What is wrong with the US immigration system/law?

[Jughead]

You just provided an example as to why we should move slowly in regards to any immigration reform. You worked hard in order to legally immigrate, and were rewarded with citizenship. Would it be fair to you if we allow millions of folks who broke the law a free pass, and let them sneak ahead everyone else who have been waiting for years.

Our immigration laws are fine the way they are, the problem is trying to figure out a way to enforce the laws, at the same time being compassionate and figure out what to do with the millions that are here illegally.

That's why no one is moving forward with any reform, there really is no solution.

That's right. The problem is not at the border. The problem is in the US quota system.

Bull...Seal the board, then reform the immigration system

Sealing the border is only a first step. That will not stop all of the illegals though. It'll slow them down, but some will still get in. Many of the illegals were initially in the country on valid visitor's visas or student visas ...etc), and decided not to go back to their country of origin once their visas had expired.

Once the border is sealed, there needs to be a tracking system, so that every non-citizen in the country can be accounted for. The DHS needs to make sure that those whose visas will expire will leave and not overstay their visit.

With a sealed border, and a tracking system, then a plan can be devised as to what to do with the illegals that are already in the country.

 

[Indeependent]

I dunno, but the business community sure doesn't like them:

Chamber of Commerce plans big push on immigration | Detroit Free Press | freep.com

Based on this article alone, I would not know if the COC is pro or anti Immigration Reform.

 

[gallantwarrior]

In answer to the question posed by the original OP:
The laws remain unenforced. And the system rewards criminals.

 

[longknife]

Having been personally involved in it, there's nothing wrong with the laws!

What IS wrong is the system of government bureaucrats who make it so damned difficult to apply for a visa and then go through the mess of getting a Permanent Residency - not including the ridiculously high costs.

We probably have the EASIEST immigration system in the world with far less penalties for those who break those laws.

What we need are politicians with enough juevos to stand up and declare those who are here illegally should be deported to their countries of origin.

 

[Sunshine]

In answer to the question posed by the original OP:
The laws remain unenforced. And the system rewards criminals.

The ones who came here legally then overstayed have broken no law. Those who jumped the river have only committed a misdemeanor. As to deporting all 11 million, each would have to have a court hearing which could take years. We take their taxes and their payments to ss but they cannot file a tax return or draw ss. Google how much they pay into ss. You will be shocked.

 

[protectionist]

In answer to the question posed by the original OP:
The laws remain unenforced. And the system rewards criminals.

The ones who came here legally then overstayed have broken no law. Those who jumped the river have only committed a misdemeanor. As to deporting all 11 million, each would have to have a court hearing which could take years. We take their taxes and their payments to ss but they cannot file a tax return or draw ss. Google how much they pay into ss. You will be shocked.

They don't pay any more into SS than the unemployed Americans they replace would pay. And they pay much less, because many of them work off the books, and those that are on the books work for much less pay than Americans in those jobs would get.

As for "only" a misdemeanor, since when is that thought to be somehow OK ? It is punishable by 6 months to 2 years imprisonment, and it is one of the most protective laws of the American people on the books.

As for the visa overstays, they should be legislated as crimes.

As for court hearings for 11 million people, this can be done in groups very quickly, as was done in 1954 in Operation Wetback, when huge numbers of Mexicans were deported, while many more fled on their own, eliminating the need for hearings. Quite likely with a tough enforcement of IRCA, illegal aliens would self-deport, rendering court hearings a non-issue.

 

[alan1]

What is wrong with the US immigration system/law?
Most of my life I've been hearing that we (The USA) need immigration reform. I keep hearing we need to fix immigration. The politicians spout off about it and the media absolutely make it a forefront issue.
Barack Obama thinks he needs to fix it
George W. Bush thought he needed to fix it.
Bill Clinton thought he needed to fix it.
George H. W. Bush thought he needed to fix it.
Ronald Reagan tried to fix it with amnesty for illegal aliens.
The media has been omnipresent declaring immigration a problem.

Last year numerous people I work with acquired US citizenship. They come from varied countries... India, England, Jamaica, Ukraine, Brazil, Japan, South Africa, Sweden, Germany, France, Namibia, Australia, Russia, Mexico, China and others.
All these people from all these different countries managed to legally immigrate to the US and then managed to legally acquire citizenship.

So, what the heck is broken with our immigration policy? The media and the politicians keep saying it is broken, that we need immigration reform, but what exactly is broken? The legal immigration that I see seems to be working pretty well, aside from it being a slow process.

[MENTION=16165]alan1[/MENTION]

If you go to the Secretary of State website, take a little time, and digest the system by which visas are granted you will see the problem. You have to understand the system but once you do, you can see how long it takes people from each country to become eligible for a visa. Right now, a person in Mexico will wait 10 or more years, sometimes even 15 years, to get a work visa while the person from India will not wait very long at all. There is a system of quotas for each country which do not match the numbers of jobs the immigrants can get once they are here. That is part of the problem.

But every undocumented alien who is here didn't jump the river. Many of them came here on legal work visas and just did not return home. Should they return home with the expired visa, it would trigger a 10 year bar of them returning to the US. So they are not motivated to comply. I have a cousin who bought a house from an Indian couple who got caught up in that 10 year bar thingy. They got a mega beautiful house for a little of nothing because the people had to unload it.

Immigration law is not at all straight forward. But the bottom line is if you come here on a visa and stay after it expires you have committed no crime. If you jump the river, that is illegal entry which is a misdemeanor.

See if you can get a handle on the Secretary of State website, quota, wait times, etc. and that will help you immensely.

[MENTION=21954]Sunshine[/MENTION]
As for the part in blue, I would like to point out that I said nothing of the sort. I understand that many illegals exist that came about through work visa's, college study programs, and even passports where the person never returned home.

Your statement about an expiring visa not being a crime is a little misleading. If one continues to work in this country after their work visa has expired, that is a crime. If they aren't working, then no crime is committed.
As a matter of fact, the company I work for has contracted with another company that provides labor to write computer code for us. The vast majority of that companies employees are Indian and working here on visa's. If one of their employees visa's expires, they won't let that person work in the US and they force them to return to India if they want to keep their job.

You do make a good point about it taking different amounts of waiting time to acquire a visa depending upon which country one is from. Is any of that based on job skills, or specific job skills needed in the US labor force? I ask because I don't know. But... you brought up India and Mexico... I do know that as a nation, India has been very proactive about educating their citizenry in high demand and high education fields such as computer development and medicine, Mexico has not.

 

[Sunshine]

What is wrong with the US immigration system/law?
Most of my life I've been hearing that we (The USA) need immigration reform. I keep hearing we need to fix immigration. The politicians spout off about it and the media absolutely make it a forefront issue.
Barack Obama thinks he needs to fix it
George W. Bush thought he needed to fix it.
Bill Clinton thought he needed to fix it.
George H. W. Bush thought he needed to fix it.
Ronald Reagan tried to fix it with amnesty for illegal aliens.
The media has been omnipresent declaring immigration a problem.

Last year numerous people I work with acquired US citizenship. They come from varied countries... India, England, Jamaica, Ukraine, Brazil, Japan, South Africa, Sweden, Germany, France, Namibia, Australia, Russia, Mexico, China and others.
All these people from all these different countries managed to legally immigrate to the US and then managed to legally acquire citizenship.

So, what the heck is broken with our immigration policy? The media and the politicians keep saying it is broken, that we need immigration reform, but what exactly is broken? The legal immigration that I see seems to be working pretty well, aside from it being a slow process.

[MENTION=16165]alan1[/MENTION]

If you go to the Secretary of State website, take a little time, and digest the system by which visas are granted you will see the problem. You have to understand the system but once you do, you can see how long it takes people from each country to become eligible for a visa. Right now, a person in Mexico will wait 10 or more years, sometimes even 15 years, to get a work visa while the person from India will not wait very long at all. There is a system of quotas for each country which do not match the numbers of jobs the immigrants can get once they are here. That is part of the problem.

But every undocumented alien who is here didn't jump the river. Many of them came here on legal work visas and just did not return home. Should they return home with the expired visa, it would trigger a 10 year bar of them returning to the US. So they are not motivated to comply. I have a cousin who bought a house from an Indian couple who got caught up in that 10 year bar thingy. They got a mega beautiful house for a little of nothing because the people had to unload it.

Immigration law is not at all straight forward. But the bottom line is if you come here on a visa and stay after it expires you have committed no crime. If you jump the river, that is illegal entry which is a misdemeanor.

See if you can get a handle on the Secretary of State website, quota, wait times, etc. and that will help you immensely.

[MENTION=21954]Sunshine[/MENTION]
As for the part in blue, I would like to point out that I said nothing of the sort. I understand that many illegals exist that came about through work visa's, college study programs, and even passports where the person never returned home.

Your statement about an expiring visa not being a crime is a little misleading. If one continues to work in this country after their work visa has expired, that is a crime. If they aren't working, then no crime is committed.
As a matter of fact, the company I work for has contracted with another company that provides labor to write computer code for us. The vast majority of that companies employees are Indian and working here on visa's. If one of their employees visa's expires, they won't let that person work in the US and they force them to return to India if they want to keep their job.

You do make a good point about it taking different amounts of waiting time to acquire a visa depending upon which country one is from. Is any of that based on job skills, or specific job skills needed in the US labor force? I ask because I don't know. But... you brought up India and Mexico... I do know that as a nation, India has been very proactive about educating their citizenry in high demand and high education fields such as computer development and medicine, Mexico has not.

[MENTION=16165]alan1[/MENTION]

I didn't say you said that. I merely made a point.

No particular job skills are required. But when they come they have to declare a particular place they are going. However, they don't have to even go there let alone stay there. It's a free country. Just like the rest of us they can go where they please.

Mexicans are well trained in the trades. They do a really good job with construction related work. A contractor I bought a house from in TN used Mexicans, and they did an excellent job on the house. They are skilled painters, tile workers, carpenters, etc. But no demand in Mexico. When I had my rotator cuff surgery in TN the physical therapy place had just moved to a new building and all areas of it were not completed. Mexicans were in there painting. They were doing an excellent job, they were quiet and respectful, and whispered rather than talking aloud when patients were present. There are a lot who do menial jobs too, though. I saw one, a woman, out sweeping the water off the parking lot here where I'm staying. She was really going at it. Before I came back home from TN, the home inspector found my roof had hail damage. We had a big hail storm that year with golf ball size hail. I had to have a new roof put on before I could sell it. The contractor brought out a crew of Mexicans and they finished that puppy in a day, did a good job, and the clean up was perfect.

I don't know if they who were working there were legal or not. But I do know from my Immigration Law study that 'documents' (forged) are not hard to come buy. And it is not the employers duty to prove the documents are real, only to take them and record them. Even the SS system will not challenge a number that is not a valid number. SS just takes the money on that number and that's the end of it.

Basically they are the new slave class in the US.

I can also tell you that a business that is using illegals can often catch the attention of the IRS if they turn in labor expenses and has not paid in any SS or taxes on their employees. So a business that uses them will not get the tax break that businesses get on that particular expense because they can't really claim it. If they are claiming other expenses related to a labor intensive company, and not labor, it also runs up a red flag to the IRS. Our system is not completely stupid. It just behaves that way at times.

Our government has several avenues to know where the undocumented workers are and who is employing them. The ones above are the best. This country is all about commerce. We have lost so much to other countries in terms of jobs I'm sure the government doesn't want to lose more. Even though it is not Americans doing the work, they are paying into the system in a big way and not getting what they pay for.

He belongs to a big club. As the debate over Social Security heats up, the estimated seven million or so illegal immigrant workers in the United States are now providing the system with a subsidy of as much as $7 billion a year.

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/04/05/business/05immigration.html?_r=0

 

[MaryL]

My main concern with immigration law? It is nearly meaningless and unenforceable. On the other hand, that means it can be exploited by people that are desperate and/or disingenuous. I have known people of either status…LEGAL immigrants aren’t the problem. With good reason. It's always the bad people that we worry about.

 

[alan1]

[MENTION=16165]alan1[/MENTION]

If you go to the Secretary of State website, take a little time, and digest the system by which visas are granted you will see the problem. You have to understand the system but once you do, you can see how long it takes people from each country to become eligible for a visa. Right now, a person in Mexico will wait 10 or more years, sometimes even 15 years, to get a work visa while the person from India will not wait very long at all. There is a system of quotas for each country which do not match the numbers of jobs the immigrants can get once they are here. That is part of the problem.

But every undocumented alien who is here didn't jump the river. Many of them came here on legal work visas and just did not return home. Should they return home with the expired visa, it would trigger a 10 year bar of them returning to the US. So they are not motivated to comply. I have a cousin who bought a house from an Indian couple who got caught up in that 10 year bar thingy. They got a mega beautiful house for a little of nothing because the people had to unload it.

Immigration law is not at all straight forward. But the bottom line is if you come here on a visa and stay after it expires you have committed no crime. If you jump the river, that is illegal entry which is a misdemeanor.

See if you can get a handle on the Secretary of State website, quota, wait times, etc. and that will help you immensely.

[MENTION=21954]Sunshine[/MENTION]
As for the part in blue, I would like to point out that I said nothing of the sort. I understand that many illegals exist that came about through work visa's, college study programs, and even passports where the person never returned home.

Your statement about an expiring visa not being a crime is a little misleading. If one continues to work in this country after their work visa has expired, that is a crime. If they aren't working, then no crime is committed.
As a matter of fact, the company I work for has contracted with another company that provides labor to write computer code for us. The vast majority of that companies employees are Indian and working here on visa's. If one of their employees visa's expires, they won't let that person work in the US and they force them to return to India if they want to keep their job.

You do make a good point about it taking different amounts of waiting time to acquire a visa depending upon which country one is from. Is any of that based on job skills, or specific job skills needed in the US labor force? I ask because I don't know. But... you brought up India and Mexico... I do know that as a nation, India has been very proactive about educating their citizenry in high demand and high education fields such as computer development and medicine, Mexico has not.

[MENTION=16165]alan1[/MENTION]

I didn't say you said that. I merely made a point.

No particular job skills are required. But when they come they have to declare a particular place they are going. However, they don't have to even go there let alone stay there. It's a free country. Just like the rest of us they can go where they please.

Mexicans are well trained in the trades. They do a really good job with construction related work. A contractor I bought a house from in TN used Mexicans, and they did an excellent job on the house. They are skilled painters, tile workers, carpenters, etc. But no demand in Mexico. When I had my rotator cuff surgery in TN the physical therapy place had just moved to a new building and all areas of it were not completed. Mexicans were in there painting. They were doing an excellent job, they were quiet and respectful, and whispered rather than talking aloud when patients were present. There are a lot who do menial jobs too, though. I saw one, a woman, out sweeping the water off the parking lot here where I'm staying. She was really going at it. Before I came back home from TN, the home inspector found my roof had hail damage. We had a big hail storm that year with golf ball size hail. I had to have a new roof put on before I could sell it. The contractor brought out a crew of Mexicans and they finished that puppy in a day, did a good job, and the clean up was perfect.

I don't know if they who were working there were legal or not. But I do know from my Immigration Law study that 'documents' (forged) are not hard to come buy. And it is not the employers duty to prove the documents are real, only to take them and record them. Even the SS system will not challenge a number that is not a valid number. SS just takes the money on that number and that's the end of it.

Basically they are the new slave class in the US.

I can also tell you that a business that is using illegals can often catch the attention of the IRS if they turn in labor expenses and has not paid in any SS or taxes on their employees. So a business that uses them will not get the tax break that businesses get on that particular expense because they can't really claim it. If they are claiming other expenses related to a labor intensive company, and not labor, it also runs up a red flag to the IRS. Our system is not completely stupid. It just behaves that way at times.

Our government has several avenues to know where the undocumented workers are and who is employing them. The ones above are the best. This country is all about commerce. We have lost so much to other countries in terms of jobs I'm sure the government doesn't want to lose more. Even though it is not Americans doing the work, they are paying into the system in a big way and not getting what they pay for.

He belongs to a big club. As the debate over Social Security heats up, the estimated seven million or so illegal immigrant workers in the United States are now providing the system with a subsidy of as much as $7 billion a year.

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/04/05/business/05immigration.html?_r=0

[MENTION=21954]Sunshine[/MENTION]
How do you know the people you speak of were Mexican? Maybe they were Guatemalan, Peruvian, Ecuadorian or some other nationality. Kind of hard to tell national origin just by looking at somebody.

Slave class? Really? Slaves are not paid wages. The vast majority of illegal immigrants working in this country are paid a wage, not slavery nor indentured servants.

I will agree with you that a small business employing illegal immigrants can attract the attention of the IRS. Most particularly if the SS number is suspect or used too long, but the IRS spends a lot more time focusing on the large companies, not the 25-40 employee business doing small construction like roofing or re-modeling. Think about it, if 1% of Dollar General's employees were illegal aliens, that would be 9000 people but if 90% of BillyBobs Roofing were illegal aliens, that would be 30 people. Where do you think the IRS is looking? Hint, it's Dollar General.

 

[Sunshine]

[MENTION=21954]Sunshine[/MENTION]
As for the part in blue, I would like to point out that I said nothing of the sort. I understand that many illegals exist that came about through work visa's, college study programs, and even passports where the person never returned home.

Your statement about an expiring visa not being a crime is a little misleading. If one continues to work in this country after their work visa has expired, that is a crime. If they aren't working, then no crime is committed.
As a matter of fact, the company I work for has contracted with another company that provides labor to write computer code for us. The vast majority of that companies employees are Indian and working here on visa's. If one of their employees visa's expires, they won't let that person work in the US and they force them to return to India if they want to keep their job.

You do make a good point about it taking different amounts of waiting time to acquire a visa depending upon which country one is from. Is any of that based on job skills, or specific job skills needed in the US labor force? I ask because I don't know. But... you brought up India and Mexico... I do know that as a nation, India has been very proactive about educating their citizenry in high demand and high education fields such as computer development and medicine, Mexico has not.

[MENTION=16165]alan1[/MENTION]

I didn't say you said that. I merely made a point.

No particular job skills are required. But when they come they have to declare a particular place they are going. However, they don't have to even go there let alone stay there. It's a free country. Just like the rest of us they can go where they please.

Mexicans are well trained in the trades. They do a really good job with construction related work. A contractor I bought a house from in TN used Mexicans, and they did an excellent job on the house. They are skilled painters, tile workers, carpenters, etc. But no demand in Mexico. When I had my rotator cuff surgery in TN the physical therapy place had just moved to a new building and all areas of it were not completed. Mexicans were in there painting. They were doing an excellent job, they were quiet and respectful, and whispered rather than talking aloud when patients were present. There are a lot who do menial jobs too, though. I saw one, a woman, out sweeping the water off the parking lot here where I'm staying. She was really going at it. Before I came back home from TN, the home inspector found my roof had hail damage. We had a big hail storm that year with golf ball size hail. I had to have a new roof put on before I could sell it. The contractor brought out a crew of Mexicans and they finished that puppy in a day, did a good job, and the clean up was perfect.

I don't know if they who were working there were legal or not. But I do know from my Immigration Law study that 'documents' (forged) are not hard to come buy. And it is not the employers duty to prove the documents are real, only to take them and record them. Even the SS system will not challenge a number that is not a valid number. SS just takes the money on that number and that's the end of it.

Basically they are the new slave class in the US.

I can also tell you that a business that is using illegals can often catch the attention of the IRS if they turn in labor expenses and has not paid in any SS or taxes on their employees. So a business that uses them will not get the tax break that businesses get on that particular expense because they can't really claim it. If they are claiming other expenses related to a labor intensive company, and not labor, it also runs up a red flag to the IRS. Our system is not completely stupid. It just behaves that way at times.

Our government has several avenues to know where the undocumented workers are and who is employing them. The ones above are the best. This country is all about commerce. We have lost so much to other countries in terms of jobs I'm sure the government doesn't want to lose more. Even though it is not Americans doing the work, they are paying into the system in a big way and not getting what they pay for.

He belongs to a big club. As the debate over Social Security heats up, the estimated seven million or so illegal immigrant workers in the United States are now providing the system with a subsidy of as much as $7 billion a year.

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/04/05/business/05immigration.html?_r=0

[MENTION=21954]Sunshine[/MENTION]
How do you know the people you speak of were Mexican? Maybe they were Guatemalan, Peruvian, Ecuadorian or some other nationality. Kind of hard to tell national origin just by looking at somebody.

Slave class? Really? Slaves are not paid wages. The vast majority of illegal immigrants working in this country are paid a wage, not slavery nor indentured servants.

I will agree with you that a small business employing illegal immigrants can attract the attention of the IRS. Most particularly if the SS number is suspect or used too long, but the IRS spends a lot more time focusing on the large companies, not the 25-40 employee business doing small construction like roofing or re-modeling. Think about it, if 1% of Dollar General's employees were illegal aliens, that would be 9000 people but if 90% of BillyBobs Roofing were illegal aliens, that would be 30 people. Where do you think the IRS is looking? Hint, it's Dollar General.

I should have said 'Hispanic' which covers them all. There is also no way to tell if they are legal.

We have labor laws in this country. Certainly hiring illegals isn't the same kind of slavery we have had in our past, but circumventing the labor laws and paying them less than the law requires is exploitation, slavery lite. Yes, I'm aware the immigrants allow it, but as my law prof said: They would rather come here and have $5 at the end of the day than stay home and have 50c at the end of the week. I'm not sure that retail places like Dollar Store would be as labor intensive as a construction company. And I've only seen one of those stores with a Hispanic employee. Likely I haven't been all the places to see them. But a company like Dollar Store would definitely be paying into SS and the IRS at a greater rate than a company that doesn't pay SS at all but claims labor expenses.

You are, however, correct about the IRS. They aren't after the person who is $50 short on their taxes. The IRS is after the big fish. Construction is big business, even for a small company that just builds homes. Construction is far more labor intensive than retail. I think it would be harder for a larger corporate entity like Dollar Store to hide exploitation simply because they use accountants and CPAs who have a legal obligation to be ethical in their work. CPAs have worked very hard for their licenses, I don't see in my mind's eye very many of them going along with a plot to falsify a company's labor data. I can say that as a licensed professional. That license is precious enough to me that I would NEVER go along with something that would cause me to lose it. I would just quit and the company could go to hell. Companies where they cook their own books without a licensed CPA, sure, I have no doubt they do a lot of unethical things.

Something I learned in my Immigration Law class: The government knows, for the most part, where they are. If the US government wanted rid of them the US government would get rid of them. If laws ever caught up and made the US government have to pay them SS and allow them to file tax returns, I'm sure the effort to get them out would increase. As it is working Americans are paying less in SS taxes because the illegals are paying a lot of it. And before any one of them could be deported, according to our immigration laws he/she would have to have a hearing. Think of that 11 million court hearings. Think of the backlog. Man the attorneys would clean up on that one! LOL.

I do know of one instance where illegals were allowed to draw unemployment. The court held that the company brought them here, exploited them, then fired them, so they were allowed to draw. I don't recall if the company had paid in any unemployment tax on them or not, but if it had not, I'm sure Uncle made sure they did.

One other thing I forgot to mention, the INS requires a business to have made a reasonable effort through advertising of jobs before that business is allowed to (legally) bring someone here from another country to fill the job. Of course with so many here who have 'papers' they have gotten from the black market, that law is fairly well moot.



On court backlog in the US: http://www.pfaw.org/sites/default/files/lower_federal_courts.pdf

And these are the courts that hear immigration cases: EOIR Immigration Court Listing

 

[Luddly Neddite]

What is wrong with the US immigration system/law?

It punishes the very weak and poor while rewarding the wealthy and strong.

 

[Unkotare]

The problem is how few people really mean "immigration reform" when they say "immigration reform." Some people really mean "open the borders completely." Others mean "excuse all illegal aliens already here." Still others mean "no more immigrants of any kind, legal or illegal!"

 

[Unkotare]

One other thing I forgot to mention, the INS requires ...

Just point of fact...there is no INS.

 

[MaryL]

Said it before, say it again: Immigration law isn't the issue here: it's people that violate the law that are the issue. Let's examine immigration law, lets examine people that willing ignore the law to their benefit.

 

[Agit8r]

I dunno, but the business community sure doesn't like them:

Chamber of Commerce plans big push on immigration | Detroit Free Press | freep.com

Based on this article alone, I would not know if the COC is pro or anti Immigration Reform.

Very well:

[ame=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ToGQXhyWHnY]The Conservative case for Immigration Reform - YouTube[/ame]

 

[MaryL]

The business community loves illegal aliens, surely. They surely LOVE this issue, above anything. Profits are above all, isn’t’ it?

 

[protectionist]

I dunno, but the business community sure doesn't like them:

Chamber of Commerce plans big push on immigration | Detroit Free Press | freep.com

Based on this article alone, I would not know if the COC is pro or anti Immigration Reform.

The COC has been PRO-immigration (including illegal immigration), for as long as I can remember, and a pretty long time.

 

[protectionist]

What is wrong with the US immigration system/law?
Most of my life I've been hearing that we (The USA) need immigration reform. I keep hearing we need to fix immigration. The politicians spout off about it and the media absolutely make it a forefront issue.
Barack Obama thinks he needs to fix it
George W. Bush thought he needed to fix it.
Bill Clinton thought he needed to fix it.
George H. W. Bush thought he needed to fix it.
Ronald Reagan tried to fix it with amnesty for illegal aliens.
The media has been omnipresent declaring immigration a problem.

Last year numerous people I work with acquired US citizenship. They come from varied countries... India, England, Jamaica, Ukraine, Brazil, Japan, South Africa, Sweden, Germany, France, Namibia, Australia, Russia, Mexico, China and others.
All these people from all these different countries managed to legally immigrate to the US and then managed to legally acquire citizenship.

So, what the heck is broken with our immigration policy? The media and the politicians keep saying it is broken, that we need immigration reform, but what exactly is broken? The legal immigration that I see seems to be working pretty well, aside from it being a slow process.

If the legal immigration system is working well, THAT is what's wrong. There shouldn't be any immigration into the US now, legal or illegal. The US passed its optimum population relative to resource base in 1860 (at 30 million). Immigration should have ceased then, generally.

I would make 2 exceptions >>

1. People bringing skills that we are in need of (although I think this wold be rare)

2. People bringing large amounts of capital, with which to start businesses and create jobs (for AMERICANS at good pay).

Stopping immigration and deporting ALL those not here legally should be a prime goal of the US govt in 2014. It would open open up 8 million jobs, and stop the drain away of US dollars due to immigrants' remittances ($40 billion/year) and welfare. Certainly the US govt would also have to deal with the countries that are actively sending their poor people here (so we can pay for them), starting with Mexico.

http://www.usmessageboard.com/usmb-...nvasion-of-the-united-states-1950-2012-a.html

 

[SwimExpert]

So, what the heck is broken with our immigration policy?

--Failing to secure the borders.
--Insufficient avenues to enforce and punish illegal immigrants
--Lack of will to resist illegal immigrants

Those are the main problems. Over issuance of work visa is an additional, but lesser problem, and stems from other issues our country faces.