What is the inherent problem with illegal immigration?

[W_HAMILTON]

This may sound like a dumb question, but what is it really?

Obviously illegal immigration is not ideal, but I don't understand why it is such a massive problem. I asked some people, and they said "crime."

Well, if crime is a problem, how does having the police check people for citizenship solve this? Instead of preventing or stopping crime, police are now going to be tied up making sure everyone they pull over has their papers in order. How does this help stop crime? If the police find illegal immigrants even 90% of the time, that still means 10% of the time they are unnecessarily wasting time checking on the status of legal citizens of this country. That time could be spent patrolling or other means to prevent crime.

Also, what are they going to do with these individuals if they find them to be illegal? Lock them up forever? One year? One day? Just take them back to Mexico? Unless the penalty is harsh -- which I don't believe it is -- the illegal immigrant can simply come back illegally once he is released.

[abluelady]

1. Really?

Racism, pure and simple.

[Zoeisright]

2. Exactly so.

And anyone who unrecs this is racist.

[billh58]

22. Thanks for contributing

so much to this discussion. You are supporting the myth that an "unrec" is disagreement with an OP, while its intended purpose (by Skinner and the admins) is a vote on whether a particular OP belongs on TGP or not.

How in the world can you, and others, call anyone who unrecs a particular OP a "troll," or a "freeper," or a "racist," based solely on the fact that they did not believe a piece belonged in the Greatest category? ALL posts have some merit, but not all posts belong on the "Greatest" list.

[BurtWorm]

3. If it were so terrible, there would have been a solution long ago.

It's clearly a major boon, not least of all to politicians who rail against it knowing full well no one's going to do a damn thing about it because it works too well for us.

However, there are unionists who say, with some reason, that hiring illegal immigrants depresses wages for everyone. Illegal employment, on this view, is not in the best interest of workers (except in lowering the cost of food, for example, or childcare, etc.). Others argue that these immigrants use services the rest of us pay for (although these immigrants do pay sales tax and many even pay into the social security system though they'll never see a dime of that money, even if they become legal immigrants).

[W_HAMILTON]

4. I understand that part.

But I fail to see how the police in Arizona is going to stop it. Hell, if that is the main problem, they'd get more mileage going around to places of business and asking for workers' papers.

I do see the problem of illegal immigration when it comes to jobs, but we should be punishing the employers for this, not the workers.

[BurtWorm]

6. Absolutely. But the employers are Americans. Much easier politically to go after Mexicans.

Much less costly, too.

PS: Makes them feel like they're "doing something," too, rounding up the Mexicans.

[pampango]

13. "...going around to places of business and asking for workers' papers." The Obama administration is

doing just that. Rather than get the papers from the workers they are checking the employers' records regarding the work authorization and/or immigration status of employees.

http://www.lexology.com/library/detail.aspx?g=efe39ec4 -...

"In an effort to curtail deep declines in deportations, U.S. Immigration Customs and Enforcement (ICE) Chief John Morton has set new quotas for Office of Detention and Removal (DRO) agents. There has always been a push to outdo the previous year’s accomplishments—it is often how budgets are justified—and for the year ending September 30, 2010, deportations are on pace to reach 310,000, far below both last year’s total of 387,000 and the agency’s stated goal of 400,000. In addition, Morton and Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano have signaled a retreat from earlier pledges to concentrate enforcement efforts on the most dangerous immigrants and those involved in criminal activity outside of their own illegal status, likely due to the increased costs and protracted deportation process associated with such criminals. Given the current administration’s policy against immigrant raids, ICE’s enforcement strategy will ramp up efforts to investigate employers.

The Obama administration has publicly, as well as privately, announced that it is more interested in investigating and fining employers for I-9 violations, I-9 policy errors and worker infractions rather than simply removing illegal aliens. In the last eight months, there have been thousands of audits of U.S. companies—some random, some aimed at certain industries and some for cause—aimed at garnering evidence regarding problems with the work authorization and/or immigration status of employees.

Focusing on large, employer audits and investigations rather than individual, home, street and factory raids condoned by the Bush administration, potential investigative strategies may include using data from E-Verify to locate multiple uses of identifying information or documentation, or auditing companies with significant numbers of Final Non-Confirmations (FNCs) of employees’ work eligibility.

This increase in audits, coupled with the hiring of thousands of “forensic auditors” by ICE to review documents and assess fines, only continues to support the position that every employer must have an I-9 policy in place, proper training and procedures to support that policy, and the ability to produce evidence of compliance within a short time. Companies should be wary of viewing a Notice of Inspection (NOI) as a mere administrative request. As a matter of fact, the recent trend has been to require that vast amounts of documentation be produced within three business days and extensions of that timeframe are regularly being denied. Ultimately, an employer receiving an NOI or facing an audit may want to seek legal counsel prior to producing requested information or materials in order to take steps to identify potential issues and reduce exposure and liability."

[azmouse]

5. The treatment of those without permission to be in the US is horrendous and

it starts before they ever get to this country. They pay money to be brought into this country, are often packed into trucks without food or water, driven across the border and can find themselves abandoned in the desert. If they are lucky enough to be brought into a town they are packed like sardines into drop houses where they can be also be abandoned. Some of the lucky ones find employment. Many are rounded up and sent back across the border to start the cycle all over again.

[metalbot]

7. Illegal immigration is unfair for the millions waiting to immigrate legally

Immigration helps us grow as a country. However, illegal immigration is completely unfair to those people who are attempting to entry the country legally. My wife came here through a K-3 visa, and is now a permanent resident. In another year or so, she'll be a citizen. At that point, we'd be eligible to begin to sponsor her family for permanent residency in the US. This process will take us nearly 10 years, in part because we restrict the amount of legal immigration that we allow because we have so many illegals in the country. If we were to somehow magically deport every illegal, we'd have a significant labor shortage in the US, and we could accelerate the process by which we allow legal immigrants to come here. These would be legal immigrants, primarily the families of people who have gone through the long and expensive process of coming here legally. They'd be required to pass police checks in their home countries. Sponsors of legal immigrants have to provide proof of financial capability, and agree to repay the government for social services consumed by the people they sponsor until they've worked in the country for 40 quarters.

I don't see how that's racist - it's pretty much the opposite. If we accelerate legal immigration we'd be drawing in far more people of all races and ethnicities.

[BurtWorm]

10. I don't understand something.

If illegal immigrants are working under the table and supposedly out of view of the government, how would the government know how many are or aren't working those jobs? How can the government, in other words, consider the number of illegal immigrants (a presumably unknown and probably unknowable number) when calculating how many legal immigrants to allow in? Legal immigrants aren't in competition for those illegal jobs are they? Those jobs are supposedly under the radar. It's not as if the government can count all the people working and subtract the legal from the illegal workers, is it?

[RaleighNCDUer]

11. IOW, the answer to illegal immigration is expanding legal immigration

to meet the needs of the economy.

People would not pay thousands of dollars to be smuggled into the country if they knew they could walk across a legal entry point, get their papers validated, and work legally.

If our economy NEEDS illegal immigrants so much, let them come in legally. Expedite the process of legal immigration so nobody feels they have to jump the line.

[WinkyDink]

12. You ignore the basic economic fact: Illegal = No S.S. payments; no min. wage; etc.

The U.S. economy doesn't need IMMIGRANTS; we have plenty of unemployed citizens.

We need UNDOCUMENTED workers, so employers can save $$ in wages and consumers can save $$ in costs.

Simple.

[Dulcinea]

20. We have a winner! *ding*ding*

Illegal immigration is tolerated because it drives the economic machine.

[wolfgangmo]

26. And that is why we pursue the immigrants and NOT the companies.

After all, this is the Corporate States of America - motto: debt bondage for all.

[billh58]

18. The point that you

are missing, is that many of these undocumented immigrants were enticed here by US citizens seeking a cheap source of labor. This practice is not just a recent phenomenon, but has been going on for decades. It has been so tacitly accepted and widespread, that we now have generations of native-born descendants of undocumented workers who are US citizens.

How do you split up the families made up of undocumented immigrants, and their native-born citizen offspring? Who is really to blame for this situation -- the greedy employers who enticed them (and in many cases helped them across the border), or those who were seeking a better life after being told that crossing illegally was "no big deal?" There are entire US-based industries engaged in supplying fake birth certificates, driver's licenses, social security cards, and other forms of documentation. Who is behind these illegal operations? For the most part, US citizens run the "fake papers" factories.

Is there a drug problem in Arizona and other states? Of course there is, and there will continue to be a drug problem, along with the associated gang problem as long as this asinine "war on drugs" fiasco fuels the problem. When the profit factor of illegal drugs is removed, so will the crime problem. The lessons of Prohibition taught us that much.

The Arizona "law" is indeed racist and bigoted because it singles out ALL Hispanics for additional scrutiny, including those who were born here, and those who have immigrated legally (and there are many). It is a racial-profiling law, and that has been shown to be un-Constitutional time and time again in courts all across this country.

[The Northerner]

24. +1

[oldlib]

8. Immigration is...

An issue, similar to abortion, that the Republicans chronically raise, to rankle the Democratic Party base. It is purely a racist view held by the Republicans to stop Mexicans from entering this country.

[slackmaster]

9. My biggest single problem with it is that illegal immigrants bypass US vaccination requirements

http://travel.state.gov/visa/immigrants/info/info_1331.html

Many cases of food-borne hepatitis in my area have been caused by contact from illegal immigrants who were carrying it, and did not have proper certification for handling food.

I think we need a guest worker system that allows non-resident aliens to work here and stay temporarily while they are working. That would bring a lot of them out of the shadows.

[Caliman73]

25. You have a point regarding public health, but it is not going to happen

Employers typically want no part of guest worker programs or anything that brings worker out of the shadows because that means having to pay workers a fair wage. As said above, employers who would knowingly hire undocumented workers are not doing it out of the goodness of their hearts. They are doing so in order to avoid having to pay taxes or living wages.

[HiFructosePronSyrup]

14. They're racial and ethnic minorities.

the reason we have these immigration laws on the books is because of fear and hatred towards racial and ethnic minorities.

Immigration wasn't a "problem" when immigrants were coming from the approved Western European countries.

[pampango]

17. The Immigration Act of 1965: "The most dramatic effect was to shift immigration from Europe to Asia

and Latin America."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Immigration_and_Nationality_Act_of_1965

"Immigration reform was an important issue for ... President John F. Kennedy. For Kennedy's administration, immigration fell under the jurisdiction of second brother, U.S. Attorney General Robert Kennedy. And when third brother Ted Kennedy was elected to the U.S. Senate in 1964, his first assignment was to shepherd the bill through the Senate as Floor Leader for the bill."

"The House of Representatives voted 326 to 69 (82.5%) in favor of the act, while the Senate passed the bill by a vote of 76 to 18. Opposition mainly came from conservative Republicans and Southern Democrats."

"By equalizing immigration policies, the act resulted in new immigration from non-European nations which changed the ethnic make-up of the United States. Immigration doubled between 1965 and 1970, and doubled again between 1970 and 1990."

"A Boston Globe article attributed Barack Obama’s win in the 2008 U.S. Presidential election to a marked reduction over the preceding decades in the percentage of whites in the American electorate, attributing this demographic change to the Act. The article quoted Simon Rosenberg, president and founder of the New Democrat Network, as having said that the Act is "the most important piece of legislation that no one’s ever heard of," and that it "set America on a very different demographic course than the previous 300 years."

Of course this immigration reform was proposed by JFK, managed by Ted Kennedy, and pushed and signed by LBJ. Not surprisingly, Democrats were behind this immigration reform. It was opposed by, you guessed it, "conservative republicans and southern Democrats". Some things never change. Southern Democrats have mostly become republicans in this day and age, but continue to resist immigration reform (particularly if it substantially benefits non-Europeans). :)

[Llewlladdwr]

27. You mean like the Irish? NT

[HiFructosePronSyrup]

28. You mean the ones that came over en masse from ships...

didn't have to wait years for a green card, and didn't get deported back to Ireland?

[Orsino]

15. The framing that even you've bought into.

Individuals are not "illegal."

I understand the shorthand--and have been guilty of using it myself--but this framing is too often an excuse for not thinking.

The inherent problems include families driven apart or underground by unreasonable laws, and that these people become sitting ducks for the worst acts of our allegedly "legal" citizens. People here illegally are silenced and rendered stereotypical MSM and other right-wing forces with vested interests in maintaining the status quo.

[ismnotwasm]

16. Racism

And corrupt first world policies akin to colonialism that strips areas of resources, applies a little shit stirring when and where needed and leave the people with an weak, overwhelmed government also prone to corruption.

[alc]

19. jobs and social services

* illegal immigrants take jobs that citizens and legal immigrants could have
* they are paid less $ and benefits which is not fair to them and drives down pay for others
* they are "illegal" so they are (rightly) afraid to complain about illegal labor practices (or rent practices, or other issues)
* they pay some taxes (sales, gas, etc) but don't pay as much income tax (some work on cash basis and pay none, others are paid less so pay less tax). This includes social security and medicare so even when those are paid to a stolen ssn, the person is not entitled to benefits like they would be with a legit ssn.
* they use services (medical, school, police, fire, etc) but if they are not officially counted, the service cannot get as much funding from state or feds, so everyone using those services suffers. The tend to avoid being officially counted since if you can officially count them, you can officially deport them.
* at least in some areas the population is very transient so it's difficult for services to plan from season to season or year to year.

You can argue that many of those problems are the fault of scumbag employers, which is true, but having a large "illegal" class of workers enables them so I'd call it an "inherent problem with illegal immigration". Even if current laws had some bite and were enforced there would be employers taking advantage of the "illegal" class.

[Gormy Cuss]

21. Exploitation.

For the illegal immigrants, having no legal status makes them wary about standing up to any authority including bosses.

For other workers, having an endless supply of workers keeps wages down.

[Greyhound]

23. We do not have an illegal (unlawful) immigration problem, we have an

illegal employment problem. If we were to punish the employers, they would stop hiring those here illegally and they would stop coming.

As always, the solution is simple until you require that any solution "doesn't upset the system", IOW, keep the $$ pouring into the parasites pockets.