Confusions over Illegal Immigrants vs Refugees

[Hurlshort]

Just to address the original topic, my wife has quite a few new students this year that are part of this recent flood from Central America.  They may not be classified as refugees, but they definitely act like they've just fled hell on earth.  So far they are hard working and respectful.

 

The American citizens, however, continue to slack and give attitude.  

 

Many of my students spend the summers in India and China, and they always have an amazing perspective about how lucky they are to live in the US.  

 

So maybe the answer to the education problems of the US isn't to get rid of immigrants, but rather ship out some of the citizens.  

[Namutree]

Capitalism isn't a political philosophy, it's an economic system.

Incorrect. Capitalism is a social system based on individual rights and the defense of property. These are not exclusively economic issues; it applies to the social arena as well. Social issues affect property issues.

 

For example: A capitalist believes in private property; this is pretty common knowledge. If you believe in private property than you must support marriage since as a functioning institution marriage expands private property rights.

 

Thus any capitalist's position on an issue like, gay marriage should be known as soon as some one identifies themselves as a capitalist. Capitalists support property rights; thus they support gay marriage.

 

The same logic applies to immigration. Laws that forbid citizens from hiring illegal immigrants for work suppress property rights; thus capitalists oppose them.

 

Ultimately, like socialism; capitalism is a political philosophy. A philosophy as legitimate as any other.

[Wrath of Dagon]

The same logic applies to immigration. Laws that forbid citizens from hiring illegal immigrants for work suppress property rights; thus capitalists oppose them.

So by your logic I should be able to shoot anyone I want, because the gun is my property and I can do whatever I want with it. Property rights aren't absolute, even under capitalism.

[Namutree]

 

The same logic applies to immigration. Laws that forbid citizens from hiring illegal immigrants for work suppress property rights; thus capitalists oppose them.

So by your logic I should be able to shoot anyone I want, because the gun is my property and I can do whatever I want with it. Property rights aren't absolute, even under capitalism.

 

That would be a violation of the victim's property rights. Property rights don't mean you can do whatever you want to others.

[Wrath of Dagon]

Yeah, and property rights don't mean you get to help others break the law.

[Namutree]

Yeah, and property rights don't mean you get to help others break the law.

Hiring them isn't helping them break the law. The that they entered this country without following the legal process was just as broken whether or not they are working. I guess you'd rather they be living off welfare than working. The issue of illegal immigration is between the illegal and the government; not between me and the government. Yet if I hire a guy to fix my porch, and it turns out he's an illegal; I'm in big trouble.

[Hurlshort]

It always amazes me how many people see being here illegally as some sort of major crime.  The government certainly doesn't treat it that way.  There are various levels of illegal activity, working without a valid permit is up there with driving without a license.  It will get you in some trouble, but it's not exactly a top priority for law enforcement, and it is a waste of resources to throw those people in prison.

[Namutree]

It always amazes me how many people see being here illegally as some sort of major crime.  The government certainly doesn't treat it that way.  There are various levels of illegal activity, working without a valid permit is up there with driving without a license.  It will get you in some trouble, but it's not exactly a top priority for law enforcement, and it is a waste of resources to throw those people in prison.

The government sometimes does enforce these silly laws against property. Yet, as you said; it is a waste of resources. Thanks to that fact enforcement is low, but not entirely non-existent.

[Wrath of Dagon]

 

Yeah, and property rights don't mean you get to help others break the law.

Hiring them isn't helping them break the law. The that they entered this country without following the legal process was just as broken whether or not they are working. I guess you'd rather they be living off welfare than working. The issue of illegal immigration is between the illegal and the government; not between me and the government. Yet if I hire a guy to fix my porch, and it turns out he's an illegal; I'm in big trouble.

 

I've never heard of anyone getting in trouble for that. May be if he was an actual employee, but these days not even that. And of course you're helping them stay here illegally if you pay them, they're theoretically ineligible for welfare, although the government probably pays them illegally anyway. You do have a point that it's the government's job to enforce the laws, not the citizens, that's why they should be stopped at the border, the whole thing is a farce. But this whole thing of enforcing the laws against your own citizens and not against everyone else who comes here illegally and then proceeds to break all kinds of laws (not paying taxes, fake and stolen identities, forged documents, fake tax refunds), and that's not even the real hard core criminals who easily go back and forth across the border, is getting real old. At some point you got to think citizens will stop respecting the law the same way they see the government do it. Edited August 16, 2014 by Wrath of Dagon

[Namutree]

  that's why they should be stopped at the border

There's no known way of stopping them at the border right now. Not that most illegals even get in that way. Even if they did; putting an end to illegal immigrants getting in the country would be a huge blow to the economy which is ABSOLUTELY DEPENDENT on the cheap labor they provide. 

 

There is a solution to the illegal immigration issue. Make it easier for them to enter/stay legally.

Edited August 16, 2014 by Namutree

[Wrath of Dagon]

That wouldn't solve anything as there is an almost limitless number of people wanting in. Unless you want to take in a good chunk of the world that solution won't work. It's very well known how to secure the border. Build a good 2 or 3 layer fence and actually patrol it. It's working as San Diego right now. As far as other ways, we need an entry/exit visa tracking system that Congress has voted for many times but somehow just never gets implemented. It's almost unbelievable that in the age of computers the government actually has no way to tell if someone has overstayed a visa.

[Namutree]

That wouldn't solve anything as there is an almost limitless number of people wanting in. Unless you want to take in a good chunk of the world that solution won't work. It's very well known how to secure the border. Build a good 2 or 3 layer fence and actually patrol it. It's working as San Diego right now. As far as other ways, we need an entry/exit visa tracking system that Congress has voted for many times but somehow just never gets implemented. It's almost unbelievable that in the age of computers the government actually has no way to tell if someone has overstayed a visa.

It would solve the fact that they are here illegally. As for how many people we let per year; I don't it would kill us to streamline the process so we could easily increase the amount of people who enter on an annual basis. More people is in fact a boon so I'm not afraid of letting in a good chunk. As long as we don't have to give them access to social services like welfare. 

 

In regards to the triple fence; there are three major issues to deal with. Our border with mexico is fairly large and making a triple fence would be very expensive; not only to construct, but to even maintain. The second issue is that coyotes are VERY good at getting past them; so don't expect them to work terribly well. The third issue is that there is US privately owned property at the border so you can't make a complete fence. At least, not without stealing a lot of land.

 

The fence idea simply isn't viable thankfully.

[Wrath of Dagon]

Yes, well we "steal" land for roads and pipelines all the time. Of course, the owner is compensated, so it's not stealing as you say. As far as cost, no where near what we're already spending on the mangy illegals, I mean we have to pay Hurl's wife to educate them for one thing.

[Hurlshort]

Your typical undocumented worker family is not actually a drain on the economy.  I already posted an article on that, but you clearly didn't read it.  So yeah, it is more economically feasible to educate their children than try to create a huge fence and then keep them out.  The fence is fairly useless, as a large percentage of undocumented workers travel over the border legally, but simply don't have work visas.  You can pass over the border relatively easy if you have a valid passport.  Do you want to send INS agents with every family that crosses the border?  

 

Reasons undocumented workers help our economy:

 

1.  We need the labor.

2.  They spend the vast majority of their minimal salaries in our economy.

 

Did I mention our economy would collapse without this labor force?  Here is a link on that.

[Namutree]

Yes, well we "steal" land for roads and pipelines all the time. Of course, the owner is compensated, so it's not stealing as you say. As far as cost, no where near what we're already spending on the mangy illegals, I mean we have to pay Hurl's wife to educate them for one thing.

Yep, it definitely isn't stealing as long as you give them money. I should let my neighbor know that. I'll walk over to his house; tell him to get out within a few months or else he'll be fined $100,000 a month. As long as give him a few dollars eventually when I get around to it (If I even bother at all; sometimes the government forgets to compensate people) taking his house and land by force isn't stealing. 

 

As far as cost, no where near what we're already spending on the mangy illegals.

"mangy illegals" Just what I would expect from some one like you. It's clear you simply aren't concerned for people's rights or our prosperity. You just don't like the foreigners coming in. Yes; opposing illegal immigration is fine, but you obviously aren't interested in any solution that doesn't involve keeping out foreigners.

 

I'm glad that the fence would never work because if we ever did succeed in keeping out cheap and exploitable labor; expect our standard of living to plummet dramatically.

[Erez]

Fences and walls have proven to be quite useful in the present and past,

 Its a big investment on the short run but could prove to be beneficial if the threat is real enough, With more and more terrorists like ISIS, hamas, al Qaeda and Hezbollah the threat appears to be bigger than ever.

 

People who enters USA through the use of visa are vastly different are vastly different than those who are smuggle themselves into the country.

If there is fear of the country collapsing you can always issue more work permits, so the threating the collapse of the country isn't true. more so there are plenty of unemployed usa citizens who could step into the vacuum if the work conditions were good enough.

Edited August 16, 2014 by Erez

[Namutree]

Fences and walls have proven to be quite useful in the present and past,

Some fences sure, but not the border fence. So far the fencing we've put on the border has been very ineffective. Coyotes just cut through them or tunnel under them. Not to mention the surveillance equipment we set up over-heated and broke.

 

 

With more and more terrorists like ISIS, hamas, al Qaeda and Hezbollah the threat appears to be bigger than ever.

 

Appears would be the key word here. ISIS is a doomed state that will killed off soon enough. Even if by some miracle they weren't; their main focus is the middle east. I doubt ISIS will use the border against us. Even if ISIS did decide to use a terrorist attack against us; they would try to employ domestic Muslims; not foreigners. A border fence would not be helpful against them. Hamas and Hezbollah are no threat to the US so they can be ignored. Border security, or even immigration have little to do with terrorism.

 

Fences and walls have proven to be quite useful in the present and past,

 

Funny you should bring up the great wall. Wanna know a fun fact about it? IT DIDN'T WORK! Ever! It was a complete waste of resources, and worse yet; gave the Chinese a false sense of security.

[Erez]

Don't expect magical walls, you still have to block the threats from other areas: Sea, Air and tunnels.  A wall is never unstoppable obstacle, but it does make life harder for your foes. Solutions against tunnels are already being developed, Its all a matter of cost vs benefit.

[Guard Dog]

You know the irony here is all the different groups who want to give these folks legal status want something different and all those ends are in opposition to each other. 

 

• Businesses want cheap and legal labor but once they are legal they won't be able to abuse these folks by underpaying anymore. They will be subject to wage laws and taxes just like everyone else. So there goes the cheap labor.
• Democrats want them to be able to vote because they think these folks will love big government and taxpayer handouts they will vote for them and are trying to get the republicans to go along. Republicans think since most of these folks are religious they will favor them so that is their motive.
• Unions see millions of potential new members which will dilute the labor pool and lower everyone's wages but the truth is Unions stopped caring about that a log time ago. Now they are all bout their dues and politics.
• La Raza and other Hispanic hate groups want to flood the southwestern states and break away from the US to form their own banana republic so they are pushing hard to get 12 millions more folks they thinks will follow their thinking.

All of these groups in favor of amnesty are like wolves fighting over a piece of meat and they all have 2 things in common, 1) they don't really care about the people they claim to be trying to help, only how they can exploit them and 2) The don't care about any potential negative impacts on the country or the people already living and paying the taxes here.

[Wrath of Dagon]

Your typical undocumented worker family is not actually a drain on the economy.  I already posted an article on that, but you clearly didn't read it.  So yeah, it is more economically feasible to educate their children than try to create a huge fence and then keep them out.  The fence is fairly useless, as a large percentage of undocumented workers travel over the border legally, but simply don't have work visas.  You can pass over the border relatively easy if you have a valid passport.  Do you want to send INS agents with every family that crosses the border?  

 

Reasons undocumented workers help our economy:

 

1.  We need the labor.

2.  They spend the vast majority of their minimal salaries in our economy.

 

Did I mention our economy would collapse without this labor force?  Here is a link on that.

Your articles are just someone's opinion that happens to correspond to your own. We have plenty of unemployed people who could use those jobs. To say illegal immigration doesn't cost us anything is ridiculous, 20 years ago Harry Reid ranted that 25% of births in California public hospitals was to illegals. Who's paying for those births? Every child of illegals born in the US is an immediate US citizens, eligible for all welfare benefits. All they have to do is have half a dozen kids, then live high off the hog on the US taxpayer. And what's the rate now, 50%? 80%? California has 4 times as many poor as any other state, where do you think those poor are coming from? Education is free for them, medical services are free, often housing is. Who's paying for all that? Just to deal with the current immigration crisis, Obama asked for 4 billion dollars just as a supplement, just for a short time, that's more than the entire 2000 mile fence, assuming 2 million dollars per mile. Do you know that the government actually gives tax id numbers to illegals, theoretically so they could pay taxes (lol), but they actually use them to fraudulently obtain billions of dollars from the government by filing fake tax returns. Not to mention all the other crimes they're committing, all the social problems they create. Just a few days ago here an apparent illegal killed a family of four in a car accident trying to escape the police. Normally a society tries to eradicate poverty, we're intentionally importing it.

 

As far as overstaying visas, I already said they have to start tracking the visas, go find the people doing it and revoke their visas forever.

 

Edit: Also, if really need those jobs filled, what's all the legal immigration for anyway? Or is it just that we need to somehow exploit people by paying below minimum wage, or our economy will shut down?

Edited August 16, 2014 by Wrath of Dagon

[BruceVC]

 

Your typical undocumented worker family is not actually a drain on the economy.  I already posted an article on that, but you clearly didn't read it.  So yeah, it is more economically feasible to educate their children than try to create a huge fence and then keep them out.  The fence is fairly useless, as a large percentage of undocumented workers travel over the border legally, but simply don't have work visas.  You can pass over the border relatively easy if you have a valid passport.  Do you want to send INS agents with every family that crosses the border?  

 

Reasons undocumented workers help our economy:

 

1.  We need the labor.

2.  They spend the vast majority of their minimal salaries in our economy.

 

Did I mention our economy would collapse without this labor force?  Here is a link on that.

Your articles are just someone's opinion that happens to correspond to your own. We have plenty of unemployed people who could use those jobs. To say illegal immigration doesn't cost us anything is ridiculous, 20 years ago Harry Reid ranted that 25% of births in California public hospitals was to illegals. Who's paying for those births? Every child of illegals born in the US is an immediate US citizens, eligible for all welfare benefits. All they have to do is have half a dozen kids, then live high off the hog on the US taxpayer. And what's the rate now, 50%? 80%? California has 4 times as many poor as any other state, where do you think those poor are coming from? Education is free for them, medical services are free, often housing is. Who's paying for all that? Just to deal with the current immigration crisis, Obama asked for 4 billion dollars just as a supplement, just for a short time, that's more than the entire 2000 mile fence, assuming 2 million dollars per mile. Do you know that the government actually gives tax id numbers to illegals, theoretically so they could pay taxes (lol), but they actually use them to fraudulently obtain billions of dollars from the government by filing fake tax returns. Not to mention all the other crimes they're committing, all the social problems they create. Just a few days ago here an apparent illegal killed a family of four in a car accident trying to escape the police. Normally a society tries to eradicate poverty, we're intentionally importing it.

 

As far as overstaying visas, I already said they have to start tracking the visas, go find the people doing it and revoke their visas forever.

 

 

Do you really see lots of Americans doing the low income jobs that many Hispanics are prepared to do? Like construction, cleaners and domestic maids. My experience has been these are jobs most  Americans aren't really prepared to do?

[Guard Dog]

 

 

Your typical undocumented worker family is not actually a drain on the economy.  I already posted an article on that, but you clearly didn't read it.  So yeah, it is more economically feasible to educate their children than try to create a huge fence and then keep them out.  The fence is fairly useless, as a large percentage of undocumented workers travel over the border legally, but simply don't have work visas.  You can pass over the border relatively easy if you have a valid passport.  Do you want to send INS agents with every family that crosses the border?  

 

Reasons undocumented workers help our economy:

 

1.  We need the labor.

2.  They spend the vast majority of their minimal salaries in our economy.

 

Did I mention our economy would collapse without this labor force?  Here is a link on that.

Your articles are just someone's opinion that happens to correspond to your own. We have plenty of unemployed people who could use those jobs. To say illegal immigration doesn't cost us anything is ridiculous, 20 years ago Harry Reid ranted that 25% of births in California public hospitals was to illegals. Who's paying for those births? Every child of illegals born in the US is an immediate US citizens, eligible for all welfare benefits. All they have to do is have half a dozen kids, then live high off the hog on the US taxpayer. And what's the rate now, 50%? 80%? California has 4 times as many poor as any other state, where do you think those poor are coming from? Education is free for them, medical services are free, often housing is. Who's paying for all that? Just to deal with the current immigration crisis, Obama asked for 4 billion dollars just as a supplement, just for a short time, that's more than the entire 2000 mile fence, assuming 2 million dollars per mile. Do you know that the government actually gives tax id numbers to illegals, theoretically so they could pay taxes (lol), but they actually use them to fraudulently obtain billions of dollars from the government by filing fake tax returns. Not to mention all the other crimes they're committing, all the social problems they create. Just a few days ago here an apparent illegal killed a family of four in a car accident trying to escape the police. Normally a society tries to eradicate poverty, we're intentionally importing it.

 

As far as overstaying visas, I already said they have to start tracking the visas, go find the people doing it and revoke their visas forever.

 

 

Do you really see lots of Americans doing the low income jobs that many Hispanics are prepared to do? Like construction, cleaners and domestic maids. My experience has been these are jobs most  Americans aren't really prepared to do?

 

As I pointed out above Bruce, once these folks are legal these jobs won't be so low income anymore. Employers won't be able to get away with paying below minimum wage under the table.

[Wrath of Dagon]

Also, if we secure the border, the legal and illegal immigrants doing those jobs aren't just going to suddenly evaporate. In any case, laws must be enforced. Ignoring them only leads to crime and anarchy. You can not have a democratic society without rule of law. How much legal immigration we need is a legitimate subject of debate. IMO 20 million over 10 years is a very reasonable limit that Jeff Sessions has proposed.

[Hurlshort]

This is where we've come full circle.  As I've said before, I support a robust partnership with Mexico that allows us to tap the necessary workforce.  It should be possible to create a partnership that benefits both economies and helps the workers thrive.  It is obviously much more complex than that, but this talk of building walls instead of partnerships is short-sighted, xenophobic, and unrealistic.

[Wrath of Dagon]

Walls don't mean you can't have a partnership. Good fences make good neighbors. I suspect the reason you think we have some kind of severe labor shortage is you haven't had to look for a private sector job.