Monday, July 17, 2006

Immigrate Me

Amazingly, we've not talked about the immigration issue here. With Jamison giving up news, we might not get much of a discussion out of this, but I'll give it a try anyways.

Immigration has been big politics for months now. As per usual in the political world, it gets spun every which way. Illegal Mexican immigrants either suck up millions of tax dollars through welfare and healthcare without paying taxes, or in fact have taxes taken out of their pay and don't reap the benefits of the welfare programs. They are either crime happy, disease infested rapists, or hard working, good people who commit very little crime.

On and on the spin goes.

No doubt we have a lot of illegal immigrants in our country. The question is what do we do with them. Some suggest we round them up and deport them, without ever giving details to how this would happen. Others, like the President, suggest that we should create a guest worker program making illegals now residing and those coming in to register in some fashion giving them slight legality.

Then there is the wall. Some folks want to build some giant wall across the Mexican borders to stop illegals from coming in.

I don't know what the answer is. The idea of a wall sounds really expensive and scary like a Berlin kind of deal. Plus how effective would it be anyway?

There is so much spin surrounding the facts I can't tell where the truth lies. It seems impossible to deport all of the illegals. It seems terribly difficult to register them and make them pay.

Here is an interesting article on the subject, that seems well researched and thought out.

What do you guys think?

8 comments:

JS said...

How about the MExican president stop living like a king while his
"people" live like animals and create a capitalistic society like the one he is living off of... America. He loves it because all the American money comes back to his country.

Take a look at Mexicos immigration laws... if the USA had the same immigration laws they had, we would be the villians of the earth. For starters, to be a mexican citizen you have to (GASP!) Speak SPANISH! OH THE HORROR!

bigsip said...

I thought it was funny that the title of this article lauded itself for purporting "facts" when it was located in the "Opinion" section.

Fact is, there are many intangibles people don't consider that will be problems later if this keeps happening.

I think immigration laws should be ENFORCED. Simple as that.

Mat Brewster said...

The opinion label has more to do with blogcritics own internal policies than a specific label for that piece. Blogcritics doesn’t really do “hard” news. The writers are all regular folk like me and so real news stories are not something we really can do. It’s pretty much all op/ed pieces, and the labeling they supply is designed as such. So even though this piece contains a lot of hard data, it still gets labeled as opinion.

If we hold up the law, how to we get the 20 odd million illegals out of the country? If we manage to get them up how do we maintain our infrastructure?

Interesting information, Jamison. I know virtually nothing about Mexico. What can the US do to help with this issue? Are you trying to say we should sanction Mexico in some way to get them to make things better there?

And I sense sarcasm in the language remark, but I’m not sure how to apply it. Do you think that the Mexican policy is a good one? Or are you making fun of Americans who oppose a similar law for citizenship in the US?

mullinz8 said...

I’m a bit crossed on this subject. Part of me says that if living conditions were so bad here I’d do the exact same thing. For that sake I welcome them over. I heard a very interesting point the other morning stating that the Mexicans that are coming over are the ones we want here. They are the ones seeking to better their lives and do something productive. They can’t find work to survive so they go where the work is. We want the motivated workers here instead of the bums.

Then again I’m not so proud to not do a little flag waving. If you show up here you must live by the house rules. Follow the legal process involved with staying here, if you don’t, you get kicked out hard and fast. Learn the language and know it’s the way the schools are taught and society functions. Develop a system where immigrants can assist US students in learning Spanish while learning English, who cares just do something. Lastly contribute to the country. This is just being a productive worker and not a freaking mooch.

Speaking of pride. I will also say that I’ve always considered myself a socially and nationally tolerant individual. I have known folks from all over the world in high school and since then in Oak Ridge. I knew those folks were here having gone through the proper channels to work at the plants in town. Seeing groups of Hispanics wandering the streets of my city pisses me off because I don’t think anyone knows who they are and where they come from. I’ve found my self becoming a bit prejudiced towards peoples of their ethnicity simple because there is a question about their right to be here.

I think W is a hard line globalist and has no intention to “close off” America or minimize the flow. I think he would open the gates wide if he could work a Louisiana Purchase deal. “He he. Hey there Fox, mi amigo. I’ll take all those border crossers off your hands if you’ll let me add another 1200 miles to the country just south of Texas. Or all ya’ll could get health care and such if you just let me annex the whole place.”

Judy said...

Interesting article indeed!

I think this is most interesting;

"What's more, Mexicans like the life they have in Mexico. A peculiar survey conducted in 2004 determined that Mexico is the second 'happiest' country in the world in terms of how satisfied their population is with the life they have. The US ranked 15th."

And yet they sacrifice their lives to cross the border. "Peculiar survey," indeedy.

I say, do away with the facts and enforce our laws. Just a reminder, I am not Mexican.

bigsip said...

I wonder about the accuracy of that survey.

What is your ethnic origin, btw, Yudelka?

I'm mostly Scot and Native American.

JS said...

I think I am english, but I know I am 1/16th irish, and everyone says I look italian, but I love mexican food and always seem to root for the Germans in WW2 movies. Then again, I have had black women make sexual advances towards me...

In other words, I am full blooded American LOL!

Judy said...

I'm Dominican--from the Dominican Republic, born and partly raised...no room for confusion like Jamison.

I love Mexian food, too.