Bush Proposes Tracking System for Noncitizens

Washington post ^ | January 26, 2002 | Mike Allen and Bill Miller

[verboten]

They work for less and do work 99.99% of us don't want to do. Doesn't it make sence to have them here working legally so we can tax the workers as well as the businesses employing them?

Is that work that 99.99% of us wont do the kind of work that welfare recipients could do? I've always found this statement sad and strange. Are Americans so hauty? If so we ought to rethink everything we do as we are too big for our britches and thus surely acting like a'holes the world over. My government tells me I must pay people not to work because they cant find jobs that people in Mexico know about and can do despite no formal education and such. This is a joke.

Second, this is the argument an immoral capitalist would make (as opposed to a moral one). If you didn't have the illegals comming in the wage would rise. Have we been forced to educate and otherwise edify our fellow citizens, formerly through charity, but today through coercive government so that we can cease viewing our country as a comminity of people once we start talking about the labor supply for low end jobs? I hope not. This is inconsistent with the notion of community we should have as a people regardless of the current coerced nature imposed by government.

As for the taxes that is most often the reason that employers are hiring illegals. They are simply avoiding the taxes but paying the same after tax wage to illegals. The government itself creates the problem. But it is also well documented that many illegals consume far more in government giveaways then taxes they pay. And this is for legal immigrants, not the illegals.

[CubicleGuy]

Sounds like the position of Federal Bounty Hunter (somebody's got to go after those who are overstaying their visa limits) just might become a growth industry.

I wonder how much the job pays...

[verboten]

Why hasn't anyone on this thread offered a slippery slope argument?

Like requiring a social security number, or taxpayers ID will prevent illegals from working here? Whew, what a job it has done. Actually it seems better suited for the nationwide database that tracks your employment, and your wages known as 'unemployment insurance.'

[sasquatch]

from WND:

GPS to track abducted executives
Kidnap targets in South America to receive microchip implants

[maro]

How about making aliens expire when their visas run out? Microcapsules implanted subcutaneously that will release cyanide into the bloodstream unless deactivated on or before the visa expiration date by the INS. Too far?

[Sabertooth]

If you read the whole article it looks like this is phase I on closing the borders?

The Bush MO is to do things in small steps !

Maybe, but closing the borders after more than 10 million illegals have already arrived callls to mind a certain barn and missing horses.

I am not especially impressed by measures lilke the implementaion of biometric technology and national ID cards, while willfully continuing to fail to deport the illegals.

If I'm going to give up some of my privacy, I'd like to see the real alien and terrorist problems actually adressed.

The security measures at our borders and airlines taken since 9/11 are window-dressing. The government in many ways has failed to be serious about the Terror War on the domestic front.

[stop_fascism]

A guest worker program was used for many years in CA and didn't lead to residency or citizenship. It was eventually canceled by leftists who thought it was somehow "unfair" to the workers, and by unions who didn't want the competition.

For the most part, foreign laborers take jobs that Americans do not want and will not take. Americans aren't going to pick lettuce all day unless you pay them $50 per hour. Are you willing to pay $20 for a head of lettuce in your grocery store?

It seems rational to find a solution to the illegal immegrant problem that works for both the US and latin America. Bush seems to be moving in that direction.

[dennisw]

We need the workers but they are draining our health care, police, and social security systems so why not change the system to make them here legally so they can GO BACK to where they came from.

And who is going to kick them out when they overstay and want to live here illegally? When they melt away into the Hispanic barrios and communities. Will their children born here be US citizens? Is the wife allowed to come here and make babies (who will be US citizens) on US soil?

I don't see INS kicking out anyone really. And in LA the county prosecutes fewer and fewer cases of people making / distributing/selling fraudulent documents. WHERE IS THE GUTS FOR ENFORCEMENT? Enforcement of a guest worker program.

[GeronL]

ankle bracelets for all foreigners?

[GeronL]

There should be a pirated e-copy available somewhere online! =O)

[jfa1]

I like the idea of making alien's drivers licenses expire on the day their visas expire.

Why are aliens allowed to have a driver's license in the first place?

[Pearls Before Swine]

Some on this thread have stated tolerance for illegals "because we need the workers." Do we really? Cheap labor from illegals is cheap to the employer, but shifts burdens of cost to other segments of society: it removes low paying jobs from the economy for citizens, making welfare more desirable; it raises social welfare costs in terms of school, medical care, and (arguably) crime. With a comprehensive accounting, I doubt illegal migrant labor is a bargain. At the high end, in professional occupations such as engineering, there is competition from guest workers. But these guys are documented, tracked, and not the problem.

[tracer]

Half of the job would be accomplished by seizing the records of ADT and other payroll services that have as clients convenience stores, cab companies, fast-food restaurant networks, and hotel chains....

[tracer]

Microcapsules containing anthrax bacilli would be more appropos' (just kidding).....

[Marine Inspector]

A guest worker program was used for many years in CA and didn't lead to residency or citizenship.

Your right, The Bracero Program did not lead to residency or citizenship, but any new program will. Just like the H1B program.

The White House and State Department want these people in the US permanently, and they will attempt to disguise their Amnesty program as a guest worker program that will lead to residency and citizenship, just like their H1B program. Approximately 75% of all H1B's go on to become Citizens of the US.

[rwfromkansas]

And yet the Buchanan types still say Bush is out here supporting letting terorrists and illegal in.

[usconservative]

The "entry-exit tracking system," to be developed by the Immigration and Naturalization Service...

HELLO!!! PRESIDENT BUSH, INS IS THE PROBLEM, NOT THE SOLUTION!!! Stop giving the INS more responsibility when they've demonstrated already that they don't know who's here legally, and who's not!

[RightWhale]

Which is more expensive?

I'm not saying it shouldn't be done. It should have been done long ago. I'm just pointing out that some government contractors, many of which exist only to attract government contracts, can already smell the money. This program will increase the size of government, and increase the tax load. I'll let somebody else do the cost/benefit analysis.