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"burdens in time and money required to get a DMV ID"

Especially if you're an illegal immigrant, don't have a birth certificate or a SS id card. Those are a hassle to come by dishonestly. Thankfully there's states that don't have such requirements, and you can find them here on this handy map.

"they really want to vote but can't afford $20 for an ID" doesn't really fly when the ID's are free. You'd think not being able to do all the things that having an ID is required for just for daily life would be a motivating factor, but noooo. We have to play the "non whites are just too poor and disadvantaged to have one" while accusing the other side of racism. It's so fucking illogical it makes my head hurt.

Long-standing court precedent is that the Constitution only applies to U.S. soil. That's why Bush put a prison in Guantanamo Bay - it's not U.S. soil, it's Cuban soil. He was hoping to avoid that little complication of prisoners from Iraq and Afghanistan being shielded by the Constitution because they'd been brought to the U.S. That's also why INS can search your baggage and computer at the border - until you're admitted to the U.S. you're not considered to be on U.S. soil.

So while it's disappointing that the SCotUS didn't take this case, it's not surprising. From their perspective, these other countries willingly handed the U.S. Federal government Kim Dotcom's assets and money. It has nothing to do with the U.S. court system. He is not a U.S. citizen, he doesn't live in the U.S., and the seizures and forfeitures did not happen on U.S. soil.

OP is incorrect that the Constitution only applies to U.S. citizens. The moment a non-citizen crosses onto U.S. soil, even if they do so illegally, they are protected by the Constitution. In fact, due to the bad aftertaste of the three-fifths compromise, non-citizens (legal and illegal) are counted as part of a state's population when determining how many Representatives in the House that state gets. That's right - each 750,000 extra illegal aliens = 1 more Representative in the House (they're distributed pretty evenly across blue and red states at the moment so it doesn't skew politics too badly).

Why do you think that everyone would just come to the US? More Mexicans are leaving the country than entering it for the last couple years.

Waves of illegal aliens IS a national security matter.

The "waves of illegal aliens" ended more than a decade ago. Net immigration from Mexico is near zero.

More Mexicans leaving than coming to the US

You should stop getting your news from Breitbart.

Obama didn't change the reporting, he changed the policy on how people are returned to Mexico. The numbers are still counted the same way as before, but what happens to illegal immigrants has changed.

None of this changes the fact that I posted that illegal immigration of Mexicans is either net zero or negative.

Even if you somehow get the US public to support it then you create a latino terrorist problem and make the US into an international pariah.

I don't agree with your conclusion. You clearly don't agree with mine.

What I haven't heard is another solution, because it is easy to attack someone else who has a plan, it is far harder to come up with your own plan and put it out there.

I submit that the current situation cannot continue and has to be stopped, or we'll no longer have a country. At least not a great one.

What is your solution to stopping illegal border crossings?

1) I disagree the current situation cannot continue. You'll still have a country, it will be somewhat more latino but it will still be a country. That's not to say it's an ideal situation, but I submit that it's better than the outcome you propose.

2) If you do want to reduce the current situation then you can step up current enforcement and make it harder to employ illegal immigrants.

This isn't a futile endeavour, the recession triggered a decline in illegal immigration and actually caused some to return. There's no reason to think you couldn't create enough incentives to stop the net immigration.

3) If you're really serious about stopping immigration you can build the wall and pay for it yourself as conservatives have suggested for ages. This talk about having Mexico pay for it is just bizarre, the US has more money and is the one who's most concerned about it, why is it Mexico's responsibility to protect your border?

I readily agree that there's potential for confusion on the interpretation of the definitions, and it seems some numbers simply don't add up when multiple sources are considered. I'm keenly interested to see what I can do to get clarification on the data, and preferably access to raw data (presumably anonymized/scrubbed). Likewise, I don't have a firm explanation for the drop in vaccinations rates in 2013. The WHO 2013 data is listed as provisional of course, but given the tendency toward the fastest reporting coming from the most heavily populated/metropolitan areas in any given nation, I'm not anticipating a serious shift in the percentiles by the next update period.

I've lived in multiple U.S. cities with large Hispanic populations and also recall a positive attitude toward immunization in those communities. As you noted, upper-middle to upper class white families are indeed disproportionately likely to avoid vaccines in some areas. I happen to strongly disagree with their views, especially given the fact that I have a family of my own whose health matters immensely to me. The harm caused to communities caused by avoiding vaccinations is undeniable.

With specific regard to the drop in Mexican stats, I can't help but wonder if anti-vaccine fear-mongering has gained a stronger foothold in the country, although I certainly can't speak directly to that. There may be other factors as well; perhaps policies of the Enrique Peña Nieto administration (assumed office in 2012) are pertinent, or maybe large-scale destabilization associated with cartel activity has made a difference. This is simple speculation; I honestly have no idea why it's happening. I do note that in 2012, approximately 6.05 million Mexican unauthorized immigrants were residing in the United States, and the previously seen recession trend of declining Mexican illegal immigration appears to have reversed after 2010.

Seeing as how net immigrant to Mexico fell to zero last year, wouldn't that mean record low levels of measles if the illegal immigrants were really bring them in?

About the voter registration: http://tinyurl.com/7y484fn
Mexico has about 95% of eligible voters on the registry (US is 66% at best), not as good as other countries, but it's not mandatory or enforced by any government agency. Argentina has a 100%, but their ID practices would be considered fascist by US standards.

Second generation Mexican-Americans have an average of 4 more years of school than their parents. http://www.pewhispanic.org/ is an excellent source for statistics about Hispanics in the US.

Being the state tied for second as having the greatest percentage of illegal immigrants (and second in raw numbers) might have some bearing on those statistics.
PewResearch

First, that poverty line INCLUDES ALL PPL LIVING HERE.

Right, that's why I was looking at what proportion of the 39 million might be illegal immigrants.

Second, most of the #s for illegals in the states show 15-30 million, not the low 11 million that you claim.

What's your source for that? I was drawing my number from an NYT article, but it seems consistent with numbers from other sources. It does look like these higher numbers are claimed out there (I actually haven't found anything much higher than 20 million, though), but they seem to be the outliers not the consensus estimate.

When you can not check the legal status of a person, then the law is worthless (and the dems know that). All that is required is to simply require hospitals to call in ICE for every person that does not have insurance or public options, and require a legality check on ppl signing up for public options...

I think maybe you're conflating two different issues. 1) Can illegal immigrants get emergency medical care at the hospital. 2) Can they get federal help on paying for insurance. The current bill does not affect question #1. Illegal immigrants will be able to get emergency care after the bill is passed only to the degree they could before. Also it's estimated that about 1/2 of illegal immigrants have health insurance, and could presumably already pay for their care. So issue #1 is a red herring. One point #2, though, the bill says that illegal immigrants can't get aid for buying health insurance and says that enforcement measures should be setup.

ANY reform on medical costs is worth it. several OB-GYN and and an anesthesiologist that I know (none with any previous issues) are paying over 100K/year for malpractice. That is outrageous.

I'm saying that research says it will not significantly, so it's not relevant to this discussion. It's another red herring.