Illegal Immigration: Amnesty or Boot?

Great Debates
1

What do you think about illegal immigration? Should we deport all illegals, with their kids (even if their kids are US soil citizens), without their kids, only deport criminals, pathway to citizenship? Wall or no wall?

Me; I believe we should deport criminals, but give amnesty to the ones that are here. They do the jobs Americans won’t do or that it would be uneconomical to pay top dollar for. I don’t buy this crap that “dey took errr jobs.” Americans should not be aspiring to be janitors, lawnmowers, field hands, cashiers, etc.

I do think tho we should build a wall, not because Mexicans are “rapists” but because it would help keep our population from growing uncontrollably. It would also help Mexico and force them to improve conditions.

2

I believe employers should be fined progressively higher amounts for repeated hiring illegal aliens.

3

Discussing amnesty vs deportation is, IMO, putting the cart before the horse. We need SERIOUS immigration reform in this country or we’re just going to have to face this same question in another decade or two.

That said, I’m generally in favor of amnesty simply because it largely keeps the status quo, whereas the consequences of deportation are unthinkable. What do we do for illegals that have kids that are citizens? What about people that were brought here as kids and grew up here but are technically illegal? What do we do with people that, other than being illegal, are working, paying taxes, and otherwise normal contributing members to society?

But at the same time, it’s not just unfair, but a slap to the face, to anyone who actually jumped through the hoops to be here legally, and then just letting people stay who didn’t. Similarly, it will encourage further illegal immigration, hoping that they’ll get amnesty too.

In my view, we need to have much more open borders. As long as you’re not a criminal and you’re not going to be an economic drain, I don’t see any reason to deny people access. After all, many of them are taking jobs that Americans either don’t want or aren’t able to do. With a much more open policy, there’s now much less incentive to be or hire illegals, and then we could start phasing in more and more severe punishments for hiring undocumented workers. If the punishments are severe enough, no matter how much you save by paying them under minimum wage, the cost will be too high.

I mean, seriously, you have someone who wants to enter the country, you do a background check and verify they have employment after some grace period. It would be easier and cheaper to administer, and when it’s literally just a few hours, it massively disincentivizes illegal immigration. Plus, it could even offer them some legal protections, particularly making sure their working conditions aren’t inhumane and there’s no fear of deportation as long as they keep working.

Now, maybe this sort would only allow for certain types of work and we’d still want something more stringent for they types of jobs a typical American would be interested in. But at the same time, I don’t see how adding MORE people with some types of marketable skills to our economy is in any way a bad thing. Even worse, sometimes immigration actually keeps out highly skilled people or encourages people to come here, get educated, then go home since it’s difficult for them to find work.

4

Removing 12 million people – more, if you insist on also evicting their children who may be U.S. citizens (and how is that going to pass constitutional muster? “You’re a U.S. citizen – but your mother isn’t, so you have to go away.” Ever read the 14th amendment?) – would be one of the most monstrous impositions on human liberty ever attempted. It would make Balkans-style ethnic cleansing look like a picnic in the park by comparison.

It would require the single biggest law-enforcement agency in U.S. history. It would require entire cities’ worth of holding cells. And since not all would go along peacefully, it would lead to a spiral of violence indistinguishable from a civil war.

(It might actually lead to a civil war, as there are many U.S. citizens who would fight to oppose such a hellishly tyrannical idea. There would absolutely be an “underground railroad” sheltering them.)

Hey, I know! Let’s solve racial tensions by allowing all blacks (descendants of African slavery) to go to Liberia! Great idea, huh?

5

Exactly this. And don’t tell me they don’t know they’re hiring illegally. They’re doing it on purpose. Many low-wage employers don’t even bother to comply with the law that requires them to have the new employee fill out the I-9 form and present their documents.

6

Not to mention it would be really, really expensive. I know, let’s triple everyone’s taxes, no one would mind that, right? :rolleyes:

7

That bolded portion is some pretty extreme hyperbole. We’re not talking about concentration camps or mass graves. We’re talking about a plane or bus ride home to where they came from.

I really doubt there are more than a handful of U.S. citizens who would fight (literally fight, as in take up arms against the government) to oppose mass deportations (assuming you weren’t deporting U.S. citizens - the natural-born children of illegals).

I’d support deporting the illegal aliens we can locate, but don’t really want to see the DHS or some other organization turn into some sort of citizenship-Gestapo that runs around demanding papers from everyone. Let the normal police, ICE, Border Patrol, etc do their jobs. When they locate people here illegally, deport them.

8

Deport every last one of them.

9

Amnesty and a wall/increased-border-security to end illegals entering the country.

Pretty god-damned simple.

10

The American economy depends on exploiting cheap foreign labor. Why do you hate America?

11

You really want to deport minors who are citizens of the United States? What legal justification do you have for such a horrific act?

Secondly, how is this going to be accomplished? Mass concentration camps? Guns and guard towers? Did we learn nothing from the way we treated the Japanese?

12

Amnesty simply creates the incentive for more to enter.

You need to enforce the existing laws, make e-verify a requirement. Once you start enforcing the law people self-deport as was occuring in Arizona.

13

AFAIK a lot of the “self-deportation” was that Hispanics, both legal and illegal, moved mostly to other states and a number to Mexico because of the economic situation, indeed it was the availability of jobs one of the big reasons why people comes, and it was telling that a good number of legal Hispanic residents and citizens found that the enforcers of the new laws were after Hispanics, not just the illegals.

14

I support annexation, just take Mexico and make them all citizens. Huddled masses yearning to be free will pay taxes. We could snap up Canada as well, not like the Queen’s going to spank us or anything. It’s easy to add stars to our flag, but Quebec will say their stripe is the wrong color, just watch and see.

Seriously, if we just make Mexicans US citizens, no more illegal immigrant problem !!!

15

Amnesty followed by real repercussions to those who hire illegal immigrants. I’m talking perp walks for CEOs who employ illegals in their businesses and trophy wives who employ them at home, not silly “escalating fines”. The day rich white people start going to jail for taking advantage of illegal labor is the day the problem is solved. A wall is a massive waste of money meant to cater to those who want to blame mexicans for the problem instead of the ones who are really to blame. Also end the drug war.

I’m sorry but this is ridiculous. The people who come here illegally have zero opportunity to come legally. This myth that they are simply line cutters who didn’t feel like “jumping through hoops” to get here needs to die. At the end of the day no matter what we do with people here illegally the ones who were given the chance to come through legal means should still consider themselves the lucky ones.

16

Well, that is what typically happens in deportation cases. The dependent children can’t be deported, but the parents can be deported and choose to take their kids with them (as the generally would).

Now, entering 12,000,000 deportation orders would require a federal bureaucracy that would make the existing judicial branch and DHS look like a local DMV.

17

The unemployment rate for young African-American men in the U.S. is atrocious. These young men would gladly work jobs that illegals are given. The “they’re working jobs Americans won’t” line, is complete nonsense.

It must be noted that the vast majority of illegals coming into this country are good, hardworking people. My opinion isn’t an indictment on them. It’s simply a logical response to a fiscal, populous and criminal (however small the percentage the population of illegals) problem.

Before we enact legislation dealing with this problem, we should focus on 2 things:

1.) Secure aspects of the border high in illegal concentration.
2.) Simplifying the current immigration system. Legal immigrants make this country better.

I don’t think we should be breaking up families, so illegals who’ve had a child born in this country–as long as they have a record clean of violent crime–should be given the option to earn citizenship, on a few conditions:

*Learn English
*Pay back taxes

Everyone else should be deported. Allowing the rest to stay is a slap in the face to those immigrants who’ve waited in line legally to gain citizenship. Also, employers knowingly hiring illegals–working them hard while paying them next to nothing–should be aggressively pursued and prosecuted.

18

Once again, there is no line this people could join to come here legally. There is zero reason why people allowed to come here legally should feel illegals got the better deal even if we make them all citizens.

19

The self-deportation that was talked about was for ILLEGAL immigrants. Perhaps you could quantify your “a lot of” and “a good number”.

20

Although imperfect, and in desperate need of an overhaul - there does, in fact, exist a legal process for obtaining citizenship in this country. A process thousands of immigrants went through legally, taking years. If all illegal immigrants are allowed amnesty, we’ve spit in the face of the law-abiding immigrants who waited years to get here legally.