledgement that we are more stringent on places where people have professed a desire to kill us. This might mean requiring arab males to be processed in by Jewish female immigration clerks (just kidding) or requiring them to sign off that they reject the doctrine of jihad as a struggle to enshrine Islam as the world's only religion (see this morning's piece by Thomas Sowell: http://www.townhall.com/columnists/thomassowell/ts20050816.shtml)
This seems to me to be an easy alternative to the mess we have now. We could apply those same rules to the people now here, whether they are students on overstayed visas or completely undocumented people who jumped the border. We just make it more expensive (processing fees for the applications?) for them to do so. After all, they DID break the law to get/stay here, and there should be market disincentives for that.
The final note on this is that it should be obvious from the article itself that immigrants provide a tremendous spark plug to our economic engine. Plus, many of these people (MOST of the latino illegals I know) are fine people and are here for the same reason our grandfathers came. We should seek to find a way to control our borders that makes people like this WELCOME, and not adopt the stupid, statist, protectionist tactics of trying to make a fortress of the country to keep poor people out. I believe in the ability of free markets, free speech, free labor and free ideas to absorb the whole damn PLANET if we could fit them in here (and actually, the population of the entire planet could be fit into the state of Texas, if everyone stood at double arms interval from each other).
Trust freedom. It hasn't let us down yet.
It must really stick in the craw of some of these folks to realize they are collecting their social security retirement checks from the wages of an illegal alien.
Go crack dealers!
Come on.
I think it's an eye opener how much money has gone into the government coffers.
As Joycelyn Elders would say, "Who's going to pay for my social security?"
9/11 was a wake-up call we must not forget. It shocked us into a lot of changes. Straightening out illegal immigation and securing our borders is a big part of that.
No, we DON'T. It may be hard for you to hear this, with all that empty space up there in your cranium creating reverberating echoes and all, but I will say it one more time. I will type slowly for you so you can follow:
1) I think that if freedom is good for me, it is probably good for Pablo Escheverria and his pals
2) The US has had negative to flat population growth since the early 70's since we decided to kill our inconvenient kids. A growing economy and a flat pop. curve means labor shortages. I would go into why this means an inflationary spiral, but since three syllable words are intimidating to some people, we will just say "this would be bad." Try econ 101 if you get confused. Most local community colleges teach it.
3) Our socialist systems have created a huge number of Americans that consider entry level jobs "beneath them." Why work when you can scam for nothing? Illegal immigrants prize these jobs as golden opportunities (and they are!).
4) Mexico is an economic basket case of corruption, socialist policy, and a booming population. Items 2-4 have produced a "perfect storm" for a massive influx of immigrants.
Our options are four:
1) adopt a nominal closed border policy but don't enforce it, letting illegals thru in swarms. This is the most stupid of the alternatives and is what our gov't has chosen to do. It is government, what do you expect?
2) Adopt a TRUE closed border and expel the immigrants. Runs a close second to number one for stupid, but alas, falls to second. It is also the choice of many freepers. The economic and social consequences of this policy would be catastrophic, both to us and to Mexico.
3) Adopt an open border policy with no restrictions. This is the straw man that Freepers bandy about when the full moon rises and they begin to ululate and howl for Tancredo to save them. The evil multinationalists are out to destroy the working man. The American way of life is threatened. Mecha has arisen and is stalking the streets in full communist regalia, and all who don't support shooting border jumpers on site are mere clones waiting on marching orders from La Raza. MEXIFORNIA FOREVER!!! No one I know supports this, but it is a convenient bogeyman to grandstand with, kind of like Jesse Jackson waving the bloody shirt. It plays well to the fellow simpletons.
4) Adopt an open but strictly enforced border, with opportunities for legal entry and opportunities to BECOME legal to those here. Make it strict, and make it economically favor those who did not jump in line.
The last is pro-market, pro-law, and pro-freedom. It makes sense, but the most stringent anti immigrant freepers won't hear of it. I wonder why?
"They have no right to own property in the United States because they have no right to be here in the first place," said Diana Hull, president of Californians for Population Stabilization. Legally, that's not quite true. Unlike some countries — Mexico, for example — the United States generally does not restrict foreign citizens from buying real estate."
But the difference is that you have to enter Mexico LEGALLY! See http://www.azcentral.com/arizonarepublic/news/articles/0728migrants28.html
Most notable quotes:
"They are coming and taking jobs the Mexicans don't want," said Rodolfo Casillas, a migration expert at the Latin American School of Social Sciences in Mexico City. "And their numbers keep going up."
"Say a Mexican makes 20 pesos a day ($1.80) working on his farm, but he can make 80 pesos in the United States," Casillas said. "So he'll go to the United States and hire a Guatemalan to take care of his farm for 20 pesos a day."
The problem is that the endpoint of all this illegal immigration is the United States......
Your number 4) is the only viable option. Every illegal earning money in America is a potential revolutionary soldier denied to Hugo Chavez and the forces of Communism.
Who are you refrring to?
R-i-g-h-t. In Fantasyland perhaps. In the reality of Laredo, Texas, for example, there are many front businesses (car dealerships, retail stores, etc.). The transactions look good on paper, the income is there, and the cash that flows through is drug money. I'd submit that 99.9% of these would qualify and produce the requisite documentation.
Well, this is the only criticism about our side---they'll do anything for money!
Let's be realistic here. Calling illegals "criminals," though technically true, doesn't really describe the status quo.
We have ignored our own immigration laws for decades now. We've let people flow over our Southern border virtually unchecked. A Mexican looking northwards can hardly be blamed for ignoring our immigration laws when it is clear to any thinking person that we ourselves do not take them seriously.
So, this whole trend of calling illegals "criminals" is stupid.
Make the illegal invasion of America during war time at
least a class F (6) Felony...
Then all businessmen who help them and all law enforcement
who ignore their crime become criminals and are subject to arrest,fines, and/or imprisonment.
Citizens also have the duty to arrest anyone comitting a felony and hold them for police.
At least it would be a start.
imo
Not typical business ethics to groups like the
Christian Businessmen's Association
The two situations aren't even close. What percentage of illegal aliens are ever charged with violation of immigration laws. It's probably less than 1% of the illegals who are caught, never mind who actually violate the law.
When a crime is prosecuted so rarely, the proscribed activity is de facto legal. It's sort of like the sodomy laws that were on the books until recently.
You sound like a Liberal on a conservative website.
You defend what is clearly a violation of the law by making excuses to legitimize the illegal activity on our southern border.
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