I Support Amnesty (America, Zen)

[lilithu]

Originally Posted by Wandered Off

I live in a border state, and I haven't seen the hatred you have. Most folks here welcome immigrants with open arms, as long as they got here legally. Maybe it's different in California, though.

It isn't just California. Things may show up in California first but they are percolating in the rest of the country as well.

Given that large numbers of illegal immigrants now work in the Midwest, New York, the Carolinas, pretty much everywhere there is menial labor to be done, illegal immigration doesn't seem to be a "border state" issue anymore. When I first got involved in this issue it was October 2000 in Long Island, NY, when a couple of thugs lured two illegals to a secluded place with the promise of work and beat them nearly to death with baseball bats and golf clubs.

Then there are the stories that I hear/read like this:
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/articl...NGJ66TS9G1.DTL

The most telling quotes being:
"We've got about five more years and this country is ruined...Illegals are destroying our fabric of life."

"Our country is going down the tubes," he said. "The people coming across here, they don't want to be assimilated. They don't want to use our language."

What's heating the immigration debate is not national security. It is as Victor euphemistically put it, "loss of culture."

Originally Posted by Wandered Off

Definitely agree, lilithu. If I were poor without hope and saw a nearby nation offering jobs, I would go too. The blame rests squarely on our own citizens who create the incentives in the first place.

I am, but I don't know whether the majority of people would be. People whine so much about the price of gasoline when it's actually less costly than it was in the 1970s adjusted for inflation, so I doubt many would.

In terms of economic exploitation, I'm not sure that I blame our citizens either. It is the nature of capitalism to always look for cheaper ways of doing things in order to offer the lower price. It's the nature of any system based on competition to look for ways to gain advantages.

As for me, I am very often guilty of buying things based on cheaper price without much thought as to how the prices got so low. I honestly wonder how much everything would cost if everyone were paid a living wage. The fact is that our life styles - even those of us who do not feel we are well off - are subsidized by the sweat of others. And I'm not pretending to have any solutions here. I just get annoyed (not at you) when people blame the very people who are being oppressed.

[Aqualung]

Originally Posted by nutshell

Wow. Unbelievable.

I suggest you read some Romantic and Victorian-era English literature.

Why, do you think it would happen? In a nation that is industrialising, yeah, but in a nation that is already industrialised? We aren't a victorian era nation anymore. I just don't see that this sort of thing would happen to any greater extent than it already happens, and perhaps it would happen less.

[Aqualung]

Originally Posted by jonny

No. They should get a legal wage. Whether or not that is a 'living' wage or the 'minimum' wage is up to the employer.

So are you giving your support to an arbitrary legal wage that is completely independent of a living wage, a minimum wage, or what an employer actually wants to pay?

[Aqualung]

Originally Posted by Victor

What are the non-citizens doing that the poor can't? If the non-citizens can live off the wages, why can't our poor?

Good point.

Originally Posted by Wandered Off

Mostly avoiding income taxes and insurance costs. Not all of our own poor qualify for the free medical care non-citizens get either, it seems.

Good counter point.

[nutshell]

Originally Posted by Aqualung

Why, do you think it would happen? In a nation that is industrialising, yeah, but in a nation that is already industrialised? We aren't a victorian era nation anymore. I just don't see that this sort of thing would happen to any greater extent than it already happens, and perhaps it would happen less.

I guess we'll just have to agree to disagree. There is no doubt in my mind workers would be severely taken advantage of by those in power.

[Aqualung]

Originally Posted by nutshell

I guess we'll just have to agree to disagree. There is no doubt in my mind workers would be severely taken advantage of by those in power.

Fine, we can agree to disagree, but there is no doubt in my mind that at this point in time the workers set the wages, not the employers.

I almost asked you to continue this discussion, but then remembered you don't like to provide sources for anything you said... So yeah, I guess we actually are forced to agree to disagree...

[!Fluffy!]

Originally Posted by Moon Woman

1. HATING: "It seems like everyone is hating on immigrants": You're going to have to make up your mind about whether you want to discuss ILLEGAL immigrants or LEGAL immigrants. To assume all opposition to illegal immigration = "hating" is illogical and detrimental to rational discussion.

2. COST: the estimated net cost per illegal household is $2,736. This is only the estimated cost to the Federal government; in reality local communities bear even more of a burden to their infrastructures. From the Center for Immigration Studies (CIS), Washington, DC, see:

The High Cost of Cheap Labor
Illegal Immigration and the Federal Budget
Findings
Balance of Tax and Cost
Illegals Create Large Net Costs
http://www.cis.org/articles/2004/fis...s.html#Balance

3. SECURITY: by definition an illegal immigrant is undocumented, uninvestigated, unknown, and willing to defy the law.

If you were a serial killer or rapist in Mexico where would you run to escape the law?
If you were a terrorist what would likely be the easiest way to gain entry here?

to assume that all illegal immigrants are hard-working family types is naive.





See Also:

"Prisons, Schools, the Uninsured, and Immigration. There are four areas where the estimated costs illegal households impose are much larger than for other households--treatment for the uninsured, federal aid to schools, federal prisons/courts, and the immigration system."

We don't need no stinkin culture wars. Trying to demonize / mischaracterize anyone for opposing ILLEGAL immigration serves only to radicalize people. It's irrational. It's divisive. Stop it.

The bottom line is that the federal government has failed to enforce the law, resulting in profoundly negative consequences for citizens and imo helping to create a more hostile environment for those who break the law to come here ILLEGALLY.

For those interested in facts rather than (insert invective here) I'd suggest visiting the Center for Immigration Studies for answers.