Reader, commenter, and legal immigrant Manish offers her perspective on illegal immigration. I don't think she understands why illegal immigration is so harmful to our country.
Let me take on some of the meme's that have been going around about illegal immigrants.They should get in line like the legal immigrants did - For the majority of these people, there is no line that they can get into.
If we and our Congress haven't made a way for certain people to come here, then too bad. Tough luck for them. Perhaps we should change our laws and eliminate or modify the country-by-country quota system, but that's our business.
Illegal immigration is unfair to legal immigrants - I've heard this so many times that I could puke. Illegal immigrants aren't hurting me in any way shape or form. Illegal immigration is a victimless crime.
Nonsense. Illegal immigrants consume far more public services than they pay for in taxes. Sending a single illegal immigrant child to public school costs $8,000 per year in Los Angeles... are there any illegal aliens who pay that much in taxes? I doubt it. That doesn't even begin to cover healthcare costs as they clog up our emergency facilities because they can't afford non-emergency care, traffic on the roads, imprisonment for the thugs, and so forth.
We should just kick all of them out - There are over 10 million illegal immigrants in this country. Even if we could find them all and deport them, then what? Who would work on the farms, restaurants and hotels? The impact on the US economy would be devastating.
Probably more like 20 million, but who's counting? I agree that it's probably impossible to kick them all out. The key is to seal up the border to prevent wave after wave of additional illegals from coming in. Plus, we don't have to kick anyone out; the illegal immigrants will leave on their own if we begin denying them public services and vigorously prosecute the companies that employ them.
This isn't rocket science, and it shouldn't be even vaguely controversial for a sovereign nation to want to control who and what crosses its border. Every single country in the world does what it can to monitor and control border crossings, and every country in the world reserves its right to exercise that power as it sees fit. America isn't unique in this desire.
My wife shares an example of exactly who immigration should look like.
There's one distinction it's important to make, between benefits the illegal immigrants are getting themselves (like hospital care), and ones that are part of Bismarck's idea to buy off social disturbance. For so long as you still have the illegal immigrants, cutting the first sort of benefit only harms them - but cutting the second sort just rearranges the problem, growing crime and so on. The only way of reducing the second sort of cost involves reducing the number of illegal immigrants in place as well as cutting their benefits.
An efficient market economy depends on a mobile workforce. Does overly-stringent immigration control impede the correct working of American markets?
I have been following this discussion from a distance for some time now, but, as a LEGAL immigrant, I could not sit on the sidelines of this post. I have several problems with this movement toward solving several decades of federal mismanagement with what amounts to an amnesty that rewards people who have broken the law.
It took me and my family eight years and over $15,000 to get here. In that time I worked my butt off, paid taxes and assimilated to American culture. (So much so that it would be harder for me to return to my country of birth that it was to come here.) So here are my issues, in no particular order:
Politicians write new laws for one reason only: to get votes. Enforcing existing laws seems to be politically unpopular. Which stuns me because if an old law was never enforced writing a new one is the equivilant of putting new gas into a car that doesn't run.
The current immigration system is a mess. Now, to the benefit of law-breakers, resources that could be used to fix the mess will instead be used to create more bad systems. The first priority should be to fix the existing system. Then adjust from there.
While I understand that we cannot simply undo what has already happened and send these people home, I worry that our current administration will attempt to solve yet another complex problem with a simple-minded, one-dimensional solution. The unintended consequences of this approach can be seen in Iraq, New Orleans, Social Security, Medicare, Warrantless Wiretapping, and the list goes on.
One last thought to stir up the discussion. I recommend that we treat people from Mexico the way they are treated by the Mexican Government. Give them bad schools, bad medical, no social safety net...
...Oh, wait, if we don't solve illegal immigration soon, that's what we will give Americans. Or, have we already reached that point?
Okay, I admit that last point was a little OTT. But, hey, it's Friday.
I think the American public, in general, cannot make the distinction between "illegal entrants" and immigrants. That's ONE problem. The second problem is that lack of severe punishment to employers who hire illegals because they are not able to verify legal immigrant documents - this is a job that should be done by a government entity to approve or disapprove a person's status and legal right to work -
Also, I dislike the fact that only MEXICANS are getting press. Who built our railroads? Who built this country? Mexicans? No. Other immigrants, mostly legal who made this nation most of what it is. Why are we so focused on Mexicans and why are they so special?
We've granted them amnesty a few years ago? What good did that do? Look around, the illegal alien problem is bigger than ever. Grant them amnesty again and in 5 years we will have 20-30 million of them protesting in the streets and making more demands. Then, they will resort to violence. Wait and see.
To use Fran Poretto's exclamation, Balderdash! People can and do make the distinction. I work in IT, as a contractor. I see PLENTY of LEGAL aliens from all over the world at my clients.
The reason the Mexicans are getting the bad press is easy. Who else is demonstrating in the streets and putting their own country's flag over the US flag? Which country is responsible for lots of illegal immigration?
As for amnesty--that's a non-starter. Any amnesty just encourages illegals to wait for the next one.