Armed illegals brazenly crossing the border

[Oldgringo]

Cambiar

Sad, really....

This may come as a latter day shock to some, but the REPUBS are just as much to blame as the DEMS. This border situation didn't start last week or even last year or the year before that. It's been going on for a long time and neither party dares to alienate this potentially huge block of voters.

SHAME! Let's fire 'em all and start over with term limits for all!

[Quahog]

This may come as a latter day shock to some, but the REPUBS are just as much to blame as the DEMS. This border situation didn't start last week or even last year or the year before that. It's been going on for a long time and neither party dares to alienate this potentially huge block of voters.

SHAME! Let's fire 'em all and start over with term limits for all!

but I also don't think the present-day Federal Govt is upholding the law of the land and securing our borders as they should. When we put politics before our nation's security, that's a bad thing.

[cougartex]

[wheelgun1958]

Si Se Puede!

Yes we can what?

Leave. Buh-bye!

[duns]

Common sense tells you that non-productive people, criminals, drug addicts and similar types of people would not contribute to prosperity no matter where they reside. And people dedicated to the overthrow of a country (such as the Mexican Reconquista movement - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reconquista_%28Mexico%29" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;) are clearly counterproductive.

You seem to be conflating immigrants with "non-productive people, criminals, drug addicts and similar". Most immigrants want to come to the USA because they subscribe to its principles of free enterprise. In other words, they just want a job in a better environment than they could have at home. And America needs their services. There is a shortage of people in the USA trained as engineers, doctors, scientists, etc. and a shortage of people to hang drywall, mow lawns, and clean houses. The number of people crossing the border who are criminals or terrorists is a tiny fraction of the total. That's why it doesn't make much sense to try to keep out the criminals and terrorists by closing the borders to everyone. Trying to shut all foreigners out, good and bad, is an impossible undertaking. Remember that all the 911 hijackers were here legally -- not one of them had to sneak in across the Rio Grande. If you are an Al Qaeda member not yet on the US watch list, you can fly in freely, with minimal formalities, as a tourist, a businessman, or a student. Or if you have a needed skill, you can obtain a work visa. Or if you have investments in the USA, you can obtain a visa to come here to manage your investments.

The "Open Borders crowd" as they were dismissively called want to take the pressure off the borders by allowing those who subscribe to US ideals and just want to better themselves to be able to come here legally. They argue for more and easier pathways for immigrants to come to the USA. Provide those pathways and the hordes crossing the Rio Grande will diminish to a trickle and most of that trickle will be bad guys that should indeed be intercepted by the border patrols, whose job will be made much easier if they don't have to intercept 1000 good guys to catch one bad guy.

Furthermore, to argue that companies can cross borders without restrictions, one has to ignore the many hurdles, both legal and illegal, that a company has to cross in order to establish a commercial presence in a country.

I do not know where you got the idea that there are many hurdles for a company to overcome to create a commercial presence in a country. When my UK-based company wanted a commercial presence in the USA, all we had to do was spend about $100 to register a US corporation. That was it. Nothing else. The process to start a US company is exactly the same for foreigners as for US citizens. No extra requirements whatsoever.

[OldCannon]

Most immigrants want to come to the USA because they subscribe to its principles of free enterprise. In other words, they just want a job in a better environment than they could have at home.

Glad you said "immigrants". Turns out, we have a system for that. Also turns out, we have millions of people south of the border that are contemptuous, deliberately or not, of that system. If we need to streamline that system, great. That doesn't justify illegal actions, and I certainly don't support any actions that coddle those that won't work with the system.

I do not know where you got the idea that there are many hurdles for a company to overcome to create a commercial presence in a country. When my UK-based company wanted a commercial presence in the USA, all we had to do was spend about $100 to register a US corporation. That was it. Nothing else. The process to start a US company is exactly the same for foreigners as for US citizens. No extra requirements whatsoever.

Your oversimplify the scenario, because the discussion is about immigration, not about what it takes to create a corporation in the US. A company in the UK can't start a new US corporation and then fly half their employees here to live and work without a due process, which requires visas and adherence to numerous immigration and importation laws. Of course, the laws are different in every country. Given the sympathetic picture you're painting, I'm assuming it's easy to create a company and send a whole bunch of US employees to Mexico to operate a business there. No, wait, their laws are even more restrictive. Perhaps you were citing some other model country whose example we should be following?

[pmacelad]

Saw that on Fox, need better control of that.

[5thGenTexan]

I am not against immigration as long as it is done in a LEGAL manner. Yes laws have changed over the years. It is not the easiest thing to stay within the law and come to the US on the cheap anymore. There is a sense of entitlement by the Mexican nationals to a right to invade the north in search of a better life Yes I know many good decent Mexican Americans that find their illeagal brethren and cousins from further south a bad deal. It depresses their wages as first and second generation citizens.

When my ancestors came over as immigrants from Germany, France, Holland, and the British Isles they came with the desire to live and worship in peace without having to answer to the crown or the Vatican. They all assimilated and learned a common language even the ones that were here long before the European onslaught I am a true American a mixture of the best sort, one that gives a little thought to my Native ancestors both tribes as well as the ones that arrived by boat to become farmers, lawyers, merchants, moonshining hillbilly's and above all Americans not hyphenated jerks.

Those here in violation of Federal statute should be expelled and placed at the bottom of any new Guest worker program. Anyone that wants a better life and has the skills needed and a desire to assimilate should be welcomed as our brothers, those that are trouble makers criminals should be turned away. May God bless the UNITED States of America, and have pity on the souls of those that would do her harm.

Immigration is necessary to fill certain jobs but the need of immigration is not a right to come here and be a divisive influence nor to make a new copy of what did not work in your old country.

[baldeagle]

Common sense tells you that non-productive people, criminals, drug addicts and similar types of people would not contribute to prosperity no matter where they reside. And people dedicated to the overthrow of a country (such as the Mexican Reconquista movement - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reconquista_%28Mexico%29" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;) are clearly counterproductive.

You seem to be conflating immigrants with "non-productive people, criminals, drug addicts and similar". Most immigrants want to come to the USA because they subscribe to its principles of free enterprise. In other words, they just want a job in a better environment than they could have at home. And America needs their services. There is a shortage of people in the USA trained as engineers, doctors, scientists, etc. and a shortage of people to hang drywall, mow lawns, and clean houses. The number of people crossing the border who are criminals or terrorists is a tiny fraction of the total. That's why it doesn't make much sense to try to keep out the criminals and terrorists by closing the borders to everyone. Trying to shut all foreigners out, good and bad, is an impossible undertaking. Remember that all the 911 hijackers were here legally -- not one of them had to sneak in across the Rio Grande. If you are an Al Qaeda member not yet on the US watch list, you can fly in freely, with minimal formalities, as a tourist, a businessman, or a student. Or if you have a needed skill, you can obtain a work visa. Or if you have investments in the USA, you can obtain a visa to come here to manage your investments.

Now you've completely distorted what I said. It's impossible to have a civil discussion with someone who misrepresents my position in order to make a point that they believe is valid.

So I won't engage in any further dialog with you.

[duns]

Glad you said "immigrants". Turns out, we have a system for that. Also turns out, we have millions of people south of the border that are contemptuous, deliberately or not, of that system. If we need to streamline that system, great. That doesn't justify illegal actions, and I certainly don't support any actions that coddle those that won't work with the system.

Yes, we need to streamline the immigration system then there won't be the need for fences along the borders. The people who cross the borders illegally in search of work are not "contemptuous" of the system, as you put it, but frustrated by the restrictions.

I do not know where you got the idea that there are many hurdles for a company to overcome to create a commercial presence in a country. When my UK-based company wanted a commercial presence in the USA, all we had to do was spend about $100 to register a US corporation. That was it. Nothing else. The process to start a US company is exactly the same for foreigners as for US citizens. No extra requirements whatsoever.

Your oversimplify the scenario, because the discussion is about immigration, not about what it takes to create a corporation in the US. A company in the UK can't start a new US corporation and then fly half their employees here to live and work without a due process, which requires visas and adherence to numerous immigration and importation laws.

As I showed, there are zero hurdles to a foreign company forming a US-registered corporation. Having done that, they have the choice of recruiting US-born labor or obtaining visas for foreign labor - same is true for a corporation formed by US citizens. So no difference.

Now we are getting to the crux of the matter: there are hurdles to bringing in foreign labor and the hurdles are the same irrespective of whether the company is owned by US citizens or by foreigners. As a capitalist country, one would have thought that the US would allow the markets to determine how many workers are US-born and how many foreign-born. But that is not the case. Instead, many hurdles are placed on employers if they want to recruit foreigners. We see, for example, Congress placing arbitrary caps on the numbers of H1B visas that can be issued to highly skilled workers. Government fees and associated red tape make hiring foreigners more expensive than hiring natives. And foreigners cannot be paid less than natives - visa regulations require prevailing wage rates and benefits to be provided to foreigners. Do you think that employers would go to all that trouble and expense if they could hire Americans to fill the positions? This supports my original point that trade flows freely across the borders but labor does not, and free-market principles should also allow labor to flow freely across the borders.

[duns]

Now you've completely distorted what I said. It's impossible to have a civil discussion with someone who misrepresents my position in order to make a point that they believe is valid

If I misunderstood you, please explain how.

[duns]

I am not against immigration as long as it is done in a LEGAL manner. Yes laws have changed over the years. It is not the easiest thing to stay within the law and come to the US on the cheap anymore.

The point is: there should be more LEGAL pathways to immigration. It's impossible to enforce the current immigration restrictions just as it was impossible to enforce prohibition. Like prohibition, immigration controls create opportunities for gangsters and smugglers. In any case, America needs more workers -- let they come provided they have no criminal record.

There is a sense of entitlement by the Mexican nationals to a right to invade the north in search of a better life

"Invade" is too emotive. I would have said they are showing initiative. Bear in mind that illegal entry is not a crime -- it is a civil offense similar to a traffic infraction. Do you break the speed limit when you think (a) it will do no one else any harm and (b) you have a good chance of getting away with it? I would suggest that is the mindset of the typical illegal immigrant -- they don't see their actions as hurting anyone and they feel they have a good chance of getting away with it. Indeed, on balance, their actions don't hurt but bring net benefits to the US economy.

Those here in violation of Federal statute should be expelled and placed at the bottom of any new Guest worker program.

I understand that there are about 12 million of them here most filling low-skilled jobs that Americans don't want. Can you imagine what damage it would do to the economy if they were all expelled? How many years would it take to bring in 12 million more under the new Guest Worker program? Would the quality of people be any different under the new program be any different to the people you have just expelled?

[jester]

"Invade" is too emotive. I would have said they are showing initiative.

Much like the Germans in the previous century.

[The Annoyed Man]

You seem to be conflating immigrants with "non-productive people, criminals, drug addicts and similar". Most immigrants want to come to the USA because they subscribe to its principles of free enterprise. In other words, they just want a job in a better environment than they could have at home. And America needs their services. There is a shortage of people in the USA trained as engineers, doctors, scientists, etc. and a shortage of people to hang drywall, mow lawns, and clean houses. The number of people crossing the border who are criminals or terrorists is a tiny fraction of the total. That's why it doesn't make much sense to try to keep out the criminals and terrorists by closing the borders to everyone. Trying to shut all foreigners out, good and bad, is an impossible undertaking. Remember that all the 911 hijackers were here legally -- not one of them had to sneak in across the Rio Grande. If you are an Al Qaeda member not yet on the US watch list, you can fly in freely, with minimal formalities, as a tourist, a businessman, or a student. Or if you have a needed skill, you can obtain a work visa. Or if you have investments in the USA, you can obtain a visa to come here to manage your investments.

The percentage of illegal aliens who are otherwise not engaged in criminal behaviors is irrelevant, because they are still engaged in the law-breaking behavior of entering the country illegally. The charge that those of us who want to control the border are bigoted against immigrants is an insupportable charge, and it is a red herring argument because it has nothing to do with wanting to control the border. It is the intellectual brother of "playing the race card" whenever there exists no other substantive argument to offer, and I resent the heck out of it.

I love immigrants. My own mother is an immigrant. However, she came here legally. She is, by the way, a holder of a PhD, Summa Cum Laude, from the Sorbonne, and has published 14 books, and was a professor at Caltech until her retirement.... ....AND, she came here legally. And even so, she was nearly denied re-entry to the country once, and nearly deported another time — despite the fact that she had been married to an American citizen for years, had given birth to three American sons, and had never knowingly broken any laws. Fortunately for our family, the worst did not happen, and we remained united as a family. Even so, I bear no hard feelings about it because my government was doing its job!!!

Nobody denies the need for brick-layers and ditch-diggers anymore than they deny the need for chemical engineers and doctors (particularly now, since so many of our own doctors are being driven out of the medical profession by the communist occupying the White House, and his dogs in the Senate and House leadership). But you know as well as I do that the ditch-diggers and brick-layers could go through the legal process of entry just like anyone else, if they wanted to. They just don't want to, because it is "too hard." It requires some kind of accountability on their parts, and they don't want to have that burden. So, they break the law because it is inconvenient for them.

And by the way, the 19 hijackers may have entered legally (although it was later shown that they lied on their visa applications and to immigration interviewers about their purposes for entering the country), but they stayed here illegally after their entry visas had expired. They just hadn't been caught up with for several reasons, among which were a feckless disregard by the national government for enforcing existing laws.

I'm not one of those who says we have to round up everybody and put them in concentration camps until we deport them. But I do believe that the national authority has a moral responsibility to protect the integrity of its borders; and once that has been accomplished, then to account for and deal equitably with those who are already here. Some will have to be deported because they are by any rational measure undesirable. Others will have to be put on some kind of path to legal residency, and if they wish to earn it, citizenship. And this should not be without consequence, because there remains the fact that they broke the law to enter, and there should be, at the very least, a fine levied for doing so; and it should be paid before they can be allowed to get onto a path for legal residency.

And, by the way, this is a far more lenient approach than Mexico's own immigration policy.

[The Annoyed Man]

double post deleted