This issue is drawing a lot of attention.

Link



To be debated:

Are the tougher immigration laws under consideration at the Federal and state levels a good or bad idea?

Personally I'd like to see the tough laws against the businesses and people that help illegal immigrants and not so much against the immigrants.

As an aside, I think these protests will actually foment a backlash against their cause. It angers me a lot to see 1/2 million people with Mexican flags in the US demanding they be allowed to come in illegally. This is not Mexico and if you love Mexico so much....why not go back??

If you love Mexico so much, why are you fighting to be here? If you can't embrace the US flag, the english language and the US, don't come here....and leave now.

I think people who are native born Americans are fed up with the two-language option that is permeatting society because a group of people in this country can't speak the native tongue.

And personally it seems very much like slowly but surely Mexico is annexing the southwest. How soon before Spanish is the official language of Texas, New MExico, Arizona, etc.?

These laws may hurt the wrong people, but IMHO illegals must go. I don't buy the idea that our economy will collapse. That's hogwash. We are awash in poor uneduacted people, we don't need any more.

And more important, we don't need high concentrations of people who won't speak English. I work taking phone calls and I get a ton of calls from "uh speaka spanish" or not even an attempt to speak english "espanol?".

I don't like this at all. It's not really an issue of racism, IMHO. "Hispanics" are only outsiders because of their culture, not their race. They're no different racially than a Greek or Italian, or any other European really.

Once assimilated to American culture, hispanics are not any different culturally or racially than the rest of "white america".

It's the culture that I would prefer doesn't fester. Poor neighborhoods across the US that only speak spanish are not something I want to see.

Are the tougher immigration laws under consideration at the Federal and state levels a good or bad idea?

First of all, just to avoid a possible misleading impression from that question the way it's worded, it should be emphasized that these are not tougher laws to make it harder to enter the country legally. These are laws that simply provide more sanctions and enforcement of existing laws. And overall, I agree with them. We need to get that border under control.

I can sympathize with the aliens who are caught up in this plight, but this is not the solution. The solution has to be for Mexico to reform itself. As long as it can use our border as a pressure valve and our country as a dumping ground, it will have no incentive to do so.

I would have to say yes. We have to get our boarder under control. I would support tougher immigration laws especially when balanced with opening the door for more legal immigrants to come in the US with english language lessions to go with it. I would rather have a whole bunch of legal immigrants than the same number of illegals, but I have nothing personal against Mexicans in general.

Where did you see this? On the news I saw images of Hispanics (I’m assuming legals joined the illegals in a show of solidarity) waving the U.S. flag and slogans like “America Built By Immigrants.”


I understand why it's necessary for immigrants to assimilate and speak the language, but what do you find objectionable about Hispanic culture to describe its growing influence as having the same utility as an ulcer or a poison?

Language issue aside, do you think there ought to be some sort of minimum income threshold to immigrate to or even live in the U.S. if you’re a citizen?

Are the tougher immigration laws under consideration at the Federal and state levels a good or bad idea?
I’ve got nothing against it as long as they fund these measures and tone down the rhetoric from both sides. McCain is backing Bush in hopes of carrying Bush’s backers for his presidential war chest, other Republicans are chest-thumping for their own campaigns, and Hillary is the newest and most prominent politician to join the “you can defend/attack any position using Jesus” crowd:


How droll.

I don’t hold out hope that they will be thinking of this in terms of what is best for the country so much as what is best for their reelection chances. The only item I’ve read about that gives me pause is speeding up deportation. I wouldn’t approve it without judicial oversight for reasons covered in this thread and this post.

That statement seems ironic considering how we acquired these states in the first place.

Anyway, to address the OP, I agree with the general idea, but not entirely with the details. The worst idea, in my opinion, is the fences along the border. I think it's a waste of money (here's a BBC article, it's a bit dated, but it claims the cost of a fence along the entirety of the border would cost $8 billion, and a third of that is still quite a substantial sum). The cost and effectiveness of the fences make them questionable at best.

As for denying state services to illegal immigrants, I think that is fair. Why should we be encouraging illegal immigration like this, especially when there are legal citizens who could use these programs?

Of course they are a “good idea” if they are actually implemented. That means we secure the darn border before we do anything else that would draw more illegal aliens into the US. The mess from the 1980s is a perfect example of how NOT to do it.

Congress granted amnesty to 2,000,000 people and promised to stem the tide across the border. Instead they did not do that so we now have another 10,000,000 here illegally and it will only get worse.

I trust our Politicians will do the same half edited to remove profanity job again. Meanwhile millions of jobs that Americans could and would do go to Illegal aliens at a lower wage. How the idiots in Congress can feel good about this is beyond me. Teddy K is the worst hypocrite. He is trying to make working people believe this is good for them??? Typical double talk from this perennial liar.

You're in luck. You can vote against Edward M. Kennedy in his next Senatorial campaign.

Meanwhile I think you are signaling him out unfairly with your stream of vitriol.

Kennedy's position is the same as that of George w. Bush and John McCain. Here's a bit from Bloomberg News.



http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=100...JeYQ48&refer=us

Maybe yes, maybe no, we'll have to see the result. More importantly that new laws are really not necessary (hence the name "illegal aliens"), all we would have to do in enforce the existing ones.

Congress is there to pass laws, and they take great joy in doing it when it's popular at home. They can all go home on recess and thump their chests and tell everyone how tough they are on border control. I think that this is an equal-opportunity failure, Dems and Reps should both hold their heads in shame. It didn't start yesterday, but will be here tomorrow unless we take enforcement seriously.

Well there is no reason to change what laws we have. We just need the Senate to press for enforcement of the laws we have. The bill that the Senate is pushing is Amensty. Plus after reading this. I read what Dewine is a sponser of which is added to the McCain?Kennedy amensty.

http://www.alipac.us/index.php


Edit to conform to the forum Rules. -Amlord

Here’s one story.


After reading this I though back to the first post 9/11 US/Mexico national team soccer match held in Azteca Stadium, Mexico City. The fans ungraciously chanting “Osama, Osama, Osama”, what splendid neighbors. I’m not trying to throw all illegal’s into the ‘dissing America” bucket, but to think they all cross the borders and fill themselves with American pride is fools gold.

And I think that’s where the difference lies with past floods of immigrants. History tells us that the huge waves of immigrants immediately assimilated into melting pot, holding their native heritage secondary to their new found one.

I read this years ago and it’s making the rounds on various talk shows and blogs. It’s a quote by Theodore Roosevelt made in 1919 and sums up my feelings to a tee:

The fact that so many Mexican flags were being waved in recent protests has become a lightening rod on the talk shows from both sides of the isle. And rightfully so.

Are the tougher immigration laws under consideration at the Federal and state levels a good or bad idea?

It’s certainly a good start. I’m not keen on the idea of making it a felon to come here illegally. Those crossing the border already know they’re breaking the law. Making it a felon will probably do little to stem the tide since most speak very little English and I’d assume that most wouldn’t know what a felon is or the implications.

I’m curious if the intent behind making it a felon is the loss of voting privileges which would lessen the potential fallout at the voting booths if the chicken hearted politicians finally get off their cans to enact real change.

I like the idea of a wall on the border, something has to stop the physical flow, making it against the law, felon or not, isn’t affective. However I’d take a different approach: half the cost of the wall would come out of the billions we annually give to Mexico.

I’d take this one step further and make English the official language and similar to Reagans “amnesty” program in the 80’s I’d tie English proficiency into citizenship requirements and/or guest worker programs. A bilingual society is inherently economically inefficient. If we allow entire regions of this country to become predominantly Spanish speaking I could imagine the next step would be annexation from the States (witness the predominantly French speaking province of Quebec attempting to succeed from Canada).

You are correct. The idiots in MA have been trying to pass a bill to give in state rates to illegal aliens for years. It gets vetoed by our Republican governor every time. This year they idiots got hammered by letters from citizens and that changed the vote. The moron who represents me answered my protest letter this way.

She favored the bill because the kids had all gone to grammar and high school in MA and she felt they should be given the right for low cost college as well. This stupid line of garbage is typical of liberal MA politicians. As every city is forced to consider millions for bigger schools our “representatives” feel ok with teaching illegal aliens kids. They are not at all upset that the illegal aliens have been here for years and never ever have they considered apprehending them and sending them home. In fact, until we got Republican governors MA was a have for illegal aliens from Central America who knew they could arrive here on Monday and be collecting welfare be Wednesday.