^^ exactly. If there were economic opportunities in Mexico, this wouldn't be a problem. However, how much should the US get involved in that? We've got more standing that we do in other bits of the world, but on the whole I wish we'd keep out of other people's business a tad more...
It seems to me the solution to illegal immigration would be to crack down on the employers who are benefitting from the cheap labor. Spend your enforcement dollars on the demand side and the suplly side will change. If an employer risks massive fines and losing their business for hiring illegal immigrants, maybe they won't do it, and therefore the incentive to risk everything to come across the border won't be there. Already the border has become a very dangerous place and people still risk their lives. People will find a way eventually as long as there is work and the possibility of imporving their lives (the American Dream).
Galford do you have another source for your information that immigrants cost millions besides an organization whose stated purpose is to limit legal immigration and stop illegal immigration (FAIR)? I'm not dismissing the possibility, but the source makes me question the info. My personal sense is that the largest negative impact of illegal immigration is to drive wages down on low-skilled physical labor and this is detrimental to many of the working poor.
Most illegal immigrants end up paying taxes and social security, but are distrustful of any government agencies including social service agencies.
My thoughts on a solution are the opposite of what most say, but I would prefer an open regulated border. Since NAFTA opened up the border for goods, I believe people should also be free to move across the border to look for a better deal. There would still be a border and all people entering would need a passport or identification, but I don't believe the solution to terrorism is at our borders.
First I think we are being very short to immediately assume there is nothing we can do from a policy standpoint to improve the social crisis in central and south america. We did after all cause a lot of it. For the last 100 years we have had a general policy of intentionally undermining political stability in south america so as to ease corporate exploitation. Obviously our resources have been a bit diverted for the last 5 years, hence the rising leftist movements down there. 20 years ago Hugo Chavez would have been dead before taking office. Fortunately for them, unfortunately for us, we are going to have to change the way we deal with the region from a trade standpoint. I dont think its out of the question that such trade deals could be designed to promote a more even distribution of wealth.
Obviously, thats a bit of a long term solution.
In the short term, we arent going to be able to throw a bunch of troops on the border and say weve solved the problem. Its like the drug war, its a matter of demand. The more you try and choke it off, the more extreme the measures people will be forced to go to and the more people will die. Now if youre a nationalist bigot, and dont care if a bunch of mexicans die, well I guess it isnt much of a problem for you. But everyone else is going to be pretty upset and it isnt going to help your position at the bargaining table down the road.
Its not like this is the first time weve dealt with immigration in this country. Every time the establishment gets their panties in a bunch and spouts out all this veiled xenophobic hysteria about how 'those people' just make more crime and eat up our jobs and tax dollars. We piss and moan for a while and eventually someone comes to their senses, goes into these communities and tries to improve things. Improve sanitation, improve education, give out loans for building businesses and in 20 or 30 years theyre established middle class drivers of the economy. It happened to the irish and the italians and the chinese. It will happen here too, but its not going to get any better until we can let go of this fascist bullshit.
any citizenry that allows its government to enact discriminatory socialist and/or communist policies deserves to have itself sucked dry, abused, and taken advantage of. there will always be a foreigner 'less fortunate', who's only wrongdoing was being born in the wrong country. why don't we stop playing games and establish worldwide welfare stations (NIPS) all around the world? supply them with food, water, Playstations, and lattes.
i love this guy:
Man to adopt 1,000 in revenge on Berlin: link
galford, I do think that probably health care is a cost that illegals have on this nation. I mean is not liek they have health insurance or don't get sick or something. So I think that it is probably true that they are a health care cost. This lady soudns angry though and becuase of her tone I am less likely to completely believe what she is saying as it sounds like it is borderlining on propaganda.
But the costs and benefits of immigration (both leagal and otherwise) are larger than this one sector. I have read that over the first 10 years an immigrant (legal and otherwise) costs the public purse, but after 10 years the immigrant (and subsequent generations) greatly return those costs. This country can't run without immigration though the point is how much is enough. And I agree that maybe we should slow down the influx, as you may read above I am for stopping illegal immigration, but we cannot be assholes and use these people and then kick them out. We need to recognize that we have all contributed to illegal immigration just by buying produce, making buildings, etc...
these people have benefited ALL OF US, and it is not fair to no give them a path to citizenship. But what they do IS illegal and we cannot afford to allow laws to continue to be fragrantly broken.
I appreciate your second and third paragraphs. We are now back to civil discourse.
I must say, however, that your lack of confidence in the woman's credibility is unfounded. That was in a peer-reviewed medical journal. Furthermore, your logic [in your first paragraph] seems very circular, self-substantiating and, in fact, flawed. What I hear from you is: because she diametrically opposed my viewpoint, I must assume she is a biased propagandist.
If a disagreement, or the existence of emperical evidence contrary to your beliefs precludes the possiblity of legitimacy, then there is, literally, no point in talking about it. That is a dangerous point of view.
Please post some academic, cited articles to the debate from your side.
i did a google search on the author. Madeleine Pelner Cosman, R.I.P., was a gun fanatic...eh. Although published by JAPS, I doubt it is their official position on the issue, being that it is so extreme.
I am not ignoring the reality of uninsured immigrants and crime, but what would you say is the alternative? deny healthcare? deportation? I am asking seriously
the fact is the city of los angeles 50% latino. some cause strain to the economy, but i would say the majority benefit this city.
Interesting article Galford, but it the author seems to have more of a problem with poverty in general, and since most illegal immigrants fit in that category they drain the system. I agree our medical system doesn't deal with poverty well, and maybe the solutions proposed might aleviate some of the crisis, but a crisis would remain. Some of her argument seemed downright xenophobic - those dirty people coming up here and having babies - it doesn't really matter if it is coming from a lawyer or not.
Since virtually all of the jobs that illegal immigrants have don't provide medical insurance the medical system would still have to take care of all of the babies, emergency room visits, and children with disabilities, except now they would be the native born poor instead of illegal immigrants.
Getting rid of illegal immigrants will not solve the US healthcare system, because the flaws and issues go way deeper than that.
Nicomachean I think you are looking at the wrong end of the socio-economic spectrum for who is abusing the system. In general it is the 'more fortunate' who take advantage and abuse any system - they have the resources, power and self-interest, but you already know that.
Supporting the 2nd amendment does not a "gun fanatic" make. That was a weak attempt to attack the credibility of the author of an article to which you have no viable response. Not to mention I think we can keep the topics separate, eh?
If denying healthcare would keep 60+ emergency medical centers operating for citizens, then I would have to say yes.
We need to stop right here for a minute and make a clear distinction between 'latinos' that live in Los Angeles, and the ILLEGAL IMMIGRANTS we have been talking about here on this thread.
Don't intentionally convolute the issue to cover you lack of response to the facts I presented via Ms. Cosman's article.
i think shooting guns and writing essays about the liberating effects of shooting guns (google it) does make you a gun fanatic, but like you say, it's besides the point.
Jack Kyser chief economist of the Los Angeles Economic development Corp. states that he economic impact of the great american boycott in Los Angles was $200 million of the $1.2 billion in the course of a day. depending on where you stand, that can be either significant or insignificant, but keep in mind that this is only at most 20% of the los angeles population that protested (many of whom are illigal immigrants). 200 million a day over the course of a year is 73 billion. that is quite a tax base. rather than using money to deport them and undercut this tax base, why not develop a system to draw from this tax base and use it to build hospitals, schools, etc. that are, according to Pelner, being shut down due to illegal immigrants?
adoption of children as revenge for imprisonment? thats sick. nico we often disagree but i respect your opinions tell me you're kidding.
he helps poor children lead better lives, AND sticks it to the state. he probably was imprisoned for a finding a similar kind of loophole. i don't know the details of his imprisonment for 'fraud', or his profession of innocence, but from what i know, he's a smart guy...making a business out of helping poor people around the world exploit the German welfare state. i'm surprised there aren't thousands of similar cases, especially in the U.S.
Mr Hass, a former insurance salesman who lives in Paraguay on a £700-a-month pension, said he wanted to help the impoverished children to lead better lives, but that his main motivation was to exact revenge on the state.
Mr Hass, a former local politician for the Free Democratic party, was sentenced to three years in prison in 1987 for fraud. The 56-year-old claims he was wrongly imprisoned and "treated worse than a dog" while in jail. He still professes his innocence.
Galford - I'll grant that the xenophobic comment is only my interpretation of her writing. As far as my response I will restate that she does not distinguish between issues of poverty and illegal immigrants. As far as I know most emergency rooms don't check the immigration status of those they treat. My other point is that the people who after all the illegal immigrants are deported and the border is sealed take the jobs they had will also not have health insurance and will also drain the system.
If we deny emergency care to those that don't have health insurance we don't have much of a healthcare system, do we?
I'm not intending to give conflate the two issues, but respond to an article you posted.
Obviously we could both probably go back and forth with articles and facts to support our positions since it is a very complex issue. In the end I think it comes down to whether you think immigrants are benificial or harmful to our society. I believe that taken as a whole immigration is an important part of America, and it benefits all of us. As long as businesses choose to hire illegal immigrants and for the most part don't suffer any consequences, constantly fortifying and militiarizing a very long border is futile and short sighted.
Galford - do you believe that businesses should be fined and/or criminally charged for hiring illegal immigrants?
its reverse manifest destiny. payback for the mexican american war and the treaty of guadalupe hidalgo. oh and if architecture don't work out for you guys, they are hiring down at the chicken processing plant.
legality is of no consequence because it is so arbitrarily assigned. my family got political asylum (immigrated from Vietnam) and immigrated legally, but i don't think that puts us ahead of illegal immigrants. really, what is the difference between my immigration and that of a mexican immigrant besides the fact that the US government broke some promises to the South Vietnamese government and granted us asylum? I had no say in that matter. Why is my immigration any more acceptable or legal?
i don't think amnesty is the answer, but there needs to be equality of opportunity, and some path to citizenship, and right now that doesn't exist.
find a way to fairly tax immigrants, and I think most people won't have a problem with it.
its just about people who dont like to hear spanish spoken when they cant speak it. they cannot adapt but of course have no memory of the same attitudes towards their grandparents who couldnt speak any freakin english either. im sure great granpa vado from plantikow germany was freakin fluent when he came over in 1903.
this situation won't last. this is an election year, and bush is losing his conservative base. a move like this could help him to obtain more votes. my guess would be sometime next spring everyone will have forgotten about it, and the troops will be withdrawn. incidentally, i'd rather see our national guard patrolling the border than this "minuteman" idiots, who's so-called patriotic movement bears a disturbingly similar tone to the beginnings of the militia movement in the 90's. hopefully the deployment of troops will give these people a reason to go back to their shanties, until the immigration issue is forgotten about next year, which it will be.
sorry, that's more support, not more votes. does anyone notice that anything that is counter to american values, be it an organization, or laws, attempts to question other american's patriotism? i.e. the Patriot Act, or we call ourselves the Minutemen? Minutemen my ass. some hillybilly in the desert with a .22 and an old bronco isn't paul revere, regardless of what he thinks. most of these people have never left american soil in their lives, and it shows.
they say that patriotism
is the last refuge
to which a scoundrel clings
this illegal immigration issue is picking up in a huge way. no way this will be simply forgotten when it costs california 10 billion dollars (yes, billion) per year in taxpayer funded programs. that's $1200 out of my pocket every year and no i am not thankful (to illegal immigrants) for the increased gang activity and embarassing public school situation.
i support legal immigration. there is a process. and the illegal immigrants are hurting people who come here for a better life.
please do not lump illegal and legal immigrants under the generic heading of 'immigrants'.
in my anecdotal experience, [legal] immigrants actually have more of an understanding and respect for, and care for, what America is and the principles it was founded on, than native-born citizens.
i would be in favor of some kind of penalty-amnesty program, where illegal immigrants admit they've disrespected our laws (committed a crime), pay back taxes and a fine, and then get in line behind legal immigrants.
Immigration is not a right. Any country, especially the US should only take on the number and variety of immigrants that will help the country progress.
I wish all of the illegal immigrants in LA would strike for longer than one day, because in a week the country would've moved on, compensated and gotten over it. If you think they're impressive in the streets, wait until a couple hundred million of the rest of us get tired of being bullied by an extreme minority and strike.
Let's introduce a new topic: assimilation. I'm sure right off the bat, you will ostricize the notion as indoctrination and totalitarian, but in reality it is an important step in the unification of a country. The vast majority of the immigrants who came through Ellis Island years ago wanted nothing more than to be American in every way possible, because they perceived it as the blessing that it is.
The country cannot function with the southwest as a Mexican Annex. If you need proof, just see how well Quebec and the rest of Canada have gotten along over the years and multiply the consequences of civil unrest and instability by whatever number you can imagine representing the global importance of the US.
Too many people are fighting for a outcome that would really hurt the country.
Absolutely, businesses should have their asses pinned to the wall for having illegal immigrants working for them. I don't think they should be criminalized on the first/second offense. Massive, massive fines and penalities should be imposed immediately.
is it possible that the notion of a "legal" immigrant is an artificial construct? which race should this country exclude this year? maybe it would help clarify things if we just name it the mexican exclusion act just like the chinese exclusion act of the past, because we don't really seem to care about illegal immigration from the canadien border.
i'll stop lumping illegal with legal immigrants when you stop lumping illegal immigrants with gangbangers and poor students.
i see, so we are focusing on the southwest border which happens to border mexico, but we are not talking about mexicans.
i'm doing the math, so i guess because there are MORE immigrants crossing the southwest border it is MORE illegal than crossing the canadien border. is that your logic?
While illegal immigration costs us alot of money, I think it pays off in spades. When you go to a grocer in America, basically everything you buy has been touched by an immigrant, wether legal or illegal, in the process from field to store. When you go eat at a restaurant, it's usually hispanic immgrants cooking the food. When you want something built, it's usually immigrant/hispanic labor that builds it. These people have helped build this nation, its only right we offer them some sort of part in it. Some illegals come to this country and become involved in crime, but then again, so do many citizens. To blame illegal immigration for gang violence in cities like LA and Pheonix is simply narrowminded. To want a totally open border is overly utopian and black and white, as is to wish for a totally closed one. The solution lies somewhere in the middle. I think, what we could do hypothetically, is beef up border security, but make checkpoints into this country where immigrant workers could go and get say, 6 month work visas. You give them an ID card, and number, and you document them, that way at least the influx can be more or less tracked. From the crossing points, they could then enter the country legally, but we'd have to make this an easy, fast process. When the visa is expired, they could go to a gov. center in whatever town they're working in and apply for a new one, or go back to mexico and then re-enter, or apply for a extended/permanent status. Those who don't comply are at least documented, and therefore a little easier for INS to track, capture, and deport.
One thing about our current immigration system is that it is VERY hard for someone to get in here legally. At least under a process like the one above these people could have the opprotunity to enter legally, which right now we deny, forcing them to go the illegal route.
By the way, bossman, I would say there is a difference between patriotism and nationalism and fascisim. There is nothing wrong with having love for one's country. I consider myself an internationalist, but I sill have patriotic feelings for America. We've had a long and bloody history, we've had our share of disgraces. And it wan't until the late 20th century did it seem the dreams espoused in the constitution were finnaly coming to realization. I don't live on the border, but I know those who do are on the front lines of this issue, and because our border patrol is so pathetic some citizens are taking things into their own hands because in many instances, illegal immigrants crossing the border are forced to break into homes and steal things like food. This is not good for anybody. Frankly the way things are going under bush, i wouldn't be suprised if we see a rise in domestic terrorism/militias and whatnot. There are alot of pissed off people in this country, im one of them. Instead of leaving, some of us may be willing to fight for what little left of this country's soul. Move to France or vote, and if voting dosen't work, well, that's what we have the second amendment for. To defend ourselves when our government gets commandeered. Rant over, peace and love everybody.
Galford. You have GOT to be kidding me with that article. I feel like I heard most of that in American History X.
Look I could go through, paragraph by paragraph, and show that there isnt a sensible argument in the whole thing, but suffice it to say, every statistic in there is just falsified because you cant draw up statistics on an undocumented group of people. How do they know %95 of outstanding homicide warrants are for illegal immigrants? How do they know theyre illegal if they dont even know who or where they are!!?? You cant document how much of a draw illegal immigrants have on the system if you dont know what percentage are showing up in ERs or even how many there are in this country! Illegal immigrants arent the only ones who end up at the hospital without insurance. They arent the only ones who have kids who need medical treatment. They arent the only ones who commit crime or have infectious deseases, and to blame them for the collapse of our completely bungled health-care system is just false and scapegoating borders on being fascist.
And her solution!? She is really kidding. So we are going to bring back all of our troops around the world, seal off our borders, put everyone in america on in-house curfew and do a door to door sweep of the whole country checking citizenship and enforcing the deportation of 10,000,000 fucking people without trial or legal process. Genius lady. Absolutely genius.
These are not parasites. They are human beings, and all the verbal association you wanna apply to paint them as a human infection isnt going to stop the fact that if you start turning people away from ERs because they didnt happen to have documentation on them when they showed up at the door means killing thousands of people each year.
Christ guys. How about, instead of worrying about gay marriage and immigration and all the other bigotry based non-issues the republican party can throw us to distract us from the fact that theyve completely batched every part of running a government, we start to think about actual solutions to things like energy development and global diplomacy and effective health care?
Every firm I've worked for in LA has had at least one technically illegal foreign worker. Not one of them has been Latino, and I'm pretty sure they aren't walking across the border.
yeah i dated this girl when i lived in chitown who was from macedonia and here totally illegally. she was a computer programmer and worked for some company out in the burbs. how romantic i met her on the metra. of course she was blonde with blue eyes so no one was interested in rounding her up. and as far as assimilation goes, take a bus ride down devon and you will hear every language except english and SPANISH. oh and look at all the signs in polish in some of the hoods?
Speaking of Poles...My friends in Berlin *hate* the Polish immigrants in Germany. I know it's a strong word, but I've never spoken about any immigrant in the USA the way they talk about Polish and E. European immigrants in Germany. It's not a problem unique to the USA.
This discussion has me wishing again for the cold war days when our only problem was them dang communists.
well dubya has succeeded...chalk another one up to the amazing political machine that is incapable of governing. he has you all talking about a non-issue...legislation that stands zero chance of making it to law. i'm much more concerned about the erosion of my rights, this house of cards economy, and the eroding environment, than i am in immigration - which hasn't changed one iota from last year or the year before or the year before. christ - reagan was yapping about htis twenty years ago.
i did like the kent state photo though...thanks.
Bush deploys Nat'l Guard Troops to the Border
bush and V. Fox meet to discuss how to control emmigration into US. Why dont they discuss making Mexico a place people where people want to live?
^^ exactly. If there were economic opportunities in Mexico, this wouldn't be a problem. However, how much should the US get involved in that? We've got more standing that we do in other bits of the world, but on the whole I wish we'd keep out of other people's business a tad more...
It seems to me the solution to illegal immigration would be to crack down on the employers who are benefitting from the cheap labor. Spend your enforcement dollars on the demand side and the suplly side will change. If an employer risks massive fines and losing their business for hiring illegal immigrants, maybe they won't do it, and therefore the incentive to risk everything to come across the border won't be there. Already the border has become a very dangerous place and people still risk their lives. People will find a way eventually as long as there is work and the possibility of imporving their lives (the American Dream).
Galford do you have another source for your information that immigrants cost millions besides an organization whose stated purpose is to limit legal immigration and stop illegal immigration (FAIR)? I'm not dismissing the possibility, but the source makes me question the info. My personal sense is that the largest negative impact of illegal immigration is to drive wages down on low-skilled physical labor and this is detrimental to many of the working poor.
Most illegal immigrants end up paying taxes and social security, but are distrustful of any government agencies including social service agencies.
My thoughts on a solution are the opposite of what most say, but I would prefer an open regulated border. Since NAFTA opened up the border for goods, I believe people should also be free to move across the border to look for a better deal. There would still be a border and all people entering would need a passport or identification, but I don't believe the solution to terrorism is at our borders.
First I think we are being very short to immediately assume there is nothing we can do from a policy standpoint to improve the social crisis in central and south america. We did after all cause a lot of it. For the last 100 years we have had a general policy of intentionally undermining political stability in south america so as to ease corporate exploitation. Obviously our resources have been a bit diverted for the last 5 years, hence the rising leftist movements down there. 20 years ago Hugo Chavez would have been dead before taking office. Fortunately for them, unfortunately for us, we are going to have to change the way we deal with the region from a trade standpoint. I dont think its out of the question that such trade deals could be designed to promote a more even distribution of wealth.
Obviously, thats a bit of a long term solution.
In the short term, we arent going to be able to throw a bunch of troops on the border and say weve solved the problem. Its like the drug war, its a matter of demand. The more you try and choke it off, the more extreme the measures people will be forced to go to and the more people will die. Now if youre a nationalist bigot, and dont care if a bunch of mexicans die, well I guess it isnt much of a problem for you. But everyone else is going to be pretty upset and it isnt going to help your position at the bargaining table down the road.
Its not like this is the first time weve dealt with immigration in this country. Every time the establishment gets their panties in a bunch and spouts out all this veiled xenophobic hysteria about how 'those people' just make more crime and eat up our jobs and tax dollars. We piss and moan for a while and eventually someone comes to their senses, goes into these communities and tries to improve things. Improve sanitation, improve education, give out loans for building businesses and in 20 or 30 years theyre established middle class drivers of the economy. It happened to the irish and the italians and the chinese. It will happen here too, but its not going to get any better until we can let go of this fascist bullshit.
Valid point, I saw that coming. Here's a good one from the Journal of American Physicians and Surgeons.
Illegal Aliens and American Medicine
any citizenry that allows its government to enact discriminatory socialist and/or communist policies deserves to have itself sucked dry, abused, and taken advantage of. there will always be a foreigner 'less fortunate', who's only wrongdoing was being born in the wrong country. why don't we stop playing games and establish worldwide welfare stations (NIPS) all around the world? supply them with food, water, Playstations, and lattes.
i love this guy:
Man to adopt 1,000 in revenge on Berlin: link
well said oe.
outsourcing and migration cannot be unentangled. you cannot have a free flow of goods and expect labor to stay put.
well said oe.
outsourcing and migration cannot be unentangled. you cannot have a free flow of goods and expect labor to stay put.
adoption of children as revenge for imprisonment? thats sick. nico we often disagree but i respect your opinions tell me you're kidding.
dot, melquiades...
What did you think of that article? Is that a valid point?
galford, I do think that probably health care is a cost that illegals have on this nation. I mean is not liek they have health insurance or don't get sick or something. So I think that it is probably true that they are a health care cost. This lady soudns angry though and becuase of her tone I am less likely to completely believe what she is saying as it sounds like it is borderlining on propaganda.
But the costs and benefits of immigration (both leagal and otherwise) are larger than this one sector. I have read that over the first 10 years an immigrant (legal and otherwise) costs the public purse, but after 10 years the immigrant (and subsequent generations) greatly return those costs. This country can't run without immigration though the point is how much is enough. And I agree that maybe we should slow down the influx, as you may read above I am for stopping illegal immigration, but we cannot be assholes and use these people and then kick them out. We need to recognize that we have all contributed to illegal immigration just by buying produce, making buildings, etc...
these people have benefited ALL OF US, and it is not fair to no give them a path to citizenship. But what they do IS illegal and we cannot afford to allow laws to continue to be fragrantly broken.
I appreciate your second and third paragraphs. We are now back to civil discourse.
I must say, however, that your lack of confidence in the woman's credibility is unfounded. That was in a peer-reviewed medical journal. Furthermore, your logic [in your first paragraph] seems very circular, self-substantiating and, in fact, flawed. What I hear from you is: because she diametrically opposed my viewpoint, I must assume she is a biased propagandist.
If a disagreement, or the existence of emperical evidence contrary to your beliefs precludes the possiblity of legitimacy, then there is, literally, no point in talking about it. That is a dangerous point of view.
Please post some academic, cited articles to the debate from your side.
i did a google search on the author. Madeleine Pelner Cosman, R.I.P., was a gun fanatic...eh. Although published by JAPS, I doubt it is their official position on the issue, being that it is so extreme.
I am not ignoring the reality of uninsured immigrants and crime, but what would you say is the alternative? deny healthcare? deportation? I am asking seriously
the fact is the city of los angeles 50% latino. some cause strain to the economy, but i would say the majority benefit this city.
Interesting article Galford, but it the author seems to have more of a problem with poverty in general, and since most illegal immigrants fit in that category they drain the system. I agree our medical system doesn't deal with poverty well, and maybe the solutions proposed might aleviate some of the crisis, but a crisis would remain. Some of her argument seemed downright xenophobic - those dirty people coming up here and having babies - it doesn't really matter if it is coming from a lawyer or not.
Since virtually all of the jobs that illegal immigrants have don't provide medical insurance the medical system would still have to take care of all of the babies, emergency room visits, and children with disabilities, except now they would be the native born poor instead of illegal immigrants.
Getting rid of illegal immigrants will not solve the US healthcare system, because the flaws and issues go way deeper than that.
Nicomachean I think you are looking at the wrong end of the socio-economic spectrum for who is abusing the system. In general it is the 'more fortunate' who take advantage and abuse any system - they have the resources, power and self-interest, but you already know that.
Supporting the 2nd amendment does not a "gun fanatic" make. That was a weak attempt to attack the credibility of the author of an article to which you have no viable response. Not to mention I think we can keep the topics separate, eh?
If denying healthcare would keep 60+ emergency medical centers operating for citizens, then I would have to say yes.
We need to stop right here for a minute and make a clear distinction between 'latinos' that live in Los Angeles, and the ILLEGAL IMMIGRANTS we have been talking about here on this thread.
Don't intentionally convolute the issue to cover you lack of response to the facts I presented via Ms. Cosman's article.
i think shooting guns and writing essays about the liberating effects of shooting guns (google it) does make you a gun fanatic, but like you say, it's besides the point.
Jack Kyser chief economist of the Los Angeles Economic development Corp. states that he economic impact of the great american boycott in Los Angles was $200 million of the $1.2 billion in the course of a day. depending on where you stand, that can be either significant or insignificant, but keep in mind that this is only at most 20% of the los angeles population that protested (many of whom are illigal immigrants). 200 million a day over the course of a year is 73 billion. that is quite a tax base. rather than using money to deport them and undercut this tax base, why not develop a system to draw from this tax base and use it to build hospitals, schools, etc. that are, according to Pelner, being shut down due to illegal immigrants?
he helps poor children lead better lives, AND sticks it to the state. he probably was imprisoned for a finding a similar kind of loophole. i don't know the details of his imprisonment for 'fraud', or his profession of innocence, but from what i know, he's a smart guy...making a business out of helping poor people around the world exploit the German welfare state. i'm surprised there aren't thousands of similar cases, especially in the U.S.
Mr Hass, a former insurance salesman who lives in Paraguay on a £700-a-month pension, said he wanted to help the impoverished children to lead better lives, but that his main motivation was to exact revenge on the state.
Mr Hass, a former local politician for the Free Democratic party, was sentenced to three years in prison in 1987 for fraud. The 56-year-old claims he was wrongly imprisoned and "treated worse than a dog" while in jail. He still professes his innocence.
Galford - I'll grant that the xenophobic comment is only my interpretation of her writing. As far as my response I will restate that she does not distinguish between issues of poverty and illegal immigrants. As far as I know most emergency rooms don't check the immigration status of those they treat. My other point is that the people who after all the illegal immigrants are deported and the border is sealed take the jobs they had will also not have health insurance and will also drain the system.
If we deny emergency care to those that don't have health insurance we don't have much of a healthcare system, do we?
I'm not intending to give conflate the two issues, but respond to an article you posted.
Obviously we could both probably go back and forth with articles and facts to support our positions since it is a very complex issue. In the end I think it comes down to whether you think immigrants are benificial or harmful to our society. I believe that taken as a whole immigration is an important part of America, and it benefits all of us. As long as businesses choose to hire illegal immigrants and for the most part don't suffer any consequences, constantly fortifying and militiarizing a very long border is futile and short sighted.
Galford - do you believe that businesses should be fined and/or criminally charged for hiring illegal immigrants?
many legal and illegal Mexican immigrants are sending their money back to Mexico. if they're illegal, it's untaxed money.
why bother searching for a loophole if legality isn't of consequence?
just adding fuel here.
its reverse manifest destiny. payback for the mexican american war and the treaty of guadalupe hidalgo. oh and if architecture don't work out for you guys, they are hiring down at the chicken processing plant.
nico- many illegals have taxes taken out of their paycheck just like the rest of us. It's actually really easy to set up.
Just thought I'd throw that out there.
Taxes are taken out by the employer - so it is taxed, and would probably be refunded. Unless it is all under the table.
everyone on this site has probably done some work under the table. so give me a freakin break.
or not reported income. or posted on archinect while at work. which client is being billed for that?
legality is of no consequence because it is so arbitrarily assigned. my family got political asylum (immigrated from Vietnam) and immigrated legally, but i don't think that puts us ahead of illegal immigrants. really, what is the difference between my immigration and that of a mexican immigrant besides the fact that the US government broke some promises to the South Vietnamese government and granted us asylum? I had no say in that matter. Why is my immigration any more acceptable or legal?
i don't think amnesty is the answer, but there needs to be equality of opportunity, and some path to citizenship, and right now that doesn't exist.
find a way to fairly tax immigrants, and I think most people won't have a problem with it.
its just about people who dont like to hear spanish spoken when they cant speak it. they cannot adapt but of course have no memory of the same attitudes towards their grandparents who couldnt speak any freakin english either. im sure great granpa vado from plantikow germany was freakin fluent when he came over in 1903.
this situation won't last. this is an election year, and bush is losing his conservative base. a move like this could help him to obtain more votes. my guess would be sometime next spring everyone will have forgotten about it, and the troops will be withdrawn. incidentally, i'd rather see our national guard patrolling the border than this "minuteman" idiots, who's so-called patriotic movement bears a disturbingly similar tone to the beginnings of the militia movement in the 90's. hopefully the deployment of troops will give these people a reason to go back to their shanties, until the immigration issue is forgotten about next year, which it will be.
sorry, that's more support, not more votes. does anyone notice that anything that is counter to american values, be it an organization, or laws, attempts to question other american's patriotism? i.e. the Patriot Act, or we call ourselves the Minutemen? Minutemen my ass. some hillybilly in the desert with a .22 and an old bronco isn't paul revere, regardless of what he thinks. most of these people have never left american soil in their lives, and it shows.
they say that patriotism
is the last refuge
to which a scoundrel clings
this illegal immigration issue is picking up in a huge way. no way this will be simply forgotten when it costs california 10 billion dollars (yes, billion) per year in taxpayer funded programs. that's $1200 out of my pocket every year and no i am not thankful (to illegal immigrants) for the increased gang activity and embarassing public school situation.
i support legal immigration. there is a process. and the illegal immigrants are hurting people who come here for a better life.
please do not lump illegal and legal immigrants under the generic heading of 'immigrants'.
in my anecdotal experience, [legal] immigrants actually have more of an understanding and respect for, and care for, what America is and the principles it was founded on, than native-born citizens.
i would be in favor of some kind of penalty-amnesty program, where illegal immigrants admit they've disrespected our laws (committed a crime), pay back taxes and a fine, and then get in line behind legal immigrants.
Immigration is not a right. Any country, especially the US should only take on the number and variety of immigrants that will help the country progress.
I wish all of the illegal immigrants in LA would strike for longer than one day, because in a week the country would've moved on, compensated and gotten over it. If you think they're impressive in the streets, wait until a couple hundred million of the rest of us get tired of being bullied by an extreme minority and strike.
Let's introduce a new topic: assimilation. I'm sure right off the bat, you will ostricize the notion as indoctrination and totalitarian, but in reality it is an important step in the unification of a country. The vast majority of the immigrants who came through Ellis Island years ago wanted nothing more than to be American in every way possible, because they perceived it as the blessing that it is.
The country cannot function with the southwest as a Mexican Annex. If you need proof, just see how well Quebec and the rest of Canada have gotten along over the years and multiply the consequences of civil unrest and instability by whatever number you can imagine representing the global importance of the US.
Too many people are fighting for a outcome that would really hurt the country.
michaelg:
Absolutely, businesses should have their asses pinned to the wall for having illegal immigrants working for them. I don't think they should be criminalized on the first/second offense. Massive, massive fines and penalities should be imposed immediately.
is it possible that the notion of a "legal" immigrant is an artificial construct? which race should this country exclude this year? maybe it would help clarify things if we just name it the mexican exclusion act just like the chinese exclusion act of the past, because we don't really seem to care about illegal immigration from the canadien border.
i'll stop lumping illegal with legal immigrants when you stop lumping illegal immigrants with gangbangers and poor students.
BS, nobody in this thread is excluding any other race of illegal immigrant.
Do the math, the southern border is where we need to focus.
There you go complicating and clouding the issue when you don't have anything except a soundbite to contribute.
make sure u round up all the illegal irish poles slavs while yer at it...
galford,
i see, so we are focusing on the southwest border which happens to border mexico, but we are not talking about mexicans.
i'm doing the math, so i guess because there are MORE immigrants crossing the southwest border it is MORE illegal than crossing the canadien border. is that your logic?
crossing a border illegally is illegal, whether it be the canadian border or the mexican border.
however, way more illegal immigration occurs from mexico to the u.s., so that is the border the u.s. needs to focus on securing.
While illegal immigration costs us alot of money, I think it pays off in spades. When you go to a grocer in America, basically everything you buy has been touched by an immigrant, wether legal or illegal, in the process from field to store. When you go eat at a restaurant, it's usually hispanic immgrants cooking the food. When you want something built, it's usually immigrant/hispanic labor that builds it. These people have helped build this nation, its only right we offer them some sort of part in it. Some illegals come to this country and become involved in crime, but then again, so do many citizens. To blame illegal immigration for gang violence in cities like LA and Pheonix is simply narrowminded. To want a totally open border is overly utopian and black and white, as is to wish for a totally closed one. The solution lies somewhere in the middle. I think, what we could do hypothetically, is beef up border security, but make checkpoints into this country where immigrant workers could go and get say, 6 month work visas. You give them an ID card, and number, and you document them, that way at least the influx can be more or less tracked. From the crossing points, they could then enter the country legally, but we'd have to make this an easy, fast process. When the visa is expired, they could go to a gov. center in whatever town they're working in and apply for a new one, or go back to mexico and then re-enter, or apply for a extended/permanent status. Those who don't comply are at least documented, and therefore a little easier for INS to track, capture, and deport.
One thing about our current immigration system is that it is VERY hard for someone to get in here legally. At least under a process like the one above these people could have the opprotunity to enter legally, which right now we deny, forcing them to go the illegal route.
By the way, bossman, I would say there is a difference between patriotism and nationalism and fascisim. There is nothing wrong with having love for one's country. I consider myself an internationalist, but I sill have patriotic feelings for America. We've had a long and bloody history, we've had our share of disgraces. And it wan't until the late 20th century did it seem the dreams espoused in the constitution were finnaly coming to realization. I don't live on the border, but I know those who do are on the front lines of this issue, and because our border patrol is so pathetic some citizens are taking things into their own hands because in many instances, illegal immigrants crossing the border are forced to break into homes and steal things like food. This is not good for anybody. Frankly the way things are going under bush, i wouldn't be suprised if we see a rise in domestic terrorism/militias and whatnot. There are alot of pissed off people in this country, im one of them. Instead of leaving, some of us may be willing to fight for what little left of this country's soul. Move to France or vote, and if voting dosen't work, well, that's what we have the second amendment for. To defend ourselves when our government gets commandeered. Rant over, peace and love everybody.
Galford. You have GOT to be kidding me with that article. I feel like I heard most of that in American History X.
Look I could go through, paragraph by paragraph, and show that there isnt a sensible argument in the whole thing, but suffice it to say, every statistic in there is just falsified because you cant draw up statistics on an undocumented group of people. How do they know %95 of outstanding homicide warrants are for illegal immigrants? How do they know theyre illegal if they dont even know who or where they are!!?? You cant document how much of a draw illegal immigrants have on the system if you dont know what percentage are showing up in ERs or even how many there are in this country! Illegal immigrants arent the only ones who end up at the hospital without insurance. They arent the only ones who have kids who need medical treatment. They arent the only ones who commit crime or have infectious deseases, and to blame them for the collapse of our completely bungled health-care system is just false and scapegoating borders on being fascist.
And her solution!? She is really kidding. So we are going to bring back all of our troops around the world, seal off our borders, put everyone in america on in-house curfew and do a door to door sweep of the whole country checking citizenship and enforcing the deportation of 10,000,000 fucking people without trial or legal process. Genius lady. Absolutely genius.
These are not parasites. They are human beings, and all the verbal association you wanna apply to paint them as a human infection isnt going to stop the fact that if you start turning people away from ERs because they didnt happen to have documentation on them when they showed up at the door means killing thousands of people each year.
thanks oe. someone else please take the helm. i'm tired and i have a deadline.
so no response to my logic, dot?
That's alot of paragraphs, I'd get started if I was you.
I promise I have a cure for cancer, just don't ask me to prove it.
Also, I've had enough of this thread. It's been real, but one thing is futile for sure, the path of this discourse.
I hope everybody can leave what happened in "Bush deploys Nat'l Guard Troops to the Border " in "Bush deploys Nat'l Guard Troops to the Border "
Christ guys. How about, instead of worrying about gay marriage and immigration and all the other bigotry based non-issues the republican party can throw us to distract us from the fact that theyve completely batched every part of running a government, we start to think about actual solutions to things like energy development and global diplomacy and effective health care?
yes, givemeastamp, i think we are in denial and seriously overlooking something if we think that US border policy is just based off impartial numbers.
do you really want me to spell it out for you? here's a hint. it starts with an 'x' and has happened repeatedly throughout this country's history.
Every firm I've worked for in LA has had at least one technically illegal foreign worker. Not one of them has been Latino, and I'm pretty sure they aren't walking across the border.
yeah i dated this girl when i lived in chitown who was from macedonia and here totally illegally. she was a computer programmer and worked for some company out in the burbs. how romantic i met her on the metra. of course she was blonde with blue eyes so no one was interested in rounding her up. and as far as assimilation goes, take a bus ride down devon and you will hear every language except english and SPANISH. oh and look at all the signs in polish in some of the hoods?
Speaking of Poles...My friends in Berlin *hate* the Polish immigrants in Germany. I know it's a strong word, but I've never spoken about any immigrant in the USA the way they talk about Polish and E. European immigrants in Germany. It's not a problem unique to the USA.
This discussion has me wishing again for the cold war days when our only problem was them dang communists.
beware. this bully minority group is threatening to annex the south side of chicago to establish an entitlement society known as "eva"
better call the national guard...
pretty good show:
http://www.onpointradio.org/shows/2006/05/20060516_a_main.asp
well dubya has succeeded...chalk another one up to the amazing political machine that is incapable of governing. he has you all talking about a non-issue...legislation that stands zero chance of making it to law. i'm much more concerned about the erosion of my rights, this house of cards economy, and the eroding environment, than i am in immigration - which hasn't changed one iota from last year or the year before or the year before. christ - reagan was yapping about htis twenty years ago.
i did like the kent state photo though...thanks.
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