DIY Illegal Immigration, The "safe" way
 

I've only seen this on a couple of blog sites and Foxnews (yes, i know cellarites deep love of Fox), and i find it interesting that no one else wants to cover this story.

In Arizona we've seen groups sue the government for not providing water stations in the desert for illegals, "Day Work Stations" constructed with tax money for illegals so that people can hire them as day labor, a governor who "might" support driver's licenses for illegals, and vetoed the bill requiring showing some form of ID before casting a ballot in an election, and currently she is doing her best to block a proposition that was just passed requiring state workers to notify authorities when illegals apply for state aid.

Illegal immigration is a huge issue down here and now we are getting even more help from our friends to the south. It seems that the Mexican government has published and is distributing a pamphlet to help the unitiated learn the correct way to jump the border. Yet no one in the media outside of the right wing news providers seems to care. I don't see this as a left/right issue as much as a national security and legal issue. We have laws dictating how, when, and where individuals may enter this country. Many in our own government look the other way in the name of political correctness and now the Mexican government is providing even more encouragement to its citizens to cross the border illegally.

Fox Story

I wonder what it would cost to buy a 100' wide strip of land running parallel with the border? :mad:

not that much honestly. that land is relatively cheap because of all the abuse it receives from the border crossers.

you're not thinking of landmines and snipers, are you? if you are, there were a small group of ranchers practicing their sniping skills awhile back and cops put a stop to it. but there are an awful lot of bodies buried out in the desert, the way i understand it.

I'd rather deter them than kill them. :eyebrow:

me too. i'm not really advocating turning anyone into swiss cheese. but it is difficult to deter them when you've got bush giving them amnesty under a different name, (didn't they do something like that in the '80's?), governors ignoring or subverting the will of state's (legal) residents, and the leadership of mexico encouraging their people to move north because of all the cash they take back into mexico.

what happened with the ranchers was actually some of them were taking wing shots at illegals who were trespassing on their property. a significant percentage of our prison population are here illegally, the courts are full of them, drop houses are busted frequently with 100+ illegals in them, auto accidents with uninsured illegals, etc.

something real needs to be done, but the politicians want to pander to the hispanic vote, and most people are afraid of being un-PC so they don't speak out. What exactly are we supposed to do? The government won't do it's job in securing our borders and enforcing our immigration laws.

Like most real problems it's going to end up having to be solved at teh bottom instead of by the people at the top like it we pay taxes for.

I can vouch for that! :mad2:

Well, since the US government is supposed to be full of evil imperialists, the US could just annex the place, make it a protectorate of some sort. Put Richard Daley or Marion Barry or one of the Streets in charge, because you need someone who understands corruption in the blue-collar Democratic way.

This is mostly about economics. You dont have illegal immigrant workers you dont have new apartments buildings, roofs, or chicken pieces at the grocery store. The machine grinds to a halt. Arizona is in dire need of more housing and continued chicken. Ive seen that boom.

I've rethought. This is all about economics.

sorry warch, if we are in dire need of workers, then there are plenty on the unemployment rolls. if there are jobs that we can't fill with citizens, they can probably be filled with workers with proper visa's.

if we need more after that, then we can open up the borders to a larger number of legal immigrants. you know? those ones that actually follow the laws? i'm not anti-immigration, i'm extremely disgusted with illegal immigration. do you know who ridicules illegals more than anyone else? legal immigrants. the racial epithets they throw at the dayworkers would make a clansman bluch.

as far as economics, there are millions of dollars mailed to mexico, from the illegal workers up here. Mexico absolutely loves illegal immigration to the US, it pumps $$ into their economy.

BTW - if you've ever been in a border town and watched extremely pregnant women pacing in the parking lots, what you are watching is someone planning to create a new US citizen and beat the system. they pace back and forth until labor begins then they make sure they are on the US side, call for help, go to a US hospital, squeeze one out and tada! instant ticket to the US. Did you know the number one name for baby boys in arizona for 2004 was Jose? it wouldn't be a matter of concern if more of the mothers were here legally. but now, they have the ability to stay in the US and their children qualify for public aid. it's just ridiculous.

Naw, just a smidgen less profitable. ;)

Econ 101 says that once the illegal workers are prohibited from crossing the border and it becomes harder to build things with legal workers, the salary of the legal workers will rise... thus cruelly increasing the incentive for both the illegals and the people who would hire them... and actually worsening the problem.

I doubt you can solve this one even with the military on the border.

Solve it? No. But I'll bet the military could stop it....immediately. But that won't happen because it's a political football.
Econ 101 says supply and demand controls wages. The gumint controls the labor supply by either looking the other way or allowing more legal immigration.
I would prefer the later. I don't object to them coming to work, just coming to leach which many of the illegals end up doing. It's not always their fault in that most want to work but without papers they are excluded from many jobs. Also being illegal little things like drivers licenses, insurance and taxes are not in their domain. :mad:

UT, i support increased LEGAL immigration, if they start enforcing the immigration laws that are on the books. there are ways to decrease ilegal immigration without shooting them at the border. Making it really painful for companies that employ them would be a good start. when police run across illegals, actually arresting them would be useful. and like prop. 200 in arizona was about, hold government officials accountable for enforcing the laws that are already on the books.

honestly I don't know much about the immigration issue from a border dwellers perspective.. and after all we are all illegal immigrants as such (although I don't really want to start in on that, and aside from that conquest of foriegn lands has always been a speciality of the human race).. anyway! 'round here (well Kansas City anyway) it has become very very difficult to find work in foodservice, as the owners are mostly syphoning the work off to people who will work for 1/2 as much and in all honesty work about 30% harder... which in some repspects I'm okay with.. on a side note when I lived in south carolina our dishwasher Mario, was an illegal alien.. the weird thing is that back in Brazil he had been a radio DJ..and he couldn't make enough there, so he and his pregnant wife snuck into this country and worked their asses off for about two years and then went home again.. and therein lies my problem.. if it came right down to 'brass tacks' I would do the same thingm if the legal entry into a country was not possible. I don't like that it does happen, however.. it does and in some cases I don't disagree with it.

oh and on another side note, about 5 years ago I was going to move to Ireland, had a Job lined up and everything, the thing is that I couldn't get a work Visa, but I really thought about going anyway.. and the Business that was going to hire me said 'oh, well that won't be a problem.. we'll pay you in cash' so.. I dunno it's an odd situation.

Found this link in another thread. Guess all goverments from south of border get in act. here :eyebrow:

i understand what you are saying cowhead, but if we are going to have a law on the books then it should be enforced.

if illegal immigration laws were properly enforced we would be able to open up the numbers of legal immigrants allowed. immigrants who followed the rules should get the shot, rather than people that sneak back and forth.

and your former co-worker created a new US citizen. an individual that may never work a day in their life inside the US, but can come back and take full advantage of all US public aid programs, including social security when the time comes.

Of course not. One never solves a problem by curing the symptoms. Reasons for the problem were demonstrated by a famous Cancun Conference that prematurely broke up three days early.

They need jobs. We have too much jobs. Why? For example, we insist on subsidizing the sugar industry by 50% so they will keep sugar jobs in this country. Wrong. Sugar is better grown where people need these jobs and where the employees cost less. Stop subsidizing sugar by 50%. Economics then says those sugar jobs go to where the illegal immigrants live. Then they have no reason to become illegal immigrants.

Again I refer to the Cancun Conference on agriculture. America and France were (again) world leaders against a free market industry. So adversarial that literally the entire world walked out. It caused further tensions of other world conferences and yet was little discussed in America.

You want to massively reduce illegal immigration? Then stop protecting industries who must then hire illegals. But we don't associate both government protection of industries and illegal immigration as a common problem. Instead we expect the courts, law enforcement, and at one point even the military cure a symptom by using force. The idea that more force will solve problems was the big joke in Tim Allen's Home Improvement. Anyone advocating more force to solve immigration is just as foolish. Instead we should be fixing the problem. Again that means top management. The people who run government - whether they strongly oppose illegal immigration or not - create the problem when they (for example) subsidize US Sugar so heavily.

Something like 50% of that sugar on your table is paid for by government subsidy. We need more (illegal) Mexicans to grow and harvest that sugar - or harvest those mushrooms. That sugar is better grown where people need the jobs. But it will not happen when government so massively subsidized whole industries - especially sugar.

Those who fear free trade only make illegal immigration necessary.

illegal immigration is a problem because it is very profitable. companies hire illegals, often knowingly, because they can them so much less. illegals come over because they can make more money than in their own country and there are more benefits to be had.

enforce the laws that exist to take the profit out of it. Look at wal-mart. in 2003/2004 they were found to have employed hundreds of illegals. they effectively received a slap on the wrist. if however, that company had been made to feel real pain, they and others might think twice before breaking employment laws.

when an illegal is found to have used false ID to gain employment, make it a painful experience for them.

the companies and the illegals have no fear because they know that the PC police will prevent any major action against them.

Meantime, people like my best friends fiancee, who really wants to come to America and become a citizen and work can't. He's from Croatia. So he's screwed. He can't even buy a plane ticket to the US until he's got a visa in his hand. He went to try to buy a ticket to Mexico, and they said no, because it's easy to get into the US from Mexico. The Croat government said this.

So he's screwed either way.

if however, that company had been made to feel real pain, they and others might think twice before breaking employment laws.

And these employment laws are flawed and some politicians, who you call too PC, Bush included!, are trying to change them to better suit reality. Bush knows the Texas economy. He wants to lessen risk for corporations and investors. This economy is rooted in Braceros. To undo that, undoes much more that citizens are willing to endure. It is not possible with existing laws, even if inforced with deadly power.

And then, when small businesses fold, when good old fashioned all American rural towns built around agriculture further hurry to die, then the price of cheap shit can only remain cheap by ceasing all US manufacture and there is no affordable new housing or real estate investment... there. that'll show those damn wetbacks. That will keep America strong. Bah.

So you deal with who is here and who you know will come, track them better, try to document them as they come, still make use of their arms, maybe even increase that, collect their taxes, school their kids, and help them avoid the emergency room.

warch, i think you are misunderstanding. you are saying nearly the same thing i am. i support increased legal immigration. but that does nothing to slow down the illegals. stricter enforcement of immigration laws is necessary. and comparing agricultural workers to those employed by major retail corporations isn't exactly fair.

Nope. You are oversimplifying it. Of course its fair to compare workers. Youre picking beets (ultimately for ConAgra), or gutting chicken (for Tyson and for Albertsons), or nailing roofs (building that new Best Buy headquarters), or changing tires, or stocking Walmart, or cleaning the Marriott...WTF?
I'm saying there is no way to "slow down the illegals" without crippling the economy. And no one will risk that. There exists, right this minute, a shortage of workers willing and able to do the needed shitty jobs. Go stand at the day labor pick up at 5:00 AM.
The choices are amnesty (make those here legal citizens....rubs many the wrong way) and/or guestworkers (make them legally able to work, temporarally as resident alliens...this of course has a host of historic problems). Thats the reality. Pick your track. Stricter enforcement of existing laws impacts nothing really. The laws need to change to deal with reality.

my understanding is that many of the migrant agricultural workers are just that, migrant. they come in, do the job, then leave. i can understand that a little more.

but what you are saying is the same thing i am saying - we can put whatever programs, quotas, whatever you want to call it and bring the workers in, but i only support increasing those numbers if we are going to start doing something about those that chuck the system, walk across the border and start working illegally. what i don't like about bush's proposal has nothing to do with the amnesty vs. non-amnesty BS, it is the fact that there is nothing but lip service about future enforcement. if the gov't is only going to enforce the new system the way they do the old, it is pointless.

BTW, please tell me you aren't one of the people that cries about "our cheeseburgers will cost $25 if we don't have illegals working here". that is utter BS.

There is no way the US can possibly absorb the population of Mexico. I think everyone understands this. Even if we could, then it would be the people of Central America, then South America, etc.

Illegals come up here because they can find work. The real culprits are American employers taking advantage of this and offering the illegals lower wages than what they would pay American workers and hiring them under the table. This illegal employment practice should be stopped.

Why? Because illegals end up using our resources without ever having paid for them through payroll and income taxes. An illegal can still be treated in an emergency room in this country, his children can still attend our schools, etc.

A "Bracero" program should be put in place where people who wish to work are issued temporary permits to do so. Their wages should be taxed just like the wages of anyone else. Entities who try to hire braceros under the table and evade responsibility for collecting payroll taxes from them should be severely penalized.

This might result in slightly higher prices for some items, but I agree that burgers or bags of sugar will not suddenly shoot up to $25.00 each as a result, nor will southwestern communities suddenly morph into ghost towns. Minor price increases would be more than offset by lower costs of patrolling the border. It is much easier to crack down on 100 employers, for example, then it is 100,000 illegals. In addition, since they will be paying taxes, foreign laborers will be paying for the services they now get for free.

The tide of illegals is a symptom. As long as we don't treat the cause, the problem will continue.

I am not adverse to providing water for people, however. There is such as thing as human decency. We should be clever enough to solve this problem without callously allowing people to die in our deserts.

Well, I am under the opinion that if you are in a country illegally, then that country has no obligation to you to provide anything. You CHOSE to go to that country illegally, knowing it was illegal.

That's just like the thief who breaks in to your house, falls and breaks a leg and then sues you for damages.

They rolled they dice and they took they chances.

I said water, not a million dollars. It's a minor point, anyhow.

well, I mean water, too. It pisses me off that people who are here illegally want to be educated, housed, clothed, fed and employed when they have no right to those services in this country.

Don't give them any damn water. I say create that 100 yard "no man's land" and light it up 24/7, have border patrol stationed across the whole freaking thing, and shoot anything that moves in that 100 yard area.

But that may be an unpopular opinion.

Not with me.

I happen to think that people who get caught here as illegal aliens should get tagged in some way, and shipped home. As a consequence of the illegal entry, they lose any chance of legal entry to the US.

If they sneak back across the boarder and get caught a second time, they get killed.

Now that may be an unpopular opinion.

I absolutely welcome legal immigrants. With very few exceptions, everybody here is in the US because of an immigrant forebear, most of whom entered legally, worked their asses off, learned English and became contributing Americans.

Several of my coworkers were granted their US Citizenship within the last year ... rarely have I seen such glowingly proud people (Two women from Africa, one from India).

I have no problem with legal immigrants. Just the illegals.

What you describe is legals. We don't have to throw anyone out just make the rest come in the door instead of the window. Give them a shot at ALL jobs instead of just the shitty ones. Make them pay taxes and send their kids to school. Welcome them with open arms but make them follow the rules like everyone else. :)

What you describe is legals. We don't have to throw anyone out just make the rest come in the door instead of the window. Give them a shot at ALL jobs instead of just the shitty ones. Make them pay taxes and send their kids to school. Welcome them with open arms but make them follow the rules like everyone else.

I'm describing the millions of undocumented workers and families HERE, NOW. Illegal.

There currently exist no "rules" that fit reality and safeguard not just workers but more importantly to politicians, entire industries. What I describe is the need to address some form of legal status that does not currently exist for those non documented individuals and families here now working and those who will be here in 15 minutes, and those that will leave this afternoon but will come back next month to work on that construction project planned.

The current door is too small and too slow. Any change needs to allow for a daily influx and exflux (is that a word?). If we stop the flow or slow it, how do we handle the immediate real worker shortages? So what do you do with those who have unlawfully been working right here, right now?
It costs over $200 US and many months to start the paperwork to be a resident alien, (or it used to in the early 90s). Should we put that cost onto the employers, along with insurance, bonding, union wages- to pass on to us? Should we waive the IMS/homeland sec. fees? Amnesty for all across the border at a certain date (again)? More detailed and industry specific temporary work permits? (We dont need them to come an take the good jobs, we need them for the shitty jobs at the shitty wages- the threat of taking the goods jobs away is the flame point)

It seems to require more than just enforcing a door, which is not a door anyway unless the great wall goes up,... but we would need to hire construction crews....
I'm just saying, The rules are broken because they cramp the capitalist engine. And that is the American way!

I orginally mentioned that I agreed with tw, but not about the whole sugar thing, so edit that. Not sure how I stand on moving all farms to Banana Republics.. But UT's comment about the wage conundrum is definitely true. :)

Curious about stats.... US goverment estimates between 8-12 million illegal immigrants in the US right now. Time Magazine pegged it around 15 million. And the activist organization "American Resistance" has it over 20 million and ticking...any way, its a lot of people.

The ones who want more permanent legal status can go through all the expensive and time consuming paperwork. The rest could just get a work-pass good for a week or a month or whatever at the border. Employers could only hire those with work passes and would take payroll taxes out of their wages. The workers would have to accept smaller checks or else employers might pay them a little more, although I doubt this last. Even $5.00 an hour with taxes taken out is far better than what they could earn at home. A work pass wouldn't entitle anyone to anything more than what illegals get here already - emergency room trips and schools for their kids. At least they would be paying for these things thru their taxes if we let them come in legally as temporary workers.

[quote=wolf]I absolutely welcome legal immigrants. With very few exceptions, everybody here is in the US because of an immigrant forebear, most of whom entered legally, worked their asses off, learned English and became contributing Americans.
[quote]

Most of them came when immigration laws were more lax than they are now.

And in the not-so-distant-past (1960s, I believe), the migrant workers were perfectly legal.

From Busters link; Just Guatemalans, just Arizona, a lot of people indeed. :eyebrow:

spend some time in arizona and southern california then tell me that large numbers of illegals are crucial and helpful to the economy.