On my list of Things Which Cannot Be Defended, illegal immigration isn’t even a blip on the radar screen, and I can’t believe people can get so bent out of shape over it.
It’s about time someone made a practical suggestion in this thread.
pkbites, I don’t know why I would be astonished that you could be presented with so much salient information only to mindlessly repeat your initial uninformed and bile-filled reaction. But I guess I am.
It always makes me laugh to see those that benefit from the illegals’ presence here squalling about it. I couldn’t give a rats’ ass, Bricker, about the legal staus of your folks, or your wife, or anybody. The bottom line is that you are a conservative Republican who has admitted on this board that a big reason you vote Republican is to save on taxes, and that you shop at Walmart to save money, and fuck the repercussions of such actions, fuck those whose labor is saving you all that money, fuck those who are being exploited by all of us who buy the goods they play a crucial part in providing.
Those that need the illegals here the most are those that are paying them. If you really feel so strongly about the illegals, the easiest and most effective way to thwart them is to hit the fat cats who employ them in the wallet. Increase the ramifications of breaking the law by hiring illegals, so much so that it would be no longer economically feasible to hire them, and presto change-o, end of problem.
Yeah right, like that is gonna happen. It is to fucking laugh.
That smarmy “my parents were legal and they despised those that weren’t” is disgusting and pathetic. You make it sound like the illegals’ presence was merely an irritant, a thorn in the side of the lucky few who won the lottery. Fact is, and you know this as well as I do, that it’s not a walk in the fucking park to get here, in fact it’s dangerous and costly. The illegals are coming because for many of them, they have no chance to actually live like human beings in the abject poverty from where they come. Who among us who don’t live in some cloud cuckoo land of “it’s against the law!” could actually begrudge these people the incredible danger they often undergo to better themselves and the lives of their children?
Bricker, what if your dad hadn’t made it out of El Salvador, hadn’t gotten lucky and made it here legally, escaped a country that literally doesn’t have enough wood for its inhabitants to burn for cooking and warmth, never mind the rest of it? You’d be whistling a diffenent tune, pal, and your blandly poisonous observations about the “law” make me fucking sick. You got yours, pal, and that’s all you care about. Fuck you.
And fuck you too, pkbites, you are a fucking dinosaur (excuse me, Jesus horse) brained troglodyte. Go shoot something; it will make you feel better, maybe. Then go to Walmart and load up on some good old packaged salad makings and chips and stuff and god forbid don’t think about where it comes from or why you’re getting it so damn cheap. You are a fucking moron. Why do you hate America, anyway? Asshole.
Practical???
Heh heh. Beat me to it.
Why don’t some of you re-read the Op, and tell me what sense it makes for our legislators to introduce new laws when the old ones aren’t being enforced. Not just on this issue, but several others. Do you not see that as a waste of their time and our money? Why do they even bother?
I guess the majority of Americans are assholes who hate America. We spend countless millions on border control, INS, etc… If I am such a dinosaur, could you please tell me why those things are in operation? They certainly aren’t there just to please this sole yuppy prick in Wisconsin! Somebody else must want them.
Following friend Liberals pattern…
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The Dept. Motor Vehicles is not the place for immigration control, any more than is the Post Office. We aren’t about to check the immigration status of anyone who wants to buy a post stamp.
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I couldn’t care less about the immigration status of a liscensed driver, I am more concerned that anyone, regardless of their origin or the legitimacy of their status, knows the traffic laws, the warning signs, etc.
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Shoot all the mimes!
No, what would happen, is that the employers would be forced to pay good wages to attract workers. And for good wages there are millions of Americans willing to do hard physical labor ,in all weather, with dangerous tools-(e.g. unionized construction workers.)The price of our food would go up, but why is that so terrible?The price of housing has doubled over the past 5 years (in some cities), and nobody in government is complaining.
The results of the last presidential election would seem to indicate exactly that. 
The goal of the proposed legislation has to do curbing illegal immigration and fighting terrorism. It just seems crazy to me for a law maker to say “let’s pass a bill to fight illegals” and then allow an illegal testify at the hearing. Of course the illegal is going to oppose it.
And let me ask another question: exactly how many people would you open border types allow in? A billion? 3 billion? 5? Why not have everyone on the planet just move here? Do you believe in any controls or any limits?
There seems to be too much hatred from both sides of this discussion. Perhaps I’m misundertanding the point of the pit 
I believe every country has the right to determine who gets in and who doesn’t. A government is responsible for managing the country to the benefit of the people who live there. If letting everybody in would crush the economy, or provide a gaping security hole, then the government has the right and responsibility to setup controls on who gets in and should send illegalls home.
Secondly, I cannot understand the anamosity towards illegal aliens mentioned in previous posts. Can you seriously tell me that you think someone struggling in abject poverty, watching their kids drop out of school just so they can survive the next day while having no legal recourse to enter a wealthy country, should look at the laws of the wealthy country and say “Gosh, It would be illegal for me to go there and better my life, I guess dehabilitating T.B. it is!”. It’s all very nice and good to say “yes, but they should pressure their own governments to better their own countries” – if it’s not you that has to do that.
If everybody (the wealthy government and the potential illegal immigrants) were behaving rationally, I would expect a huge effort on the part of the foreigners to try and get to a wealthy country, and a huge effort on the part of the wealthy government to try and stop them. I wouldn’t expect any hatred of either party, except from people who believe that they have a divine right to live in the land of luxury while others live in poverty. To those people I have things to say that would perhaps undermine the first sentence in my post.
Now, in the case where the wealthy country depends on these people coming over for it’s economy, it makes far more sense to change the framework of the law so more people can come in legally, then just allow a gaping security hole on the borders, which appears to be the status quo.
Umm…How do you reconcile (1) and (2)?
What exactly is crazy about this? Is the hearing legally bound to only listen to the illegal, and implement everything he/she says? I didn’t think so.
If your argument is that it is a known illegal who is allowed to stay in the country then perhaps I see your point. But if it is the hearing that is bothering you than I don’t. If the law had some unintended horrific effect (I’m not saying it does, this is hypothetical) like forcing people who suddenly couldn’t drive into starvation, or tripling the amount of car accidents because of millions of people who’ve gone underground and not taken the tests, you’d probably want to take that into account. In this case, disallowing testimony from an illegal sounds like willful ignorance to me.
In the long term, that’s probably true. I was talking more about immediate, short-term consequences.
Actually, in the long term, what you’d probably get is a bunch of powerful employer lobby groups asking for special visa categories to allow lower-paid immigrants in to do this work. They would argue that they can’t find enough Americans willing to do the work (whether or not this is actually true), and that if people want to eat then they will have to allow more immigrants into the country. One benefit of such a program, of course, is that unions and other employee advocacy groups would find it easier to organize and lobby on behalf of the immigrant workers. Many immigrant workers right now are frightened of the very people who are seeking to help them, because their illegal status leaves them in constant jeopardy of being thrown out of the country.
As for the price of food going up: if it does indeed result from better wages being paid to the people who harvest it, i don’t think it’s a terrible thing at all.
If you think that Hispanic farm workers in Wisconsin are where America’s terrorist resources need to be directed, i seriously suggest you get some perspective on this issue.
What gets me is, the hearing was about fighting illegals, then they have one in their mits and do nothing. By just being here that man was breaking the law.
Why exactly are they debating a new law when the old ones are not enforced. That’s my whole point.
This happens on other issues too. Like when some elected official introduces a bunch of new gun control laws when the 20k+ that are already on the books aren’t being enforced to their maximum. Why exactly are they debating new laws when the old ones are not enforced. That’s my whole point. What’s the use? It’s stupid. The hearing might as well have been about what they were having for lunch.
When I was growing up, we were poor. Very poor.
And yet a wasn’t “whistling a different tune” despite the fact that I did not “have mine” yet.
Why is that, moron? Why was I dirt poor, and still in favor of conservative values? Why was I dirt poor and not whistling a different tune? Tell me. Explain that to me. Please.
I never fucking said that.
I only indicated what the hearing was about. Did you go to the link and read the article?
You know – I think this is why conservative Hispanics and conservative balcks REALLY make the Left crazy. It’s all well and good for white males to be Republicans; they are, after all, automatically creatures of the patriarchal power system in place, and their lives are automatically privileged. But when a Hispanic or black dares to support the conservative side… why, we’re nothing but traitors, right? We “got ours” - and now we have the temerity to suggest that others work within the law to get theirs.
So what about the Hispanic guy that HASN’T “made it?” It would be virtually impossible for him to adhere to the law, and follow a path of personal responsibility, and demand that others do likewise, right? He’s still oppressed. He should be GRATEFUL for the liberal attention that seeks to lift him up. And if he isn’t… if he espouses conservative values while being himself dirt poor and struggling… why, he’s nothing but a filthy traitor to the Cause.
Is that it?
Ass.
Because there’s illegal and then there’s illegal. It might be completely proper to have a convicted drug user testify at a hearing about police tactics in picking up users, for example. Sex workers routinely testify in places like San Francisco on issues related to sex work, whether illegal or not.
Here in NYC, when the city council was considering legalizing tattoo parlours, the most important testimony of all came from operators of then-illegal tattoo parlours. It was them who convinced council members that tats could be made legal without a return to the Hep B outbreaks that led to the ban in the first place or a new vector for any of the nasty things which have come along since. It was the illegal tattoo artists who recommended the sanitary standards and licensing of artists. It was a rare and very successful example of the government coming together with people committing a then-illegal act to fashion a common-sense solution to a problem.