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Legalize illegal immigration, YES or NO

@Anthony you say:"1) It would make sense that people who strongly believe in liberty would be nationalistic. "
Do you mean patriotic, ie loving your country, which is quite a different thing from hating foreigners ?
2) The continued bashing of the tea party is rather pathetic.
It is certainly low quality bashing, if my country had a swarm of racist homophobes like that, I'd like to think I could bash them rather more effectively.

People are sick of the ever expanding government
With all due respect, that is utterly false in every possible interpretation.
People are sick of paying for expanding government but all but a tiny % of the population want the bits they like to expand. The divide between factions is which parts they want to grow. Ask a Tea Party type why America needs a navy which can attack and destroy every other navy in the world at the same time, and why it is buying new stuff just in case of, well I can't think of any reason.
The homophobic elements are 100% behind keeping government large in the bedroom.
Of course other factions want more union jobs, more regulation etc.

3) Domini - I consider you to be an extremely intelligent fellow. Sometimes you can be a little harsh and judgmental.

Thank you, I believe the ability to reason implies the duty to judge.

People home school for a variety of reasons, not always religious.
But the correlation is huge. My household speaks 6 languages, has three degrees, and its members are formally qualified to teach things from Law, through marksmanship, economics to maths. As individuals we outclass the teachers at my sons selective expensive private school . (he says with all due modesty), except at Cricket, because they have a former Essex professional.
But we don't homeschool because our kids need outside influence. In Britain all schools are required by law to teach the Christian forms of hysterical superstition, and the chaplain there is the last person to beat me in a straight argument over theology. That's the way it should be, since I have no ambition for my kids to be clones of me.. H

2.0 has some quite different ethical positions to me, which is good, that alone tells you that I'm not a religious type whose ambitions so often are for their kids to be an inferior version of their parents, not mine which is for them to be excellent versions of themselves, and preferably better than me,
Those who do home school are required to submit reports to the school and meet specific benchmarks.

One reason I'm not religious is that I favour evidence, and the outcomes for children who've suffered this form of abuse are really not very good, even compared to the US system. So I simply don't care what the oversight is, since I can tell that it doesn't work.

I was "home schooled" in a non religious sense. I also started at college at 15 and am finishing my 2nd masters degree.

That evidence is equivocal. My formal schooling was really shit before 18, even compared to American, I see that as something I overcame, not as a desirable educational path. In an early maths class at university, I referred to a set as “obviously finite”, being me, the whole lecture theatre assumed it was Dominic making some complex joke at the lecturer’s expense. That’s because I pronounced it “finnit”, because infinite is pronounced “in-fnnit”. My (incorrect) reasoning was “this set is infinnit, so this must be finnit”, (more laughs), people thought it was great.
Nope. I’d learned this crap from books, no one had ever said finite in my hearing. A small thing that did me no harm, but pile stuff like that up and you have hurdles, not ramps.

Illegal immigration is a serious issue in the USA.
No it's not.
If it were that bad, the sheer volume would mean that America would become a failed state. Anything you can do that much of and survive can't be that bad.
The problem is people do not want to hear the world ILLEGAL.
Illegal is not the same as immoral.
If breaking US law (or that of any other country was the best way to feed my kids and give them a good chance in life, said laws would be broken.

The USA has been and always will be a place where people from all over the world are welcome.

So you see Palin's chance of winning the next election as zero ?
I believe that Americans have more sense, but don't see it as zero.

[I}The issue we have is unregulated immigration from Mexico. [/I]
No the issue you have is a workforce who cannot compete with those raised in nearby 3rd world states. You have regulation that is driven by political corruption, and an educational system run by a mix of unions and those who think the rapture will be in2012.

One huge strength of the US economy is that it has one of the most flexible and mobile workforces anywhere, possibly the most.
Imagine that Texas passed a law making it illegal for non-Texans to work there. This is in effect actually what happened historically. How does your notion of ‘fairness’ stack up there ?

I completely understand people are looking for a better life, but Mexico is not the worst place on earth.
Much of it is really very bad, and it’s not your place to judge.

We, as a nation, have the right to regulate and limit the amount of people who come into this country.
No you don’t.
You have the power to do this.
Even if you had “the right”, it does not make it wise. You have the right to stand in the snow whilst people pour water on you as well.

We also need to make sure lawful individuals are coming here.
Nope.
You need to understand that I’m more right wing than you.
I believe the success of a country is defined mostly by the quality of the people in it. Not by resources in the ground, or size, but people. History is with me on this.
Illegal immigrants have skills that the racist arts graduates who inevitably end up running any country’s immigration system won’t recognize. America fights wars. You can argue about which ones it should be fighting, but we can be clear that it will need people who can work hard under difficult and dangerous conditions, and really really want to be Americans. Illegals seem to fit that specification rather nicely.
A major reason Latin America is so shit is that it lacks any sort of meritocracy at all. Being poor there is not really correlated with your utility to a state that make efficient use of human capital. America is not perfect in that respect, but bloody good, and almost on a different planet from Mexico.

On top of all this, think about how many Indian and Chinese people who go through an endless amount of visa and immigration paperwork to come to this country.
You do know, don’t you, that US immigration laws were mostly created to keep those people out ?

Yes, there is a lot of paperwork, Democrats like paper, Republicans like racism, it’s a wonder anyone gets in at all.

If only they resided to the south of us they could just walk across the boarder and demand full rights.
Who cares about their rights ? People that can outsmart and outfight the system, are the people you want inside it.

I say put up a fence
I say put up a fence, and anyone who gets past it has passed the first test to acquire US citizenship. Then put puzzles in front of them., like functioning in an environment where highly trained US operatives are trying to find them, and where most people don’t speak the same language. Or you can do stuff putting cubes together, maths whatever, I don’t care.

The issue of amnesty should not be dealt with until we can stem the tide of illegal immigrants. No sense in making illegals citizens if tomorrow more people illegally come here. I think that is common sense.
I seem to have spoken with more illegal immigrants than you. They rarely think that far ahead. Their logic is “the place I am in is truly awful, let's get out", and err, that’s it. They obviously like the idea that ten years from now they get citizenship, but to them it’s like a lottery prize, only a fool bases his life choices on an expectation this will come good.
 
Pat Buchanan on the issue:

According to the Center for Immigration Studies, from Jan. 1, 2000, to Jan. 1, 2010, 13.1 million immigrants, legal and illegal, entered the United States, a decade in which America lost 1 million jobs.

From 2008 and 2009, the figures are startling. In 24 months, 2.4 million immigrants, legal and illegal, arrived, as U.S. citizens were losing 8.6 million jobs.

Query: Why are we importing a million-plus workers a year when 17 million Americans can’t find work? Whose country is this?

Why do we not declare a moratorium on all immigration, until our unemployment rate falls to 6 or 5 percent? Charity begins at home. Ought we not take care of our own jobless first before we invite in strangers to take their jobs?
 
Pat Buchanan on the issue:

Of course the problem is, if you don't train up the unemployed with new skill sets, then they aren't equipped to fill the new roles that present themselves. Therefore employers are going to hire the immigrant with the correct skill sets, rather then train up an ex-real estate agent to fill the role.

And would a moratorium on all immigration cover say, maritial green cards and inter-company transfers as well?
 
Of course the problem is, if you don't train up the unemployed with new skill sets, then they aren't equipped to fill the new roles that present themselves. Therefore employers are going to hire the immigrant with the correct skill sets, rather then train up an ex-real estate agent to fill the role.

As I see it, American employers want two things:

1) They don't want to spend a cent on training. They'd rather poach.
2) They want ever-cheaper and more docile labor. If you look at the history of US immigration over the last century and a half, this seems to have been a propelling factor.

I also don't think there will be a moratorium: the forces that want immigration are too powerful. They may make a token concession here and there if there's sufficient public angst about the matter.
 
According to the Center for Immigration Studies, from Jan. 1, 2000, to Jan. 1, 2010, 13.1 million immigrants, legal and illegal, entered the United States, a decade in which America lost 1 million jobs.

From 2008 and 2009, the figures are startling. In 24 months, 2.4 million immigrants, legal and illegal, arrived, as U.S. citizens were losing 8.6 million jobs.

Just curious what does the above paragraph even mean ? Does it mean 13.1 million immigrants entered and all came to look for work ? Are they assuming that none of them were visitors, students, business visits ??

I would seriously doubt that all 13.1 million immigrants came to the US with the sole purpose of looking for work !
 
According to the Center for Immigration Studies, from Jan. 1, 2000, to Jan. 1, 2010, 13.1 million immigrants, legal and illegal, entered the United States, a decade in which America lost 1 million jobs.

From 2008 and 2009, the figures are startling. In 24 months, 2.4 million immigrants, legal and illegal, arrived, as U.S. citizens were losing 8.6 million jobs.

Just curious what does the above paragraph even mean ? Does it mean 13.1 million immigrants entered and all came to look for work ? Are they assuming that none of them were visitors, students, business visits ??

I would seriously doubt that all 13.1 million immigrants came to the US with the sole purpose of looking for work !

Don't know if this helps:

Although there was a net decline of one million jobs during the decade, 10.3 million green cards were issued from 2000 to 2009, making it the highest decade of legal immigration in the nation’s history. These figures are for permanent immigration that allows individuals to stay as long as they like and become citizens if they choose, normally after five years. In comparison to the decade just completed, 9.8 million green cards were issued from 1990 to 1999, including several hundred thousand amnesty beneficiaries at the beginning of the decade.<SUP> </SUP>In addition to permanent immigration, several hundred thousand long-term temporary visas that allow recipients to work in the United States were issued each year during the decade. This includes such categories as H1-B, H2-B, H1-A, I, J, L, P, and TN visas. It must be pointed out that many new green card holders are not new arrivals in the county. In recent years more than half have been individuals already in the country, either temporary visa holders or illegal immigrants “adjusting status” from within the United States.
 
10.3 million green cards were issued from 2000 to 2009, making it the highest decade of legal immigration in the nation’s history.


Those numbers look quite high, but when you look at the size of US it probably accounts for 5% of the US population.

I think USCIS need to reevaluate green card requirements based on that number especially in the "family" department. I see no point giving green cards away to individuals mom/dad/brother/sisters when you have so many legal residents with a bachelors degree in the country waiting in line for one.
 
I think USCIS need to reevaluate green card requirements based on that number especially in the "family" department. I see no point giving green cards away to individuals mom/dad/brother/sisters when you have so many legal residents with a bachelors degree in the country waiting in line for one.

Actually, this is something that they have gotten right. Direct family comes first then anything else. You might not see any point but that might be because you don't have a family around or you are not close to them. However, IMHO, american society puts a high value in family.
 
Actually, this is something that they have gotten right. Direct family comes first then anything else. You might not see any point but that might be because you don't have a family around or you are not close to them. However, IMHO, american society puts a high value in family.

I am not sure what someone's mom or brother contributes to the economy and are given green cards for being a citizen's brother or mother when the immigrant itself is made a scape goat when the country is going through high unemployment. I can understand giving them visitor visas to visit family and the buck should stop there.

Its just dumb to pass on some one's mama health care to taxpayers! when she probably never contributed to the US social security system or medicare
 
I am not sure what someone's mom or brother contributes to the economy...

The immigration law for family has absolutely nothing to do with the economy. You need to look at it as a separate problem.
 
And what if their parents are wealthy, can afford private health care and spend a lot in the economy?

In fact with all the empty houses sitting around in Florida, encouraging retirees from around the globe who will bring in a decent amount of money (on condition they pay for their own health care) seems like a good idea of boosting the economy.



Actually, this is something that they have gotten right. Direct family comes first then anything else. You might not see any point but that might be because you don't have a family around or you are not close to them. However, IMHO, american society puts a high value in family.

I am not sure what someone's mom or brother contributes to the economy and are given green cards for being a citizen's brother or mother when the immigrant itself is made a scape goat when the country is going through high unemployment. I can understand giving them visitor visas to visit family and the buck should stop there.

Its just dumb to pass on some one's mama health care to taxpayers! when she probably never contributed to the US social security system or medicare
 
I find in this debate that I must again take thought leadership from George W. Bush.

He understood that these people are useful, and that it is inhumane to treat them this way, which is more than his party did. When GW Bush out thinks you and is more compassionate, you are screwed.

I apologise for the next argument, since it assumes evolution and I know how much that upsets and confuses so many Americans, but here goes. Also I will use facts, not faith, so any evangelicals are excused reading any further.

1. The fact is that there are a lot of illegals in the USA.
2. Their stake in US society is less than that of citizens.

3. Illegals who cannot survive in a hostile environment, don't survive, they are therefore on average tougher than citizens. They also have less to lose.

4.America has more guns than people, and not being a citizen is not much of a barrier to acquiring them.

If I was making decisions for a country, I'd try real hard to defuse a time bomb like that, and would seriously thank someone who found a way that actually turned a profit, and didn't involve A10s doing strikes on Dallas.
 
NO,

and here is why.

Both my parents grow up during a war, in large families (+10 kids), in misery with completely illiterate parents.

While his brothers were having fun, my father had to do 10km a day to go to school with little to eat. He did not give up.

Same for my mother.

As a result, he ended up with a bachelor in mathematics with honors and my mom in litterature (wich was big back in the days). Both ended up to be top executives back in my home country.

The point is, they made the required sacrifices that allowed me and my sisters to have a good life and to move to Canada legally. Also, when you have solid parents, kids are solid too (most of the time). Both my sisters are in science (one is an engineer and the other one is a doctor in physics working with the 1997 physics nobel prize).

So when an illegal who was too lazy to study (yes too lazy because when I look at my fathers situation, it couldn't get much worse), come in and is giving the same privileges and opportunities that my parents worked so hard to give us, it sends the wrong message.

Hey! why study? Just go as a refugee in a so called rich country and they'll give you everything for free (free = regular folks who work their ass off).

I'm deeply against it.
 
NO,
So when an illegal who was too lazy to study (yes too lazy because when I look at my fathers situation, it couldn't get much worse), come in and is giving the same privileges and opportunities that my parents worked so hard to give us, it sends the wrong message.

Hey! why study? Just go as a refugee in a so called rich country and they'll give you everything for free (free = regular folks who work their ass off).

I'm deeply against it.

First, I take it that you are familiar with the goals of the "Dream Act". So let's look at a hypothetical scenario here - some guys' parents moved to the US illegally with the entire family and he was 2 years old at the time.... fast forward 10 years later he realizes he's an illegal when he is in high school and can't provide simple documents needed to prove residency/citizenship.

Four years later he's trying to get into college... no way Joe. Colleges won't even look at him because he's an illegal as far as the law is concerned, and he has no access to any type of financial aid.

For all terms and purposes he's American (of course what it means to be American is becoming more blurry by the day), the US is the only country he has known. If he were to be deported where would he go? I don't believe children should be made to pay for their parents' sins or nefarious activities. Do you?

I'm all for legal immigration but things like the Dream Act actually make sense.

Things always look nice and shiny when you're sitting in an ivory tower. But if you were the 2 year old kid described above, would you be against the Dream Act?

If the said children have integrated well, speak English, have excelled academically, graduated high school, are willing to do a tour or two in the military, volunteered for community service, etc... why wouldn't you want there to be a path to citizenship for kids like these?
 
1) I don't believe children should be made to pay for their parents' sins or nefarious activities. Do you?

2) Things always look nice and shiny when you're sitting in an ivory tower. But if you were the 2 year old kid described above, would you be against the Dream Act?

3) If the said children have integrated well, speak English, have excelled academically, graduated high school, are willing to do a tour or two in the military, volunteered for community service, etc... why wouldn't you want there to be a path to citizenship for kids like these?

1) If my parents didn't make the efforts and sacrifices to study hard, then it is on me. As my father did. All odds were against him and he made it by himself. If you have the will, you can succed whereever you are in on earth!

2) Sitting in an ivory tower? Who's sitting in it? The people who's previous generations made the required sacrifices LEGALY (did not cheat by cutting the line!) so their new generations could have a better life? They have ALL THE RIGHTS AND PRIVILEDGES to be sitting there.

3) That sounds good but you will create a precedent and that is dangerous. If you accept ILLEGALS kids = people like me and my family who integrated society by our academic excelence are thrown away.

So you have to make a choice, either you want people who made the academic efforts to succed and come legally or you want the illegals.

You have to understand that there is an order in life. If you let people cheat their way up and get away with it, then fine, but then, I do not want to live in that country who rewards cheaters.
 
1) If my parents didn't make the efforts and sacrifices to study hard, then it is on me. As my father did. All odds were against him and he made it by himself. If you have the will, you can succed whereever you are in on earth!

2) Sitting in an ivory tower? Who's sitting in it? The people who's previous generations made the required sacrifices LEGALY (did not cheat by cutting the line!) so their new generations could have a better life? They have ALL THE RIGHTS AND PRIVILEDGES to be sitting there.

3) That sounds good but you will create a precedent and that is dangerous. If you accept ILLEGALS kids = people like me and my family who integrated society by our academic excelence are thrown away.

The children tend to become the victims here... deporting them would be tantamount to sending them to a foreign land they have no memory of and little or no connections to.

So you have to make a choice, either you want people who made the academic efforts to succed and come legally or you want the illegals.

The real choices that have to be made are never really that clear cut

You have to understand that there is an order in life. If you let people cheat their way up and get away with it, then fine, but then, I do not want to live in that country who rewards cheaters.

You call it "cheat", but some other people may call it having the will to survive and trying find a better life for their kids
 
You call it "cheat", but some other people may call it having the will to survive and trying find a better life for their kids

There is no excuses. If you study and have good grades, you'll succed.

Another example, Elias Zerhouni.

This guy is from my home country. As my father, all odds in life were stock piled against him. He studied hard, exceled and was able to go to the US at the age of 24.

Few years later (in 2002), he was appointed by George W. Bush as the 15th director of the US National Institutes of Health.

As I said, sucks to be the son of illegals but hey, life is not fair. If his parents didn't study, then it is ON HIM to do it if he want his kids to have some opportunities in life.

And yes, it is cheating. What was the point of my parents to even study then? All the days they were hungry and still studied because they wanted a better future? Do you know what it is like to study during a war? When your father is tortured in jail, your brother is a resistant, so your family get harassed at any time of the day? And since you're father's not around, there isn't much food on the table.

If he managed to go through that and succed during a time where access to school wasn't even comparable to today (he started school at the age of 10 btw), then today's illegals have ZERO excuses.


But yea, keep it up with your model of encouraging failure and cheaters.

With your kind of thinking the US should switch (wich is in the process of doing) from the Land of opportunities to the Land of opportunists.
 
There is no excuses. If you study and have good grades, you'll succed.

Another example, Elias Zerhouni.

This guy is from my home country. As my father, all odds in life were stock piled against him. He studied hard, exceled and was able to go to the US at the age of 24.

Few years later (in 2002), he was appointed by George W. Bush as the 15th director of the US National Institutes of Health.

As I said, sucks to be the son of illegals but hey, life is not fair. If his parents didn't study, then it is ON HIM to do it if he want his kids to have some opportunities in life.

And yes, it is cheating. What was the point of my parents to even study then? All the days they were hungry and still studied because they wanted a better future? Do you know what it is like to study during a war? When your father is tortured in jail, your brother is a resistant, so your family get harassed at any time of the day? And since you're father's not around, there isn't much food on the table.

If he managed to go through that and succed during a time where access to school wasn't even comparable to today (he started school at the age of 10 btw), then today's illegals have ZERO excuses.

But yea, keep it up with your model of encouraging failure and cheaters.

With your kind of thinking the US should switch (wich is in the process of doing) from the Land of opportunities to the Land of opportunists.

You are taking this off topic.... From your tone, it seems you're suggesting that illegals sit on their hands all day doing nothing and expecting handouts.
 
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