Immigration: Paying the Price for Following the Law

[Rufus T. Firefly]

Good point.

[DinoDoc]

Originally posted by Kuciwalker
And enforcing the law is an absurd proposition in the first place. How do you propose we deport 10 million people?

By punishing employers.

Originally posted by Rufus T. Firefly
Amnesty, not for all illegals but for all illegals with jobs, is one such sensible solution.

We tried that already, did we not? It only led us to the mess we're in now. A better solution would the Senate bill from last year that required somesort of penalty from the people here now and set up a guest worker program (with a path toward citizenship) so people don't have to cross illeglly in the first place. I'd also try putting pressure on the Mexican government to improve its economy so it wouldn't have to continue exporting a slave class of people to the US in order to alleviate social ills.

If the Democratic Congress ever finds time between failing to pass meaningless resolutions and whining about Bush, maybe they could try reviving it.

[Arrian]

Amnesty as THE PLAN won't work. Amnesty as part of a full overhaul of our immigration policy & enforcement would make sense.

And the bit about pressuring Mexico to have a better economy is pretty funny. What can we really do?

-Arrian

[DinoDoc]

1) I don't think amnesty makes sense either as a stand alone plan or as part of one.

2) Re pressuring Mexico to make reforms: We have a big stick in terms of our relationship with them. I don't have an idea on what concrete steps we could take if that is what you are asking. But doing nothing about the basket case on our border millions of people would risk their lives to be slaves here rather than stay in Mexico doesn't seem to be a viable solution either.

[Arrian]

Fair enough.

-Arrian

[Kuciwalker]

Originally posted by DinoDoc
By punishing employers.

And that will just transport them all over the border? Not having a job in the US is probably better than not having a job in Mexico, and now we have millions more people who consume some resources and contribute none. And AFAIK the law isn't currently set up so that we can easily punish employers anyway - and if we're changing immigration law we should be loosening it, not tightening it.

We tried that already, did we not?

We didn't do the other part, opening up our immigration laws.

[Kuciwalker]

The point remains that any plan with its goal as transporting 10 million people back to Mexico either won't work or will result in a gross violation of human rights.

[Arrian]

Yep, there really isn't any way around that. You either do mass deportations (and even if you manage to avoid "human rights violations" deporting 10 million people would be hugely expensive) or you crack down on employers w/o doing the deportations and the result is a ton of now unemployed illegals who are... still here.

Get them on the grid, change the laws so they make more sense, and use both carrot and stick. All stick and no carrot makes Jose a dull boy...

-Arrian

[MichaeltheGreat]

Originally posted by Straybow

And northern coastal LA County homeonwers don't quite equate to "liberal weenies" - that's more the Hollywood set, but there are plenty of dyed-in-the-wool conservatives in the coastal white belt of LA - especially those old enough/affluent enough to own homes there. Ken Starr, anyone?

Still, those homeowners are willing to pay 5 times as much for their homes as folks in proverbial Peoria pay for the same thing. But in they're too cheap to pay a few extra bucks an hour to get the grass cut. Figures.

a) A lot of them had those homes before the latest insane runup.

b) A lot of them are leveraged to the hilt and tight on funds if they were dumb enough to buy when the prices have run up.

c) There's more of a market for near-coastal properties in good climates than there is for proverbial Peoria. I can buy one of my family's homes (Aunt moved out as she can't live on her own anymore) in Louisa, KY, for about 60,000. 50 years from now, the market value will be about 60,000. Can't say the same about anywhere in southern Cal.

[MichaeltheGreat]

Originally posted by DinoDoc
By punishing employers.

Been tried, briefly, during the Reagan admin. All it was for us was joke-level harassment, although I almost got arrested, having a little discussion with an INS type that we did not have a business "open to the public" except in the enclosed lobby, and I didn't give a flying **** what the Congress or Reagan admin or Ed Meese thought, the Fourth Amendment hadn't yet been revoked.

The basic gist was that they thought they were entitled to enter, walk around, point out a brown person here or there and ask for proof of documentation of right to work.

The policy lasted less than a year, IIRC, because all sorts of employers yanked their lobbyists' chains to remind the folks in DC who really runs the ****ing country.

Simple fact is, nobody in power wants employer sanctions.

We tried that already, did we not? It only led us to the mess we're in now. A better solution would the Senate bill from last year that required somesort of penalty from the people here now and set up a guest worker program (with a path toward citizenship) so people don't have to cross illeglly in the first place. I'd also try putting pressure on the Mexican government to improve its economy so it wouldn't have to continue exporting a slave class of people to the US in order to alleviate social ills.

There's no amount of pressure that can be put on the "Mexican government" such as it is, because it doesn't run the economy. We can ask nicely, but the fact is any actual pressure that has an adverse effect will make things worse, not better, and the issues down there are so deep rooted and structural that they won't change in a hundred years.

Besides, the simple fact is that we like having the cheap labor to exploit.

[Kuciwalker]

Besides, the simple fact is that we like having the cheap labor to exploit.

[Caligastia]

Originally posted by MichaeltheGreat
I can buy one of my family's homes (Aunt moved out as she can't live on her own anymore) in Louisa, KY, for about 60,000. 50 years from now, the market value will be about 60,000. Can't say the same about anywhere in southern Cal.

Sounds like a fantastic deal! I'd say go for it!

[Rufus T. Firefly]

Originally posted by Caligastia


Sounds like a fantastic deal! I'd say go for it!

Unfortunately, I did. I bought a house in Pittsburgh in 1998, and -- in the biggest boom real estate market in US history -- sold it last year for a whopping 15% more than I paid.

[Kuciwalker]

Does that even cover inflation...?

[Rufus T. Firefly]

On its face, no. We only eked out a profit thanks to the built-up equity and the money we made renting it out.