What ideas do you have for illegal immigration as an issue?

[Ignacio Upton]

I weould consider myself to be where Paul Krugman is relative to the "spectrum" of where people stand (read his column from today's NYT). I do not like the fact that the corrupt and corporate-friendly Mexican President is full of hypocrisy when encourages his own people to break the law while he enforces it against people coming over from Central America. Fox is trying to get rid of the downtrodden of his country because he sees it as quick and convenient economically. Meanwhile, we have people who are coming in here illegally, who are being EXPLOITED by corporations and given low wages. Unfortunately, it's also partly economics that causes this. The larger the labor pool, the less companies are obliged to pay their workers decently. Many of the low-paying jobs that American citizens "don't want to do" were once respectable and unionized. Meat-packing, agricultural work, and roof construction used to be middle class jobs. Not only did whites have some of these jobs, but Hispanics who have been in this country for several generations (including Tejano descendants and Puerto Ricans) as well as African-Americans were once employees in these professions in larger numbers. You also can't unionize people who are here illegally, so they can't speak up lest they get deported, and are easy to screw over with harsh working conditions. A guest worker program of the kind proposed by Bush will only further this non-union underclass trend.
While I would like for us to actually enforce the law, the key is not in the Sensenbrenner bill. I do not like the fact that a Minister or Priest or Friar or Nun could become a "criminal" because they choose to help the sickly. I also do not like how refugees are treated in the bill.

If we want fewer illegals coming in, we need to scare the shit out of corporations that hire them, and make it next to impossible for someone who enters illegally to find work. If corporations are facing with....say, confiscation of their assets, then they won't hire illegals, and working-class Americans of ALL races, and LEGAL immigrants will eventually fill in to take those jobs at an inevitably higher wage. If illegals can't find work and corporations are scared about being punished, fewer of them will come ove the border.
Other steps that need to be taken include bringing back wide use of the closed shop for unionization in these "jobs that nobody will do." Repeal "Right to Work" laws too. On the Mexican side of the border, a change of Presidenices is in order. The next Mexican President should NOT be handing out pamphlets showing people how to cross the border, but rather he should try to create new jobs and set up a social safety net equal to Canada's (one similar to America's is not sufficient in any means, IMHO.) Scaling back anti-labor portions of NAFTA would also help bring a degree of economic fairness in Mexico as well.

What are your suggestions?

[kcass1954]

1. I'm thinking mandatory jail time for the corporate principals might help

stem the hiring. No plea-bargain. Also, fairly hefty fines, not a "slap-on-the-wrist" variety.

If we make it hurt enough, it will stop.

[Minnesota Libra]

2. OK, confiscation of corporate assets and closing borders would.......

.....work for me. I'd go one further and say confiscation of property for anyone renting/selling to illegal aliens.

If we are going to get tough, let's really get tough.

[High Plains]

25. Did you forget the sarcasm button?

How about we tattoo numbers on 'em?

[Inland]

3. Some suggestions, some principles on immigration.

First, the principle that immigration laws serve to benefit the American citizens first, just as jobs in America and government services and the joy of taxpaying should be for American citizens.

Second, the principle that the shadow play of strict laws for immigration on the books combined with intentionally lax enforcement works an injustice on both the hopeful legal immigrant, the illegal immigrant, and the citizens who believe in the first principle all at the same time. What Bushco wants is a cheap, exploitable labor force while the repuke redneck base hates competing with a cheap labor force. The "solution": make illegal immigration a felony and make examples of a couple of poor Joses while making sure that 99.9% of illegal immigrants are never caught and will work for whatever keeps their employer from making a phone call to the INS. That makes everyone happy, except the poor Americans, and poor immigrants.

Third, a constant flow of cheap labor makes it difficult for legal immigrants to rise in our society. They've entirely bought in and should be able to demand the price for labor that the rest of us who have become full citizens demand.

Fourth, that there is no such thing as a job that an American won't do. There's only a question of how much an American will require to do it. Therefore when determining which level of immigration will be strictly enforced, the economic impact must be objectively measured. Me, I believe that Americans would live with more expensive construction, food, and whatever. But I could be wrong. Let's figure it out and discuss it, rather than writing off Americans for jobs under the fiction they "wont do them".

[Ignacio Upton]

4. Your post does a good good of articulating my thoughts

Legal immigrants also get hurt in this debate (and that includes Hispanics.) Second or third (or more) generation Hispanics also have to compete for jobs with illegals. It's not just whites who have to do this. Unfortunately, none of the plans being proposed in Congress will help. Punishing churches, guest worker programs, and blanket amnesty (as opposed to partial case-by-case amnesty, which I support) are not the way to go.

[Inland]

5. I had a nasty thought about punishing the churches and local govs.

Does charity provide the ability of these illegal immigrants to refuse the lowest wages? It seems to me that republicans aren't just making a pool of cheap labor but to ensure a dickensian poverty where mere survival requires accepting whatever wage is offered. Give them a full belly at the soup kitchen and why, they might hesitate to stick their hands in the machinery of the wood chipper. Make their prescense a felony, and their entire family starves while they are in jail and they won't go to the hospital if it tears off a finger or two.

[IsItJustMe]

6. Hmmm

[Why Syzygy]

14. I'm getting a small

delight thinking about how those words ring in the ears of the millions of unemployed in the U.S.
They won't do a job, sometimes ANY job? Just ask them.
He sounds like the buffoon he is telling these people they won't work.
BUSHIT :+

[sentelle]

7. My suggestions

Lets look at implementing "Aiding and Abetting" and "Conspiracy" statutes against these people.

Additionally, if this is an 'unofficial' policy, we might look into RICO Statutes.

[sendero]

8. It is ireally simple..

.... enforce the fucking law.

There is no attempt, NONE, to enforce illegal immigration laws. You can go to the corner of Royal Lane and Dennis on ANY DAY and pick up all the day laborers you want. It's not like we 'can't' enforce our laws, there is no WILL to enforce the law, businesses WANT those people here and businesses get what they want.

[Warren Stupidity]

9. How many farms do you want to see go out of business? nt.

[Ignacio Upton]

10. Oh please

If we actually enforce the law, farms will hire native-born citizens (which can also include blacks and second-third-fourth-fifth-etc.-generation hispanics in addition to working class whites) and LEGAL immigrants. It's not the end of the economy if lettice or peaches or grapes cost slightly more. Most farms are controlled by agribusinesses today, and even if small farmers are hiring illegals, they're BREAKING THE LAW! Hire teenagers in your town, or less fortunate folks who would be willing to work for higher wages.

[Warren Stupidity]

16. Well even domestic agribusiness is now competing

directly with globalized agriculture and the competition is pretty fierce. But it is not the highly mechanized agribusiness that will suffer it is those remaining small farms, like the ones in my town, that continue to be hand labor intensive that will suffer. Many will just say fuck it and plant a crop of houses.

Migrant farm workers are essential to the small farm business. A rational program that legalized a much larger proportion of the migrant farm labor force would benefit everyone, but it has no political pizazz to it, no foaming hatred of foreigners that can drive even the normally rational to cozy up with fascists, so there is no fun in that. Nah, lets build a freaking wall around Mexico, put the remaining small farms out of business, toss people in jail, and clap ourselves on the back for taking care of that problem. For like a week or a month or however long it takes for the economic system to discover the roundabouts and loopholes that exist and get things back to normal again, the horror of illegal immigration will be solved. Maybe we can start up a whole war in illegals to rival our war on drugs. The capacity of Americans to engage in braindead foolishness is apparantly limitless.

[Inland]

15. Several, actually, since we already pay people NOT to farm.

But it's really quite simple: food is incredibly cheap. Incredibly cheap. Even dining out is incredibly cheap. Half prepared food in the supermarket, incredibly cheap.

What one really needs is to pay a living wage to American workers to work the farms and, should prices rise, continue the same food programs that provided demand for agricultural products AND food for the poorest.

[cantstandbush]

11. At a minimum, deprt those who have committed crimes and are in jail. n/t

[fishnfla]

12. My simplistic idea

Work (and pay) to improve conditions in their home countries. Teach a man to fish and all that.

End the war, secure the borders, and use the bloated defense spending to improve conditions in 3rd-world central american countries. Hell there's oil there too.

The Iraq war (bush sure does have a hard-on for them Ay-raq-i people)is gonna cost our national treasury trillions. A fraction of that would go a long ways elsewhere.

Its interesting to note that Chinese immigrants and Irish immigrants are returning to their homelands, now that their economies are going well.

[Inland]

21. Sim;ple, but good.

It seems that any argument that "there's not enough money" is really a political question, that is, there's six billion a month to the Iraq occupation and we could try a lot of that sort of experimentation with one tenth of the resources we piss away.

[LSdemocrat]

13. Fix the legal immigration system

The legal immigration system is so broken down and inefficient that it is just not an option for people, unless you can hire a high priced immigration attorney. Just from the extremely large numbers of illegal immigrants in this country, it's clear we can handle a significant increase in legal immigration. Make the system more efficient and allow greater numbers in, and we'll go a long way to fixing the problems of illegal immigration.

[Rosemary2205]

17. I think its barely an issue

I don't think most of America cares. We aren't clamouring to pay more for lettuce or home construction, I don't see Americans organizing boycotts to avoid businesses that hire them or mass protests demanding only Americans and legal immigrants be hired. Look at our unemployment rate - clearly our economy is still accomodating them. We want the benefits of the cheap labor but we don't want to deal with those brown people. We don't want to hear them talk Spanish. We don't want the Walmart signs in 2 languages. We don't want to live next door to 30 mexican men living in a 3 br house. We don't want to wait behind them in the grocery because they can't read what the WIC voucher says. We don't want to pay taxes to support their children. We aren't talking about building a fence because we want those jobs or because Akmed might come over and blow up the Sears tower. We are talking about building a 2000 mile fence because we are mexican hating holier than thou bigots content to benefit from their nearly slave labors.

It makes me sick.

[Warren Stupidity]

18. me too. good post.

[Catchawave]

19. What Rosemary said -nt

[Donald Ian Rankin]

20. Two steps:

1) Make the laws on immigration looser.
2) Enforce those laws.

Having the current, very tight, laws on immigration and then turning a blind eye to those who break them is the worst of all worlds: you get large numbers of immigrants whom you know nothing about, who can easily be exploited, who don't pay tax, who have no legal protections, who often have to risk their lives coming in, and who are completely unscreened.

At present, the American laws on immigration are sufficiently draconic that in some cases they are clearly more honoured in the breech than the observence. That needs to be changed, and then they need to be enforced.

Introduce progams to enable most of the illegal immigrants currently living in the US to do so legally, deport the remainder (those with records of serious crimes are the only ones I can see a strong case for deporting, although there may be some others), loosen the law to make legal immigration a sufficiently viable option that illegal immigration is much less attractive, and crack down on what illegal immigration is left.

[APPLE314]

22. Most autopsies kill the horse.

We are beating up on the wrong people.

The real problem is the free ride employers are taking when they shift the expenses for all those other items like health, education, welfare, assistance, foodstamps and other social benefits to the rest of the population. As far as I am concerned this is an "UN-AMERICAN ACTIVITY" and should be prosecuted to fullest extant of the law. Have you noticed how quiet they are, watching us tear at each other's throats. Divide and conquer works for them.

Prosecute, Prosecute, Prosecute. That is the answer.


Truly, I have real problems with kicking out people who only want to work but common sense says that if we don't stop this thing "RIGHT HERE AND RIGHT NOW" we will be signing away everything we and our ancestors have worked for for over two hundred years. Just look at the numbers and you will see I am right. Today 11,000,000; ten years from now 15,000,000, and further out even more.

We cannot, as a democracy, agree not to win. Anything short of demanding adherence to the rule of law is abandonment of our Constitution, and everything we stand for.

I refer to the fact that grandfathering in a law is illegal.

[Cleita]

23. The best idea you have here is to go back to the

drawing board where NAFTA is concerned. Making NAFTA fair for everyone, not just the globalists would go a long way.

[Zimmy44]

24. US Farm subsidies

Stop subsidizing US agr production that is sold to Mexico, so farmers in Mexico can make some money in their own country.