Posted on 01/07/2004 5:02:20 PM PST by Pubbie
Regarding mexico, I understand that we currently only issue 5,000 green cards per year.
The current waiting list is 15 years.
Info just obtained today, I don't vouch for it's accuracy.
I checked the INS website. The 2004 lottery for green cards (legal permanent) is 50,000.
The thread I read must have had a typo.
I did not see anything on total numbers.
It is the backlog that seems to help them decide to bust the border. Since friends and family members have managed to stay underground for ten years or more, they come and take the chance. the odds are pretty good.
The Bush proposal would change all of that. The illegal employers would be eventually all eliminated.
I really think it will work.
We need black and white deportation rules and we cannot let a bunch of adult family come with the permit holder. They must be qualified for permits as well.
Kids are problem. Bush did not address it and congress will have a time with it. Kids are the stumble block in this.
Many if not most of the current crop of illegals have kids in tow. those coming over on the new permit should not be allowed to bring the family along. They can work out of country alone, just like I did once.
These morons will say anything...They don't even care if we know they are lyin' thru their teeth....There is however, an element of truth in the statement...Jobs will be created...Taxpayer funded jobs at the welfare office and local hospitals to take care of the free-loaders...More police and prison guards, of course; not to mention construction crews to build more prisons, factories to build beds, etc., etc...
That is a matter for the green card waiting list.
As to family that get bonified jobs, I see no reason not to let them work on permit.
Like I said, I don't know how they will handle this. The kids are a problem getting this through congress. If they muck it up like in 86, it will not work.
This number gets tossed around all the time.
I expect that legalizing the employers will seriously increase the tax base. I don't know how much and I believe 20B per year cost is a bit steep. Most of the ones I have seen have money falling out of their pockets.
Economic gains would need to be used to adjust these numbers.
I have not seen any decent studies recently that do not have a axe to grind on one side or the other.
Has the White House released any details of what they will ask from Congress, to me there is no sense in reading all these threads and comments, everyone is way to emotional over this. We have a voice and we need to use it to convince our Representatives that if they're gonna address this decades old problem, they must here our voice, and do the right thing for America. After all, we are the ones who will be most effected by their decisions.
I can't make a rational decision on whether I support or oppose this without seeing the details, the fact is we have these people living and working here, we can either spend the next 30 years trying to round them up and deport them at a cost that would probably be in the trillions, or we can try and come up with a plan that doesn't undermine those who abide by our laws and come here legally, like most of our ancestors did, and finds a way for those who came here illegally to pay a price for their crime before they get the chance to become a guest worker. Without some sort of penalty, guest worker status is a reward, not a solution
This is just more stalling until the "facts on the ground" make any real solution impossible. We have 10 to 13 million illegal aliens in this country now. Reagan's amnesty plan encouraged more illegal immigration, despite its good intentions. Learn from this. There are NO incentives in Bush's proposed reforms for anyone who can get into this country illegally, live here, and work here without government interference, and without paying taxes, to suddenly join the taxed and regulated lower classes of the US workforce, when they can get ALL the benefits without doing so. There is no realistic provision for controlling future illegal immigration in this reform, no effective border control, no punishment for not signing up for this kind of economic legitimization, and no reason not to call it eventual "amnesty". Certainly, nothing in this proposal will discourage more and more illegal immigration. Why should it? It was not designed to.
What it was designed to do is put this issue on the back, back, burner for another few years, at least 3 to 6. The election will go by, with this very serious and rapidly boiling over issue will have a "temporary" lid on it. But it won't fix anything, rather, it will convince Vincente Fox that he can tweak and moan and get his way with our government, and he can look forward to dumping his social and economic problems on us, and reaping the benefit of hundreds of billions of money sent to Mexico from illegals working in the US, for years to come. Fox would benefit greatly if he could "immigrate" another 15 million or more illegals into the United States, and reap the benefits of billions more in "sent back" dinero. His problems too would cool off, and head for that back burner. As long as there are tables to bus, lawns to mow, and tomatoes to pick, this precarious and shaky compromise will endure.
But come the 2010 census, and the factoring in of new methods of estimating the ever growing number of illegal aliens in this country, the illusion of "a problem solved" will go "poof". We will wake up to the news that that 10 to 13 million has become 25 to 30 million and growing at an ever increasing rate, and it will be way too late to do anything to fix it. The pretense of "jobs that Americans won't do", and the "immigrants only want a chance to work hard" will mean little or nothing when California and other border states' budgets and busted beyond repair and result in total default by enormous infrastructure and social costs, ever spiraling upward. The old days of the 90's will seem like a golden age. The specious logic of "they are the economic backbone of our economy" will seem like a bad joke. All because of the inherent capability of our politicians to miss the point and avoid necessary action. It will be too late, simple as that.
The counter to my above criticisms is the "knee jerk", in the form of the question, "So, what do you want to do? Deport millions of people, arrest them off the street, put them in holding camps until we can bus them over the border?" My answer is, no... it is too late for that, thanks to too many weak "leaders" shunting this problem off into the future, combined with too many strident anti-American leftists, who see their victory and power in a radically changed cultural and national demographic reality. What can be done is to put the brakes on immigration, all immigration, until the government can realistically regain control, which it does not have now. Without control of our borders, our claim to national sovereignty would become a fiction, as it is rapidly becoming now. And no, we do not need more illegal immigrants to act as "the backbone of our economy". Let's get our immigration laws in order, and have them obeyed for once. Let's absorb, educate, and merge with the immigrants already here, as they are probably not ultimately going back. But, it is our country and its citizens that should come first, and it is the citizens of America, and only Americans, who should determine what those immigration laws, visa regulations, quotas, and penalties for breaking those laws should be. Never the corrupt government of a country desperate to unload its social and economic problems, regardless of who or where they are.
Perhaps solutions to the vast economic, cultural, and social, disparity between Mexico, the third world, and the America can be changed, bringing those 3rd world countries into the 1st world of the 21st Century, but without question, the solution is not to degrade the US to 3rd world economic status. I would much rather find ways of helping Mexico reform and enrich its economy and people, than simply treat them as we currently do the homeless, which is enabling their misery rather than helping them up. The potential for disaster is at our doorstep, and we cannot afford to make the well worn mistake of "playing pretend" with reforms and programs that cannot achieve what they promise. Face reality, and get control of our borders. Or the voting populous of citizens in this country... will take it back.
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