# What the heck is an “undocumented” immigrant? **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [August 13, 2003, 10:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-the-heck-is-an-undocumented-immigrant/195027 "2003-08-13T22:50:48Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 4
**Author:** ![Monty](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/monty/32/47_2.png) [@Monty](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Monty)\ **Post date:** [August 16, 2003, 6:32am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-the-heck-is-an-undocumented-immigrant/195027/61 "2003-08-16T06:32:44Z")
Well, Blalron, for those who aren’t even eligible to enter to begin with (prior run-ins with the law back “home,” communicable illnesses, etc.), why shouldn’t we berate them? ---
**Author:** ![Blalron](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/35a633/32.png) [@Blalron](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Blalron)\ **Post date:** [August 16, 2003, 6:39am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-the-heck-is-an-undocumented-immigrant/195027/62 "2003-08-16T06:39:05Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Monty \* > \*\*Well, Blalron, for those who aren’t even eligible to enter to begin with (prior run-ins with the law back “home,” communicable illnesses, etc.), why shouldn’t we berate them? \*\* If, ignoring the circumstances of their entry, they are otherwise upstanding persons, I say give them a break. If they are disease ridden criminals, that’s a different matter entirely. ---
**Author:** ![Monty](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/monty/32/47_2.png) [@Monty](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Monty)\ **Post date:** [August 16, 2003, 6:49am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-the-heck-is-an-undocumented-immigrant/195027/63 "2003-08-16T06:49:03Z")
So, what you’re saying is that those who intentionally circumvent the lawful controls on immigration do pose a risk. Here’s a newsflash for you: Upstanding persons don’t intentionally violate a constitutional law. ---
**Author:** ![Blalron](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/35a633/32.png) [@Blalron](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Blalron)\ **Post date:** [August 17, 2003, 4:19am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-the-heck-is-an-undocumented-immigrant/195027/64 "2003-08-17T04:19:22Z")
> [@](#): > > Here’s a newsflash for you: Upstanding persons don’t intentionally violate a constitutional law. I don’t think the sin of entering the country illegally is so great that we must overlook every other good qualities that a person has. ---
**Author:** ![Nvme77](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/c89c15/32.png) [@Nvme77](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Nvme77)\ **Post date:** [August 17, 2003, 5:13am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-the-heck-is-an-undocumented-immigrant/195027/65 "2003-08-17T05:13:16Z")
I just got back from traveling by bus through New Mexico, Arizona and Nevada. Our bus was pulled over 3 times by the border patrol and everyone was asked to provide documentation. Each time everyone complied, and each time no one was removed due to false or expired documentation. So where are all the illegal aliens? They probably got sent back to Mexico. And why do illegal aliens continue to return despite getting caught? Because even the worst here in the US is still better. Because there is opportunity; if you work hard and save to make your dreams, that you can achieve what was once the American Dream that is not due only to americans but to all nationalities- the opportunity to cultivate a better life. So go ahead and complain that my people are here and they are criminals. Complain that they are a burden on society. They do the jobs that even you wouldnt do and they do it better for less. ---
**Author:** ![Monty](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/monty/32/47_2.png) [@Monty](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Monty)\ **Post date:** [August 17, 2003, 11:20am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-the-heck-is-an-undocumented-immigrant/195027/66 "2003-08-17T11:20:24Z")
I’m not overlooking anything, Blalron. I’m merely saying that an upstanding person doesn’t go around willfully and knowingly violating a constitutional law. ---
**Author:** ![ruadh](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/d2c977/32.png) [@ruadh](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ruadh)\ **Post date:** [August 17, 2003, 11:26am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-the-heck-is-an-undocumented-immigrant/195027/67 "2003-08-17T11:26:26Z")
How exactly are they violating a _constitutional_ law? ---
**Author:** ![Monty](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/monty/32/47_2.png) [@Monty](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Monty)\ **Post date:** [August 17, 2003, 11:32am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-the-heck-is-an-undocumented-immigrant/195027/68 "2003-08-17T11:32:43Z")
ruadh: They are violating a law against illegally entering the country. AFAIK, that law stands up to constitutional scrutiny. ---
**Author:** ![ruadh](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/d2c977/32.png) [@ruadh](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ruadh)\ **Post date:** [August 17, 2003, 11:42am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-the-heck-is-an-undocumented-immigrant/195027/69 "2003-08-17T11:42:29Z")
I see. I had read “constitutional” as meaning “provided for by the constitution”. That brings up another debate, though. Is a constitutional law necessarily a just law? If not, is it really a reflection on a person’s character if they violate it? ---
**Author:** ![Monty](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/monty/32/47_2.png) [@Monty](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Monty)\ **Post date:** [August 17, 2003, 3:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-the-heck-is-an-undocumented-immigrant/195027/70 "2003-08-17T15:37:26Z")
As far as the courts are concerned, ruadh, I guess it is a just law. After all, isn’t that what the courts are ruling on? ---
**Author:** ![ruadh](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/d2c977/32.png) [@ruadh](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ruadh)\ **Post date:** [August 17, 2003, 3:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-the-heck-is-an-undocumented-immigrant/195027/71 "2003-08-17T15:51:32Z")
Not necessarily. It would be like saying that, after _Bowers v. Hardwick_ and before _Lawrence v. Texas_, a person who engaged in homosexual acts in Georgia was not an upstanding citizen because he was breaking a law which (as far as the courts were concerned) was constitutional. Is that your position? ---
**Author:** ![Monty](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/monty/32/47_2.png) [@Monty](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Monty)\ **Post date:** [August 17, 2003, 4:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-the-heck-is-an-undocumented-immigrant/195027/72 "2003-08-17T16:34:15Z")
Not at all. I’m going by the fact that illegal entry and homosexual activity aren’t comparable (sorry about that awful pun). Each nation has the right to enact laws to control immigration (and that’s included in the Constitution for this nation). I’m under the impression that the Supreme Court cannot actually hold something unconstitutional that the Constitution itself stipulates. ---
**Author:** ![ruadh](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/d2c977/32.png) [@ruadh](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ruadh)\ **Post date:** [August 17, 2003, 5:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-the-heck-is-an-undocumented-immigrant/195027/73 "2003-08-17T17:01:43Z")
Maybe. I still don’t think that necessarily means it’s just, though. ---
**Author:** ![UncleBill](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/d26b3c/32.png) [@UncleBill](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/UncleBill)\ **Post date:** [August 17, 2003, 5:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-the-heck-is-an-undocumented-immigrant/195027/74 "2003-08-17T17:24:54Z")
In Miami, the term for “Illegal Immigrants” changes depending on from which country they are illegally emigrating. > [@](#): > > Source: Herald Staff > On the U.S. Coast Guard’s decision to sink the 1951 Chevy pickup a group of **Cuban migrants** sailed across the Florida Straits``That truck should’ve been preserved and kept, sent to the Ripley’s Believe It or Not [Museum]. Who ever heard of somebody driving a Chevrolet truck across the water to get freedom from a dictatorship government? > Published on August 10, 2003, Page 3BR, The Miami Herald > [@](#): > > Source: HERALD STAFF > MEXICO A DOZEN PEOPLE ACCUSED IN SMUGGLING OPERATION MEXICO CITY - Special agents captured a dozen people accused of organizing a smuggling operation in which 19 **illegal immigrants** died after being locked in a tractor-trailer, the government announced Tuesday. > Published on August 13, 2003, Page 7A, The Miami Herald (Bolding mine) It is disgusting. ---
**Author:** ![Blalron](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/35a633/32.png) [@Blalron](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Blalron)\ **Post date:** [August 17, 2003, 5:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-the-heck-is-an-undocumented-immigrant/195027/75 "2003-08-17T17:57:38Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Monty \* > \*\*ruadh: They are violating a law against illegally entering the country. AFAIK, that law stands up to constitutional scrutiny. \*\* A constitutional law is a law that is provided for by the constitution itself. To change a constitutional law, you need two thirds of congress and 3/4ths of the state legislatures. Immigration laws are just ordinary legislation which can be passed by a bare majority. They are passed _pursuant_ to the constitutions grant of authority. ---
**Author:** ![Belowjob2.0](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/b9e5f3/32.png) [@Belowjob2.0](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Belowjob2.0)\ **Post date:** [August 17, 2003, 6:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-the-heck-is-an-undocumented-immigrant/195027/76 "2003-08-17T18:22:16Z")
It’s the Libertarians, fellow travelers of Mr. Mace, who support unlimited immigration: [http://www.lp.org/issues/immigration.html](http://www.lp.org/issues/immigration.html) The claim that illegal immigrants do jobs that Americans won’t take is largely garbage. It is true that most Americans won’t work under abusive, dangerous conditions for imposssibly low pay and no benefits. People work, in no small part, to pay their rent and support their families. If a job offers no possibility of doing these things, it’s not surprising that few Americans volunteer. How then are the illegal immigrants able to pay their rent and support their families? Well, to a large degree, they aren’t able. The spillover effect of large numbers of people who aren’t able to adequately look after themselves and their families has put enormous strains on social service systems in states with high illegal immigration like California. Emergency medical services stetched to the limit by huge demand from people with no insurance, hospitals closing. Public school systems collapsing under the demands of providing basic care and lifeskills to children who weren’t getting what they needed at home, not to mention the cost of bilingual education. The children of these immigrants have high dropout rates and fill the ranks of gangs in many cities. None of this should be surprising. Their parents have such limited money and time to help them adjust to the complexities of modern American life. Support for high levels of immigration is not a left-versus right issue. It’s a class issue, as Michael Lind points out in his excellent book, _Up From Conservatism._ **Why is a high immigration policy opposed by most Americans but favored by almost all members of the overclass of all persuasions - left, right, and center? … “…We need our nanny!”… Take away the elaborate moral arguments of the overclass left for immigration, and the equally elaborate economic rationales of the overclass right, and and what remains is the naked economic interest in maintaining a supply of poorly paid, nonunionized foreign women …"** ---
**Author:** ![Eva\_Luna](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/e495f1/32.png) [@Eva\_Luna](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Eva_Luna)\ **Post date:** [August 17, 2003, 6:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-the-heck-is-an-undocumented-immigrant/195027/77 "2003-08-17T18:42:38Z")
\*\*Belowjob, \*\* please read the link I posted above to the demographic study on illegal immigrants in the Chicago area. I’m honestly on the fence about illegal immigration. Most illegal immigrants are making what I see as an entirely rational choice to accept below-average wages and working conditions in the U.S., because their alternatives in their home countries are even worse. They are human beings who just weren’t lucky enough to be born somewhere where a day’s honest work pays enough to live on in a decently human manner. Hell, if my great-grandparents had turned east instead of west, I’d be in the same boat. Basically, those employers who hire illegal immigrants purely because they can be paid below-market wages are externalizing the costs of their own labor at the expense of the rest of us, if these workers and their dependents (and many children of illegal immigrants are U.S. citizens by birth) end up relying on any services provided with public funds. It sucks, and until we live on a planet where resources are equal everywhere, I don’t see what’s going to stop it. **John Mace** and I don’t agree on much when it comes to immigration issues, but I definitely agree that this problem will only be fixed by addressing the root causes. ---
**Author:** ![Monty](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/monty/32/47_2.png) [@Monty](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Monty)\ **Post date:** [August 17, 2003, 6:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-the-heck-is-an-undocumented-immigrant/195027/78 "2003-08-17T18:54:37Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Blalron \* > A constitutional law is a law that is provided for by the constitution itself. To change a constitutional law, you need two thirds of congress and 3/4ths of the state legislatures. Wrong. What you’ve described above is the method of amending the Constititution. > [@](#): > > Immigration laws are just ordinary legislation which can be passed by a bare majority. They are passed _pursuant_ to the constitutions grant of authority. Which is what I said. Those laws are provided for by the Constitution. ---
**Author:** ![Monty](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/monty/32/47_2.png) [@Monty](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Monty)\ **Post date:** [August 17, 2003, 6:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-the-heck-is-an-undocumented-immigrant/195027/79 "2003-08-17T18:58:29Z")
Eva Luna: How often do those employers get penalized by the prosecutor’s office? Isn’t hiring illegal aliens also illegal? ---
**Author:** ![Eva\_Luna](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/e495f1/32.png) [@Eva\_Luna](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Eva_Luna)\ **Post date:** [August 17, 2003, 9:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-the-heck-is-an-undocumented-immigrant/195027/80 "2003-08-17T21:04:31Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Monty \* > \*\*Eva Luna: How often do those employers get penalized by the prosecutor’s office? Isn’t hiring illegal aliens also illegal? \*\* Not very, especially small businesses. The Feds simply don’t have the manpower. I don’t even know how often they follow up on specific tips. Although they’re starting to pay more attention; there was a sweep of businesses in the Sears Tower here a few weeks ago, which resulted in a number of firings of restaurant employees. Also, it’s helpful to keep in mind that if an employer accepts an identity document, and it turns out to be fake, the employer is not penalized unless they knew or should reasonably have known that the documents were fake. And yes, it’s illegal to hire people who are not authorized to work in the U.S. (a category which is, by the way, not one which overlaps 100%% with “illegal aliens.” There are plenty of people who are here legally but are not authorized to work: those on student visas unless they have specific authorization, for example, or spouses/children of people here on work visas, who are also generally not authorized to work until they are at the green card application stage). Penalties depend on the severity of the violations, as well as the number; they can be up to several thousand dollars per offense. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-the-heck-is-an-undocumented-immigrant/195027.md?page=3) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-the-heck-is-an-undocumented-immigrant/195027.md?page=5)