[OT] day without immigrants?

[snowtires]

This actually meant something to the people who would have to stop at Ellis Island before they could officially enter the U.S.

Things changed after the "game was locked" so to speak. Every group of immigrants that has come to this country has endured severe prejudice and distrust until they established themselves in this society. When the Irish came they were trash, when the polish came they were trash, when the haitans came they were also trash. It seems like unfortunately the groups that were oppressed become the oppressers as soon as they have a hand up. That's the kind of thing that made affirmative action necessarry. If people were different it wouldn't be.

The problem as I see it is that Americans don't generally value the work that the undocumented workers do. If they were sent out we would quickly find a way to bring them back after everything went to hell in a handbasket. The problem with that is if we then have them cross the borders legally we are obligated to pay them fair wages. This would challenge our standard of living to such a degree that it would disrupt our economy heavily. That is not something the credit card and financial companies want. As long as money is cycling around and being spent they are earning interest.

The people that are let in are mostly higher educated in specialized fields. Doctors are a good example. We don't have the talent in that field that some other countries have. European doctors come over here in droves because they can make way more than they could in their own country due to capped wages and the socialized healthcare system that forces them though many more hoops than here. We allow a lot of Saudi and Indian people trained in math, science, and computer science. We again don't have enough of that talent. These countries major export is intellectual.

They still get payed less than 'natural' americans so it is a win-win for us.

Other's that come in to do menial labor are not valued as highly and as I said earlier allowing them legal entrance works to the economies disadvantage.

That is why they are kept illegal.

at my last job, i actually had to train the indian who was getting my outsourced job, once he moved back to india. but, boy am i glad that paying those low wages to non-citizens is keeping our economy afloat, it sure helped me out a ton.

[blakbeltjonez]

But... AMERICANS are immigrants ,too...or where did they come from?
EUROPE !!!
The only people from America were the native americans and they were killed or sent to reservations long ago.

Somebody has to do the dirty job that Americans don't do (lazy? ) and that's exactly what immigrants do in this country.

unfortunately that's not entirely true - as far as the very menial jobs like fruit picking go, foreign workers are allowed to come in and work on an H-2 visa. but illegal immigrants have made very significant inroads in areas like construction and have driven down the wages of skilled trades. that is fact.

lots of Americans work at dirty and difficult jobs, but the key is *how much will an employer pay* to have that job done? it's a corporate wild wet dream to have an army of low paid unskilled/semi-skilled foreign workers who will tolerate living in abysmal conditions and are easily controlled by institutional intimidation ("don't organize the rest of the workers, Jorge, or we will call the INS on you"). as long as corporate influence runs the government, don't expect a resolution on illegal immigration (or corporate tax reform), or adequate border enforcement. illegal immigration been a massive problem in border states for a long time, and there's a reason nothing's been done about it.

like the vast majority of everyday Americans, i pay taxes and what i pay for keeps up infrastructure (and pays for insane neocon-conceived wars, but that's another gripe for another time). i live in a dwelling and have to abide by the local laws and ordinances. undocumented aliens don't pay anything other than sales taxes but they use the same resources that i have to pay for, and part of my taxes subsidizes thier health care, school for thier children, and other social services they need. most of these resources are stretched to the breaking point - particularly schools. many illegal immigrants live in apartments and houses with far too many occupants, taking up far too many parking spaces with cars that are very often not legally registered or insured. this is a phenomenon you can see in many areas of the country now, not just in border states but in any sizeable metro area or any place where there's a demand for under-the-table work.


having said all that, the idea of sending all illegal aliens to jail (whether they are Central American,Chinese,Carribean, etc.) is utterly insane, just as insane as building The Great Wall Of Mexico. everyone's full of ideas, but no one seems to take the next step and ask "Jesus Christ, how for fuck's sake do we pay for that?" this country is already merrily skipping along in a handbasket to hell, half a trillion bucks into a war that won't be over for 3-5 years. the Chinese are buying Treasury bills to the tune of a billion dollars a day which keeps the US economic house of cards prropped up for the time being. what would a wall a couple thousand miles long cost to build? i'll bet you'd need illegal aliens to build it.... the irony would be too much. the U.S. also bears the distinction of having the highest incarceration rate of any industrialized nation, currently around 2 million people and going up. it's a gigantic industry subsidized by little ol' taxpayers like me, and the privatization of the penal system is quietly making more corporations rich - no fucking way do i want to pay for internment of a million more, let alone 12-15-20-whatever million.

the idea of an open border is equally ridiculous - Mexico doesn't have a handle on it's own internal problems, especially in the north. having a *more* porous border would be opening a Pandora's box. great for poor people in Central America and Norteno drug syndicates, disastrous for the U.S., which would slide further down the path of a quasi-Third World country. it would be sweet for corporations though.

there are already laws in place that require employers to check any potential hire's legal working status, and that law has been in place for 20 years. but like many laws in this country, it isn't enforced. if companies that hire illegal workers are held accountable the problem would eventually shrink down to something manageable. workers who are currently illegal need to be documented, pay some sort of income/FICA tax, and be retroactively work visa'd with the provision that they need to return to thier native country and reapply for a visa when the retroactive one expires. now, i don't know how that would be practically implemented but it would have to be cheaper than these other crazy half-baked ideas that come from an emotional xenophobic knee-jerk response.

and as much as i bitterly resent the fact that resident U.S. children get the short end of the stick, the kids of illegal aliens *have* to get some degree of education because it's not thier fault they are in the situation they're in. and an uneducated kid more often than not turns into a problem adult.

there has to be some sort of assimilation to get these people documented and in the loop and paying thier fair share, but not reward them with permanent residency - otherwise, why would *anyone* bother immigrating legally? it's not easy to do, and as a legal immigrant to the U.S., it pisses me off to no end to see the sense of entitlement some of the illegal immigrants and thier organizers feel they deserve. it's absolutely asinine, and as always there are people with thier own agendas behind the curtain, stirring up the mix. regardless of how you feel, if you don't go through legitimate channels to get in the country you are by definition an illegal alien *because you haven't entered the country through legal means, or you have chosen to stay longer than your visa allowed for*.

if you take a look at the laws of Mexico, for example, you'll see that even legitimate legal foreign nationals don't have voting or property rights that citizens have. there are restrictive employment and income requirements that are designed to protect the interests of Mexican citizens from foreigners coming to work, and rightly so. so why is it such a bad thing for the U.S.? many industrialized European countries, the same problems exist as in the U.S., although i would say probably not quite on the same scale - France, Germany, UK, etc, all have significant populations of immigrants who have not bothered to assimilate, i believe France found out last year how that can turn out. i am not saying i'm entirely unsympathetic to the plight of any immigrant that feels that they have to leave thier country of origin, but like the old saying goes, "get in where you fit in".


sorry for the rambling, but as a long time U.S. legal resident and having lived in a couple of other countries, developed and not-so-developed, i thought i would toss in my three cents.

[blakbeltjonez]

The US economy was kick started by slavery, illeagals are the new slaves, this isn't completely an issue of who wants to do what jobs.

Illeagals cannot form unions, have OSHA protection, sue for wrongdoing and they can get paid under the table for less money. The GOP wants to keep them in the country and keep them illeagal.

KBR (Halliburton subsidiary) has been contracted to build "temporary" detention centers for immigrants

The detention centers can be just another way to kick money down to Halliburton, regardless of their true purpose.

most of the industrialized European nations derived a huge benefit from slavery - Britain, Spain, France, Belgium, The Netherlands, etc....... through colonialism of the Carribean, Africa and Asia. there are very few countries that are entirely without blame. even in Western and North Africa, Arab traders and indigenous tribes were active participants in the slave trade.

but i dunno if i would equate illegal workers with slavery - the workers still have the luxury of (limited) choice, a slave didn't. a slave also had to endure the threat of severe punishment or death, and in many cases was worked to death.

[rtopia]

i find it rather telling that capital and corporations can cross borders freely, but people cannot. kinda shows the priorities, doesn't it?

in the current configuration:

capital and corporations aren't nearly the resource drain on "services paid by taxpayers" that "people" are.

Would you support abolishing all taxpayer paid free services in exchange for a more "wide open" immigration policy?

(which is already more wide open than just about any other country on the planet)

- r


ps. (edited for clarity's sake) maybe if: businesses were forced to operate free of subsidies and people were be forced to operate free of subsidies, everyone in general would be less concerned about "where we come from" and focus on enjoying and making "where we are NOW" a better place.

I personally love the idea that I live in a country that could be a sanctuary for "individuals" fleeing from socieities that don't encourage individuality for whatever reason. The downside of this debate for me (even outside this board) is that the number of American "individuals" with their arms open to other individuals seems to be dwindling.

(besides - Latina's are hot! - I'm not in a hurry to see them deported)

[djshiva]

in the current configuration:

capital and corporations aren't nearly the resource drain on "services paid by taxpayers" that "people" are.

well, considering that most large corporations get out of paying taxes that could be used to support said services, instead placing the burden of paying for those programs on the shoulders of average citizens with average incomes...who do you think is really the resource drain here?

it's called a red herring. pay attention to the hubbub so you never really delve deeply into the inner workings and realize who is getting played...

[rtopia]

in the current configuration:

capital and corporations aren't nearly the resource drain on "services paid by taxpayers" that "people" are.

well, considering that most large corporations get out of paying taxes that could be used to support said services, instead placing the burden of paying for those programs on the shoulders of average citizens with average incomes...who do you think is really the resource drain here?

that's where your "not exactly right"

Corporations don't "get out of paying taxes" - they get "tax breaks"
They still pay taxes - they just pay them at lower rates.
In real dollars - they still pay more than the average person.

Blame corporations and other "capital producers" all you want - but - at the end of the day they're the ones providing the jobs.

They don't employ us because they "need us" - employing us allows them to spend more time on creating more wealth (which in turn employs more people).

If anyone has a better way of doing it - start your own company and show us how.

[djshiva]

that's where your "not exactly right"

Corporations don't "get out of paying taxes" - they get "tax breaks"
They still pay taxes - they just pay them at lower rates.
In real dollars - they still pay more than the average person.

semantics. they pay less than their fair share because of said "tax breaks".

how exactly does "tax breaks" NOT equal "get out of paying taxes"? i never said they didn't pay ANY taxes. but the lion's share of the tax burden for social programs STILL falls mostly on the middle class, and that is a problem when the middle class is struggling more and more to keep up. proportionately, average citizens carry more of the burden than the companies that make billions, and to me, that's a problem.

when companies like ford take tax breaks that were given to them as "job creation initiatives", pocket the money and cut 10, 000 jobs...there is a BIG problem with those tax breaks. it's not helping working people in this country; instead, it's breaking us...

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/co ... 01582.html

[b0unce]

the middle class deserve everything they get.

so long as that's the shit-end of the flaming pain&infection-stick.