Open Borders

[Ravi]

Is it your idea that illegal immigrants come here like tourists to support our local economies?

Do you even KNOW any illegal immigrants?

A few. But I never ask people their immigration status, so for all I know most of the people I know are not citizens.

 

[Ravi]

Did it ever occur to you that Americans USED to do these jobs until an influx of illegal employees lowered the wages to the point that most Americans can't afford to take these jobs?

More employees in the pool = lower wages for workers. durr.

No, I didn't know that. I thought migrant workers have been with us since the beginning of time.

 

[007]

I don't agree with you but it seems pretty easy to fix that if true. Decriminalize being undocumented. Then employers won't be able to pay lower wages because they will no longer be able to hold deportation over the heads of their employees.

It isn't the people that take the jobs that lower the wages. It is the people that hire them to avoid paying a living wage. They only send a fraction of what they earn home, btw. The rest is spent here. And now, it won't be.

Not exactly Rav. You are right that employers are benefiting from illegal aliens by hiring them at depressed wages, but that's not the end of the story as far as what happens to the money the illegals are paid. There's a plethora of information on the subject searching google, but this article pretty much sums it up...



ILLEGAL ALIENS DAMAGE - DRAIN AMERICAS ECONOMY


by Michael Cutler
February 12, 2008
NewsWithViews.com

Nearly three months ago I wrote about the movement of cash out of the United States through remittances and other methods by illegal aliens who came to the United States with the single-minded focus of securing illegal employment to send money home to assist their family members. The amounts of money that are consequently drained from our economy are huge and do not include the other costs our nation incurs because of the 20 million illegal aliens who are estimated to be residing and working in our country illegally.

Article continues here...


And here's more containing facts....


INVASION USA


$2.2 trillion illegal alien taxpayer sticker shock
2/3 of immigrants cost Americans
$22,449 a year, shows new study
Posted: April 11, 2007
1:00 am Eastern

© 2008 WorldNetDaily.com


WASHINGTON – Someone has finally fixed an approximate taxpayer cost of between 12 million and 15 million illegal aliens residing in the U.S.

A new study by the Heritage Foundation's Robert Rector found a household headed by an individual without a high school education, including about two-thirds of illegal aliens, costs U.S. taxpayers more than $32,000 in federal, state and local benefits. That same family contributes an average of $9,000 a year in taxes, resulting in a net tax burden of $22,449 each year.

Over the course of the household's lifetime that tax burden translates to $1.1 million.

If the lower figure of 12 million illegal aliens is used for estimation purposes, the total tax burden translates to $2.2 trillion.

"Would any of us buy shares in a company that we knew would produce a loss of a million dollars a share," asks Rep. Steve King, R-Iowa, in response to the study. "Cheap labor is not cheap at the cost of over a million dollars per head of household."

Rector's study, "The Fiscal Cost of Low-Skill Households to the U.S. Taxpayer," examines the economics of the 17.7 million American households made up of people without a high-school degree. Using numbers from the Census Bureau, the Congressional Research Service, the Bureau of Labor Standards and other government agencies, Rector determined what they earn, what they spend and what they receive in government services

About half of the 17.7 million households studied are illegal aliens. About two-thirds of illegal alien households are headed by someone without a high school degree. Only 10 percent of native-born Americans fit into that category.

"Over the next ten years the total cost of low-skill households to the taxpayer (immediate benefits minus taxes paid) is likely to be at least $3.9 trillion," Rector writes. "This number would go up significantly if changes in immigration policy lead to substantial increases in the number of low-skill immigrants entering the country and receiving services."

http://www.worldnetdaily.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=55135

 

[catzmeow]

No, I didn't know that. I thought migrant workers have been with us since the beginning of time.

Actually, no. Back in the olden days, and they weren't that long ago, crops were picked by legal citizens. Illegal immigrants were used by the corporate farms to break the strikes of Cesar Chavez, for instance, from the United Farm Workers, when members of the UFW refused to pick pesticide-tainted grapes.

Here is some information on UFW versus illegal immigration:

The UFW during Chávez's tenure was committed to restricting immigration. César Chávez and Dolores Huerta fought the Bracero Program that existed from 1942 to 1964. Their opposition stemmed from their belief that the program undermined U.S. workers and exploited the migrant workers. Their efforts contributed to Congress ending the Bracero Program in 1964. In 1973, the UFW was one of the first labor unions to oppose proposed employer sanctions that would have prohibited hiring illegal immigrants.

On a few occasions, concerns that illegal migrant labor would undermine UFW strike campaigns led to a number of controversial events, which the UFW describes as anti-strikebreaking events, but which have also been interpreted as being anti-immigrant. In 1969, Chávez and members of the UFW marched through the Imperial and Coachella Valleys to the border of Mexico to protest growers' use of illegal immigrants as strikebreakers. Joining him on the march were both Reverend Ralph Abernathy and U.S. Senator Walter Mondale.[5] In its early years, Chávez and the UFW went so far as to report illegal aliens who served as strikebreaking replacement workers, as well as those who refused to unionize, to the Immigration and Naturalization Service.[6][7][8][9][10]

In 1973, the United Farm Workers set up a "wet line" along the United States-Mexico border to prevent Mexican immigrants from entering the United States illegally and potentially undermining the UFW's unionization efforts.

 

[catzmeow]

A few. But I never ask people their immigration status, so for all I know most of the people I know are not citizens.

I think that you'd be surprised who is, and isn't, a citizen, and the strong feelings on both sides. Chicanos are often VERY offended at the idea of illegal immigration.

 

[Againsheila]

I don't agree with you but it seems pretty easy to fix that if true. Decriminalize being undocumented. Then employers won't be able to pay lower wages because they will no longer be able to hold deportation over the heads of their employees.

It isn't the people that take the jobs that lower the wages. It is the people that hire them to avoid paying a living wage. They only send a fraction of what they earn home, btw. The rest is spent here. And now, it won't be.

I think you missed part of my post. Granting them amnesty won't work. It has never worked in the past. Everytime we have granted amnesty, or even talked about it, there has been in increase in the number of illegals coming into this country. Those illegals then take the jobs that the now legal immigrants used to have. We then have even more people on the bottom rung of the ladder compeating for jobs which leads to lower and lower wages.

The only thing that will work is stopping any amnesty programs. Deport illegals, jail them if they are caught here again and ban them from ever coming in legally. When you reward bad behavior (illegal immigration with amnesty), you end up with more bad behavior.

 

[Againsheila]

No, I didn't know that. I thought migrant workers have been with us since the beginning of time.

I used to work in the fields. I used to be a maid. I used to work in a nursing home. These people aren't taking jobs Americans won't do, they are taking jobs away from Americans.

BTW, many Americans used to be migrant workers.

 

[Ravi]

Since the country started, farm owners have been hiring immigrants...this is nothing new. And hispanics aren't the first group of immigrants that earned the scorn of the white Americans.

All have pretty much integrated into our culture, settled down, and produced American families...even though each group in it's turn was accused of taking jobs away from Americans. The language never changes, just the country of origin.

It's always easy to blame economic problems on a group of people that are different.

 

[007]

Since the country started, farm owners have been hiring immigrants...this is nothing new. And hispanics aren't the first group of immigrants that earned the scorn of the white Americans.

All have pretty much integrated into our culture, settled down, and produced American families...even though each group in it's turn was accused of taking jobs away from Americans. The language never changes, just the country of origin.

It's always easy to blame economic problems on a group of people that are different.

It's not a blame game Rav, it's fact. Didn't you read my reply up a couple posts?

Things change. What may have worked two hundred years ago, a hundred years ago, twenty years ago may be disastrous today. Not to mention that the number of illegal aliens in this country used to be next to nothing compared to today.

 

[sky dancer]

From the living room of the battered trailer she and her mother call home, Mancha described what happened when she came out of the shower that morning. "My mother went out, and I was alone," she said. "I was getting ready for school, getting dressed, when I heard this noise. I thought it was my mother coming back." She went on in the Tex-Mex Spanish-inflected Georgia accent now heard throughout Dixie: "Some people were slamming car doors outside the trailer. I heard footsteps and then a loud boom and then somebody screaming, asking if we were 'illegals,' 'Mexicans.' These big men were standing in my living room holding guns. One man blocked my doorway. Another guy grabbed a gun on his side. I freaked out. 'Oh, my God!' I yelled."

As more than twenty Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents surrounded the trailer, said Mancha, agents inside interrogated her. After about five minutes of interrogation, the agents -- who, according to the women's lawyer, Mary Bauer of the Southern Poverty Law Center, showed no warrants and had neither probable cause nor consent to enter the home -- simply left. They left in all likelihood because Mancha and her mother didn't fit the profile of the workers at the nearby Crider poultry plant, who had been targeted by the raid in nearby Stilwell. They were the wrong kind of "Mexicans"; they were US citizens."

This is a clip from a five page article:

Juan Crow: The Deep South's New Second-Class Citizens | Immigration | AlterNet

 

[Ravi]

It's not a blame game Rav, it's fact. Didn't you read my reply up a couple posts?

Things change. What may have worked two hundred years ago, a hundred years ago, twenty years ago may be disastrous today. Not to mention that the number of illegal aliens in this country used to be next to nothing compared to today.

I gave up reading WorldNetDaily for lent once and never went back. Credible sources I'll be happy to look at.

 

[sky dancer]

What about transnationalism and flexible citizenship?

 

[007]

I gave up reading WorldNetDaily for lent once and never went back. Credible sources I'll be happy to look at.

Oh... right... it has facts and things contrary to what you want to believe... sorry about that.

 

[007]

From the living room of the battered trailer she and her mother call home, Mancha described what happened when she came out of the shower that morning. "My mother went out, and I was alone," she said. "I was getting ready for school, getting dressed, when I heard this noise. I thought it was my mother coming back." She went on in the Tex-Mex Spanish-inflected Georgia accent now heard throughout Dixie: "Some people were slamming car doors outside the trailer. I heard footsteps and then a loud boom and then somebody screaming, asking if we were 'illegals,' 'Mexicans.' These big men were standing in my living room holding guns. One man blocked my doorway. Another guy grabbed a gun on his side. I freaked out. 'Oh, my God!' I yelled."

As more than twenty Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents surrounded the trailer, said Mancha, agents inside interrogated her. After about five minutes of interrogation, the agents -- who, according to the women's lawyer, Mary Bauer of the Southern Poverty Law Center, showed no warrants and had neither probable cause nor consent to enter the home -- simply left. They left in all likelihood because Mancha and her mother didn't fit the profile of the workers at the nearby Crider poultry plant, who had been targeted by the raid in nearby Stilwell. They were the wrong kind of "Mexicans"; they were US citizens."

This is a clip from a five page article:

Juan Crow: The Deep South's New Second-Class Citizens | Immigration | AlterNet

OK, so it's a typical bust of illegal aliens. What's your point?

You have a problem with upholding our laws?

 

[sky dancer]

Oh... right... it has facts and things contrary to what you want to believe... sorry about that.

worldnetdaily has a serious right wing fundamentalist slant to its so-called 'facts'.

 

[Gunny]

Whatever you say, Gunny.


Make all the illegals legal and you don't have an illegal immigration problem. You make the best argument for Open Borders. It sounds to me that immigration would self-regulate by your way of thinking.

I don't buy the welfare state bit.

Your comment is completely illogical.

You aren't buying what you don't want to hear, simple as that. Open borders would devastate our economy and our social infrustructure. The illegals already here are proving that already.

What part of those facts aren't you getting?

 

[sky dancer]

OK, so it's a typical bust of illegal aliens. What's your point?

You have a problem with upholding our laws?

They tried to bust a US citizen. Get it?

 

[Gunny]

I'm the evil illegal alien. I'm gonna eat you up!

How about "I'm the illegal alien and I work for half price so I just got your wages suppressed, and or took your job?"

Wake up, huh? Obviously you live a sheltered life and anything outside of it is of no consequence to you.

 

[sky dancer]

Your comment is completely illogical.

You aren't buying what you don't want to hear, simple as that. Open borders would devastate our economy and our social infrustructure. The illegals already here are proving that already.

What part of those facts aren't you getting?

Open borders is an idea that I'm interested in discussing. We do discuss political ideas here don't we?

Transnationalism is the wave of the future.

Current immigration policy is based on a historical racist and colonial relationship to third world countries.

 

[dilloduck]

Open borders is an idea that I'm interested in discussing. We do discuss political ideas here don't we?

Transnationalism is the wave of the future.

Current immigration policy is based on a historical racist and colonial relationship to third world countries.

Did you expect it to be initiated without resistance ?