Illegal Immigration
Illegal Immigration (II) has been plastered all over the news lately.
I know there’s a problem but I’m not quite sure how to fix the problem. A while back Business Week had an excellent article on II. I don’t remember the specifics of the article but I do remember that the article describing the good that II has done for the United States; the tax dollars contributed, the new businesses developed, the lives it has changed for the better. The article changed my perspective on the issue; before I thought its illegal, so what there doing is wrong. Since then I’ve decided it’s not nearly as black and white.
I guess what bothers me most about II in the news is the ignorance. The Columbus paper has been filled with many letters to the editor. About a week ago, Columbus printed an article in Spanish; this spurred a number of comments, as well. I have no problem in the paper wants to print an article in Spanish but they should also print the same article in English.
A typical comment: Go home, you’re the work that other people could be doing. I completely disagree with the comment, there are not plenty of other people that would do the work; many people wouldn’t, couldn’t, or refuse to work for so little.
Although, I disagree with many of these comments, I do think that if any person is applying for US Citizenship they must be able to read, write, and understand English.
What are your thoughts? What do we do to solve the problem?
May 1st, 2006 at 10:08 pm
Since there is no law saying that US citizenship is only for those who can speak english, why should it be a pre-req?
Not saying I agree with people refusing to learn english, either.
Solving the problem is easy. Stop rewarding businesses that hire II. For every II found, fine the business 100k USD.
If there isn’t an incentive to hire II, then the problem will go away.
No one is going to want to move to the US only to end up being a beggar because they can’t get a job.
May 2nd, 2006 at 4:19 am
If the current rate of illegal immigration continues — over 10,000 Mexican illegals enter the USA every day — the middle class will be destroyed within a very short period of time. The vast influx of illegal workers is causing a significant drop in average wages across the US. State governments are in the red. Diseases long gone from the US are coming back due to the health problems that illegal immigrants bring with them.
It is a fight for survival by the middle class. Unfortunately, most of the middle class are so dumbed down they don’t even know their lives are at stake. Or that the real war is right outside their front door. For so many of the middle class, it is a very long way from the television to the door.
If you are in the middle class of America, illegal immigration is a serious problem. And it requires a serious solution.
When I sit and think about it, the zen saying, paraphrased, “No matter how far you’ve gone down the wrong road, turn back”, comes to mind. This is not the time to do the wrong thing and make the problem even worse.
Hence, I believe to solve the illegal immigration problem the borders have to be shut down. Now. For real. Second, ALL illegals regardless of country of origin or how long they have been in the US have to be deported. Now. For real. And the government needs to be very clear with employers. Any employment of illegals will result in mandatory jail time. Fines will not be effective. For legitimate immigrants, there must be a requirement to learn English as their primary language. And the US must make English the national language and prohibit use of any other language for public purposes.
Just based on the current rate of immigration of all ethnic groups, not just the front-leading Mexicans, there will be between 60 and 100 *MILLION* new people in the US within the next 10 years. There will be tons of cheap workers so that all the environmental laws can be wiped off the books and the vast reaches of America can be mined, drilled, and logged. After all, when there is no middle class, there is no environmentalism. Only the enclaves of the rich will be spared the rape of the US that is coming.
Personally with the disenfranchisement of the current middle class in the US, I don’t think there will be anything that changes. The US as we know it today is going to disappear so fast that it will make one’s head spin. Once the US is overrun with immigrants, mostly Mexicans, then the next step in forming the North American Union can be taken. One super government for Canada-USA-Mexico. It will be the triumph of socialism over its long time enemy, the USA.
May 2nd, 2006 at 6:49 am
On the duck we came up with the idea of fining businesses 10k for every illegal person found working for them. 3k of that goes to the person who reported it. As well, if the person who reported it is an employee of the business, they cannot be fired for making the report (similar to reporting an OSHA violation).
May 2nd, 2006 at 7:18 am
I don’t think it’s as simple as that. Not everyone has an employer, ie fingering contractors. Do we really want to fax around fingerprints and retinal scans every tim anyone provides us any service?
Raising fines will just drive the labor further underground, to shady handler-types and even less humane conditions.
I say bring ‘em on in. If they’re willing and able to do work another person won’t, they DESERVE that job.
May 2nd, 2006 at 7:36 am
He’s right.
If they’re gonna sneak in anyway, make them citizens and tax them into submission. See how much they like living here when they have to pay taxes and show up for jury duty like the rest of us.
May 2nd, 2006 at 8:10 am
dfdsfsd
May 2nd, 2006 at 8:10 am
crap, lost my reply. The jist was:
Move the responsability to employers AFTER we create a quick and easy citizen verification infrastructure.
May 2nd, 2006 at 8:36 am
Did anyone notice that immigrants were on strike yesterday?
If it weren’t for the coverage on cnn.com, I would have never known.
May 2nd, 2006 at 12:09 pm
I agree that it’s not a black and white issue. But I see several problems:
1) It’s illegal. The simple presence here is against the laws of our country. Period! Yes, we are a country that has traditionally relied on immigrants for our success - but LEGAL immigrants. If they respected our laws, they would have not have circumvented the legal immigration process by sneaking across the border over a fence or through a tunnel.
2) I have a major problem with the fact that many (not all) illegals appear to be 100% loyal to their home land. They sport their home flags on their cars and insist that we speak their language. What would happen if a large number of Americans moved to Mexico (illegally), flew our own flags and insisted that they print restaurant menus in English and speak English at their banks. Seems strange, right? In addition to following our laws (such as following the LEGAL immigration process), anyone coming to our coutnry should assimilate to our culture (whille still feeling free to celebrate their own), learn our language, and become an American (not just a Mexican living in America).
3) Everyone living here needs to be identified. When I lived in Austria for just one semester I still had to register with the local law enforcement so they would know who I was and where I lived. This should be the case for everyone who enters our borders. Without identification, our law enforcement can not have a chance of providing safety and security by enforcing our laws.
4) Many immigrants pay taxes but many (MANY) more do not. This has created undue and unbearable strain on our education, healthcare, criminal justice, and social services systems.
These are just a few of my thoughts. I don’t claim to have a solution for how to resolve the problem, but I know that granting automatic citizenship to those who have broken our law is NOT the answer. I’ll also concede that a mass deportation is not the answer either.
Just as a final thought on the May 1 rallies, I heard a congressman from Iowa on the radio discussing an article he wrote about these. He stated that since the illegals wanted so badly to show how much they mattered to our economy and society by protesting for a day, they should also do the following: 11,000 of them should not illegally cross our southern border for the day in order to give our Border Patrol agents a day off (saving millions of dollars); thousands of them should not visit our emergency rooms for the day which would allow our own citizens to receive the much needed care they deserve without having to suffer long waits; hundreds of them should not commit crimes against our citizens (like drunk driving accidents, rapes, murders, etc); and the list went on. If they are serious about this, they should follow through with it totally. Then we’ll see how much of a difference they make to our economy and society.
Bash away…
May 2nd, 2006 at 1:09 pm
markj’ed!
May 2nd, 2006 at 1:26 pm
LOL, ROTFL, 0x~!, etc.
May 2nd, 2006 at 1:30 pm
Until this month, I had always been very pro-immigrant and an advocate of greatly increasing the number of legal immigrants we admit from Mexico and other Latin American countries. Even opening the borders completely seemed like a good idea.
However, the protests and disrest in the hispanic community have convinced me to completely change my mind on this issue. While I still think the economic benefits of having mexican immigrants outweight the economic disadvantages, those advantages are heavily outweighed by another consideration: preserving American culture.
From everything I have read in the news, especially this week, it has become abundantly clear that illegal immigrants and those who support them are waging an all out war on our culture. They seek not to be integrated into a new culture (a blend of what already exists here with hispanic culture), but completely replace our culture with their own. The anti-American and pro-communist banners at all of these rallies make that extremely evident.
Those who enter the country legally and seek to enrich our culture by adding their unique perspectives have my admiration, but it doesn’t make sense to tolerate such a vast threat to the values and history of our nation.
However, I have completely changed
May 2nd, 2006 at 1:58 pm
I didn’t notice that many immigrants choose to take the day off yesterday. However, cities such as Los Angeles, Chicago, and Houston had a few issues. The C-bus newspaper reported some businesses had few workers and customers.
Maybe requiring immigrants to learn English shouldn’t be required but I think any new citizen should acclimate themselves to their county, it shouldn’t be the other way around.
I also believe that the II 100% at blame; it’s also the companies that hire the IIs. First we’ve got to do something for the II that are already in the country – the law abiding (except of course being in the country illegally) tax paying individuals. Second, we have to crack down, big time, on all of the companies that hire IIs, both knowingly and unknowingly. Third, we have to come up with a better procedure for people that want to come into the country to work and eventually become US citizens.
Here’s a thought, outsource the Federal Immigration Office; it would probably be operated mo’ betta.
May 2nd, 2006 at 2:35 pm
I could hardly disagree more with MarkJ on this here issue.
> 1) It’s illegal . . . If they respected our laws, they would have not
> have circumvented the legal immigration process
If we respected their human rights, there would not have been a law against their peaceful and prompt immigration in the first place.
There were laws against slaves running away too.
> 2) I have a major problem with the fact that many (not all)
> illegals appear to be 100% loyal to their home land . . .anyone
> coming to our coutnry should assimilate to our culture (whille still
> feeling free to celebrate their own), learn our language, and become
> an American (not just a Mexican living in America).
There are not many second generation immigrants who don’t read write and speak English. The labor market makes it so. I think that qualifies as assimilation.
> 3) Everyone living here needs to be identified . . without identification, > our law enforcement can not have a chance of providing safety and
> security by enforcing our laws.
Presumably you’d also support a national ID card with double or triple biometrics? (personally I do). But the double standard many people want to apply in this regard is blatent racism and is insulting.
> 4) Many immigrants pay taxes but many (MANY) more do not. This has
> created undue and unbearable strain on our education, healthcare,
> criminal justice, and social services systems.
This sounds to me like a problem with the (state-funded) education, healthcare, criminal justice, and social services systems. Specifically, their existence as such, with the exception of the criminal justice system. But I hope you’re not asserting that illegal immigrants should be treated as criminals because, being illegal, their immigration burdens the criminal justice system.
May 2nd, 2006 at 9:45 pm
Immigration, immigration, immigration……there are always two sides to the issue…
look at it economically and fiscally:
1) It is illegal to transport American dollars outside of the U.S. Of course this depends upon the amount. 70% of all U.S. Dollars are held outside of the U.S. meaning that the American dollar is the most trusted monetary unit in the world (this is ahead of the Swiss Franc, Euro, Yen and British Pound). When people are afraid that banks will close and businesses will go under, they obtain more and more american dollars. This can also cause inflation.
in addition:
2) When a large amount of hispanics living in this country send large deposits of American money abroad, they are increasing the inflation rate because there is American dollars in U.S. border circulation. Although todays inflation is stable and very low compared to other countries, and that the current currency rates have caused foreign countries to legally purchase American dollars, eventually this money going to mexico will affect american markets. This may have already taken place in locations like Texas.
3) Businesses are not to blame for having II as workers. The AMERICAN BUYER is. When you purchase something, every dollar that is spent on that item is a vote yes for that company and product. Yes you like the product. Yes you agree with the Business. Period. When you refuse to buy goods that are expensive due to the high price of labor, you are saying yes to companies with supposed unfair business practices like cheap labor, and no to your supposed “fair labor”
4) The reason we have unemployement above the natural rate (natura rate is usually 3-4.5%)(which p.s. is currently 4.7%, lower than 95% of the time that is was during the clinton adminstration {clinton’s reached 4.6% and began to raise 2 years prior to Bush’s inaguration}) is because of the minimum wage. When the minimum wage is set above market equilibrium, it will cause more people to influx into the market demanding work and the suppliers lowering the supply. More people are willing to work at a the price floor amount than suppliers can provide. This raises unemployement and under certain conditions can create a Black market of labor.
The true price of doing farm labor, house work, and other odd jobs that latinos do is at the price they take it, not at the price that americans are willing to work for. If the pay is offered at a price americans are willing to work for, then the job will no longer exist.
5) Most of the Cocaine and other drugs that come into the country, come through mexico and mexican immigrants. Cocaine raises crime, pays drug lords who are abusive rulers over poor people in Columbia, ruins societies, raises drug related hospital visits, and in general is a great cost to society. CNN news reported that nearly 50% of II from mexico would sell and transport drugs to america if it means making a profit.
6) Dollar in dollar out. Things have to be payed for. Imagine this: You have $1000 each year. This has to cover all your bills. ANother person joins your group. You decide that if you put your money together, you can save money by paying the same bills and sharing the things you get fom it. Guess what, now another person joins your group, but they don’t add money, but the two of you must pay for the bills of 3. It makes things a lot tighter. When a large population is living in an area recieving benefits but not paying into the pot, that is going to causes monetary problems. It means that the people paying recieve less for their money. That is not racism. That is called balancing your check book.
As much as I do believe and understand that people should be able to come to this country and make a better life for themselves, it shouldn’t have to be at a huge risk for me. I shouldn’t have to worry that buildings are going to get blown up, more people killed and terroism is spread because we don’t want to control the improper influx of people to our country. Not that II from mexico are terrorists but that free reign entry into the country by any peoples is a problem; whether that it is from canada or mexico.
Lastly on a business note: I have heard a lot of people saying that Americans and our imperical global business practices is what has caused the down fall of latino people in central and south america. When American companies go abroad, they expand sales, provide jobs (usually better than those provided by the home countries) and do much fairer practices than 95% of the companies from other countries. The reason that the United States hasn’t had Massive, marxist labor reforms like other countries today is because of the fair business practices that we exhibit. Foreigners like working for American companies because it means stablity and honesty.
WHEN PEOPLE DO BUSINESS, THERE IS NOT A sole WINNER NOR A LOSER. If you have any backround in economics you would know this. Especially GLOBAL BUSINESS. It does not mean one country has raped another and now II are coming here and we should except it.
Mexicans live in a Democratic society where they can vote and play an effect upon the world that they live in. If they want money but want to stay mexican, then they should VOTE and do things themselves to improve themselves.
May 3rd, 2006 at 10:23 am
This morning, my Dad sent me a clip from the Rush Limbaugh show (original date 04/06/2006). Rush listed a bunch of laws geared toward immigrants. Here are most of the laws (in an abbreviated fashion):
1. Must be a professional or investor, no unskilled labor,
2. Must speak the native language; there will be no special ballots during elections, no special bi-lingual programs in the schools,
3. Do not have the right to vote or hold political office,
4. Cannot be a burden on the tax payer…cannot collect welfare, etc.,
5. Restricted land purchase,
6. Immigrants cannot protest or organize in a politic fashion.
7. If you come into the county illegally, you go to jail.
Now here’s the kicker…these are real laws that immigrants coming into Mexico must following.
Interesting…
May 3rd, 2006 at 2:05 pm
it’s all in the gray
if illegal immigrants didn’t pick many of the fruits and vegetables we eat, for oh so little wages, the prices of these goods would be much higher
like you said in response to “Go home, you’re the work that other people could be doing,”…who would do half those jobs for the poor wages these individuals receive, they basically keep us from having to work in those poor conditions
I look at it both ways, though….it is illegal, they are undocumented, and they risk so much
This is what being a sociology major does to you.
May 3rd, 2006 at 2:34 pm
Being a sociology major prepares you nicely for working alongside sanchez in the tomato field.
May 4th, 2006 at 7:28 am
I still say assimilation is the key. Living in Logansport, I’m surrounded by Latinos, many of which I am certain are not legal. You cannot go into a restraunt, store, bank, park, etc without hearing jibberish (probably Spanish, but I just like to consider it “Not-English”) They’re all here because of the Pork Packing plant (Tyson’s IBP) that we have here. Now, for all of you who say that the Mexicans are here because they’re doing jobs that nobody else would, guess what? . . . The slaughter house was here long before the Mexicans. It was a locally-owned business that got bought out by Tysons. Once Tysons took over, gone were the whites and in came the browns.
Thanks Tysons for the influx of Mexicans. I personally enjoy having to shred every single document that I throw away for fear of having my identity stolen. It’s great reading the newspaper and seeing all of the accident reports involving people without licenses and insurance. It’s great to have spanish plastered all over town. I love the little low-rider vehicles with all the gothic lettering, chrome, Nike stickers, and mexican flags all over them. It’s an absolute joy to hear the circus going through town every day . . . oh wait . . . that’s just mexican music.
I am not saying that we should not allow immigration. I’m all for immigration. Yes, the country was built by immigrants, but they were legal immigrants. You just can’t open the flood gates and let anyone and everyone that wants to come to America walk right in (or swim or wade, for that matter). It’s not socially or economically responsible.
As for the language issue, many states have legislature in place that recognizes English the official language, Indiana included. I wish that the Federal Government would do the same thing. There was also a comment in one of the posts about second-generation latinos in the US speaking English . . . that’s fine and dandy, but with more and more illegals coming in each day, how is that even relevant. We’re still being bombarded with non-english speaking people and that trend doesn’t seem to be slowing down. Those second-generation immigrants may be able to speak english, but many still speak spanish at home. I know this because my neighbor fits that description. He’s a great guy. He has assimilated into our culture and has a job selling insurance. He is bi-lingual, but much of his family speaks spanish. Therefore, the majority of the conversations with his family are in spanish. The language barrier may never be broken until the Federal Government steps up and mandates that English is the official language and quits printing things in Spanish.
Mexicans are very proud of their culture (?). Many have no desire to change or to adopt the American culture. I say, if they’re so proud to be Mexican, then go back. Take what you’ve learned in America and go apply it in Mexico. Go make a difference in your homeland. Have a social and economic impact and improve the world. If Mexico wasn’t such a bad place to live, then people wouldn’t be sneaking in here every day.
May 4th, 2006 at 11:57 am
Grenert, you raise some great points!
One of your final points coincides with a defense I feel I should offer to the assertion that my comments above fail to appreciate human rights. I must point out that the human rights issue does not lie in the US - it lies in Mexico! If the Mexican government had their act together and bothered to support their citizens with the vast wealth they have in natural resources (*cough*oil*cough*), there wouldn’t be a massive vacuum to the North.
Also, to follow-up on the issue about produce costing substantially more without the cheap labor. I heard a statistic that the labor cost of picking/harvesting produce adds up to only 4% of the price. Granted, I can’t corrobrate that with anything written. But if that percentage is even close to true, that percentage could triple or quadruple without substantially raising the cost to the consumer. That means that producers *could* pay 3 to 4 times what they are paying illegals and we still wouldn’t have “$10 avacados or $20 heads of bananas” (to quote Geraldo Rivera).
May 4th, 2006 at 1:06 pm
“Pork Packing plant”
in other words, a MEAT PACKing plant!
bigtim
in related news, ‘pork cutlets’ tend to dry out when grilled, but still make for a BANG! samich