fred - 17 January 2008 08:02 PM
As I’ve said before, a huge government contingent is not necessary.. Simply take the sugar off the table, and most of them will return on their own. Big Brother draconian measures are not necessary.
What sugar do you wish to take off the table? If you are talking about welfare I am with you. Take if off the table for everybody. Of course you said a “huge government contingent is not necessary” but you way too naive to think 12 million working people are going to go home and businesses that hire them are not going to let their elected public officials send them home without a fight.
I will tell you this, however, you remove their welfare benefits and they will not leave because that is not the reason they are here. They are here to work.
Nick is right that there is no way today to tell an illegal document from a a legal one. Remember the bill Bush proposed that all the talking heads claimed was amnesty and all the “conservatives” opposed?? Well there has been nothing done since then but that bill did require a verified document to get work and would have issued a National Id card to those who paid fines and provided the government with adequate ID. Bill doesn’t look so bad now does it?
The solution to this problem is not complicated and is not harmful to our economy or to individual liberty---we need to make it easier for the demand for this labor to be met legally. We have a good program--H2B---but republicans are afraid of the loud mouths in the party and on radio who against any thing that looks like more immigrants can come. If the H2B quotas were removed in a year we would not have an illegal immigration problem. If someone working here now could not qualify for a H2B visa they would have to go home because employers want to be legal and VERY few are trying to be illegal now. If a legal pool of labor was available through the H2B program or something like it then there would be no incentive to hire illegals.
I am sick and tired of hearing about how any working person is bad for the country. What’s bad is all these people who sit home on some kind of welfare or some kind of trumped up disability and don’t contribute s***. That is what is bad. I hold no ill will at all toward a person who pulls up from his familiar home, moves 2000 miles and works his a** off. You need to examine your own principles if you are for sending someone like that out of the country just because he is not a citizen or he could not get through our arcane visa process.
Not a person here can post the name of a single individual who is out of a job because of an illegal immigrant. On the contrary there are many more businesses that would not be in business if not for this labor pool. Businesses you benefit from every day.
Yes there are trouble makers who cross the border and yes we need to know who comes and goes and yes we need to know who is here but other than that we need to welcome people who come to work or to start businesses. They add to our economy not distract from it. Only a fool would think 12 million working people is a drag on the economy.
(Of course if a recession gets deep enough you will not have to worry about too many more coming.)
