According to this CNN.com article, recently some illegal immigrants were caught, detained, and then driven to a government office so they could fill out paperwork that would allow them work legally here. One them is named Gerardo, who came here 11 years ago. He’s now married and has 5 kids. Now here’s where I get to surprise some of you who know me–I want people like Gerardo here…if (of course there has to be an “if” or a “but”) we do it a certain way and change some things in the process.
Unlike many conservatives, I’m not one of these build-a-wall-first and then discuss the rest of the problem later. I think a wall may be a good move, but I don’t think a wall by itself solves the problem, which is this–the United States provides something people in other countries desperately want. Something they want so badly they’re willing to leave home, friends, and family for it. Something they’re willing to risk their lives for, and in some cases die for. That “something” is freedom, and a better life, and while a wall may slow people down, it won’t stop illegal immigration. Don’t get me wrong, slowing the stream may be worth it, it’s just not going to solve the whole problem.
One of the major solutions to this problem is to make legal immigration easier. Some people have labeled those who are against illegal immigration as being racists. Maybe some anti-illegal immigration types are racists, but I have no problem with Mexicans or people of any other race coming here. I just don’t want them breaking the law to get here and then being rewarded for it. Gerardo, the guy mentioned in the article, has a job. He’s productive. He’s contributing something to the economy. He would contribute more if he were here legally. Why not make it easier for people like him to come here legally so they aren’t coming illegally?
Illegal immigrants from Latin American are less likely to learn English and assimilate into US culture. They’re less likely to get treated for communicable diseases. They’re more likely to commit crimes. I’m not saying we should make all the illegals legal, I’m saying let’s provide incentives for them to come here legally instead of coming illegally. If you’re concerned about language and culture the way to protect them is not a closed border (which is impossible) but an effective border. The first step is to make legal immigration a faster process.
I have a friend from Argentina who came here legally around 2000. It took him 7-8 years to get the visa he needed. He’s lucky it didn’t take a year longer or he may never have gotten it. He ended up as a truck driver, which is kind of like owning your own business. His business brings in around $200K/year (before expenses, which are large), or at least it did before the economic downturn. Suffice it to say, he’s productive. But why did he have to wait 7-8 years to get a visa? It should have been a 3-month wait, max. Then he could have been a productive member of our country for that much longer.
But it doesn’t stop at truck drivers and guys putting together engines like Gerardo. Our regulations also make it difficult for doctors, scientists, and computer programmers to come here. The yearly quota on H1B visas is reached the day they become available, and the demand is such that four or five times the number could be issued and they’d likely all be gone the first day as well. Where is the sense in keeping out the best and brightest, while allowing the least skilled to come in? I don’t have anything against the least skilled coming here, I just think it’s backwards and counter-productive to our country and economy to make it easier for them to get here and get work than for a PhD.
The only illegal immigrants should be criminals or those with ill-intent. Anyone who’s willing to come here and work hard should be allowed to with minimal fuss. But in order to make this a reality, here’s some other things I believe should change:
1. Abolish the minimum wage. The minimum wage does not protect workers or help families, it hurts them. It was originally instituted as a racist measure and continues to fulfill that role today. If people want to work for $4/hr because it’s better to earn $4/hr here in America than deal with life in Mexico than is it kindness and compassion to force employers to either pay employees under the table (in which case it’s probably under the minimum wage anyway) or not hire these people at all?
2. Those here illegally go to the back of the line. Of course if the line is only three months long this isn’t that big a deal, but certainly nobody who came here illegally should get preference over someone who is coming here the right way.
3. Abolish most entitlement programs. It should be enough of a reward for an immigrant to simply participate in the free market America provides. Government provided healthcare, welfare assistance, and other programs provide incentives that not only bankrupt the states and the country, but generally don’t help those they’re intended to help. And I’m not saying abolish these programs just for immigrants, I mean for everybody. I don’t believe we can afford them for who we’ve got here already, but we certainly can’t afford them if we have an influx of immigrants.
4. Incentives to be law-abiding. Immigrants should have strong incentives to obey the law. I would advocate a one-strike-you’re-deported-never-to-return policy when it comes to felonies prior to becoming a citizen, and I wouldn’t allow citizenship to be granted for at least 10 years.
5. 100% free trade. I also advocate abolishing all trade restrictions other than on illegal products. No, I don’t mean we’ll have open trade with Mexico if they have open trade with us, I mean we should remove all trade restrictions, period. With any country. Regardless of what they do. Trade restrictions don’t help anyone but governments and beuaracrat pet projects in the short-term. Even if other countries don’t drop their trade restrictions it still benefits us to drop ours, and once other countries see the benefits we get from it they’d be more likely to follow suit. Dropping trade restrictions would go a long way to not only boost our own productivity and prosperity, but that of the entire world. As other countries followed suit, their own prosperity would rise, and there would be less reason for immigration at all, let alone illegal immigration.
Janet Crapalitano was the ex governer of Arizona, She has turned Arizona into a Nazi police state. Cameras everywhere you go. Obama should have never chosen her for such an important job. The situation is Arizona is so bad that it is hard for us even to identify as democrats.
So what if the guy has put roots down here? he has lived off the fat of our land long enough and he and his little family should be sent to his country of origin if they don’t wish to be separated. We are sick to death of hemorrhaging-heart liberals who want to save the world and the notion of two sets of rules: one for law-abiding citizens and one for those who thumb their noses at our laws. We are reaching a saturation point of our resources and its time to put a stop to this NOW!
During the process of legal immigration our government investigates the individual’s criminal past, their health record and family tree. All of these are important for security reasons… illegal immigrates do not go through this process. During this same process individual’s also need to prove they will be able to support themselves financially, many come here on work visa’s or have family already here that will sponsor them , again illegal immigrates do not go through this process, but somehow many obtain fraudulent social security numbers and live off our system. I too have family and friends that have immigrated here legally, some are in the process of sponsoring their family members. Yes, it is a long drawn out process and I’m sure our government could improve on it, however much of the information the individuals need they have to receive from their own governments so the delays are shared. I don’t know the specific numbers, however I know there are 100′s of thousands of individuals from around the world right now that are trying to immigrate here legally, the U.S only allows so many immigrants in from each country a year…. should we just open our borders and let everyone in at once? I am all for legal immigration and 100% against illegal immigration. Gerardo Arreola Gonzalez in my opinion should be deported without hesitation. He broke the law entering this country and again when he told his employer his papers were “good”… I wonder how many other times Mr Arreola broke the law?
So you want to eliminate the minimum wage and open our borders to everyone around the world who would like to move here in search of a better life. You’re out of your friggin’ mind! Are you prepared to have our prices drop to third world levels to compete with their wage levels, or is it only our workers who you are willing to ask to compete with their wage slaves?
First of all, our border are already wide open and a wall won’t solve the problem, although I’m not saying it may not help. The question is whether you want a huge flow of illegal immigrants or legal immigrants. My case is that if we don’t have a choice it’s better for them to come here legally than illegally. At least if they’re here legally we can track them, make sure they’re paying taxes for the services they receive, they’ll be more likely to learn English and assimilate, etc. Actually, regardless of whether or not we have a choice I still think it’s better policy to let them come. Certain groups might not like it, but the overall benefit to society at large in the long run outweigh the short-term costs. Unfortunately most people focus on the short-term and what’s best for them.
Personally I’d love to see some wages drop. If the auto makers could pay people $10/hr instead of $80/hr that means I might be able to buy an $80K car for $10K. If you think it’s wrong for someone’s wage to drop, why isn’t it wrong for me to have to pay more for a car? If I have to pay more for my goods and services because of the high wages paid to provide them, doesn’t that effectively lower my wage since I can’t buy as much with the money I make? Whenever the government and unions get involved in artificially controlling wages and markets to try and benefit one group they inevitably hurt another group. The trick they play is to hurt a very large group to help a small group. Because the pain is spread out amongst so many people they don’t notice it so much, whereas the small group definitely notices the benefit and they’ll fight harder to keep it than the larger group will because for the larger group it might be a cost of $10 per person whereas the benefit to the smaller group is $10K per person.
12 million US citizens out of work and 12 million illegal immigrants in the US…..what’s wrong here? I came from the UK 15 years ago, married a US citizen and propmtly applied for and got my green card. I did the paperwork…driving MYSELF to the Immigration office, paid the medical fees an passed the medical (that means I didn’t have any diseases),I paid the filing fees, passed the FBI criminal background check and became LEGAL. I did not work before I became legal. Last year I became a US Citizen, I filed the paperwork, paid the fees, passed the FBI criminal background check, studied and drove MYSELF to the citizenship interview…..I’ve paid state and federal taxes since the day I began work.
When will we wake up? Send thme home! Adios Amigos…don’t come back!!
So she was not notified that there would be a raid at this place of employment? What should it matter the illegals were breaking the law and now she is rewarding them with documents so they can work??? She should care 1st about the US citizens that are out of jobs not about illegals. But than again she has a Hispanic last name so I am sure she will hand out documents to all illegals.
From the CNN article:
“‘ If you are in the country illegally, unless you commit a serious felony we are not going to bother you’”
Wow! I can break the law and going to be bothered!!! Sweet! Where do I sign up? Call me Cristobal from now on!
I do agree unions are horrible, they drive up wages and decrease productivity, therefore raising consumer prices. There was a time when unions were needed, however that time has past, this is one reason I don’t agree with the bailout of the auto industry. However, I do not see a clear link between highly paid unions workers and illegal immigration There are plenty of legal American’s willing to make $10 an hour.
Our borders are weak, but not wide open. Right now we have immigration laws, they are just not enforced. We have a choice, it was already made. There are millions of illegal immigrants here from countries other than Mexico, so no, a wall won’t solve the problem.
I brought up unions because New Mexico Bob was against my proposal to make legal immigration easier because he believes it would lead to a drop in wages. It’s actually in the best interests of unions to discourage legal immigration because of that fear that a flood of immigrants would take jobs at a fraction of the price of union workers. But unions and restrictive immigration laws aren’t the answer to job insecurity, education is. Why am I not afraid of immigration? Because I don’t believe most immigrants can do the work I’m doing. And if they learn how to and I can’t sustain my lifestyle doing what I do today, then I’ll go get some more education and/or training and I’ll figure out how to do something that will pay me what I want to sustain my lifestyle.
If you’re not willing to get more education, training, skills, etc. in order to have the lifestyle you want then you don’t deserve that lifestyle, regardless of outside factors like immigration. Focusing on immigration doesn’t help your situation, it just makes you cranky and keeps you from taking the steps that would truly improve things for you.
I am not afraid of legal immigration, I don’t know anyone that is. Legal immigration is what this country is all about.
I say if you’re in support of granting criminals the same rights as U.S Citizens, then you foot the bill. Billions of dollars will be needed for social programs alone. Your highly educated self will be taxed accordingly.
New Mexico Bob above seems to be afraid of legal immigration, and a great many other people in this country are as well.
And I’m not sure where you got the idea that I’m in favor of granting criminals the same rights as US citizens…apparently I’m not making my points as clearly as I would like to.
It’s almost impossible for me to conceive the thought of having had the same mind set as some of the individuals on this forum. I too believed that our country should’v only been for natural born citizens. However, throughout the course of the past couple months, I have been allowed the opportunity to see beyond myself, and into the lives of the poor souls that have came here in search of better life.
A very close friend of mine, told me about his story. His father, a newly converted Christian (21 years ago), was put in the “black book” for having tried to convert a mass of Catholic believers to Christianity. His father, the father of 6 children, was banned from job opportunities all through-out Mexico. His father had drawn in several enemies, and one night…21 years ago, when my best friend was 1 years old, his life and the life of his family was almost taken. A group of men with knives and torches, approached his home. Their intensions were to kill.
And as God as my witness, I say these following things are true.
His family was crying, the children were scared. And through their desperation, they put their faith in the Lord and began to pray. From the clear dusk sky, a storm unlike any other began to cover the sky. God, came through…he heard their prayers. Hail began to pierce. The storm was so fierce it made all the men flee!
Thank God for his miracles!
Although God’s shower of blessing had saved them. His parents were concerned for the safety of their children. By this time, his wealthy father was stripped of nearly all belongings (extremely corrupt government), and he sold the few things he had left. With this he was able to purchase a visa (all the while paying off corrupt government officials to speed up the process due to the situation.)
His children, and wife, were forced to flee the country by route of the river. Their father would wait at the other side.
Now, 21 years later..my best friend is now 22 years old. And is the hardest worker, and most amazing christian I have ever met. And he cant find a job that can sustain him or his beautiful family. His principles keep him from being dishonest, and searching for an ‘identity.’ Yet he strives for the future. He keeps going to school thru works of his student visa. And even graduated high school at 16 because of how incredibly smart he was.
How is it that a man, as incredible as he is, is punished for something he didnt commit. A man, 21 years in the U.S must suffer, and at earlier moments in his life, go to bed hungry. A man, ready and willing to serve his country, but unable to because of his circumstances. One thing is certain. I may not be a politician, but I won’t rest until I save lives such as his. I can only pray that others would follow my example in this situation. God Bless America.
just try getting into Mex. from any country south of there if you want your head beat in or be killed .dont belive me try it