Illegal Immigration

As I mentioned before, many individuals (referring to citizens) don't really want to work--welfare pays about as well as getting a job, and it's probably less work. So in reality, immigrants are actually doing us a service--which is probably not a good sign as to the direction of the country, but still.

Yeah, agreed here. Though I'd say I'd support reform, as the naturalization process is filled with red tape--it can take years (or in extreme cases, decades) between applying for citizenship and actually getting it, during which time you'll be working your ass off in Mexico ekeing out a living. I'm not saying I support illegal immigration per se, but there's a reason why more people don't just apply.

I actually really like John Kasich's stance on immigration reform; however I'm too lazy to summarize it here. Would anybody be kind enough to do so? pretty plz

--- Double Post Merged, Apr 29, 2016, Original Post Date: Apr 28, 2016 ---

Additionally, @Ranger0203 , throughout this thread you've been guilty of quite a bit of hasty generalization, especially where you state that illegals don't integrate; they keep their language and culture.

Perhaps this is your own personal experience, but my personal experience with undocumented (illegal) immigrants has been quite the opposite. In fact, many immigrants I know actively attempt to teach their children English and encourage the pursuit of higher education.

I'd be curious to know why you think otherwise.

 

Incorrect.

 

Well with illegal immigration, I am fully against it. The primary reason I am against letting illegal immigrants into the US is that with illegals you do not know who the heck is coming across that border. They could be perfectly normal people who are very nice and help make up the backbone of unskilled labor jobs that normal US citizens don't like to do or they could possibly be drug runners/criminal/extremists. If they are the former then I am all for letting them in legally. The only problem is that the US government really needs to fix the bureaucratic BS and figure out a way to be able to process legal immigrants faster. Because the government takes so long to do this processing as of the moment, many immigrants resort to trying to sneak across the border because it is easier and quicker.

 

http://www.politifact.com/rhode-isl...mon-welfare-programs-pay-equivalent-2083-hou/ (66 cents less per hour than RI min wage)

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news...-level-job-in-35-states-read-the-study-again/

http://www.cato.org/publications/po...e-analysis-total-level-welfare-benefits-state (though it's a libertarian think tank, could be biased?)

Though I'll admit that it's less of a problem than many conservatives make it out to be, it's not untrue.

 

Because I wake up in the morning, and take the train to school. On the train, about a quarter of the people are speaking Spanish. Half the signs are in Spanish. In the city where I go to school, most people speak Spanish. If I want to grab a burger, I have to try and communicate my order to someone who can barely speak English.

I'm expected to celebrate Hispanic heritage month, and yes, I know other heritage months exist, but this is the only one ever mentioned. If I want to take a Driver's ed course at a library, I have to travel 30 miles to find one offered in English; the ones at the local library are all in Spanish. Want to listen to something on the radio? Half of the channels are playing something in Spanish. Oh lol, as I'm writing this, I'm watching the Padres/Dodgers game (in Dodger Stadium), and they're playing music... In spanish... Wonderful.


And then there was the time they blasted their airhorns over the national anthem. http://articles.latimes.com/2011/jun/26/sports/la-sp-0626-plaschke-gold-cup-20110626

As opposed to our more culturally compatible neighbors to the North, the Canadians:

No, they really aren't. Yes, people live off of welfare, because it's easier than working. We can't get rid of welfare though, because there aren't jobs for those people. There aren't jobs because of the 11 million foreigners in our country illegally.

 

Is this an inherently bad thing? Even among legal immigrants, you cannot expect someone's first language to be English immediately after they move here--my (legal resident) grandparents spoke Chinese (and only Chinese) their entire lives because it's the only thing they could learn. It's really not as if you have 8 hours a day to go to school and learn English--you have to get a job and support your family.

Do I speak English? Do my parents speak English? Obviously we do. Cultural assimilation takes time, often over the course of multiple generations.

Man, I never thought I'd be arguing this perspective, but here I am. lol

--- Double Post Merged, Apr 30, 2016, Original Post Date: Apr 30, 2016 ---

Sorry, I don't think I completely understand here. To clarify, you're saying that

1) People live off welfare because it's easier than working.
2) People live off welfare because there are no jobs
3) There are no jobs because of the 11 million foreigners

If this is correct, can you explain the relationship between step 1 and step 2?

 

Yes. When there are so many foreigners that they start forcing us to change, I consider it bad.

Of course. I don't expect everyone to be able to speak English the moment they get here; just don't make me learn Spanish. And with regards to the children; they don't really speak English as much as, say, my friend from elementary school, who's parents were from Vietnam. They speak Spanish all day, because their friends speak Spanish.

With regards to 1: People have no incentive to get a low paying job, because they can get welfare for no work.
With regards to 2: people cannot get a low paying job, because they're taken by 3.

So if we first eliminated 3, and then 1, 2 would be solved.

 

I can't seem to multi-quote on mobile (if there's a way, please let me know), so I'll just respond here in bulk.

To your first point about foreigners forcing change:

To what degree is change bad? I mean, throughout America's history, we've had foreign influences. Many groups of immigrants have come to the United States, including religious dissidents from England in the 1600s, Dutch and Scots in the early 1720s, Germans, more Scots, Irish, and poor English in the early 1800s escaping famine and seeking economic opportunities, Chinese and Irish in the late 1800s arriving to work on the transcontinental railroad, Chinese in the 1950s fleeing oppressive Communist dictators (my grandparents) and Vietnamese refugees in the 1970s.

All these groups have left an indelible impression on American culture and identity, and elements of these peoples' cultures have been incorporated into American culture, just as immigrants (or more often, their descendants) have assimilated into American culture. We eat Chinese food, Vietnamese food, borrow Spanish and Italian words--there's no one set of traditions that's distinctly American--that's the beauty of this country.

What's the difference now?

To your second point about people speaking Spanish all day, because their friends speak Spanish:

Ironically, you quote the case of a Vietnamese friend who speaks English. In the 1970s and 1980s, many people said the same things about Vietnamese people (this is a terrible generalization, I know) that you now say about people from Mexico. Namely, they stated that Vietnamese people "spoke Vietnamese all the time, and never bothered to learn English, because they didn't really value American customs and culture."

Yet, one or two generations later, nearly all of those peoples' descendants (as you stated yourself) knows English and can identify as American.

To your third point:

You state that people have no incentive to get a low-paying job, because in some states welfare pays almost as much as a minimum-wage job. Okay.

If people have no incentive to get a low-paying job (not arguing this one), would it matter if they CAN get low-paying jobs? You said yourself in the previous post that people would have no incentive to get a low-paying job. Even if low-paying jobs existed for citizens, welfare pays almost as much (in some states) as a minimum-wage job--why would people take the job?

I still fail to see the logic--can you clarify further?


Sorry if they're typos--I typed this out on my phone so it's probably terribly garbled.

 

I don't think there is

Yes. But the thing is, in all these instances, there was a period of immigration, and then it ended. So, for a while, we were overloaded, but once it stopped, those already here assimilated, and became more American. With the case of Illegal immigrants from Mexico and South America, it just never ends. More and more people come every year, and they don't have enough time to assimilate. In thirty years, instead of becoming American, there will be even more of them, and we will become more Mexican. Looking at Mexico, and pretty much every other country down south, I do not want to be like them.

Lol this is really hard over the internet.

Basically, right now we have a problem, which is a large section of the population living off of welfare. There are two reasons (in general) that they're living off of welfare. 1 It's easier than having a low-paying job. 2 They can't obtain a low paying job.

To fix this problem, we need to 1 make jobs available, and 2 give people incentive to obtain a job.

To do this we: 1 Deport as many of the 11 million illegals as we can and 2 make it impossible to live off of welfare.

 

In the case of Irish, Scottish, and Eastern European immigration to the United States, in particular, no quota systems had been in place yet. This means that massive amounts of Irish, Scottish, and Eastern European immigrants were flooding into the US--enough that entire political parties were formed to oppose the immigration of these groups.

Back then, people were saying that this crisis would turn the US into a Catholic theocracy--they basically thought that Irish immigrants were lazy good-for-nothings who would not adopt American traditions (namely evangelical Christianity). Sound familiar?

As I mentioned earlier, the Know-nothing party (officially called the American party) was founded on the principle that Irish immigrants had absolutely nothing to contribute to American society, and essentially supported the expulsion of Irish and Catholic "Americans" (whether or not you want to call them Americans is just semantics).

It's easy to say that "I do not want to be like them," and I think it's a valid concern. However I'm merely pointing out that there is actually a historical precedent to this, and the country didn't turn into some sort of New Ireland.

Of course, while we're in the period of immigration, it might look overwhelming. But I'm sure the period of immigration will eventually end. However, all this being said, I don't think that the immigration system as currently constructed will do anything to benefit the country--it needs to be streamlined and improved, because it's almost totally broken right now.

--- Double Post Merged, Apr 30, 2016, Original Post Date: Apr 30, 2016 ---

How do you determine who's legal and who's illegal? Doing so would raise another set of questions related to the constitutionality of checking for IDs, etc., an action without precedent in the Supreme Court. Besides, deporting so many people would obviously have practical limitations, and I'm not even sure if the benefit to society, if any, would be worth the money spent rounding up illegals and deporting them in the first place, not to mentions the obvious political backlash.

Therefore, immigration reform to revamp the currently broken system (I think both you and I can agree that the current system doesn't work, like, at all) needs to be prioritized. Th entire process needs to be streamlined, and pointless bureaucracy must be removed. Furthermore, I wouldn't be opposed to extending a grace period to illegal immigrants currently residing in the US--that is, if they agree to pay the income tax accrued throughout their years in the US. As I said earlier, I actually really like John Kasich's stance on immigration.

Sorry for the typos, I'm on my phone.

 

Why?

The best course of action would be to close the border, and just deport them as you find them.

 

1) I say this because historical precedent has indicated that such trends end. Not only in the US, but in other countries as well, periods of net immigration end. Always.

2) Find them...where? On the border, or within the USA?

I think it would be extremely cost-inefficient to employ designated people to hunt down illegal immigrants. Imagine how much money it takes to find illegal immigrants and deport them--especially from regions that aren't right by the border--you'd have to FLY them back to Mexico. Therefore I suggest immigration reform, because the system is so obviously broken.

Why do you think the best solution is to close the border and deport all illegals? (Besides, you never answered my question as to the constitutionality of searching for IDs)

 

Yes, it must end sometime. The problem is, there is absolutely nothing to cause it to end before it destroys our culture.

Stop them from crossing the border.

It would be inefficient to search for illegals; better to deport them when they get a traffic ticket or something.

 

Lol, this is funny as fudge, literally

--- Double Post Merged, Apr 30, 2016, Original Post Date: Apr 30, 2016 ---

Im dying as I'm reading this, and typing

 

When illegal (or, to use the politically correct term, undocumented) immigrants commit felonies, oftentimes they aren't prosecuted and deported directly, which is VERY concerning. I think this is honestly an underrated problem (my great-aunt was actually killed by an undocumented immigrant driving while drunk, and he 'only' got deported).

http://www.pri.org/stories/2012-12-...igrant-commits-serious-crime-secrecy-descends

"Stopping them from crossing the border" is actually a lot easier said than done. The border is very long and crosses through some pretty inhospitable terrain. How exactly would we "stop them from crossing th border?" Would we fortify the border? Man it? Again it would be extremely cost-inefficient, and I doubt that any benefit the US receives from "stopping illegals" would be enough to cover the cost of the program.


You STILL haven't answered my questions above.

--- Double Post Merged, Apr 30, 2016, Original Post Date: Apr 30, 2016 ---

Can you please answer the previous questions?

 

Well... historically, the things that have typically ended net immigration to the United States are immigration restrictions like the discriminatory quota laws in the 1920s. These past couple decades have also seen the most immigration in the history of the US, and some 11 million from Mexico.
http://cis.org/2000-2010-record-setting-decade-of-immigration
http://cis.org/2012-profile-of-americas-foreign-born-population#f1
http://cis.org/2012-profile-of-americas-foreign-born-population#f3
Above illustrate more of the economic situation

Here's a good chart for the more recent immigration/times they came in:
http://cis.org/2012-profile-of-americas-foreign-born-population#1
Where people are from:
http://www.migrationpolicy.org/programs/data-hub/charts/largest-immigrant-groups-over-time

Found these interesting to skim through.

Hol up Ranger.
What culture?
There's only a few things that are truly American - rock and roll, maybe, but who listens to that anymore? Burgers, sure, but they're everywhere, and ain't going away anytime soon. We invented the internet, technically.

But really, what culture? We are a 200-someodd year old country founded solely off of immigrants mostly from Europe. Even if what you say is true, that people are coming here to work, why, aren't they following the typical stereotype "American dream", to get rich off of hard work and spirit?
And if you think about it, there really isn't such thing as "our culture". It's kind of like "our language"... well, that's English, ain't it? But thou doth not hear thy fellows speaketh as thus evermore, no?
'Cause things change. Culture is a continuity ever-influenced by the rest of the world. You can't "destroy" a culture, unless it's something like us wiping out tribes still in the stone age. It just changes, and nothing can stop that change from happening, especially in today's globalized world.

 

If trump gets elected, there will be no such thing as illegal immigration in Canada.

 

Do you mean, there would be no such thing?

 

The United States needs to have an open border policy with Mexico. Mexican immigrants are not going to "take Americans' jobs." Most corporations and businesses in the United States are owned by Americans, so Americans are going to have an unfair advantage at getting hired. Furthermore, most immigrants have grown up in a situation where they have been unable to get the education required for jobs other than those that are near minimum wage. If you're an American citizen that has any sort of college-level education, you have a huge advantage over Mexican immigrants; if they still "take your job" after that, it's really your fault.