Interesting… I wonder, how exactly do they estimate the number of people who cross the border without being detected?
I presume that one implication of the statistic is that Hispanic immigrants should not be assumed to have entered illegally if they are presently “undocumented,” but the numbers also reflect that the overwhelming majority of immigrants from Mexico/Central America did not enter legally (the 45% figure includes visitors from all countries).
Thanks, and much as I expected - an ‘estimate’ that ‘as much as’ becomes a definite statement that the figure is a hard one.
:shrugs:
Most of the illegal aliens are exactly as described no matter how you spin it.
Regards,
Shodan
Aren’t they in violation of 8 USC § 1324 et seq?
So… is it fun to be an undocumented alien?
I understand it’s no fun being an illegal…
Besides all the other points made, not all crimes are equal. A mother who stabs someone for money isn’t the same as one who overstays a visa to keep a job, or one who does so by accident. And the fact that we are exploiting the very people we are condemning, and seldom punish the people who employ them - also a crime - makes this situation even more morally ambiguous.
While I agree that “undocumented person” is a bad phrase, it’s no worse than “illegal immigrant”. The adjective “illegal” describes actions, not persons. Nobody says that murders or rapists are illegal, so why should we say that about someone who crossed the border?
Yes, that’s always struck me as rather weird, and dehumanizing. Not “They have done something illegal”, but “THEY are illegal”.
No, he’s not. <small>He’s trying to give me neuro-trauma as I bang my head on the table at his attitude.</small>
The OP is totally about condemnation, period.
Framing a political debate is a legitimate tactic within reasonable boundaries. I don’t see Shodan et al. up-in-arms about the term “death tax,” which is exactly the same political tactic. For the various reasons offered—imprecision, awkwardness of calling a person illegal rather than an act, focus on the actual problem—I don’t think this re-framing is disingenuous or unreasonable.
I don’t think so. Which criminal provision do you think they would be violating?
As far as I know, no. Those codes cover issues like employing undocumented immigrants, importing undocumented immigrants, forgery of documents by an undocumented immigrant, failing to depart the country once you have been deported as an undocumented immigrant (all crimes) but to the best of my knowledge there is no code against simply being an undocumented immigrant.
Thanks for your replies, I can see both sides, but the main thing seems to be that a family is broken up,by deporting a woman who has a child here, and came without permission. When a parent takes a child here from another country or has her child here so it will be a citizen even though she may not, in some cases it means she has separated from her husband, or if the husband comes here without a green card and leaves his family in another country, then family is broken up that way too. If proven to be illegally here, and her child is under age than that is the risk she took and wasn’t IMHO thinking of her child.
Why should the people of a country try to make it a better place if they can go to another country and have a better life there? What I mean is; the countries that keep their people down will not get better if the people of said country does nothing to change it’s way of doing business.
Childern of people who embezzle,or break any laws can be sent to jail or prison depending on the size of the law they broke. It doesn’t seem to me that people who disrespect a countries laws are good citizens. They keep people who would like to come legally from coming here, as I understand it we have quotas.
It puts a bad light on the pople who are here from other countries legally in a bad light, as it seem to be the case with the people from Mexico, some pople are suspicious of all Mexicans, and make the assumption that they are illegal.
My relatives had to stay on Ellis Island for a time before they were admitted to the USA. If we change the law then we might as well have open borders and I do not think that is what the Statue Of Liberty meant.
As I under stand it from other replies, there is a difference from being undocumented and illegal. One just dosen’t have it’s papers through some slip up,or forgetfulness, the other is one who sneaked into the counrtry.
That is how many understand it but it is not the case. Whether an illegal immigrant sneaked in or got in legally and then lost their legal status for whatever reason, they are not committing a criminal offense to simply be within our borders without proper documentation. *(as I said the act of crossing the border illegally is a crime but just being inside the country with no papers (or expired papers) is not technically “illegal” by the strict interpretation of the word, even if a law was broken while crossing the border). Thus the term “undocumented alien” - or what I see now the P.C. term seems to be “unauthorized immigrant”.
Isn’t “unauthorized immigrent” illegal? If someone comes into my house with out first getting permission isn’t that illegal and if they refuse to leave can’t i get them arrested?
Isn’t “unauthorized immigrant” illegal? If someone comes into my house with out first getting permission isn’t that illegal and if they refuse to leave can’t i get them arrested?
Ye4s – because that is a defined crime. As people have pointed out here, being in America without the proper paperwork is not a defined crime, though it may be a civil offense.
To do this slightly better, let’s assume that Rhode Island has a criminal law saying that one may not enter onto the land of another without express or implied permission (meter readers, the mailman, the paper boy, etc., have implied permission). Idaho, on the other hand, requires that you post your land with No Trespassing signs; trespass is only criminal in Idaho if the land is posted. Hence hunters, backpackers, etc., know they are free to cross any land not posted. (These are both set as hypothetical presumptions for the scenario I establish here.) If it comes to my attention that you are entering into my unposed land in Idaho to do things I do not approve of, I can sue you, get an injunction against you, post the land, etc., but I cannot have you arrested until and unless you break the law, which your trespass was not. In Rhode Island, though, the cops will arrest you on my say-so, because there it is a criminal offense.
On the other hand, if you have become homeless and are camping out on my land, I might just have the common decency to remember when I or my ancestors were helped by others, and say you’re entitled to the same sort of help.
There are more factors at work here than whether someone violated an INS regulation to gain access to the country.
Apparently none – I threw that out from memory because that’s the law our hiring packets mention, but on review I see that while it has criminal penalities, they’re not for simple presence.
I can understand the idea of helping some one out,but should the person you are kind to comes on your land, gets hurt, then sues you, (as has happened to some people I have heard of it didn’t work out so well).
If you have a swimming pool and have a high fence around it a child climbs the fence and drowns you are responsible. You are expected to be responsible for the child but the parents are not. A bad law in my estimation.
If a peson can sneak into the country and just be undocumented then why are we spending so much time and money to keep them out? Just open the borders and let anyone in who decides it is a better place to live?
Would the same thing apply if a person came into your home, helped it self to your food, and refused to leave because it decided it was a better place to live, would you then let that person stay even though it meant your child would have less to eat, or if it would cost you more money than you could afford to allow them to stay there?
Perhaps I am old fashioned but I was brought up to respect the rights of others and was not allowed to go through some one else’s property with out permission. respect for the other person’s property was a way of respecting the person.
Speaking as a lawyer who has done two political asylum cases, an adjustment of status for a woman tricked into marrying an abusive American husband (he didn’t start beating her until she’d been here about three months), and a number of other immigration-related matters, I suggest that all these hypotheticals about “people sneaking into your house” and “eating your food” are propounded by folks who don’t actually know any immigrants.
How about this for a hypothetical? Suppose your next-door neighbor rang your bell in the middle of the night to announce that she was being beaten and tortured in her own home for expressing perfectly ordinary views–and that she couldn’t get any help from the police because the head of her household WAS the police. She begs you for sanctuary and protection.
I take it your answer would be: “Did you walk across my lawn? I’m calling the cops!”
I’m not saying that every alien who shows up with a horrific tale is telling the truth, and in fact have turned down cases where I felt the immigrant was lying–or at least exaggerating.
But try–really try–to imagine that there are places in the world where it doesn’t help to lead a decent and honest life, where it is extremely dangerous to believe in democracy and freedom, where the people running the government are as savage and cruel as the head of a drug cartel, and will take whatever you have–including your property and your life–on the slightest pretext or for no reason at all.
Because there are places like that: Algeria, and Haiti, and Cameroon, and Sierra Leone, and Zimbabwe, and the Sudan.
And when you meet actual immigrants from those places, you don’t think of them as “sneaking in.” You think of them as being very,very brave people who made a choice to live instead of to die, and who came to ask for a very minor thing: the right to live here and work and raise kids and live in peace and pay taxes and eventually become citizens and vote. In other words, to contribute to our society–not to steal from it.
The immigrants I have represented have done exactly that: they have worked (hard!) and paid taxes and rasied beautiful children and gotten educated and for at least one of them, I have had the pleasure of attending the naturalization ceremony.
They are EXACTLY the kind of folks I want as neighbors and friends and Americans.
All of the garbage being spouted about why we, the “real” Americans, can’t absorb any more of “Them” was said about the Irish…and the Italians…and the Chinese…and the Japanese.
It wasn’t true then (okay, it’s true that some immigrant Irish had never seen a bathtub before, but that’s a cultural matter)–and it’s not true now.
Uh. being undocumented is illegal. And they are arrested for being in the US illegally.
Some one breaking into you house is not arrested as an uninvited guest, he is arrested for breaking entering, a crime.