# Arizona Prop 200 - No bennies to illegal aliens
**URL:** https://boards.straightdope.com/t/arizona-prop-200-no-bennies-to-illegal-aliens/278997
**Category:** Great Debates
**Created:** [December 9, 2004, 8:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/arizona-prop-200-no-bennies-to-illegal-aliens/278997 "2004-12-09T20:52:14Z")
**Posts on this page:** 7
**Page:** 3
### Author:  [@Eva\_Luna](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Eva_Luna)
#### Post date: [December 11, 2004, 1:50am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/arizona-prop-200-no-bennies-to-illegal-aliens/278997/41 "2004-12-11T01:50:21Z")
Background on the driver’s license issue:
[http://www.aila.org/contentViewer.aspx?bc=10,911,722](http://www.aila.org/contentViewer.aspx?bc=10,911,722) (2nd link from the bottom - warning: PDF file)
There’s also a link there for Social Security and immigration (last one under the “Immigration Reform” header).
---
### Author:  [@Hyperelastic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hyperelastic)
#### Post date: [December 11, 2004, 3:37am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/arizona-prop-200-no-bennies-to-illegal-aliens/278997/42 "2004-12-11T03:37:32Z")
> [@even sven](#):
>
> If liberals were trying to undermine the American way of life, they’d invite a bunch of Scandanavians or something to destroy our family, religious and economic system. It is a totally absurd notion that people who for the most part speak a Latin language, pactice a Europe-based religion, value the very same family and gender and sexual roles that so many conservatives advocate (for example, Mexican-Americans have extremely low divorce rates) and who came here specifically to embrace our economic system are somehow a “non-western” threat to our culture.
I’m not a conservative, so I don’t feel the need to defend anything conservatives advocate.
I believe in treating people as individuals, but you are choosing to use ethnic generalizations to prove that Mexicans are super-duper. Great, I’m sure they are all fine people. But they are Mexicans, not Americans. They speak Spanish, not English. They watch soccer, not football. They eat tortillas, not bread, etc. I do not believe that English is better than Spanish, or that bread is better than tortillas, but the fact is that Americans speak English and eat bread. That is what I mean by “the American way of life”. I like it that way, and I don’t want it to change. I don’t want to have to learn Spanish, Mandarin, Filipino, Arabic and Portuguese in order to understand what my neighbors are saying, and even if I could, there is little chance of any deep or meaningful connection, because of cultural differences. I hope you do not think I am speaking from ignorance on this issue, because I probably spend more time with foreigners than with Americans. If that makes me sound like Archie Bunker, so be it. But you should realize that you live in a country (and world) full of Archie Bunkers.
---
### Author:  [@Hyperelastic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hyperelastic)
#### Post date: [December 11, 2004, 3:51am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/arizona-prop-200-no-bennies-to-illegal-aliens/278997/43 "2004-12-11T03:51:02Z")
> [@Eva Luna](#):
>
> A dingaling who lives in a state which refuses to issue state IDs or driver’s licenses even to people legally present in the U.S. who are not eligible for Social Security numbers, as my own state of Illinois did until recently.
>
> Social Security numbers are only issued to people authorized to work in the U.S., and dependents of people in the U.S. on work visas are lawfully present, but not authorized to work, so they can’t get SS numbers. That’s just one example, which I already mentioned above. Let me dig up some cites…
Out of all the people in the United States who use a matricula consular, what percentage do you think are legal residents who just couldn’t cut through the red tape involved in getting a driver’s license or state ID, and what percentage are illegal immigrants? If states have problems with their ID systems, they should fix them, not start accepting IDs from foreign governments. Go down to Mexico and see how far you can get with an Illinois driver’s license.
---
### Author:  [@manhattan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/manhattan)
#### Post date: [December 11, 2004, 3:54am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/arizona-prop-200-no-bennies-to-illegal-aliens/278997/44 "2004-12-11T03:54:32Z")
> [@Hyperelastic](#):
>
> I’m not a conservative, so I don’t feel the need to defend anything conservatives advocate.
Oh thank Og. I was afraid you were, and I was torn between “if I expect liberals to counter their extreme left-wing counterparts I ought to be doing the same on my side” and “well, the liberals are tearing this guy’s assertions apart so well it would be kind of superfluous for a conservative to speak up.” Thank you for settling that internal debate for me.
Carry on.
---
### Author:  [@Eva\_Luna](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Eva_Luna)
#### Post date: [December 11, 2004, 12:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/arizona-prop-200-no-bennies-to-illegal-aliens/278997/45 "2004-12-11T12:24:02Z")
> [@Hyperelastic](#):
>
> Out of all the people in the United States who use a matricula consular, what percentage do you think are legal residents who just couldn’t cut through the red tape involved in getting a driver’s license or state ID, and what percentage are illegal immigrants? If states have problems with their ID systems, they should fix them, not start accepting IDs from foreign governments. Go down to Mexico and see how far you can get with an Illinois driver’s license.
I have no idea whatsoever about the proportion of _matricula consular_ users who are here legally vs. not. I do fully agree, though, that states should fix their driver’s license systems, but that’s a separate (but related) debate.
You do realize, don’t you, that a Mexican passport is also an I.D. issued by a foreign government? If we accept that in the U.S. for identity purposes, why should we not accept an identity document issued by the same authority, with the same assurances of the bearer’s identity and citizenship?
More on the _matricula consular,_ from the Mexican Consulate in Chicago (in Spanish - sorry, they don’t have it on the English version of the site):
[http://www.consulmexchicago.com/](http://www.consulmexchicago.com/)
Excerpts (my translation):
"The Matricula Consular is a document which meets international norms for the issuance of identity documents. It has been issued by the Mexican government since 1871 through its various Consulates throughout the world and its purpose as a registration mechanism was corroborated by the Vienna Consular Convention of 1963.
Since March 6, 2002, as part of the Integral Program on the Improvement of Consular Services, the Ministry of Foreign Relations began issuing the High Security _Matricula Consular_ [Consular Registration], a card which has at least eight security features which consist of modern visible and invisible mechanisms to prevent its falsification…"
Apparently the U.S. Treasury Dept. also accepts them for purposes of opening bank accounts, in spite of the provisions of the Patriot Act.
As for requirements for a Mexican driver’s license, I really couldn’t care less. I’ve been to Mexico, and I don’t think there’s enough money to pay me to drive there, especially in Mexico City.
---
### Author:  [@Unregistered\_Bull](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Unregistered_Bull)
#### Post date: [December 11, 2004, 5:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/arizona-prop-200-no-bennies-to-illegal-aliens/278997/46 "2004-12-11T17:32:21Z")
> [@Hyperelastic](#):
>
> But they are Mexicans, not Americans. They speak Spanish, not English. They watch soccer, not football. They eat tortillas, not bread, etc.
Texas, New Mexico, California, Colorado, and Arizona have all had Spanish speaking tortilla eating populations before even becoming US territorities.
---
### Author:  [@aurelian](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/aurelian)
#### Post date: [December 12, 2004, 9:23am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/arizona-prop-200-no-bennies-to-illegal-aliens/278997/47 "2004-12-12T09:23:27Z")
> [@](#):
>
> Originally posted by **Hyperelastic** :
> Illegal aliens are not an essential part of our economy. Our economy was doing just fine before illegal immigration - the lettuce got picked, the houses got built, the floors got swept, etc. The difference is, you used to be able to make a living doing those things, and now you can’t. Tolerance of illegal immigration is essentially a welfare program for foreigners, paid for by American taxpayers and depressed American wages.
It’s more a welfare program for the companies that actively recruit and import workers in Mexico. Wouldn’t it be more effective and efficient, if one supports a “common-sense law” to go after such businesses rather than a state-by-state effort to make working in the US more inconvenient? (And such workers usually do pay taxes, so it doesn’t seem much different than any other sort of public economic aid.)
Also, the slavery comparison is not mere hyperbole - there has been evidence of a sort of indentured servitude (you work x years until you pay off the debt you accrued in coming to the US) in Florida. (I first read about it in a New Yorker - the article doesn’t seem to be archived, though).
[Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/arizona-prop-200-no-bennies-to-illegal-aliens/278997.md?page=2)