There’s one known human fatality from a coyote, so stop giving them a bad name.
I worry that we’ll end up settling and giving amnesty to illegal immigrants. Not so much for the current lot but rather because if we keep giving amnesty every decade it’s pointless. For the life of me, I don’t see why they can’t start with a bill to increase enforcement, especially at the border, right now. Cutting down the flow will make moving forward a lot easier.
My crystal ball is showing me a vision of the future… I see… a mushrooming industry offering super-high-interest “amnesty loans” to immigrants. Not gouging, mind you; I can make out the shar… er, lenders bristling at the very suggestion. They say… they say they’re merely providing a much-needed service to the community, helping to make American dreams come true… oops, now it’s fading.
For that matter, I’ve seen immigrants quoted as saying that’s not too far off the going rate for smuggling services. If it’s a requirement, people will find a way to come up with the money. Not making a judgment about whether we should be charging those kinds of fines; just a prediction.
Update: here’s a new White House fact sheet on the differences between the 1986 amnesty and the current compromise bill, and related issues.
I agree. The proposal, as I saw it covered on Lou Dobbs’ show, doesn’t seem to be workable in any sense. They’re shortening the proposed wall between us and them by about 75%. They’re giving gang members Z visa status if they renounce membership in the gang (are you shitting me?). They’re providing legal assistance to illegals. They’re supposed to let illegals who might qualify for visa status, but who are caught by the border police, go (I hope I got that one right). I just don’t see how this is possible. Cost-wise and logistics-wise, I just don’t see how it will ever happen.
Lou Dobbs is a reactionary schmuck. I would really hesitate to take anything he says on this subject at face value.
Whether the proposal is workable overall remains to be seen, and as I mentioned, if any bill passes, it may not look anything like the current Senate bill.
Begging your indulgence, Eva, I am not well informed enough on these issues to ask the intelligent questions. (Hey, I’m only one guy, brilliant, sure, but still…) I would be interested, therefore, in your take on the issues due to the high probability that I am likely to adopt them as mine own. I realise this will put you in the unenviable position of defending your “take” from many directions. In a way, its kind of like drafting a candidate: “Eva knows her shit, lets listen to her!”
And if I can’t convince you that stern duty demands, I’m not above resorting to flattery to have my way.
If they or their parents entered illegally, I want them out of the country, and I don’t care how well-scrubbed they may be, or how cherubic their smiling little faces are. We already have three hundred million people. How many are enough? Five hundred million? Eight hundred million? A billion?
How many more can come here before we no longer have a home for ourselves?
So basically you are asking me to come up with an intelligent, airtight, criticism-proof comprehensive immigration reform program? Thanks for the flattery, indeed, by the implication that I (or, indeed, anyone) would be capable of such a thing. I’m much better at poking holes in other people’s opinions than I am at fixing entire systems that are as dysfunctional as this one is, and hey, there’s definitely a good reason I’ve never gone into politics.
Where to start? Well, I believe in starting by first defining the problem(s). Do you think it’s a problem that so many people are sneaking into the U.S. illegally or remaining illegally? Do you think it’s a problem that so many U.S. employers, knowingly and/or unknowingly, hire people who are not legally authorized to work in the U.S.? Do you think it’s a problem that U.S. employers have apparently found it in their best interests to do so, and/or that the regulations on determining who is legally eligible to work in the U.S. legally (or who can work in the U.S. legally if an employer petitions for them, etc.) are so complicated that even most lawyers (and for that matter, those who have drafted and/or are charged with enforcing the rules) don’t understand the rules? Do you think that immigrants displacing U.S. workers is a problem? If so, do you think it’s across the board, or just in certain occupations or at certain skill levels? If you believe there is a shortage of U.S. workers for certain jobs, do you think the immigration system should address that shortage from within the U.S. at the same time that it addresses remedying them by bringing in foreign workers?
Do you believe that it’s a problem that people here legally, either as permanent residents or U.S. citizens, need to expend many years and often thousands of dollars to bring their relatives to the U.S. legally, if it’s even possible at all? Or do you think that leaving one’s family behind, for years on end or even forever, is a sacrifice that one must be willing to make in order to enjoy the benefits of living in the U.S.?
So basically, I am the first to acknowledge that U.S. immigration policy is an immensely complex system even when it works as it’s intended, which it hasn’t been doing in living memory, if ever. There are myriad interests and incentives, legitimate and not-so-legitimate, at play against each other, and I don’t pretend to have all the answers. I will do my best, however, to help anyone who is truly interested in understanding the facts and forces at play. So go ahead, shoot (metaphorically, of course). And I’m not above a bit of flattery now and again, for that matter. 
NAFTA isn’t helping matters any for the Mexican farmers, is it?
And politicians of both parties rely on campaign donors who do not want those laws enforced, because enforcement would drive up their labor costs.
Erosion is a natural process. What he was referring to was something more like over farming.
If you look at the post just before the one you quoted, you’ll note that I suggested something along those lines, even it it wasn’t specifically that fact.
Agreed, and I never said that all the jobs would move south. In fact, some would probably be mechanized, as that would (in some cases) be cheaper than paying US citizens what you’d have to pay them to work the fields.
C’mon, it’s like that here in the U.S. The top 1% of earners make a third of the money.
Not at all. Small producers have a hard time competing with large corporate farms recieving billions of dollars in subsidies. It’s called a free trade agreement not a fair trade agreement.
So immigration pressure is, in part, a problem we Americans (that is, our neoliberal pro-globalization leaders) created for ourselves.
Not quite. The divide between the wealthy upper classes on the one hand and the middle and working classes on the other isn’t as wide in the U.S. as it is in Mexico.
Yet.
I would like to see some figures on that. I think the top 1% in America is at least an order of magnitude more wealthy on a per capita basis that the top 1% in Mexico. Have nothing to back that up though.
Senator Mitch McConnell is proposing an amendment to the bill that would require everybody to present government-issued ID before voting in any federal election.
According to WaPo, the immigration reform bill “teetered on the verge of collapse today” after failing a key test vote.
As long as this has been bumped anyway, here’s a current chart of pending amendments to the Senate bill.