Just a stone's throw from the US border. Houses made from discarded wood pallets. http://www.diario.com.mx/servicios/hemeroteca/nota.asp?notaid=28439
Posted on 01/28/2003 2:09:10 PM PST by az4vlad
The two opposing sides in the immigration debate can be reconciled, but it will take some thinking outside of the artificial box created by limiting the debate to only these two positions. Debates over U.S. immigration policy generally consist of two major positions. One side, generally the position taken by the Right, is primarily concerned that allowing more individuals into the country will increase the number of people who are overly dependent on U.S. taxpayer funded programs and services. Of particular worry are illegal immigrants, who generally do not pay payroll taxes, which fund such social welfare programs as Medicaid and Temporary Assistance to Needy Families. The lower the barriers are for legal immigration and temporary work and study programs, the easier it is for illegal immigrants to also enter into the country. Why should more and more of hard-working Americans’ income go to supporting increasing numbers of people, particularly when many of those people do not pay their fair share into the system? Furthermore, since 9/11, concern has grown over monitoring which foreigners enter the country. The other major position in the immigration debate is primarily held by those on the Left. This argument posits that it is not fair to prohibit immigrants from entering the U.S., since the U.S. itself is a nation of immigrants. Most of our own ancestors emigrated to the U.S. within the last few hundred years. The U.S. owes its strength to its diversity of citizens. Immigrants take the low-paying jobs, such as working in the fields, that even none of our teenagers would accept. Both of these arguments have merit to them, but both only skim the surface of what is really a deeper, underlying problem. In actuality, the two sides would not be polar opposites, if this underlying issue were to be resolved. The deeper issue here is taxpayer-funded handouts. Before the Great Depression, immigrants who came to America had no welfare, Medicaid, affirmative action, minimum wage, low-cost student loans, state-funded schools or other benefits to rely on. They had to make a living without help from the government. Now, after just three years of living in the U.S., legal immigrants are entitled to public assistance. Fairly recent studies have revealed that in California, seven percent of foreign-born citizens receive public assistance, as compared with four percent of the U.S.-born citizens. 14 percent of foreign-born citizens receive food stamps, as compared with four percent of the U.S.-born citizens. This doesn’t even include the hidden governmental assistance programs, such as the Earned Income Credit, which is taken by 25% of immigrants and only 13% of the natives. Furthermore, immigrants stay on the welfare rolls longer than U.S.-born citizens do. Immigrants tend to have larger families, and so it is more difficult for them to support them, particularly if they speak little English and can only obtain low-paying jobs. Granted, it must be acknowledged that part of the concern over immigration has nothing to do with government handouts, but stems from the fear that immigrants bring more crime with them. It is feared that relaxed immigration makes it easier for terrorists to enter the country. However, studies by researchers, including a study done by the General Accounting Office, analyzed FBI records and found that crime by foreign-born residents (which includes both citizens and aliens) accounts for no more crime than their proportion in society - 19%. Furthermore, according to a study done at Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government, the immigrants who had been in the country the least amount of time were less likely than older immigrants to commit crimes. Immigrants’ recidivism rate is just a little over half that of the general population’s recidivism rate - 37 percent compared to 66 percent, according to INS data. Terrorists can enter the country even without work or student visas or immigration papers. They can enter the country temporarily as “visitors” on vacation. Terrorists will find a way to attack the U.S. regardless of whether our border policy is strict or just somewhat strict. Even if the U.S. completely restricted all foreigners from entering the country, terrorists could still bomb U.S. embassies and launch missiles at us. So what can be done to resolve the conflict between those who prefer to relax the borders, and those who oppose a vast influx of immigrants into the U.S.? There are two ways to feasibly harmonize these two positions. The first, the more difficult to achieve, would be to end the welfare state. Why not give churches and charity an opportunity to provide for those in need? Even though some argue that the Great Depression demonstrated that churches and charities aren’t enough, it has never been conclusively established that it was government help that pulled people out of the Depression. There are strong arguments to the contrary. First, it was government meddling that started the Depression in the first place, when President Coolidge tinkered with the interest rates to allow businesses to play fast and loose with risky credit. When President Hoover was elected after the crash, instead of allowing the market to recover, forced wages and prices to stay high. President Roosevelt continued along the path of government intervention, injecting more money into the economy and then promptly devaluing it, adding myriads of government assistance programs. At this rate, it took ten years for the Depression to finally end in 1939. Having learned the lesson from the Great Depression, the U.S. government should know not to make this serious of a mistake again. The second solution, which would be easier to implement because it would not require removing social welfare programs for U.S.-born citizens, would be to screen immigrants before they came into the country for productivity and then hold them to it. Make it a requirement that adult immigrants work full-time, and if they have children or intend to have children, that they are capable of supporting their children. Of course, this second solution is just a band-aid on a deeper problem, the problem of welfare in general, but it will eliminate the disproportional drain that immigrants place on taxpayers. The problem is not the immigrants, but the system that allows them to take the easy way out. America should be the land of dreams, not of handouts.
I think this article makes some points but is fundamentally flawed because it tries to paint the debate as polarized between two simplified points and then turns the issue to its own simplified point, whereas NOTHING in the immigration debate is simple. And, when it comes to taxpayer-funded handouts, I'm far more concerned about the hoovering my wallet gets from taxpayer handouts to senior citizens than what is consumed by welfare benefits to illegals - and that wallet hoovering will increase with the proposed prescription drug benefits to a group who, for the most part, is more than capable of paying for such themselves.
The debate over immigration is profound. It touches law, enforcement (or lack thereof), politics, money, drugs, culture, socialist attitudes, labor (illegal labor and H1-B visas), and many, many other areas of our lives. But to me the most profound problem is the destruction of clear language and law by those who wish to disregard a proper federal constitutional function by condoning illegal immigration. This is an even bigger rot on the moral fiber of the Constitution than Clintonism, and that's telling. Trying to shift the matter into a debate over handouts is little more than donning blinders.
Well, duh. If we could "screen" the illegals, we wouldn't have a problem. What a ditz.
I can see folding tables erected across the desert so illegals can fill out skill surveys before entering the country.
Look at the shantytowns spreading around cities in the third world. If those people would leave everything they have for a no health care, no welfare, no food stamps existence in a cardboard and plywood shack on the outskirts of Lagos, what wouldn't they do to roll the dice on the outskirts of Atlanta?
Given the choice and the ghost of an opportunity, I'd rather be poor in a rich country than in a poor country. Wouldn't you?
The line sure wouldn't be long. How many skills can you have with a 6th grade mexican education?
Huh? I'm really not sure exactly how she managed to get from Point A to Point B here...
Talk about not freaking getting it!!!!
o Most immigrants have LESS than a HIGH SCHOOL EDUCATION -- how productive can they be?!?!
o Labor goes by supply and demand just like anything else: business wants a huge labor pool to drive down costs. That way business doesn't have to provide health care or high wages. (Over half the "uninsured" you keep hearing about are illegal aliens.) Bill Gates spent a ton of money to increase the supply of H1B visas, even after the dotcom bust and IT tech unemployment soared.
o Too many immigrants ensures they won't "Americanize" -- Mexicans talk about the "Mexican Dream": make a ton of money and then go back to Mexico. But that means they don't want to join the country and become Americans, why are we letting them in? And let's not even speak of what is going on with the Muslim immigrants, talk about a fifth column! Unless you want to become an American citizen, you should not be allowed in.
o Immigrants vote Democrat, as government freebies are in their interest, and most have absolutely no concept of a free market system. Look at California becoming a solid Democrat state. Don't kid yourself, California is coming to your state, too!
o Immigration takes the pressure off corrupt governments to clean up their own backyard. Mexico and central america need their own "American Revolutions"
o It increases racial tensions, as poor blacks are competing for jobs against illegal aliens.
We have to ask ourselves if America has a distinct culture, and is that culture worth preserving? I say yes: it is clear to me Islamofascists and cannibals have inferior cultures and ought to be enlighted. That's politically incorrect, but that's how I see it. Uncontrolled immigration says culture doesn't matter, and we can put any kind of person (scads and scads of people) into America and function just fine. I think that a big lie, and we're going to pay for it if we don't wake up.
Please, people, words mean things.
Just a stone's throw from the US border. Houses made from discarded wood pallets. http://www.diario.com.mx/servicios/hemeroteca/nota.asp?notaid=28439
We probably need the low-skilled more than we need the skilled at least in many areas of the country ----we certainly don't need software programmers from Mexico or India when our own are out of work. If we'd boot everyone off welfare, we wouldn't need any immigrants because we'd have plenty of low-skilled laborers already but it seems neither political party will end welfare.
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