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Why not? I mean, have them come through metal detectors on the way, but why not let a couple million more Mexicans in? Why do you assume no one could be in favor of open borders?

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That's what I'm calling it. I'm not focused on just our southern border - I'm concerned about both, plus the ports on the coasts. I don't think the bills only pertain to our southern border, but I do think it's rational for people to focus there because it is my understanding that more people cross the southern border illegally than the northern one.

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Boarders with metal detectors are not open.

There also has to be some order to the way our country is organized. How else do we determine who gets to vote, who pays taxes, who is entitled to government assistance, etc.

And stop playing devil's advocate.

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I note that if we would just annex Canada and Mexico already, we would have a much smaller border to monitor. So it turns out Spanky was correct on the Mexico annexation argument. Maybe his politician of choice in San Diego County (Riverside County?) is only on stage 2 of the larger Annex Mexico agenda.

I'd support that. Hell, no more birth certificate/passport requirement for my somewhat regular Cabo trips. Sign me up.

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Well, in my state, the two main sources of revenue are property taxes and sales taxes. Everyone, legal, illegal and otherwise, pays them. Lots and lots of citizens get the benefit of undocumented aliens tax dollars here, and they have ever since the border changed from the Red River to the Rio Grande.

Seems to me that most everyone came from somewhere else, and we didn't have too much of a problem before.

My grandmother's family sort of just moved from Mexico to Galveston without papers or documents or anything. No one swam across any rivers. No one hired a coyote to sneak them across. They just picked up an moved. Eventually someone suggested that my grandmother'd been married to my grandfather long enough that she could get her citizenship. I suspect that there was a country or two in the 20s whose citizenry hated us.

I'm not the best person to ask. I'm a Texan first and whatever country we happen to be in second. The border sort of moves around me, but I stay in the same place.

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Are you more concerned about keeping terrorists out, or about keeping people out in general? Is "border security" to you kind of a stand-in for "severely limiting the number of people we allow to come into the country, and in order to enforce that, especially on our southern border where people are coming into the country in large numbers, we need to build a Great Wall of China except twice as high and equally far down underground so it can't be tunnelled under and have people stationed every 200 feet with guns to shoot people who try to come over it"? Or is it just security as in keeping terrorists and other threats to the nation's security out of the country, but not an immigration issue?

Because if it's really about immigration, call it that, don't try to make it sound like you are only worried about it because of direct national security threats to the lives and limbs of the American people.

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It's pretty easy on votes. Citizens can vote. Some even do. Those who are immigrants almost always do.

On taxes, it's pretty easy, too. Anyone who is resident in the US owes taxes, legal or illegal.

Last year, there about 950 million immigrants. About 400,000 were spouses or children of US citizens, about 150,000 came in under special family preferences, about 150,000 came in for employment related reasons, and the remaining roughly quarter million came in under lotteries.

Why not just open up those lotteries to a couple million people? I'd be all in favor of it. It would be a vastly less significant immigration than any of the waves most of our families came in on, and if you want to be a stickler about government benefits, limit them to education for the first few years. But I'd have no qualms about educating a couple million immigrant kids and seeing what they can add to our economy after that.

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For me, it's first and foremost a security issue, but the immigation issue is very important as well. America was built on immigrants and needs to continue to be able to attract immigrants to this country for all sorts of purposes, especially as our population base begins to age. However, immigrants need to be assimilated, taxes collected, government assistance and benefits tracked, etc., and that cannot be done without some sort of system in place.

eta: and fuck you for what you are insinuating above.

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I assume you mean 9.5 million or 950,000?

This is not a question or whether or not I'm in favor of immigation. It's a question of the immigration occurs and making sure those that we allow to immigrate are those that we want to immigrate.

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Fuck you back. How does whatever bill you are talking about strengthen border security? Because it seems like the bill that people are strongly protesting is one that makes employing or giving any aid to immigrants a FELONY. The bill that people high up in the Roman Catholic church have said they will instruct their people to ignore, if it becomes law. I don't see how that is strengthening the security of our borders. And that is the bill that RT was talking about -- the bill that has sparked huge protests.

If you are talking about a different bill, please provide details on it, and how it makes our nation more secure. Is it that you support Brian Billbray (or whatever his name is) and you are all defensive on this?

ETA saying "make sure that the ones who get in are ones we want" really does not make you sound good. I'm not saying (and I don't really think) that you (consciously) think what many people would think you were saying, but it sounds like you are a racist fuck. Or classist. Really, probably both, but with an assumption that people of some races are not the class we would want, until they prove that they actually come from quite an aristocratic family and went to Harvard.

EATA this started because Spanky was in favor of the Bilbray guy. Someone said, I'm surprised you like him, his take on immigration seems different from yours. RT talked about the walkouts, which are in reaction to a particular bill that is very punitive. You responded, oh, you aren't into border security?

To me, the punitive House bill and this type of stuff http://www.fairus.org/site/DocServer...pdf?docID=681, which is what the organization Bilbray is co-chair of (which seems to be something he thinks is a big point for him) are not really about Homeland Security. They are about different issues. And calling it a "security" issue is disingenuous and really the only reason I can see for doing it is that then you can say that people who oppose you want America to be weaker and, really, can't be distinguished from terrorists.

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This is a Republican district. Every Republican is running hard to the right on the immigration issue. You can't be tough enough on illegal immigration right now.

Bilbray is much better than Kaloogian. I may not agree with Bilbray a hundred percent of the time, but the only person I agree with one hundred percent of the time is a women I am trying to sleep with.

For Spanky
 

At a basic level it is. While Affirmative Action has nothing to do with testing anything.

"Common to east coast elites". What exactly is an east coast elite except for a rich liberal who doesn't understand economics. This is such crap. I am sorry if the SAT doesn't contain the latest slang. Can you not see how that is not practical?


You just contradicted yourself and her. If AA admissions are not able to keep up fully, AA is by definition not a good as a determiner of merit as the SAT, now is it?


It is absurd because it is just not accurate. This women uses faulty statistical methods. Always has and I assume she always will. And even if the stats were accurate, students should be chosen based on merit and nothing else.

Why does it have to be your high school classmates that went to segregated schools? Why can't it be just anyone who went to segregated schools? Oh wait - if that weren't the case then you wouldn't get to inform us that you went to school with some kids who went to segregated elementary school. OK - well you get two gold stars for going to a school with children that suffered under segregation. We will now defer to you as the expert on this subject because "you have shared their pain".

Why would you even want it for ten seconds if every study has shown that affirmative action is more harmful than helpful to the group it is trying to help?

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Being that they are our neighbor, Mexico's problems are our problems. The only way to solve the illegal immigration problem is for the Mexicos economy to grow. What is one of the quickest ways to grow an economy: integrate it with a larger more developed economy. It worked for Portugal, Spain and Ireland. Could work with Mexico.

We need to integrate our economy more closely with Mexicos, not try and cut ourselves off even more.

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I thought I was going to puke when I read this. And the young nation of Texas was so accomodating to the hispanics that helped win the revolution from Mexico? Didn't I read somewhere that after the revolution the new government helped disposses all the hispanic of their land and gave that land to the Anglos.

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A women? Are we talking orgies or something more like the Big Love arrangement?

I've read some of your arguments on this here board, and I'm glad you didn't try to claim that you agreed with yourself 100% of the time. :rolleyes:

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Why thank you, I never knew that the entire history of the state can be generalized in the 11 years it was an independent nation.

That particular war was about slavery, in part, as well. Didn't you want to highlight that? Or maybe the part where we seceded from the United States. Again, because of slavery? Or how the new state of Texas would levy taxes in English, in Austin, on Hispanics in South Texas and then sieze the land for failure to pay taxes that no one had ever heard of? Or maybe the part about the Spanish slaughtering Indians wholesale? Or the part where the Texas Rangers used to shoot Hispanics for sport? Or the part about the Jim Crow laws and segregation that balt was talking about earlier? The ones that lasted until the mid-80s.

I know much, much more about the history of Texas than you ever will, including the godawful things. My family has been here since 1753. They haven't managed to kick us out yet, no matter how much they try. The only country that's dispossessed my family of land was Mexico in 1936, when Cardenas repatraited any property owned by foreigners, including 300,000 acres on the other side of the river owned by my great-grandfather, an American citizen.

If I had said the same thing about the US, you wouldn't have batted an eye, even though the US hasn't particularly been kind to Hispanic people in it's history.

Seems to me that this whole debate is based, in part, in the sudden horror some people have that parts of this country aren't going to be Anglo dominated in less than half a century. There's no majority ethnicity in Texas right now. I suspect that'll change by 2020, and those kids walking out of school right now are the ones that will be taking over.

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950,000. What's a few zeros among friends?

Who do you want to immigrate?

I have a knee-jerk reaction to that statement because it usually translates into "we'll take Europeans but not those dark-skinned people". I say give us the huddled masses yearning to breathe free, and lift our lamp to the homeless and tempest-tossed.

If you look here , you'll find a treasure trove of statistics on immigration. Basically, we're letting in raw numbers today comparable to those we let in 100 years ago, even though our population is four times greater. We've pulled up the ladder.

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I don't think this is a fair assumption based on Club's past posts.

But I think he'd probably prefer highly educated people (regardless of race) with skills sets that are needed in the country over people with no resources and no skills (regardless of race).

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OK, so Fringey already made my point. I wonk'd.

But to get back to basics, Clubby, just who is it you want to let in and keep out? And remember, so far the terrorists who don't come from Michigan seem to be satisfied with non-immigrant visas rather than immigrant visas. Somehow, you don't need a long term visa if you're going to engage in a suicide attack.

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I was reacting to the statement and what it usually translates to; I'll let Clubby tell us himself what he means.

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If you can't understand it, you're more of a complete fucking idiot than I've thought all these years.

Do me a favor, stop responding to my posts and stop insinuating that I'm a racist, classist, etc. I'll do the same and we can all live happily ever after.

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It's more a question of who I don't want to immigrate. I really don't want "bad" people here. Pretty simple.

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Thanks for getting my back. This is partially true, but I also would put a premium on those that want to become Americans because of our ideals, rather than those that want to be here for convenience because they can make more money here.

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Do you think we have been letting "bad" people immigrate? Where's the problem we're trying to fix, and what solution are we talking about to that problem?

Again, the terrorists on 9/11 came in on student and tourist visas, not immigrant visas. And I'm not sure why future terrorists would bother with an immigrant visa, since they are hard to get and have a big crapshoot element to them, as long as we're pretty open with student visas and give out tourist visas with ease.

Connecting immigration and terrorism seems to be about as easy as linking Sadaam to a.Q.

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By "letting" I'm assuming you mean not inforcing our borders. And the answer is yes. I'm don't recall the exact statistic, but at least in CA there is a high percentage of illegals in our prison system (for crimes other than being illegals). It may not be a greater percentage than the general population as a whole, but it is something that could be curtailed if there was a diligent system in place.

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It seems to me that the costs of immigration are factored in without the benefits. I read a study a few weeks ago that stated that 5% of the workforce in the US are undocumented aliens. They're actively contributing to the economy, including paying taxes for the prison system. Aggressively arresting them and their employers, solely because of their undocumented status will have a massive impact on the economy.
That bill in the House wants to arrest of 24% of the people who farm, and probably every single farmer in the United States as well. Has anyone bothered to explain how that work will get done while we're kicking 12 million productive people out of the country? 94% of the undocumented men have jobs.

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Must make for an interesting questionnaire.

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I'm more focused on legal immigration because it's what we can regulate. I also think the heavy restrictions on legal immigration are part of what create illegal immigration - if we let more people in the front door, we'd have an easier time controlling the back door.

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Clearly, we're a capitalist democracy, and making more money is a fundamental part of our ideals. That having been said, I suspect you'd find most immigrants from Asia and America having huge respect for our Democratic institutions.

In terms of numbers, can I count you in on raising legal immigration from 1 million to 3 million over the next few years, just because it's the right thing to do? And we'll ask them all their views on the constitution on the way in?

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Whatever the questionairre is, I'd like to have all Presidential candidates and top members of the administration in DC fill out the same one.

I'd bet we'd be kicking Rumsfeld's ass all the way to China after reading his.

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That FAIR place that Spanky's (and club's? not clear -- he still won't say exactly WHAT it is that he's in favor of, or if he supports the candidate, or anything really other than "I don't want 'bad' people to come in" which is kinda a tautology) candidate is co-chair of wants to push it down to like 800k or lower.

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Isn't freedom to work (i.e., make more money) part of our ideals?

I mean this seriously. The ability to make more money -- to work hard, and to keep the fruits of your labor -- is an inherent part of the ideal of freedom.

And even if you could separate the two, I suspect a whole lot more immigrants to the US over the course of history came here for the ability to make more money than did purely for other freedoms.

Sure, there are the Pilgrims, Puritans, and Hugenots, but the belief that America was the "Land of opportunity," with "streets paved with gold" attracted untold numbers.

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This is true, but I would rather see our efforts and resources devoted to preventing and punishing crime (of the non-immigration variety) than to rounding up and deporting 12 million people, the vast, vast majority of whom abide the laws, work hard, and pay taxes.

And in any event, the alternative Senate bill, which would allow an "amnesty" (though far less generous than the 1986 amnesty program) would address your concern too; people who'd committed other crimes would not be eligible.

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"34. What do you think of the works of Francis Fukuyama?

(a) Great American Writer
(b) Best American Writer

35. Same question, but as applied to the works of Charles Krauthammer."

In Defense of Club
 

He's not a racist. He's perhaps a bit of a classist, but no more so than many of us here, whether conscious of the fact or not. I can see his point, although I don'tagree that the bill currently under discussion does much of anything to increase the security of our borders.

What Club has failed to address is that the people coming in to the US to do harm come through legal channels. We have done virtually nothing to secure our ports, railroads, and highways. Of course, the main question is how we can secure the ports, etc. without massive infringments on the rights of all the people and property coming through.

It's a Catch-22, and Club's frustration has led him inot a corner he really doesn't belong in.

In Defense of Club
 

FWIW, I don't actually think he's as racist as his comments make him sound. And it could be classism -- but I tend to think, and I think RT's statistics back me up, that we need all kinds of classes of immigrants.

And I don't think he's at all articulating what he DOES want the policy to be.

ETA and the thing about "not coming just to make more money" just sounds ludicrous. Does he only want political refugees? I would think we would get very few immigrants from Europe (or, western Europe) if acknowledgement and prostration before the superior governmental system were a prerequisite for immigration.

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There is no doubt that most illegals are solidly contributing to our economy and our country in general. But there are studies on both sides of the argument that, as you would expect, reach different conclusions on the cost/benefit analysis.

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I don't know what the right number is, but I'm in favor of letting in as many as the system can handle.

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What system?

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Agreed, but my admittedly idealistic self would like to think there was more to it than just $$$.