It’s not. Plenty of US citizens made it their business to acquire Canadian health cards in the not so distant past.
It was kind of funny really, we had say 20 million people in a province and 22 million issued health cards. Hmm.
However, after raping our medical system, they went back home.
[quote]AZMojo wrote:
-Oh, and fear does seem to be figuring into your thought process here. Maybe not physical fear of terrorists or something like that, but fear of a change in your lifestyle. Maybe it’s higher taxes, increased medical costs, increased insurance costs, fear of getting screwed over in favor of those who aren’t “pulling their weight”, etc.?
[/quote]
I have a definate fear of increased medical costs and insurance costs. I REALLY have a fear of increased taxes. And why not! These are items that everyone should fear.
[quote]AZMojo wrote:
Why wouldn’t you feel honored if your tax dollars were used to help somebody beat an addiction, or feed their kids? You’d rather have them spent on a wall? Interesting.[/quote]
This is probably gonna rock your world AZ, but it’s not the governments job to feed somebody’s kids.
Government does a pretty poor job of charity. That sort of thing is handled very well by religious orginazations.
[quote]AZMojo wrote:
-Between the two of you, you’ve managed to touch on most of the major conservative talking points. Let’s see, we have the problem with illegal immigration, the “I have many brown friends” defense[/quote]
Do you have a problem with the fact that I have latino friends?
[quote]
the terrorist situation[/quote]
A very legtimate and real threat don’t you think?
[quote]
a quote from Ronald Reagan(nice touch)[/quote]
Yea. Ronnie was the good stuff for sure.
[quote]
illegal drug smuggling, and a broad generalization of liberals. That’s quite an accomplishment on the first page of a thread.
Good Job![/quote]
Thank you! your high opinion of me really counts for very little, but I guess it’s nice to have.
I guess I’ll have to dissagree with you there. Most of the responses have been centered around heavily biased personall opinion, with a few implied insults just for flavor.
[quote]
So, we build a wall across the Mexican border. Would you really feal safe then, not safer, but safe? Of course not, because FEAR IS THE LIFEBLOOD OF CONSERVATISM. The next problem would be the Northern border. Another wall perhaps? What about the coastline? So maybe a dome isn’t a bad idea. I mean what if a terrorist had a dirty bomb on a rocket on a boat? What about Hawaii? Aren’t they subject to terrorists too? And so on, and so on…[/quote]
Yes I would feel safer if the southern border was sealed. And the northern border hasn’t proven to be as problematic as our southern border yet. With the southern border sealed, Maybe we can concentrate on our coastline more. Although the coastline is another problem alltogether.
[quote]
Safety is an illusion. You can insulate yourself all you want, but there’s always the next something to fear(bird flu anyone? Can you build a wall for that?). The cycle continues until you choose to break it.[/quote]
So what are you saying, that since we can’t protect ourselves from every threat, we shouldn’t insulate ourselves from the ones we can? Pretty ridiculas argument. And typical of a liberal viewpoint.
[quote]nopal_juventus wrote:
What freaking benefits are you talking about??!?!?! Please, please be so kind as to tell me how the hell they drain your tax dollars. They don’t use medical services, [/quote]
Have you EVER been to an emergency room in South Texas? At least 50% of the people there at any given time are illegal aliens with the sniffles. I fully admit another 30% in the waiting room are white trash without insurance using the emergency room as their primary care facility.
Which sends them right to the emergency room when they get a cold.
[quote]AZMojo wrote:
I don’t recall calling anybody a zealot or a bigot. In fact, I generally don’t resort to name calling at all, it’s juvenile. There are better ways to agitate.[/quote]
[i]“Can you be any more bigoted?
Seriously, I’m not trying to be funny or anything. Can you?”
“Pat Buchanan? Is that you?
Maybe we should build a big dome over the whole country so nobody can get in.
Then you won’t have to see any new brown people. Utopia!!
Would that make you feel safe?”
“How about this one?”
Harry Ass - In answer to a question by bigflamer asking why people are calling him a bigot
“Harris,
I actually laughed out loud when I read your reply.”
AZ mojo - in reply to harry ass?s comments
“That’s the problem.”
These were just the first few responses fron the open border crowd. Maybe you don’t fashion your self as a name caller - but your support of them makes you look a lot like them.
Don’t get me wrong - It’s not the name calling I am really griping about. My gripe is with the total lack of a counter idea. No one on your side has offered anything that remotely addresses fixing the problem. And it is a problem. Don’t like the idea that is being proposed? Offer something other than,“that idea sucks, and you are a racist pig for even supporting it”.
[quote]Next, I agree with you about the left losing. I just don’t agree with why. Yes, in today’s America the right will continue to win, but to say to yourself that it isn’t based on fear…well, you’d be kidding yourself.
The right does indeed have all the solutions, even when there aren’t actual problems. That’s the problem. But, don’t get me wrong, the left is guilty of this too. The system is broken. Do I have a way to fix the system? No, I don’t, but that doesn’t make it less broken.[/quote]
Exit polling in 2004 showed that many people that voted for Bush voted for him becasue they relly didn’t know where Kerry stood on anything, other than he was against Bush.
I never said the right had all the answers, but at least they are trying to do something instead of calling press conferences to tell everyone how vehemently they disagree with the current administration.
I have lived around the border for a good portion of my life. I have been around agriculture most all of my life. We know where to get wets when we need them. Now before you go off and think I am being racisit - that is what migrant workers have been called since they started coming over. It is not a slur. They are some of the hardest working folks you will ever meet, as well as some of the finest people.
Those guys aren’t the problem. Any rancher worth his salt will pay to take care of his wets, including food, clothing, shelter, and medical expenses.
The problem is those that cross illegally and have no intention of getting a job, or are smuggling contraband into the country. They run straight to the ER when they have something wrong with them. Look at how many ER’s have closed in Cali because they can’t afford the exponential rise in indigent care. They are allowed to get on our welfare system and suck billions of our tax dollars in the process.
That is the problem. And they have over taken the way it used to be done.
This isn’t the first time this idea has been bantered about. It is working like a cxharm for the Israelis - I think it has merit. But it would be cost prohibitive for us to attempt to build a fence that long. It is only a deterent. Not a cure. By your own admission it would reduce the influx. I don’t think you will ever get rid of all illegal immigration. But neither do I think it is an all or nothing proposition.
I’d be all for it. But are you willing to triple your grocery bill at the minimum?
Getting the governemt involved in a migrant worker program is going to be a goat screw - not to mention prhibitively expensive for the producer. Americans are spoiled brats. They would refuse to pay a lot of money for their groceries, and creating another beuracracy would almost insure that would happen.
I agree - and the first thing you do is stop the free welfare and healthcare to ilegals. Stop the free ride. That’ll stop a lot of them in their tracks. Get the Mexican gov’t to do something about it on their side. They won’t - it’s less people for them to mess with.
I have no problem with upholding the constitution. But if the parents are here illegally - then they should be deported, and allow the child to stay. There is absolutely nothing unconstitutional about that. The key word here is ILLEGAL. Deal with the criminals, and deal with the child.
[quote]-America is the greatest country in the world, no doubt. It got that way, in part, by allowing immigants from all over the world to come here and pursue their dreams. Now we want to shut it down, and only allow those that we hand pick to come over. It isn’t right and it isn’t American. There’s enough pie for everybody. Don’t hog the whole thing.
[/quote]
But when their dream consists of coming over and sucking on the milky tit of our welfare system - they should not be allowed to do so.
No one is talking about hand picking immigrants. The whole argument is about stemming the tide of ILLEGAL immigrants from coming over and becoming a blight on our welfare system.
[quote]vroom wrote:
Why is the U.S. the only country in this hemisphere that is required to dole out free health care to illegal aliens?
It’s not. Plenty of US citizens made it their business to acquire Canadian health cards in the not so distant past.
It was kind of funny really, we had say 20 million people in a province and 22 million issued health cards. Hmm.
However, after raping our medical system, they went back home.[/quote]
Sorry vroom - I forgot about Canada. I was referring to the U.S. and southward. But we’d be happy to build a pipeline and have all of the illegals funneled straight into Canada.
[quote]AZMojo wrote:
…
There have been several intelligent and considered responses to your questions so far, but all the two of you are worried about is being labeled a bigot.
So, we build a wall across the Mexican border. Would you really feal safe then, not safer, but safe? Of course not, because FEAR IS THE LIFEBLOOD OF CONSERVATISM. The next problem would be the Northern border. Another wall perhaps? What about the coastline? So maybe a dome isn’t a bad idea. I mean what if a terrorist had a dirty bomb on a rocket on a boat? What about Hawaii? Aren’t they subject to terrorists too? And so on, and so on…
Safety is an illusion. You can insulate yourself all you want, but there’s always the next something to fear(bird flu anyone? Can you build a wall for that?). The cycle continues until you choose to break it.[/quote]
I dislike this line of argumentation, because it’s akin to making the argument that if you cannot fix something perfectly and completely you shouldn’t bother with it at all.
If one cares about controlling illegal immigration, then it makes sense to take steps that increase the marginal cost to those breaking the law. I think a rational policy would be two-pronged: 1) take steps to guard the border better; 2) take steps to minimize the benefits one is able to receive after illegally crossing.
It seems that adjusting for birthright citizenship would fall squarely within point two. I think the point merits more discussion than a facile dismissal.
Things to consider: Why did we develop the idea that simply being born on American soil conferred citizenship rights in the first instance? Many countries do not have such a policy. Without doing any research, I think the policy likely arose during times when we wanted to encourage immigration: we were a huge country, and thoughout our early history we took steps to attract people and populate the empty places (note that we didn’t really care at the time that they were already populated to some extent). If that’s the case, does it make sense to keep such a policy when we are trying to discourage illegal immigration?
One thing I think should be a focus of any effort to control for illegal immigration would be liability for employers who hire illegals and do not document their paperwork. At minimum there should be fines equal to the wages paid, with an immediate escalator to 3x wages paid for systematic abusers (i.e. people with either cited on multiple occasions or who flout the law regarding a large percentage of their work force).
Another step would be to increase border security. I do not know how, 3 1/2 years into the GWOT, you can walk across the geographic majority of both borders with no one there to even ask your name.
Finally, whoever made the point about the Mexican government is dead on. They actively encourage illegal immigration to the US – and why wouldn’t they? It lessens their unemployment problems, and actually leads to an influx in hard currency coming back across the border into Mexico. To the extent they bring families back to Mexico eventually, they have also had the benefits of free public education, to make them more productive for the Mexican economy.
[quote]AZMojo wrote:
snipeout wrote:
You have got to be kidding right? You think anyone wants to pay more taxes, increased medical and increased insurance costs to foot the bill for anyone else? I don’t wanna pay for the crackhead or the junkie down the street or the illegal that just popped through the hole in the fence. This is not a socialist society, I work for my money, yet I get taxed to help support the family down the street thats to lazy to get a second job or the illegal who got hurt or how about the illegal that robbed the gas station and is now in my jail. Now my tax dollars are subsidizing his criminal activities. You have pretty much not offered anything to this thread other than name calling. You will not convince me as to why I or anyone else should pay for non-citizens.
Why do you people keep calling me a name-caller?
-Dude, do they at least give you bib when you’re being spoon fed this crap, because it’s making a mess?
Being in NJ, I wouldn’t image that you’re very intimate with the “just popped through the fence” crowd, but , at least according to my newspapers, they are not running around holding up gas stations as a rule(Rainjack, any thoughts?).
-You don’t want to pay for jails? What do you propose? Let 'em go? Again, jails are filled primarily with Americans. Paying taxes to support the infrastructure of our country is not “socialist”, it’s just society. People living among other people. It’s not a bad thing.
Why wouldn’t you feel honored if your tax dollars were used to help somebody beat an addiction, or feed their kids? You’d rather have them spent on a wall? Interesting.
[/quote]
Ok so here goes, the name caller bit, you called a few on here a bigot. As for the mexican population in New Jersey, it is huge. As for the jail where I’m a CO at we house 530 inmates, of them 110 are mexican, of those 110 50 of them are illegals. These illegals have charges ranging from robbery, agg assault, burglary and murder. Most of them are under assumed names due to criminal history in Mexico or belong to the street gang MS-13. Yes as a rule no specific ethnic group runs around holding up gas stations, just the ones who ewre already criminals in their own country and continue there crime when they get here.
It costs roughly 20,000 a year to jail someone, do the math if we are jailing between 40 and 50 illegals in my county thats quite a hefty bill the taxpayer is footing. Now when I worked for the Dept of Justice at one of their prisons we had a HUGE illegal population. These people actually got caught on purpose so the federal prison system here in America would take care of them. How do I know this? They used to tell us this. Now although you think you have the answer to everything AZ, you simply don’t.
As for you nopal, how am I not paying for anything? If an illegal seeks medical care(which our hospitals can not legally deny) how am I not footing the bill when they can’t pay. Again if they land in jail how am I not footing the bill? C’mon son if you knew the first thing about the government ran, they always get their money, so yes we foot the bill for every illegal unpaid bill in the US.
In order to fix this problem we need a multi-pronged effort to tighten border security, cut back on welfare and punish the businesses that hire illegals.
As long as they can come here and get jobs and have the welfare state support them the driving force is so strong they will come regardless of border security.
Every employer that hires someone without a green card should be flogged.
As I travel around the country I see lots of native born Americans doing farm work everywhere except the border states. The argument that we need illegals to do that work is BS.
If we fixed our system of minimum prices and subsidies so the farmer actually makes money instead of the middlemen, the farmers could actually pay an American a reasonable wage and still sell produce for reasonable prices.
The problems in France and elsewhere have convinced me that the guest worker appoach may not be the way to go.
We need to allow legal immigration, but the flood of illegals has to stop.
This should not be a conservative or liberal issue. Both parties are protecting sacred cows with the current system.
[quote]Zap Branigan wrote:
As I travel around the country I see lots of native born Americans doing farm work everywhere except the border states. The argument that we need illegals to do that work is BS.
[/quote]
I will have to disagree with you, Zap.
You may see native born Americans driving tractors, and pulling a plow, or working on irrigation stuff. But you will never see those same farmers bent over picking onions, or lettuce, or tomatoes, or - insert commodity here.
Until technology develops a process that eliminiates the need for back breaking menial labor, ther will always be a need to hire the cheapest labor possible.
If the farmer could get a “cost plus” price for his commodities, maybe things would change. But as it stands, the farmer/rancher is a price taker and the only way he can carve out a profit is by lowering his inputs. It’s human nature.
But that’s just my opinion.
[quote]rainjack wrote:
I never said the right had all the answers, but at least they are trying to do something instead of calling press conferences to tell everyone how vehemently they disagree with the current administration. [/quote]
-Just because your trying, doesn’t make what you’re doing right.
-And any plantation owner worth his salt would would pay to take care of his… Oh, wait, we let them go right?
Dude, I’m NOT getting into another “racist vs. non-racist” debate with you, but I would like to point out that because we’ve always called them that doesn’t mean it’s not a racist and even somewhat dehumanizing comment. I don’t think slave owners MEANT anything bad when they referred to their slaves by the N word either, it’s just what they always called them.
[quote]
This isn’t the first time this idea has been bantered about. It is working like a cxharm for the Israelis - I think it has merit. [/quote]
First of all, Israel is like the size of Vermont.
Second, their population is around 7 million, about a million of which are immigrants that have arrived in the past 15 years.
Third, they still experience more terror attacks than we do.
So when you say working like a charm, what are you referring to?
[quote]
I’d be all for it. But are you willing to triple your grocery bill at the minimum?
Getting the governemt involved in a migrant worker program is going to be a goat screw - not to mention prhibitively expensive for the producer. Americans are spoiled brats. They would refuse to pay a lot of money for their groceries, and creating another beuracracy would almost insure that would happen. [/quote]
-No, I don’t want to pay more for groceries, but I don’t want to pay for a wall either. Agreed, Americans are spoiled, but they would bitch about paying more for groceries, not refuse. See our current fuel situation for an analogy.
[quote]
I agree - and the first thing you do is stop the free welfare and healthcare to ilegals. Stop the free ride. That’ll stop a lot of them in their tracks. Get the Mexican gov’t to do something about it on their side. They won’t - it’s less people for them to mess with.[/quote]
-I’m not sure basic healthcare is such a “free ride”, but maybe part of our solution lies in the problem. I don’t know if illegals are even eligible for welfare, but if they are they surely have to meet face to face with a govt. worker to apply, don’t they? If so, maybe we can have more personnel available to apprehend them when they do. Same goes with health care.
First off, why do people keep assuming that I’m for illegal immigration? As I’ve said twice before now, I’m against it, but I don’t appreciate comments like this one: [quote]But just because we are wealthy does not mean we can’t try and keep the barnacles cleaned off our underside the best we can, does it? [/quote]
So now we’re barnacles that you can clean off rainjack? We’re poor coloured trash that’s infesting your sacred American boat… and you whine when someone says redneck.
Furthermore, I’d like to see any proof, any at all, that illegal immigrants are soooo bad for the economy. On the other hand, you could go out and rent “A Day without an Mexican”, and quite possibly, if you’re open-minded about it, you could see the issue from the other side. You’ll see that mexicans are getting screwed over as well (but big business still wins, so it’s A-OK).
[quote]BostonBarrister wrote:
I dislike this line of argumentation, because it’s akin to making the argument that if you cannot fix something perfectly and completely you shouldn’t bother with it at all.[/quote]
-You’re right Boston. It does seem to give that impression. My intent was to point out what I believe is a flawed thought PROCESS. I do, of course, realize that solutions to large-scale problems usually come incrementally.
[quote]
If one cares about controlling illegal immigration, then it makes sense to take steps that increase the marginal cost to those breaking the law. I think a rational policy would be two-pronged: 1) take steps to guard the border better; 2) take steps to minimize the benefits one is able to receive after illegally crossing.[/quote]
-Again, agreed.
[quote]
One thing I think should be a focus of any effort to control for illegal immigration would be liability for employers who hire illegals and do not document their paperwork. At minimum there should be fines equal to the wages paid, with an immediate escalator to 3x wages paid for systematic abusers (i.e. people with either cited on multiple occasions or who flout the law regarding a large percentage of their work force).[/quote]
-This sounds like a viable solution, but expect the price of goods that are now produced by illegals to skyrocket. That may be something we’re collectively going to have swallow, but it won’t go down well.
[quote]
Another step would be to increase border security. I do not know how, 3 1/2 years into the GWOT, you can walk across the geographic majority of both borders with no one there to even ask your name.[/quote]
-Yes you do, but I won’t get into the GWOT here.
[quote]rainjack wrote:
AZMojo wrote:
I don’t recall calling anybody a zealot or a bigot. In fact, I generally don’t resort to name calling at all, it’s juvenile. There are better ways to agitate.
[i]“Can you be any more bigoted?
Seriously, I’m not trying to be funny or anything. Can you?”
“Pat Buchanan? Is that you?
Maybe we should build a big dome over the whole country so nobody can get in.
Then you won’t have to see any new brown people. Utopia!!
Would that make you feel safe?”
“How about this one?”
Harry Ass - In answer to a question by bigflamer asking why people are calling him a bigot
“Harris,
I actually laughed out loud when I read your reply.”
AZ mojo - in reply to harry ass?s comments
“That’s the problem.”
These were just the first few responses fron the open border crowd. Maybe you don’t fashion your self as a name caller - but your support of them makes you look a lot like them.[/quote]
Good post RJ. But I fear that even when presented in an easy to comprehend fashion such as that, they won’t understand.
I can’t figure out what’s more ridiculas, their comments, or the fact that they lack a basic understanding of their own comments.
[quote]
Don’t get me wrong - It’s not the name calling I am really griping about. My gripe is with the total lack of a counter idea.[/quote]
Exactly. there is just no meat and potatoes to their argument, all nana nana boo boo level stuff.
[quote]Zap Branigan wrote:
In order to fix this problem we need a multi-pronged effort to tighten border security, cut back on welfare and punish the businesses that hire illegals.
As long as they can come here and get jobs and have the welfare state support them the driving force is so strong they will come regardless of border security.
Every employer that hires someone without a green card should be flogged.
As I travel around the country I see lots of native born Americans doing farm work everywhere except the border states. The argument that we need illegals to do that work is BS.
If we fixed our system of minimum prices and subsidies so the farmer actually makes money instead of the middlemen, the farmers could actually pay an American a reasonable wage and still sell produce for reasonable prices.
The problems in France and elsewhere have convinced me that the guest worker appoach may not be the way to go.
We need to allow legal immigration, but the flood of illegals has to stop.
This should not be a conservative or liberal issue. Both parties are protecting sacred cows with the current system.[/quote]
Perhaps we should start lowering tariffs and other trade barriers (subsidies) and importing more of our food supply instead of just overpaying people to produce it here. Or maybe someone will say that it is a matter of “National Security” that we grow our own produce here in America.
I do agree that employers hiring illegals should be beaten down with huge ass fines. And the illegals should be deported and have their assets siezed.
Another problem is how they are sending money back at home from our country. Which creates unique problems in and of itself. But thats for another time…
Really? Care to see stats that show how much money the illegals send home?
How many of you actually see illegal immigrants as people?
[quote]nopal_juventus wrote:
Really? Care to see stats that show how much money the illegals send home?
How many of you actually see illegal immigrants as people?[/quote]
Money sent to Mexico from the U.S. - i.e. money sent from a worker in the U.S.to a family member is the second largest income source for all of Mexico - right behind oil.
Your question is stupid. Are you saying that we all need to stop what we are doing and look at the human side of the lawbreaker? And what exactly will that serve?
[quote]rainjack wrote:
Zap Branigan wrote:
As I travel around the country I see lots of native born Americans doing farm work everywhere except the border states. The argument that we need illegals to do that work is BS.
I will have to disagree with you, Zap.
You may see native born Americans driving tractors, and pulling a plow, or working on irrigation stuff. But you will never see those same farmers bent over picking onions, or lettuce, or tomatoes, or - insert commodity here.
Until technology develops a process that eliminiates the need for back breaking menial labor, ther will always be a need to hire the cheapest labor possible.
If the farmer could get a “cost plus” price for his commodities, maybe things would change. But as it stands, the farmer/rancher is a price taker and the only way he can carve out a profit is by lowering his inputs. It’s human nature.
But that’s just my opinion.
[/quote]
While some crops are certainly more labor intensive than others, the Amish right down the road from me don’t use many modern farming implements, yet they get it done.
I know in diary farming the middlemen reap all the benefits of our states minimum milk prices and the individual farmers get screwed.
Our agricultural system needs a makeover. We are paying for our dependance on underpaid illegal workers in so many other areas. In order to fix the problem we need to get to the roots of it. Our agriculture system is one of the roots.
[quote]nopal_juventus wrote:
Really? Care to see stats that show how much money the illegals send home?[/quote]
This was in 1994. I’m sure the numbers are higher today:
Population Research and Policy Review (Historical Archive)
Publisher: Springer Science+Business Media B.V., Formerly Kluwer Academic Publishers B.V.
ISSN: 0167-5923 (Paper) 1573-7829 (Online)
DOI: 10.1007/BF01074319
Issue: Volume 13, Number 1
Date: March 1994
Pages: 3 - 30
Migradollars: The remittances and savings of Mexican migrants to the USA
Douglas S. Massey1 Contact Information and Emilio Parrado1
(1) Population Research Center, University of Chicago, Chicago, Illinois, USA
(2) NORC ? National Opinion Research Center, University of Chicago, 1155 E. 60th Street, 60637 Chicago, IL, USA
Abstract In this article, we use new data from 22 communities to estimate the total flow of dollars back into Mexico as a result of migration to the United States. Our estimates include remittances sent while working abroad and money brought back on return trips; they incorporate transfers by temporary as well as permanent US workers; they include money transferred by legal as well as illegal migrants; and they include funds sent or brought by household heads as well as other family members. We estimate that US$ 24 million in lsquomigradollarsrsquo flowed into the sample communities during the survey year. In some places, the flow of US money equalled or exceeded the value of locally earned income. When generalized to all of Western Mexico, our sample suggests a regional flow of US$ 1.5 billion; and when our data are inserted into an estimation model developed earlier by Lozano Ascencio, we estimate the total flow at US$ 2 billion for Mexico as a whole. Although most of this money was spent on consumption, investments in productive activities were significant, and directly or indirectly, we conclude that migradollars play an extremely important role in Mexican economic production.
Key words Mexico - Migration - Remittances - Savings - Undocumented
This article is based on a paper, presented at the University of Chicago, 8 October 1993.
[quote]
How many of you actually see illegal immigrants as people?[/quote]
I teach them, I go to the colonias to meet with their families, I drive them home after tutoring. I’m pretty sure they are people.