Immigration, AMAZING reaction.

Thing is, the rich benefit from having the illegals here: business owners and people who want cheap nannies/gardeners/etc. Yes, we all benefit a few pennies by having tomatoes picked by people who make nothing, but it is the top who has a real vested interest in keeping cheap, non-complaining labor plentiful.

That said, I think it's a social justice issue. These are people and should be treated well and with repsect.

I think the people who employ them should be prosecuted to the full extent of the law and there should be a large amount or resources dedicated to building cases against them. I think that should be done before any immigration reform is passed.

That said, the sense of entitlement by the immigrants does nothing but piss people off. If they want to be treated with respect, they should respect the fact they are here illegally and the free resources they use cost money.

It's easy to say you want them to be treated with respect, but your opinion would change if you ever had a loved one in an emergency room in pain, and that person is made to wait behind multiple non english speaking people with no insurance and a kid with the flu or a cut finger clogging the facilities time.

MSK wrote:

That said, I think it's a social justice issue. These are people and should be treated well and with repsect.

I agree, but this also makes me ask, why isn't the Mexican government the one to treat it's own people humanely and with respect? Why isn't the inner circle of 100 families that run the country of Mexico responsible for re-distributing their wealth so that the countries resources can benefit everyone? Why are American citizens and American Governments the only ones ever called on the carpet to be accountable? Why is it the US government's job to do this(keep families together)? We have our own problems without taking on 20-40 million more with the stroke of a pen. Hell, we still have people without running water or electricity in Appalacia who though extremely poor, are citizens nonetheless. Why does an illegal take precedent? Just some questions I ask myself when I ponder the illegal immigrant issue.

wrote:

It's easy to say you want them to be treated with respect, but your opinion would change if you ever had a loved one in an emergency room in pain, and that person is made to wait behind multiple non english speaking people with no insurance and a kid with the flu or a cut finger clogging the facilities time.

Yeah, because they aren't equal human beings, right?

Ravager71 wrote:

I agree, but this also makes me ask, why isn't the Mexican government the one to treat it's own people humanely and with respect? Why isn't the inner circle of 100 families that run the country of Mexico responsible for re-distributing their wealth so that the countries resources can benefit everyone? Why are American citizens and American Governments the only ones ever called on the carpet to be accountable? Why is it the US government's job to do this(keep families together)? We have our own problems without taking on 20-40 million more with the stroke of a pen. Hell, we still have people without running water or electricity in Appalacia who though extremely poor, are citizens nonetheless. Why does an illegal take precedent? Just some questions I ask myself when I ponder the illegal immigrant issue.

Hell yeah, let's attack Mexico!

They are humands, yes, but not Americans. They are here illegally so they have the RIGHTS to nothing. The are criminals if they are here illegally - a point often overlooked. Stop trying to make this a race issue when it is not.

666 wrote:

wrote:

It's easy to say you want them to be treated with respect, but your opinion would change if you ever had a loved one in an emergency room in pain, and that person is made to wait behind multiple non english speaking people with no insurance and a kid with the flu or a cut finger clogging the facilities time.

Yeah, because they aren't equal human beings, right?

Hopefully it will never happen to you asshole. The nursing staff was running around with a translator dealing with colds, cuts and over-reacting parents, while my Mother sat there in pain, with what we found out later was an intestinal blockage.

In your idealistic world, was that equal treatment?

There was a thread on this yesterday.

I consider myself a pretty liberal guy, and I think that this plan is more than fair.

I came to this country as a legal immigrant about 11 years ago, so I definitely don't have a problem with LEGAL immigration. I also understand that these people have come to the US looking for a better life (as my parents and I did), but they aren't respecting the laws here (i.e they aren't paying taxes in a lot of cases, they came illegally to start with) and they are sucking money from social programs financed by tax paying legal residents. I honestly don't understand what reasonable argument these activists have, unless they are claiming refugee status. Do they want the US to just open it's borders?

In addition, they are bringing down the wages of lower and middle class americans by working for less than minimum wage in many cases, undermining a lot of what unions have accomplished for workers over the last century.

Realistically, I think this is a good start - get some of these people on the record, get them paying taxes and get them working for reasonable wages. The illegals have become such a part of the economy that we would never be able to enforce deportation effectively anyway.

In addition, I think we should -

-Prosecute the hell out of anyone who knowingly hires illegal immigrants

-Work to improve conditions in Mexico. I know it will never become the US, but when you have a country with such poverty next to such a prosperous one, you will always have people doing whatever it takes to get in. You don't see many canadians risking their lives to cross the border.

AHHHHHHH!!!!!!!! wrote:

Can you believe the stones on these people?

""The activists claim that the new bipartisan plan for immigration reform is not realistic and will negatively impact their lives and the lives of their families.""

They are here illegally, yet think they should be able to dictate policy? They complain about $5k? How much in social services, schools and emergency room costs do they extract per year?

Yeah, I don't understand how this is even a debate.

People need to remember that the people being "hurt" by this law knowingly broke the law by entering this country and continue to do so by staying here illegally.

I'll close the door behind me. My family got into America and now lives the good life. Screw everyone else epecially if they are not whites. Let the Irish and Italians in, but not the Mexicans and Chinese. Keep the non-whites in separate neighborhoods. Use property taxes to continue the "separate and unequal" secondary education system. We need more white people. That's the American way.

What a bunch of hyperbolic crap. Just because you favor LEGAL immigration, that doesn't make you a racist.

Go back to MoveOn.org, dipshit.

To the guy () with hospital issue,

I'm sorry to hear about your mother but regardless that wasn't the immigrants fault. How do you know if the immigrant was legal or illegal? So what that he doesn't speak English. If he/she weren't there then someone else would be clogging up the line. I've gone to hospitals many times and had white, english speaking people take forever on a flu, or a cut finger etc.

What happened was the hospitals fault for not prioritizing as they should. If someone bad did end up happening you should sue the hospital, not blame people who couldn't speak english. Did you ask them for their visa to make sure they weren't legal? Or are you just assuming?

I may be wrong, but this means that illegals that didn't have federal income taxes only pay 5k? I sure hope I am not understanding that correctly because if that's true it should enrage every American.

What are you talking about...

NO ONE has a problem with legal immigration. I don't care what your skin color is or where you are from or how rich you are. If you come over to America and follow the legal process to become a legal citizen I will welcome you with open arms.

I do have a problem with illigal immigrants thinking they should have the same rights as a citizen. If I were a legal immigrant who followed the process I would be outraged that anyone would suggust that people should be given a free pass to citizenship.

Why would you debate this at all. This seems like a no brainer to me.

Legal immigration is ok, illigal immigration is not ok. Where in that statement is there the slightest bit of racisim.

I would assume that any citizen, who took all the steps necessary to become a citizen legally, would be able to speak a little english. We need to stop catering to every group that we feel bad for. Look, we let the Irish in, we let the Germans in, we let the Chinese in- they learned how to speak out language, they became a part of our culture. The current immigrant population in many areas has made no attempts to fit in because everybody is so scared of offending someone or getting tagged for discrimination that we cater to their needs instead of them conforming to ours.

American is supposed to be a melting pot, but apparently our fire has gone out, because these guys aren't mixing in. They're here alright, but for the greater part, they aren't part of us.

Roccer wrote:

American is supposed to be a melting pot, but apparently our fire has gone out, because these guys aren't mixing in. They're here alright, but for the greater part, they aren't part of us.

[idiot] but oh no, we are not a melting pot, we're a salad! [/idiot]

Actually, one thing strikes me about this bill as particularly burdensome to the immigrants. The 5k? No, not really. I can think of a lot of people that would do anything to get that sum together. No, the requirement to register and be processed at their country\'s embassy is the real hurdle. Already in a number countries from which people seek to come here bribes must be paid to have any official action done. Can you imagine the extent of the bribery that will now take place - in - pick a country - Senegal, Nicaragua - you name it, once the immigration bill inculcates a unyielding demand for their official (ahem) services? This is the real immigration problem - the fact that so many people are stuck in non-functioning states with no effective rule of law and where bribery and corruption make even the most modest and reasonable accumulation of wealth and property rights impossible.

Look at Mexico - a failed state if there ever was one - with a slothful, overly Government controlled economy that has massive income inequality because their idea of a social program is to ship people up to the US and rely on repatriation of hard earned blue collar wages. Gee, great policy - which creates no incentive for the Mexicans to get their act together and act like a real nation. One can endlessly blame the colonialists for Mexico\'s plight - but please - it is 2007 - their people have talent - and if nations like the United States forced Mexico to do what it does not want to do - that is - to be a real state that shows some concern for the public welfare of its people and its economy - immigration would be far less of a problem. Think I am wrong about Mexico? PEMEX, the only real decent driver of revenue for the economy - essentially broke even last year and has no means to explore for more resources - with their largest field expiring soon - and this is with oil at 70 bucks a barrel? Anecdotal? Yes? Nevertheless speaks volumes? Yes. Can the incompetence get any worse? Perhaps, and that is what is depressing.

What is wrong with \"shut the door\'s views\" are not that certain people in fact think the way he avers - there are certain people that in fact do - but it is not balanced as it completely ignores the real cause behind so much of our illegal immigration. Immigrants generally like and are proud of their respective cultures - as they should be - but the failed nation states from which so many come provide so little opportunity for them they come here out of raw necessity. We should always keep the door open, but the reality is that door should be open to those that best serve our national interest - and frankly that means incenting educated, talented people to emigrate - as politically incorrect as that may seem. The incentives inherent in that approach may work to the benefit of all.

wrote:

That said, the sense of entitlement by the immigrants does nothing but piss people off. If they want to be treated with respect, they should respect the fact they are here illegally and the free resources they use cost money.

The entitlement is really annoying. "Oh, we want this...we want that..."

I work with a number of people who aren't U.S. citizens. And it is a pain in the ass for them to get into this country legally. These are people with graduate degrees. The type of people we really need in this country is we are to stay on the cutting edge. One of them was reading an article on immigration reform and saying how annoyed he is. And in graduate school, there were a number of people who couldn't stay or get work visas.

But I didn't hear these people complaining about their rights and how they should be allowed to stay. Were they annoyed? Sure. But they understood how the system worked and went through the proper channels.

The activists always love to give that stupid line about "oh, well your ancestors immigrating here and now you just want to shut the door on everyone else." NO! Immigrants should be allowed to continue coming. But it should be legally.