U.S. Congress is once again tackling immigration policy. Which of the options below most closely matches your position on the issue?
Sensenbrenner’s idea of putting up a big fat fence and reinforcing it with hundreds more security guards makes the most sense. After all, any of those hoodlums crossing the border could be terrorists.
Bush and the Senate Judiciary Committee have it right: Put more resources into border control, but also establish a guest worker program and a system by which immigrants already in the U.S. working and paying taxes can work towards residency/citizenship.
Blow down the fences and disarm the Minute Men. This country has no chance of competing economically with the rest of the world if we don’t welcome immigrant talent and sweat wholeheartedly.
0voters
With my new signature, I’ve decided to put this question to Forumosans, who are all in some way immigrants, but then again I’ve known some pretty conservative Forumosans, so here we go…
[Apologies if this poll has already been taken. I haven’t visited in a long while.]
[Sandman: thanks for the new year’s wishes. Jack Burton: still on for this Saturday? I’ll confirm with Miaka. Loretta: here’s your reminder to email me back.]
Well, as much as I hate the idea of basically giving in to people who enter the country illegally, that’s ultimately going to have to happen to some extent. It’s going to be near impossible, and certainly not worth the cost to carry out deportations or institute a border blockade. Being as that’s the case, you either have to come up with some way of putting these people on track for legal rights (and ultimately citizenship), or you’ll be stuck with a situation like you have in Europe where there’s massive, permanent non-citizenship, and that does nobody any good. So ultimately, yes, put in greater border controls, but also institute a guest worker program that gives the workers at least basic civil rights, employment, and allows for citizenship of thier children.
America was founded by immigrants. The colonists didn’t apply for visas; they just came.
It would be hypocritical for the US to exclude immigrants, because that’s what 99.9% of Americans are.
This is supposed to be the true spirit of America:
“Give me your tired, your poor,
your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,
the wretched refuse of your teeming shore.
Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me;
I lift my lamp beside the golden door.”
[quote=“Chris”]
This is supposed to be the true spirit of America:
“Give me your tired, your poor,
your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,
the wretched refuse of your teeming shore.
Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me;
I lift my lamp beside the golden door.”[/quote]
That was in the 19th Century. This is the 21st. Things have changed, in case you haven’t noticed.
Got to go with Bush on this one. There’s no way to round up 11 million people. Going to separate illegal parents from American-born children? Throwing open the gates would probably lead to too great a flood. This seems a reasonable, practical solution.
How about this…the US gives them all a free bus ticket to Vancouver. Unemployed Canadian taxi drivers won’t have to travel to Taiwan to teach English, Canada gets to revel in it’s multicultural superiority to the US and America gets rid of a ticking timebomb.
Come on, think of all the possibilities. Unemployed suspicious Americans could be employed for years processing all that paperwork, photographing legalized migrants, taking biometrics.
Besides, it’s much more fun for morally superior Canadians to hook up with morally superior Americans to smuggle Central American migrants across the borders. There’s quite the underground railroad, don’t you know.
Do I need to get out my crayonbox for you? Sometimes it seems simple works best with you.
As I said, we can simply send them to Canaduh. Everyone in the world knows you guys are intellectually and morally to Americans. But talk’s cheap…let’s see how [i]you[/i] handle it.
Let’s not forget that not all those coming across the Mexican border are Mexicans or even Latin Americans. Mexican border towns are as popular as Vancouver for immigrants from every part of the world awaiting their chance to steal into the U.S.
[quote=“aprimo”]
Let’s not forget that not all those coming across the Mexican border are Mexicans or even Latin Americans. Mexican border towns are as popular as Vancouver for immigrants from every part of the world awaiting their chance to steal into the U.S.[/quote]
Years ago I did some work with the US Border Patrol in Arizona. One day, one the agents walked in laughing his ass off. While driving along in Nogales he saw a group of Asian* basketball players walking down the street…had the uniforms, expensive shoes etc…he said he drove about a mile and then realized something was wrong. No basketball. He drove back and told them to get in the back of the van…they did, he dropped them off at the detention center and that was that. Other than the laughs.
Haven’t been watching the news from Paris, have you?[/quote]
Considering that a lot of the social unrest in France has come from immigrants who have felt completely unintegrated into French society, I take it to mean that you think we should greatly expand legal immigration so as to better integrate these people into American society. Because that’s what I believe as well.
Sure, crack down on illegal immigration. But I think by far the most cost-efficient way to do that isn’t to build and man a gigantic fence, but by forcefully going after American employers who employ illegal immigrants. If it becomes economically unfeasible for American employers to hire ilegal immigrants, then there won’t be any jobs for them, and they’ll stop coming over. Of course, this presupposes you are actually interested in stopping illegal immigration, rather than just cynically engaging in some flag-waving to fire up your base while actually doing nothing in order to please the businesses that make financial contributions to your party.
Haven’t been watching the news from Paris, have you?[/quote]
Considering that a lot of the social unrest in France has come from immigrants who have felt completely unintegrated into French society, I take it to mean that you think we should greatly expand legal immigration so as to better integrate these people into American society. Because that’s what I believe as well.[/quote]
I don’t see there’s any possible way we can. The problem is Mexico. It’s a corrupt society and the economy is not going to get better. The Mexican government is using immigration as a pressure valve to stave off revolution. The US cannot absorb 1,000,000 illegals per year. No society can.
And if we can’t even take care of our black population, what makes anyone think we can absorb millions of uneducated, untrained, illiterate, Spanish-speaking peasants?
[quote]A slew of new research shows how sorry is the plight of American blacks, most acutely men. Black men, particularly those who do not finish high school, have been falling off a cliff for decades. [b]If you include blacks in prison or not seeking work
[quote=“Comrade Stalin”][quote=“Chris”]
This is supposed to be the true spirit of America:
“Give me your tired, your poor,
your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,
the wretched refuse of your teeming shore.
Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me;
I lift my lamp beside the golden door.”[/quote]
That was in the 19th Century. This is the 21st. Things have changed, in case you haven’t noticed.[/quote]
The values America was founded on still apply. I will not accept anything less than Liberty. I oppose Communism (anti-liberty)
That’s a fairly motherly stance, isn’t it? How about working on the conditions so that those people might be able to take care of themselves? I suppose, if you want, you could try to take care of them all. It would be difficult though. Perhaps it would be easier if you gathered them all into large collective communities and handed out work assignments.
???
[/quote]
Communists oppose immigration, and any liberty, for that matter.
The funny thing about Republicans is that, while condemning Communism, their policies are Communist in nature.[/quote]
Uhmmmmm…
[color=red]News Flash![/color]
The people supporting immigration are the Left and Big Business. The organizer of the demonstrations last week was A.N.S.W.E.R. It’s a communist organization.
