The Next Phase of Immigration Reform

[Cail]

To vote in the United States you need to be a US citizen. That is the law, as stated in the US Constitution. To change that requires changing the Contitution. Pretty straightforward.

And pretty incorrect as well. You'll not find anything in the U.S. Constitution to back up this claim.

[Avatar]

Perhaps not, but I really can't see the franchise being given to non-citizens. It's unheard of as far as I know. *shrug*

--A

[Cail]

It's unheard of for the moment, but there is a concerted push to allow them to vote in local elections.

And then once that happens, it's not a big step to start pushing for national elections......And then there'll be a push to allow them to vote on the federal level.

[Rawedge Rim]

The argument that there is no way to remove however many millions of illegal aliens from this country is ludicrous. I'm not gonna stand here and say it would be easy, or happen overnight, or that there won't be some sob stories to arise from it, but it could be done, through a combination fo deportation, hiring disincentives, and border inforcement.

1. Deportation: Enforce the current laws, and quit hamstringing law enforcement personnel. If someone is suspected of being an illegal alien, the most dumbass thing I've ever heard is "well, you can't inquire to the persons immigration status". What a crock. If I'm a cop, and I see someone hanging out around a store that is closed, and it's after hours, I would be within my rights to ask this person what thier business is there.

If someone is found to be an illegal immigrant, regardless of how it was found out, that illegal alien needs to be deported, I don't care if it was found out in the emergency room, or an auto accident, or whatever. If I hurt myself during a robbery, I don't get to claim that I can't be arrested because I'm seeking treatment for my injury. If I want to report that I have been robbed, but I have a warrant out for my arrest, I can't claim immunity because I'm a victim of foul play.

2. Hiring disincentives: Best option...make it entirely too expensive to hire illegal aliens, no matter how little you pay them, to do the job. If an individual, company, or corporation, hires someone, who they know, or should have known is in the country illegally, then you fine them so badly that the company either barely stays afloat, or goes under, and those directly involved in the hiring, along with those up and down the supervisory chain involved, go to jail.

When the work dry's up, then illegal aliens will cease to enter our country in anywhere close to the numbers that have been since the last amnest, and those already here will pack thier stuff and leave.


3. Border Enforcement: Get a handle on who is crossing our borders. There is no way that 13 million people should have been able to cross our borders illegally and been able to remain here. I'm will to bet you any amount of money, that had 13 million jobless Americans crossed the Mexican border and decided to stay for good, that Mexico would have rounded them up by the thousands, made life miserable for them, and carted thier asses back across the border, and then set up a kill zone for any "anglos" trying to make their way back across the border. Also they would not have worried about the "poor american undocumented workers" dying of thirst while attempting to cross the arid sections of the Southwest.

****************************************************


If 13 million people, most from south of the American Border, could have crossed over into the country since the enactment of the last Amnesty (and in real terms, it wasn't all that long ago), then we certainly should be able to remove them either voluntarily or involuntarily in a similar time period.

[sgt.null]

bravo Rawedge Rim! nothing to add. you made ech point clearly.

[SoulBiter]

NY dropped its plan to give licences to illegal aliens.

About 70 percent of New Yorkers oppose the license plan, according to a Siena College poll of 625 registered state voters released Tuesday. The poll, conducted Nov. 5-8, had a sampling margin of 3.9 percentage points.

"As I've said on numerous occasions, this is a tough issue," Spitzer said Tuesday in New York City. "And it's one where we're continuing to try to talk to the public, explain why we took the position that I have thus far, and explain what issues we're trying to address. But I understand — you don't need to see the most recent poll to understand that this is an issue that has touched a nerve in the public and we're trying to address that in a thoughtful, modulated way, and then we'll see where we go."

[Rawedge Rim]

It never should have come up in the first place, but I guess that the Hon. New York Governor had to pander to his hispanic constituency.

[[Syl]]

Immigration Crackdown Hits Fence Builder

SAN DIEGO (AP) -- That the government wanted to put Mel Kay behind a prison fence is an irony, though one that neither he nor his accusers would find amusing.

Mel Kay builds fences. His was the largest fence-building company in Southern California; he rode the nation's housing boom to $150 million in annual sales. His fences are just about everywhere -- at gated subdivisions, on military bases, at prisons.

He even built fences at two immigration jails, a Border Patrol station and the U.S.-Mexico border.

Which is the second irony, because he admits now that many of his company's fences were built by illegal immigrants. Federal authorities knew it, and they went after him tenaciously, determined to send him to prison as an example to other employers who hire undocumented workers.

[The Laughing Man]

Oooooo, I hope they get to draw out if the Feds knew it when they contracted his services out, before during and after. And why they didn't require documentation of all his employess at the time. Will they put themselves in jail I wonder? heh.

[iQuestor]

Oooooo, I hope they get to draw out if the Feds knew it when they contracted his services out, before during and after. And why they didn't require documentation of all his employess at the time. Will they put themselves in jail I wonder? heh.

its a good point. I am sure somebody with the feds knew and let it slide.

[Plissken]

I wonder if fence building is one of those jobs that "Americans won't do"?

[iQuestor]

I think that excuse -- Americans just wont do those jobs -- is a cop out. If thats all they can do and they wont do it out of pride or laziness, then let them be homeless and broke. Starvation and homelessnes is a pretty good incentive to most people. not to all.

[The Laughing Man]

Nearly all his workers took advantage of the 1986 amnesty but he soon struggled to fill jobs. He shunned applicants who came in off the street, instead relying on Mexican employees to recruit family and friends.

''They were more trustworthy and more apt to stay long term,'' Kay told The Associated Press at his office in Riverside, a sparsely furnished room with a white linoleum floor and an empty desktop.

''I'd never experienced any boom like that,'' he says. ''It was almost out of control.''

Installing fences is punishing labor, especially in Southern California's desert heat and rocky soil. Kay requires job applicants to raise 60 pounds over their heads and move wheelbarrows of dirt. About 75 percent of his workers are Hispanic.

But Kay compensated his employees well. New hires start at $35,000 a year and jump to about $60,000 after three years. Full-time workers get health and life insurance, sick leave and at least two weeks vacation.

Flores strongly believes that American jobs should go to citizens and legal residents. He is skeptical of Kay's claims that Golden State couldn't find enough of them to dig ditches for $60,000 a year, with benefits.

skeptical indeed.

[emotional leper]

Shit, for 60/kusd a year, I'd dig ditches in Southern Cali.

I'd dig them in Alaska, too.

I'd dig them, all over this land.

Why pay an American X Dollars to do something when you can pay an immigrant Y dollars to do the same thing, where Y is less than X, and you know that the immigrant won't complain to the authorities about it, because they'd get deported?

That's what this seems to boil down to.

[Plissken]

I think that excuse -- Americans just wont do those jobs -- is a cop out. If thats all they can do and they wont do it out of pride or laziness, then let them be homeless and broke. Starvation and homelessnes is a pretty good incentive to most people. not to all.

Yeah, that was actually sarcasm on my part, iQ. I've built quite a few fences in my time. "Americans won't do these jobs..." is only half the sentence anyway. "...for the wages I'm willing to pay" is the other.

[sgt.null]

Gangs vs. coyotes could mean more Houston gun battles

12:43 AM CST on Wednesday, January 23, 2008

By Jeff McShan / 11 News

That day, a man died where Bissonnet and the Southwest Freeway meet.

Police fear the violence won’t stop there.

Law enforcement officials say increasing tensions between gangs and the smugglers, also known as coyotes, could translate into more shootouts in the streets of Houston.

Special Agent Brian Ritchie is the supervisor of the FBI’s gang unit, which works closely with HPD.

“In actuality, what we’ve called it is the perfect crime,” he said.

Why? Because neither the coyotes nor the gang members are willing to cooperate with law enforcement.

“Now I think the word is spreading along the border that many of these coyotes are being targeted, and so they have started fighting back. So that’s why you are seeing a lot of the shootings,” Ritchie said.

The scariest part is, the shootings all involve suspects who have no regard for innocent bystanders who might fall victim to their street war.

Agent Ritchie says last year’s incident on Bissonnet ended right in front of a daycare.

“I don’t think it’s going away. As a matter of fact, because of the success that they have had, I only see the problem getting worse in the next couple of years,” Ritchie said.

So what is law enforcement doing?

“The only thing we can do, because they are reactive crimes, is try and develop as much intelligence as we can so we can keep track of these crimes. Because they are certainly not going got stop until they get caught,” Ritchie said.

[Tjol]

Immigration raids hurt farmers?

Bah, the farmers hurt themselves if they made themselves so dependent on illegal immigrants.

That being said, it doesn't require illegal immigrants to make the current farmer's model work when they don't have poor mexicans, guatemalans and salvadorians to exploit. The farmers simply need the state and federal governments to provide an exception for farm labor within the minimum wage laws. Then these poor poor farmers can exploit American citizens instead.

I'd play the smallest violin in the world on behalf of these poor poor farmers, but their the ones who created a business model in which they could only profit if they cheated the employment standards that every other industry in the US has to observe.

I understand why it is that wall street journal types want people to turn a blind eye to the exploitation of the third world country peoples, but I don't get why the new york times types are just as invested in defending this clear exploitation of the most disadvantaged.

[[Syl]]

Homeland Security Won't Explain Why the Mexican Border Wall Bypasses the Rich and Connected

Texas resident Eloisa Tamez wants to know why her land is getting a border wall, while a nearby golf course and resort remain untouched.

[Plissken]

Wait. The Government is taking away citizen's Private Property to build their fence-let? Must be the work of those damned hippies and Democrats.

[Cail]

Yup. Eminent Domain, and a proper use of it as well.