What do you think about Illegals getting instate tuition?

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<p>Immigration Bill Fails Crucial Test in Senate
By JULIE HIRSCHFELD DAVIS
AP
WASHINGTON (June 7) - A broad immigration bill to legalize millions of people in the U.S. unlawfully suffered a stunning setback in the Senate Thursday, costing President Bush perhaps his best opportunity to win a top domestic priority. </p>

<p>The bipartisan compromise championed by the president failed a crucial test when it could not attract even a simple majority for an effort to speed its passage. </p>

<p>Intense public concern over immigration across the country conspired with high political stakes to produce a roiling debate on the issue. Ultimately, those forces overwhelmed a painstakingly forged liberal-to-conservative alliance that sought to insulate their compromise from partisanship. </p>

<p>Supporters could muster only 45 votes to limit debate and speed the bill to final passage, 15 short of what was needed on the procedural maneuver. Fifty senators voted against cutting off debate. </p>

<p>Most Republicans voted to block Democrats’ efforts to advance the measure. </p>

<p>Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid , D-Nev., who had made no secret of his distaste for parts of the bill, quickly pulled it from the floor and moved on to other business, leaving its future uncertain. </p>

<p>He insisted that the bill was not dead, but a crowded Senate calendar complicates its prospects. </p>

<p>“I, even though disappointed, look forward to passing this bill,” Reid said. “I have every desire to complete this legislation, and we all have to work - the president included - to figure out a way to get this bill passed.” </p>

<p>The measure’s chances are even murkier in the House, where Democratic leaders don’t plan to act on the divisive issue until the Senate has finished work on it. </p>

<p>Sen. Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., the minority leader, said Democrats tried to rush the bill. </p>

<p>“I think we’re giving up on this bill too soon,” McConnell said. </p>

<p>The legislation would tighten borders and institute a new system to prevent employers from hiring undocumented workers, in addition to giving up to 12 million illegal immigrants a pathway to legal status. </p>

<p>Conceived by an improbable coalition that nicknamed the deal a “grand bargain,” the measure exposes deep rifts within both parties and is loathed by most GOP conservatives. </p>

<p>All but seven Republicans voted against ending debate, with many arguing they needed more time to make the bill tougher with tighter border security measures and a more arduous legalization process for unlawful immigrants. Thirty-eight Republicans and Sen. Bernard Sanders, a Vermont independent, opposed the procedural tactic. </p>

<p>All but 11 Democrats supported the move, but they, too, were holding their noses at provisions of the bill. Many of them argued it makes second-class citizens of a new crop of temporary workers and rips apart families by prioritizing employability over blood ties in future immigration. </p>

<p>Thirty-seven Democrats and Sen. Joseph Lieberman, a Connecticut independent, voted to advance the measure. </p>

<p>Proponents had argued that the bill, on balance, was worth advancing. </p>

<p>“We can all find different aspects of this legislation that we differ with,” said Sen. Edward M. Kennedy of Massachusetts, the leading Democratic architect of the bill. </p>

<p>He held out hope after the vote that the measure would survive. “Doing nothing is not an alternative,” Kennedy said. “This issue isn’t going away.” </p>

<p>“I believe that we will yet succeed,” said Sen. Arlen Specter, R-Pa., a framer of the bill who was one of few in his party who backed the procedural move. </p>

<p>The defeat for the compromise was the culmination of a week of ups and downs for the contentious immigration measure, which mirrored the tumultuous process that went into crafting it. </p>

<p>Kennedy partnered with Sen. Jon Kyl, R-Ariz., and several centrists to craft a bill that melded conservative themes of tougher border security and limiting immigration with the liberal goal of legalizing those who are in the U.S. unlawfully and welcoming future arrivals. </p>

<p>In the end, however, Kyl broke from the bipartisan clique that hatched the agreement, siding with Republicans who said they hadn’t gotten enough chances to toughen the bill. </p>

<p>“It’s time to scrap this mess of a bill,” said Sen. Jim DeMint, R-S.C., a conservative who had failed in several attempts to make the measure more punitive toward illegal immigrants. </p>

<p>Liberal groups, which had pressed hard for the measure’s passage despite their many complaints about its elements, were dismayed at Thursday’s result. </p>

<p>Frank Sharry, the executive director of the National Immigration Forum, called the vote “a huge disappointment to immigrant communities and those seeking a solution to the dysfunctional immigration system in America.” </p>

<p>"We fear the result was a matter of politicians - particularly Republicans - not wanting to confront obstinate members of their own parties in order to let the majority’s will - and the people’s will - prevail. </p>

<p>The raucous congressional debate over immigration reflected the cloudy public sentiment about the issue demonstrated in recent polls. </p>

<p>A survey conducted May 30-June 3 by the nonpartisan Pew Research Center for the People and the Press found overwhelming support - among two-thirds of the public - for giving illegal immigrants citizenship if they have jobs, pass background checks and pay fines. </p>

<p>But people were fairly ill-informed about the complex Senate measure, which less than one-third said they had heard a lot about. </p>

<p>Those who had heard at least a little about it were split on the Senate measure, which melds conservative themes of tougher border security and limiting immigration with the liberal goal of legalizing those who are in the U.S. unlawfully and welcoming future arrivals. </p>

<p>Of that group, 33 percent favor the bill, 41 percent oppose and 26 percent gave no response or said they didn’t know. Republicans opposed it by 43 to 36 percent, Democrats by 37 to 33 percent, and independents by 46 to 31 percent. </p>

<p>The bill is S.1348. </p>

<p>Associated Press writer Charles Babington contributed to this report. </p>

<p>Copyright 2007 The Associated Press.</p>

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<p>The central issue is not what we do with the 20 million illegal aliens already living here but how we get some kind of control over our borders so we don’t have another 20 million in the next five years.</p>

<p>This truly terrible bill is now dead and it won’t be rising from the ashes. It was laid to rest with a bipartisan vote.</p>

<p>zoosermom’s plan sounds good to me. </p>

<p>Anybody know how many illegal aliens we currently have in state and federal prisons and what that is costing us?</p>

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<p>One reason that unemployment for Americans is so high is that jobs are distributed unevenly across the country and many people won’t do what the immigrants do–move to find work. Their situation just isn’t desperate enough for them to risk what they have where they are for the possibility of something better elsewhere.</p>

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<p>Zoos – so you’re NOT in favor of enforcing the law. Because the law doesn’t say “we’ll make things unpleasant.” The law says “we’ll deport.”</p>

<p>Oh enough already “the law?” “the law” don’t you understand the concept that the term “the law” can refer to the body of laws? There is not once law in the United States. Your posting is remarkably disingenuous.</p>

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<p>"Graham got almost hysterical over an amendment that was added today (yelling, screaming, etc). "</p>

<p>He has a habit of doing that.</p>

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<p>"One reason that unemployment for Americans is so high is that jobs are distributed unevenly across the country and many people won’t do what the immigrants do–move to find work. "</p>

<p>That is a brilliant point. Do you think portable health insurance would help change that?</p>

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<p>conyat,
I guess I could do the lazy-way-out & ask you to do my research for me, LOL. (I guess I <em>am</em> asking for that.:)) – that is, regarding migration statistics. Because what you say surprises me in terms of Latino immigrants themselves. My understanding is that it has been only a recent trend for that segment to migrate once they have arrived, or at least they have had a history of not migrating very soon after arrival. This becomes an issue when it comes to the entire direction of a state being overwhelmed with a disproportionately large segment (compared to most states) of non-English speakers not literate or educated in their own language. </p>

<p>But building on what zoos. just said, I’ve argued to friends, associates for the last 20+ years (when the genuine flood began in earnest), that incentives toward multi-state immigration and migration be established, so as not to overburden resources of any single state. So I agree that benefits, social services should be part of those incentives. And sure, health insurance is one of those, but a lack of health insurance has not prevented <em>illegals</em> anyway, from freely using private & public health facilities at legal-resident expense.</p>

<p>So what I’m really saying is that i.m.o. <em>both</em> legal and illegal immigration need to be addressed, not just with a view to priorities, standards, consequences, but with a view to <em>limits</em>. Whether the issue is over legal or illegal, land and resources are not infinite. The Canadian gov’t got wise to this many years ago, & stopped their own flood from outside. While sensitive to people’s concerns about consequences for illegals (precedent-setting, etc.), I guess I am much more concerned about the future. Unless U.S. citizens are prepared to have the country transformed into Immigration Central for the globe, with our borders as the open frontier for the entire Third World. well…I just wonder how the geniuses in Congress reconcile what masquerades as “planning” with the laws of physics & mathematics.</p>

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<p>Would that be the deciding factor for you to move halfway across the country for a job? It would be a factor in your decision–even a deal breaker for you if there would be a gap in your coverage–sure, but not the only thing you looked at.</p>

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<a href=“http://www.slate.com/id/2161834/[/url]”>http://www.slate.com/id/2161834/&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

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<p>I think this is an example of disincentives:</p>

<p>The New York Times
June 8, 2007
Arrests of 31 in U.S. Sweep Bring Fear in New Haven
By JENNIFER MEDINA</p>

<p>NEW HAVEN, June 7 — Over the last several years, this city has gone to great lengths to turn itself into a kind of haven, quite literally, for illegal immigrants. It was not that new immigrants were pouring in, but that there were thousands already living here, and the officials who have long run the city wanted to bring them out of the shadows.</p>

<p>The police adopted a “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy for dealing with immigrants, and the mayor backed a plan for municipal identification cards. Within the borders of this liberal college town, there was hardly a whiff of opposition.</p>

<p>But starting at 6 a.m. Wednesday, two days after the Board of Aldermen overwhelmingly approved the identity card plan, federal agents swept into the largely Hispanic Fair Haven community and arrested some 31 people suspected of being illegal immigrants, many in their homes.</p>

<p>Within hours, any sense of sanctuary that the city and advocates for immigrants advocates had developed over the years was turned upside down, replaced with fear.</p>

<p>“There is truly no safe haven for fugitive aliens,” said Marc Raimondi, a spokesman for Immigration and Customs Enforcement, the federal agency that conducted the raid.</p>

<p>Afterward, local officials’ cellphones lighted up with dozens of frantic phone calls from residents and community leaders saying that people were missing. There were rumors of a mass arrest at a supermarket. Fair Haven resembled a ghost town, with residents huddling inside their houses, afraid that they, too, could be arrested at any moment.</p>

<p>“At 10 in the morning, the streets were just empty,” said John Lugo, an organizer for Unidad Latina en Acci</p>

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<p>“No matter how bad things get in Detroit or Treorchy, the houses will still be there, and if they are cheap enough, people will want to live in them.”</p>

<p>I think that having a migratory rootless population without a commitment to a community except for receiving a handful of cash at the end of the day is not what makes a country strong.</p>

<p>What’s wrong with community? Who wants to move a family every 6 months to go with the harvest or grass-mowing? We need stable jobs in the US and a stable, middle-class working population.</p>

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<p>Facts on Immigration
Bolstering Social Security</p>

<p>April 6, 2005
On April 5, the New York Times ran an article on Social Security that illustrates just how much our economy has become dependent on the labor of undocumented immigrants.<br>
The Social Security Administration’s (SSA) chief actuary estimates that three quarters of undocumented immigrants pay Social Security tax, an estimate that makes undocumented workers responsible for about 1.5% of total wages reported to the SSA.
Taxes paid by undocumented immigrants go into the SSA’s “suspense file,” when the Social Security number does not match SSA’s records. In 2002, the suspense file grew by $56 billion in reported earnings, with about $7 billion in Social Security tax and $1.5 billion in Medicare tax paid. This tax contribution represents about 10% of the current Social Security surplus—the difference between what is being collected in Social Security taxes and what is being paid out in benefits.<br>
This year, Congress will attempt to tackle both Social Security’s long-term viability and reform of our immigration laws. The two are related. Without taxes paid by immigrants, our Social Security system would be in much worse shape than it is currently projected to be.<br>
Illegal Immigrants Are Bolstering Social Security With Billions</p>

<p>NEW YORK TIMES
By EDUARDO PORTER
April 5, 2005
[Front Page]
STOCKTON, Calif. - Since illegally crossing the Mexican border into the United States six years ago, Ángel Martínez has done backbreaking work, harvesting asparagus, pruning grapevines and picking the ripe fruit. More recently, he has also washed trucks, often working as much as 70 hours a week, earning $8.50 to $12.75 an hour.
Not surprisingly, Mr. Martínez, 28, has not given much thought to Social Security’s long-term financial problems. But Mr. Martínez - who comes from the state of Oaxaca in southern Mexico and hiked for two days through the desert to enter the United States near Tecate, some 20 miles east of Tijuana - contributes more than most Americans to the solvency of the nation’s public retirement system.
Last year, Mr. Martínez paid about $2,000 toward Social Security and $450 for Medicare through payroll taxes withheld from his wages. Yet unlike most Americans, who will receive some form of a public pension in retirement and will be eligible for Medicare as soon as they turn 65, Mr. Martínez is not entitled to benefits.
He belongs to a big club. As the debate over Social Security heats up, the estimated seven million or so illegal immigrant workers in the United States are now providing the system with a subsidy of as much as $7 billion a year.
While it has been evident for years that illegal immigrants pay a variety of taxes, the extent of their contributions to Social Security is striking: the money added up to about 10 percent of last year’s surplus - the difference between what the system currently receives in payroll taxes and what it doles out in pension benefits. Moreover, the money paid by illegal workers and their employers is factored into all the Social Security Administration’s projections.
Illegal immigration, Marcelo Suárez-Orozco, co-director of immigration studies at New York University, noted sardonically, could provide “the fastest way to shore up the long-term finances of Social Security.”
It is impossible to know exactly how many illegal immigrant workers pay taxes. But according to specialists, most of them do. Since 1986, when the Immigration Reform and Control Act set penalties for employers who knowingly hire illegal immigrants, most such workers have been forced to buy fake ID’s to get a job.
Currently available for about $150 on street corners in just about any immigrant neighborhood in California, a typical fake ID package includes a green card and a Social Security card. It provides cover for employers, who, if asked, can plausibly assert that they believe all their workers are legal. It also means that workers must be paid by the book - with payroll tax deductions.
IRCA, as the immigration act is known, did little to deter employers from hiring illegal immigrants or to discourage them from working. But for Social Security’s finances, it was a great piece of legislation.
Starting in the late 1980’s, the Social Security Administration received a flood of W-2 earnings reports with incorrect - sometimes simply fictitious - Social Security numbers. It stashed them in what it calls the “earnings suspense file” in the hope that someday it would figure out whom they belonged to.
The file has been mushrooming ever since: $189 billion worth of wages ended up recorded in the suspense file over the 1990’s, two and a half times the amount of the 1980’s.
In the current decade, the file is growing, on average, by more than $50 billion a year, generating $6 billion to $7 billion in Social Security tax revenue and about $1.5 billion in Medicare taxes.
In 2002 alone, the last year with figures released by the Social Security Administration, nine million W-2’s with incorrect Social Security numbers landed in the suspense file, accounting for $56 billion in earnings, or about 1.5 percent of total reported wages.
Social Security officials do not know what fraction of the suspense file corresponds to the earnings of illegal immigrants. But they suspect that the portion is significant.
“Our assumption is that about three-quarters of other-than-legal immigrants pay payroll taxes,” said Stephen C. Goss, Social Security’s chief actuary, using the agency’s term for illegal immigration.
Other researchers say illegal immigrants are the main contributors to the suspense file. “Illegal immigrants account for the vast majority of the suspense file,” said Nick Theodore, the director of the Center for Urban Economic Development at the University of Illinois at Chicago. “Especially its growth over the 1990’s, as more and more undocumented immigrants entered the work force.”
Using data from the Census Bureau’s current population survey, Steven Camarota, director of research at the Center for Immigration Studies, an advocacy group in Washington that favors more limits on immigration, estimated that 3.8 million households headed by illegal immigrants generated $6.4 billion in Social Security taxes in 2002.
A comparative handful of former illegal immigrant workers who have obtained legal residence have been able to accredit their previous earnings to their new legal Social Security numbers. Mr. Camarota is among those opposed to granting a broad amnesty to illegal immigrants, arguing that, among other things, they might claim Social Security benefits and put further financial stress on the system.
The mismatched W-2’s fit like a glove on illegal immigrants’ known geographic distribution and the patchwork of jobs they typically hold. An audit found that more than half of the 100 employers filing the most earnings reports with false Social Security numbers from 1997 through 2001 came from just three states: California, Texas and Illinois. According to an analysis by the Government Accountability Office, about 17 percent of the businesses with inaccurate W-2’s were restaurants, 10 percent were construction companies and 7 percent were farm operations.
Most immigration helps Social Security’s finances, because new immigrants tend to be of working age and contribute more than they take from the system. A simulation by Social Security’s actuaries found that if net immigration ran at 1.3 million a year instead of the 900,000 in their central assumption, the system’s 75-year funding gap would narrow to 1.67 percent of total payroll, from 1.92 percent - savings that come out to half a trillion dollars, valued in today’s money.
Illegal immigrants help even more because they will never collect benefits. According to Mr. Goss, without the flow of payroll taxes from wages in the suspense file, the system’s long-term funding hole over 75 years would be 10 percent deeper.
Yet to immigrants, the lack of retirement benefits is just part of the package of hardship they took on when they decided to make the trek north. Tying vines in a vineyard some 30 miles north of Stockton, Florencio Tapia, 20, from Guerrero, along Mexico’s Pacific coast, has no idea what the money being withheld from his paycheck is for. “I haven’t asked,” Mr. Tapia said.
For illegal immigrants, Social Security numbers are simply a tool needed to work on this side of the border. Retirement does not enter the picture.
“There will be a moment when I won’t be able to continue working,” Mr. Martínez acknowledges. “But that’s many years off.”
Mario Avalos, a naturalized Nicaraguan immigrant who prepares income tax returns for many workers in the area, including immigrants without legal papers, observes that many older workers return home to Mexico. “Among my clients,” he said, “I can’t recall anybody over 60 without papers.”
No doubt most illegal immigrants would prefer to avoid Social Security altogether. As part of its efforts to properly assign the growing pile of unassigned wages, Social Security sends about 130,000 letters a year to employers with large numbers of mismatched pay statements.
Though not an intended consequence of these so-called no-match letters, in many cases employers who get them dismiss the workers affected. Or the workers - fearing that immigration authorities might be on their trail - just leave.
Last February, for instance, discrepancies in Social Security numbers put an end to the job of Minerva Ortega, 25, from Zacatecas, in northern Mexico, who worked in the cheese department at a warehouse for Mike Campbell & Associates, a distributor for Trader Joe’s, a popular discount food retailer with a large operation in California.
The company asked dozens of workers to prove that they had cleared up or were in the process of clearing up the “discrepancy between the information on our payroll related to your employment and the S.S.A.'s records.” Most could not.
Ms. Ortega said about 150 workers lost their jobs. In a statement, Mike Campbell said that it did not fire any of the workers, but Robert Camarena, a company official, acknowledged that many left.
Ms. Ortega is now looking for work again. She does not want to go back to the fields, so she is holding out for a better-paid factory job. Whatever work she finds, though, she intends to go on the payroll with the same Social Security number she has now, a number that will not jibe with federal records.
With this number, she will continue paying taxes. Last year she paid about $1,200 in Social Security taxes, matched by her employer, on an income of $19,000.
She will never see the money again, she realizes, but at least she will have a job in the United States.
“I don’t pay much attention,” Ms. Ortega said. “I know I don’t get any benefit.”</p>

<p>–</p>

<p>Glad Romney and Giuiliani agree, and that the Senate adopted their “amnesty” bill.</p>

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<p>Gee, that’s great that you’re posting information from 2 years ago, mini. It does not address today, it does not address the most current reports revealing that illegal immigration is now a net economic LOSS to the country, no longer a net economic benefit. When one looks at particular categories of impact, this drain is quite pronounced, and not offset by soc.security contributions.</p>

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<p>“It is impossible to know exactly how many illegal immigrant workers pay taxes. But according to specialists, most of them do. Since 1986, when the Immigration Reform and Control Act set penalties for employers who knowingly hire illegal immigrants, most such workers have been forced to buy fake ID’s to get a job.
Currently available for about $150 on street corners in just about any immigrant neighborhood in California, a typical fake ID package includes a green card and a Social Security card. It provides cover for employers, who, if asked, can plausibly assert that they believe all their workers are legal. It also means that workers must be paid by the book - with payroll tax deductions.”</p>

<p>So isn’t this so wonderful, people living under assumed or stolen identities? Is this what makes a country strong?</p>

<p>Now you need to offset this with the money spent for Medicaid, WIC, food stamps, free medical care, free schooling, prison and law enforcement time, etc, etc, etc.</p>

<p>I have also seen analyses that the little money that illegals pay in local taxes do not even begin to make up for the social services and other resources that they consume at a very high rate.</p>

<p>Let’s try building America on laws, not illegality and false identities…</p>

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<p>“It does not address today, it does not address the most current reports revealing that illegal immigration is now a net economic LOSS to the country, no longer a net economic benefit. When one looks at particular categories of impact, this drain is quite pronounced, and not offset by soc.security contributions.”</p>

<p>False, as usual. The so-called “loss” stems from services provided to CITIZENS - the children of immigrants, not the immigrants themselves. But those same services are afforded to ALL citizens. And when they grow up, into voting, educated citizens, they pay it back. As did the generation before them, and the generation before that.</p>

<p>But don’t let facts get in the way. It’s only Social Security’s chief actuary that says more than 75% of undocumented immigrants pay payroll taxes and Social Security. What does he know?</p>

<p>Anyhow, I’m quite satisfied that Romney and Giuliani got their way, and we have at least two more years of amnesty.</p>

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<p>mini, so it’s fine that the loss is to citizens and not to immigrants? (I never said the loss was to immigrants. I said the loss was to the COUNTRY’s economy as a whole, which is not “false as usual.”) I have to go to work soon. Perhaps I’ll find these recent citations later tonight, or someone can beat me to it.</p>

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<p>epiphany, I’d like to see your citations – because many studies on the subject are inconclusive as to whether the US gains or loses with its current illegal immigration. </p>

<p>Here’s just 2 examples, with conclusions drawn upon many different studies:</p>

<p><a href=“http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2006/05/21/MNGFQIVN991.DTL&type=politics[/url]”>http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2006/05/21/MNGFQIVN991.DTL&type=politics&lt;/a&gt;
Highlight:
“Immigrants are not going to be the economic salvation of a country, but they’re not going to be the road to hell either” </p>

<p><a href=“http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=5312900[/url]”>Q&A: Illegal Immigrants and the U.S. Economy : NPR;
Highlight
“But economists generally believe that when averaged over the whole economy, the effect [of illegal immigration on the economy] is a small net positive.”</p>

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<p>“False, as usual. The so-called “loss” stems from services provided to CITIZENS - the children of immigrants, not the immigrants themselves. But those same services are afforded to ALL citizens. And when they grow up, into voting, educated citizens, they pay it back. As did the generation before them, and the generation before that.”</p>

<p>First of all, the illegal immigrants, of all ages, utilize medical services, law enforcement services, and prison services, etc as well as school programs. Are you saying that the adults never get ill or injured?</p>

<p>Second of all, you are assuming that these particular illegals will assimilate at the same rate, and at the same economic level as prior immigrant groups. Since the majority of Mexican immigrants and their kids are dropping out of HS in NYC, per the NYTimes, I cannot believe that they are the same. Do Asian-Americans in NYC drop out of HS at the rate of 60%? Or Russians? Did other immigrant groups? No, and that is why the Mexican immigrants are different. They do not appear to be rising up in the ranks of American society as other groups have, and will then require more government services as they age, with less taxes and more people. It is just a fact, and needs to be calculated into the equation of immigration quotas. I wish they were more upwardly mobile. But we are basically inheriting Mexico’s social problems. They do not seem to be rapidly evolving into more highly paid and highly taxed jobs, and that is a problem, as much as I empathize with their plight in Mexico.</p>

<p>Another huge factor is the billions of dollars sent back to Mexico. This is money that would stimulate our economy if it was kept and spent here.</p>

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<p>Collegialmom, check out the links I provided in the post above. They suggest that illegal immigration in fact does stimulate our economy - even if infinitesmally.</p>

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<p>“Collegialmom, check out the links I provided in the post above. They suggest that illegal immigration in fact does stimulate our economy - even if infinitesmally.”</p>

<p>I have been reading the back and forth about this in the media. Until it is definitely resolved that it is not a buden, then I will have my doubts. </p>

<p>I also haven’t seen any stats that include all of the programs and costs, such as Medicaid, free hospital care, WIC, preganancy-related costs, jail costs, cost to communities when illegals settle there and lower property values by filling up houses with non-related people, costs of illegals driving without a license or driver’s ed and causing accidents at a higher rates, the spiraling down of wages due to undocumented cheap labor, costs of the INS to monitor illegals and try to “screen” and hold them (when they bother to)at the border, and the cost over the next 20 years of encouraging 20 million more to come and have at least 3 children each.</p>

<p>Personally, I’d like to have immigration controlled more, and take more evenly from varied parts of the world, especially groups that can have an impact on all parts of society (and encourage diversity.)</p>

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<p>“What’s wrong with community? Who wants to move a family every 6 months to go with the harvest or grass-mowing?”</p>

<p>Nothing’s wrong with people staying in one place. But it’s one of the reasons people don’t have jobs. In many cases, it’s not because the illegals took the jobs, but because people find it more to their benefit and the benefit of their community to stay where they are then to move to where the jobs are.</p>