FibrillatorD

Gunnut, its not butting in line because they were never in line. From day 1 this batch of immigrants inhabited the extra legal sector.

Not good to have these blocs existing outside society. We need to get rid of it.

Attrition, which is what donnie wants, is un-American. (whose campaign webpage did you cut-paste? was it Thompson?). It amounts to a giant blow to civil liberties and states rights. It prods into further obscurity the Latino community, and would introduce a whole new set of social problems thenceforth.

I can respect the fact that people like Gunnut feel like they got the short end of the stick. I would only add that my toes were stepped on too by these 12 million latinos when I lost my job as a tile-setter last fall to an illegal. After the housing sector started tanking my employer had to make cuts, and instead of going LIFO he cut me and a dude with one DUI on his record, and kept on an illegal who was hired a month after I was. I filed for unemployment, and if it wasn't for the help of my family I don't know how I would've paid rent for the few months before I enrolled in school (praise Allah).

Maybe a fine combined with a non-intrusive jump-start of the naturalization process while accepting that you can't heard around 12 million people would be viable. I think you have to make the hoops reachable though, or else you'll sully their sense of America and embed a social grudge which will affect at least another generation (probably more), possibly an achievement gap in school, gang behavior, etc etc. I just don't see any of the Republicans acknoweldging the - forgive the liberal cliche - but the human aspect of their policies.

donnie, attrition means an expansion of the federal government's grip on our personal information, and opens the door to demographic gerrymandering, more red tape for small businesses, and potentially all the kind of scary shyt you hear schizo conspiracists yacking about...

dalem

This is part of the problem with the debate. Why not just call them illegal? By inventing terms like "undocumented worker" or "extra legal" one gives the impression that he is desparate to avoid punishment for them and therefore is protecting them.

They broke the law. They are breaking the law. They are illegal aliens. Therefore they are criminals and must be viewed as such. Until the "other side" stipulates to that one simple fact there will be rancor.

-dale

gunnut

Do you see what you're saying here? They were never in line. They didn't even bother with the line. So now we have 2 sets of rules? One for Mexico and one for the rest of the world?

How about this? Let's remove immigration restriction for a single country, say India. Any Indian who wants to come here can do so. No questions asked. We won't even bother with papers. Just come in and do whatever they want. We'll count them as "undocumented workers." After a while we'll bring them out of the shadows and give them a pathway to citizenship. Are you OK with that? All other countries need to wait for our immigration quota. Sit on the list and wait for a few years when their turn comes up. In fact, we'll make the wall so high and the door so narrow for Mexico that it's nearly impossible for anyone to come in from there. But we'll have an open-border policy with India. How do you like that?

India has 9 times the population of Mexico, I'm sure they can satisfy our need for labor.

Immigrants should have to earn their citizenship. Things earned are treasured. Things freely given away are taken for granted.

I'm not saying we don't let a single Mexican come over. I'm just saying I want them to go through the process. We need to secure the borders with high walls and armed patrols who have the authority to shoot people who taunt our border agents. We also need temperary worker's program. Mexicans should be able to go through a quick process to obtain a visa so they can work here. If they really like this place and want to stay longer, then apply to immigrate. Meanwhile, if they have kids here, the kids shouldn't be freely given citizenship. But the kids will be citizens upon the parents become citizens, and will be treated as native born citizens. If the parents just want to work here for a few years so they can retire in Mexico, I don't see the need to give their kids born here citizenships. They have no intention of being part of our nation.

Is that more clear?

__________________
"Only Nixon can go to China." -- Old Vulcan proverb.

FibrillatorD

That's our immigration policy for you, for the past 25 years. We fvcked up hardcore. Thus its unfair AND unrealistic that a solution should come down on these 12 million with undo harshness. Whatever the solution is, it must accept that we have known about this since the Reagan days and no one since was ever serious about solving it till terrorism hit us. And also accept that the threat of terror never justifies attrition.

Please elaborate how we could coax 12 million people to leave with the prospect of easy re-entry. You'd have a hell of a time pulling it off, because they have kids here and hopes for their futures, jobs, and everything else. There are also many in the Latino community who wield a line that we've been hearing from the black community since slavery: with our labor we carry this country on our backs and the government fights us every step of the way.

Not good. That attitude is bad for the cohesiveness of American society, and forcing Latinos, directly or indirectly, to go home and come back again will only feed the fire.

I worked on enough construction sites to see what kind of hours Mexican painters, tile setters, and stonemasons put in. I lost my job (in part) because of them but that doesn't mean they don't work. You're wrong on that account. Again, if you love your country, welcome the immigrants who are here, legally or illegally, because they make America stronger

donnie

YOU BETTER BACK UP YOUR ACCUSATION OF PLAGERISM!!!!! Can he get away with that?

What?!? Attrition means removing without replacing, I have no intentions of removing Illegal immigrants without replacing them with legal, besides the whole idea is to make the Immigration process so appealing that Illegals would be crazy not to do it. They would do it willingly if it were made accessible.

I’m talking about cutting red tape, get more people to handle more immigration applications. BTW this is the ONLY area that I believe government needs to expand, because it is one of the only things government is responsible for. (How about a flat tax, and shift the IRS into the INS?) The bottleneck is the amount of people that handle immigration and it's centralized model.

__________________
Whoever is unjust let him be unjust still
Whoever is righteous let him be righteous still
Whoever is filthy let him be filthy still
Listen to the words long written down
When the man comes around- Jhonny Cash

gunnut

Simple. Amend the 14th Amendment so there is no birthright citizenship. We don't want more "anchor babies." Then we secure the borders. Build fences. Transfer some welfare dollars to border security. Tell Mexico that we will have a much more liberal policy at shooting tresspassers. After that, we'll tell the world that we have a need for low skilled labor. Anyone can apply a visa for (fill in the blank) months to work here. The guest worker's government has to vouch for the character of its citizens though. We will charge the said government for any incarceration and legal fees incurred by said crook. No agreement, no worker treaty.

You make it simple for those in here already to leave and re-enter, they'll do it. People want to be legal. I want to be legal. I report the income I make from my side business eventhough it's only a few hunderd dollars and I could claim it as tax free gift. Many of those people who are here illegally stayed because it's dangerous and expensive for them to re-enter. They have no desire to stay here long term. They just want to make enough to retire in their own country. You make it easy to work here they just might leave after they make enough.

This policy does not only apply to hispanics. It applies to all illegals. Leave and re-enter using our expanded worker's program. They'll do it. They want to be legal.

The point is not that they are hard workers or good people. The point is there are other people who also want to come in to work. The more illegals we have here, the less incentive we have to increase quotas for other nations. They indirectly take away other people's dreams to prosper.

I agree immigrations make this nation strong. But I do not agree we should hand out free passes to illegals. Our respect for rules and laws also make us strong. What you're proposing is to bend our rules and laws for criminals. I am absolutely against that.

FibrillatorD

That's exactly what I think should be done. As I mentioned in an earlier discussion on the topic, I think the current immigration problem is, if there is an analogy, very analogous to the squatting problem we experienced in the early 19th century. The law bent then, the gnp went through the roof overnight, because the problem was so widespread and had taken such seed that to enforce the law as-was would have been completely unrealistic. That's my analogue. Yours is one from a perspective I can't have, but your frustration is certainly merited. I think that also makes you biased.

TheGreenSmoke

Being born in the United States, I did just that.

I swore an oath of allegiance to defend the Constitution and all that good stuff, so you can tell where my loyalty is at.

donnie

the birthright citizenship idea is not on my chopping block, although it would make illegal imigration much easier to deal with. I was mearly pointing out that it could be interpreted to support gunnut's plan.

but i believe strongly that people who come here illegaly and not go through the proper procedures are by definition disloyal.

gunnut

And of course you are completely objective and not biased at all. Typical liberal thought pattern. You forgot to tell me that I did use enough "critical thinking" on this subject.

FibrillatorD

You call immigration a good thing but want to send 12 million people home so they can immigrate all over again. There's an inconsistency there. I suspect it has something to do with having gone through the hassle, and now living in CA amongst half the country's illegals...

Maybe living outside CA and not going through the naturalization hoops distorts my judgment. I dunno, but this debate seems to be at a stalemate. It was a handy cop-out

dalem

Bzzzzt!

It's not a cop-out and it's not a contradiction. The thing is that gunnut (and me, and others like us) DO believe that immigration is critical and a good thing. But implicit in that belief is the concept of legal immigration.

By failing or refusing to acknowledge that key point you are only portraying yourself as, sad to say, ignorant.

It's like when a buddy comes up and says "Hey, I got some last night." Your initial reaction is "All right, way to go!". But if he then says "Yeah, she was drunk and unconscious." then your reaction would no-doubt be disapproving.

No need for you to invent a dichotomy where none exists.

Come in, come in, by all means, just sign the bloody register first.

-dale

gunnut

What is your problem? What part of ILLEGAL do you not understand?

We set up rules and laws for a reason. We want people and things to be orderly. When people disregard rules and laws, they are not orderly. They are inconsiderate. And they are disrespectful.

I believe my proposal is right way. I want us to loosen up our immigration restrictions so more people who really want to be part of the United States can join us. Those who just want to come here to make a buck and then leave will also have their chance. What I don't want is people cut in lines, jump the turnstile, and slap those other law abiding immigrants in the face.

FibrillatorD

Yes, no need to keep repeating yourself. I state my acceptance yet again. That's obvious. Me get. Illegal, right.

Extralegal is not a fabrication. Every country has shantytowns, black markets, illegal societies. Extralegal sectors, where there may be trade, homes, families, even law and order, like in any other society, but all still technically illegal. Sometimes law enforcement can get everyone in line, many times enforcement won't solve the problem. We have a 12 million strong extralegal sector today where enforcement of drastic measures won't solve the problem, and THAT's what you twos won't recognize. AND there is a legal doctrine for dealing with it all. Preemption. We've employed it before. We can employ it again, although it would work much, much better if we got control of the border first.

gunnut

It's not extralegal, it's ILLEGAL.

Extra means more. Extralegal means more legal. They are not more legal. They are ILLEGAL, as in not legal.

Stop inventing new words to mask criminality.


The article you sighted is completely irrelavent. If those people were criminals then they were guilty of stealing or squatting. They were not ILLEGAL IMMIGRANTS that we're talking about here. They moved from one part of their own country into another part of their own country that they do not have ownership of. They did not move from one country into another country without using that country's official channel of entry.