Chipping Illegals

Great Debates
1

Idea spurred by this thread in GQ.

If GPS tracking units became small enough to implant irremovably into, for instance, the brain, would chipping illegal aliens as they are caught be a method for significantly reducing illegal immigration? Is there any international law by which such an operation would be illegal (presuming that the process was 100% safe)?

And let me note that I’m not recommending such a course of action even if it was possible (which seems unlikely given energy needs and IR transmission problems.) This is more just a sci-fi sort of thought.

2

On a related note, they’re chipping themselves.

What’s pathetic is, these people actually think having the equivalent of your cat or dog’s chip embedded in their arm will make it possible to find them if they’re kidnapped.

I suppose it could help if you can’t find them three inches away and you happen to wave the wand around and hear a ‘beep’.

3

[QUOTE=pingnak]
On a related note, they’re chipping themselves.

What’s pathetic is, these people actually think having the equivalent of your cat or dog’s chip embedded in their arm will make it possible to find them if they’re kidnapped.

I suppose it could help if you can’t find them three inches away and you happen to wave the wand around and hear a ‘beep’.
[/QUOTE]

To be fair, as someone who opposes illegal immigration but does not have any bone to pick with Mexicans in Mexico who aren’t trying to sneak in (other than that they’ve created/tolerated for too long a horribly corrupt society), the “they” in your first line isn’t quite fair – the chipping is being done by middle class Mexican burghers, not the “illegals” to whom the OP referred.

Your other points are well-taken though. How would any device small enough to be implantable have a sufficient power source that GPS could ever pick up its signal? The article on the people fearing kidnapping had a particularly stupid feature – the microchip communicates by RF with a device that you use that in turn allows you to press a panic button, and then that external device uplinks your location to the GPS. Unless I was missing something, that makes the microchip completely unnecessary – why not just cary the panic button/transmitter?

Of course the remaining problem is that those who can’t (kidnappees – as if kidnappers won’t promptly see some device big enough to contain a high-powered transceiver, smash it, and smash your teeth in for the trouble), or won’t (would-be illegals), carry some bulky transmitter can’t be tracked by it.

Next, assuming we somehow could come up with a self-contained, self-powered, implantable tracking tag, how do we ensure it can’t just be plucked out with tweezers (or with minor surgery)? The OP foresees this and suggests surgical implantation in the brain. But (while I don’t believe illegal aliens have any constitutional rights, and hence won’t use the phrase cruel and unusual), I just don’t see that flying, ever, as a domestic or international policy.

Finally, I am interested in making sure deportees don’t come back. But I’m almost as interested in making sure first-time river-swimmers don’t make it either. The OP’s proposed policy focuses signficant attention and resources on the first class of alien, whereas I’m not sure the problems caused by repeat offender illegal immigration are qualitatively worse than those caused by first offenders (who admittedly are the repeat offenders of tomorrow). Of course given that the alternative would be to tag all existing residents of the countries from which we anticipate future illegal immigration, I guess the OP was right in not suggesting that, given that it’s even less remotely feasible.

4

[QUOTE=Huerta88]
But (while I don’t believe illegal aliens have any constitutional rights, and hence won’t use the phrase cruel and unusual), I just don’t see that flying, ever, as a domestic or international policy.
[/QUOTE]

Even illegal aliens have some constitutional rights. We can’t sell them on the auction block when we catch them; or line the Arizona desert with the bodies of crucified illegal aliens as a warning to others; or use them as a food source.

5

The only way to get rid of illegal immigrants is to get rid of their jobs. Start jailing americans who hire them and they’ll stop coming. Right now illegals in florida are leaving in droves because the housing crisis has completely wrecked the roofing, construction, landscaping bussiness they tend to flock towards. I know of entire families who simply pack their things and go back because they haven’t been able to find work in months. Only lack of jobs will get rid of illegals, and since we actually need them to do those jobs i wouldn’t expect anything but token measures to be taken to stop them like the idiotic wall being built.

6

[QUOTE=MEBuckner]
Even illegal aliens have some constitutional rights. We can’t sell them on the auction block when we catch them; or line the Arizona desert with the bodies of crucified illegal aliens as a warning to others; or use them as a food source.
[/QUOTE]

My “I don’t believe” was an implicit acknowledgment that others (including judges) believe otherwise. I think the S.C. got it wrong in Wong Wing (I was not aiming for a tongue-twister there), but it’s not necessary to reach the issue because even if the Constitution were silent on it, no one’s going to authorize brain implants for illegal aliens.

7

[QUOTE=DigitalC]
Only lack of jobs will get rid of illegals, and since we actually need them to do those jobs i wouldn’t expect anything but token measures to be taken to stop them like the idiotic wall being built.
[/QUOTE]

Need is relative. The South needed black slaves to maintain the setup of their economy, but that doesn’t mean that they had any right to it.

But yeah, it’s doubtful that anyone in the South with any understanding of economics would want to suddenly and permanently oust all of their cheap labor. While things would eventually balance out, there would probably be a good decade of scrambling as jobs move around and get offshored and whatnot, resulting in a (mostly) localised recession.

8

[QUOTE=DigitalC]
The only way to get rid of illegal immigrants is to get rid of their jobs. Start jailing americans who hire them and they’ll stop coming. Right now illegals in florida are leaving in droves because the housing crisis has completely wrecked the roofing, construction, landscaping bussiness they tend to flock towards. I know of entire families who simply pack their things and go back because they haven’t been able to find work in months. Only lack of jobs will get rid of illegals, and since we actually need them to do those jobs i wouldn’t expect anything but token measures to be taken to stop them like the idiotic wall being built.
[/QUOTE]

Illegal immegration is inexreicably tied in with the “underground” economy. Millions of these people work off the books, and never pay a dime into Social Security. Why?
-crushing payroll taxes-small businesses cannot survive paying SS, FI Taxes, State Income Tax, and local taxes
-Americans want cheap services -even congressmen were caught hiring illegal alien nannies
-Latin/Cental American is in the midst of a population explosion-Honduras has a population 3X waht it was 20 years ago. North America has a birth dearth.
-Americans don’t want menial jobs-especially as illegals depress wages
Meanwhile, the government sped money like a drunken sailor-the USA has armed forces across the globe-which we cannot afford!

9

[QUOTE=Huerta88]
Finally, I am interested in making sure deportees don’t come back. But I’m almost as interested in making sure first-time river-swimmers don’t make it either. The OP’s proposed policy focuses signficant attention and resources on the first class of alien, whereas I’m not sure the problems caused by repeat offender illegal immigration are qualitatively worse than those caused by first offenders (who admittedly are the repeat offenders of tomorrow). Of course given that the alternative would be to tag all existing residents of the countries from which we anticipate future illegal immigration, I guess the OP was right in not suggesting that, given that it’s even less remotely feasible.
[/QUOTE]

I’m not sure what you mean by “problems caused.” I don’t think most illegal aliens cause problems (point in fact, they don’t for the most part), beyond that their existence in the country is illegal.

But the assumption of the OP is that most illegals, if you throw them out they will come back. They’re a self-selecting group who wants to be here and not over there. And anyone who does want to be here, will have come here as soon as they were old enough; Mexicans (or Cubans or such) who want to be in the US in majority are in the US. So if you can get rid of them once and render them unable to return, it seems likely that you’ll have a generation’s wait until the numbers could grow back again.

I’d personally guess that if the problem seemed solvable/the police were ordered to make the effort, the grand majority of illegal immigrants could be corralled up within a week. The locals and the police know where they are, they just don’t feel like it’s worthwhile to go busting in once a week since those places are right back to where they were a week later.

10

[QUOTE=DigitalC]
The only way to get rid of illegal immigrants is to get rid of their jobs. Start jailing americans who hire them and they’ll stop coming.
[/QUOTE]
Amen. Better than jailing them, however (which only burdens an already overcrowded penal system), would be applying federal forfeiture laws like they do against drug lords. Seize their property, vehicles, factories, inventory, real estate, lock, stock and barrel. Not only would the illegals deport themselves, but it would be a self-funding operation.

11

[QUOTE=ralph124c]
Illegal immegration is inexreicably tied in with the “underground” economy. Millions of these people work off the books, and never pay a dime into Social Security.
[/QUOTE]
Actually, they pay billions into Social security, and will get nothing from it in return. Just another way in which we are exploiting them, and then blaming them for it.

12

Having lived a considerable amount of time in the desert southwest…I know illegals who work on the books and are paying into SS. It happens.

13

[QUOTE=Der Trihs]
Actually, they pay billions into Social security, and will get nothing from it in return. Just another way in which we are exploiting them, and then blaming them for it.
[/QUOTE]

..and paid in cash contribute to SS?
Can’t quite get that concept! :eek:

14

[QUOTE=Der Trihs]
Just another way in which we are exploiting them, and then blaming them for it.
[/QUOTE]

This thread is having a tendency to go off the OP, but I’ll just note that your suggestion that illegals contribute more than they take from the fisc is far from uncontested.

http://www.gao.gov/archive/1995/he95022.pdf

Even taking the highest estimate of the state’s revenues attributable to tax receipts from aliens, that study suggests that direct financial costs to Calif. in the sample period were almost double any direct financial benefit.

None of this takes in the indirect costs of illegal immigration (e.g., the social cost and policing effort (not free) required to deal with MS-13 and other criminal organizations dominated by illegal migrants).

[/hijack]

15

[QUOTE=ralph124c]
..and paid in cash contribute to SS?
Can’t quite get that concept! :eek:
[/QUOTE]

Supposedly, when they buy their bogus ID documents, it includes a bogus SSN, with either a real person’s number or, more likely, a totally made up one. The (often complicit) employer sends some withholding to the govt., the govt. scratches its head and says, gee, why doesn’t it match a known SSN/name, but by the time the tax-receipts people ever got around to talking to the immigration enforcement people (read: probably never), the guy’s moved down the road. The employer goes through the charade of paying SS so he can claim plausible deniability (in some cases, maybe real deniability) that he did in fact check for an SSN, and did send money in.

Hey, it’s always possible to send money to the government – they’ll take anything and everything.

16

[QUOTE=Fear Itself]
Amen. Better than jailing them, however (which only burdens an already overcrowded penal system), would be applying federal forfeiture laws like they do against drug lords. Seize their property, vehicles, factories, inventory, real estate, lock, stock and barrel. Not only would the illegals deport themselves, but it would be a self-funding operation.
[/QUOTE]

The war on drugs is self-funding?

17

[QUOTE=GorillaMan]
The war on drugs is self-funding?
[/QUOTE]

Might be a break-even operation if we could re-sell not only the cars and houses, but also the seized dope. There are some obvious drawbacks there. Presumably, with seizing illegal employers’ assets, most would be re-saleable.

18

[QUOTE=GorillaMan]
The war on drugs is self-funding?
[/QUOTE]
Not only self-funding, but in some jurisdictions,it turns a profit.

19

[QUOTE=Huerta88]
Might be a break-even operation if we could re-sell not only the cars and houses, but also the seized dope. There are some obvious drawbacks there. Presumably, with seizing illegal employers’ assets, most would be re-saleable.
[/QUOTE]

So it’s the same, but without the stuff that has to be incinerated? Where’s the obvious increased profit?

Edit: that wasn’t adequate. You’d also be removing the single biggest asset of many of those employers, the cheaper labour the illegal immigrants offer. All that would be left would be empty restaurants and half-finished construction work, hardly a goldmine.

20

[QUOTE=GorillaMan]
So it’s the same, but without the stuff that has to be incinerated? Where’s the obvious increased profit?

Edit: that wasn’t adequate. You’d also be removing the single biggest asset of many of those employers, the cheaper labour the illegal immigrants offer. All that would be left would be empty restaurants and half-finished construction work, hardly a goldmine.
[/QUOTE]

Empty restaurants don’t stay empty and half-finished construction work doesn’t stay half-finished – economics tells us that someone would step in and run any business that was viable to run legally, legally.

Mind you, the seize-everything-from-the-employers theory wasn’t mine; more generally, though, I do indeed think even moderate financial penalties on employers would change employer (and migrant) behavior.

I don’t want to get sidetracked into a who-would-run-the-economy debate, not just because the U.S. managed to run a nice enough economy without massive illegal labor until oh, about 12 years ago, but because Japan is doing largely the same thing, even today. Americans would have to take jobs that were available, wages would go up and American employee expectations would go down until someone was willing to take those jobs at an agreed price.