Enforce the existing laws against employing illegal immigrants. Stiffen the penalties to seize the employer’s property: vehicles, machinery, real estate, bank accounts, lock, stock and barrel. Once the jobs dry up, all the illegals will deport themselves. We already saw it happen on a smaller scale when the recession started.
Why are you against enforcing the law?
I’m coming to believe that the surprise is going to be that the Democrats will do much better than people are expecting right now. A lot of people were worried that the Dems would lose the house seat in PA last night, which they won handily.
The Tea Party seems to be running out of steam, too. There’s a rally every other weekend that gets hyped mightily on the local talk shows, but only a couple of dozen people show up, always the same ones. People are starting to realize that all the talk about revolution and “taking back the country” is coming from the same group of people and the message isn’t breaking out from the coccoon of right-wing TV and radio. Glen Beck has lost half of his audience since January. People have outrage fatigue.
Outrage was easier to manage when it was just Limbaugh, but now we have all these guys trying to one-up each other and people are getting tired of it.
On topic of the original OP…
I would like a pony that poops skittles. Thanks ever so much.
Well, that and pie. Apple pie! And Chevrolets! And driving to dry levies!
They are also separated from us by an ocean and can’t come flooding in here like illegal immigrants from Mexico can, and they are not having the economic and societal impact that illegal immigration from Mexico is causing because of their vastly inferior numbers.
And if you can find even one post I’ve ever made where I’ve alluded to “evil, evil” Mexicans, I’ll resign my membership and never post here again. Do you really feel it necessary to lie like that in order to bolster your…ah, nevermind, the answer is obvious.
Arizona’s attempt is serious. It’s the federal government, currently led by Barack Obama, who appears to have no desire to stop it. To that extent we can agree.
Doesn’t matter. The law is the law and what’s right is right. It’s just as wrong to allow them to come here to take advantage of their labor as it is for them to come here in order to provide it. This country somehow managed to survive for a couple hundred years without having to rely on illegal Mexican immigrants in order to get work done, and I’m sure it could do so now. While it may be true that GWB and Obama are of the opinion that Mexican labor is beneficial (or at least not harmful) the fact remains that most of the people in this country object to illegal immigration and want the government to do something to stop it. And why? Because most of the people in this country are law abiding and they think it’s wrong for people to be able to get away with flouting the law.
No, it isn’t. Do you realize what you are saying? You’re saying that people want to stop illegal immigration from Mexico because they want to exploit their labor. Clearly this is counter-productive. The reality is that most of the country’s citizens, once again, what illegal immigration stopped, yet we have a government that isn’t lifting a finger to stop it. I believe that in GWB’s case this was because he felt the country benefitted from their labor, and in Obama’s case it’s because like most liberals he thinks that any attempt to make minority people obey the law is racist. But in neither case is it the country’s populace who want to allow illegal immigration to continue, and it isn’t the country’s populace who is attempting to profit from their labor. To the contrary, most are perfectly willing to see the country do without their labor in order to bring illegal immigration under control and put a stop to it.
FYI, the new law hasn’t taken effect yet-- it doesn’t until (I think) July.
I’m all for this—as I’ve stated numerous times. But I go one step further. I don’t think anything will really change until employers spend time behind bars.
So while I agree with you, I have to ask, why must going after employers be the only thing we do? Surely we should secure the border, no?
One of my nieces is married to a guy who is a citizen of Mexico, Spain & the USA. Highly educated, he speaks perfect English (& Spanish).
Until next year, my governor is Rick Perry. A Republican, he is a pal of Sarah Palin (when he can afford her); he blathered about secession in early Tea Party days. What does he think about the Arizona law? In April,he said:
If Arizona is really concerned about the undocumented, the state needs to start arresting those who hire them. The current law is racist (or maybe xenophobic). The OP claims to be a Democrat but didn’t vote for Obama–so I can see where he’s coming from.
I’m not against enforcing the law. But I think it needs to go both ways. We have a situation here where some people are coming here illegally and are perfectly aware of it, and where other people are taking advantage of the fact that they are available and are using their labor. So why punish only one side of the equation? To me, it’s the person who offers the carrot who is the greater offender. (I feel the same way, btw, with regard to streetwalkers. Why do liberals always want to let the hookers off the, uh, hook, while wanting to punish the guys who accept the offer of their services?
So yeah, I’d favor drying up the jobs, but by enforcing penalties on both parties in the relationship and not just on one.
No, Arizona isn’t serious; this is just a harass-brown-people law.
Please. America has always relied on cheap labor, often outright slavery. Black slaves, Chinese immigrants, Mexican immigrants.
No, it’s because most Americans are bigots or there would be just as much desire to punish the people employing them. But there isn’t, because it’s about race not the law.
No, I’m saying that people want to stop LEGAL immigration from Mexico so they can exploit illegal immigrants.
Obama’s not a liberal or even close. And again, this has nothing to do with making people obeying the law.
Yeah, sure; right until they have to pay more for food and pay more taxes to make up for it.
If I can get the state to pass a law similar to Arizona’s, but focused in the deranged rather than the illegal, might you feel so put upon that you’ll just go back to the oxygen-deprived environment you come from. Man, you are one fucked up dude. You just repeat your stupidity like a parrot. Oh, can I hear your “rationale” for your claim that people want to stop LEGAL immigration from Mexico. Surely, you have some flavor of reality that you base this on.
While Mexican immigration laws are certainly more draconian than ours, the US is enforcing immigration law every single day. The border patrol is out there, every single day, though it’s a daunting task given the immense size of the border and the relatively small number of border patrol agents. Illegal immigrants are deported every day, though given that there are millions of them residing in the US and a shaky but constant flow of them coming in still, deporting them is also a daunting task. The hyperbole out there is painting a false and much more simplistic picture than the complicated reality.
Except in this case, the equivalent would be stopping to question several million people (which would not only include Hispanics but essentially anyone with olive skin or looking somewhat foreign) and ascertaining their citizenship/legal residency/visa status. And since visas expire and cops don’t have a hive mind, the same person could get stopped multiple times in a given week - let alone in a month, a year, a decade - as different police officers stopped an individual to check on their status if they felt they had reasonable suspicion that they were in the country illegally (which in your scenario, would be if they looked anywhere near Hispanic). Now, if such a scenario were expanded nation-wide, every police officer would spend a significantly less amount of time enforcing and investigation all the other criminal laws and instead become an arm of the border patrol. This is only underlined by the fact that the Arizona law allows private citizens to sue governmental entities like law enforcement agencies if they feel like this law is not being enforced.
Or, as he put, “couldn’t bring himself to pull the lever.”
You do realize that the law does not do or allow what you describe, right?
Because they are Mexicans, of course. Brown skinned and foreign and speaking a funny language. It’s called bigotry. And because legal immigrants would be harder to exploit and abuse, and would actually be owed benefits for the taxes they pay. We want an endless stream of people we can exploit and abuse, and blame them for being our victims.
Except that the entire birther movement, which had at least some influence on the tea party movement, is about Obama being black.
I do realize that. I’m just trying to expand on the implications of what Starving Artist thinks should or could happen.
Sometimes I want to immigrate to Mexico, then cross the border illegally, just to confuse the shit out of people.
Kenyan! If he’d been born in, say, Panama it would be totally different!
-Joe
If we enforce the law against the employers, they won’t try to cross the border in the first place. Have you seen the estimates on the cost to seal the border? Are you in favor of increasing the deficit unnecessarily?
If we enforce the law against the employers, there will be no need to enforce the law against the illegal aliens. The one that are here will leave, and the ones that are in Mexico will stay there. Why should we bust the budget solving unnecessary problems? You big government conservatives are all alike.