Immigration issues

Not too many people would disagree with that sentiment in the abstract. Unfortunately real life isn't as neat as all that. Do you have any idea how long legal immigration takes? I'll pause a moment to let you consider that question.As far at the Minutemen go, I have a few thoughts on them. The name seems chosen to evoke a particular emotional response. Whenever I see something like that, a flag goes up. Obviously they are trying to present a particular image.Are they racist? I have no idea. I've never spoken to any of them. Given the prevalence of racism in this country, I'd be amazed if none of them were. However, I'm simply not willing to paint them all with that brush without actual evidence. It seems likely that at least some of them genuinely believe they are protecting the country from a perceived threat.I'd be willing to bet that at least some of them like to play soldier, too.I do think that there's little difference between anti-immigration sentiment that's flourishing today and what we have seen several times in the nation's past.Now, back to the question I posed before. Hope you've had enough time to think about it. Legal immigration can take from 3 years to 20 or more in some cases. Back in the late 1980s when I took an immigration law class, I seem to recall that the government wasn't even accepting certain types of visa applications from Mexico. If that's still the case, then that means that the vast majority of people in Mexico cannot even apply for legal immigration to the U.S.It's always easy to criticize someone for breaking the law. For a closet bigot, it's a way to rationalize prejudice and feel good about one's self. Please do not assume that I am suggesting that you are a bigot, nem, I am not. I'm simply pointing out that falling back on the illegal aspect of the immigration is an easy out for those who are looking for one if they don't know all the facts.I do think that border security is a problem. With so many people coming across the border every day, it's much easier for someone with evil on his mind to get into the country undetected.Our southern border is like a leaky dam. It seems to me that there are two ways to fix the problem. One would be to try to plug the holes. But it's a long, long border, and that option just doesn't seem feasible to me. The other is to take the pressure off. One way to do that is, as brenna suggested, make things at home less hopeless. The other way, as I see it, is to open the gates and let more of the people in legally. I really believe that most of the people who come here want to do it legally, they just have few, if any, options to do so.

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Those who would sacrifice an essential liberty for a temporary security will lose both, and deserve neither. -- Benjamin FranklinWe see monsters where science shows us windmills. -- Phat

Your position is a reasonable one. In actuality, it is much, much more difficult to legally immigrate here from Mexico. As far as I've been able to determine, we seem to have an insane policy that limits the number of people that can come here per country, and that limit is the same for all countries. Thus, because there are many, many more people that want to come here from Mexico than there are from say Liechtenstein, it's much more difficult for Mexicans to get in legally. So as it turns out, Mexicans don't get special treatment, they have it worse off than most other people.I do agree that whatever we do, we need to be cognizant of those who are trying to jump through all the proper hoops and make sure that they don't get screwed.

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Those who would sacrifice an essential liberty for a temporary security will lose both, and deserve neither. -- Benjamin FranklinWe see monsters where science shows us windmills. -- Phat

The relevance goes to the "high moral ground" argument that a lot of people seem to begin and end their position with. When all they have to say is, "Let them immigrate legally," they end up sounding an awful lot like Marie Antoinette.

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Those who would sacrifice an essential liberty for a temporary security will lose both, and deserve neither. -- Benjamin FranklinWe see monsters where science shows us windmills. -- Phat

I'm not sure that's true, do you have a source? Ever see Finian's Rainbow? It's Fred Astaire's last singing and dancing part, so worth seeing for that reason alone, other than that it's a bit dated in places. Anyway, there's a scene where this good ole southern boy type named Senator Rawkins is trying to buy some land and Finian, with a wild scheme about making gold, pays the back taxes on the land and keeps it from the "Senator." When the "Senator" finds out that some Irishman just off the boat spoils his plan, he says, "An immigrant! I mighta known it, my family's been having nothing but trouble with immigrants ever since we came to this country!"Everyone always thinks the latest wave of immigration is going to take their jobs, lower their standard of living and try to change our country into the one they came from. And everyone is always wrong. I doubt that. While I'm not sure that race is playing a factor for most people, I do believe it is playing for a significant percentage. And, for those for whom it is playing a factor, it makes their opposition much fiercer than it otherwise would be. This is just bloody silly.Letting more in would not make others want to stop, but it would significantly reduce the pressure to come in illegally. As I said, I believe most that come here want to do it legally, but with few or no legal options available, this is the only way they can do it.In any event, a surge in immigration would not cause resources to evaporate and the economy to plummet. The surge would cause a rise in tax revenues as more people are paying into the system. The surge would give a boost to the economy as more people begin buying, selling, producing and consuming. Despite what the fearmongers say, I don't believe most Mexicans want to come here so they can be on welfare. They want to work, and work hard, to improve their lives, and I have never heard of a hard working person being a drain on anything.

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Those who would sacrifice an essential liberty for a temporary security will lose both, and deserve neither. -- Benjamin FranklinWe see monsters where science shows us windmills. -- Phat

Well, since all racial classifications are based on nothing more than superficial distinctions in appearance, I guess "hispanic" is as valid a "racial" classification as is black, arab, or italian. Any group with an identifiable set of commonly shared physical characteristics that separates them from "whites" could be considered a "race." It seems that the sine qua non for creating a racial classification in this country is whether the group is subject to discrimination based on their appearance.

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Those who would sacrifice an essential liberty for a temporary security will lose both, and deserve neither. -- Benjamin FranklinWe see monsters where science shows us windmills. -- Phat

You might find it easier to understand what people say if you actually read it all instead of just stooping at the first part you don't get.What I said in full was, To flesh this out a bit more, just in case you still don't get it, there are a lot, and I mean A LOT, of people from Mexico who want to live in the U.S, far, far more than we can process in a given year, in fact far more than we would allow in a given year even if we could process them all. This creates a pressure to find illegal ways to get in. If we reduce the wait time so that there's a reason for the average emmigrant to believe that they will be able to get in relatively soon, that will reduce the pressure to come in illegally.Get back to you later on the rest of your post.

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Those who would sacrifice an essential liberty for a temporary security will lose both, and deserve neither. -- Benjamin FranklinWe see monsters where science shows us windmills. -- Phat

Yes, yes, of course. It's all so clear now.They pay sales taxes.
They pay real estate taxes.
They pay taxes for electricity.
They pay taxes for telephone service.But they don't pay taxes.Would it really be all that difficult for you to admit you misspoke, and that what you meant to say was that they don't pay income taxes?I guess so.Edited by subbie, : No reason given.

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Those who would sacrifice an essential liberty for a temporary security will lose both, and deserve neither. -- Benjamin FranklinWe see monsters where science shows us windmills. -- Phat

The problem is that both links you provided go to pages relating to naturalization, which says nothing about how long it takes to get into the country in the first place.Care to try again?

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Those who would sacrifice an essential liberty for a temporary security will lose both, and deserve neither. -- Benjamin FranklinWe see monsters where science shows us windmills. -- Phat

Gosh, can't think of a single reason.Except....Helping those worse off than we are is the right thing to do. You know, a lot of people think that babies starving to death and living in disease and squalor is a bad thing. But hey, if you're into selfishness, let it all hang out!If we build their economy, they will buy more of our stuff.If they're less miserable in their country, they might have less incentive to try to break in here.Wow, it took me a whole 10 seconds to think of those reasons.

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Those who would sacrifice an essential liberty for a temporary security will lose both, and deserve neither. -- Benjamin FranklinWe see monsters where science shows us windmills. -- Phat

I guess you're not a christian then, eh?

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Those who would sacrifice an essential liberty for a temporary security will lose both, and deserve neither. -- Benjamin FranklinWe see monsters where science shows us windmills. -- Phat

Here is the sum total of what you said, and what you were responding to, when this subthread about taxes began: Now, if you want to amend your statement to "illegal aliens don't pay into the services that legal people do," that's okay by me. But it's not what you inititally said, no matter how much you wish it was. Not necessarily true. Some states, Tennessee being one of them, have no income tax. Most residents of Tennessee pay most of their money into state coffers through sales tax. And as far as I know, any state that has a sales tax puts the money collected from the tax into the general fund.Sales tax is not a substitute for taxes that the store has to pay. When a store collects a sales tax, it is merely acting, in effect, as an agent for the government. The money passes through the store and goes to the state. But the store also pays it's own taxes on any profit it makes.It really sounds like your understanding of sales taxes is grossly in error.

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Those who would sacrifice an essential liberty for a temporary security will lose both, and deserve neither. -- Benjamin FranklinWe see monsters where science shows us windmills. -- Phat

Come to think of it, we don't know that it wouldn't kill nj. You remember the episode of Happy Days where Fonzie tried to say he was wrong, and the pain that it caused him?Maybe nj is the Fonz, only more so, and admitting error would actually kill him.Perhaps we oughta cut him some slack.

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Those who would sacrifice an essential liberty for a temporary security will lose both, and deserve neither. -- Benjamin FranklinWe see monsters where science shows us windmills. -- Phat