Posted on 12/29/2005 5:53:27 AM PST by harpu
"We have a supply and a demand problem. The supply problem is coming across the border. We are in this bill doing something very specific about that with the inclusion of the amendment, with the passage of the amendment, to build some barrier along at least 700 miles of our southern border. I hope we continue with that, by the way, along the entire border, to the extent it is feasible, and the northern border we could start next." -- Rep. Tom Tancredo (R., Colo.)
So there you have it. Tom Tancredo has done everyone a favor by stating plainly the immigration rejectionists' end-game -- turn the United States into the world's largest gated community. The House took a step in that direction this month by passing another immigration "reform" bill heavy with border control and business harassment and light on anything that will work in the real world.
For the past two decades, border enforcement has been the main focus of immigration policy; by any measure, the results are pitiful. According to the Migration Policy Institute, "The number of unauthorized migrants in the United States has risen to almost 11 million from about four million over the past 20 years, despite a 519% increase in funding and a 221% increase in staffing for border patrol programs."
Given that record, it's hard to see the House Republican bill as much more than preening about illegal immigration. The legislation is aimed at placating a small but vocal constituency that wants the borders somehow sealed, come what may to the economy, American traditions of liberty or the Republican Party's relationship with the increasingly important Latino vote.
-big giant snip-
...At some point, the president of the United States will have to get behind the Statue of Liberty or Tom Tancredo's wall.
(Excerpt) Read more at online.wsj.com ...
Not the editorial page. The paper and the editorial pages are two separate entities. The editorial page of the WSJ stood practically ALONE for conservative issues during the Clinton era.
Of course, I would not expect the knuckle draggers here to remember that.
What we really need to do, is annex all of Central and South America, and Canada. Leave the dozen or so Canadian cities as they are, and suck all the natural resources out of the rest. Then take everyone that speaks spanish or portugese, and turn them into farmers, for the central and southern part. After that, we can charge huge tolls to get thru the canal, or around Tierra del Fuego.
Just an idea.
"Also, employers who hire people off the books (like day laborers) aren't withholding any Social Security or Medicare taxes either."
Not just day laborers, include most of them working construction.
They pay them in cash and knowing that they are illegals a lot of them make the deductions from the cash wages and pocket the money.
The big savings to the tree trimers and construction is they aren't paying comp insurance which runs 50-100% of wages.
GREAT idea. Nevermind that businesses are fleeing the USA in record numbers now because of the regulatory crap they have to put up with already. Let's just add one more idiotic hurdle for them to cross! Yaaayyyyy! While we are at it, lets add a whole new DEPARTMENT with a budget and neat acronyms and cushy salaries for worthless federal bureaucrats to enforce this brainy idea! Oh Goody! Then we can show em how we are REAL AMERICAN PATRIOTS!
You should be deported along with the illegals!
Purgamentum init, exit purgamentum.
Address that, Congressman. Your wall is a boondoggle.
Protect our borders and coastlines from all foreign invaders!
Support our Minutemen Patriots!
Be Ever Vigilant ~ Bump!
Yeah. It is pablo's fault you people in CA have the most stupid and asinine WC program in existence. Look, the loons have been running CA for so many years that they have built insane regulatory and insurance environments. It is REASONABLE to expect that business owners would seek to escape the onerous and idiotic red tape that people live under. Illegal hires are the REAL market, not the contrived and fake junk that can be propped up only by paying artisans 50K a year the way you did (you stated in an earlier post that you paid 30 dollars an hour in 1992 to your employees, plus benefits. That equals over $60,000 a year. There has never been a carpenter, hvac man, plumber, or roofer BORN who is worth that much money. You want to pay those kind of outrageous wages and then bitch when the Mexicans undercut you, then rant away.
I've a strong feeling that as the "latino vote" expands, it will expand toward both the pubbies and a secure border.
Once those here legally, native, and immigrant, prosper they are just as burdened by illegals as are any others.
(Should I point out here that illegals are not supposed to be voting?)
Every employer that hires an illegal belongs in prison, here's hoping you become one of them.
All obnoxious churls with more venom than common sense belong in a pool of their own puke when they finally insult the wrong person. Right back at you, with sincere wish for a happy new year.
You want to pay for a corrupt kleptocracy, then allow Mexicans to cross the border unimpeded. This is what our country will become if we don't control the border:
"MEXICO CITY - Last year, a member of Mexico City's legislature was videotaped accepting a bribe. The brother of a former president is widely assumed to have built a $100 million fortune through influence peddling.
"In 1997, the head of the country's drug interdiction office was dismissed - for involvement in drug trafficking. Those and other examples illustrate the perennial stigma of Mexico, considered one of the most corrupt countries in the hemisphere.
"The recent furor over a video in which four enforcers for the Gulf cartel are interrogated and one is executed has sharply refocused attention on corruption.
"The men on the video suggested links between drug traffickers and the government, and authorities have conceded that federal law enforcement officials and perhaps current or former members of the military may have been involved in torturing the four men and making the video."
If Illegals/cheap labor was the good thing some contend then the cheaper the better and free labor would be best from a business perspective...
But there is a problem in that each Illegals/cheap labor "unit" has there own fixed cost of there own existence in this country...
If what the Illegals/cheap labor is making is less then there own cost of living (let alone the wife and kids)then we our country is in effect upside down...
.Illegals/cheap/below cost labor is a government subsidy to business... and business has discovered that this is a subsidy to business that the left loves to provide to them out of the US citizens / taxpayers pocket
You know, if we seal the border completely and it really hurts our economy (doubtful) we can always open a door and let people in who legally follow all our immigration laws.
The statue of Liberty asks for "huddled masses yearning to breathe free" not illegal aliens yearning for freebies.
There are lots of Mexicans (legal and illegal) voting in California. If these people were an asset to the state, I wouldn't expect California to be near bankruptcy.
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