United States Immigration Laws

[RALFFERS 0]

Do you think immigration laws should be changed?

I've been thinking a lot about how immigration laws are setup in this country and am curious to learn the opinion of others. There is a lot of talk these days about whether or not illegal immigrants should be allowed to live in this country, let alone work here. IMO the economy is in such bad shape that any money brought in to the economy helps; do I care if the person doing that work is black, white, yellow, or purple? No. The illegal immigrants that are already here are going to find ways to work whether we like it or not; it's our choice if we allow the fruits of their labor benefit us as a whole. As it stands, money made by an illegal is sent back to his/her home country because the person intends on returning their and living off the percentage in the bank. While some of that money would continue to be sent to the home country if the person was legal, to support family and whatnot, I'm willing to bet a nice chunk of it would be circulated here, byway of investments or otherwise.

On a personal note, I suspect a lot of us have families abroad and cant see them as often as we would like because the laws are so so strict. In all fairness, I don't know how it is with other countries, but 90& of poles get denied 2,3, even 4-5 times. Not everyone is a terrorist.... Also, I'm all for somewhat strict laws in the name of safety, but also believe that people should be given more options in becoming legal; many of you mat or may not know that it right now is virtually impossible. America's slogan is "secure borders, open doors"; I believe we should live up to that

America didn't get to be where it was in the 90's over night. Just some food for thought.

Dialogue/commentary between Divot, Twardo & myself -

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[Broke 0]

All of my grandparents and great grandparents came to this country in the leagle fashion. They observed all the laws, and most importantly as soon as they landed on this shore they spoke english.

Divot your source for all things Hillbilly.
Anvil Brother 84
SCR 14192

[kenz 0]

i smell speakers corner

"life does throw curveballs sometimes but it doesn't mean we shouldn't still swing for the homerun" ~ me

[RALFFERS 0]

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i smell speakers corner

Originally, I was going to post this in speakers corner, but figured more people came here. If this gets moved, it gets moved, so be it

Dialogue/commentary between Divot, Twardo & myself -

"from your first Oshkosh when the three of us were riding to or from one of

[sundevil777 94]

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The illegal immigrants that are already here are going to find ways to work whether we like it or not

I think that conclusion is not at all justified. We have the technology, all it takes is the will to allow an appropriate national ID, and for employers to see that they will get busted if they don't check credentials. I like Ann Coulter's idea of allowing illegal aliens to sue their employers for paying below minimum wage.

I think if the illegal immigration is stopped, then there should be much more legal immigration allowed.

People are sick and tired of being told that ordinary and decent people are fed up in this country with being sick and tired. I’m certainly not, and I’m sick and tired of being told that I am

[RALFFERS 0]

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All of my grandparents and great grandparents came to this country in the leagle fashion. They observed all the laws, and most importantly as soon as they landed on this shore they spoke english.

My mom, dad and I came here over 21 years ago when I was 5 years old, the rest of my family that is here also came and remains in a liggeitt fashion. Under normal circumstances I wouldn't support illegal immigrants working, but again, the economy is in such bad shape that we need all the help that we can get, Honestly, I'm more for people coming over and getting a legal residency if they choose. However, thats almost impossible because there are little or no options for that.

Dialogue/commentary between Divot, Twardo & myself -

"from your first Oshkosh when the three of us were riding to or from one of

[waltappel 1]

Me too. In fact, I'll help it along.

Those damn Mexicans are flooding over our border. Why don't we just sign the country over to them?

Walt

[Kidd 0]

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i smell speakers corner

That's why we have moderators.

[warpedskydiver 0]

I don't care if they have pink polka dots on a chartreuse background.

No other country in this world would tolerate illegals sneaking into their country.

Neither should we.

That fact that this is a highly debated subject is simply stupid.

[Nightingale 0]

I think that in order to solve the problem, we need to address the reason people are immigrating to begin with.

1. Here's better than there (for whatever reason).
2. Here's better than there, and they can't get here legally. There's waiting lists that are decades long for people from some countries.
3. There's work here, and people willing to hire.

So, here's Nightingale's immigration plan:

1. Eliminate the minimum wage. Allow employers the ability to pay what the job is actually worth, rather than what the state says it is worth. You remove the incentive to hire illegals here, and open up the below-minimum job market to legal people.

2. Place very high fines on anyone found to be hiring illegal immigrants without performing proper ID/SSN checks. If a few people get put out of business, then, we have now removed the incentive to hire illegals (step 1), and put in place a strong incentive not to hire them (step 2).

3. Allow business owners to go to another country to hire, provided they can show they did not have sufficient qualified applicants who are already here legally. Anyone hired in another country may come here for the duration of the job, and then has 90 days to find another job, or back they go. Their green-card is valid for only 90 days beyond the anticipated duration of the job, and may be renewed only with documentation of continued employment. If a worker is no longer employed for any reason, the employer who hired them must notify immigration.

4. Anyone convicted of a violent crime or a felony is deported with no opportunity for re-entry.

5. There is no "you're born here, so you're a citizen." You are a citizen if one of your parents was a citizen. Otherwise, you are a legal resident until age 18 (or as long as you're still in high school, top age of 20), if one of your parents is a legal resident. Citizenship is granted only if you obtain a high school diploma or equivalent. Otherwise, 90 days after leaving school without a high school diploma or equivalent, you must be employed, or you will be deported. Exceptions to deportation can be made if a child is disabled and living in the home of a parent.

6. If a parent becomes a citizen while his/her children are under age 18, the children are then also citizens. Children over 18 must attain citizenship on their own.

[JohnRich 4]

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Do you think immigration laws should be changed?

The question is invalid.

The laws we have are fine.

But they need to be enforced!

[masterrig 1]

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Me too. In fact, I'll help it along.

Those damn Mexicans are flooding over our border. Why don't we just sign the country over to them?

Walt

_______________________________

Just hang in there... you just might see that!


Chuck

[masterrig 1]

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Do you think immigration laws should be changed?

The question is invalid.

The laws we have are fine.

But they need to be enforced!

________________________________________

You bet! The damned politicians just have the Border Patrol by the balls. Big business wants the 'cheap' labor so, who do the politicians answer to? Damned sure, isn't the 'people'.


Chuck

[billvon 2,406]

>Big business wants the 'cheap' labor so, who do the politicians answer
>to? Damned sure, isn't the 'people'.

Problem is that the people want the fruits of that cheap labor as well (literally.) Most people are all for better policing of the border, but do not want to pay more for food, alcohol, garbage collection, hotels, landscaping etc etc. Thus politicians are in the impossible position of trying to stem the flow of illegal aliens without affecting the industries that people count on.

[kallend 1,635]

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I think that in order to solve the problem, we need to address the reason people are immigrating to begin with.

1. Here's better than there (for whatever reason).
2. Here's better than there, and they can't get here legally. There's waiting lists that are decades long for people from some countries.
3. There's work here, and people willing to hire.

So, here's Nightingale's immigration plan:

1. Eliminate the minimum wage. Allow employers the ability to pay what the job is actually worth, rather than what the state says it is worth. You remove the incentive to hire illegals here, and open up the below-minimum job market to legal people.

2. Place very high fines on anyone found to be hiring illegal immigrants without performing proper ID/SSN checks. If a few people get put out of business, then, we have now removed the incentive to hire illegals (step 1), and put in place a strong incentive not to hire them (step 2).

3. Allow business owners to go to another country to hire, provided they can show they did not have sufficient qualified applicants who are already here legally. Anyone hired in another country may come here for the duration of the job, and then has 90 days to find another job, or back they go. Their green-card is valid for only 90 days beyond the anticipated duration of the job, and may be renewed only with documentation of continued employment. If a worker is no longer employed for any reason, the employer who hired them must notify immigration.

.

So are ALL immigrants treated as non-resident guest workers with a 90 day window to find another job when one job is lost, or do you also have an equivalent of the current resident alien who is expected to become a citizen?

I think you'd find that many of the SKILLED professionals you WANT to come here would find the 90 day provision difficult/impossible to comply with. Not ALL immigrants are busboys or lawn care service workers.

...

The only sure way to survive a canopy collision is not to have one.

[Nightingale 0]

While I wasn't specifically addressing skilled labor, I don't think it's unreasonable to require people who want to immigrate here to be either in school or employed once they get here. I'm all for keeping and even expanding the student visa program, and the other professional visa programs already in place, and permit the people who get those visas to begin the citizenship process once they're here.

It seems like the biggest objection to immigration is that people come here with no work, and leech off of the system. I don't think that's a problem with skilled professionals, and I'd like to see more of them.

[masterrig 1]

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>Big business wants the 'cheap' labor so, who do the politicians answer
>to? Damned sure, isn't the 'people'.

Problem is that the people want the fruits of that cheap labor as well (literally.) Most people are all for better policing of the border, but do not want to pay more for food, alcohol, garbage collection, hotels, landscaping etc etc. Thus politicians are in the impossible position of trying to stem the flow of illegal aliens without affecting the industries that people count on.

______________________________________

Thanks, Bill!
Sounds like a bit of a 'double-edged sword'. People don't want the illegals, people don't want higher prices for goods. Just the old story... you can't have it all. I would rather see our borders secured and take my chances with higher prices.


Chuck

[warpedskydiver 0]

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>Big business wants the 'cheap' labor so, who do the politicians answer
>to? Damned sure, isn't the 'people'.

Problem is that the people want the fruits of that cheap labor as well (literally.) Most people are all for better policing of the border, but do not want to pay more for food, alcohol, garbage collection, hotels, landscaping etc etc. Thus politicians are in the impossible position of trying to stem the flow of illegal aliens without affecting the industries that people count on.

You were appointed spokesman for every living american?

Wow that is a huge honor.

[misaltas 0]

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So, here's Nightingale's immigration plan:

Pretty interesting 1-6 there, except you can drive a mack truck through #3.

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3. Allow business owners to go to another country to hire, provided they can show they did not have sufficient qualified applicants who are already here legally.

Let's say I have a house painting business and employ 10 people at $16 an hour each. I shut down my business, lay off the workers, and start up later and advertise 10 painter jobs for $8 an hour each, no benefits either. Darned if I can't find any qualified workers at that rate, but I'm trying! Well, guess I'll use your #3 to advertise in the Matamoros Gazette and instantly get 10 takers. I'm back in business.

Market forces work great when the labor market is limited to the US. Add a third-world country into that market and maybe you eventually end up with two third-world countries.

Ohne Liebe sind wir nichts

[popsjumper 2]

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... I like Ann Coulter's idea of allowing illegal aliens to sue their employers for paying below minimum wage.

If that happens, that wave of illegals will become a tsunami.

Ann Coulter is a wacko horse's ass.

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I think if the illegal immigration is stopped...

Ain't gonna happen. Politicians and law enforcement as a group don't have the balls to make it happen.

Voters as a group don't have the balls to elect those who would try.

My reality and yours are quite different.
I think we're all Bozos on this bus.
Falcon5232, SCS8170, SCSA353, POPS9398, DS239

[DrewEckhardt 0]

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Market forces work great when the labor market is limited to the US.

The labor market is already global. Consumer goods are made in China where auto workers can be paid $1 an hour ($170 a month) instead of up to $27 hourly from Delphi. Intellectual property is produced in India where you can hire software engineers with a few years experience for $5000 a year instead of $50,000 for a fresh US CS graduate. Wages here are dropping to compensate - the Delphi guys are now earning $14.50-$18 an hour which only gets partway there. I make less in inflation adjusted dollars than I did five years ago.

When your customer's wages drop in real money the price of your services and therefore wages paid must drop too.

At least if we bring the labor here the wages need to be sufficient to support American housing and food prices.

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Add a third-world country into that market and maybe you eventually end up with two third-world countries.

While we could theoretically slap a prohibitive tariff on foreign goods there's no way of telling that an idea came from India or Indiana.

The people in developing countries like consumer goods too with Chinese moving from bicycles to cars and the increased demand for labor must result in higher wages.

Eventually we'll have a more uniform, industrialized world where the standard (and cost) of living is higher elsewhere and lower here. We just need to figure out how to keep that as reasonable as it can be - with the worlds' poor becoming like our own (less than 2% of us lack refridgeration and color TVs) and our middle class not living 10 to a room.

[Andrewwhyte 1]

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IMO the economy is in such bad shape that any money brought in to the economy helps;

Either you are very young or you seriously need to move. There are problems with the US economy (there always are) but if you think the economy is really that bad you must not be old enough to remember a real recession.

[Richards 0]

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1. Eliminate the minimum wage. Allow employers the ability to pay what the job is actually worth, rather than what the state says it is worth. You remove the incentive to hire illegals here, and open up the below-minimum job market to legal people.

Ouch. I have heard some economists make this argument but do we really want to do that to lower skilled workers? I am sure somone can point out a study with a big econometric model that says this is good but what about the human factor? What are the negative side effects of this? I agree with keeping minimum wage in check so as to encourage people to invest in their human capital ( and not squeeze people out of employment), but not having any? How will this impact inner city ghetto families that are already struggling to make ends meet?

Oh, and I agree completely with the other reccomendations.

My biggest handicap is that sometimes the hole in the front of my head operates a tad bit faster than the grey matter contained within.

[mnealtx 0]

Actually, there's studies that show that a mandatory minimum wage actually HURTS the lowest earning people. Businesses tend to lay off the lowest skilled people when that happens, or not hire as many people as planned due to the extra expense.

Mike
I love you, Shannon and Jim.
POPS 9708 , SCR 14706

[Nightingale 0]

In addition to the above post, the minimum wage doesn't actually help lower wage workers at all. It just causes inflation, making everyone's money worth less. Example with some rough estimates:

All strawberry pickers must now be paid $7.00 per hour. Since one worker can pick one basket of strawberries per hour, including breaktimes, Strawberries now cost $10.00 per basket, once you include overhead. The strawberries are sold to a restaurant, and the restaurant must now pay more for the strawberries to bake pies and make fruit salads. The restaurant must also now pay all of its workers $7.00 per hour. Since the restaurant wants to stay in business, and the cost of labor and ingredients has now risen, the restaurant must raise its prices or go bankrupt. Your burger and fruit salad that was previously $6 now costs $10.

The problem with minimum wage is that people who propose it forget that the money must come from somewhere. The money comes from businesses, who must then raise prices to stay in business. When businesses raise prices, our dollar buys less.