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What? You want to discourage immigration, because some “isn’t needed”? Sorry, but I’m just not seeing your point. I agree that it shouldn’t be snap-and-go, but making it difficult isn’t exactly helpful.</p>
<p>I’m talking more about the people who want to do it “Just for the heck of it”. I understand if it’s for financial/educational/health reasons. But if it’s just so you can live somewhere else, I don’t know if I agree with that.</p>
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<p>No one immigrates just for the heck of it. Immigrating is just something that doesn’t lend itself to being done just for the heck of it. Absolutely everyone who is an immigrant has reasons for it - very often financial, as you mention.</p>
<p>Have you ever met someone who is an immigrant? I think you would benefit from getting to know one, and understanding how difficult this process is.</p>
<p>Actually I have. My 10th and 11th grade English teacher moved here from India at age…I believe it was 16.</p>
<p>Now you can try and tell me “well she’s your teacher so you probably don’t know her that well” but she’s more a friend than a teacher. I know the process is difficult. But like I said, if they really want to be here, they need to take the time and do it legally.</p>
<p>HGFM,</p>
<p>trust me, people don’t immigrate “just for the heck of it” .The time, effort, money, thick skin it takes…where to begin. 
To start everything from scratch in a new country is not a walk in the park( maybe you should ask your teacher about that) . And this country needs immigrants. So something should be done to make sure that the potential immigrants( law-abiding, hardworking people) don’t have to wait for years in limbo.</p>
<p>Lawrence Downes has an op-ed in today’s NY Times. He points out:</p>
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</p>
<p><a href=“http://www.nytimes.com/2007/10/28/opinion/28sun4.html?_r=1&oref=slogin[/url]”>http://www.nytimes.com/2007/10/28/opinion/28sun4.html?_r=1&oref=slogin</a></p>
<p>The piece is a calming antidote to the one posted by the OP.</p>
<p>I can’t have grace because I don’t want to help them break the law? Please.</p>
<p>WWJD?</p>
<p>Barrons, it took about 10 minutes of googling to determine that the author of the crimes “study” is a self-promoting nutball with no evident legitimate credentials who rides the waves of public hysteria for personal fame and profit. Where did she get her numbers? Simple. Less than 1% of the estimated number of unauthorized resident aliens in America have been arrested - per the GAO study. Of that number, 2% had been arrested for sex crimes, totaling about 12,000 arrests (not prosecutions or convictions, mind you, arrests. How many of those arrests resulted in charges filed, or convictions, is unclear.) If you simply assume that the percentage of sex offenders among the 99+% of the unauthorized resident aliens who have never been arrested is the same as among the felons, voila! a million sex crimes a year.</p>
<p>What absolute crap. But she pushed your buttons, got featured in newspapers and talk radio shows around the country, and added to her fame. Who cares if irrational anti-immigrant hysteria leads to a lynch-mob mentality? She’s making a killing off of fear-mongering.</p>
<p>I’m not saying “illegal immigration” isn’t a problem, but what I don’t understand is why U.S. citizens aren’t challenged for breaking the same crimes that make illegal immigration a bigger problem than a violation of a somewhat arbitrary administrative program.</p>
<p>If sex crimes are something I care about, it’s actually very silly for me to target just those committed by illegal immigrants.</p>
<p>If tax evasion is something I care about, why would I just get upset at the taxes that aren’t paid by illegal immigrants when the natural-born citizen just down the street from me who runs the cash-only deli is paying tax on 1/3 of his actual revenue. Waitresses also underreport their income…but I’m not getting rabid about them.</p>
<p>If getting medical services for free is my pet peeve, then there are all sorts of scams and insurance fraud criminals that should be the target of a crackdown, without wanting to dilute my ire to the point that I’m willing to largely ignore the bulk of it while zeroing in on a subpopulation.</p>
<p>It’s like blaming the last straw for the camel’s broken back.</p>
<p>Plus, by targeting all illegal immigrants for these wrongs, I’m not just understating the core problems…I’m being too expansive with my target group. So it’s actually all just a very inefficient way to address the core problems.</p>
<p>Illegal immigration is a problem. It contributes to other, larger, pre-existing problems we face. It shouldn’t be seen (as I think it is) as an external villain that excuses the failure of government to effectively address these larger, pre-existing problems. And, on its own, it’s simply not the catastrophic “they’re raping our women and stealing our jobs” problem that makes people get emotional.</p>
<p>I think it’s great when people feel passionate about civics and government. And if they start foaming at the mouth a little because they’re so passionate, I’d rather see more of that than the non-voting apathetic adults who care more about Britney and Lindsay than the news that affects the real world.</p>
<p>But this sort of incendiary “fact-throwing” is good only if it encourages more people to better understand the less sexy issues posed by illegal immigration or if it invites them to demand universal redress for the core problems that illegal immigration contributes to. I just question whether that’s where this was designed to take people. It looks to me, from the OP’s original bomb dropping and his/her near silence since then, that this was all about getting people enraged for its own sake.</p>
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Tell them to “GO and sin no more”?</p>
<p>Seriously. I think Kluge nails this one right on the head.</p>
<p>The immigrants aren’t the issue here. They are just doing what they can to get the best lives they can. They have no worse or better morals than we ourselves have. Put in their shoes, we are going to respond to the concrete issues that threaten our lives, even if it means overlooking some unseen line drawn by some law that few are interested in enforcing anyway.</p>
<p>I agree with slamming the employers who hire illegals. But I also believe that if an illegal is found out; however that came about; the 1st priority is to ship their butt out of the country. Back to their country of origin.</p>
<p>But instead, illegals are allowed to sue, claim discrimination, claim civil rights infringements, etc… None of this should be allowed. The only right they should have is to not be executed. If they are picked up for breaking the law and found to be an illegal, they should be shipped out. These people have nothing to offer a victim. But whatever money, possession, etc… they do happen to have is given to the victim and then they are shipped out. If the illegal tries to sue someone for civil rights or anything else, we tell them that we will look into it and we immediately ship their butt out of the country.</p>
<p>An illegal immigrant should have no other right than to not be executed. I don’t even want to pay for them in prison. I want them out on the first bus or boat leaving. And, if a large proportion of the illegals happen to come from Mexico, then we stop LEGAL immigration from that country and put pressure on their country to help us. THAT is the biggest problem. Not those hiring the illegals. (You want you corn and lettuce at the price it is). The problem is that Mexico encourages their people to illegally immigrate to the United States. The more poor people Mexico can get rid of, the better their economy becomes. And I don’t care if it sounds insensitive. Our country’s prime responsibility is to our own people. We have enough people with problems with education, health care, etc… We shouldn’t be taking care of illegals. We waste enough money as it is. Some places is definitely debatable. Spending it on illegal immigrants for education and health care is totally unacceptable and not negotiable.</p>
<p>“An illegal immigrant should have no other right than to not be executed.”</p>
<p>Wow, if that’s the case, then there are much more productive ways to use them than deporting them. Medical experimentation comes to mind.</p>
<p>Just wondering, what is the source of this right not to be executed, since you’ve told us that the Constitution doesn’t apply?</p>
<p>Christcorp, it’s the success of the propaganda machine with people like you which actually increases the number of unauthorized immigrants in the country. After all, what’s better for an employer than than an undocumented alien who has to work for less than a citizen? An undocumented worker who can’t do a damn thing about it if you cheat, abuse, mistreat or maim them. Yeee-haw! </p>
<p>Get it? It’s the employers who drive immigration, not the workers. The attitude you express is a primary pillar which supports the problem, and you don’t even know it. Wake up - you’re being used.</p>
<p>what a nice phases “an illegal” not even seeing them as people</p>
<p>when someone uses phrases like that, it shows they don’t even consider them humanbeings</p>
<p>and interesting that someone would consider them not worthy of even human rights- </p>
<p>If I remember my teachings about Jesus, he was FOR the downtrodden, the hurt, the poor, the needym the outcasts, the prisoners…</p>
<p>^You remember correctly, he was.</p>
<p>But if you remember other things, you also remember that WE’RE NOT JESUS. We can’t be expected to live like He did. Not only was it a different time (there was no such thing as “illegal immigration” then), but the laws were completely different.</p>
<p>I live the most Christ-like life that I can. But I refuse to aid these people in breaking the law.</p>
<p>Wow, so if you saw an illegal immigrant who was hurt, you wouldn’t help?</p>
<p>If you saw a child whose parents were killed, you wouldn’t help?</p>
<p>If you saw a woman who was raped or robbed, you wouldn’t help?</p>
<p>So, you base who you help by some American Laws, created by man?</p>
<p>They also killed all the bees, drank up all the water in Atlanta, and provided arms to Al-Qaeda in Iraq (whoops, sorry, that was General Betrayus.)</p>
<p>“I live the most Christ-like life that I can. But I refuse to aid these people in breaking the law.”</p>
<p>I doubt it’s a distinction Jesus would understand let alone endorse, but to each her own.</p>
<p>HGFM–you are so wrong in your theology in so many ways, I don’t know where to start. I am, in fact, speechless.</p>
<p>And when you shop, do you make sure your food wasn’t gathered by someone who is not here legally? </p>
<p>And if someone was here illegally, and YOU were hurt, would you accept their assistance? </p>
<p>And what about the civil rights movement? Would you have supported the law breakers then? I am not talking the violent…</p>
<p>So are you saying that if human beings break one law regarding where they can live, that you think its okay to deny them basic human rights, </p>
<p>And Christcorp, the only protection you would give them is to not be executed, no other help whatsover? Even Jesus washed the feet of the worst of the worst, and didn’t judge them or even question them</p>
<p>“Grace”–Does the parable of the Good Samaritan ring any bells?</p>
<p>Jews in 1938 Germany who walked in public parks, used public transport, owned radios, guns, or businesses, or sent their children to public schools were also breaking the law. But by all means let us obey the law.</p>
<p>Not to make a leap from non-citizen immigrants to citizens deprived of their legal rights, just saying how “laws” are not necessarily “right” and certainly not “Christian” if that is the standard you claim you are trying to live by.</p>