To the people upset with the illegal immigrants' demands,

[Sapere aude]

What is your solution to the problem?

I've asked this on almost every post ranting against the demonstrators and have yet to get an answer.

I know you don't like them making demands, I know you don't like the changing culture, I know you don't like them singing the national anthem in Spanish, I know you don't like them getting social services, I know you don't like them taking jobs you would do if you had to. Just what the hell do you want the government to do????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????

[MercutioATC]

1. Three things:

1) HEAVILY fine employers who employ undocumented workers.

2) Provide meaningful border security.

3) Deport illegals as they're discovered through such means as applying for social aid, driver's licenses, medical care, schooling; or caught breaking the law (traffic stops, disturbing the peace, etc.). No house-to-house searches, no mass deportation. Just send them home as they surface.

[Dave Reynolds]

2. Very reasonable.

I agree, which I suppose makes me a freeper racist.

[Sapere aude]

4. No you are not a freeper racist.

I just don't happen to agree with the solution given.

[Dave Reynolds]

13. I know, I was just teasing a little.

I think there are no easy answers. Opinions on both sides of this issue are strong, and lacking any compromise we are unlikely to change each other's minds.

But that's okay, if we all agreed on everything, there would be nothing to talk about.....

[Don Claybrook]

5. #3

catch 'em when they sign up for stuff, ok. Does this mean that hospital workers, doctors, nurses, and the teachers at the schools should be required to report those they suspect of being in the country illegally?


187. That's the number that is on the tombstone of the California GOP, Schwarzzeneggar or no.

[MercutioATC]

8. Dunno. Haven't really worked out the specifics yet.

My goal was a way to start identifying illegal immigrants in the least intrusive way possible. Obviously, the details would have to be intelligently worked out.

[Don Claybrook]

10. thanks

I disagree with you, but thanks for the civil explanation.

[sandnsea]

6. And McCain-Kennedy does all of that

And more. People who are calling that bill amnesty have been duped.

[MercutioATC]

15. It IS amnesty.

Legal definition of "amnesty":

"Noun 1. amnesty - a period during which offenders are exempt from punishment
2. amnesty - a warrant granting release from punishment for an offense
Synonyms: pardon
3. amnesty - the formal act of liberating someone
Synonyms: pardon, free pardon
Verb 1. amnesty - grant a pardon to (a group of people) "

The McCain-Kennedy bill proposes to exempt illegal aliens from punishment (even if they have to pay a fee (notice, not a fine )).

[sandnsea]

16. AND a fine

The application fees are additional. It is NOT amnesty. But thank you for helping the right wing win on the issue, and end up with a true revolving door amnesty as a result.

[MercutioATC]

17. I stand corrected, the word "fine" is used.

The $1000 "fine" is so minimal as to be essentially no "punishment" at all.

As far as I'm concerned, it meets the practical conditions of amnesty...it forgives a violation of the law with a minimal fine and allows the transgressors to "keep what they stole".

This isn't a "right-wing" issue, it's a fairness issue. The McCain-Kennedy bill permits 12M+ illegals stay in the country by paying a token fine.

[PsN2Wind]

18. That $1000 fine

probably being less than they paid the coyote that brought them into the country.
It's an amnesty because the use of a false social security card or number is a felony according to the SSA website. Therefore illegal workers are felons. But Kennedy-McCain doesn't address that.
The fine is just window dressing so Kennedy, McCain and you can say "see there's a penalty in there so it's not amnesty".

[MercutioATC]

20. Thanks, you said it much more clearly than I.

...that's essentially what I was trying to say.

[treestar]

11. that IS what they do but how much do you want your taxes raised

illegals could be stopped at the border - they have no visa to enter. We have never dedicated the kind of enforcement it would take.

And the illegals aren't exactly up with high level technology that gets them around it. It is the Border Patrol, especially post 911, that has that.

Mexicans (and others) are right to have contempt of our immigration laws:

1 - We can't, or more likely, don't choose to, enforce them at the border.

2 - We then can't, or don't choose to, deport those who got in. We let it build up to 12 million people and then whine and cry about it.

3 - We make these laws civil, regulatory in nature, then one day wake up and decide there are too many Mexicans around and start whining and crying that they are stealing our jobs and want it to be felonious to cross our precious border. And if we thought it such an evil thing to do, we'd have made it impossible to cross anyway.

4 - Suddenly we want a big wall on the entire southern border. Bwahhhhhh!

Better build that thing fast. And while we're spending tons of money on this, probably we expect the money to come from no where and to lose nothing else - raise taxes to pay for it! Outrageous! Give up on foreign imperial wars! Al Qaeda is trying to kill us!

[Booster]

19. What Merc said only I would add if they have gang tatoos all over

their neck and heads then send them back.

[Triana]

3. get RID of NAFTA and CAFTA...

....another DUer posted an entire outline of how illegal immigration ought to be handled and this was one of the things on his list. I can't find the post now, it was posted yesterday and a very good plan.

[treestar]

7. Also, what happened to entrepreneurship?

It is like no American ever started his or her own business and never had to deal with it from the side of trying to get people to work in it.

They sound totally dependent on big companies. If they give "my" job to a Mexican, I am unemployed, is what they sound like. But the idea they could start their own business never occurs to them.

They want the farm harvesting jobs to remain open in case the big company that employs them lays them off? Something they would condemn THAT company for, at any rate!

Can anyone find an article about an unemployed American who can point to a job that he would have taken that is occupied by an illegal alien?

[leftstreet]

12. Here's an article for ya

Thursday, July 14, 2005 - Page updated at 12:00 AM

Displaced farmworkers sue contractor
The Associated Press

YAKIMA — Several Yakima Valley farmworkers have sued a Los Angeles-based labor contractor, contending that Global Horizons violated state and federal law when it displaced them with workers from Thailand.

The lawsuit filed Tuesday in U.S. District Court in Yakima challenges the use of foreign workers under the federal H-2A guest-worker program.

http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/localnews/2002380502_farmworkers14m.html

[treestar]

14. If employer got H-2As for them, they are legally in the US

And went through the Department of Labor rigmarole to prove that they could not fill the job with US workers!

H-2As even have a quota, so if you can get through the rigmarole but the quota for the year are already here, it's too bad.

Maybe the law doesn't work perfectly, but it is legality that so many are obsessed with. These employers got the H-2A - that means they are employing them legally.

[mondo joe]

9. Depends on which demands. Is there a common set of

demands?

Incidentally, I don't care about the changing culture or what is sung in Spanish, and I think it's a big mistake to deny (at least most) social services.

But if you ask me to propose a solution, I'd say to heavily penalize employers using illegals; deport illegals - with the exception of a path to citizenship for exceptional cases (people who were brought here as kids ad grew up in the US); implement meaningful border security.

[Dorian Gray]

21. Well...

I'm not a fan of the "DEMANDS," per se, but I also see the need and the desire for changes to our system. (I was married to a British man, and it took TWO years for him to get his Green Card/Permanant Residency. Our marriage didn't last, and the stress of the immigration process, though not the cause, contributed to our problems.)

They need to rehaul the beurocratic, red tape, bullshit process. When I moved to England, I got my work visa in an hour. It took my ex-husband six months to get his temporary work visa. His mother was dying from cancer, so he had to line up at 4 am in Newark, like cattle, to get "parole" to leave the country. He had to do this EACH time he went to England (from visiting his sick mom to attending her funeral) for the two years that his residency application was being evaluated.

The parole application was an all day process.

Because of the two + year wait, I completely understand why immigrants without many resources wouldn't want to wait. It's frustrating, difficult, and infuriating all wrapped up into one little package!

The government NEEDS to streamline this process. That does not mean throwing more money at it and hiring more people. It almost seems like the more people they hire in this role, the more separate jobs they create, adding MORE time to the process. (I have a friend who works in Connecticut in the Department of Justice, and he's told us of the painful beurocracy that's involved in all their processes.)


That's the first change.

I also lived in Hong Kong, where I was granted a yearly work visa as long as I held a job. The US government should make a few million work visas in various industries available. Make a larger number for our Mexican neighbors, but allow Canadian and Latin American workers to come relatively easily. Not quite an open North American border, but make it easier for our North American neighbors to be able to work here. I had to reapply every year for my visa, and it took about 5 hours or so at the Hong Kong immigration offices to do so. It should be same day here, as well.

We should also provide quotas for Asian and Europeans to come to work in particular industries. As long as a company is willing to sponsor a person, and they have a clean/safe criminal record, why not?

Finally, I suspect that we will grant amnesty, and I don't have a problem with that. But, we must streamline the process greatly THEN enforce our immigration rules in the future. It's necessary.

Illigal work doesn't benefit the worker OR our society in the long run. The people who make out are the companies/hirees who can pay them off the books for cheap.

[APPLE314]

22. Cut the wages in half several times. n/t