Posted on 03/31/2006 6:51:12 AM PST by dennisw
Why this is an amnesty and why it's a blessing to live in the United States of America.
Illegal immigrants from the 3rd world want legal residence, not citizenship!
The overwhelmingly prime desire of every poor 3rd world illegal alien is to have legal residency here. Not to become a citizen. So for George Bush and others to get on TV and say how this is not an amnesty because of no path to citizenship is a gross distortion & lie.
To simply reside here illegally is a blessing! Americans have forgotten this. Every illegal alien knows this. Illegal aliens from the 3rd world are overjoyed to live here illegally. Illegal alien street vendors in Manhattan love living in the United States. Illegal alien soda can/bottle collectors (I've seen them) and street beggars (I've seen them) love the United States. But to live here legally would make life much easier and better for them
Picture yourself as a poor illegal alien from Guatemala who has somehow gained entry into America. You know you have won life's lottery. You know how lucky and blessed you are to be here and not Guatemala. Are you thinking about how much you want to become a citizen? No way! You just want to live here without fear of deportation and send money home. You want to be able to get a legal driver's license and not have employers threaten to rat you out to the immigration authorities You know you will earn more if you are legalized. You will probably also qualify for Medicaid. GWBush's bill and all the Senate bills make this possible. And the number of illegal immigrants is 20 million, not 12.
This article is based on what I've read plus interaction with legal and illegal aliens. I knew a woman who came here legally from Portugal who was very happy to live here on a green card. She owned property here and worked here. She was very happy not to became a US citizen because all had all the benefits without shifting her emotional loyalty to the old county. Plus she would not be prejudicing her ability to one day return to the Azores of Portugal to retire in style with her money, social society and pension earned here. Many immigrants have this dream to one day retire and live like a king in the old county. I knew Greeks who would tell me this
Around 1996 Newt Gingrich Contract to America got welfare reform bills passed that made people like Portuguese Antonia (let's call her that) ineligible for her welfare, her free medical and her SSI disability payments. Her work years were finished because had gotten injured and was on SSI disability despite owning a nice triple decker home that she rented out two units in. This is legal BTW. So guess what! She immediately filed to become a US citizen and become one within 2 years. The only reason she became a US citizen was because of (free) medical being taken care of for her (she was morbidly obese by now) and the SSI payments
So the main desire of every single one of the 20 million illegal aliens here is to have 100% legal permission to live here. These days this is called a green card. Millions of US residents have one. These Senate plans will at minimum provide legal residency cards for 20 million illegal aliens. The Democrat plan (John McCain-Ted Kennedy) bill will simply make it a lot easier for these card holders to become citizens because they can then vote Democrat, sponsor relatives for immigration and get the full package on welfare and Social Security. For all I know the former illegal alien can now legally bring his wife and children here from Mexico.
I rarely post vanities
I don't think any of the pending bills have a provision forbidding the use of state and tax dollars for services for illigals. Frankly, that would seem the most effective way of solving a good number of the problems.
| Here is the Bear Stearns estimate of 20 million illegal aliens. I consider this the most honest & best estimate though I would raise it to 22-25 million illegal aliens ---->>> |
20 MILLION ILLEGAL ALIENS? By Michelle Malkin · January 03, 2005 11:02 AM
Barron's has an important lead article out today on "the underground economy" (password required). According to Robert Justich, a senior managing director at Bear Stearns Asset Management in New York, current estimates of the illegal alien population (most news articles cite the old 8 to 13 million figure) are too low. He puts the figure at 18 million to 20 million.
The article's author, Jim McTague, notes some devastating consequences of the failure to enforce our immigration laws--and he does so with a bluntness that is unusual for the usually open-borders-friendly business press:
[T]he underground economy is undermining the effectiveness of the Internal Revenue Service, which is highly dependent on employees' withholding taxes. If the IRS could collect all the taxes it says that it is owed from the underground economy in a given year, then the current budget deficit would disappear overnight. And if the IRS could collect these taxes every year, then the nation would have surpluses as far as the eye can see.The IRS has estimated that its tax gap -- the estimated amount of taxes owed minus the amount collected -- is around $311 billion in any given year. The agency will produce a new estimate in 2005, and it could be as high as $400 billion, says former IRS Commissioner Donald Alexander.
McTague addresses pollyannas who note that our underground economy is smaller than other high-tax European countries:
To be sure, the U.S. underground economy, as a percentage of GDP, is smaller than those of some other countries. In a 2000 paper in a publication of the Independent Institute, a nonprofit research organization, Schneider found that Greece, as of 1998, had the largest underground economy, at 29% of its GDP, followed by Italy at 27.8% and Spain at 23.4%. Countries with high tax burdens and high social security costs lead the list.But the sheer growth of the underground economy in the U.S. is cause for concern. If Justich's estimate of illegal immigrant workers is correct, the underground economy may now be growing at a markedly faster rate than the legitimate economy. Justich, working with Bear Stearns colleague Betty Ng, an emerging- markets economist, says he's found evidence of a larger illegal immigrant population by analyzing data on construction and on remittances sent from the U.S. to Mexico and other countries. He also had conversations with over 100 immigrants from Mexico, Brazil, the Dominican Republic, Guinea, China and Tibet. And he interviewed local business owners, real-estate sales people and police...
McTague also considers the impact Justich's research may have in Washington:
A larger number of illegal immigrants also would have a profound impact on coming discussions on immigration reform. President Bush proposes temporary amnesty for illegal aliens already in the country, allowing them to obtain permits to work legally for three years and stay longer if their jobs otherwise can't be filled by native-born workers. But if there are, in fact, 20 million illegal aliens, the Bush proposal could engender a situation not unlike the German unification of the 1990s, which triggered huge demand for social services in East Germany. Unanticipated costs here could be enormous.
The article should be must-reading for every member of Congress as President Bush prepares to foist his amnesty plan on America.
You really think that if/when these 20 million illegals get legalized they won't be able to get on Medicaid like other poor people? I doubt it, get ready to pay the increased taxes. If not right away they will within a few years be qualified for cheap subsidized housing and Medicaid you will pay for. Due to ethnic pressure groups and the hacks that pander to them. You will pay their workman's' comp. They can sue people to death same as Americans and win the lawsuit lottery
Oh, how I wish I could be one of those who blindly trust Bush and just let him take care of everything for me....:)Don't worry folks, Pres. Bush is going to save us all!
Many will come out of the shadows to go on welfare, sue their employers, and demand benefits.
The same idiots who claimed "Trust Me" on the Meirs issue are out in force again.
You got it Dennis. Amnesty all over again, shoved down our throats. America is being subsumed into the "North American" alliance of Canada, the US, and Mexico, after that it will be the "Western Hemisphere Alliance" then who knows what else. Our country is being dissolved right in front of us.
I know. I find it easy to ignore them, there aren't many of them left. They view Pres. Bush as their god, literally. They worship whatever he does. He can do no wrong.
However, most of us put country ahead of party.
Yet, it is not competition, is it? Instead, it is their lawyers warping around to making OK with a new status quo, the breaking of our laws, in order to dump cheap labor into the marketplace. (They, the bigshots and lawyers on Wall Street and on "Capital" Hill, who decry in the public eye, "dumping" ... by their competitors who they cannot control by jilting U.S. laws.
Swell - it's only going to hurt *them* - they will get illegals studying law and finance and available for the responsible-to-shareholders jobs that "corporate America" bosses are too greedy to now do.
Why should shareholders pay some bigshot executive in 7 or 8 figures, when the shareholders can now easily find responsible leadership at $85,000 per year? Why pay lawyers at $400 to $600 per hour, when you can get better lawyers at $85 per hour?
Wall Street "thinkers" who are lobbying for state-sponsored, state-enforced cheap labor, at the expense of human decency and the principles of liberty (which the greedy people rely upon to be home and safe at night) ... is growing this underground economy, which is a telling sign of how badly separated from the opportunity to purchase capital and property, the "working class" is - and, that this situation is caused by government regulation and taxes and interest rate meddling that is now bad enough to be called government oppression ... of the marketplace ... above ground.
I don't think the Congress can pass a law to overturn SCOTUS rulings like that. Perhaps you are thinking of the Amendment process?
There should be a two track system one for those that do not desire citizenship; Pay fine, get card, hold job, 5 years and go home - no anchor babies. A track for those wanting to be citizens; Pay fine, have sponsor and bond, get card, hold job, learn English, cannot leave country, 3 years tested (no pass out), 6 years green card, 10 years citizen.
Any criminal record and you (and your family) go home.
Sounds pretty good to me.
Don't forget the new drug benefit, courtesy of our compassionate president, and his cronies! It would be nice to see that compassion transferred to our bank accounts, by eliminating all the socialistic programs in our budget. What's so wrong with people having to care for themselves and their families? It sure is more of a conservative principle than the "Panderer in chief" displays!
The best guess as to the number of illegals is 12 million, and legalizing the illegals is a different issue than how to encourage them to go home or to limit the burden on the taxpayer.
20 million illegal aliens is the best guess. In an above post (#4) I mention the Bear Stearns study that says so
Further our unemployment rate is under 5 percent. If one out of every 10 jobs is being performed by a undocument worker and we still had low official unemployment, it would seem that our economy would be super-charged as opposed to just sure and steady as it appears to be.
And granted that not all illegals come from Mexico but the vast majority do and Mexico only has so many jobs to export.
The 12 million recognized by most sources makes a lot more sense to me and 12 million is still a very big number i.e. it's the population of Pennsylvania.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.