# How Much Are YOU Personally Willing To Pay To End Illegal Immigration? **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [July 30, 2010, 3:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-much-are-you-personally-willing-to-pay-to-end-illegal-immigration/548587 "2010-07-30T15:35:51Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![emacknight](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/3ec8ea/32.png) [@emacknight](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/emacknight)\ **Post date:** [July 30, 2010, 10:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-much-are-you-personally-willing-to-pay-to-end-illegal-immigration/548587/21 "2010-07-30T22:12:35Z")
> [@begbert2](#): > > > [@emacknight](#): > > > > > [@begbert2](#): > > > > > > > [@Chronos](#): > > > > > > > > There are only two ways to actually end illegal immigration. The first is the one **Lonesome Polecat** suggests, to make the US worse than any place people are coming from, and that’s obviously incredibly expensive. The second would be considerably cheaper than what we’re doing now, and that’d be to just let folks in legally. So the amount I’d prefer to personally pay to end illegal immigration is negative, since it’d save money and I’d like to see some of that savings passed on to me. > > > > > > What about sending out hordes of hispanic federal spies to see if they can get people to hire them without verifying they’re legal, and then fining employers that do into small smoking shards of rubble? It may not be free, and it may not be perfect, but I think it could in theory end illegal immigration. > > > > Certainly an interesting idea and worthy of its own debate. But for our purposes, how much are you willing to spend on that project? It’s really not that different from the current health inspector system, except much much larger. Oddly enough, restaurants are where I think you’ll want to start and there is an estimated 215,000 full-service restaurants in the United States. > > > > If there are 250 work days in a year, visiting one restaurant a day, you’ll need 860 full time employees to get to all of them in one year. Pay them a nominal $50k a year and that works out to $43mil in salary alone. And that’s just for restaurants. > > > > You’ll also need a team to go from farm to farm eliminating migrant workers. If you target commercial farms (making more than $50,000 in sales) there are 504,000 of them. > > > > And an estimated 3,645 meat packing plants. > > > > So what’s that worth in terms of increased federal taxes? > > You do the math, but don’t forget to divide by the tax-paying population of the united states. Regardless it sounds like a respectable use of tax money the way you’re allocating it - at least as good as various other things we’re spending it on. Oh, didn’t you read the thread title? This isn’t getting spread out to everyone, just those that that see a problem and want it fixed… ---
**Author:** ![begbert2](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/begbert2/32/3357_2.png) [@begbert2](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/begbert2)\ **Post date:** [July 30, 2010, 10:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-much-are-you-personally-willing-to-pay-to-end-illegal-immigration/548587/22 "2010-07-30T22:18:43Z")
> [@emacknight](#): > > Oh, didn’t you read the thread title? This isn’t getting spread out to everyone, just those that that see a problem and want it fixed… Then an unserious question begs for an unserious answer: -$50 dollars. Pay _me_ to let you stop illegal immigration. ---
**Author:** ![Rushgeekgirl](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/rushgeekgirl/32/3715_2.png) [@Rushgeekgirl](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Rushgeekgirl)\ **Post date:** [July 30, 2010, 10:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-much-are-you-personally-willing-to-pay-to-end-illegal-immigration/548587/23 "2010-07-30T22:30:17Z")
I would be more than willing to pay all that my SO has paid in to the IRS since he started working in this country in order to make it where anyone willing to work is able to work in this country legally. I guess that’s not what you’re looking for though. ---
**Author:** ![Unregistered\_Bull](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/3da27b/32.png) [@Unregistered\_Bull](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Unregistered_Bull)\ **Post date:** [July 30, 2010, 10:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-much-are-you-personally-willing-to-pay-to-end-illegal-immigration/548587/24 "2010-07-30T22:53:44Z")
> [@begbert2](#): > > What about sending out hordes of hispanic federal spies to see if they can get people to hire them without verifying they’re legal, and then fining employers that do into small smoking shards of rubble? It may not be free, and it may not be perfect, but I think it could in theory end illegal immigration. Why just Hispanic spies? This I-9 / E-Verify shit is for everyone. Even if they aren’t verifying US citizens and legal immigrants, its against law. There are White, Asian, and Black illegal aliens anyway. ---
**Author:** ![foolsguinea](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/foolsguinea/32/14751_2.png) [@foolsguinea](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/foolsguinea)\ **Post date:** [July 30, 2010, 11:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-much-are-you-personally-willing-to-pay-to-end-illegal-immigration/548587/25 "2010-07-30T23:07:17Z")
I’m willing to get shot. MY way of ending illegal immigration is to liberalize our visa regime so fewer people are “illegal.” I want “illegal immigrant” to be an archaicism, & we can deal with “smugglers,” “human traffickers,” & “fugitives” on those terms, while letting migrants just be migrants. For this, I’m willing to fight the nativists. And get martyred. I just need to remember to keep track of Tea Party meetings, then bother to go, return my library books before hand in case I’m in hospital or dead… Og, I’m lazy. ---
**Author:** ![foolsguinea](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/foolsguinea/32/14751_2.png) [@foolsguinea](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/foolsguinea)\ **Post date:** [July 30, 2010, 11:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-much-are-you-personally-willing-to-pay-to-end-illegal-immigration/548587/26 "2010-07-30T23:16:14Z")
> [@LonesomePolecat](#): > > The cost of controlling illegal immigration are not very high at all. You eliminate jobs and welfare, I think you want to rephrase that. [And the use of welfare by illegals is not as high as conventional wisdom would have you believe. This link cites the actual CIS & FAIR organizations (groups that support strict restrictions on immigration) complaining of them being misquoted by anonymous chain emailers on this issue.](http://www.factcheck.org/2009/04/cost-of-illegal-immigrants/) > [@](#): > > you eliminate the anchor baby loophole, [The only current “anchor child” law applies to adults with right of residency who want to bring their parents back in.](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anchor_baby) ---
**Author:** ![billfish678](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/7bcc69/32.png) [@billfish678](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/billfish678)\ **Post date:** [July 30, 2010, 11:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-much-are-you-personally-willing-to-pay-to-end-illegal-immigration/548587/27 "2010-07-30T23:24:35Z")
> [@foolsguinea](#): > > I’m willing to get shot. > > MY way of ending illegal immigration is to liberalize our visa regime so fewer people are “illegal.” I want “illegal immigrant” to be an archaicism, & we can deal with “smugglers,” “human traffickers,” & “fugitives” on those terms, while letting migrants just be migrants. > > For this, I’m willing to fight the nativists. And get martyred. I just need to remember to keep track of Tea Party meetings, then bother to go, return my library books before hand in case I’m in hospital or dead… > > Og, I’m lazy. Bahhh… Either you let ANYBODY who wants to come come, because its their “right” to do so, or it isnt their “right”, and you set reasonable limits on how many can come in per year. Letting just anybody who can get here stay here would destroy this country(or any other country foolish enough to do so) in short order IMO. So, IMO you are still left with determining who is legally here and illegally here and controlling it and how many in some reasonable and realistic fashion. My socio economic WAG is that about 1 percent of our population per year MAX could be new immigrants. And even with that 1 percent, you are going to end up with a population thats pretty damn “diversisfied” in a few decades. ---
**Author:** ![Mannish](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/e36b37/32.png) [@Mannish](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mannish)\ **Post date:** [July 31, 2010, 12:12am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-much-are-you-personally-willing-to-pay-to-end-illegal-immigration/548587/28 "2010-07-31T00:12:17Z")
> [@Kinthalis](#): > > > [@GHO57](#): > > > > > [@emacknight](#): > > > > > > How Much Are YOU Personally Willing To Pay To End Illegal Immigration? > > > > 2,69€ ($3,50) > > Good LORD that’s a lot of money! > > How about I just violate some Mexican’s civil liberties a little bit? How much for that? ^This needs more love… As far as the OP, count me in the camp that has doubts as to whether not illegal immigration is even a net drag on our economy… ---
**Author:** ![ralph124c](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/8797f3/32.png) [@ralph124c](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ralph124c)\ **Post date:** [July 31, 2010, 5:47am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-much-are-you-personally-willing-to-pay-to-end-illegal-immigration/548587/29 "2010-07-31T05:47:47Z")
The first thing to do is to end the underground economy (economic activity that is untaxed and unreported). This means: when your local lawn care guy suggests you pay him in cash (instead of credit card or check) you don’t go along with this. Second: make Federal benefits (SS. Medicare, etc.) dependent upon taxes paid-somebody who makes minimum wages (and is paying little or no SS tax) will get less that someone who is paid a lot-the present system allows people to get far more back than they pay in. Don’t send SS payments to foreign countries. The problem will take care of itself. Finally, issue work visas for people who come here to work, and do not want to become citizens. ---
**Author:** ![Der\_Trihs](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/der_trihs/32/233_2.png) [@Der\_Trihs](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Der_Trihs)\ **Post date:** [July 31, 2010, 5:57am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-much-are-you-personally-willing-to-pay-to-end-illegal-immigration/548587/30 "2010-07-31T05:57:04Z")
> [@WhyNot](#): > > 'Sides which, many illegals do indeed pay income tax and social security through stolen Social Security Numbers and property taxes through property they own or rent…so I don’t buy the notion that they’re benefiting from social services they haven’t paid into at all. Nitpick: they quite often pay through “ITIN” (Individual Taxpayer Identification Number) numbers they are legitimately issued by the IRS, not stolen. The IRS doesn’t care if you are here legally, just that you pay. ---
**Author:** ![nachtmusick](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/ac91a4/32.png) [@nachtmusick](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/nachtmusick)\ **Post date:** [July 31, 2010, 8:36am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-much-are-you-personally-willing-to-pay-to-end-illegal-immigration/548587/31 "2010-07-31T08:36:26Z")
The unmitigated stream of unskilled, motivated labor into the US increases the supply of unskilled labor and thus drives down the value of labor. Wages fall. The tired old saw that immigrants take the work that Americans are too proud to do is belied by the fact that even semi-skilled professions are now suffused with unskilled immigrants. Construction, logging, truck-driving, maintenance, contracting, butchers, you name it. Americans are willing to do these jobs, just not for the wage that immigrants are willing to do them. Unchecked immigration benefits business owners and stockholders because the price of labor plummets, and profits rise. The Republicans are loathe to institute immigration reform for fear of harming their corporate benefactors. Immigration also benefits most Democrats because immigrants are their constituency, and the liberal left will not countenance anti-immigrant policies. So if the Republicans and Democrats are both in favor of unchecked immigration, why do the polls show that most Americans are in favor of stricter immigration control? Who are these racist xenophobes that respond to the polls? It can’t just be the tea-baggers, because there simply aren’t that many of them. The answer is that they are the working class schmucks who have to compete with these immigrants for work. They are the unskilled and blue collar whites, blacks and second generation latinos and asians who are seeing their wages fall. They want to to do an honest days work, just not for third-world wages. And they want benefits. Illegal immigrants don’t care about benefits, so they get the jobs that “Americans are too proud to do”; and their employers make out like bandits. The moral of the story is that the immigration policy divide is not between the left and right, it is between the rich and poor. Affluent and influential members of both parties are for unchecked immigration, while the less fortunate rank and file of both parties favor controlling immigration. So politicians of both stripes bleat about this and that measure, but nothing substantive ever gets done. ---
**Author:** ![Der\_Trihs](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/der_trihs/32/233_2.png) [@Der\_Trihs](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Der_Trihs)\ **Post date:** [July 31, 2010, 10:53am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-much-are-you-personally-willing-to-pay-to-end-illegal-immigration/548587/32 "2010-07-31T10:53:52Z")
No. If it was mostly about jobs, more people would be willing to punish employers and would be more concerned about white illegal immigrants. Instead, they want to go after brown people, don’t show much concern if American citizens get hurt in the crossfire as long as they are brown American citizens, and have no concern at all about pale illegal immigrants. And if it was about jobs not race then racist groups and people wouldn’t be so prominent in the effort against “illegal immigration”. It’s primary race that is at issue, and the laws passed on the matter are primarily focused on indulging racism not on fighting illegal immigration. ---
**Author:** ![nachtmusick](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/ac91a4/32.png) [@nachtmusick](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/nachtmusick)\ **Post date:** [July 31, 2010, 1:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-much-are-you-personally-willing-to-pay-to-end-illegal-immigration/548587/33 "2010-07-31T13:44:13Z")
So… the insightful opposing view is that racists just want to bag Brown People? ---
**Author:** ![G-SE](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/f0a364/32.png) [@G-SE](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/G-SE)\ **Post date:** [July 31, 2010, 2:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-much-are-you-personally-willing-to-pay-to-end-illegal-immigration/548587/34 "2010-07-31T14:05:32Z")
> [@nachtmusick](#): > > So… the insightful opposing view is that racists just want to bag Brown People? Yes. According to Der Trihs, because those opposed to illegal immigration don’t focus on the 0.6 million (6%) of illegal immigrants from Europe and Canada and focus primarily on the 8.4 million (81%) from Mexico and other Latin American countries, they’re racist. \*Based on 2004 [estimates](http://pewhispanic.org/files/reports/46.pdf) His logic is basically: You don’t like illegal immigration. Most illegal immigrants are brown people. Therefore, you don’t like brown people. ---
**Author:** ![Der\_Trihs](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/der_trihs/32/233_2.png) [@Der\_Trihs](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Der_Trihs)\ **Post date:** [July 31, 2010, 2:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-much-are-you-personally-willing-to-pay-to-end-illegal-immigration/548587/35 "2010-07-31T14:15:36Z")
> [@G-SE](#): > > > [@nachtmusick](#): > > > > So… the insightful opposing view is that racists just want to bag Brown People? > > Yes. According to Der Trihs, because those opposed to illegal immigration don’t focus on the 0.6 million (6%) of illegal immigrants from Europe and Canada and focus primarily on the 8.4 million (81%) from Mexico and other Latin American countries, they’re racist. They also don’t focus on the mostly-white employers, who are also breaking the law. And they show little interest in distinguishing between illegal immigrants and American citizens with brown skin or a Hispanic name. And they constantly portray these people whom we have deliberately set up to be illegal immigrants so we can exploit them as evil criminal predators who are victimizing us. ---
**Author:** ![Uzi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/91b2a8/32.png) [@Uzi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Uzi)\ **Post date:** [July 31, 2010, 2:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-much-are-you-personally-willing-to-pay-to-end-illegal-immigration/548587/36 "2010-07-31T14:30:31Z")
Stop spending the money on wars, ‘drug’ or otherwise, and you’d have more than sufficient funds to control your borders properly with a hefty savings left over. No need to ask for more money from anyone. ---
**Author:** ![Magiver](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/4491bb/32.png) [@Magiver](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Magiver)\ **Post date:** [July 31, 2010, 2:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-much-are-you-personally-willing-to-pay-to-end-illegal-immigration/548587/37 "2010-07-31T14:33:28Z")
> [@emacknight](#): > > > [@Sitnam](#): > > > > I’ve been an advocate of the French system (as I understand it) for years: > > > > Work visas are liberally issued to people seeking temporary employment in France. All employers are financially responsible for hiring only those with the visas. Outside of taxes a substantial percentage of every paycheck is withheld until their visa is up where it is given to them in a lump sum upon leaving the country. Once outside the country they will be allowed to reapply. > > There are two small problems with that sort of system. > > 1. It has a tendency to create a secondary class of “citizen.” Temporary workers are not “citizens”. The French idea would be an excellent method of encouraging aliens to return to their country when their work visa is up. If someone refuses to leave then prosecution should involve fines to cover the cost. ---
**Author:** ![DrCube](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/a3d4f5/32.png) [@DrCube](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DrCube)\ **Post date:** [July 31, 2010, 3:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-much-are-you-personally-willing-to-pay-to-end-illegal-immigration/548587/38 "2010-07-31T15:16:11Z")
> [@billfish678](#): > > Either you let ANYBODY who wants to come come, because its their “right” to do so, or it isnt their “right”, and you set reasonable limits on how many can come in per year. Why does it have to be about rights? Can’t we allow people to enter this country without saying it is a right? > [@](#): > > Letting just anybody who can get here stay here would destroy this country(or any other country foolish enough to do so) in short order IMO. This is a good opportunity to provide a cite. Not for your opinion, but for what factual basis that opinion is based upon. Especially since the very country I am posting from had an essentially wide open border from its inception to the early 20th Century, and experienced a lot of growth and benefits therefrom, sans destruction. Personally, I don’t see what is wrong with screening immigrants at the border for contagious diseases and fleeing convicts, and letting the rest through. It’s funny, nobody complains when our population increases through higher birthrates. But if it comes from outside, it is a threat. Nobody complains about Americans competing with other Americans for work, which is my solution. Let anybody who wants to call themselves American and work here, bada bing bada boom, no more illegal immigrants competing for American jobs. Just Americans competing with Americans, business as usual. I really have no clue why anybody would be against that proposal. And I would pay a substantial amount of money (say $50) to help make that happen. Free movement of labor is as beneficial in my mind to an economy as free trade. In fact, that’s all it is: The free trade of labor. Ask any economist why free trade is a good thing and those same reasons are why I think free movement of labor is a good thing. ---
**Author:** ![Fear\_Itself](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/fear_itself/32/19637_2.png) [@Fear\_Itself](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Fear_Itself)\ **Post date:** [July 31, 2010, 3:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-much-are-you-personally-willing-to-pay-to-end-illegal-immigration/548587/39 "2010-07-31T15:27:19Z")
> [@DrCube](#): > > Free movement of labor is as beneficial in my mind to an economy as free trade. In fact, that’s all it is: The free trade of labor. Ask any economist why free trade is a good thing and those same reasons are why I think free movement of labor is a good thing. I think this is an excellent argument, and one that I had never considered before. Thank you. ---
**Author:** ![John\_Mace](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/john_mace/32/185_2.png) [@John\_Mace](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/John_Mace)\ **Post date:** [July 31, 2010, 3:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-much-are-you-personally-willing-to-pay-to-end-illegal-immigration/548587/40 "2010-07-31T15:30:21Z")
If we opened the borders, we’d be absolutely flooded with people. And I mean at least 100M people coming through in a few short years. Probably many more-- maybe even 1B people. Polls show that something like 75% of all Mexicans would move here if they could. How many Chinese or Indians do you think would want to move here? How many Filipinos, or Indonesians, or Russians, or…? The infrastructure would be ridiculously inadequate. There wouldn’t be enough doctors, or teachers or what-have-you. Population growth through higher birth rates can be planned for over time. You can’t don that if you throw the borders open. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-much-are-you-personally-willing-to-pay-to-end-illegal-immigration/548587.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-much-are-you-personally-willing-to-pay-to-end-illegal-immigration/548587.md?page=3)