Immigration Reform

[The Sum of Awe]

I voted "there shouldn't be boarders at all"

 

[Trey of Diamonds]

When I moved to the UK, it took two days to get my Visa: long enough for the paperwork to arrive in the embassy, get stamped and be sent back to me. As far as immigration is concerned Canada is a total disgrace.

To be fair, the UK is surrounded by that cool moat going around the whole country and Canada has been nervous over an invasion from the south since 1812.

All kidding aside, I didn't know Canada had it that bad. Hope things get better.

 

[Kilgore Trout]

Most immigrants I've known embody the ideals of America more than most Americans now, so, as long as they are law-abiding and working, I only see that it can help this country. Most Americans could actually learn a thing or two from immigrants - for some mysterious reason, they often seem to have far fewer problems achieving success than lazy and coddled Americans.

 

[Quiddity]

It's not the cartel's that are using the boarder for drug running, its the independants and their numbers are rather large. Still, I think the number of drug related crossings are pretty low statistically compared to worker crossings.

It's suicide to be an Independent; that is a thing of the past. That is precisely what why so many deaths are happening in Mexico; you are either with one cartel network or you are not.

 

[Trey of Diamonds]

for some mysterious reason, they often seem to have far fewer problems achieving success than lazy and coddled Americans.

A lot of that has to do with how they measure success. Too many Americans equate success with not having to actually work for a living.

 

[Trey of Diamonds]

It's suicide to be an Independent; that is a thing of the past. That is precisely what why so many deaths are happening in Mexico; you are either with one cartel network or you are not.

I thought the current problem had more to do with sending a message to the government to stop listening to the US and enforcing drug laws. If the government would stop trying to wage the drug war the violence would stop.

There will always be independants who fly under the radar.

 

[Quiddity]

I thought the current problem had more to do with sending a message to the government to stop listening to the US and enforcing drug laws. If the government would stop trying to wage the drug war the violence would stop.

There will always be independants who fly under the radar.

The fighting is mostly cartel vs. cartel. That would be a lousy way to send a message don't you think? Believe it or not, the government is less of a problem to them.

 

[Trey of Diamonds]

The fighting is mostly cartel vs. cartel. That would be a lousy way to send a message don't you think? Believe it or not, the government is less of a problem to them.

Yeah, yeah, I know, Wiki is a lousy source, but still.

Mexican Drug War - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Although violence between drug cartels had been occurring long before the war began, the government held a generally passive stance regarding cartel violence in the 1990s and early 2000s. That changed on December 11, 2006, when newly elected President Felipe Calderón sent 6,500 federal troops to the state of Michoacán to end drug violence there (Operation Michoacan). This action is regarded as the first major operation against organized crime, and is generally viewed as the starting point of the war between the government and the drug cartels. As time progressed, Calderón continued to escalate his anti-drug campaign, in which there are now about 45,000 troops involved in addition to state and federal police forces. In 2010 Calderón said that the cartels seek "to replace the government" and "are trying to impose a monopoly by force of arms, and are even trying to impose their own laws."

 

[Quiddity]

Yeah, yeah, I know, Wiki is a lousy source, but still.

Mexican Drug War - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

I don't know about lousy, it's just more complex then any one article can describe. Honestly, no one knows the full story but corrupt goverment officials and cartels.

 

[Trey of Diamonds]

I don't know about lousy, it's just more complex then any one article can describe. Honestly, no one knows the full story but corrupt goverment officials and cartels.

I'm sure it is complex but the facts remain. Violence grew when the government began to take the drug war more seriously. I believe we may be on the verge of a Cartel government in Mexico and that would be a very bad thing for us.

 

[Trey of Diamonds]

Does 'secure the border' mean 'keep America white'?

We must secure the border.

The candidates will argue that it's a matter of national security. That it isn't just the friendly illegal immigrants looking for work we must worry about, but terrorists, drug lords and other criminals who seek to make their way through our porous border. They will say if they were president they would build walls, add troops, even commission a Death Star to keep this country safe.

Newt Gingrich has promised to build a double fence along the entire southern border, adding, ""The United States must control its border. It is a national security imperative,"

Ron Paul said "If elected president, I would move to quickly end foreign nation building efforts and use many of the resources we waste playing world's policemen to control our southern border."

They all will receive applause, and it will all sound great ... until you realize that "secure the border" is slang for "keep the Mexicans out."

Oh boy, here comes the black guy playing the race card again.

Yep, that's me -- pointing out that the Canadian border is largely ignored in this dialogue despite being more than twice the size of the Mexican border and less than 1% secure, according to a 2011 report by the Government Accountability Office. Even if we were to disregard the 1,538 miles between Alaska and Canada, the 3,987 mile border connecting the lower 48 to our neighbors up north is still much larger than the 1,933-mile stretch that connects us to Mexico.

 

[Neo-Logic]

I would like to make two points that nicely summarizes a complicated topic: the uniqueness of the America v. Mexico situation and primary elections.

1) America and Mexico situation is like no other in the entire world.

There is no other instance on Earth of one extremely wealthy country as rich as the US situated right next to a country as extremely poor as Mexico that shares a contiguous and porous border as wide as ours. Also complicating the situation is that America is not a racially homogeneous society and is a place where Mexican-Americans make up the largest ethnic population coming in at over 50 million or 16.3% of the populace (source). This makes the hispanic voter bloc, which is concentrated only in several southern states/ states sharing a border with Mexico, very important and also interesting in national and local elections.

2) UNLIKE the FEMALE ORGASM, the solution to the immigration problem actually exists. The problem is the political will, specifically the damn primary elections.

Seeing as how there's no way in hell we'll be able to 1) identify all of and 2) round up humanely all 12-18 million undocumented Mexicans already living in the U.S without resorting to Draconian methods, the only solution is one that approaches the issue from all sides and these are no brainers--they have been proposed and many tested and have been around for a very long time, just never used. Here are a few:

-Work visa programs: Let's face it, Americans don't aspire to pick fruits and vegetables, but we do like to eat them! So the solution is to let those to whom picking fruits vegetables and agriculture is a real economic opportunity that can make a difference do them! In the 60's and 70's, there was a work-visa program that let Mexicans enter during harvest seasons and leave in off-season to see their families that worked great but slowly died off. Government was able to tax the wages, keep track of who is coming in and out and the program worked great.

-Path to legalization for those already inside: Existing proposals call for payment of a fine (exempted for students in university or university/ college eligible students), pass a criminal background check, and start with a conditional visa and work their way to a permanent residency status, like any other immigrant.

So the solutions are a dime a dozen, and with many great ideas from both sides. But most of these gets drowned out in the media by more polarizing and extreme ideas from mainly the right-wing, which makes the political cost of any Republican/ right-wing voting in favor of any sensible solutions extremely costly and even detrimental.

The reason is because of primary elections. In case you're not from America, primary elections are elections where voters identified as that party can vote for whom they would like their party's single candidate to be in the main/ national elections. The problem is that the people that turn out for primaries are only a very small percentage of the entire party's voter base, yet are very passionate and vocal about issues, making their opinions nowhere near the voter's median and instead very extreme to one end.

But all candidates know they cannot get elected in the main elections unless they win primaries so they try to appeal to extreme views of the small percentage of extreme voter bloc within the party and as a result, through competition with other candidates, end up having very extreme or right-wing ideologies and campaign promises that they can neither take back nor accomplish once elected, creating grid-lock and more tension.

That's America's immigration policy grid-lock cluster-**** for you in a nut-shell.

 

[Trey of Diamonds]

That's America's immigration policy grid-lock cluster-**** for you in a nut-shell.

And presented very well thank you. What did you think of Bush's reform policy? It was one of the few things he tried to do that I completely supported and his own party destroyed it.

Senate kills Bush immigration reform bill | Reuters

The bill tied tough border security and workplace enforcement measures to a plan to legalize an estimated 12 million illegal immigrants, most from Latin America, and to create a temporary worker program sought by business groups.


It also would have created a merit-based system for future immigrants, something conservative Republicans sought.


The bill was the fruit of months of negotiations by a group of Republican and Democratic senators and the White House.


But the president was unable to overcome fierce opposition from fellow Republicans who said it was an amnesty that rewarded illegal immigrants. A majority of Republicans in the House of Representatives also opposed the Senate bill.

The legislation failed to garner even a simple majority.


Only 33 Democrats, 12 Republicans and one independent voted to advance the bill, while 15 Democrats joined 37 Republicans and one independent to block it.


Five of the six senators running for president voted in favor of the overhaul: Republican John McCain and Democrats Hillary Clinton, Barack Obama, Christopher Dodd and Joe Biden.


In Los Angeles, a high-profile supporter of immigration reform, Roman Catholic Cardinal Roger Mahony, said the current system "will continue to permit the exploitation of workers, the separation of families, and will handicap efforts to secure our nation's borders."