Debate: Constructive ways to deal with the Illegal Immigrants in the US

[Roy Karrde]

Alright here is one of many debate topics in which I wish to start, to hopefully inject some action into Misc. I want to start that I do not want this to turn into a flame war. You can refute a person's point, you can attack that point, but you cannot attack the person, and there will be no name calling.

That being said, the first debate is on Illegal Immigration, one of the main discussion topics in the United States right now. For those that do not live in this country, we have a open border with Mexico right now, in which thousands of people cross over illegally each day. Many of them come for jobs, but others come and comit crime, they bring drugs over, and some have even been caught as terrorists.

So with over 12 Million Illegals in this country, what should the United States do with them? Ship all of them back? That would be obeying the letter of the law, but it would cost billions and take years. Should we give them Blanket Amnesty? That would be the easiest way, but that would punish those that come over here the correct way. As would a pathway to citizenship.

So please, lets start debating, and those outside the US are free to chime in with their thoughts on the issue.

[kainashi]

shoot on sight.

[Blademaster]

shoot on sight.

As Toxicity would say...

[Heald]

Me. Illegal immigration (and immigration in general) is a bit of a hot topic in the UK as well. Basically, despite the UK being one of the EU's smaller countries, we face highly disproportionate levels of both legal and illegal immigration due to the higher wages and better standards of living. Also, if you're against immigration or if you're for imposing limits on immigration, that apparently makes you a racist.

Unfortunately, the Home Office, the UK's branch of government that deals with immigration, currently has no idea how many immigrants, either legal or illegal, are in the country and it is a state of disrepair. Obviously the Home Office has never heard of windows: considering they live in London, it should be obvious that if they looked out of their window, they'd see homeless Eastern Europeans and Africans begging on the streets, or ghettoes of purely one foreign nationality with 2 bedroom houses with 14 people residing in each of them.

Of course, the Home Office wants to be seen actually doing something to curb immigration to the UK. One idea would be to show that they are stamping down on illegals by deporting some of them. Who do they start with?

Er, Al Bangura, a beloved Watford football player and father of a newborn baby. Yes, you take one of the immigrants that is actually doing some work and is loved by tens of thousands, and refuse to renew his work permit to generate publicity.

Of course, this went down about as well as a racist joke at a NAACP conference.

The main problems Britain is facing at the moment due to immigration:

- Language barriers: classrooms filled with Eastern-European, Middle-Eastern, Asian and African children who cannot speak a single word of English.
- Towns wasting hundreds of thousands of pounds putting road-signs in both English and Polish to be more 'politically-correct'.
- Crime caused by Eastern-European mafias that have come over to this country.
- Crime caused within the ghettoes and the violence that occurs between gangs of different nationalities, plus race-motivated attacks and murders.
- Polish beer being served in pubs. Not really a huge problem but I prefer a good ale over their watered down horse-piss.
- School kitchens having to be outfitted so that halal food can be served for disproportionate Muslim populations.
- The rise of faith schools to cater for immigrants that cause huge social divides.

This list isn't exhaustive, but gives an indication of the kinds of problems we're facing.

I'm not really sure how well immigration is handled in the US and what kinds of problems it is generating (dey took ma jerb!) but if it is anything like the Home Office is handling our immigration problems, you people are fucked.

[Roy Karrde]

I'm not really sure how well immigration is handled in the US and what kinds of problems it is generating (dey took ma jerb!) but if it is anything like the Home Office is handling our immigration problems, you people are fucked.

Your list is pretty much the same as in the US, except that we get one extra problem. With the immigrants it isnt the entire family that is immigrated, it is only one or two. That one or two then ships all their extra money back to their family, causing us to lose billions each year.

shoot on sight.

Short term that would fix the problem, but long term you have to face with shooting children, shooting people that strap kids on them as a shield. As well as gangs and smugglers packing heavy weapons to fire back at the border agents.

Those that are in the country illegally should be deported, though. At least focus on deporting the ones that cause problems.

Agreed, but the lazy responce to that is that, we have 12 million immigrants here, atleast 2 million causing problems. How can you deport so many people?

[Heald]

Agreed, but the lazy responce to that is that, we have 12 million immigrants here, atleast 2 million causing problems. How can you deport so many people?

You have to think of the lesser of two evils. Either you keep them here and either try and spend money assimilating them to your culture so that they don't cause trouble or spend money cleaning up after them (e.g. through extra police, emergency services etc.), or you spend that money deporting them, only for a portion of them to come back over the border again.

Alternatively, drawing inspiration from kainashi's post, make it so committing a crime while being an illegal immigrant a capital crime, or send them to Gitmo or something where they have no rights. It would certainly deter illegals from committing crime.

[Blademaster]

Alternatively, drawing inspiration from kainashi's post, make it so committing a crime while being an illegal immigrant a capital crime, or send them to Gitmo or something where they have no rights. It would certainly deter illegals from committing crime.

[RedStarWarrior]

We should work on making it easier for them to become a citizen. Those that are in the country illegally should be deported, though. At least focus on deporting the ones that cause problems.

[Toxicity]

We should work on making it easier for them to become a citizen. Those that are in the country illegally should be deported, though. At least focus on deporting the ones that cause problems.

This post I agree with.

It seems like in the case of immigration, there have been too many standards to play regarding citizenship, usually costing a near lifetime's fortune just to emigrate from their home country and come to ours, and then having to be tested, quite possibly too hard, in order to be granted their "magical green card."

But much like Heald's problem in the UK, the language barrier can become very vast, especially in more exotic areas like California and, personally, Florida. The Hispanic population is sizable even in the panhandle with migrant workers and Cubans, in which many advertisements will be Spanish only or bilingual for easy understanding. Even then, I'll go out and see a Vietnamese or Chinese family, often hardly knowing English and using their own kids as interpreter, and using what French I know, I'll step in every now and then to offer help to the occasional Haitian. This mass diversity has led to official education documents to having Spanish and Creole translations, and every teacher must be certified in teaching to students who are speaking English as a second or so language.

I look at it at a different way from probably the majority of you, though. Some of these illegals are doing this to support the family members that stay behind in their home countries, in which getting a job is the only true way they could possibly get a permit to work and live as an immigrant. By working here in America and sending back a portion of their income, the family that are still back home at least have something to use to live. I really don't see what's so wrong about losing "billions" when these countries are ridiculed as being "second or third-world."

But closing the border still sounds like a mark of racism in some perspective. While there is crime committed by these so-called "aliens" on occasion, what is there to say about the great number of crimes committed by citizens? What about the drugs that are exchanged by citizens? The "terrorists" that are American citizens? The solution I see is to lower the immigration standards, especially in helping more needy families, yet those who entered illegally should be deported or given a chance to apply for citizenship, depending on their criminal record while residing in America. Deportation in this case should lower the number of illegal entries, in my opinion.

tl;dr Be lenient on the standards

[midnightangel]

But much like Heald's problem in the UK, the language barrier can become very vast, especially in more exotic areas like California and, personally, Florida. The Hispanic population is sizable even in the panhandle with migrant workers and Cubans, in which many advertisements will be Spanish only or bilingual for easy understanding.

I live in Florida (around the Space Coast) and know what you mean. We have a large Hispanic population here too.

Not to get off the subject--but my mothers family (great grand parents) immigrated here from Poland and lived in Wisconsin for years. Polish was the only language that she knew until she went to school. Her first years in school were taught in both Polish and English, then entirely in English. She not cannot put together a full sentence in Polish unless she really thinks about it. Hard.

And what is irritating and sad to me is that in her time English was forced on her, but those of the Hispanic population are 'catered to'. Not only are the advertisements bilingual, but so are a lot of regular foods we buy, instructions for products we use, to the standardized test the kids take in school <FCAT>.
To me it seems that the Hispanic language is being shoved down our throats, and we have to comply if we want to live in Florida.

I look at it at a different way from probably the majority of you, though. Some of these illegals are doing this to support the family members that stay behind in their home countries, in which getting a job is the only true way they could possibly get a permit to work and live as an immigrant. By working here in America and sending back a portion of their income, the family that are still back home at least have something to use to live.

Now this I don't mind and I applaud these workers, if that's all they did. Where I live, I know of a couple of situations where a small group of immigrants--mostly the women--will come over to Florida to work and establish a place to live.
What happens then is the rest of the family will move here illegally--and the women have their babies here, send their children to school here, get government help (welfare). And the men sit and drink socialize with their buddies--all on our hard-earned American Dollar!

But hey, they have a family member that's working here with a permanent address right??


What I would do is they came here to work legally--via green card or visa, then by all means extend citizenship to this group. They are actually trying.
And if the women are here illegally, and have their child here in the US, then give them the same deal with a few strings attached. Kind of a 'conditional citizenship'
[1] Use the government help as a stepping stone rather than a crutch to live on
[2] Get the women in question some kind of education, job placement, help with their own household, etc.
[3] And for the guys: Work or go bye bye. Simple as that.

To Heald: Love the picture BTW. Want it with the state of Florida as the background. Bound to piss off somebody

[Heald]

Closing borders is something that can benefit both countries though. While immigration itself can bring skilled workers and commerce to a country, mass immigration can bring crime, poverty, lower standards of living, unemployment, and social divisions to the receiving country.

However, if many skilled workers or workers in general are leaving one country, that can leave that country with a deficit of skilled workers, which too can be equally problematic. This is a problem Eastern-European countries complain about, saying they are facing deficits of skilled workers due to them looking for greener pastures.

Basically, we can all agree countries like the US, Canada, the UK, France, Germany etc. are leading examples of technological and economic powers, with stable governments, civil rights and low mortality rates. They did not get to that position by simply emigrating to different countries; back when every country was poor as hell, immigration wasn't a problem. Some countries, e.g. the UK and the US, eventually decided that being poor sucked and used fiscal policy and economics to expand their industry and commerce and used social policy to battle poverty. Nowadays, if someone in a poor country somewhere doesn't like his standard of living, instead of doing something about it, he pussies out and moves to a richer country.

Basically, I'm saying that unless both the countries that immigrants come from and the countries that immigrants go to sort out the problems on both ends, then the issue will not get solved constructively. Skilled workers will leave poor countries in droves, meaning they stay poor. It's pretty much catch 22, and it won't get solved unless emigrating becomes a much less desirable option than staying at home and doing some work.

[Roy Karrde]

I really wouldnt consider the borders as being racist. Seeing how the border brings so much drugs across that it would help our country as a whole that it would be closed. Not to mention, unlike Canada, Mexico isnt the best when it comes to crime. Many of the border downs are completely controlled by gangs, causing them to export crime across the border. Not to mention Mexican airports are probably not very equiped to handle identifying terrorists that fly in to cross the border.

[firepokemon]

I don't really have the time today to debate this subject. But I don't get why people would want their city to be santuary anything. Stuff illegals. Lock them up and keep them out. I may not like much about US public policy, but as far as I'm concerned just get rid of them and don't be polite about it.

[Heald]

firepokemon pretty much sums up the immigration policy of Aussies and Kiwis, but this picture does it better:



Despite having the lowest population density on the planet, pool's closed.

Mind you, I wouldn't want to move to NZ anyway, since it will take 5 minutes before firepokemon and any other Kiwis on the net to download that image anyway.

[firepokemon]

firepokemon pretty much sums up the immigration policy of Aussies and Kiwis, but this picture does it better:



Despite having the lowest population density on the planet, pool's closed.

Mind you, I wouldn't want to move to NZ anyway, since it will take 5 minutes before firepokemon and any other Kiwis on the net to download that image anyway.

Fuck you. Though its true. Internet is so fucking slow. What really pissed me off was that Australia said no to refugees coming in a boat and New Zealand said oh yes lets fucking invite them here. Its like we don't want you. Majority of New Zealanders would be classed as racist but who the fuck cares, I'm not racist, I don't want want illegals or people seeking refugee status. I don't mind asians coming in. Some New Zealanders don't. I'm just glad NZ is stuck with maori and pacific islanders. This means New Zealand has high rates of imprisonment, high levels of criminality, violence towards children, obesity problems, low incomes, lots of drownings because maori and pacific islanders can't swim. Its just so beautiful. I'm glad we have yet to have the silly gang wars going on between asians and africans and middle eastern people and indians and whatever that I've seen in Britain and Australia.

Wait this is about illegals isn't it?

If America wants to solve the problem of illegal immigration, just bomb Mexico.

[Heald]

I'm just glad NZ is stuck with maori and pacific islanders.

Excuse me if I'm incorrect but 'stuck with Maori'? Surely the Maori are stuck with you, considering they were there first (unless you're descended from cavemen or moa). Next the Australians will be whining about the Aboriginals taking all their jerbs!

Also, when I was over in NZ, it seemed like a two-tier society. The European-NZers did all the business jobs/white-collar jobs, whereas the Maori were doing all the manual labour, construction, bouncers, road works etc. One race to do all the thinking and one race to do all the heavy lifting? Those Maoris are huge, you don't mess with those mofos.

[firepokemon]

Excuse me if I'm incorrect but 'stuck with Maori'? Surely the Maori are stuck with you, considering they were there first (unless you're descended from cavemen or moa). Next the Australians will be whining about the Aboriginals taking all their jerbs!

Also, when I was over in NZ, it seemed like a two-tier society. The European-NZers did all the business jobs/white-collar jobs, whereas the Maori were doing all the manual labour, construction, bouncers, road works etc. One race to do all the thinking and one race to do all the heavy lifting? Those Maoris are huge, you don't mess with those mofos.

Maori were here first but whatever. I have some maori blood in me believe it or not, only a 1/4 or so of me is maori. That could be true I suppose about NZ being a two-tier society but that happenes in maori society too.

[Blademaster]

If America wants to solve the problem of illegal immigration, just bomb Mexico.

Next the Australians will be whining about the Aboriginals taking all their jerbs!

On the topic of NZ, one of your national heroes just died.

Wasn't he your largest export?

This topic is made of win. Keep the laughs coming, guys!

[Crystal Mew]

I live in a state that borders mexico and it's so annoying to have them here, they expect everyone to speak spanish, and have everything catered to them and their language.

you come to OUR country, so learn OUR language.

half of them don't even bother to learn english, and I think thats what pisses me off the most.

So, we can either do what john said (shoot them) or deport them, or have them become legal citizens. to have them stay here and force everyone around them to conform to what they want seems ridiculous to me

but at least they're willing to do all the dirty work americans arent willing to do like...scrubbing the toliets at all public places!

[DarkTemplarZero]

I'm kinda divided on the issue, on one hand I have my blatant racism and disrespect for people who spend their lives scrubbing toilets, on the other I have the fact that I'm myself an immigrant and besides, my family's cleaning lady is an illegal (from Russia, not Mexico) and I don't want to have to clean my room when I go home.

But on a serious note, you have to remember that the reason that so many people leave Mexico to go to the United States illegally is not because the US is so great and everybody's dream is to work at McDonalds, it's that northern Mexico is the biggest shithole in the western hemisphere. The most blatant example is Ciudad Juarez, the world capital of rape, femicide, all that stuff, where you get girls as young as 8 years old being raped and murdered on a weekly basis with nobody ever punished. Juarez is right across the Rio Grande from El Paso, a nice normal American city, and I know that if I had a daughter and I lived in Juarez, I would be across that border in a heartbeat. Basically, the problem isn't immigration, it's that northern Mexico is so bad that nobody in their right mind would want to live there.

[RedStarWarrior]

Well, the prevalence of Spanish will not change until the US actually adopts an official language. As of now, we still do not have one, though American English is the common language. I'd have to say that a rudimentary knowledge of the English language should be required for citizenship, though I am for relaxing the standards overall.

As someone of hispanic origin, I can honestly say that I don't feel that closing the borders is racist at all. After all, my Guatamalan ancestor entered the US legally by marrying a citizen.

[Dark-San]

Every country has their own fair share of illegal immigration problems. Sorry I take back my words, it would be industrious nations that had these problems. Face it, America is the richest nation you can find in the entire northern and southern America continents. Even if you closed your borders, shoot them on sight, they would still come. Lure by the riches and hopes of a better life that these mafia agents had promised them.

However I do agreed with everyone here. If you want to migrate to a certain country, at least learn their language. I cannot be moving to the United States, only to find myself the only one speaking in Mandarin. The problem is how would I be able to communicate with the citizens there. It would very much be the same as a chicken trying to communicate with a duck.

@Crystal Mew~ Scrubbing the toliets at all public places isn't what these persons can do right? I meant if these illegals want to stay within the country, they have to contribute to the nation's economy. Having them as construction workers would be a good example. Building buildings does not required much thinking skills and yet they could still indirectly put in their efforts. It is only the safety aspects that they would have to consider.

Singapore too had her fair share of illegal immigration problems back on the early 2000s. Thankfully our nation is small and hence the problem is still manageable. To welcome the illegals, we had escorts (Police Coastal Guards) escorting these people to what we called as free chalets (Changi Prisons) located somewhere in the eastern part of Singapore, where you can enjoy the seaside breeze.

To top it off, every male offender who visits our country more than once or caught overstaying would be given extra services with the rotan, an extra special service which the infamous Michael Faye had enjoyed. If three strokes is not enough, you are welcome to enter the country illegally again and we would increase the number of strokes.

Bawww! Cut off the flowery language and it would still the same as what firepokemon had suggested.

[Roarkiller]

The only reason Singapore has the illegal immigration problem somewhat under control is because we're a tiny island, with only two pathetic bridges connecting us to any other land mass.

Closing off the border to Mexico, while a good idea, is not exactly the ebst solution. It's pretty obvious that the majority of such immigrants, whether in the US or UK, are in search of a better life. And seriously, can you imagine a man from Mexico with no papers registering his birth obtaining a passport? It's just impossible. That's one of the several problems facing such people.

The US/Mexican border can do a lot more than they are doing now. While I would wholeheartedly agree to fencing up the entire border to restrict illegal corssing, the entry checkpoints itself must have facilities and amenities to at least allow people to pass through without being treated as a lowlife bug.

For example, we have discussed the point about these people looking for work. One EXTREMELY good thing to do would be to open a school and an immigration centre just along the border near the checkpoint. There they can actually learn english or even work skills to better help them adjust to life in the US, while the latter helps them to easily cross the border. Obviously needs a little coorporation from the Mexican government, but I believe it can be pulled off.

And if they can build an employment agency as well, so much better. It's a win-win solution from my point of view, to have these three facilities built. And to have roughly three such checkpoints, it should bring about a sharp improvement.

[Heald]

The only reason Singapore has the illegal immigration problem somewhat under control is because we're a tiny island, with only two pathetic bridges connecting us to any other land mass.

Yeah, the UK would have its immigration problem under control as well, if it wasn't for the fact there is a tunnel connecting England to France, and then France piping all its illegal immigrants to the UK via this tunnel (which is perfectly legal under EU legislation, but it is not legal for the UK to funnel them back).

One of the major biggies with immigrants is all the disease they bring with them. AIDS and HIV in particular. I think all immigrants hoping to settle should be subjected to a medical (not sure if this happens already) and if they have HIV or any other kind of nasty, kick them out. Likewise, any illegals caught should be quarantined and if they have any disease, they ought to be permabanned from the country.

[Crystal Mew]

@Crystal Mew~ Scrubbing the toliets at all public places isn't what these persons can do right? I meant if these illegals want to stay within the country, they have to contribute to the nation's economy. Having them as construction workers would be a good example. Building buildings does not required much thinking skills and yet they could still indirectly put in their efforts. It is only the safety aspects that they would have to consider.

Singapore too had her fair share of illegal immigration problems back on the early 2000s. Thankfully our nation is small and hence the problem is still manageable. To welcome the illegals, we had escorts (Police Coastal Guards) escorting these people to what we called as free chalets (Changi Prisons) located somewhere in the eastern part of Singapore, where you can enjoy the seaside breeze.

To top it off, every male offender who visits our country more than once or caught overstaying would be given extra services with the rotan, an extra special service which the infamous Michael Faye had enjoyed. If three strokes is not enough, you are welcome to enter the country illegally again and we would increase the number of strokes.

Bawww! Cut off the flowery language and it would still the same as what firepokemon had suggested.

Well when I said scrub toliets, thats just one of the jobs most of them do. Alot of them DO work in construction, others work at mcdonalds and taco bell, and other fast food resturants (and I am not even going there right now; I have many stories of spanish speaking people knowing barely any english manning the drive thru window, grr) alot of them pull weeds, yeah so? The point is, alot of them refuse to learn english while they work in english speaking places, serving english speaking people.

[Blademaster]

I'm a pretty liberal person, but I'm sick of hearing "Mira, mira!" everytime I leave the house. Make English mandatory in schools, already. I grew up learning American for twenty years and I STILL don't have it down - why should I have to learn Beanerese just because the population of Mexico is climbing north faster than the killer bees?

Here's my solution: Beef up security, and I don't mean with people. I'm talking land mines across the southern edges of Texas, Arizona, New Mexico (which REALLY needs a new name), and California, and ocean mines around the Florida panhandle. Set up turrets and watch towers across the Rio Grande. Moor a few armed battleships 10 miles off the coast of southern Florida. We have the firepower - put it someplace where it'll do some good!

[Heald]

On the topic of NZ, one of your national heroes just died.

[firepokemon]

Well I was about to google the news. Wow this is certainly a surprise. NZ will indeed miss him.

[Heald]

Wasn't he your largest export?

[firepokemon]

Wasn't he your largest export?

Prolly. Now all we fucking get on the news is Hillary this, Hillary that. Its so fucking annoying you just want to bomb the news people. Sorry but its sad he died, and maybe 10 mins would be nice but fucking 40 mins then 3 mins of other news then 10 minutes of sport. What the fuck is up with that?

[Clark]

Collect them all up, take them to the desert and burn them all in a hole.

[Heald]

Yeah, that is a perennial problem when stuff your country thinks is important happens.

Like 9/11, the only thing on the TV for a week was fucking 9/11 this, 9/11 that. It wasn't even our country they attacked! Same with Katrina. The UK is so fucking boring we have to cry about what our fuckbuddy the US is crying about.

[firepokemon]

Yeah, that is a perennial problem when stuff your country thinks is important happens.

Like 9/11, the only thing on the TV for a week was fucking 9/11 this, 9/11 that. It wasn't even our country they attacked! Same with Katrina. The UK is so fucking boring we have to cry about what our fuckbuddy the US is crying about.

9/11 is understandable if it didn't go on for a whole year like it seemed to.

[Toxicity]

9/11 is understandable if it didn't go on for a whole year like it seemed to.

Actually, it's still alive and kicking in the Deep South and Bible Belt.

[DarkTemplarZero]

Reminds me of the family guy episode when Lois was running for mayor.

"What are you going to do about our traffic problem?"
"9/11!"
*audience cheers wildly*