Dealing with nasty US immigration

[Forks]

All this security is coz the US is s**t scared of everyone else getting in doing something wrong which makes me laugh coz the worst offenders are already in and running the country.

[sundaymorningstaple]

Turns out that none of my golf clubs were explosive.

So I've been told!

It was a cheap shot but it was a perfect lie, so I just had to chip it in.........

[maneo]

SE,
Seems you have so many clowns in the US maybe you could start a circus.

It already is a circus.

[durain]

if american are having such a bad time getting back into their own country, what chance has an "ethnic minority" stand?

[Strong Eagle]

if american are having such a bad time getting back into their own country, what chance has an "ethnic minority" stand?

Current immigration policy is so pathetic that if I wanted to bring my Filipina maid to the US for a vacation with me, they would not grant her a visa to enter the country. The reasoning is as follows:

a) Even though she came with me she might decide to overstay her visa and not go back.
b) It would be illegal for me to hold her passport under US law.
c) Her lower income/education would make her a prime candidate to overstay.
d) Therefore, no visa.

Just stupid, stupid, stupid. Lots more stupids as well. Like Palestinian kids who won scholarships to US universities who were not granted student visas because they come from a terrorist country (Thank gawd this one was overturned).

[Turtle]

What seems stupid to me (I may be misinformed, if so please let me know) is how the policy isn't the least bit co-ordinated. I mean sure, if people want to keep illegal immigrants out at all costs, I can understand why they would refuse to grant visas to the Filipino maid or whoever. I don't agree with it, but it makes some sense if that's their goal. What I really don't understand is how basically anyone from Mexico can just run in (or so I'm told). How Texas and other southern states are chock full of illegals and no one does anything. How anyone who escapes from Cuba and gets one foot on US soil is allowed to stay for good right away. Why spend so many resources now, instead of lifting a finger to take care of what's already happened? What's one Filipino maid when there are so many there already that everyone just turns a blind eye to? That's what doesn't make sense to me.

[sundaymorningstaple]

What seems stupid to me (I may be misinformed, if so please let me know) is how the policy isn't the least bit co-ordinated. I mean sure, if people want to keep illegal immigrants out at all costs, I can understand why they would refuse to grant visas to the Filipino maid or whoever. I don't agree with it, but it makes some sense if that's their goal. What I really don't understand is how basically anyone from Mexico can just run in (or so I'm told). How Texas and other southern states are chock full of illegals and no one does anything. How anyone who escapes from Cuba and gets one foot on US soil is allowed to stay for good right away. Why spend so many resources now, instead of lifting a finger to take care of what's already happened? What's one Filipino maid when there are so many there already that everyone just turns a blind eye to? That's what doesn't make sense to me.

We are taking lessons from Singaporeans!

It's "Pragmatic" to let mexicans in just like malaysians here. They work cheap so it's good for the bottom line. If they throw them out it would be like throwing out all the foreign construction workers here. The net effect would be to bring a lot of farming industry in those areas to a standstill.

[Strong Eagle]

There is 3,000 miles of border between Texas and Mexico, much of it in very remote places. Even with the stepped up enforcement which costs billions of dollars, the border is still porous. Where fences have been constructed, they have been climbed over, dug under, torched through. Then there is the 1,000's of miles of coastline where it is nearly impossible to track every small boat coming in.

So, the problem of stopping illegal immigration is one of scale. The federal government already spends billions catching and sending illegals back... so that they can come back over again.

The fact is that this is an economic problem and will not be cured until the fundamental economics change. Employers must be heavily penalized for employing illegals, and must pay prevailing wages if some sort of labor program is implemented. Mexico need help to build its own infrastructure and jobs. Of course, the US is sort of helping here... because so many illegals have been arrested on the border farms, the farmers have leased land in Mexico, where the same workers are not illegal. So, the US has lost its own farming business due to misdirected policy.

[Jeppo]

There is 3,000 miles of border between Texas and Mexico,

3,000 miles? According to http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/U.S.-Mexico_border the total length of the border between the U.S. and Mexico is only 1,969 miles. And from http://www.mapcrow.info/Distance_betwee ... es_US.html the distance from NY to LA is only 2443 miles.

Love to know where you got that figure from.

[Strong Eagle]

Turns out that none of my golf clubs were explosive.

So I've been told!

It was a cheap shot but it was a perfect lie, so I just had to chip it in.........

With jokes that bad you're disqualified from further play!

[Strong Eagle]

There is 3,000 miles of border between Texas and Mexico,

3,000 miles? According to http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/U.S.-Mexico_border the total length of the border between the U.S. and Mexico is only 1,969 miles. And from http://www.mapcrow.info/Distance_betwee ... es_US.html the distance from NY to LA is only 2443 miles.

Love to know where you got that figure from.

My bad. 2,000 miles, then. Still a lot of border, more than the approximately 120 miles of coastline that Singapore has to defend.

[Plavt]

a) Even though she came with me she might decide to overstay her visa and not go back.

c) Her lower income/education would make her a prime candidate to overstay.

That's rich when as Turtle mentions there are so many there already working for low wages and not particularly well treated by their American employers.

[Turtle]

What seems stupid to me (I may be misinformed, if so please let me know) is how the policy isn't the least bit co-ordinated. I mean sure, if people want to keep illegal immigrants out at all costs, I can understand why they would refuse to grant visas to the Filipino maid or whoever. I don't agree with it, but it makes some sense if that's their goal. What I really don't understand is how basically anyone from Mexico can just run in (or so I'm told). How Texas and other southern states are chock full of illegals and no one does anything. How anyone who escapes from Cuba and gets one foot on US soil is allowed to stay for good right away. Why spend so many resources now, instead of lifting a finger to take care of what's already happened? What's one Filipino maid when there are so many there already that everyone just turns a blind eye to? That's what doesn't make sense to me.

We are taking lessons from Singaporeans!

It's "Pragmatic" to let mexicans in just like malaysians here. They work cheap so it's good for the bottom line. If they throw them out it would be like throwing out all the foreign construction workers here. The net effect would be to bring a lot of farming industry in those areas to a standstill.

Right, so my question is why sweep it under the rug? I mean, from what I gather, nobody really enforces the law, so why not make legal immigration easier? I'm not saying immigration is bad, I'm saying why are they pretending to care enough to spend thousands checking everyone who flies in to make sure they won't overstay, and basically care nothing about all of those who have either entered illegally or overstayed? If the USA needs the workers, then why not set up a system where they can reasonably work legally?

[sundaymorningstaple]

El Presidente Fox isn't interested in becoming our 51st State apparently.

[Strong Eagle]

Right, so my question is why sweep it under the rug? I mean, from what I gather, nobody really enforces the law, so why not make legal immigration easier? I'm not saying immigration is bad, I'm saying why are they pretending to care enough to spend thousands checking everyone who flies in to make sure they won't overstay, and basically care nothing about all of those who have either entered illegally or overstayed? If the USA needs the workers, then why not set up a system where they can reasonably work legally?

Because there are a lot of stupid Americans who cannot seem to think clearly on the immigration issue.

a) We've got a bunch of right wingers, convinced that God created the USA for whites and English, never mind the millions of persons of Mexican heritage that have been in the US for generations. Just no way in hell that Mexicans should be allowed to come in, legal or illegal, because the country will just go to hell in a handbasket with all them 'Meskins' taking over.

b) You've got the unions convinced that there is no way that illegal labor should be made legal because it would hurt union members. In part, cheap illegal labor has hurt blue collar wages but these guys miss the boat. Legal labor could be represented by a union. But no way to legal status.

c) You've got clowns who simply want to round up all 11 to 13 million illegals in the country, not recognizing or accepting that such a move would be incredibly expensive, would turn the US into a police state, and would not work.

d) You've got the large employers of illegals who really are quite fine with the situation as it stands. They get cheap labor, not subject to most labor laws or wage laws. So what if they get busted once in a while... they pay a minimal fine are are back in business with the next truckload in from Mexico.

Bush, in one of the extremely few times he ever displayed any common sense, put forth a 3 prong immigration bill:

a) Increased enforcement activities along the border to stem the flow of illegal immigrants.

b) A work permit program that would give legal status to workers without giving them any citizenship rights and much tougher penalties for employers for hiring non permitted workers.

c) A 10 year path to citizenship for the millions already here, often with US born children who are citizens.

Here's what happened:

a) The unions went apesh*t because "the Mexicans would be stealing American jobs." Barrack Obama proposed an amendment that would force employers to pay the same wages to Mexicans as to Americans, saying this would protect Amercian wages from being undercut. The unions went crazy over this: Now the problem is that Obama was suggesting that Mexicans be paid the same wages as Americans. No way!

b) The right wing went apesh*t because those lawbreaking immigrants had a way to citizenship, and no law breaker should ever be rewarded. Just round 'em up was there answer. Further, the 'great wall of China' they wanted constructed along the 2,000 mile border wasn't going to happen.

c) The bleeding heart left wing went apesh*t over the idea of second class non-citizens who could be removed from the country, so they opposed the whole idea of work permits in general.

d) The companies went apesh*t, calling their Congress critters to tell them that costs of everyting would go up, that they didn't want to do all the paperwork.

The end result: Both the Democrats and Republicans got hit by several of their constituent groups and neither had the guts to tough it out and put something in place. Instead, we got one idiotic bill out of Congress to improve border security. It has been an abject failure from the word go. The idiots running Homeland Security have botched it from the beginning ($20 million on a 'virtual' fence from Boeing that never worked, fences that are now tipping over) and huge opposition from many border communities who depend on the daily flow of traffic across the border (legal and illegal) that Homeland chooses to ignore.

Note that not one of the interest groups that went apesh*t actually had an alternative plan to solve the problem. So, we end up doing nothing. Figure out how to convince these groups and we'll get legislation of some kind. Meanwhile:

a) Mexicans (and others) are exploited
b) Americans pay a price because illegals can't get a license or insurance so uninsured accidents are becoming a major problem.
c) Driving off illegal workers from agri business is not causing the businesses to hire American workers (Amercians don't want to do the sh*t work involved) but what it is doing is driving the businesses to Mexico.