Amnesty for illegals.

This seems to be a hot topic... so I just wanted to give a friendly reminder to try to keep things as "civilized" as possible.

If you are referring to the insult back on the other page, the person edited it out of his post.


Now that that's out of the way. I would like to point out that many strong economies have historically needed a form of "migrant" labor (i.e Japan has Korea and South Africa had bantustan/homelands).

No one I know is opposed to LEGAL migrant labor especially for seasonal agricultural work.


Here is something to ponder about. A good friend used to work for the border patrol but after years of noticing the same trend he decided to quit. What he noticed is that during certain times of the year they would be told not to patrol certain areas of the border and instead to patrol less active areas. Again, I emphasis, our current economic model relies heavily on migrant labor.

He was told that because it serves business interests for cheap labor that is easy to exploit. I have heard other BP stories that were similar.

It's complete crap too, telling them to turn a blind eye to lawbreakers just to favor business interests. Just because something is currently being done does not make it right.
 
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Just to clarify, when I cited the need for migrant labor by other major economies I was actually referring to so called "illegal" migrant labor. Like has been pointed out many times before, if there was no demand for "illegal" migrant labor then these "illegals" would not come here in the first place. This is why I believe strongly in implementing heavier fines for those businesses that continue to hire them.


PS: I just don't want personal attacks to get in the way of such a great discussion.... it was just a friendly reminder, don't worry, I too understand that abuse of authority will also render this discussion useless.
 
Just to clarify, when I cited the need for migrant labor by other major economies I was actually referring to so called "illegal" migrant labor. Like has been pointed out many times before, if there was no demand for "illegal" migrant labor then these "illegals" would not come here in the first place. This is why I believe strongly in implementing heavier fines for those businesses that continue to hire them.

I can surely agree with that !

It is not difficult to see the position in which some business owners are placed, particularly smaller business owners .
But even so,
the status quo is unacceptable chiefly because it calls on the middle and lower classes to pick up the tab for that situation.
They pick up the tab in terms of tax dollars and (as per the article and the other two websites I posted) that is significant and will not be relieved by income taxes the illegal immigrants would pay if granted amnesty citizenship.

But the middle and lower classes - particularly the lower classes - also pick up that tab in terms of stressed infrastructure, in the areas they populate.
For example,
I live in a border state and at one point a full half of our elementary schools in my town were "on probation" because of failing scores.
Why?
It was due to the strain of that influx of non-English speaking children ...contrary to what some people might think, the program is not "immersion" at all - instead everything is translated for them which of course slows down the learning of the entire class.

I have some additional material I'd like to offer, let me go get that.
 
This is a site I happened to see which summarizes one portion of the CIS section I alluded to (saggyjones asked me to link it and instead I had given him a link to a more left leaning source which I thought he might prefer).
It addresses the problem of the saturated pool of labor which is what was being explored in the sponge analogy:

From www.familysecuritymatters.org:

As for the economic impact of illegal immigration, I would urge you to read a report for the Center for Immigration Studies by no less an authority than George J. Borjas, a noted economist and the Robert W. Scrivner Professor of Economics and Social Policy at the John F. Kennedy School of Government, Harvard University. You can find this report at:

http://www.cis.org/articles/2004/back504.html

To sum up some of Prof. Borjas' findings:

. By increasing the supply of labor between 1980 and 2000 immigration reduced the average annual earnings of native-born men by an estimated $1,700 or roughly 4 percent.

. Among natives without a high school education, who roughly correspond to the poorest tenth of the workforce, the estimated impact was even larger, reducing their wages by 7.4 percent.

. The 10 million native-born workers without a high school degree face the most competition from immigrants, as do the eight million younger natives with only a high school education and 12 million younger college graduates.

. The negative effect on native-born black and Hispanic workers is significantly larger than on whites because a much larger share of minorities are in direct competition with immigrants.

. The reduction in earnings occurs regardless of whether the immigrants are legal or illegal, permanent
or temporary. It is the presence of additional workers that reduces wages, not their legal status.

His report was prepared in 2004. Obviously, the rapid increase in the number of illegal aliens in the United States can only have exacerbated the impact on wages since then.
 
PS: I just don't want personal attacks to get in the way of such a great discussion.... it was just a friendly reminder, don't worry, I too understand that abuse of authority will also render this discussion useless.

Know what you are talking about there, I saw that first hand on a couple of other boards. Your level of moderator involvement here is excellent in my opinion.
 
Know what you are talking about there, I saw that first hand on a couple of other boards. Your level of moderator involvement here is excellent in my opinion.

Thanks, I appreciate it. Please always feel free to notify us whenever you may start seeing any of us abuse our power--even if that is me or the Admin (hehehe).

Lilly, I appreciate the sources.. they are excellent.

My main problem is that I don't really see a clear solution to the problem--I almost feel like I could literally choose and pick any side and argue this issue and still make quite valid points. I know this is possible with almost any topic of debate but I think it is more so with this issue.
 
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I guess the reasons this issue seems clear cut to me are:

1. It is never fair - it never will be fair - for one segment of the population to accrue a non-emergency benefit at the expense of another segment, especially if that other segment is already in a more unfortunate position.

[The benefit is to business owners; that benefit is a steady pool of cheap, docile, easily-manipulated labor with no bargaining leverage of their own.
The class who pays for it is the lower middle and lower class of this country - already two of the most vulnerable groups of US citizens.]

2. No matter what benefits we can cite ...even to consumers as a result of keeping costs down ...
they are possible only secondary to exploitation of the foreign nationals.
Thus, that puts us in a similar position to those who derived benefits from slavery and on another level also to those who lived in the last days of the Roman Empire.

3. Even if we were to reward the illegal entry with citizenship, that would not in any way ameliorate the problems presented to the lower-middle and lower classes from importing direct competition against them, as my citations have shown.
 
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