Close the borders. CLOSE THE BORDERS!

Great Debates
1

If you listen to conservative talk radio (esp. Michael Savage, Monica Crowley and Mark Levin), you hear enough about the need to close our borders. Evidently, illegal immigration is the US’s biggest problem. Of course, I find this very hard to believe. In fact, I think it helps us because illegal immigrants probably work twice as hard for a fraction of the money, allowing the rest of us to pay less for the goods and services that we want.

But they talk about how we end up paying for their very costly medical care, and how our “open” borders cause terrorism, and blah, blah, blah…

Have there been any studies done on how much illegal immigration really costs us? I’d love to hear arguments both ways. I’m thinking about calling in to Michael Savage, armed with facts, and debunking his self-assigned raison d’etre.

2

If it costs a penny, it costs too much. Why should you have to pay for someone else’s immigration? Let’s open the borders and invest landowners with real ownership, and back them up with a government that will secure their rights and property. Let people work hard and struggle to get what they want. Let those who fail fail, and let those who succeed succeed.

3

Are we reverting back to Social Darwinism now?

4

Apparently. But don’t blame me if the results and interpretations are contradictory and confusing. Good luck sorting through the political agendas.

I’m not convinced this is altogether a good thing. Maybe we should pay more for some goods and services and employers in return for employers’ paying decent wages to legal residents.

Could someone define “close our borders”? Illegal immigration is already, uh, illegal. So is the proposition to better enforce the existing laws, prohibit immigration of any kind (which I can’t imagine happening in any of our lifetimes), or something else?

Am I supposed to picture Elmer Fudd in his magic helmet, singing the thread title? Just checking.

5

I don’t quite understand what you’re saying here. Are you saying any money spent on monitoring immigration is wasted? We should throw open the borders to everyone, and let the chips fall where they may? What is “real ownership” and how would the government “back it up”?

Elaborate if you would, please. (Not judgemental, just confused). :confused:

6

As a conservative I have never really understood the alarm that (Mexican)immigration causes in other conservatives. The most common objection is that the immigrants will “steal” jobs from Americans, but I doubt it if many roofing, lawn mowing, and grape picking Americans have had thier job stolen from them. From what I see Americans are opposed to doing these jobs in the first place – at least at the wage at which an immigrant works. In order to offer a wage acceptable to an American worker the cost of the product would go too high for an American to have to pay. The other objection is usually on cultural grounds, but I find that to be unfounded. I see no difference in the core cultural values of Mexicans and Americans.

If we were to leaglize immigration I believe the “problem” could be dealt with easier. That way every immigrant would be registered and could be monitored. I would propose giving out work visas for those looking for temporary work and say a period of 5 year probation for immigrants wanting to live in the US, during which time they would recieve fewer entitlements and less access to govt. programs than the average American while paying a specially calculated income tax. They would also have to complete the period without committing a felony. Mexican felons would be barred from the program. Then they could apply for citizenship. Those who don’t enroll in the program would be deported and stiff penalties would be imposed on businesses hiring outside of the program. Could this or something like this work? Sounds too easy.

As for immigration from other countries I don’t know?

7

That’s your problem right there. :wink:

I agree completely. I also don’t think the problem of illegal/migrant workers will ever be “solved” in any real fashion, because doing so would have a major negative impact on several key areas of the US economy (most notably agriculture and food processing). Despite all the feel-good(*) jingoism of all the “protect our borders” talk, our country is heavily dependent on cheap labor, and isn’t going to kick the habit any time soon.

(* = Unless you happen to be Hispanic, of course; then you get the fun of watching your entire ethnicity tarred by talk radio’s ultra-large brush)

8

I’ll do my best, although my expository skills are poor. Real ownership means calling the shots. You are not the real owner of property if the government claims eminent domain over it simply by virtue of the fact that your property falls within borders they have drawn on maps. You are not the real owner if the government may seize your property through a tactic called asset forfeiture simply because it *suspects * you of a crime. Real ownership is saying to the landowners, “We do not claim your land. It belongs to you.” And real governance is backing that up with “We will defend to the death your right to call the shots.” If Mr. Smith doesn’t want immigrants crossing his land, then his government should stop them. But if Mr. Jones wants to invite people to his land, then his government ought to leave them alone. You cannot have your cake and eat it too.

9

I’m getting more of a really slobbery Daffy Duck, myself.

10

Immigration IS legal if they follow the proper procedures. Are you advocating simply allowing ANYONE to enter the US?

And I’m sure there will be plenty of people not wanting to be registered and monitored who would continue to try to enter the country without going through this process.

Jobs may be the most common objection, but it is by no means the ONLY objection.

Just off the top of my head, automobile accidents involving illegal immigrants. Two of my friends were screwed over when they were hit by illegal immigrants (in one case they were speeding, and totalled my friends Mustang, in the other they ran a red light and totalled my other friends’ Lexus). They are not insured, they don’t have legal residences, a lot of times don’t even have valid identification, and all of the above combined makes it impossible to get reparations from illegals.

I wholly support greater measures to reduce illegal immigration, being that I live in an area greatly affected by it and I see negative effects of illegal immigration almost every day of my life. It’s too bad California is not willing to enforce Federal immigration policies because they want to be sensitive to the “latino voting block”. :rolleyes:

11

Yes - anyone from Mexico who is not a felon and who wants to work. What is wrong with that? The proper procedures you refer to make it impossible for those people to get in legally.

American citizens get in automobile accidents too and many of them are also uninsured. I think this stems from the argument I often hear that illegal immigrants are somehow more criminal than American citizens. I would like to see some evidence of that (I think it is a form of xenophobia). For instance show me how the crime rates in neighborhoods with high populations of illegal immigrants are higher than crime rates of economically comparable neighborhoods of US citizens.

And please don’t argue that they are breaking the law and therefore they are more criminal. I am arguing whether or not immigration should be made (more) legal. In a debate on whether or not to make pot legal you wouldn’t argue that pot should be illegal because pot smokers are breaking the law.

True - but the number would be very low considering there would be little incentive for them not to enroll. Right now there is no incentive for Mexican immigrants to try to enter legally since they would be denied access.

In case you didn’t notice I live in an area that is greatly affected by immigration as well and I don’t see all the negative effects that you see. The negative effects I do see however (such as in the case of your friend) stem from the fact that immigrants are not monitored and taxed, and that they are afraid to participate fully in American society (like getting drivers licenses and insurance) because they are afraid of getting caught and deported.

12

I grew up on the border between Texas and Mexico. Well, not ALL of it… the border is QUITE big … which is a large part of our problem, here.

If we’re going to eliminate illegal immigration, then plainly we need to get serious. We need to hire millions of red-blooded Americans, train and equip them, build a gigantic razor-wire nightmare fence along the ENTIRE border, and station guardposts every 50 to 100 yards, each equipped with a MINIMUM of two armed guards, 24-7. And they need to be authorized to shoot people.

THIS will stop illegal immigration. However, it will also jack your taxes up a very substantial amount; it would be an engineering project akin to an interstate highway. Furthermore, you’re going to need to hire a GREAT many people, and give them all guns. Hell, you might as well simply create a new division of the Army to do this stuff; at least you don’t have to pay soldiers as much as you would civilians. And soldiers are used to guarding things.

Meanwhile, this would violently screw up the Mexican economy, a large hunk of which depends on people wandering back and forth and sending money to Mexico. Oh, wait, this would seem to indicate that this has been going on for a while, now, yes? And America hasn’t collapsed?

So… basically… we’d be spending several billion dollars for something that isn’t doing all that much harm anyway, yes?

Hm. Then again, it seems to me that’s exactly what we did in Iraq…

13

You really think eminent domain is a bad thing?

Would you like stopping at a dozen private tolls every time you drive five minutes across town?

14

Well, no. But that is not a necessary consequence of privatized roads. If you browse the Cato Institute’s site, you’ll find quite a few papers on this. Eminent domain is what forces small sections of roads to be tolled as government seizes the land from people who don’t have enough political clout to stop it. Usually, that means poor people. It behooves contractors to build roads, for example, so that people don’t have to park a mile away from their homes. It behooves businesses to provide roads so that customers can get to them. And it behooves groups of shareholders to provide intercity freeways because they can be profitable. Tolls are not the only manner of collecting revenue and are not the only incentives for building roads. But eminent domain isn’t a bad thing just because it is unnecessary for commerce (though it is necessary for tyranny); it’s a bad thing because it is ethically heinous.

15

I don’t see it as immigrants stealing the jobs either, I see it as an employer screwing people over, though. Where I live, when I was in gradeschool, a large amount of teens around here worked in the fields (hops/asparagus) or orchards (just about any type of fruit you can think of), to buy a car, spending money, and pay for college. By the time I reached my teen years, this was no longer the case. It’s not a matter of people living here being lazy or that the jobs are unwanted. It is the wage. If farmers were forced to pay immigrants a living wage, the jobs wouldn’t be “stolen”. There would be people already living here, willing to work the jobs again.

Some things are changing for the better, particularly the crackdown on the farmers for hiring illegals in the first place. I remember working at a store, and not having the usual lunch rush. When I talked to the few workers who still came in, it turned out there was a raid that day. I was also informed it just so happened to be payday, and the legal workers basically hinted that it was the employer himself who had called immigration, to avoid paying his workers. Make of that what you will, but I do notice a difference in conditions for the workers since the crackdown on farmers.

As far as the cost rising, I’m guessing it probably would, but I wonder about the wages staying in the US and how much that would counterbalance things. Also less need for student loans for college, etc. I haven’t seen the price of apples go down, but rather rise like everything else, though the wages for the workers hasn’t increased nearly in proportion. Add in that a lot of these workers are not making a living wage, there’s the amount of public assistance to take into account. I might just be naive, but it does look to me, like things would balance out and the economy would not take an awful downturn.

16

I can agree with that and I think if we leagalized immigration (with the right plan) I would ascribe a minimum wage (lower than citizen minimum wage) to the immigrants until they became citizens. After that I would offer tax breaks and more subsidies to employers who keep the immigrants who are now citizens at citizen minimum wage. There would also be economically deadly penalties for employers who violate the plan. Penalties so heavy that the risk associated with hiring outside of the immigration system wouldn’t be worth the savings, especially since they could then hire legal cheap (just not as cheap) immigrant labor without any risk.

17

Given that it’s already hard enough for citizens to make a living on a minimum wage, wouldn’t a lower, non-citizen-minimum-wage simply condemn them to perpetual poverty?

18

Looking back at the OP, I think there is one important thing to keep in mind.

There are some conservatives who would be perfectly willing to erect a 15’ wall along the border with Mexico and enact a shoot-to-kill policy. On the other hand, these same people feel that it is necessary to “keep the Middle East in our sphere of influence.”

As a Mexican, I generally think this is ridiculous. If they were truly concerned about immigration and not xenophobia, they would be interested in stabilizing the Mexican economy and helping it catch up to America as a place to live, not walling it off and using it as a vacation resort.

It is also important to keep in mind that this same viewpoint was taken about the various European immigrants over time, notably the Irish. It is nothing new, and no, it won’t cause society to collapse, though it will lower the percentage of Americans that are WASPs, and that is threatening to some people.

If anything, in my (rather personal) experience, Mexican-Americans specifically (and immigrants in general) are hard working, honest, and have a deep love for America and everything it means. Many of them volunteer for the military, for instance. Even in Spanish-speaking parts of towns (like the one I live in), the American flag flies proudly. In fact, many immigrants are rather conservative in their outlook, including my family. They like to view themselves as Americans first. My father certainly does.

A lot is made of the crime rate in Mexican-American communities. Well, frankly, this is the result of ghettos, more than anything inherent about Hispanics. If anyone cares to do some digging through history, Irish and German ghettos were much the same. The best thing to do is embrace them into society as much as possible, as is happening in Texas, New Mexico, Arizona, and Southern California specifically. I’m not as familiar with the situations in Miami and New York, though.

There was an article in a recent National Geographic about the rising Hispanic population, expanding into rural towns. They make note of the fact that sleepy, small towns of 2,000 have had 300-400% growth in Hispanic populations recently, and that has completely revitalized the towns, starting new businesses, bringing in new industry, and generally making life better. I think cases like these are important to take note of. These areas are embracing the new immigrants, and they are profitting from it.

19

Except that illegal immigrants already make much less than minimum wage. My plan would assure them at least a little more money and it would assure them payment for their services (would apply to the case above where the employer calls immigration to round up the workers before he has to pay them). Also there would be nothing keeping them from taking a job that pays more if they could find it – it isn’t a maxium wage after all.

20

But keep open B. Dalton, Bookseller and Barnes & Noble.