Can all these hispanic people I see really be here legally?

[Ignatz]

I heard on the radio yesterday that they have wired $80 billion back to Mexico.

Today’s paper said that the van that skidded on the ice on I-40 in Tennessee last week and overturned, killing all 7 “illegal aliens” in it, was headed to North Carolina.

It also said that the population of the USA has increased 50% since 1968. I wonder why.

A rural eastern NC county I used to live in 10 years ago had at least two legitimate van transportation companies that made trips back and forth between Mexico or the border states and eastern NC where the passengers worked the fields in season. Word was that the politicians listened to the megafarmer$ who wanted the CHEAP labor that they could house in hovels without adequate sanitation.

[guizot]

@nyctea scandiaca

Chill out guizot. Where did I ever say I had any problem with seeing a lot of hispanic people at Target or whatever? I didn’t. I just made a factual observation. Don’t make reactionary assumptions and don’t you DARE try to imply that I am racist.

Okay, fair enough. I wasn’t thinking about you in particular; rather, the many cities in the US where people don’t seem to get the concept of globalization. When you want to globalize on the cheap, people go to where they can. They wouldn’t have come to your city if there weren’t a cheap labor demand. If there isn’t any, they’ll eventually go away, and you’ll have nothing to worry about. Right now, hundreds of millions of dollars in citrus crops in CA are going down the drain because of the cold, but also because not enough people want to harvest them–the pay is too low.

As to whether they benefit or harm the economy, from what I’ve heard it’s a wash. It really depends on the ideological bent of the economist you ask, and economics is so murky anyway, it just isn’t easy to really know. But if you believe in the “invisible hand,” then you can’t really complain. Why would a person risk crossing the Arizona border? (It’s Adam Smith’s “personal interest theory.”)

@nyctea scandiaca

The state provides services to all of these people and their families, regardless of whether they are legal or illegal. Their kids all have a right to attend public schools. Because so many of them don’t speak English, we have to institute ESL programs, which strains school budgets.

This is probably the only real burden on the economy, but it’s not really as much as people often think. Do you know how much your state actually spends on ESL education? How it compares to tax subsidies to get corporations to relocate? Would you rather they didn’t know English? Would you rather they weren’t in school (hanging around Target, instead). Do you think they came all the way from Michocan to Virginia to get free ESL classes?

@nyctea scandiaca

The social services agencies and justice system devotes an inordinate amount of resources to immigrants (cite: my mother works in a local juvenile court system and she says a huge number of their cases involve immigrant families, and that they are not allowed to take into account their immigration status, or even ask about it).

Well, I’m sure your mother is a very reasonable person, but what exactly, in percentages, is “inordinate”? What would be the cost if the juvenile court just ignored immigrant kids? Or just deported them without due process? Or just locked them up indefinitely>

I think we have to weigh these things both rationally and morally.

Personally, I’d like to see illegal immigration end as much as anyone, but it’s not because I think it’s ruining the country. It’s a problem, but I think it’s blown out of proportion. I know it’s a lot of people, but they wouldn’t be here if our economy didn’t invite them.