10 reasons to enforce our immigration la

iVillage Member
Registered: 04-06-2003
10 reasons to enforce our immigration la
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Mon, 07-26-2004 - 11:24pm

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iVillage Member
Registered: 03-26-2003
Fri, 07-30-2004 - 1:36pm
I don't agree that there are so many illegal aliens because they chose to make the decision to cross the border. The laws changed in 1968. What used to be legal is now illegal. What used to be easy is now hard. I've driven along the Mexico/U.S. border in California, Arizona, New Mexico, and Texas. Seems to me that only desperation would make somebody take a chance to "come across the rocks" out there in the Sonoran desert.

I do agree that the tax burden is unfair when illegal aliens dare not register for a social security number. But that's not necessarily an elective thing. If they register, they get deported! I just don't feel comfortable with lumping all people into a narrow category and making general statements about that category. Team America's site has no such scruples.

This business about legal versus illegal has me vexed. The laws have changed repeatedly which is why I posted the link giving a brief history of immigration "policy". We seem to be arguing at cross purposes. I am postulating that the laws were written, perhaps with good reason, perhaps not. There's nothing inherently moral about the laws! They were written by fallible human beings with motives that may or may not bear closer scrutiny. To simply be indignant about illegalities is to ignore the bigger picture.

If immigration laws were less bureaucratic, if I didn't get the sense that this is about maintaining the status quo for "them as has gots", as opposed to "them as has nots", if I didn't see ulterior motives (Team America is an electioneering and fund raising vehicle for Congressman Tom Tancredo), I might be less vocal about this particular thread.

PBS is supposed to have an upcoming special on illegal immigration on a show called POV (which I guess is an acronym for "point of view", not "privately owned vehicle" though my mind keeps wanting to make that leap!). It will be interesting to see what issues they raise. I think that PBS will try to keep some balance about the issue.

I like your quote from Abelard. Questioning, repeatedly, in a number of places, may not necessarily give perfect truth, but it certainly brings one much closer to truth's proximity!

Gettingahandle

Ignorance is Nature's most abundant fuel for decision making.

iVillage Member
Registered: 07-01-2004
Fri, 07-30-2004 - 1:57pm
>"This business about legal versus illegal has me vexed. The laws have changed repeatedly which is why I posted the link giving a brief history of immigration "policy"."<

Fact: The immigration laws have changed.

Fact: The immigration laws *now* say that you are a "legal permanent resident" of this country if you are born in this country (unless you are the child of a foreign official and born in this country), you are a child of parents who are legal US citizens (if born in a foreign country) or you petition to become a permanent legal resident of the US.

So people should immigrate to this country via legal means, period. If I *think* it should be legal to run around and kill people (which I don't) or if it had been legal in the past, that doesn't matter, because right now, as the law stands it is illegal to do so, and if I break that law, I face the consequences. Just because someone doesn't like or agree with the law of our lands doesn't mean that don't have to follow them or face the consequences if they break them (in the case of illegal immigration, deportion).

iVillage Member
Registered: 03-18-2000
Fri, 07-30-2004 - 2:31pm

Lou Dobbs has been focusing on "Broken Borders". Interviews with border patrol agents, discussing their impossible task.


Op-ed: Enforce the immigration laws we've got.


http://www.cnn.com/2004/US/07/16/broken.borders/index.html


The United States is facing an extraordinary immigration crisis, but our solutions have done nothing to alleviate the situation. The overburdened Border Patrol and local law enforcement, particularly in the Southwest, are apprehending thousands of illegal aliens on immigration violations every day. Yet surprisingly, many of those arrested are freed shortly after their detainment.


Many illegal aliens are no longer held in jails to await deportation or processing. Rather, they are simply handed a notice to appear in court and released into the country. As you'd probably expect, somewhere between 70 and 90 percent never show up for their court date. Even Immigration and Customs Enforcement, the largest investigative arm of the Department of Homeland Security, admits that nearly half a million people have been arrested and released, and have failed to show up for court.


Local law enforcement and Border Patrol agents say the issue is one of resources, that federal agencies have limited funds for detention and deportation. Instead, their focus has primarily been shifted to illegal aliens who have committed or are wanted for crimes. But even so, 85,000 of those released into the United States are known criminals. So much for the plan to target criminal aliens for deportation.


But Steven Camarota, director of research at the Center for Immigration Studies, blames the lack of enforcement on political issues, rather than practical ones. "The problem with immigration has always been the same: It's very heavily penetrated by very powerful interest groups, and that makes it very hard to enforce the law," he said. "The ethnic advocacy groups provide the moral outrage and racial politics, while the business community provides the political influence, the big guns and the big money to prevent law enforcement."


It's a problem that needs a real solution, however, whether it be practical or political. There are as many as 12 million illegal aliens currently living in the United States, about half of them emigrating from Mexico. The direct net cost of illegal immigration to our economy, including social services, is now roughly $45 billion annually, according to the Federation for American Immigration Reform. Those costs to the American taxpayer have more than doubled since Dr. Donald Huddle's original study in 1996. And they will continue to grow unless we reform our approach to illegal immigration.


There is one new tactic from the U.S. government, but it'll be a while until we see real results. The government has launched a controversial new program to fly some illegal aliens deep into Mexico, instead of merely dropping them off at the border. Homeland Security officials say the program is designed to save lives and break the smuggling cycle. The United States has approved about $12 million for this voluntary repatriation program to run through September, with each chartered flight costing American taxpayers almost $30,000.

 


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iVillage Member
Registered: 07-01-2004
Fri, 07-30-2004 - 3:42pm
Really good article!

>"We want the current administration and both political parties to take this problem seriously, to enforce the laws already on the books and to create a national immigration policy that will secure both our borders and a healthy future for our country."<

Great last quote!

iVillage Member
Registered: 03-26-2003
Fri, 07-30-2004 - 4:47pm
Morally inappropriate analogy--"If I *think* it should be legal to run around and kill people (which I don't) or if it had been legal in the past, that doesn't matter, because right now, as the law stands it is illegal to do so, and if I break that law, I face the consequences." In the mores of most societies, "running around and killing" others is considered reprehensible--just as tending to and caring for one's young is considered laudable.

Do you really believe that all the laws on the books are somehow perfect, that they don't need overhauling, that they have no "unintended consequences"? I am a law abiding citizen too but haven't been able to reconcile within myself a concern about fathers and mothers trying to raise their children in a better place (as my ancestors, and probably yours too, did when they emigrated to the US) and the laws that have slammed the doors on those who still yearn for that opportunity.

Hide behind the law if it makes you feel justified but from where I stand, it looks hypocritical.


Edited 7/30/2004 5:10 pm ET ET by gettingahandle

Gettingahandle

Ignorance is Nature's most abundant fuel for decision making.

iVillage Member
Registered: 06-16-2004
Sun, 08-01-2004 - 8:28am
OK, maybe that analogy was a bit extreme. But how about something like "in the 1920's it was legal to use cocaine, but now it's not, so it's not fair". Using cocaine is not necessarily 'morally reprehensible', unlike murder. In some places around the world, people feel people should be free to do whatever they want to their own bodies. Now if it leads to crime, then the crime itself is punished, but not the drug use or even drug selling. Bear in mind, I am NOT supporting that view, just using it as an example. Another example, in many countries around the world (including Canada), the death penalty is illegal - in fact it's seen as morally reprehensible. But yet in these countries, it was legal previously. Laws always change, and these changes can have TREMENDOUS impact on people, even life or death situations. Yet another example would be laws about euthanesia around the world.

Yes, the laws of immigration are still different so no analogy is perfect. But I suspect that MANY people who have a moral issue with ILLEGAL immigration still feel a lot of empathy for those people who risk their lives to come to the US and to other countries. The same way that many people may have strong empathy for people who are considering euthanisia but yet absolutely don't support BREAKING the law. They may support CHANGING the law, but that's very different. If breaking laws becomes something socially acceptable, it erodes the value of all laws, and it erodes the basic principles of democracy. Once we systematically ignore some laws, it becomes a slippery slope - which laws are 'ok' to break, and which ones are not? Who draws the line?

Now this being said, I do believe that judges do and SHOULD sometimes override the law (or more specically use the caveats of the law), as it is in their authority to do so. Not all laws should be applied blindly - all circumstances should be looked at. Again in the example of euthenasia, someone may be convicted but given a very light sentence because of the circumstances - until such time as the laws are changed.




Edited 8/1/2004 8:29 am ET ET by nicecanadianlady

iVillage Member
Registered: 03-18-2000
Sun, 08-01-2004 - 10:10am

"lot of empathy for those people who risk their lives to come to the US and to other countries"


I legally emigrated to the USA & think others should also enter the country legally. There are health & financial reasons for entering this country legally. One shouldn't come to this country, or any country, & expect it's system to support you. On the other hand a country can't have a sub-culture of people barely surviving & children unable to get an education.


I lived in S.Calif. for many years. Every morning I would pass groups of illegals waiting by the road waiting for someone to offer them a days work.

 


Photobucket&nbs

iVillage Member
Registered: 03-26-2003
Sun, 08-01-2004 - 4:28pm
You raised a couple of good points, one of which hadn't occurred to me previously. For instance, the point about an improved infrastructure and benefits of US citizenship in today's times as opposed to what existed in the US during the 1700's and 1800's. My grandfather's parents went out to homestead in eastern Colorado with the hope that their hard work would result in ownership of the land--this was at the turn of the 20th century. I don't think we give land away anymore! I'm sure that it's still the hope for new immigrants that they will enjoy the fruits of their labors.

It's interesting that the laws for immigration from Mexico changed at approximately the same time as Lyndon Johnson's Great Society experiment was first being tried. It may be that the increased tax burden of social changes was responsible, in part, for the new legislation. I'm not an expert on immigration so much of this is speculation and learning as we go.

And when I mentioned the change in laws, I was thinking about Prohibition and it's "unintended consequences" (the gangsters, speak-easy's, smugglers, etc). You thought about cocaine and its change of status. I can attest to the ravages of drug abuse on a person (an in-law), regardless whether they have done anything illegal or not. But that's a whole 'nother debate and it seems that the sub theme here is whether legalities should be observed.

Sticky issue--very sticky especially when they conflict with one's values. Seems to me that few of us are forced to do things which are morally repugnant. It's my perception that much of the illegal immigration brouhaha is about justice when a goal is reached by sticking to the letter of the law (legal) and finding out that somebody else achieved the same goal, faster or more easily, by circumventing the law (illegal). But sometimes laws are used unscrupulously or unjustly, and that was my impression about the OP. For instance, the bits about income tax burdens and draining the US of its resources by sending them back to the home country. Those are effects of the laws as they now exist. Illegal immigrants CAN'T pay income taxes without risk of deportation (yeah, I know I'm repeating myself), and families can't come over the border because it's too difficult or dangerous so money DOES get sent back to other countries.

Spigdeon talked about restricting population growth by imposing legal limits on family size--and how if immigrants come in, US families might not be able to have as many children as they wish. I've also heard arguments on that other side of that issue, vis a vis, social security. Our aging population is depleting more than its fair share of social benefits. Who will work, and be taxed (to replenish our tax base) in the future?

Our globe is a closed system and it's my hope that someday we'll all recognize that and stop acting as though our actions take place in some sort of vacuum or unawareness of others that cushions us from consequences, intentional or not (that's the reason for my icon here at iVillage). As a side note about unintended consequences in China, it appears that many Chinese families, for cultural reasons, chose male children, either by giving up their female children for adoption (often to Westerners) or by aborting them. Now China faces a young, predominantly male population. With whom will they marry and mate?! Is this going to be a rehash of the Sabine women on a national scale?

I have no easy answers, only some more food for thought.

Gettingahandle

Ignorance is Nature's most abundant fuel for decision making.

iVillage Member
Registered: 07-01-2004
Mon, 08-02-2004 - 9:00am
"families can't come over the border because it's too difficult or dangerous so money DOES get sent back to other countries. "

The sending of money home is often a cultural practice as well. My husband's Pakistani co-worker sent his money home because in their culture, adult children financially support their aging parents as a cyclical return for being supported as a child. This happens often regardless of whether other family members want to live here as well. That brings up another point, family members of legal, permanent residents of the US can be sponsored for citizenship by those who have legally come to America. It just may very well be that these people do not understand/know this.


"Spigdeon talked about restricting population growth by imposing legal limits on family size--and how if immigrants come in, US families might not be able to have as many children as they wish. I've also heard arguments on that other side of that issue, vis a vis, social security. Our aging population is depleting more than its fair share of social benefits. Who will work, and be taxed (to replenish our tax base) in the future? "

This issue has more to do with the faults of the social security system, then a population issue. That example was also brought up to point out results of an over-population situation. I did not simply broadly swipe with the brush and say, if we let immigrants in, this is what happens. I was, however, pointing out that it is important for the countries economic and populous standing, as a whole, to regulate the *number* of people who come to live in this country so that it may be appropriately balanced with the rate which population is growing through births of new, naturalized citizens.



iVillage Member
Registered: 03-18-2000
Wed, 08-11-2004 - 10:53am

U.S. to make deportation of illegal immigrants faster.
New policy is designed to improve security at borders, cut costs.


 


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