From the AP:
For all the tough talk out of Washington on immigration, illegal immigrants caught along the Mexican border have almost no reason to fear they will be prosecuted.
Ninety-eight percent of those arrested between Oct. 1, 2000, and Sept. 30, 2005, were never prosecuted for illegally entering the country, according to an Associated Press analysis of federal data. Nearly 5.3 million immigrants were simply escorted back across the Rio Grande and turned loose. Many presumably tried to slip into the U.S. again.
The number of immigrants prosecuted annually tripled during that five-year period, to 30,848 in fiscal year 2005, the most recent figures available. But that still represented less than 3 percent of the 1.17 million people arrested that year. The prosecution rate was just under 1 percent in 2001.
The likelihood of an illegal immigrant being prosecuted is “to me, practically zero,” said Kathleen Walker, president-elect of the American Immigration Lawyers Association.
Federal prosecutors along the nation’s southern border have come under pressure from politicians and from top officials in the Justice Department to pursue more cases against illegal immigrants.
But few politicians are seriously suggesting the government prosecute everyone caught slipping across the border. With about 1 million immigrants stopped each year, that would overwhelm the nation’s prisons, break the Justice Department’s budget and paralyze the courts, immigration experts say.
— While so many illegals slipping into the country are draining local resources and increasing the strain on law enforcement.
So that’s the trade off. The question becomes, what’s the best way to rectify the problem—if in fact you consider the influx of illegals a problem. For me—speaking pragmatically—the lower prices passed on to consumers is an adequate trade off for the strain on resources: that is, if you need to direct more money to hospitals and schools to account for illegals, you can do so with the offset from lower costs of goods and services.
But illegal immigration to me is not a “pragmatic” problem. We have laws against illegal immigration. And those laws should be enforced or abolished—not simply ignored.
A fence? A significant guest worker program with earned citizenship attachments? How best to deal with the problem?
T.J. Bonner, the union chief for Border Patrol agents, said the most effective solution would be to dry up job opportunities in the U.S. by cracking down on employers who hire illegal immigrants.
“The employers are the ones breaking the law,” he said, suggesting the creation of an “idiot-proof” system to check the immigration status of workers and the prosecution of any employers who knowingly hire those in this country illegally.
“It’s much like our tax laws: People don’t pay their taxes out of an overriding sense of citizenship; it’s a healthy dose of fear,” Bonner said.
Under federal law, illegally entering the country is a misdemeanor punishable by a fine and up to six months in prison for a first time. A second offense carries up to two years. If an immigrant has been prosecuted and deported and then sneaks back into the country, he can be charged with a felony punishable by up to two years behind bars. Those with criminal records can get 10 to 20 years.
The federal figures on arrests and prosecutions were collected and provided to the AP by the Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse at Syracuse University in New York.
The number of illegal immigrants arrested at the border is dwarfed by the number who make it through. “For every person we catch, two or three get by us,” Bonner said.
Justice Department spokesman Dean Boyd said in a statement that 30 federal prosecutors have been added to the Southwestern border to handle the rising number of immigration and border drug cases and noted that securing more prosecutions would require hiring more judges and public defenders and building more courtrooms and jails.
Authorities also note that illegal immigrants who make it past the border are not necessarily home free. In the past year, immigration officials have conducted numerous raids on workplaces.
Boyd noted that the Border Patrol can charge illegal immigrants with civil violations punishable by fines of $50 to $250. But Border Patrol officials said most Mexican immigrants are not sent before a judge to be fined.
“The majority are offered and granted … voluntary removal back to Mexico,” said Xavier Rios, an assistant chief Border Patrol agent in Washington. “We don’t seek to prosecute everyone.”
Boyd said the Justice Department pursues charges if a case involves human smugglers, if an immigrant has a felony record in the U.S., or if he has been deported before.
In theory, I like the idea of punishing businesses that hire illegals. But in practice, it is hard to make that argument, given that many small businesses—given the burden of minimum wage increases, high taxes, and expensive mandatory healthcare premiums—could not stay afloat without low-cost labor. And I disagree with Bonner when he says that it is employers who are breaking the law, because it is clear that both the employers and the illegals are breaking the law. The fix to which would seem to argue for a guest worker program—though one doesn’t have to work hard to imagine that, once such a program is established, organized labor would work hard to bring the wages of guest workes in-line with those of their citizen counterparts, which, in addition to funneling a lot of money over the border, would also defeat the purpose, which is the necessity of low-wage labor to maintain solvency.
But perhaps that’s the price we have to pay if indeed it is our wish to curtail illegal immigration. Or perhaps we are more comfortable erecting border fences—a departure from our self-image as an open society.
Your thoughts? Because honestly—combining illegal immigration with liberal social and economic policy—seems like a perfect storm of irreconcilability and long-term cultural disaster.
Me, I’m stumped.
That is a big part of it, it is hard to keep kids out of your yard if your wife keeps giving them cookies, building a fence might slow them down some, but locking her out of the kitchen is alot cheaper.
On the other front, we have a shortage of labor in this country that needs to be filled, I don’t understand why it is so hard to have a functioning guest-worker program.
The problem of filling the labor shortage with non-native workers is that it drives wages down. The main problem is that the cultural elites have bought into the “work that no American will do” bullshit. The truth is that these businesses aren’t willing to pay the going American market wage for labor, so they will willingly break the law to screw over lower wage willing American workers.
When the Feds raided that Chicken processing plant a few months ago and cleaned out all the illegals, the company was forces to raise their wage and American workers were lined up outside the plant the very next day to take those jobs they didn’t want.
1) We have to control our borders. It’s a basic function of government and soveriegnity. There is a significant portion of these illegal immigrants and their supporters both within and without Mexico who openly express their intention of reconquista. Many parts of Southern California are now Mexican territory in all but name.
2) The increase in the number of OTMs (Other Than Mexicans) is huge, and should be frightening. It definitely has national security ramifications.
3) Real reform for Mexico itself will never happen as long as the U.S. serves as a safety valve for Mexico’s poor, and a cash cow for Mexico’s economy. (remittances)
4) There is a huge difference between a fence built to keep people in, and a fence to keep people out. One produces a prison, the other produces a home.
Solutions:
A) Build a physical wall. Station the U.S. Army on the border. Enforcement must come first.
B) Deduct the money spent on illegal aliens by the Federal and state governments from any aid sent to Mexico. We must give Mexico an incentive to become serious about dealing with the problem.
C) Increase the prosecution on employers. Without jobs, most of the illegal aliens will self-deport.
D) Tax, and limit, electonic remittances to Mexico, unless the remitter is a registered “guest worker”
E) Amend the 14th Amendment to return to the original meaning, and end the production of anchor babies. You can do this by restricting birth citizenship to children of citizens and legal residents.
F) Only after the above are instituted, set up a strictly monitored guest worker program, that mandates a return to Mexico.
G) Provide monetary and political support for reformist movements within Mexico.
Not a very good display of reasoning here, Jeff. Sorry to say.
The suggestion that it is small business which provides the bulk of the jobs for illegals is simply without merit. Sure, the “lawn and garden” industry has it’s share of, shall we say, workers-sans-documents.
But, most illegals work as migrants for some of the nation’s largest food producers – who are breaking the law in ways that are simply stunning. Other industries which are profiting handsomely with the wink-nod of the government are the hotel industry and the vast majority of large restaurant chains (from the fast foodies such as McDonalds to the bigger names, such as your Olive Garden type restaurant chains.)
Whole corporations seem to exist for the sole purpose of taking advantage of the profit opportunity that is afforded when your workforce has no rights, doesn’t pay taxes, needn’t be provided with health insurance or vacations or sick days, doesn’t report income and can’t complain to the appropriate authorities when their workplaces are run in unsafe and illegal ways.
Here are just a few examples:
220 arrested at one meatpacking plant
This was one plant of the infamous Swift corporation, raided several months ago. The entire corporation was staffed by illegal aliens hired by executives who facilitated identity theft to make their profit.
Here in Massachusetts, the “immigrant rights community” was up in arms over the raid of a freaking Defense Department contractor whose entire workforce was illegal aliens. The corporation is accused of helping them get fake IDs.
Many, many people believe that it’s open season on American jobs … that if you hire Americans who demand decent pay and working conditions, well then you’re just a schmuck. These people believe they can break the law with impunity.
They need to be perp-walked.
I stopped going to McDonald’s and Olive Garden. Why? Because they clearly are profiting at the expense of my child, whose future is unclear because we refuse to stop the wanton employment of criminal aliens.
A small strike at the problem? Perhaps. I am but one man, but I do have the power to choose where to spend my disposable dollar and I simply won’t support businesses who take advantage of people in their employment.
The immigration problem solves itself if we parade a few CEOs in front of the “right” kind of judges.
As people get the message that they won’t be allowed to wantonly, brazenly break the law, the jobs will go back to Americans and our standard of living will rise because of it as employers compete for good workers and businesses that can only survive on the back of illegal aliens dry up and die – like they should.
After the raid in Massachusetts … the company began hiring, since its entire workforce had been arrested the previous day. Amazingly … legal immigrants were at the front of the line, along with some native Americans.
The line stretched around the block.
And let me just say for the record … I wholly support LEGAL immigration.
It should be much, much easier to BECOME a citizen.
Our tax policy DEMANDS that we allow large numbers of immigration into this country each year. People are too busy working to pay their tax bills to bother with having children. The birth rate of Americans has dropped steadily in direct porportion to the tax burden imposed upon us by our inability to congrol government spending.
Inflation also cannot be contained without a large immigrant workforce. What galls people like me is that we are a nation of laws and men.
If our government employees are so inefficient that they cannot process the migration of people fast enough to support our needs … then fkin fire them.
We should allow a LOT more people to LEGALLY become citizens – fairly easily.
No need to build big walls supported by yet another big-government bureaucracy and to have an army at the border.
Our Army is busy at the moment securing the free world from the tyranny of Islam.
I agree with a lot of gahrie’s proposals, here. I think that in point of fact the lot of us who pay taxes actually subsidize low-wage hirers of illegal aliens by virtue of paying for their medical expenses, welfare, housing assistance, education & ct, not to mention increased auto insurance and so forth. Having lived for a while in Mexico, I can tell you that it’s no easy matter to, for example, open a bank account there. You are ejected from the country for walking with a group of political protesters. Illegal immigrants are dealt with rather harshly.
Moreover, many of the antibiotics that are prescribed in this country are available over the counter in Mexico. What this means is that people don’t finish their treatment courses, with consequent potential for development of resistant strains. Mind you, I’m not very picky. I drank the water and ate the raw beef tacos and so forth, and never got sick (thanks, perhaps, to the tequila), but there are potential health problems associated with undocumented aliens which the people who want you to be concerned about bird flu don’t want you to be concerned with.
By all means, let us rewrite the laws, if that is what’s required, but let us not threaten and then not follow through, because that brings the entire body of our laws into disrepute. It must be a national conversation, though.
From the link:
Also:
That is a sweatshop. Those people could have stayed in Guatemala and worked in a sweatshop. That is not typical of the immigration problem most people refer to.
There is a huge problem with addressing the employer side of the equation: it simply does not recognize the black market in labor and services in our country.
As such, it will not punish black-market business-owners, and will just stimulate the market’s growth.
This inevitability is obscured when illegal immigration is viewed through a governmentalist lens, which leaves most observers with the mistaken impression that they can control this thing we call the economy.
If we’re going to solve this humanely, Jeff, we’ll need to think outside this particular box.
Filling a labor shortage period will drive down wages, it doesn’t matter the ethnicity of the worker. And driving wages down isn’t inherently a bad thing, if it drives down prices and employs more people, it can be a good thing.
I have a problem with this line of thinking also, some of those jobs don’t exist at the “going American rate of labor”. How long would McDonalds stay in business if a meal there cost over ten dollars? I work on a lot of county school projects, many of the new schools and additions would be cancelled if the cost of construction went up, as well as many private sector expansions that lead to new jobs.
And how many of them are still there? Because it my experience with the low end of American labor, they turned out to be mostly surly, drunken louts who think they are owed a job and would up quitting or getting fired within a month. I would be willing to bet it is back to mostly immigrant labor at this plant now.
I agree we need to get a handle on things, but my experience, in the north Georgia area at least, is that without immigrant labor the economy would take a serious nosedive, to the detriment of all. Let’s not throw out the baby with the bath water.
I think I remember Jim Bennet of the Anglosphere fame suggesting a kind of empowerment zone. A strip of land on our side of the border where Mexicans are allowed regardless of status. That way they can have access to American jurisprudence and jobs legally, and we can more effectively police our border, just further in. As we would maintain control of our territory this wouldn’t actually mean ceding land, and it would actually aid in enforcement. The two obvious problems with this would be 1)How to stop paperless Mexican nationals from going places we don’t want them to be (i.e. outside of that strip) and 2)How to avoid a kind of Jim Crow type system where they are exploited or labor laws aren’t enforced. I don’t know if this will actually work but I do know that right now Adam Smith’s invisible hand is back-handing the border patrol like a red headed step child. So, it’s worth a shot.
What creates black markets? Either an outright ban on desired goods, as is the case with drugs, prostitution or alcohol during prohibition; or the artificial inflation of prices by over-regulation or mandated shortages, as is the case with labor. Why has the price of labor become so disproportionate to create a black market in this country? This is where the real threat lies.
Living and working at a ski resort I’ve seen that even legal immigrants drive the wages down. Our department gets more and more H2-B visas every year because the management says they can’t get enough Americans to do the job. That’s true but only because they have not raised the starting wage in 8 years, they have actually dropped it. Next time your up skiing, notice how many of the lift ops and food service people speak with an accent.
I can’t afford to go skiing, that is kind of my point.
Clearly the solution is to build berms along the border. Huge berms. Mile high. With balloons.
Building a mile-high berm using balloons would take forever. Use Caterpillars.
This is why nothing is ever done. Merovign has taken my suggestion and twisted it into something ridiculous. Obviously a fair reading of my statement would be mile high berms. With balloons on top. Damn wingnuts.
How about we just dig a big-ass, huge fucking canal across there, pile the dirt up for a berm, we could dramatically hinder access and fuck the Chinese at the same time.
Wow… nothing ever gets done because I told a joke? Just wow – I feel so empowered now.
Maybe I’ll go to Iran and tell a few jokes. Then maybe China. No, China will take a while, North Korea should be next.
Yes! There’s the can do attitude. See, Merovign, now things will get done. B Moe sees the solution and then IMPROVES it. Good thing your going to North Korea. Although nothing already gets done there, so you might be redundant. I suggest we seed the canal with alligators. And that fish that swims up your dick when you pee. I know that would stop me. Not sure when we would have the time to fuck the Chinese, but sure. If there are some there. Adult and consenting of course. On the North side of the canalburmballonacade.
And no one pointed out that using insect larvae to build the berm is even more ridiculous that using balloons.
You people are letting me down, I tell you!
Though I might sign up for the “fuck the Chinese” study group, especially if airfare and lodging are provided.
On-topic for one brief, shining moment:
1) One would think that a million uncontrolled uninspected people of various backgrounds and nationalities streaming across a poorly-monitored border would be a slightly higher security risk than Grandma Spencer and Daisy Duke not getting their “random” frisking at the airport.
2) The economics of the situation are tragically complicated – but with a controlled border and proper regulation of remittances, at least it would be possible to solve. Right now, we’re propping up the corrupt Mexican government so we can keep getting the flow of cheap workers we don’t want. On the other hand, the Mexicans are using our system to ship lots of money back to Mexico to prop up the corrupt government they don’t want.
One would think there would be a solution that would satisfy just about everyone here, except for the corrupt Mexican government, like I give a rat’s ass about them.
Sheez, I was talking about fucking the Chinese by having a new canal competing with the one in Panama. You know, fucking like a metaphor. I should have known better around this bunch, I mean what’s a metaphor if there is no one outstanding in his field?
I want to ask a question here I asked previously and got no response: most of the money earned here is by the Mexican underclass, and it is shipped back to the underclass in Mexico- how is this economic empowerment affecting the balance of power in Mexico? It may be propping up the establishment now, but what would be the long term effect of the Mexican minorities and second-class citizens becoming an economic force in their own country? Might this not lead to a more productive trading partner and neighbor in the long run?
Gotta go be the entertainment at a wedding now, have fun while I am gone.
No no no. Build the berm the old fashioned way. High explosives. Not balloons. I apologize for the poorly worded post that some might have interpreted as using balloons to build the berm. The balloons, if you think this through, are obviously to keep the border crashers from flying over the berm. Not to be used in construction. I kind of wondered about using the insects to build it, but assumed Merovign was looking to an organic wall. Admirable but not very practical. Nor anywhere as fun as explosives. We are AMERICANS. As an American, which would you rather do? Watch bugs build a wall over many centuries or blow shit up? Chinese women are hot, so I am still good with the other thing too.
I love my burritos…..
letseaxaminethis:
I didn’t mean to suggest that it was only small businesses using illegal labor—just that those who do will be disproportionately affected by a crackdown on employers. Which I also allowed might be the tradeoff we have to accept. (I live in Colorado and had a front row to many of the meat packing plant raids).
Larger businesses using illegals will lose profit and cause an increase in prices; but they likely won’t fold. The idea I was getting at, that is, is that mandatory minimum wage increases, mandatory company-provided health benefits, and high taxes on small businesses could hurt the economy and punish people whose solvency depends on illegals.
Which is why I’m stumped. Don’t think my reasoning is off, but if it is, show me how.
If we HAVE to be on topic I used to live in a town in Nebraska with one of those meat packing plants that got raided. This town is running less than a 2% unemployment rate. Those that dont have jobs are essentially unemployable. They are the ones that either value smoking dope or getting drunk over working for a living. Those are not sub standard wages paid at these plants. They were running radio ads when I lived there, heavy rotation, for jobs starting at around $30K a year for someone that with a high school diploma who would show up for work. If you can’t get people to move where these plants are, who are you going to get to work them. What do you do? Move the whole thing to Mexico? What happens to the ranchers if their market moved 1500 miles away. While I am sure there are plenty of Americans willing to do this job for the $15+/hour, how many of them are willing to pack up and move to a 42,000 population town in the middle of nowhere? I know a lot of Mexicans will.
Buzz:
The answer is a guest worker program…after the border is secured.
We have to blow things up. We also need to use BIG inefficent polluting tractors.
For the Envrionment!
IIRC, there are about 12 million illegals in this country, which suggests that there’s a demand for that many largely unskilled workers. Yet, again IIRC, the INS issues some 600,000 green cards each year. That’s just bound to create a black market labor problem.
Thus, I’m all for issuing more green cards for guest workers. (If they want to apply for citizenship, fine, but let’s not water down the requirements for citizenship.) The advantage to issuing more green cards is that at least we’ll know where these folks are and what they’re doing. They’d pay taxes, and receive the protections of any other employee. But commit any fairly serious crime and Bzzzzt! no more green card for you hombre!
Legal or not, I honestly don’t believe that these folks are taking many jobs from skilled blue-collar American workers. They’re mostly mopping floors, changing sheets, mowing lawns, and washing dishes. Do they compete with unskilled American citizens for these most menial jobs? I suppose so, but at least if they’re green card workers they wouldn’t be out-competing the citizen by taking these jobs for less than minimum wage.
Then, for those businesses that still can’t survive without exploiting illegal workers? Well, any business that can’t afford to pay the minimum wage should fail. At the very least they’re unfairly competing with the honest businesses. I’m all for prosecuting businesses that knowingly employ illegals, or that pay less than the mandated minimum wage to anyone. (Whether there should be a mandated minimum wage is another argument. It’s the law and businesses should be required to abide by it.)
Of course, if a business isn’t paying minimum age and withholding taxes, they’re liable for prosecution and some pretty severe penalties, no matter who they’re employing. It seems obvious that enforcement in this area is extremely weak, which has implications completely aside from the illegal immigrant issue.
Yep, stop the flow, count all the heads, guest worker program so its all visisble and secure.
In the end..
The Mexican workers will wind up costing as much as an American worker, because, like.. they’ll be legal… and can bargain openly, and legally, for ‘rights’ and vacations, and insurance, and stock options, and all those goodies all humans want…
So the market will level the feild…
somehow…
Which I both agree with AND think will never happen. Not that we will never have a guest worker program, but will never have secured borders. No one is willing to stand up and make it happen. Democrats want the extra voters that come with amnesty and I have no idea what the Republican deal is.
As for building a fence, unless you’re going to guard it heel-and-toe, in which case you don’t need a fence, all your 20-foot fence is going to get you is 22-foot ladders.
And who’s going to build this fence, Hmm? Government contractors employing illegal aliens?
I really think the place to attack this problem is at the point of demand. As long as businesses can cheat and hire illegals with impunity the illegals will find a way to get into the country, even if they have to use balloons. Or tunnel under the mile-high berm!
TW: become11. What? And turn my mental age back a whole year?
How’s about annexing Mexico & turning it into the 51st state, Annexico?
Yes, it would be seen as imperialism, turn us into international pariahs, and set the left to shrieking. There’s got to be a down side to the idea somewhere, though.
In all seriousness, I don’t see the immigration problem going away in my lifetime: there is no political will to do any of the things that might actually help. Gahrie’s list is excellent, apart from B) & G). I don’t favor cutting aid to Mexico: I would deny any more aid to Mexico whatever. Why are we indirectly subsidizing their Spanish-language brochures on how to cross the border? I emphatically agree that the 14th Amendment must be repealed/amended. It makes my blood boil that anyone in this country illegally can claim a right to services paid for through taxes they’re avoiding. An enormous tax on overseas remittances would be nice.
The libertarian in me hates the idea, but posse comitatus must go. Only the military has the manpower to enforce border security. The thought of illegals being dropped by M-16 fire does not bother me in the slightest. One million illegals per year is a literal invasion.
To his list I’d add eliminating/drastically reducing the minimum wage. That would take care of the American mindset that there are jobs too low-paying to bother with. 99% of illegals cheat on their taxes wherever & whenever they can, out of fear of being tracked. It is simple common sense that anyone willing to violate immigration law is ipso facto more likely to violate other laws as well. I support draconian penalties for companies caught hiring illegals, but that will no more eliminate the black market in foreign labor than mandatory minimum sentences eliminated the drug trade.
I work 50 hours a week, and I know I’m not the only poster here who does. Why am I paying 1/4 of my income in taxes to support a system that does nothing whatever to prevent these leeches from bleeding us? What is the value of my citizenship, if it only leaves me liable for responsibilities illegals openly flout?
Anybody here remember the movie Gangs of New York? Everyone I know who saw the movie loved Bill the Butcher, and not just because of Daniel Day-Lewis’s brilliant scene-stealing. That character resonated with modern Americans because they see his anti-immigrant stance through modern eyes. They didn’t care that his opinions were largely based on racism – they saw him as though he were a 21st-century American tired of being used & ignored by political hacks with no interest in the people they supposedly represent.
I firmly believe there is an enormous untapped resentment of illegals in this country. Any major candidate for Prez willing to stand up for those of us who actually belong here can guarantee himself the vote of the modern Know-Nothings. Tom Tancredo’s support, such as it is, is based 100% on this very phenomenon. If Giuliani or Fred Thompson endorsed even 10% of what I’ve advocated, I’d leap off the fence and support him today.
I apologize for the length of this rant. Immigration reform is deeply important to me, outweighed only by the GWOT.
They’re not ignored. They’re working exactly as laws are designed to. They’re there, dormant, to be enforced against companies that refuse to play ball with the government.
If ChickenPlantCo doesn’t lay down the right political contributions–or ChickenPlantInc lays down more, or ChickenPlantLtd is owned by the local D.A.’s cousin’s husband, or […]–and ChickenPlantCo gets raided.
That’s what laws are for.
Yes, all of them. Kennedys are allowed to kill and rape. You aren’t. It’s that damn simple.
letseaxaminethis,
Those who think the solution is to perp walk some Swift packing CEOs need to be aware of the facts on the ground.
1. Swift and company has worked with federal authorities since 1997 to try and prevent illegal immigrants from finding work in their plants under a program called basic pilot.
2. Swift and company had previously tried to confirm the accuracy of the documents they were given. As a result of these actions the justice department sued Swift and company in 2001 for “document based discrimination. After two years of negotiations Swift paid a $200,000 fine to settle the matter.
If you want to perp walk someone, perp walk those in the federal government who aren’t doing their jobs. Swift and company tried to do the right thing and were screwed by the Feds at every turn.
Quote below is from the wall street journal.
I love people being here that want to be here, for almost whatever reason. I say welcome, amigo. And I’ve noticed that if my waitperson seems like they might be from somewhere else originally, they get tipped better. Cause of the welcomingness. I remember when I was a kid helping our housekeeper study for her citizenship exam. And I remember when Mom and Dad sponsored a Vietnamese family in the 70s. A family that now has 4 Ivy League grads to its credit. What I know is that productive immigrants do much to mitigate or even overcompensate for those who are a “strain on resources.” Like many of you though, I would despair of finding an analysis along these lines that I would put much stock in.
Taking a cue from Snow Crash, we need to tattoo the foreheads of illegal immigrants when caught, be it crossing the border or otherwise.
Violent offenders get POOR IMPULSE CONTROL on their forehead to go with ILLEGAL BORDER CROSSING.
Then we set up a cottage industry in tattoo removal. It’s good for the economy every which way!
It bothers me a great deal, because I know if I had been born a po’ ass lil Mexican kid that is exactly what I would be trying to do.
I wish I could remember where I read this, but somewhere it was suggested that having illegal labor is actually preventing us from finding/using mechanical means to do some of the duller jobs.
In any case, business might be hurt by having to pay more for labor, but there are compensations: not having to pay for social services for illegals, not suffering the crime they bring with them (they make up a good chunk of the prison popluation in some states—they are criminals, after all), not having to deal with the societal breakdown (teen pregnancy; absent fathers; little value placed on education; high crime; heavy, multigenerational reliance on various forms of Welfare; no intentions of becoming American), keeping money in this country instead of sending it into the black hole south of the border….
I’ve seen it cited that each illegal is a net expense for us, not a net gain, and that’s just the finances.
Whatever the eventual solution is, it starts with a fence, and doesn’t involve any kind of amnesty or line-jumping. If anything, illegals should be banished forever in favor of non-criminals. Laws have to mean something, or we don’t have a country.
Every time some eejit gets into the news whining about the poor illegals, I go hunt up the PJM straw poll and vote for Tancredo.
Better the lil Mexican kid should have come here legally, no?
I don’t like the idea of illegal immigrants either, but I think Mexico ought to be doing something as well. It isn’t just our problem.
Stumped? Admirable humility.
I*m never stumped.
Someone even said *knowitall*.
An unsolicited testimonial. Not bad eh? = TG
Of course, but if things don’t work out in your favor, are you going to be happy just saying fuck it and living in an old refrigerator in Juarez, or are you going to say fuck it and make a run for el Norte? People that want to work should be allowed to work. Period.
There are literally billions of people in this world who would jump at the chance to do what you are suggesting. Do they all have a right to come here? And if they did, would those opportunities still exist? Or would they just be exporting the misery of where they presently live here?
Do we have the right to discriminate against those would-be immigrants who don’t happen to live conveniently next-door to the U.S.? What about so po’ North Korean kid who wants to work in exchange for a shot at the American dream? We need to provide him with an easy means to get here and violate our national sovereignty just like the po’ Mexican kid can.
It’s only fair.
</leftie>
I am just saying it makes me very uncomfortable to talk of lining the border with M16s and gunning them down- especially when the left is promising them rainbow stew and ponies if they can make it through.
This would actually work. Instead of deporting the illegals that get caught, sentence them to 6 months labor building and repairing the border fences. Pay them some money to send home, its only fair for the work they do. This would set up what is called a negative feedback loop. The better the fence works, the fewer workers will be repairing it. Which means the fence will not be repaired as fast and then more people will cross and be caught. Which means more workers repairing the fence and fewer illegals caught the next year. Make the annual executive pay raises at the government contractor be based on an inverse of the number of fence workers. More workers means a lower raise (maybe none) and fewer workers means a larger raise. This would be an incentive for the contractor executives to make sure the repairs get done.
This system would cause enough of a decrease in the flow of illegals across the border to turn illegal immigration from a major problem into a minor problem. That’s really all I want. That and privatize the INS. And a pony.
Whats the “cultural disaster”? President Mencia?
I almost forgot. Once on the way back from Colorado, I was in a small town getting gas when I saw a sheriff patrol car dropping off two very much beaten up Hispanic men on the other side of that country line. I obviously don’t know what the story was there, but I have my suspicions. I found it disturbing.