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To: Sam Ketcham
Write the fool in chief, your arrogant incumbent Senators and the RINOs in the House and perhaps, just perhaps it isn't too late for the US. Our boy has 463 troops at the border, protecting us as he upholds his oath of office! I am underwhelmed by his actions and overwhelmed by the illegals

Hey, I know spouting the "red meat" rhetoric is fun and all, but how about dealing with the reality? There ALREADY HAS BEEN significant tightening of the border.

Ten or fifteen years ago the typical illegal border crossing was a five or ten minute walk, usually within or just on the outskirts of a city, so the illegal could grab a taxi just across the border. Today the typical crossing involves a two day walk across desert, at some risk. (About one illegal dies per day on average.) At the same time the cost of hiring a "coyote" (a guide for your illegal border crossing) has increased around 3,000 percent.

Naturally these massively higher disincentives have already had an effect on illegal border crossings, which have plummeted. Yes, you can make the border tighter yet, but you'd better understand that further decreases in illegal crossings will be INCREMENTAL. We've already gone from crossings being easy and cheap to quite difficult and expensive. Those still crossing nevertheless will only be incrementally deterred by making the process merely a bit more difficult and a bit more expensive.

You also have to understand that we need to deal now, and proportionally more in the future, with the inevitable problems that a tighter border entails. It's simply delusional to pretend that a tighter border alone is the solution. It has effects which are undesirable. This is NOT to say that a tighter border is not desirable OVERALL, but just that you can't wish away or ignore mitigating factors. Which is why a comprehensive response -- not just better border control, or sanctions against those employing illegals -- is required.

What are the undesirable effects of a tighter border (and employer sanctions)? Well, for instance, more illegals from Mexico now STAY in the country once they get here, and they're more likely to consume public resources, be involved in crime, and/or compete with Americans for higher wage jobs.

Consider the bad old days of cheap and easy border crossing for a minute. You walk across the border in a few minute and jump in a cab. What do you do?

If you're like most illegals you don't actually want to settle down here in America. You've left the wife and kids back home. You just want to work, make some money, and then go back home. So what do you do? You generally do what's easy. You go to work. You'll probably head straight for the farmland where you know work picking fruit and vegetables, for instance, is available. You don't need to be involved in further illegal activities, like acquiring a fake ID, for instance. The farmer isn't going to ask you for an ID -- there're no meaningful sanctions facing the farmer remember -- so why bother with that. Oh, you might if you plan to work in the city, but relatively speaking the incentive is far less.

It doesn't work like that anymore. Now, with the Fed beginning to not only levy fines, but charge people CRIMINALLY, with likely JAIL TIME, for hiring illegals, the farmer, or the construction foreman, or whoever, is going to require some kind of ID. Now you'll have to associate yourself with, and support the creation and maintenance of, a criminal enterprise to acquire the papers you'll need.

What's more, that agricultural job may not be good enough anymore. You've got to cover your expenses in crossing the border, if you do intended to continue doing so seasonally, or maybe you decide that it's too expensive to cross and you're better off to remain in America once you get here. Either way you'll need a better, higher paying, and maybe non-seasonal job. A job that an American would otherwise have. OR you'll need to go on public assistance OR you'll have to turn to crime.

If you do decide to remain in America, rather than face twice yearly dangerous, iffy and expensive border crossings, eventually you'll get to missing your wife and kids. Likely you'll decide to bring them across too. Now, with a family, you're consuming far more public resources than when you were a young, single man.

33 posted on 07/01/2006 2:06:07 PM PDT by Stultis (I don't worry about the war turning into "Vietnam" in Iraq; I worry about it doing so in Congress.)
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To: Stultis

10 to 15 years ago! Wow, you love to watch ice melt.


44 posted on 07/03/2006 3:12:58 PM PDT by Sam Ketcham (Amnesty means vote dilution, more poverty aid and we will be bankrupt! Or are we already?)
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To: Stultis
Well I'll throw a little more ice your way for you to watch melt. Eisenhower and Nixon BOTH had the testicular fortitude to order the illegals out; the US sent Jack Pershing into Mexico to deal with armed intrusion, as opposed the lack of inactivity when Mexican military and / or drug traffickers regularly foray into the US these days. Philosophize all you want, but it doesn't get the job done.

For example. the Center for Immigration Studies (CIS) states that from 1925-1965, immigration averaged about a 178,000 each year. Since then, the average is about 1 million, plus illegal immigrants". The CIS shows a direct correlation between increased legal and illegal immigration.

There are 6 Billion "poor" in the world. If we continue to let them come at will, we will be among the poor. We already have taken in a number approximating 10% of the citizens of Mexico!


Want to know the numbers and who allowed this situation and who is for increased immigration? A few of the References: http://www.cis.org/
and http://profiles.numbersusa.com/
45 posted on 07/03/2006 3:25:40 PM PDT by Sam Ketcham (Amnesty means vote dilution, more poverty aid and we will be bankrupt! Or are we already?)
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