Surge in Immigration Laws Around U.S.

[xoxoxoBruce]

How many of these crop harvesters are there? tw mentioned we need something like 2 million seasonal agricultural workers. Pretty small percentage of the 15 to 20 million illegals here.

People who want illegals to have a free ride must agree that Americans should stop paying taxes.
It makes no sense to continue to.

[bluecuracao]

Illegal immigrants don't have a free ride. Stop buying into the hype.

[yesman065]

They're here illegally and therefore shouldn't get jack.

[queequeger]

Am I the only one that thinks this argument is absurd? If you are someone who believes in that character trait that is ‘American,’ you should see that heavily restricting immigration is in itself ‘Unamerican’ as follows:
Why do I, an American born citizen, have a right to live in this country and pay its taxes therefore receiving the benefits of security, welfare, etc? Why does, to use the stereotype, a Mexican born man who cannot get citizenship NOT deserve it?
The only difference between me and the Mexican born man is my place of birth. Since when do we hold the truth ‘right by birth’ to be self evident? This seems something akin to a hierarchical stratification that has no place in the country who’s only (supposed) truth held ‘self evident’ is ‘ALL MEN ARE CREATED EQUAL,’ not ‘all Americans are created superior.’

To anyone who sticks out their ugly argument “they’re here illegally, and shouldn’t get jack” I ask you, what have YOU done to earn your citizenship? Did you have to pay thousands of dollars in fees, take classes, pass a background investigation, effectively prove you’re worthy to live here? No, you came out of your mother within the borders, ergo you’re entitled!? We might as well revert to a royalty system. I was born in Springfield, so I get welfare.

Immigrants who are legally admitted pay taxes and vote, just like every other citizen. While there would be economic instability immediately following a massive immigrant influx (read: a refugee situation, not people from contiguous looking for work), every person who enters this country and ‘gets the rights of an American’ pays for those rights with his taxes. In fact, by only allowing a few members of any family into the country, we’re assuring that their money doesn’t stay in our economy, but is sent back to support their homeland’s economy. Let the whole family in, and they’ll buy American! Genius!

I don’t want walls and guards around the country I live in, that reminds me too much of the guards who used to stand on a wall in Berlin.

Barring large quantities of people from entering our assigned borders (who, by the way, are hoping to live the ‘American dream’) is not only 'un-American,' it’s inhumane, selfish, and despicable. If you’re so worried about your precious job, work harder than the man next to you, which is, if I remember correctly, the claimed ‘American way.’

I'm not for 'giving rights to immigrants,' I'm for letting anyone who wants to live in this here chunk of land.

[xoxoxoBruce]

Welcome to the Cellar, queequeger.
So you feel we should just forget about the borders and let anyone come and go as they please?

Like this guy?

Murder suspect had fraudulent Social Security card (Illegal alien)
WVEC ^ | 2/22/2004


Posted on 02/22/2005 4:44:31 PM PST by 4.1O dana super trac pak


Oswaldo Martinez is facing murder and rape charges in the death of 16-year-old Brittany Binger.

As it turns out, James City County police had seen him before, having stopped him for DUI last year.

Police told us Martinez didn't have a driver's license, but his brother showed up at the scene and produced a Social Security card.

Martinez went through the courts system as a first time DUI offender, got a 90-day suspended sentence and a $250 fine.

Now, nearly a year later, police have linked Martinez, an illegal immigrant from El Salvador, to the teen's rape and murder.

Authorities went back to the DUI file and traced the Social Security number given by Martinez at the time. We're told it belongs to a white man in Texas.

Immigration officials confirm they had no record of any Oswaldo Martinez, meaning he's been in this country illegally for at least a year.

Police didn't have an answer for why they didn't further question the documentation when he was arrested for DUI.

A call to the Commonwealth's Attorney, asking the same thing, was not returned.

[queequeger]

Hey thanks. I've been lurking here a while, but just got registered/activated.

Not 'as they please,' exactly. Borders must be patrolled for smuggling (just like streets need be patrolled for crimes), and people must be registered with the state so that we can tax them, but I think the criteria for citizenship should be somewhere along the lines of:

1. I have not committed crimes equivalent to felonies in other countries. (waivable, in the spirit of second chances )
2. I do no molest little boys.

...and maybe throw something in there about no fat chicks, but you get the idea.

[queequeger]

wow, strange coincidence... posted that before seeing yours.

but easy answer! He didn't commit murder because he's an immigrant, he commited murder because he's a dick. And if he was legally admitted (under my new system... vote queequeg in 2008), the police would have had access to his information in the same databases they can access american citizens with prior records. I.E. in this case, him being legal would have been better for society.

Or better yet... these guys.

http://www.northjersey.com/page.php?...ZxZWVFRXl5Mg==

Such a directive very likely would have kept Jose Carranza, one of several people charged in the Aug. 4 killings of three Newark college students, behind bars after previous charges for child rape and aggravated assault, Milgram said. Carranza, from Peru, had been free on bail when the slayings occurred.

Essex County authorities said they were unaware of his status at the time of the two earlier arrests. But they also said their policy had been to notify immigration authorities only after a conviction, not an arrest.

"This is not about immigration -- it's about crimes," Milgram said during an interview after the news conference. "At the end of the day, the foremost question is a public safety question."

Illegal immigrants suspected of serious crimes can be a flight risk, the attorney general said. Immigration officials have the power to detain an illegal immigrant based on the civil violation of being in the United States unlawfully, pending the prosecution of criminal charges.

"You want to make sure the federal government knows, and the county and local prosecutors know, [a suspect's immigration status]," Milgram said. "It's relevant to bail considerations whether an individual has sufficient ties to the community."

Wednesday's directive requires that police check the citizenship, nationality and immigration status of suspects during the booking process for charges linked to serious crimes and for driving while intoxicated. An officer who finds or suspects illegal status must contact immigration officials, as well as the prosecuting agency and the courts.

Originally Posted by queequeger

wow, strange coincidence... posted that before seeing yours.

but easy answer! He didn't commit murder because he's an immigrant, he commited murder because he's a dick. And if he was legally admitted (under my new system... vote queequeg in 2008), the police would have had access to his information in the same databases they can access american citizens with prior records. I.E. in this case, him being legal would have been better for society.

You may want to read-up a bit on how many illegal felons try to cross the border EVERY DAY.

Immigration is about the law and nothing more.

[xoxoxoBruce]

Originally Posted by queequeger

Hey thanks. I've been lurking here a while, but just got registered/activated.

Not 'as they please,' exactly. Borders must be patrolled for smuggling (just like streets need be patrolled for crimes), and people must be registered with the state so that we can tax them, but I think the criteria for citizenship should be somewhere along the lines of:

1. I have not committed crimes equivalent to felonies in other countries. (waivable, in the spirit of second chances )
2. I do no molest little boys.

...and maybe throw something in there about no fat chicks, but you get the idea.

So you're comfortable with the idea that any of the billions of people that want to move to the US, except fat chicks, are welcome? That they would not turn the entire country into Calcutta, Kowloon or Mexico City?

And when you come home from the grocery store you wouldn't care that three families had moved in with you?

[bluecuracao]

Welcome indeed, queequeger! I like the way you think--you're able to see the human side of this issue.

Originally Posted by rkzenrage

You may want to read-up a bit on how many illegal felons try to cross the border EVERY DAY.

Sound like you already have a number in mind--why don't you tell us what it is, and cite your source(s) please. I'd like to know exactly what you mean by 'illegal felons.'

Originally Posted by rkzenrage

Immigration is about the law and nothing more.

Not true. Immigration is also about business and economics, society, cultures, human rights, work and working conditions, travel, education, families...

[DanaC]

Welcome to the Cellar Queequeger! I also like the way that you think. I have much the same attitude to immigration. The harder we (in my case british) make it for people of other nationalities to get in, the more likely we are to end up with 'illegal' immigrants who, for the purposes of taxation and recording, don't exist in our system.

Immigrants usually add more than they detract from the society they move to.

The Illegal-Alien Crime WaveHeather Mac Donald EMAIL

Police commanders may not want to discuss, much less respond to, the illegal-alien crisis, but its magnitude for law enforcement is startling. Some examples:

• In Los Angeles, 95 percent of all outstanding warrants for homicide (which total 1,200 to 1,500) target illegal aliens. Up to two-thirds of all fugitive felony warrants (17,000) are for illegal aliens.

• A confidential California Department of Justice study reported in 1995 that 60 percent of the 20,000-strong 18th Street Gang in southern California is illegal; police officers say the proportion is actually much greater. The bloody gang collaborates with the Mexican Mafia, the dominant force in California prisons, on complex drug-distribution schemes, extortion, and drive-by assassinations, and commits an assault or robbery every day in L.A. County. The gang has grown dramatically over the last two decades by recruiting recently arrived youngsters, most of them illegal, from Central America and Mexico.

• The leadership of the Columbia Lil’ Cycos gang, which uses murder and racketeering to control the drug market around L.A.’s MacArthur Park, was about 60 percent illegal in 2002, says former assistant U.S. attorney Luis Li. Francisco Martinez, a Mexican Mafia member and an illegal alien, controlled the gang from prison, while serving time for felonious reentry following deportation.

But even when immigration officials actually arrest someone, and even if a judge issues a final deportation order (usually after years of litigation and appeals), they rarely have the manpower to put the alien on a bus or plane and take him across the border. Second alternative: detain him pending removal. Again, inadequate space and staff. In the early 1990s, for example, 15 INS officers were in charge of the deportation of approximately 85,000 aliens (not all of them criminals) in New York City. The agency’s actual response to final orders of removal was what is known as a “run letter”—a notice asking the deportable alien kindly to show up in a month or two to be deported, when the agency might be able to process him. Results: in 2001, 87 percent of deportable aliens who received run letters disappeared, a number that was even higher—94 percent—if they were from terror-sponsoring countries.

Criminal aliens also interpret the triage as indifference. John Mullaly a former NYPD homicide detective, estimates that 70 percent of the drug dealers and other criminals in Manhattan’s Washington Heights were illegal. Were Mullaly to threaten an illegal-alien thug in custody that his next stop would be El Salvador unless he cooperated, the criminal would just laugh, knowing that the INS would never show up. The message could not be clearer: this is a culture that can’t enforce its most basic law of entry. If policing’s broken-windows theory is correct, the failure to enforce one set of rules breeds overall contempt for the law.

But the non-enforcement of immigration laws in general has an even more destructive effect. In many immigrant communities, assimilation into gangs seems to be outstripping assimilation into civic culture. Toddlers are learning to flash gang signals and hate the police, reports the Los Angeles Times. In New York City, “every high school has its Mexican gang,” and most 12- to 14-year-olds have already joined, claims Ernesto Vega, an illegal 18-year-old Mexican. Such pathologies only worsen when the first lesson that immigrants learn about U.S. law is that Americans don’t bother to enforce it. “Institutionalizing illegal immigration creates a mindset in people that anything goes in the U.S.,” observes Patrick Ortega, the news and public-affairs director of Radio Nueva Vida in southern California. “It creates a new subculture, with a sequela of social ills.” It is broken windows writ large.

For the sake of immigrants and native-born Americans alike, it’s time to decide what our immigration policy is—and enforce it.