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Illegals With Legal Rights
Forbes Magazine ^ | 01.07.02 (edition) | Dan Seligman

Posted on 01/01/2002 2:10:23 AM PST by Brownie74

In America illegal aliens have rights, benefits, protection against discrimination, and op-ed cheerleaders. Is it time for a change?

Can we control our borders? It is a painfully relevant question because several of the 19 mass murderers of Sept. 11 were in this country illegally, and the one indictee for this crime was initially nailed only on immigration charges. Unfortunately, the stopping of Zacarias Moussaoui was something of a fluke. Efforts to prevent illegal immigration in the U.S. today are ignored, underfunded, openly violated or certifiably feckless. And there is stubborn resistance to change, even as estimates of the total illegal population keep soaring.

The Immigration & Naturalization Service has been estimating 5 million to 6 million illegals in the U.S., but the Census Bureau now says INS is way off, and the total has to be around 8 million. Indeed, Census speaks respectfully of a study done by demographer Andrew Sum and colleagues at Northeastern University, which plausibly came up with a count approaching 11 million.

Looniness abounds. New Yorkers were recently rolling their eyes over news accounts indicating that the City University of New York was giving a break on tuition to illegal aliens. It appears that illegals who live in the state and are studying at CUNY are counted as genuine New Yorkers and therefore pay only $1,600 per semester, versus $3,400 for students living in the U.S. legally but commuting from outside the state. Contributing to one's sense of unreality about all this is the fact that any such preference for locally based illegal aliens over out-of-state Americans violates federal law. In the wake of 9/11, CUNY is suddenly deciding to comply with the law.

Hallelujah. But even this decision is meeting resistance, and New York's new mayor sounds like a resister. Michael Bloomberg in a Nov. 19 radio interview: "People who are undocumented do not have to worry about city government going to the federal government. We will provide the services, whether they are health care services or education for their children or anything else we can do, irregardless of the federal government rightly trying to make sense out of our immigration policy. ..."

At least he said "rightly."

Illegals have lots of fans, including many in business and agriculture (who like their low labor costs) and in the liberal media (which see them as heroic underdogs). Maybe that's why the law barring employment of illegals can be so broadly ignored. An especially surreal detail of U.S. law is the 1999 "guidance" issued by the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, which bars employment discrimination against the illegals. No, that's not a typo. The EEOC is telling us that people who shouldn't be here in the first place and shouldn't be employed if they are here, are eligible for back-pay awards if the employer is caught discriminating against them. When illegal aliens manage to have their children born in the U.S., the children are of course citizens, which entitles the family to assorted welfare benefits.

Our overextended INS Border Patrol continues to turn back illegal aliens when they are caught trying to sneak across the Mexican or Canadian border. (In the 2001 fiscal year 1.2 million were caught.) But if they make it across the border, they can generally assume that nobody will be looking for them. Indeed, they don't necessarily have to get across the border. If a patrol stops them, they can ask for a formal hearing, and of those who ask, many are released "on their own recognizance"--i.e., on a promise to show up at the hearing. Recent testimony before the Senate Investigations Subcommittee established that roughly 90% of those released on their own recognizance do not show up--and no effort is made to track them down. The situation is somewhat similar for the 40% or so of illegal aliens who enter the country legally, on temporary or student visas, but become illegal when they ignore the visa restrictions and just continue to hang around.

Like some of the 19 terrorists.


TOPICS: News/Current Events
KEYWORDS:
Efforts to prevent illegal immigration in the U.S. today are ignored, underfunded, openly violated or certifiably feckless. And there is stubborn resistance to change, even as estimates of the total illegal population keep soaring.

And there is a stubborn resistance to change........

1 posted on 01/01/2002 2:10:23 AM PST by Brownie74
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To: Mercuria;crabcake;sarcasm;dennisw;SpookBrat
A "Happy New Year" ping!!
2 posted on 01/01/2002 2:14:13 AM PST by Brownie74
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To: Brownie74
Border Patrol agents want U.S. to change strategy From The OC Register.

Hijackers Found Welcome Mat on West Coast. From The Washington Post

3 posted on 01/01/2002 2:24:45 AM PST by Brownie74
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To: Brownie74
Maybe Bloomberg can personally foot the bill for all these illigals.. I recently read an article on the border patrol and the standard requirements they had received sometime in the past 2 years. One of their more important duties on a daily basis was to patrol their sections and pick up all the trash left by the illigals comming across the border.

Do we need to get volunteers for the border patrol?

4 posted on 01/01/2002 2:26:29 AM PST by .45MAN
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To: .45MAN;Marine Inspector
......patrol their sections and pick up all the trash left by the illigals comming across the border.

I have read similar articles. A sad state of affairs.

5 posted on 01/01/2002 2:31:08 AM PST by Brownie74
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To: Brownie74
The INS and our immigration laws are completely and irredeemably broken.

I'd like to see that EEOC "guidance" tested in a federal court.

6 posted on 01/01/2002 2:35:15 AM PST by angkor
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Comment #7 Removed by Moderator

To: Brownie74
Happy New Year and thanks for posting this.
8 posted on 01/01/2002 5:35:34 AM PST by dennisw
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To: Brownie74
"We will provide the services, whether they are health care services or education for their children or anything else we can do, irregardless of the federal government rightly trying to make sense out of our immigration policy. ..."

Not to nitpick but 'irregardless' is NOT a word...

9 posted on 01/01/2002 6:17:52 AM PST by Antoninus II
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To: Brownie74
Happy New Year!
10 posted on 01/01/2002 6:26:15 AM PST by sarcasm
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To: Antoninus II
If New Yorkers want to subsidize illegal aliens with their tax dollars that's their business. They shouldn't complain then if there's not enough to go around for American citizens and legal residents. When you lie in bed with the fleas don't be upset if they bite you.
11 posted on 01/01/2002 6:30:17 AM PST by goldstategop
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To: Brownie74
An especially surreal detail of U.S. law is the 1999 "guidance" issued by the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, which
bars employment discrimination against the illegals. No, that's not a typo. The EEOC is telling us that people who shouldn't be
here in the first place and shouldn't be employed if they are here, are eligible for back-pay awards if the employer is caught
discriminating against them. When illegal aliens manage to have their children born in the U.S., the children are of course
citizens, which entitles the family to assorted welfare benefits.

Is it time for a change?

Duhhh.  Is it time for a change...  yep.  A change to M16's for the border patrol agents on the north side of the Rio Grande.  Finally some other parts of the country are having to deal with the problems we have had here in Texas for decades.   I just love the profound revelations of these folks that are suddenly proclaiming "something must be done." 

I have an idea.. lets get 3-4 truck loads of these parasites together and let them tear down the fences and run through the back yards of the libs that work for EEOC or promote superior rights for criminal aliens every night between midnight and dawn.   They can shoot guns, steal cars, kill livestock, burglarize their houses, etc, for about 10 YEARS.  Then (if they still live there) we can ask them to open up their bank accounts and send those very same criminal aliens to college.

Any guesses as to what their response might be?

12 posted on 01/01/2002 7:05:32 AM PST by TLI
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Comment #13 Removed by Moderator

To: Mercuria
bump
14 posted on 01/01/2002 7:10:00 AM PST by lowbridge
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To: TLI
....let them tear down the fences and run through the back yards of the libs that work for EEOC....

Good idea. I bet they would change their tune in a hurry or else blame it on the VRWC. LOL!!

15 posted on 01/01/2002 7:11:13 AM PST by Brownie74
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To: goldstategop;Crabcake
Contributing to one's sense of unreality about all this is the fact that any such preference for locally based illegal aliens over out-of-state Americans violates federal law.

What part of "violates federal law" don't people understand. It is pretty clear to me.

16 posted on 01/01/2002 7:18:33 AM PST by Brownie74
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To: Brownie74
I heard about this too, but it either did not happen or BP won't enforce the policy, because the Agents I know, don't pick up any trash.

On a side note, the first graduating class of Air Marshall's, 24 of the 25 new Marshall's, are ex BP. I applied and made the list and am waiting for the call. Bye Bye INS.

17 posted on 01/01/2002 10:47:09 AM PST by Marine Inspector
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To: Marine Inspector
Fantastic. Check your mail.
18 posted on 01/01/2002 11:40:19 AM PST by Brownie74
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To: TLI
,,,let them tear down the fences and run through the back yards of the libs that work for EEOC or promote superior rights for criminal aliens every night between midnight and dawn...

Great idea! I for one am sick and tired of rich liberals telling us working class and middle class people that we should be thrilled to welcome illegals, and all the resulting problems of crime, graffiti, blight, bad schools, traffic, noise, etc., into our neighborhoods. You know darn well those rich libs would never, EVER live in such a neighborhood; they would never let their wives or daughters walk or drive through such neighborhoods; they would never send their kids to schools in such neighborhoods. They just want the rest of us to do so.

You know how sometimes slumlords are ordered by judges to live in their own rundown tenements as punishment for being slumlords? Well, I would dearly love to force Tom Daschle, Ted Kennedy and others to live in the very worst illegal alien neighborhoods in this country! Revenge would be so, so sweet.

19 posted on 01/01/2002 11:52:51 AM PST by Nea Wood
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