I am 100% on board with cracking down on illegal immigrants when it's practical to do so, but the "immigration problem" this country faces isn't really an immigration problem at all. It's a welfare state problem, and focusing our efforts on illegal immigration sometimes gets in the way of dealing with the REAL PROBLEM here.
This country once thrived with plenty of "illegal immigrants" -- mainly because there really wasn't such a thing as legal immigrants. And the reason it wasn't a problem back then was that nobody -- neither U.S. citizens nor immigrants -- was given massive taxpayer-funded handouts from a nanny-state government. Does anyone here think it's a coincidence that "illegal immigration" suddenly became a problem after outright unconstitutional Federal programs like Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid were introduced?
Good points. Still, anytime enacted laws are not enforce it’s a huge problem.
True, as stated in post 15, the big problem is our welfare and benefit program as it draws in illegals like bees to honey (plus a lot of our own would rather get a gov’t check than work). Rampant illegal immigration is more of a symptom than a cause.
Besides a too generous welfare/benefit system, public spending and public borrowing are taking our nation & economy on a suicide dive. I still have hope some Republican politicians know this, so will vote for Romney & other GOP candidates.
Yes, we do face an immigration problem, but it’s not limited to illegal immigration. A much bigger problem from a demographic stand point is unending mass legal immigration, which has and will continue to move the country towards the Left. What you say sounds like the standard libertarian line on immigration; that it should be legal and pretty much unlimited, but we should also get rid of things like welfare.
But that can’t happen. Don’t you see that mass immigration will inevitably bring in more users of govt services? And therefore they’ll vote for the party that promises more generous welfare. It’s the same for affirmative action/racial preferences; it will be much harder to get rid of them so long as we continually import those who will benefit from preferences.
The Bush family is worthless on immigration. The GOP should be about ending chain migration, abolishing the absurd Diversity Lottery Visa program, cutting back on refugee resettlement, and dealing with illegals with attrition through enforcement with unambiguous opposition to a pathway to citizenship (which is the same thing as a pathway to voting Democrat).
Where do you get this? Bush allowed in more Muslims after 911 than the previous two decades. We don't need more people from Red China, Pakistan, Iraq, etc.
The U.S. government has turned the U.S. into an immigration dumping ground. How could anyone not notice?
Ya think the government cares that tens of millions of Americans are underemployed or completely unemployed?
Massive immigration reforms for both legal and illegal immigration should have been enacted 20 years ago.
“Does anyone here think it’s a coincidence that “illegal immigration” suddenly became a problem after outright unconstitutional Federal programs like Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid were introduced?”
And the younger Americans believe it is the baby boomers who are bankrupting Social Security, etc. They accept the MSM blind eye regarding the cost to the American taxpayer of all the illegal invaders “free” medical care, subsidized schooling, etc etc.
how can America survive if the unentitled illegals keep flooding across the borders having anchor babies so that they can’t be deported, and using up all the benefits that old time Americans have been paying into with their taxes for all their working lives?