Captain's Quarters -

What a load Bush and some 'conservatives' try to sell. Rewarding criminal behavior, taking jobs away from my family and friends and giving them to criminals isn't a healthy move for any political party - except anti-American oriented types who seem to thrive at such treason.

The amnesty Bush wants will bring another 20 million in short order.

Good thing I'm not dictator for a day - I hang an awful number of thieves, robbers, and border crashers - and the same kind of 'legislators.'

um.. should have said, 'I'd hang an...'

everyone of these cockeyed ideas were chewed, swallowed and regurgitated by the Jordan commission on immigration from 1990-1995. there is absolutely nothing new being discussed. we keep trying to put a square peg in a round hole with the psychotic hope that this time it will fit.

do a google search and read her report. it ends, as all the preceding reports did, in the same place---build a fence the complete length of the border. all other solutions originate here. without it nothing is possible. because of that conclusion, the denying of automatic citizenship for children born here to illegals and the denying of familiar rights to bring extended family here clinton ignored the study as had all previous presidents since kennedy when faced with similar conclusions.

what has changed now, predicted by many if no fence was built, is that the illegal/hispanic community has reached a critical mass such that there are now very few choices. at forty million strong and growing they are going to tell us what they want rather than the other way around.

enjoy the entertainment that is coming--president bush's ideas have absolutely no chance of ever being enacted. what he has done is already cut the fence in half and assured ms clinton 90% of the hispanic vote. mind you, as a side note, the quote "electronic fence" everyone touts does not deter illegals from coming it just lets us know when they cross the border. if you read the bill/proposal it's strictly for census purposes. nowhere in the bill are they to be apprehended.

only in america............

what this video:

http://tinyurl.com/zg634

this conspiracy is a whole lot better than roswell or the grassy knoll!

One more time, you cannot fence the Rio Grande river. Ranchers need to water their livestock on both sides. It is not a working solution, try something else.

stromy you need to do some more reseach. the rio grande presents no problem whatsoever. that lame excuse was settled 40 years ago.

And when 11,000,000 people refuse to pay $14,000 apiece to do what they now do for free? Do they get deported then, or do we just start to haggle?

Cap ....you state ............"a Democratic majority forced the White House to take Republican concerns on immigration more seriously".

This is not ........nor has ever been ............a Democratic .......or ..........a Republican issue.

I am amazed at the people whom I know and work with ............that may never agree with my conservative positions on many issues (mainly homeland security ........union jobs related .....and .......fiscal issues) .............who are totally against an amnesty for illegal aliens and a guest worker program.

The Dems will just not address it .....other than those drafting the bills. And ...........the Republicans will just not follow their constituents position on the issue.

Build the fence, but don't pretend it will stop the flow of illegals if opportunities for employment don't diminish as well. They'll come by boat. They'll buy parachutes. They'll go to Canada first and then come. Humans adapt. If you can smuggle a bale of marijuana, you can smuggle a person.

rbmn,

true enough, but they won't just walk across the border by the millions. when criminals, folks who refuse to register etc are thrown over the fence they will stay out. now they just walk right back in. the vast majority, perhaps 95% or more have no means whatsoever to get to canada, buy a parachute, ride in a boat or are worth a bale of weed.

like i said, every one of these objections were dealt with by all previous reports. their conclusions are all part of the public record. that's why congress in its wisdom waits about 15-20 years between tries figuring everyone will have forgotten the previous reports. it works everytime. here we are again.

I want to reinfoce what The Yell said.

You are not going to get them to come out of the wood work by charging a guy who makes at most $20K a year $10K.

I could see a charge of a few hundred dollars to cover the paper work.

It is like the idea of "prohibition". Prohibition prohibits nothing. Over time the price of prohibited substances reverts to the natural costs of the business. The price of heroin has dropped by a factor of 600 over the last 40 years on a price/purity basis.

Making/keeping these folks on a totally illegal basis will do nothing to identify them or remove them from the country.

Maybe the thing to do is to get the employers to register them in some kind of guest worker program.

Any punitive approach will just keep the current situation in place.

Any punitive approach will just keep the current situation in place.

Incorrect. Any time there is a crackdown, the open borders folks start media blitzing in order to bring about enough political pressure to make it stop.

A mere twelve man ICE task force here in California was SO effective at putting the fear of enforcement in the illegal community, Asa Hutchinson of ill fame shut it down.

Enforcement works.

Cut off the education, the medical care, and make employers verify through a centralized system, and penalize the employers harshly if they don't.

Can't work, can't eat, can't get medical care or education, there will no longer be a benefit to coming here illegally.

Oh, and for those who romaticize illegals, don't bother. My daughter lives just south in a town that has been overrun by those good folk who just come here to work.
Drunk driving, murders in broad daylight on the city streets, stabbings, meth labs, etc are now the order of the day thanks to those same "good folks". Not to mention petty crime....don't leave your house doors or cars unlocked anymore! (Funny how in my less impacted community just twelve miles north, I can still do all those things). Or the trash and the peeing in the alleyways. The machete wielding MS-13 has also moved into what was formerly a peaceful middle class ag town.

People who think that respect for the law is optional do not make good citizens.

That seems elementary to me.

If he'd do this for H1B1's too, that would be really cool. Let Microsoft pay for the privilege of undercutting salaries.

As I've previously posted, the best way to cut illegal immigration is to punish their hiring. We already have laws to do that. Amnesty anyone who can give a true 3-year employment history; collect the histories and go after their employers.

unclesmrgol wrote: "the best way to cut illegal immigration is to punish their hiring."

Then get rid of loopholes that let employers protect themselves based on forged documents. That's where the meat is. That's why a fence alone doesn't put bad employers in any jeopardy. You have make forgery impossible, and shift the decision--about what's an authentic ID--to a US government database. Employers who don't go to the database for authenication have no more excuses that keep them out of trouble.

If they can pay $14,000 to a smuggler to get in, then why can't they pay $14,000 for the privilege of staying.

I just don't see any punishment for the illegals currently here -- any tacit act that what they did was wrong. Could we at a minimum make them apologize at the same time they take an oath of citizenship?

The other thing I'd REALLY like to see is a signed pledge that if they're allowed to stay and become an American citizen, they *PROMISE* faithfully -- vow, even -- not to send any more money "back home". Because America is home now, and whatever money they're making should be going into *our* economy to make AMERICA stronger. Not back to their sick home country of Mexico (or El Salvador or Guatemala, or whatever banana republic they're originally from). But *especially* not back to Mexico.

I want to unbundle the "guest worker" program from the Secure borders plan but think that $10K is unrealistic for a dishwasher, busboy or day laborer. Hell, if they had $10K they'd go home. Hey, now that's an idea!

John, they do have the $10K.

Ever read about the guy who lives on $5/wk?

Parties don't do well when they go "nativist."

As I've already told ya, the WHIGS died ON THEIR PLATFORM. They got buried, under it.

And, their platform? Nativism was a WHIG clarion call, to those who hated the millions of arriving immigrants from Ireland. Those Irish? Well, their major flaw was the catholicism. Who knew Christians would take issue with other believers in Christ? But it happens all of the time. Not one church doesn't have spittle on the windows, coming from passersby, outside. Like you could really get to heaven better, following one book and not the other.

Sure. We have major problems. Schools that can't teach English. Schools that have credentialed idiots passing off their lack of skills on the poor kids.

Neighborhoods that are disasters. Due, mainly to welfare. And, the illegal trading that goes on.

You didn't know that if your community was high on drugs, you'd be facing problems/ You think "restive yoots" are just a problem in paris?

Bush, meanwhile, is a DUD.

Will he do mischief, ahead? My guess is that if he doesn't do more mischief, it won't be for lackluster trying.

He "could" sign the pork laden Iraqi funding bill, for instance. Because the rug dealers in congress discovered Bush is an idiot. HE wants to survive. Everybody else can just go jump on their swords.

Who will suffer the most from the pork stuff?

I'll guess the GOP. Until the GOP provides a serious candidate. Bush is not serious! If he had learned anything over the past six years? He wouldn't be pushing the House of Saud's agenda.

He wouldn't have put James Baker baaack into the driver's seat in the White House. And, he'd have fired Condi when she danced with Chirac.

Instead? Nobody seems to know how to measure the consequences. It's like "not making a big deal out of the painless lump."

The good news? At least the GOP has viable candidates! And, Bush won't head the ticket in 2008.

The worst outcome? And, the one most democraps count on? They keep controls of their local seats. They watch the 25 GOP senators lose a couple of their state elections. And, then they wait for the new president to show up.

From the way people have been voting? It seems few care, really, about the pork. The bill's so high, no one feels quite responsible for having to pay it.

How did we run up bills in Iraq, anyway? Don't they have oil?

Bush can't figure out what a fair deal even looks like.

While if he uses his veto pen? He'd be doing something that's against his style. But it would be a good beginning. Otherwise, he's just someone to roll.

The House of Saud? Has way too many enemies among the arabs. Nobody's gonna come along and give them a good name.

We know Osama is one of their princes. If he's alive? He lives in the hills of afghanistan.

What do the Saud's want? The same Whabbism to take hold around the globe. Bush is too stupid to know what this is about. But the Saud's want to control from Switzerland. Holes in Afghanistan isn't even a "last resort."

How many Sauds? Less than 50,000. But as "ruling families go?" More than Tin Lizzy has to deal with. More than most dynasties get. Let alone, where there are so many diplomatic shills, playing along.

I'm almost glad Abner Dinnerjack laughs off everything done by the UN. It's just toilet paper to him. And, that, too, is a lesson you get from the weak leading the meek. Instead of seeing the strong.

On this subject, Rich Lowery said it best just about one year ago:

"In his second term, President Bush has become a master of the reverse-wedge issue — hot-button issues that divide his political base and get it to feast on itself with charges of sexism, xenophobia and racism. The first was Harriet Miers; then there was the Dubai ports deal; and now comes his guest-worker proposal, making for a trifecta of political self-immolation."

Three-year-old statistics. I'm sure it's even higher now.

From:
Background Briefing, Task Force on Immigration and America's Future: Numbers and Characteristics
Pew Hispanic Center
By Jeffrey S. Passel
June 14, 2005
http://pewhispanic.org/files/reports/46.pdf

Proportion of workers who are unauthorized migrants, selected occupations:

Drywall/ceiling tile installers... 27%
Cement masons & finishers 22%
Roofers 21%
Construction laborers 20%
Painters, construction etc. 20%
Brick/block/stone masons 19%
Carpenters 12%
Grounds maint. workers 26%
Misc. agricultural workers 23%
Hand packers & packagers 22%
Graders & sorters, ag. prod. 22%
Butchers/ meat, poultry wrkrs 25%
Dishwashers 24%
Cooks 18%
Dining & cafeteria attendants 14%
Food prep. workers 13%
Janitors & bldg cleaners 12%
Maids & housekeepers 22%
Sewing machine operators 18%
Cleaning/washing equip. oper 20%
Packaging/filling mach. oper. 17%
Metal/plastic workers, other 13%

(Urban Institute, March 2004)

Good thing I'm not dictator for a day - I hang an awful number of thieves, robbers, and border crashers - and the same kind of 'legislators.'

Posted by: RonC

AMEN!

When ya hang a SCREEN DOOR out the front porch, with nothing solid to back it up, not even a plain old-fashioned hook latch, much less a storm door behind it, and roll out the red carpet, that ain't most people's definition of SECURE.

You reckon those legislators and other politicians and Federal "judges", would settle for THAT on all portals of their own homes, in THEIR OWN NEIGHBORHOOD, when there have already been an abnormally large number of stranger/robber murders among their neighbors?

You think Mexico would allow ANY of her neighbors to treat THEIR BORDER even so much as the same way this new proposal will treat OUR border - and border residents?

I don't thaink so! Honestly, ya'll!

RBMN...the current form for determining status is called the I-9 (that's a capital i). There is a number on it where you can call to verify if the social security number on it is legal, and if it matches that name. Once this is done, the employers are BY LAW not allowed to inquire further as to legal status. It would be akin to hiring fifty people before they got to you based on a driver's license for ID, then didn't hire you unless you could pass a background check. The onus of proof is on the worker, but once he has proven that to an employer's satisfaction (always assuming, of course, that the investigation turns up some form of believable ID the alien used to get the job), the employer now falls under laws to treat all workers fairly and equal. Determining fraud is the job of ICE. The real fix is to untie their hands, let them conduct raids wherever and whenever they desire, and then, once identified, deport all of them. You say you can't deport twelve million, but we deport six million a year now that we catch. The difference is just a little bigger bus and a little more determination. And a total lack of excuses for why we can't do this job. As treehugger said, anytime there's a crackdown, they run for the border, self-deporting. You think they want to keep paying a coyote a few thousand dollars when they are only here a week, maybe two? That business will dry up as soon as you start making it more expensive to come here than they can earn in the time they are here.

One more time, you cannot fence the Rio Grande river. Ranchers need to water their livestock on both sides. It is not a working solution, try something else.

Posted by: Stormy70

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

Yeah! I prefer Bounty Hunters who get to confiscate all the goods and property of the ILLEGAL ALIENS to sell or trade for their Bounty Fees.

"ALL COYOTES - WANTED DEAD OR ALIVE!"

Cannot tell who is Coyote or not? "No worries, Mate! No harm, no foul!"
That'll larn 'em to sing out!

People who think that respect for the law is optional do not make good citizens.

That seems elementary to me.

Posted by: treehugger at April 10, 2007 10:25 AM

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

EXCELLENT ENTIRE POST! MAJOR MEGA DITTOS!

ABSOLUTELY EXCELLENT!

As I've previously posted, the best way to cut illegal immigration is to punish their hiring. We already have laws to do that. Amnesty anyone who can give a true 3-year employment history; collect the histories and go after their employers.

Posted by: unclesmrgol

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

You guys who hammer on the civilians while the BUREAUCRATS tie the hands of SECURITY OFFICERS with entitlements and rules against enforcing the LAWS on the BOOKS, and JUDGES who prosecute border DEFENDERS against REPEAT COYOTES - WITH FAKE EVIDENCE from the COYOTES' CO-CONSPIRATORS INSIDE THE BUREAUCRACY...

BAH to you, smeegol - prosecute the BUREAUCRATS FIRST, the ILLEGALS SECOND with NO AMNESTY for COOPERATION - just let them have 15 minutes head start for the border ahead of the BOUNTY hunters - AFTER ALL THAT, THEN you can go after civilian employers.

Only exception to that, big-time employers who are using GOVT BUREAUCRATIC COVER for their dirty deeds.

GIVE THEM AMNESTY - er, PARTIAL amnesty, or a fair plea bargain - IF they turn on the BUREAUCRATS!

We cleaned up the West with Bounty Hunters - I think it is an idea whose time has RETURNED!

There's got to be an incentive to get the illegals "out of the shadows" and into some sort of documented status. Disincentives won't accomplish this alone.

Documentation is important to immigration control and, especially, national security. You can't police the people you don't know about. Even getting illegals to re-enter, after leaving the country, is a win as it lets us do a routine screening, as in a visa interview, run biometrics, &tc.

The devil, as always, is in the details. Returning illegals under this sort of program will get a pass on the mere fact that they were unlawfully present, had entered illegally, &tc. The important thing is to retain the strictly criminal ineligibilities. If Juan Q. Publico's fingerprints show he was picked up and printed after swimming the Rio Grande, he pays the fine and gets a chance to make himself right with the world. If he's in the FBI database wanted for a "crime of moral turpitude," then he needs to be toast. No waiver should be available. Period.

But that's just my opinion.

TheYell:

Who has $14 grand laying around? Aye, there's a rub. . . .

We don't want to incentivize further criminal behavior. $14k cash means a lot of burlaries, a lot of car stereos ripped off, a lot of business for loan sharks and drug dealers, &tc.

So establish a lower floor (a third or a quarter of the entire amount) that HAS to be met and add the remainder to the applicants federal income tax liability. Pro-rate by year. So if they cough up $5k up front, they have $3k added to their income tax liability for each of the following three years.

The catch: if they don't pay it off, they're not eligible to extend and they're ineligible to naturalize.

I've quoted you and linked to you here: http://consul-at-arms.blogspot.com/2007/04/re-moving-immigration-reform-to-right.html

The incentive they need to come out of the shadows is the threat of going to jail. It sure seems to work every time it's tried. How come you excusers don't seem to want to talk about that? How come you don't think it's possible to deport them? You seem to think it's impossible because YOU can't imagine it, but I think you're just not trying, because you don't believe in it. The point is, they are here illegally, and they are taking from you and me. They don't want to be Americans or they'd have done it right. Most of them will tell you to your face they don't want to be America, they are Mexican, and proud of it, they just want the work and the benefits. MS-13 has invested tons of time and money into getting people here, you don't think they were sending them to a better life, do you? They are here to do MS-13's bidding. Wake up, people. Most of those who "just want to get by" came here legally, or found a way to make it right long ago. What we have here is an illegal invasion by a horde that doesn't want to become American, they want to take this part of America by population expansion. Geez, I'm not making this stuff up, they BRAG about it for crying out loud. Just go look up MECHA, and La Raza, and Aztlan. Oh, yeah, you'll dismiss those as kooky conspiracies, right? Pull your heads out, people!!!

Re: Doc Neaves at April 10, 2007 07:09 PM

Okay, you've arrested me at the construction site, and I have no proof of citizenship or legal residence. But I'm not talking, I'm not admitting anything, and I want a Spanish-speaking lawyer. Just multiply that by 15-million. "Muscle" alone can't get this done. It's gone way too far for that.

Rose,

I'm sticking to my guns. I'm of the Abraham Lincoln ilk, whose policies were far more libertarian than the authoritarian policies of the Know Nothings whose mantle you are assuming. Lincoln was of the opinion that those who came to this country to work should be allowed to remain in this country and work, and should have a path to citizenship open to them.

The laws everyone here are so concerned about are exactly like the ones in Lincoln's time legitimizing slavery. They are doomed to failure purely by virtue of their unjustness.

But, when you want to punish breaking laws, you look for those whose pockets were filled the most by the breaking of those laws. We need secure borders, and the best way to secure them is to catch and not release those who are making the most money from making the borders insecure. You can catch all the illegals you want, but I'm not sure you want to pay the tax cost of deporting millions of people; far better to gut the bank accounts of the few thousand who benefitted from the importation of all those illegals.

I'd rather an ICE guy put on a sombrero and stood outside Home Depot flagging for work than to arrest the other 50 guys flagging for work. Arresting a few homeowners per Home Depot for hiring and failing to pay taxes on these guys would go a long way toward halting further violations once the word got out.

That said, if the illegals have a substantial work history here, they are exactly the people we want; for me, these people are like my grandparents, who came from Sicily for a better life. I'd rather take a bunch of welfare cheats and send them over the border than deport a bunch of hard workers (not that Canada really wants them, mind you).

When you go after mobsters, you try for the boss in addition to rolling up the soldiers.

So you can give me the raspberry as you did above, but I've got my fingers firmly stuck in my ample ears AND I'm wagging my tongue right back in your direction. As people like me, arguing from a superior position, say, "be quiet or I shall taunt you a second time."

Carol,

It was the "Know Nothings", not the Whigs, who wore the mantle of nativism. The Whigs never addressed either pro or con the issue of either slavery or nativism, and that may well have contributed to their disintegration during the 1852-56 period. The "Know Nothings" in the South drew from the Democratic Party, and those in the North from ex-Whigs (since the Whig party was having tremendous trouble finding anyone to run under its banner) as well as Democrats unhappy with the changing face of their own Party under Irish immigration. After the Whigs disappeared, the Know Nothings grew from a few thousand to over a million, and captured mayorships and governorships. They in turn disintegrated as a result of their unwillingness to address the slavery issue, which had risen in importance over nativism by 1860.

Interestingly, one might have expected that the Know Nothings would be anti-slavery just on the basis of their opposition to the immigration of the Irish, who overwhelmingly were inoculated with pro-slavery sentiments via their recruitment into the Northern branch of the Democratic Party;
that was indeed the case, and the alignment of nativist and anti-slavery sentiment sent most of the Northern members into the Republican Party (which, as a result, is still afflicted with nativist sentiment today).

Knowing that you are a student of Judaica, here's a tiny tidbit: A substantial number of Jews were part of the Know Nothings, so it wasn't exactly a case of only Christians hating other Christians (in fact, the Know Nothings targeted "recent" Jewish immigrants from Germany as well, so there were Jews on both sides of the billy club, although the Catholics remained the specific target of three of the sixteen planks in the Know Nothing platform). An examination of Mark Greenberg's article from the periodical American Jewish History titled "Becoming Southern: The Jews of Savannah, Georgia 1830-1870" templates the role of Jews in the southern branch of the Know Nothings.

"Okay, you've arrested me at the construction site, and I have no proof of citizenship or legal residence. But I'm not talking, I'm not admitting anything, and I want a Spanish-speaking lawyer. Just multiply that by 15-million."

Okay, first of all, you put all fifteen million in custody in the same instant, then tell me that fifty million police officers, border agents, federal authorities of various stripes and the combined might of the several branches of our armed forces will have ANY trouble? PUUHHLEEAASSEE. As usual, the problem is with your imagination. Because you don't want to imagine a solution, you can't. For those of us who are already in the fight on the ground, the solution presents itself, and only the blind and the willingly ignorant take the position that you do, that it can't be done. Tell me why it is impossible to export twenty million (assuming that number is right, and assuming NONE of them self-deport, which they have already show a GREAT propensity to do at the first threat of incarceration or discomfort) when we already export six million? What's the difference if not a willingness to do the job? Would you fire your maid if she said hey, washing six shirts is okay, but nobody can wash twenty? Do you realize how ridiculous this argument sounds?

""Muscle" alone can't get this done. It's gone way too far for that."

Muscle is the ONLY thing that will get it done. It's called enforcement, and it's the law. And you keep making it sound like we'll have to find each and every one, root them out of the bushes, hiding in the deepest darkest parts of the forests. In Texas, when they think they'll have to spend time in jail, they stay home. The jails down there emptied when they started arresting them and keeping them. The only reason they came over in such numbers is because they knew they would just be released. Arrest them, put them in jail, let the two-joint Federal Minimum Sentencing Guidelines people out. That's when the jails started filling up, when you started making people do more time for smoking a joint than for killing someone.

Unclesmrgol, you make the assumption that most leftists and open borders crowds do. They are just simple people, who want a job, to be left alone, blah blah blah. That is complete hogwash. For the most part, these people, besides the document fraud they engage in, are engaging in numerous other illegal activities based on the reasoning that, hey, in for a penny, in for a pound. They are already committing felony ID fraud anyway, what's the difference? Not only that, but so many cities are now santuary cities where the child molesters can hang around with complete confidence that they will be protected by the liberals. Ninety five percent of the warrants for MURDER in Los Angeles county were for illegal aliens. It's people who spread lies like yours that is the biggest part of the problem, because it blinds people to the truth until it's too late, and it's in their lives forever with the death of a loved one, or, like my neighbor, with the life ruined by a raped child.
Sorry, uncle, but they are illegal, and that alone makes it wrong for them to be here. It's wrong and insulting to the ones who did it right to allow them to stay with no punishment. No, they shouldn't be deported, they should be imprisoned for ten years minimum, but no one will do that, they have no balls, they know there will be a riot. Well, again, thanks to attitudes like this one, we will be having those soon enough anyway. It's no longer a matter of if anymore, just a matter of when, and whether or not we'll have the courage to actually fight back, or if we'll just run away, like we've had to do whenever Democrats were in charge.

OK,

I get it. Illegals are to America 2007 what Jews were to Germany 1933.

In any case look above for all the industries that will be destroyed by lack of labor if we round up all 15 million at once. Perhaps if we rounded up 6 million at a time it would work better.

I'm all for bringing the hammer dopwn on illegals who break serious laws. It is not happening. Why? Because murder, drunk diving, etc. are local issues. Why to the illegals get protection? Because of a lack of a guest worker program.

From what I saw above, illegals are building and cleaning America. Seems like a good thing to me with 4.4% unemployment.

A guest worker amnesty program seems like a good way to get locals to enforce local law. There would be no excuse.

BTW if any one thinks enforcement is the answer please explain the proliferation of illegal drugs in America. Every year enforcement and sentences get longer and yet drugs are more prevalent than ever. Why is that?

Doc Neaves,

I'm not leftist. I'm pretty right wing. Like, over by Lincoln. I voted for Bush; I continue to support Bush right this minute.

I also happen to support major elements of his immigration policy as well.

I've mentioned the Know Nothings, as has Carol. You really ought to read up on them. What they were saying about the Irish and other foreigners besieging our shores at the time are what you are saying about the whole group now.

I'm sorry to hear about your neighbor's child. I had my identity stolen by some of these illegals, and I didn't like it either. But that is not the whole story by any means.

About 10 years ago, the fence between my neighbor's property and mine fell down. We needed a new one, so my neighbor and I agreed that we would raise a new one the following weekend. Early Saturday morning, I and three brothers in law show up ready for work. My neighbor shows up with this old wizened Mexican who really meets the stereotype for old Mexican fieldworkers -- ratty sombrero, tattered clothes, dirt under the nails. No English at all. My neighbor speaks a little Spanish to the guy and leaves; my neighbor's hands are immaculate, have never touched dirt, will never touch dirt. So the Mexican is there to do his work. And the Mexican did. He worked like two of the rest of us, and had to be ordered to stop and eat at lunch. In spite of the language barrier, I get the impression of a decent and honorable guy. At the end of the day, my neighbor shows up and gives the guy $20.00, which the guy accepts; the agreed upon rate, apparently. Eight hours, $20.00. You can do the math, but it was totally unfair for the amount of work the guy did. As the guy is leaving, we stop him; each of us brothers in law hand him $20.00 bills. That's fair. The feds might come and get me and my bros, but we didn't hire him, yet we made sure he got paid well for the amount of work he did. And I hope I can work as well when I'm a 60-something. He's the closest I've gotten to an illegal, and I sure didn't feel threatened.

M. Simon,

Do you really want me to launch my anti-drug diatribe on how it ruined my son's life, etc? I didn't think so, so I won't. Suffice to say you are wrong. If you don't enforce your laws, you give up your sovereignty. So, very long prison terms, of the sort Doc Hudson wanted to impose, would be cool for drug producers and drug dealers, of whom there are few enough that we can deal with them that way. With regard to the illegals in our midst, we don't have the funds to incarcerate them, nor to send them back whence they came. But we do need to secure our borders to prevent more from entering. Feeling was right -- American cannot solve the unemployment problems of the rest of the world. The cost of the illegals here is very large, because they function in an underground economy and don't pay taxes on their income. Making them legal allows us to collect taxes, and allows them some form of social security as well.

I agree with Doc Neaves, because I have heard firsthand the contempt for American law. Most of these people dispute the authority of the USA to regulate their income or employment in any way. No taxes, no licensing, no set wages, no set hours.

The majority of these people have no intention of renouncing their home countries. They do not want to come out of the shadows. The millions chanting "Amnistia Ahora" defy your right to control the underground cash economy.

Apparently there has to be a generous rewrite of our laws before the bulk of America wakes up to these facts. When the guest worker program fails on the same scale as the 1986 amnesty, then maybe America will be ready to direct our own affairs instead of soliciting permission from the population that is the source of the problem.

RBMN
As the amnesty activists like to point out, residency without a visa is not a CRIME. Meaning they do not get the constitutional protections guaranteed criminally accused, such as a jury trial, bail, presumption of innocence, etc. Illegal immigrants may be held for days or weeks until a brief administrative hearing directs their deportation, and it can require them to prove they should not be deported--just as us citizens have to prove our declared income on a tax return.

There are three things the President could do tomorrow, that would slow the tide and encourage voluntary returns:
1. Shut down every Mexican consulate outside their Washington embassy, until Mexico stops encouraging, aiding and abetting illegal immigration.
2. Halt all wire transfers to Mexico.
3. Resume the urban sweeps of employers in places like NYC.

That doesn't require any change to existing statute, and begins to deal with the real problem that 10% of Mexican adults work in the USA, most illegally.

Of course, maybe we NEED an underground economy with millions of 2nd class citizens working in our factories without the protections of the Fair Labor Standards Act. But I guess I'm too much of a lefty to support that...

No, Yell, all we need are people willing to enforce the laws. Too many are like unclesmrgol, too soft-hearted or soft-headed to see the reality, instead wishing to believe in little sappy stories about old mexican men being taken advantage of by horrible neighbors who never did a days work. (PS, smrgol, not to call you a liar, because I'm sure that story has been true many, many times, but please...)
So they work hard. So what? Lots of people don't work as hard as they should, does that mean that they should all be replaced by Mexicans? They're willing to take jobs Americans won't do, you'll say, but the truth is that they will do for a pittance what Americans won't do because it would be BREAKING THE LAW. But, we haven't mentioned that those who are here illegally are ALREADY breaking the law, so see no need to obey it themselves. You have enough criminals in the country without having to IMPORT them.
Do you know who's jobs those Mexicans are taking, smrgol? Our children, that's who. They aren't figured into the unemployment picture, so the low figure of four percent is a lie. There are millions of unemployed youth who can't get jobs because all the fast food places are filled with Mexicans. And smrgol, for every story you have for a poor, hardworking Mexican, I have story of someone who couldn't speak English good enough to do the job (a McDonalds), therefore taking it away from MY SON, who went there to apply, but was told they weren't hiring, even though his friend had told him they had two openings the day before.
This is where our children learned to work, in their teens, at part time jobs, and at ALL of those jobs on that list.
Construction workers who can't get paid twenty dollars an hour because the Mexicans will do it for ten or twelve. Spot work like you talked about used to keep me in spending money. I wish I had all the money I'd made building fences and decks, I could probably buy a new car with it in today's prices. But will Manpower hire me out to do that now? Manpower won't even be in business, much less available to hire out Americans, becuase of the illegals here who have taken that job away from us, too. Now, they stand on the corner, share houses, and send their money out of the country, to the drain of Billions every year, the second largest income for the State of Mexico behind their oil. But oh, no, there's no monetary incentive to lie to you people, to try and make them sound oh so innocent and helpless.
They aren't. Those ones stayed in Mexico, where there are no lack of jobs, just a lack of jobs that pay this wage (but then, compare their economy to their wages, and suddenly, it's not so poor of a wage), and they want to work tax free, which they can't do in Mexico.

And smrgol, tell me what they were saying about the Irish then that's the same as now. And, mind you, the Irish came here for a better life, the Mexicans are here to rape and leave, sending their money home, giving nothing to America. It's a different world, and you can't compare what happened a hundred years ago to today, it's not the same. The laws are different, the economies are different, the situations are different. Mexico isn't starving, and the government of Mexico is aiding and abetting the flow across the border for the money they get in return. Ireland got no such windfall for sending people here, or we'd have seen the country emptied. So go ahead, tell me what's the same with the Mexicans as with the Irish. Because from where I'm sitting, it looks nothing like the same situation.

And, to restate the obvious, why can't law enforcement just arrest them and deport them when they find out they are illegally here? Why do we handicap our LEO's like that? Why is there two standards, one for Americans, and one for illegal aliens? Why do they want to put me in jail for a ticket unpaid when they say they don't have room for someone who's committed a felony? Why is it this way? Why is some Mexican illegal allowed to commit crime after crime, yet they lock up a kid in Mississippi for twenty years for buying a bag of weed. You people need to get your priorities straight. The illegals are committing many crimes, extremely disproportionate to their representation. Yet, there's no room in the jails for even one of them unless he's committed a few moral turpitude crimes. Hey, can I have two or three passes at the turpitude crimes, much less get let go time after time for minor crimes? Of course not, I'm here legally. What a bunch of crap this is. Thanks, smrgol, and others, for ruining our country to pacify your bleeding hearts.