I have not heard any calls to C-Span in support of the new immigration Bill. But I also don't hear

[Sapere aude]

anyone saying we need to deport all the illegal immigrants. Is deportation what these people want? If so just how can that be accomplished? Anyone have specifics? What it would cost? How it will be done? Or do you think that people will just do a reverse migration back to Mexico of their own free will?

Please don't tell me that if you arrest all employers hiring illegals and deny services people will go away. That is a cop out statement. What are the mechanics to getting these people out of your lives?

[Greyhound]

1. I'm not sure which of the questions you asked I should address.

Overall, people will do what people will do. If there are no jobs, most of the people that are here strictly for the money will go back or move on, the rest will stay and be part of the underground economy. Those few that came because they want to become Americans will find another way, the point is that we cannot direct them on an individual basis but merely provide the motivation for general trends.

I do like the way you try to limit response to get someone to say whatever it is you want them to say, though what that is, is not clear.

[Sapere aude]

2. What is the mechanism for getting illegal aliens out of your life?

If the present proposed bill is not acceptable, if the present condition is not acceptable, what is acceptable?

12 million people will not migrate back to Mexico. Children of illegal immigrants born here are citizens and cannot be forced to leave the country.

If you do not like the proposed bill what do you want to happen? Being apposed to the bill is one thing but do you support doing nothing? If not what do you want done? Can you answer that?

[fasttense]

4. Oh, you do not believe historical precedent is of any value?

"12 million people will not migrate back to Mexico. Children of illegal immigrants born here are citizens and cannot be forced to leave the country."

Well, before our glorious president Raygun, illegals would cross the border, work at picking farm products and then RETURN HOME. After Raygun gave them amnesty and after the last four president stopped enforcing employer sanctions, they stayed on and got other jobs. If they can't get a job here in the US they would only have one of two choices, take steps to become legal or go home.

Would all 12 million return? I doubt it. Children born here are legal immigrants and none of this applies to them at all. Unless a Constitutional Amendment passes changing the requirements of citizenship defined in the Constitution, children born here in the US are citizens.

Our current immigration laws allow for parents or caregivers to remain with underage children but those laws can be amended or restricted to the number of relatives. Parental exception also occurred before Raygun and didn't seem encourage an excessive amount of illegals to remain in this country.

If you take away the motivation, jobs, then they will go to places where they can get jobs. Many illegals are already returning because of the terrible housing market. They can no longer get jobs in drywall, painting and roofing so they are going home.

[Sapere aude]

5. You answered the question. Instead of the new bill you believe that enforcing

current law and the economic situation will force them to migrate back to Mexico.

I don't think it will happen because the desire for their kids to be better off and the desire to keep families in tact will be stronger.

[amandabeech]

7. If illegals cannot get jobs with fake IDs, they will have to leave.

Their children who are citizens can come back at a later time.

[Greyhound]

6. I agree with Thom Hartman. This bill, which will not pass anyway, is

just a distraction. The architects of it know it will not pass and probably don't even want it to. All they are after is to maintain the status quo, while claiming that they tried. There are practical solutions that don't involve "rounding up" millions of people, or building massive walls or fences or mine fields or motes filled with man-eating alligators, that would prove ineffective anyway. These programs are just more multi-billion dollar giveaways to government contractors.

We don't have an illegal immigration problem, we have an illegal employment problem. Instead of proposing ridiculous, impractical, and unenforceable, pseudo solutions, all we have to do is make the risk of employing illegal residents too great for employers to risk.

Your claim that 12 million (more like 20 million) people won't go back, doesn't make it so. They came here because there was work, if there is no work they will leave. Why you claim that it won't happen when in fact it already has is a mystery to me, and you will have to explain it.

In addition to removing the incentive to come here illegally, we have to rework our immigration laws, make them equitable and more like the laws that other nations have, what we have now is insane to the point of schizophrenia. Like most of the problems in government, the root is unnecessary and purposefully overcomplicated double-speak, laws written to be ineffective and ambiguous, sabotaged from their inception, so that they will accomplish nothing.

As for the kids born here, they are American citizens, that's that. If their parents are citizens of another country and here illegally, they will likely return to that country taking their underage kids with them, when the kids reach the age of majority they can go where they want.

Amnesty only made things worse 20 years ago, and in fact, increased illegal immigration, why would anyone think the results will be different this time? It's just a bullshit excuse to stop the working poor from improving their lives.

[Greyhound]

12. No reply? I'm shocked, after all you started this.

:eyes:

[Marrah_G]

3. I don't think most people really want deportation

I've talked to a number of different sorts of people and the concern always comes back to the employers.

As long as employers get away with paying slave wages and not having to abide by labor laws because the workers are afraid then illegal immigration will always continue.

Even if all 12 million or so illegals are made legal tommorrow, what makes anyone think that those employers will change their ways and start treating these people fairly. Unless the problem with employers is addressed they will simply fire the newly legal and replace them with the never ending flow of cheap labor from the south.

[amandabeech]

8. And wages for those born here or here legally will go down further.

It is a recipe for social unrest and a quick method to make the U.S. income distribution even less like Europe and Canada and even more like Latin America.

I find it amusing that Republicans think that the U.S. labor market is the only market in the world in which the law of supply and demand is suspended.

[High Plains]

9. Can you point me to some solid information on the impact of

undocumented workers on wages?

The only thing I vaguely recall seeing is that they may cause a marginal decline in the wages of unskilled labor. No impact at other levels.

[amandabeech]

10. I'll try to find some current links.

However, I tend to discount information coming from business-oriented sources.

[SoCalDem]

11. What right wingers want.

They want strong healthy eunuchs from Mexico , who speak flawless english..who will work for $5 an hour (or less). They want them here to pick the fruit, clean the bathrooms, ababysit the kids, mow the lawns, wash the cars..They want them out of sight, silent, and without family.. They don't mind them living in squalid dormitories, but they do not want them driving on "our" roads, or taking up space in "our schools"..(that's why they muct be incapable of procreating)..

And if they get sick or hurt, they should just 'go home"..