I am not wanting to argue with you just for the sake of arguing. I truly want to get across to you the facts about the Mexican illegal aliens – not some pie-in-the-sky rationalizations.
I live in Southwest Houston, TX, and my neighborhood is overrun with Mexican illegals. Your expressed perception of how immigrates (illegal or legal) were able to assimilate into our society MAY have been true in years past, but that is not the way it is now.
1) These Mexican illegals will NOT register with federal/State agencies. They speak no English or very poor English. They fear being deported. They don’t know anything about our licensing laws. They don’t have papers until they are able to BUY forged documents. They DO NOT HAVE car insurance. They buy and sell old, unsafe automobiles from each other – cars and trucks which don’t have legal tags or inspection stickers. They don’t get drivers licenses – they don’t know how to drive or our driving rules/laws. They don’t pay employment taxes. They congregate in bunches all over the city, forming “day-labor pools” where people pay them in cash to do handy-man type jobs by the day or hour. They don’t make doctors appointments for vaccinations and examinations. When they get sick or injured, they sit in the emergency room of hospitals until they are seen – all at the expense of taxpayers.
2) You said: Adults must be either gainfully employed or live with a head of household who is gainfully employed. They must have a legal residence, and all children must be enrolled in school.
These illegals don’t have heads of households. They don’t have households. Mexican families (usually relatives) take these people into their houses – sometimes 2 or 3 or 4 families at a time. Our neighborhood association stipulates “single-family” residents. We stopped trying to enforce that 10 years ago. These Mexican illegals “hide” their children – having them stay indoors so they won’t get reported as truant from school. There are dozens of houses just within a several block area from my house which house up to 18 people at a time. We see them coming and going. They are Mexican, speak no English. They engage in whatever activity they can to make a few dollars to contribute toward buying food for the group.
3) There is no such thing as permanent deportation – even for those convicted felons. We have no border control. They come right back – to the same neighborhood, to be with their relatives (illegal or not), to be near their children (anchor babies). They DO NOT comply with any citizenship requirements.
4) As far as getting their hands on $5,000 – the only way this is possible is to engage in illegal activity – which some of them do. Drug trafficing, stealing cars, sell cars in parking lots. Most, however, struggle day-by-day to provide food and shelter – getting $5,000 to pay the government is a JOKE. It will never happen.
I know from living experience how badly our Federal government has failed in protecting our borders. But that doesn’t mean that we cannot make a change, and INSIST that our laws be enforced.
Your assessment is completely upside-down. You seem to be saying that the illegals are the victims, and we law-abiding citizens are the bad guys.
We, here in Houston, have been extremely welcoming to Mexicans into our society. But we have been rewarded by being overrun, our hospitals on the verge of bankrupcy, our public school becoming hostile places, our highways and byways become dangerous, and our neighborhoods turned into gigantic multi-family dwellings which don’t take care of their property.
There are very serious ramifications involved, and our great Country is on the verge of collapse if our laws are not enforced.
"Your expressed perception of how immigrates (illegal or legal) were able to assimilate into our society MAY have been true in years past, but that is not the way it is now."
Immigration has two variable: numbers and time. And I agree with you that illegal immigration is a problem right now because of huge numbers of illegals entering the US in too short a time. The US is able to absorb and integrate a only certain number of immigrants every year, without it becoming a burden on society, and we are being overwhelmed.
Few Americans realize that the underlying reason for the huge upsurge in Mexican illegals is because of a program begun in southern Mexico called the Plan Puebla Panama, or PPP. It is an effort to turn southern Mexico into an immense transportation hub, involving shipping, railroads, superhighways, a gigantic airport, etc.
But the large number of people who live in southern Mexico are being kicked off their land, and told to head North, either to work in the industries South of the border, or preferably to go to the United States.
And though this is an onerous and reprehensible thing to do as part of the North American Union scheme, it has its limitations. That is, most of the people kicked off their lands have already been kicked off, so the huge surge of people heading North is on the downside. Add to that in the rest of Mexico a large decline in their birthrate, now at about 2.3 children per family. In other words, the demographic pressure from that side of the border is diminishing, and thankfully.
But this does not help us much in the US right now, as you pointed out. So what *would* help us out?
One thing, and one thing only. A border fence.
A fence is bitterly opposed by North American Unionists, by businesses that profit immensely from employing illegal aliens, and by politicians who hope to profit from enormous numbers of Mexicans who eventually will vote.
One of the ways they stop the building of the fence is by burdening that simple idea with all sorts of other programs, all of which lead to the idea that "If we can't keep 100% of the illegals out, then we can't keep *any* of them out", which is nonsense.
Even if we erected fence over only 5-10% of the border, on those places used as major corridors for illegal immigrants, it would stop as much as 80% of the illegal crossings. This is because so very much of the border is harsh terrain, and the vast number of people would not even try to cross it, not even having any roads within miles on either side. N.B.: the current fence opponents also want to begin construction in the *least* crossed areas, taking years to even get to the heavily traveled corridors, if at all.
Virtually nothing else we could do would put a dent in the raw numbers entering the US. Or returning quickly, because there is no fence.
If we were to build such a fence, then the clock would be ticking on the illegals already here. That is, unless they can go back and forth to Mexico, unless they ghettoize, then they have to eventually interact and integrate with English speaking Americans.
Right now, it is very easy for Mexicans to ghettoize in California and Texas. But in Phoenix, for example, it is much harder to form a community large enough so that they don't have to interact with the rest of society. So in Phoenix, integration is much faster.
In Texas, I might note, only now are your Germantowns finally discarding their 100 year old antiquated German language in favor of English. This is why I strongly advocate ESL instruction as well as expedited citizenship for the illegals who have not just been here a long time, but have become financially successful. Not as a federal program, either, but a local effort to force integration as soon as possible for the "cream of the crop" illegals.
At the same time, the emphasis must be on "integrate or out", which is a reasonable demand: you are either a Mexican or an American. You cannot be both. And many will choose to return, mostly those who wanted something for nothing.
But any of it is meaningless without having that wall in place.
Again, in Phoenix, I know a lot of "half-illegal" families, who have some illegal members, but children and grandchildren who while they might be illegal too, have no recollection of Mexico, know nobody there, have never been there, and only have a limited vocabulary of Spanish, since they were raised with English. Deporting them to Mexico would be as cruel as deporting other schoolchildren at random.
Again, it is a problem of numbers and time. If given enough time, we can integrate immigrants with little problem. And when the flow of immigrants is reduced, we will be able to process the "backlog". So if we can just build that damn fence, against a nation with a diminishing pressure to emigrate, and keep our immigrants from ghettoizing, the problem will be controlled.