ways to solve the immigration problems

[sabbat hunter]

1) greatly increase border security, not only with Mexico but with canada, our nations ports. Mexico is not the only way illegal aliens come into the US
2) vigorously prosecute the people that hire illegal aliens. there is a construction company in NYC that is a prime example of this. the company hired illegal aliens to work carpentry jobs at 11 per hour off the books. union carpenters should make 3 times that. prosecute them for hiring illegals, tax evasion, and anything else you can find on companies like this.
3) increase the penalties for hiring illegals. A 1 million dollar fine per illegal found to be working for your company is a good way to start.
4) greatly increase LEGAL immigration to the US. make sure they know their rights under our laws.
5) increase education spending for the new immigrants and their children so they can fluently speak english, read it as well. the quicker this happens, the less likely they are going to be taken advantage of because of a lack of english proficiency.

[Double T]

1. 3.8 million LEGAL immigrants per year ALREADY isn't enough?

If anything, legal immigration and H1B visas should be drastically reduced, specially in a CONTINUALLY DECLINING job market.

[sabbat hunter]

3. with baby boomers coming close to retirement

those job slots need nee must be filled.

immigration, legal immigration is what made this country great.

[Double T]

6. Overpopulating the USA with legal immigrants isn't going to make...........

this country great, if anything it will only hasten our ongoing decline.

[sabbat hunter]

8. we will not get over populated

remember what it says on the base of the statue of liberty

Give me your tired, your poor,
Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,
The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.
Send these, the homeless, tempest-tossed, to me:
I lift my lamp beside the golden door.

our nation is built on immigration. to close our borders down and do not let anyone in is what will spell our downfall. we cannot survive on being isolationist.

[penguin7]

9. Yeah right!?!?

The population of the whole world can fit in Manhattan. The earth has infinite resources. Don't worry, be happy.

[Double T]

10. It isn't 1886 and we are NOT building this nation.

Overpopulation is a serious problem. (1886) 60+ million people, (2007) 300+ million people



SOURCES OF POPULATION GROWTH


Population growth is due to two factors: fertility and immigration.



Fertility: The U.S. average fertility rate is currently 2.1335 births per woman, the U.S.’s highest fertility rate since 1971. (For comparison, the United Kingdom’s fertility rate is 1.7, Canada's is 1.4, and Germany's is 1.3.)



Immigration: Immigration contributes over one million people to the U.S. population annually. The total foreign-born population in the U.S. is now 31.1 million, a record 57 percent increase since 1990. About 8 million of those are here illegally--a 4.5 million increase since 1990. Almost one-third of all immigration during the 1990s was illegal.

An NPG demographic analysis of age distribution, fertility, and mortality data shows that if there had been no immigration to the U.S. since 1990, the population in 2000 would have been 262 million–19 million less than the 281 million counted. Thus, post-1990 immigrants and their children accounted for 61 percent of population growth during the last decade.





--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

U.S. POPULATION PROJECTIONS


Year Projected population Percent change
from population in
2000
2010 308,936,000 10%
2020 335,805,000 19%
2030 363,584,000 29%
2040 391,946,000 39%
2050 419,854,000 49%

Source: U.S. Census Bureau

[BlackHawk706867]

2. I agree with both of you.... Employers of illegals are the ones that..

should bare the brunt of the blow? This should apply to both Mexico and Canada as well!

ww

[Soulshine]

4. Immigration Reform is so big.....

It's hard for the average American to get their head around it or really even understand how they feel about it. I waver every day on what I think is right. It's hard to talk about what to do with 12 to 30 million people. And that's not even talking about our broken VISA programs, of which we have like....7.

The real problem with immigration in this country, is that people don't trust either party to do it right. I agree with most of your list, but they can't do 2-5 in this country till they do 1 completely. Secure the Boarders and ports so Americans can have an honest discussion of immigration. Cause it's not mexicans I care about keeping out but the dozen or so people who we know have crossed the boarder with false mexican papers and disappear in to the huddled masses of this country (and maybe more importantly how many we don't know about).

And what do do with the illegals already here. Americans aren't gonna listen to creating or overhauling a huge bureaucracy to legalize them till they know that there won't be another wave coming behind them. And to do thruough Background checks, set up payment programs for back taxes and/or fines, and set up yet another Visa program for illegal immigrants in the process of getting citizenship will be a very big Bureaucracy.

Honestly we need to take a good hard look at our immigration polices. We should allow as many immigrants as are needed. We don't have as much room as we did when Eillis Island (sp?) was open. We need to look out for American Citizens that are born here, before we start importing people to take their place. We really need to cut down on Visas that don't lead to citizenship too, I'm not sure it's fair to have people coming here and benefiting when they have no plans to actually become Americans or plan to have any nationalist ties to this country.

Truth be told, if we could just help them get the Drug Cartels out of their govt, Mexico would be a more prosperous country. But we can't get the corruption out of our government, so I don't know how much help we'd be to them.

It's defiantly a very important issue we're gonna have to get a handle on.

[Viva_La_Revolution]

11. it's really easy, actually... we don't need 'reform'

we just need to enforce the laws ALREADY on the books. Once employers are punished instead of given 'warnings' or a slap on the wrist, those jobs will no longer be available. If jobs are not avail., the flood will slow to a trickle, and soon reverse directions.

[Igel]

12. The laws on the books suck.

On the street they're wrongly reduced to "Employers that hire illegal immigrants can get huge fines."

First off, the fine depends upon the employer's knowledge of the immigrant's illegal status. If the documents on the books look plausibly valid, the employer is off the hook. The only exception is if there are employers that can testify that the employer knew--not suspected, not heard a rumor, but knew. Given that fake documents don't look bad, and the in-house monitoring staff typically aren't trained to spot forgeries of the hundreds of different IDs that are available, it's very easy for a company to convince the government, beyond reasonable doubt, that they didn't know.

Second, the fine isn't really all that large for large employers, and the pay back for raiding small employers is small.

Every time the government hints at making it harder for employers to *not* know, people raise a ruckus, whether it's over a large database of people that are authorized to work or whether it's over a national ID card.

[Viva_La_Revolution]

13. anyone can go online right now and check any SS#

There are two Internet verification options you can use to verify that your employee names and Social Security numbers match Social Security's records. You can:

Verify up to 10 names and SSNs (per screen) online and receive immediate results. This option is ideal to verify new hires.

OR

Upload overnight files of up to 250,000 names and SSNs and usually receive results the next government business day. This option is ideal if you want to verify an entire payroll database or if you hire a large number of workers at a time.
http://www.ssa.gov/employer/ssnv.htm

simple, free, and it's been avail. for years.


I do think the fines need to be raised, but it would be more effective if they would actually enforce the laws. We've heard about several raids this year, but look back at the previous 5 years... almost 0.

[SheilaT]

5. Annex Mexico.

Make them all part of this country. There'd be some transitional issues about minimum wage, OSHA, workplace regs of all kinds, and of course a pesky language issue, but in time all those things would be resolved.

Of course, the main flaw with this solution is that Mexicans are only part of our immigration problem, and even I don't think it's practical to annex too many other countries.

[penguin7]

7. Kucinich discusses the issue.

http://youtube.com/watch?v=zIDs5Vjbj7w