Posted on 08/13/2008 4:15:50 AM PDT by Tennessee Nana
At this moment there are more than 300 million people living in the United States. How many are here illegally is uncertain and the estimated number changes depending on the political or social persuasion of the numerator. While liberal or compassionate Americans like to denounce any objections to the presence of illegal aliens as racism or bigotry over just a few, indeed as little as 12 million, cooler heads place the number closer to double and maybe even triple that amount.
While those same high-minded theologians and social reformers also claim that the few illegal aliens are only here for much needed work and are family oriented and civic minded, nothing could be further from the truth. Many of the illegal aliens are members of criminal gangs, or rely on an income, not from their own work ethics, but from the work of American taxpayers. The number of illegal aliens receiving public assistance in the form of welfare, food stamps, and other government handouts is huge, and a drain on state coffers. Emergency rooms in local hospitals are swamped by illegal aliens using their services for running noses and other light ailments, and using fraudulent identification in order to avoid payment.
Many people have a variety of reasons to forgive or condemn the illegal alien presence. The compassionate urge humanitarian treatment, and claim mass deportation is unwarranted and impossible to achieve, while blocking any attempt at strong law enforcement. The concerned work tireless to change local laws, raise their voices of alarm above the oppositions roar, and warn others about an ever increasing flood of illegal aliens who rape, kill, steal, drive drunk, unlicensed and uninsured, use public funds they are not entitled to, and use stolen identification to deprive American citizens of employment, domiciles and government aid.
I have opinions about the illegal aliens derived from the several parts of my personal life:
As a Christian: Does it ever occur to the enablers who push the Bible, (a book they have seldom actually read) at Christians in an attempt to shame us into complacency, that the illegal aliens would not be in such dire straits if they had just stayed home and not entered the United States illegally?
As an American: No, we do not owe illegal aliens anything; a living, a job, free schooling for their illegal alien children, or pseudo 14th Amendment children. Nor are we to welcome with open arms people who deliberately break our sovereign laws in order to enter our country, and then wantonly flaunt their criminal activity in our faces.
As a veteran: I use to wonder why illegal aliens did not apply to serve in the American armed forces, thus proving their fond regard for our nation. I do not wonder any longer; I do not feel that a person who would have so little respect for our immigration laws would have the character required to serve honorably in our military.
As a former immigrant: As a child I was taught to love and respect Americans. The appreciation for the sacrifice of the American soldiers and sailors in the Pacific during World War II, was passed down to me by my parents and other adults in New Zealand, who had lived in fear of imminent invasion by the Japanese. My love and appreciation for the greatest country in the world has been a lifelong attitude and inspired me to serve in the United States military as a registered alien. I wore my uniform the day I proudly became an American citizen in 1975.
When I completed an application to enter the United States, there were several requirements that illegal aliens bypass in their unauthorized entry into our country. I had to pay fees, have a clean bill of health, receive inoculations, have a thorough criminal and background check, and prove that I would not become a public dependant. I signed documents affirming that I understood I was not entitled to public assistance and that if I committed a felony, I would be deported. When I applied to enter the United States, it was with the knowledge that immigration was a serious step and required scrupulous documentation.
However I entered the country in 1971: amnesty was not a household word that year.
Here's another thought -- Pay all employees their gross pay and then have them write checks for their taxes.
Don't you think doing that would get people's attention? That little Tea Party in Boston could look like a stroll in the park by comparison.
>>You have no clue. Nothing the Federal Government imposes upon employers takes a “few seconds.”<<
You seem to be confused. Here is what you said from an earlier post:
>>I have to be honest. I don’t know what is involved.<<
>>As for employers, I wonder what makes you think they might not be presented with false documentation.<<
Of course illegals use false IDs, and some of them look very real. That’s why we have e-verify. Do you know of a case in which an employer truly did not know he/she was hiring illegals but was punished anyway?
Honest, responsible business men and women don't break US law by hiring illegals. Prosecuting and imprisoning one or two notorious employers of illegals in every large and medium size city in every state as an example to others would do more to stop or slow illegal immigration than deporting a million illegals, although I favor doing both.
If employers know that they may go to prison for several years for the CRIME of hiring illegals they won't hire them, and when jobs are no longer available the illegals will go home.
The popular notion that illegals only take the jobs that Americans won't do would be amusing if it wasn't so outrageous. If every able bodied American man and woman who is on the welfare dole simply because they don't like working was pried off the government teat, most of them would take those "jobs that Americans won't do" rather than live hungry and cold in cardboard boxes or under bridges.
Me: >>Actually, that might be illegal. I think you need some kind of better justification than they are obvious illegals.<<
You: >>We are talking really obvious here. Let the police inquire.<<
Some cities don’t allow the police to enquire. But all of this would not be a problem if employers did not hire illegals.
>>Your argument here reminds me of something my leftwing, liberal sister might suggest.<<
I don’t think should be unreasonable for police to ask for proof of legal status (again, this assumes that their city allows them to check), but I think you are being unrealistic. We live in a system which, in this case I believe, the courts would not allow the police to do what you are suggesting.
Don't you think doing that would get people's attention?
You better believe it would.
Millions upon millions of wage earners don't even realize that the money with held from their paychecks and identified only by indecipherable codes on the check stub was their own hard earned money before the government got it's greedy, wasteful, dirty hands on it. The fact that the government took a king size bite out of every dollar they earned before they ever saw it doesn't seem to register on them.
I think your suggestion wouldn't just their get those taxpayers' attention, it would probably touch off a revolt at the next election that would clean house from the Capitol Building in Washington down to every state's General Assembly chambers.
And that is exactly why the big spending, big promising, high taxing, high living buffoons of both parties will never, ever allow taxes to be paid in the way you propose. They stay in power and keep the money rolling in by the same method farmers use to raise mushrooms, and that's by keeping us in the dark and feeding us bull****.
If I say, I’ll be banned....
Not me, Sherlock. I also do not know what is involved in overhauling an aircraft engine.
ML/NJ
No. And who cares. I am concerned with right and wrong, and whose job it should be to enforce immigration law in this country. You and others seem to think that the government law enforcement folks can wholely abandon their obvious responsibility; and instead criminalize ordinary business activity.
ML/NJ
Maybe you haven't noticed. It has been a "crime" to hire illegals for quite some time, and they're still all here. I guess maybe it's not a crime to hand them welfare checks and food stamps.
ML/NJ
What is this, Wonderland? The police are not allowed to inquire, but some class of private citizens must inquire! How about if we forbid grocery stores from selling food to people who cannot prove they are here legally? We could fine or imprision all those mean grocery store owners who do not comply.
ML/NJ
1) Employ elements of the U.S. military to patrol the border.
2) Agressively seek out and severely punish employers who knowingly hire illegals.
3) Start a public service campaign that says in no uncertain terms that if you are in this country illegally, we will find you and deport you. No exceptions.
4) Get that damned border wall built. Now.
Maybe you haven't noticed that very few employers have even been fined for hiring illegals, much less put in prison. Put a few big name corporate CEOs like Tyson away for several years in a real prison instead of a country club resort type "prison" and see how many will continue hiring them.
IMHO; this should be our 'first wave' of attack. . .
1. Take away $10,000.00 in aid from the country of origin for every illegal apprehended. If that person is caught again the fine doubles. The corrupt officials in Mexico wouldn’t want their cash cow to dry up so they would actually start patrolling their own borders.
2. Heavily fine employers who hire illegals. Second offense, jail time.
3. Cut all social benefits to illegals. Food stamps, housing, medical, education, etc...
4. Repeal the “anchor baby” law
5. Allow local law enforcement to detain illegals for deportation.
6. Demand proof of citizenship, especially at the voting polls.
The most intelligent comment today.
>>I am concerned with right and wrong<<
Let’s just say that we have very different ideas of what “right and wrong” means.
>>You and others seem to think that the government law enforcement folks can wholely abandon their obvious responsibility; and instead criminalize ordinary business activity.<<
There is certainly room for improvement in DHS, s for example, and some of the some of the bureaucrats do not seem to be trying too hard, but hiring illegals knowingly is not “ordinary business activity” any more than selling drugs or stealing someone else’s identity.
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