It's true that the american indians (I do not and will never call them "native americans) let a bunch of immigrants into their country, and look what happened to them.  

BTW, I find it amusing that a guy who was born, or pehraps I should say let, in canada and moved to uraguay presumes to act as if he knows what americans think, feel and believe.

This stuff will sort itself out ...sooner or later.

 Amongst my group of players is someone who just became an American citizen in 2004. She has been living here for close to 25 years.  She used the rules and regular process  to become a citizen - I could understand if she was annoyed that somebody else got a shortcut.

What Punidit said... I am shocked that in general I agree with him.
 Pundit - I thought you'd piss me off more often.
   Something strange must be going on.

- E.W.C.

I can neither agree or disagree with what the pundit said. On the one hand he completely missed many of the points being made and just stuck his boot in, as he does.  I could have predicted his response almost to the letter.

On the other hand, he makes a good point. Some of the 'anti-immigration' proposals being tossed out there are worse than the problem if illegal immigrants.


I recall a case a month or so ago where a pregnant woman on a plane ride across the border gave birth.  Cue fighting over which airspace she was over when she gave birth. Cue fighting over whether or not it matters that she may have been trying to deliberately give birth in the US so that her child was a US citizen.

To me this couldn't have been clearer. The tradition that any baby born in the US is automatically a US citizen is important. Fuck, it's inviolable. It doesn't matter the intent. Sure, it's maybe a bit sleazy, but so is trying to argue against it because you don't like it. It's writing in an exception to support a bigoted attitude.  

I have no problem with immigrants, from any nation. Well over half the people I've worked with in my adult life have been immigrants or second generation immigrants.  Two or three nights a week I walk down to the local gas station for munchies, the guy behind the counter is from Ethopia, his bosses are Egyptians.  Meanwhile my housemate refuses to get a job because it's beneath her to work for minimum wage in the service industry... where everyone starts.  That is the beauty of America, if you are willing to work, you can and will succeed. You CAN get rich, like my Economics professor who turned 17 dollars into a 17 million dollar construction company and retired to teach.

Illegal Immigrants, however, are a problem.  They are a systemic problem, and a social problem.  Systemic because our system, our government, is not set up... and should not BE set up to accomodate non-citizens.  If the beaurocratic machinery was less encompassing, it might not be an issue.  However, as it stands Illegal immigrants only consume resources, they do not contribute.  This is of course, speaking of purely taxation. Illegal immigrants are increasingly draining the educational and health infrastructure. The money they are paid is not taxed, and is often not spent in the US. The analogy is to say our economy is like a bucket full of water, the illegal immigrants are leaks. Not the only leaks, certainly, but they are ones we can, and should plug.
More, while I am no fan of minimum wages, illegal immigrants can and do work for less than legally required. Why even consider hiring a legal immigrant, much less a citizen, to do a job when you can pay an illegal half of that? This causes a serious erosion of the job market, typically where it is needed most.  If there are twenty million illegal immigrants working in the US there are twenty million potential citizens and legal immigrants who can not find work. In the case of the legal immigrants, its worse: Without access to those jobs it is actually HARDER for them to get their visas, to enter the system as legal immigrants, in the first place.

Social problems: Where to start? Y'know... I don't even want to touch this one, as I've gone on long enough.  I could talk about the rise of El Salvadoran gangs, the split families, the people dying in cargo containers and box trucks...  Lets just admit that its at least as complex as the systemic issue and leave it at that.

What Spike said, at least up to the minimum wage part.

Quote from: James McMurrayWhat Spike said, at least up to the minimum wage part.

Well, I did establish that it was MY opinion re:minimum wage. You do have to agree that workers that come in, don't need taxes, don't need health insurance, and get half the paycheck DO erode the ability of tax paying citizens to actually get jobs...

Or was that the point of contention?

Nah, it was just the dislike of minimum wages I didn't want to agree with. I think they're a good idea, but agree that illegal immigrants invalidate them by ignoring them.

The last couple of posts make excellent points. Illegals do hurt americans by lowering minimum wage. The US department of labor estimates that illega labor actually lowers the average take home pay of the lowest economic tier in america by about 8%, by working for less than minimum wage giving employers the ability to have sub minimum wage labor, which lets them take money out of the working poor's pockets and put it in their own.

Personally I hate illegals and the people who employ them to make themselves richer at the expense of working americans, and if every ilegal worker in america and their employers all dropped dead tomorrow, I'd cheer.

Big business loves illegals, and their government lets them come in and say in so as to rob the american worker.

BTW, here's a pic off the web to illo the point: