# Finally congress is doing something about illegal immigration **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [December 13, 2005, 8:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/finally-congress-is-doing-something-about-illegal-immigration/335469 "2005-12-13T20:15:41Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 6\ **Page:** 6
**Author:** ![OtakuLoki](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/ac8455/32.png) [@OtakuLoki](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/OtakuLoki)\ **Post date:** [December 16, 2005, 12:19am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/finally-congress-is-doing-something-about-illegal-immigration/335469/101 "2005-12-16T00:19:24Z")
> [@suezeekay](#): > > > [@OtakuLoki](#): > > > > I’d also like to say, while there is a real problem with illegal immigration, I wouldn’t dare draw that conclusion from the OP, considering all the factual errors, insupportable assumptions, and gross concept errors it contained. > > It is strange how people can accept some internet cite but refuse to accept my direct experience. I guess that just shows how much computers have broadened the gap between real life and the electronic experience. Ahh… the _ad homenum_ argument. Allow me to be more forthright, then. > [@](#): > > When my grandaughter was in first grade her class was filled with non-English speaking students. When they moved and she went to a new school she was behind because the teacher had had to devote so much time to these children. Unlike some nations, the US doesn’t have a national curriculum office dictating what the lesson plans for each day should be for every grade in the elementary schooling experience. In fact, I don’t believe any **state** in the Union tries for that kind of direct control of education. I do know that there is usually a large difference between classes within the same _school_ let alone the same district. You can’t simply assume that taking a student out of one class and putting her into another one (Especially as I’d imagine your granddaughter changed school districts, not simply schools, when her family moved.) will be a seamless experience. This is especially true when done during the middle of the school year, as your anecdote implies. This doesn’t mean that the presence of non-English speaking students in your granddaughter’s classes didn’t retard the class’ pace. But, as it is we have no evidence that this is the case. Likewise, it is not evidence that simply because someone _doesn’t_ speak English that that they are in this country illegally. Score, so far: Factual Errors: 0 Insupportable Assumptions: 2 Gross Concept Errors: 1 > [@](#): > > Years ago I saw a news report showing a pregnant woman in labor clinging to a pole at the CA/Mexico border while border agents tried to send her back to Mexico. She was determined her baby be born in the U.S. so it would automatically be a citizen. I don’t think this is what our forefathers had in mind in creating naturalized U.S. citizens. A naturalized citizen is someone who gains the status of full citizenship in a nation after having been a citizen of another country. The fact that the woman’s child would have been a US citizen if the birth occurred on US soil has nothing to do with the process of naturalized citizenship, as other posters have already pointed out. Factual Errors: 1 Insupportable Assumptions: 2 Gross Concept Errors: 2 > [@](#): > > My son who lives in LA says he has to leave because it’s overrun by illegal hispanics who clog up the hospitals and schools and public services, and are the source of violent crime. He’s tried of feeling like the hated minority (he doesn’t just feel that way, 50% of the population of CA is minorities). Egads, the number of things here to consider. I’m willing to accept that illegals are clogging the hospitals without too much of a problem. But, given the reasons, discussed elsewhere in this thread, why illegals will be more likely to go to the ER than anywhere else for care, I can understand how it would happen. As for the schools and public services: These are both paid for by the community through taxes raised on real property in the school or law enforcement district, and through sales taxes in the same geographical areas. As such it is hard for me to imagine how someone living in the district, at a fixed address (usually required for school registration.) isn’t going to be contributing via rent payments to the landlord, who then pays school taxes on property. Similar things for anything funded via payroll withholding taxes and sales taxes. To claim that **illegal hispanics** are **the** source of violent crime in LA is completely insupportable. No ifs, ands or buts. Again, this has been discussed several other times in the thread, so I’m not going to rehash it. Finally, as a matter of mathematics, if the population of California is 50% minorities, that means that the largest single block of the population is still the majority. It may not be as overwhelming majority that it had been. But it’s not a minority. And even if that number meant what you believed it does, that does nothing to support the allegation of your son being part of a **hated** minority. Factual Errors: 2 Insupportable Assumptions: 5 Gross Concept Errors: 3 > [@](#): > > I grew up in a small farming town in California. It was safe and quiet. Then all the illegal immigrants that came there to pick fruit were made legal if they had been living in CA illegally for five years and could prove it. Now my former hometown is largely Hispanic; there are murders on the once quiet streets by hispanic gang members. You can’t go to the stip mall after dark; Spanish is spoken everwhere and you are a racist if you object to someone demanding services but they can’t speak English. Employers have to hire people who speak Spanish to deal with their customers. Ever been to a Chinatown? Ever try to _talk_ to the merchants in English there? It doesn’t happen. Likewise, in South Boston you can still hear vendors and customers discussing things in Italian. Linguistic enclaves are a fact of immigration. > [@](#): > > America, in the past absorbed many minorities. The Irish, etc. faced discrimination when they emmigrated, but they eventually came to be part of what we call America. Now the people coming in want America to accomodate itself to them. They want to turn our country into a mini-version of their country, which by the way is the place they left because it didn’t offer what America does. AND there is a reason for being able to offer what we do; our system worked. > > We’ve waited too long to address this problem and now Congress, as usual, is overreacting and creating very harsh measures to try to prevent our economy being dragged down by people who use all our services, get SDI and Social Security Disability, but pay little or no tax to support those services. And who have contributed to the importation of illegal drugs. And now that the problem has reached such drastic proportions and the mayors of border towns have declared an emergency, constituents are demanding they do something drastic, so the measures will probably pass. The Republicans are divided but Bush is against it because he knows that he was probably elected in large part by Hispanics. I don’t really have a problem with these - I don’t agree completely with your premises, but that’s different from believing that these paragraphs are full of _ahem_ stuff. > [@](#): > > I’ve travelled across the U.S. many times by car, the last time a year ago. Illegal and the legal descendents of Mexican immigrants are everywhere; in every town along Rt. 80 and Rt. 70, which I drove last year. How the devil do you know that? Did you do any surveys? How many of the peoples you labelled as Mexican descendants were actually descended from American Indians? Or Greeks, or Italians, or any other ethnic group that includes the phenotype traits: swarthy skin, dark hair, and dark eyes? And of those whom you did accurately label - how many of them were the descendants of legal immigrants? You are aware, I hope, that a large number of Mexicans do come into the US legally, too. Final Tally: Factual Errors: 3 Insupportable Assumptions: 7 Gross Concept Errors: 4 The rest of your OP was again unobjectionable. But, still I stand by my characterization earlier: It is full of errors of several kinds. Or to quote **Guinastasia** : > [@](#): > > The plural of anecdote is not data. ---
**Author:** ![even\_sven](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/dfb087/32.png) [@even\_sven](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/even_sven)\ **Post date:** [December 16, 2005, 3:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/finally-congress-is-doing-something-about-illegal-immigration/335469/102 "2005-12-16T03:14:25Z")
The only argument weaker than “some of my best friends are illegal hispanics” is “some people that my brother hates are illegal hispanics.” ---
**Author:** ![Lochdale](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/edb3f5/32.png) [@Lochdale](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lochdale)\ **Post date:** [December 16, 2005, 3:27am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/finally-congress-is-doing-something-about-illegal-immigration/335469/103 "2005-12-16T03:27:07Z")
While I think there is a legitimate cultural argument, that is, it’s rather difficult to assimilate mutiple-millions of non-English speaking low-skilled workers (coming in at rates that are unprecedented in US history), I don’t think it’s the most important issue. The US government needs to take a firm stand against illegal immigration. Companies that use and abuse illegals must be fined and fined punitively. Immigration laws must be enforced and illegals deported whenever possible. In round 2, we must address the economic and political imbalance between Mexico and the US. It’s not reasonable to build a fortified border with our second largest neighbour. Addressing the economic and political issues in Mexico (their elite are more than happy to dump a potential social and economic problem onto the US) is the only viable and real long-term solution. ---
**Author:** ![rjung](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/45deac/32.png) [@rjung](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/rjung)\ **Post date:** [December 16, 2005, 3:46am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/finally-congress-is-doing-something-about-illegal-immigration/335469/104 "2005-12-16T03:46:17Z")
> [@suezeekay](#): > > Congress did indeed pass legistation by requiring employers to have their employee provide documentation they are in the country legally. Yes, and every time someone gets caught violating one of those laws, they get a slap on the wrist and the matter is dropped after a week, and we end up with [familiar names as repeat offenders.](http://money.cnn.com/2005/11/18/news/fortune500/walmart_raid/) I don’t give two toots about macho posturing by wanna-be militias growling at lowly illegals; that’s just egotestical projectioning from folks overcompensating for their own personal inadequacies. If you want to get serious about illegal immigration, get _serious_ and attack the problem at the **root.** ---
**Author:** ![slaphead](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/e9bcb4/32.png) [@slaphead](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/slaphead)\ **Post date:** [December 16, 2005, 10:01am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/finally-congress-is-doing-something-about-illegal-immigration/335469/105 "2005-12-16T10:01:09Z")
> [@Der Trihs](#): > > Well, there are far more sources of food than a restaurant; that allows them to spread the blame if someone is starving. With, say, surgery, who else is there than the hospital ? Rather irrelevant to the principle that privately funded businesses cannot provide unlimited free resources to those who cannot pay. Maybe it would become clearer to you if you consider something like electricity - if enough people don’t pay their bills, the power station can’t be kept operational and only people rich enough to afford a generator have access. That’s a loss not just for the poor, but for the middle classes too. Someone has to pay the bills - either users, or the taxpayer. End of story. > [@Der Trihs](#): > > Besides, if millions were starving while others ate nice food in restaurants, I bet they _would_ get the blame, not to mention looted. After all, it’s a lot harder to extort medical care than food at gunpoint; a restaurant wouldn’t last long in a neighborhood full of starving people with no money for food. Not without lots of armed guards, at least. I’m willing to bet that even in third-world countries where there are massive food shortages you can find fancy restaurants for the elite. I’m also willing to bet that they are very expensive, have however much security is required to keep them open, and are frequented by the exact same people who can afford decent medical care while most of the population die from easily cured ilnesses. If there is not enough of something to go around, it ends up being rationed either by price or by allocation. Again, take your pick - force people to pay or set up some sort of limits on who gets treatment. Anyhow, to return to the original topic, the whole immigration discussion reminds me of the War on Drugs™© - current policy is blatantly not working, but no-one has the guts to stand up and say “This is a disaster, we need to rethink the whole thing and come up with something that works”. What the correct policy should be, I don’t feel qualified to say, other than it should be something radically different from what is in place now. ---
**Author:** ![JRDelirious](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jrdelirious/32/9531_2.png) [@JRDelirious](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JRDelirious)\ **Post date:** [December 16, 2005, 12:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/finally-congress-is-doing-something-about-illegal-immigration/335469/106 "2005-12-16T12:31:44Z")
> [@Lochdale](#): > > While I think there is a legitimate cultural argument, that is, it’s rather difficult to assimilate mutiple-millions of non-English speaking low-skilled workers (coming in at rates that are unprecedented in US history), I don’t think it’s the most important issue. > > The US government needs to take a firm stand against illegal immigration. Companies that use and abuse illegals must be fined and fined punitively. Immigration laws must be enforced and illegals deported whenever possible. > > In round 2, we must address the economic and political imbalance between Mexico and the US. It’s not reasonable to build a fortified border with our second largest neighbour. Addressing the economic and political issues in Mexico (their elite are more than happy to dump a potential social and economic problem onto the US) is the only viable and real long-term solution. Now _this_ is something I believe many of us can agree with; alas too many people seem to obviate the need for a “round 2” that adresses root causes (or take the attitude of “hey, that’s _their_ problem”). [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/finally-congress-is-doing-something-about-illegal-immigration/335469.md?page=5)