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National ID May Have Killed Immigration Bill
News.com reports that the immigration reform bill bouncing around in the Senate for the last few weeks has finally been defeated. The site speculates that, perhaps, one of the reasons it was finally defeated was a measure intended to expand the use of Real ID cards. If passed, the bill would have effectively turned the Real ID system into a National ID card. "The American Civil Liberties Union, another longtime foe of Real ID, said the Real ID requirements were a 'poison pill that derailed this bill, and any future legislation should be written knowing the American people won't swallow it.' Another section of the immigration bill would have given $1.5 billion to state officials to pay for Real ID compliance. Even if the immigration bill is goes nowhere, however, the Real ID Act is still in effect. It says, starting on May 11, 2008, Americans will need a federally-approved ID card to travel on an airplane, open a bank account, collect Social Security payments or take advantage of nearly any government service." As we've discussed before, several states have rebelled against the implementation of Real ID.
Why does that ring a bell?
- Tempestdata
2) Aside from point 1), this makes no sense. The immigration bill collapsed, the Real ID is going through and that somehow proves that Real ID is politically untenable?!?
What I'm listening to now on Pandora...
the 9/11 terrorists had legitimate ID's.
This does nothing to stop terrorists or terrorism.
The immigration bill failed because of the number of citizens who made noise against the bill. My guess is that more than a few senators were scared into voting differently than they otherwise would have. For now, the people get their way.
-- Betting on the survival of the media industry is a serious risk. I advise investing elsewhere.
I'm sorry, but this bit of the synopsis confused me:
If passed, the bill would have effectively turned the Real ID system into a National ID card.
I was under the impression that the Real ID system all by itself was intended as a de facto national ID card. What am I missing?
All the techniques ever used to make men moral have been themselves thoroughly immoral... (Nietzsche)
I am so jaded about my countrymen that the following quote actually made me chuckle:
"The American Civil Liberties Union, another longtime foe of Real ID, said the Real ID requirements were a 'poison pill that derailed this bill, and any future legislation should be written knowing the American people won't swallow it."
The emphasis is mine.
*sigh*
Regards.
I'm not saying we need a national ID system, by any means.
What I don't understand is why people get so up in arms about requiring people to prove that they are eligible for the services for which they are applying.
Why do so many people advocate the abuse of services that could otherwise go to deserving, eligible American citizens?
"Ask not what your country can do for you." --John F. Kennedy
I may be stupid, but I just don't get it.
Even if the immigration bill is goes nowhere, however, the Real ID Act is still in effect. It says that, starting on May 11, 2008, Americans will need a federally approved ID card to travel on an airplane, open a bank account, collect Social Security payments or take advantage of nearly any government service.What could possibly be bad about that (except administrational costs)? I don't live in USA, but I assume that you would need some sort of ID for all these things today as well (surely you can't collect social security without providing some sort of proof of who you are and that you actually are entitled to it?). What's the difference between having a federally approved ID card instead of just a state approved?
Anyone who has been following this issue for the past six weeks knows good and well that the audacity of the elected officials to ignore, debase, and belittle their constituents created the massive ground swell of dissenting voters. To claim that the Nation ID idea caused the defeat of this bill is ludicrous. But if the blurb had commented on talk radio and conservatives, this wouldn't be Slashdot, now would it?
Conservative, liberal, and moderate voters all thought this was a poor idea - not some minor amendment to this stinking legislation.
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but make sure that the last line
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is it that bad seein a hot chick again? if i see a hot chick walkin down the hall i dont say "repost"
While I can understand why privacy advocates would want to make this one of the 'main reasons' why the Immigration Bill failed, it was really not much of a deal-breaker. Sure, maybe some of the senators' votes were partially influenced by this, but there were literally dozens of amendments that were far more important which were the deal-breakers, such as:
1) Requiring that illegal immigrants go back to their country of origin to apply for the Z visa
2) Requiring that illegal immigrants had no felonies on their record
3) Requiring a lengthier background check, rather than the default 24-hour 'status adjustment' if the background check wasn't finished
The discussion has been very heated, particularly here in California, where talk show hosts have been rallying their listeners for the past few months to contact our local senators and pretty much tell them that their job is on the line if they passed this bill. California is probably the one state where illegal immigration is pretty much out of control, and the public is pretty passionate about it, because we live with it and see it first-hand.
Trust me, the National ID card was barely mentioned in any of the discussions here; enforcement of the existing laws and tougher penalties for businesses that knowingly hire illegals were the main arguments.
Honestly, I wish that Senator Kennedy moved to California and lived here for a good 6 months, so he could see how out-of-control things really are. Maybe then he'd get back in touch with reality and would stop his ignorant rhetoric about "Gestapo tactics" and whatnot.
"We'll need 2000 crickets, 4 cans of Easy Cheese, and the fluid from 18 glowsticks for this plan to work...." - ph0n1c
Right here in the US. In fact, nearly all countries have a nationally issued, highly standardized ID that's used in all sorts of high-security situations, banking transactions,etc. It's called a passport. Everyone should have one anyway. Easy solution, and doesn't require one single new thing (and yes, I know, there's presently a backlog on US passport applications but This Too Will Pass).
Also, as has been mentioned earlier, the ACLU trying to spin this as a rejection of RealID is stupid beyond belief (this got posted as a story how???). The right hates is because there's too much amnesty, the left hates it because there's not enough amnesty, and most of the people in the middle hate it because it took a reasonably good idea and turned it into an unprincipled pork-fest as senators were bought and sold with pet projects in their districts. In other words, politics as usual.
Help save the critically endangered Blue Iguana
Identifying the bodies? There would have been less question of whether they were dead or not.
All this is going to do is push people to offshore internet banking, like everything else .. and that way, they won't have Uncle Sam looking at whether they're gambling online.
Kevin Smith on Prince
Nothing. What we should do is require that everyone be required to be splashed with holy water or made to stand in front of a mirror before they can board a plane. After all, terrorists are burned by holy water, and don't show a reflection. This way, we could easily identify them before they can do any harm.
Or maybe I'm thinking about vampires. I get those mixed up sometimes. Oh well, at the very least we can cover airplanes in green Kryptonite, I'm pretty sure that stuff will stop terrorists.
Yes, in case they might have survived the massive plain crash explosion.
The fact that this bill was even proposed shows you how out of touch most of our elected officials are. They dont really care about you just about keeping there jobs. All of the Presidential candidates look the same on both sides of the aisle, except Ron Paul, someone who has actually read the Constitution.
Revolution is coming
s/Kryptonite/pork/g
"Ladies and gentlemen, my killbot features Lotus Notes and a machine gun. It is the finest available."
I don't like the idea of national ID either, but I do think that non citizens in this country should probably have to have something like this.
The immigration bill died because Americans literally melted down the Senate's phone system because they don't want to grant amnesty now for border enforcement later since it's well known that the government has NO interest whatsoever in doing this.
The support for the legalization of criminal illegal aliens comes both from the far left (who sees a low skilled, uneducated underclass they can entice into a voting block with welfare programs) and the far right (who sees cheap labor that they can use to artificially depress wages). Polls show that 80% of the country opposes it.
Corporatism != Free Market
I'm just glad it's dead.
I don't know what's more tragic: that John and Robert Kennedy were killed, or that Ted wasn't.
Do you even lift?
These aren't the 'roids you're looking for.
I get what he is saying there, no-one is saying the people here illegally are not real people who are worth something.
But the very real people, trying to legally immigrate, are they not worth something too? Why should other people get ahead of them just because they wandered over?
If someone jumps ahead of you in line, do you say "well good for them for coming out of the shadows" or do you steam because it's not fair? No life is not fair, but then why make it even more unfair than it is already for people that are trying to follow rules.
Not to mention, if you provide amnesty for millions of people, why on earth would not millions more come illegally, expecting the same thing? You are opening the floodgates to a lot more illegal immigration. You help a group now and simply shift the same problem to the future. If you are going to do that, just do away with immigration laws or border control or any pretense you want to have the slightest idea or control over who is immigrating.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
The immigration bill was bad bad bad.. If the also bad national ID clause is what killed it.. great!
What? You want to see my papers?
---- Booth was a patriot ----
The more "secure" ID are, the more convincing counterfeits become.
Kudos to the ACLU for striking while the brand is hot to USE this moment to push an agenda. Again Congress has proven that doing nothing for the wrong reason is easier than doing something for the right reason. Huh?
"God fights on the side with the best artillery." - Napoleon, Marshal of France - speaking truth to power
I hear a lot of people taking credit for the demise of the immigration bill, and many people and groups did take issue with it over one provison or another. However I think the main reason it went down was because many people sharply realised the government is broken and not only NOT looking out for their interests but it has outright contempt for them. People have been dismayed that after the WTC attack and the Iraq war, border security remains relaxed in the extreme. Republican and Democrat voters were both against this bill, and when the vast majority of people were told their concerns were "secondary" if not selfish it became clear special interests were leading the government and not the people. A key element was that nobody believed the government would actually enforce any of the provisions included in the bill since they have such a miserable record of it in the past (and now its clear the governement can't even process passport requests or protect people from contaminated foods and they even hope to do a good job of that). With illegal immigration its been clear the powers that be don't want to stop it at all, and that the will of the people was seen seen as a hindrance that needs to be bulldozered if it can't be deceived. The main factor in the defeat of the bill was that many voters finally had the realisation that their government has kicked them to the curb. Lying and empty promises won't work anymore.
RealID wasn't even a consideration. The American people (including me) calling/emailing their Senators and overwhelming both the phone and email system caused this bill to come crashing down.
This "Grand Bargain" was great for those seeking el-cheapo workers aka (Corporations)and great for Democrats looking to purchase a new hispanic voting block. I just don't understand how so many can place greed over proper management of our country and culture. I am not opposed to immigration but opening the floodgates to 12-20 million people is insane.
We need to secure our borders and halt all immigration until we can come up with a fair system. The system needs to be fair to the immigrant and fair to the American worker. Sorry, I was ranting, I just feel badly for the poor H1-B's out there stuck in slave labor situations. I also feel badly for Americans out of work due to unfair immigration.
Either we come up with a fair system or wait for our standard of living to equalize with that of Mexico, Communist China, and India. It's a complex global problem, but Real-ID is not even a factor.
Kind of funny that I don't quite agree totally with the Republican or Democrat side on these issues.
I am in favor of cracking down on illegal immigration - not here legally, leave the country and go back home and apply to immigrate here. However, Real ID is not needed and it is a de-facto National ID card, plain and simple. There is no place for it here in the USA. There is no need for linking driver databases or the Tri-National Driver License Agreement. The Real ID should be repealed and anyone and everyone should Contact Congress and demand its repeal and do it while the Democrats control Congress. Rather than having laws that curtail civil liberties of US citizens, we need to first enforce the laws on the books instead of the typical attitude of looking the other way. Each time the gov't has a shortcoming of enforcing their laws, they pass more laws and we citizens get punished for it. This vicious cycle needs to end.
On the legal immigration issue, I have expressed interest in leaving the USA such as go live in New Zealand. However, I would do ths the legal way though. I went there after Christmas for vacation and when I went through immigration, my passport was stamped with a 3 month visitor permit with an expiration 3 months after the date of the stamp which is the arrival date. The stamp mentioned that if I was in NZ after 3 months (past the expiration date), I was subject to being deported from the country. If I wanted to be there longer than 3 months, I would have to go to NZ immigration and ask for an extention of the permit. At that point, they would extend it or not. If not, I have to leave before the expiration date. Simple rules. It is something we should expect of those who visit the USA or any other country. BTW, the permit did not allow me to earn an income there. That is a different permit which takes paperwork to get. I am too old (older than 30) to get a Working Holiday Permit like many young people get such as college students and recent graduates.
Mexico's social infrastructure is underwritten by profits from PEMEX, Mexico's oil company. Unfortunately, PEMEX's largest oil field, Cantarell, is in massive decline, according to PEMEX's CEO.
Based on a 1.9Mb/d consumption for Mexico, they will stop exporting oil in five years, say 2012... but, this would cut govt revenue around 7% per year, and shredding what little social infrastructure they have.
The result?
They will walk north.
You think Mexican immigration is bad now? Wait until 2015. I wouldn't be surprised if the USgov set up a 100 yard free fire zone on the southern border, or, they simply let everyone in, and drive the wages in the US down to Mexican levels.
RS
Shoes for Industry. Shoes for the Dead.
Well, they were able to identify some people's body parts http://www.nzherald.co.nz/section/2/story.cfm?c_id =2&ObjectID=10409027
Kevin Smith on Prince
There was a lot to dislike about this bill regardless, but NONE of those reasons were why this bill didn't see the light of day... because NO ONE could see the bill in the light of day.
I watched the proceedings on CSPAN2 all yesterday morning, and the fact of the matter was that the bill was a chinese fire drill, and musical chairs being played all at the same time!!
Boxer, Reid and Kennedy were constantly touting and demanding the need for this that and the other thing and immediate passage, and the Republicans kept asking to see the new bill with the amendments incorporated in its entirety, and when they asked for a full vote for the bill to be read before the final vote, one of the three would object... SO BASICALLY THEY WANTED THE SENATE TO VOTE ON A BILL WITHOUT KNOWING WHAT WAS IN IT!! The bill was constantly being rewritten from day to day, know one other than the Democrats writing it, knew what was in it at any given time.
A clear lesson to be learned here is don't believe the soundbites you see in the news regardless of what or who is reporting it... when you see it live and for yourself, you get a wholly different perspective on what is happening in Washington, and it clearly sounds like some shell games are being played here... and apparently in the best interest of a select few, and DEFINITELY NOT what's good for the country!
Good Day,
Juggernaut
A majority of American's are against illegal immigration. A majority of American's are against profiling. So what alternative do you propose to identify legitimate citizens from illegal aliens? Your papers analogies is actually rather weak as a national ID only identifies you are a legal US Citizen. Whereas the point of "papers" in the past was to show where citizens had permission to move to and from and were checked frequently at checkpoints. The police would only be able to ask for it when there is clear evidence of crime. It wouldn't be required to be on your person, you just would for convenience like your driver's license to confirm your identity when needed.
My wife is from China, and while they don't have papers they have to carry around with them, they are not free to just pick up an live wherever they wish. I really doubt this will come to pass even with a National ID.
People always trot out these objections based on knee jerk emotional reactions to abuses in the past. The proposed boarder along our Mexican border gets similar jeers although the reason for its need is exactly the opposite of the reason for the Berlin Wall.
I for one would concentrate on protecting our Freedom of Speech rights (for which you are entitled to your opinion in this) and challenge to you suggest a feasible alternative that safeguards our borders, cuts down on illegal immigration, and possible terrorist activity. I don't live my life in fear of terrorism, but as the husband of Chinese national who has played by the rules and lived apart from my wife for TWO YEARS, I really do chafe at proposals to give illegals a faster easier way in than for those of us playing by the rules.
Maybe without a National ID we will never have another major successful terrorist attack, but I guarantee we will have such an ID in the wake of one.
Letter To Iran
With their fingerprints, we would be able to detect sarcasm remotely, over the internets.
Yes, amnesty is so bad.
The problem is that illegal immigrants (or undocumented workers, however you want to label them) only last as long as they do here to serve the whim of corporations that frequently use them as underpaid employees that will not unionize, will willingly work in hazardous work environments, and will only rarely leave their job voluntarily (for better pay, better work, etc). If you bring them out of the shadows, you bring to light all the abuses they have willingly suffered over the years to avoid even worse work conditions and pay in their home countries. Employers of newly-legalized immigrants will be forced to clean up their acts and raise pay for their formerly-undocumented workforce if they wish to continue employing said immigrants. Logically speaking, one should conclude that legalized immigrants will lose their jobs, probably to a new wave of illegals that will flood in as replacements.
In other words, if you give current undocumented workers the same rights, protections, and wages as natural-born Americans or legal immigrants, corporations will have no desire to hire them. For this reason, it is not rational to conclude that anyone currently "in the shadows" will step out and claim their place in American society. To do so would be to face layoffs. Anyone foolish enough to "go legal" would probably sooner become an American welfare case than move back to their home country. It's a lose-lose situation.
If we are so determined to make sure that employers grant fair pay and provide adequate workplace safety as the law demands, and furthermore pay wages as the free market frequently demands, it would be more wise for us to simply deport or otherwise disenfranchise the 12+ million undocumented workers we have now to force employers to hire American citizens and/or documented workers. Contrary to what corporate shills would have you believe, modern Americans will do just about any job you put in front of them provided that the pay is right. Yes, ladies and gentlemen, they can even harvest lettuce, tomatoes, and other veggies in the field.
The real question is whether or not significant wage increases for menial laborers in the US would hurt the economy more than our current labor situation in which millions of undocumented workers siphon off public funds in the form of local, state, and federal aid programs due to their pathetic wages. They also wire much of their liquid capital back to their families abroad, all but guaranteeing that they can not and will not serve as an economic stimulus in our country. Raising wages of American workers, on the other hand, would be good for our economy. This point is often made by proponents of minimum wage increases.
And, if you don't believe that there is an untapped reserve of American workers ready to step up and replace our undocumented worker buddies, you might want to reconsider that point. Current teen and young adult unemployment rates (ages 16-24) are staggering. African-American teens, at least according to a recent column by Bob Herbert, suffer an employment rate of 18% nationwide.
Of course, there is the real threat that many unskilled labor positions will vanish altogether due to automation sometime in the next 20-50 years, but we would be better off positioning ourselves today by not encouraging wave upon wave of unskilled, uneducated foreign workers to enter the country when they and their ilk will likely face widespread obsolescence down the road. Additionally, the widespread deportation of undocumented laborers and its associated increase in labor costs will likely spur development of automation technology in the agricultural, manufacturing, and service industries. An automated American economy combined with new, cheap energy sources (LENR anyone?) could potentially provide goods and services at a price far lower than foreign economies with scads of cheap, uneducated workers subjected to deep poverty-level wages, poor work conditions, and lax environmental standards. Such an economic de
What I had in mind is the people of this country taking over. The government has already been taken over by a small group that is largely ignoring the masses. Does know one remember that September 11, 1991 George H W Bush address congress and spoke of the new world order.
It is unconstitutional for the federal government to have a national ID. No where in Article 1 Section 8 of the Constitution does it authorize the federal government to require a national ID.
Libertas in infinitum
Here's an interesting tidbit - the election is coming up. Candidates are talking about issues. How many times, though, have I heard about a candidate being asked where they stand with respect to this issue? Or the insidious patriot act? I'd say the constitutional freedom and the integrity of our government trump just about every other issue they could talk about, especially since they same to talk about the same things every damn election.
That's such a laugh. People called and emailed their senators in droves because of "Real ID". Jesus, what pap. The bill was defeated because the majority of Americans oppose the stealth amnesty bill, period.
You do realize we would have to deport one out of every 10-20 people in America, don't you? With the kind of misery that would generate and the amount of wealth that would eat up, I am not sure even the nativist bigots would be willing to stay back here.
At various times, Germany and Spain have tried rounding up and getting rid of 1/100th of their population and look how well that turned out for them.
Obama likes poor people so much, he wants to make more of them.
> National ID May Have Killed Immigration Bill
Shame it didn't kill Immigration George.
Max.
Yes, we need those people to work the farms, the low-wage pay. But we need the ones who go through the paperwork and years of waiting and struggle just as much, if not more than those who just follow where the work is.
My question is why don't we want a national ID? It seems to me that our social security number has already become a defacto national ID number. Whenever I have to fill out official paperwork, for either governmental things, or even for national corporations or whatever, they all ask for the social security number, supposedly for identification purposes. However, with identity theft rampant, I don't want to give that number away so easily but often the alternative isn't pleasant, so I do it anyway. I wish I had a national ID number which I could give away as easily as my telephone number for identification purposes, knowing that nothing can be done to my financial accounts if someone had only this number, while guarding my social security number as much as I guard my ATM PIN.
The government shouldn't be providing services in the first place. That's the fundamental problem.
Libertas in infinitum
Very well said, that is exactly the reason it failed. I wish I had mod points.
The reason the bill was defeated and the reason why so many people were against it was that the bill would fix nothing.
In general people want the feds to enforce the current immigration laws on the books.
If the feds enforced the current laws, illegal immigration would not be this huge issue.
While it is true that the Western States (and some NE states like Vermont) have laws specifically denying the implementation of the Soviet-style National ID cards, it is untrue that this killed the Immigration bill.
It is far more likely that the backlash from 85 percent of America that disagrees with such things as a doubling of H1-B visas, lack of jail terms for CEOs and execs who hire and subcontract illegal employees, and massive reactions from liberal, moderate, and conservative patriotic Americans of all shapes and types did in this bill.
A number of Senators were directly woken up to how hated this bill was when they went back to their districts and realized in quick polls of local people that they were likely to lose their seats for carrying the corporations water on this issue.
Business has zero votes - only US citizens do. In the end, that is what killed the bill.
-- Tigger warning: This post may contain tiggers! --
for the Devil sends the beast with wrath because he knows the time is short Let him who hath understanding reckon the number of the beast for it is a human number its number is six hundred and sixty six. *Iron Maiden scream*
This "Grand Bargain" was great for those seeking el-cheapo workers aka (Corporations)and great for Democrats looking to purchase a new hispanic voting block.
A lot of the reaction that helped kill the bill was by Democratic party members who were against it.
The reality is that more than 85 percent of American citizens didn't want this, and corporations have zero votes, no matter how much they astroturf on this issue.
-- Tigger warning: This post may contain tiggers! --
National ID Will
Kill Bill
You don't have to deport them. You just make it impossible (or nearly so) for them to find work. They'll leave on their own, because they simply can't afford to stay.
There will always be illegal immigration, as someone will always be willing to risk it, and someone will always be willing to hire at least some of them. But if hiring practices are cleaned up such that it becomes far more difficult to fill in a random SSN, and if enough people actually hiring those here illegally are not just warned or fined but instead sent to prison, as the law allows, the market for them would dry up. How many people are going to be willing to pay $10,000 and spend up to ten years in prison for each illegal immigrant hired?
I'd even consider supporting providing buses, trains, or boats to help them get back home. They sign a waiver saying that they are leaving voluntarily and will not attempt to return in any way for two years, and after that, they can stand in line like everyone else, instead of being forcibly deported and permanently banned from returning to the country. Sure, it will cost a few billion up front, but the long-term savings would be enormous, and once all of the voluntaries have left after a couple of years, new plans could be considered on how to deal with any worker shortages that may be present -- if they even exist.
You can never go home again... but I guess you can shop there.
The folk who favor more immigration and amnesty know they can almost certainly do better under the next Congress.
They've only got one more shot with Bush at the helm. If a President gets elected that shares the opinion on this kind of bill with 83% of the electorate, the Congress isn't going to have any luck for 5-9 years, and I'd be shocked if they ever had enough votes to override a veto.
I don't think the bill's supporters realize, though, that Bush wants this to start the process of annexing Mexico.
My God, it's Full of Source!
OUTSIDE_IP=$(dig +short my.ip @outsideip.net)
How can we as mere voters, get Congress to pass a law allowing only one line item per bill?
1) Lobby for a Constitutional Amendment allowing the Line Item Veto
2) Lobby for public financing of elections
My God, it's Full of Source!
OUTSIDE_IP=$(dig +short my.ip @outsideip.net)
You nailed it and I hope those who cry racism or xenophobia would just stop with the FUD. Very few people want to stop all immigration, but a lot want controlled, slow, legal immigration but NO illegals. We already HAD a full amnesty for illegals back in the 80s, it didn't work, they still ignored the laws, both the sneakers-in and the ones who hire them.
Not worth it, it's a slap in the face to the lawful immigrants who follow thew rules, it completely destroys any notion of rational "national security" when you have millions of who knows who roaming around, it degrades an already too low wage scale for the poorer legals in the US, it corrupts the border areas, it forces local governments to assume *huge* property tax increases to deal with sudden explosive growth, which is not even close to being offset by any alleged productivity of the illegals, it brings in all sorts of heinous gang presence (that's the real terrorism in the US, hundred thousand and counting hispanic gang members, some going into the 3rd generation!),there is little assimilation,just demands that everything be in their language or it is "racist", and etc.
And people who support illegal immigration must therefore also support the reasons those folks want to come here, their home countries are run by racist billionaires and entrenched and inefficient bureaucracies. It makes a lot more sense to be in favor of those nations cleaning up their acts, then rewarding them by letting them get away with those sorts of antisocial crimes for generations.
Want to have constructive change? Make the illegals go home and sort their own mistakes out in their own nations, and if that means a "heads on pikes" stage, so be it. Some of those nations like Mexico are long overdue for some social rearranging. Mexico is not a poor nation, it's rich in natural resources, good farmland, two oceans, a willing labor force, etc, it's just run like crap by 200 wealthy families and a pseudo elected government that is really just part of organized crime and the class warfare schism perpetuated by the elite there.
I'm not sure that the objections to the border fence and RealID are the same, or are really being objected to by the same people.
At least that I've seen, a lot of people seem to be against RealID, while also being supportive of robust enforcement of our immigration laws. They (and I include myself in this camp) want our immigration laws enforced, but want it enforced in ways that don't impose upon and potentially make criminals out of many legitimate citizens who don't want to be forced to carry around "papers" all the time, or have to show them to any official on command. People want our immigration law enforced at our borders, with possible incursions 'inland' to attempt to remedy (by which I mean, deport) people who are known to be here illegally.
But in general I think that the two aren't hand in hand. I don't really understand the objections to the border wall, since it seems like a totally unremarkable and obvious solution when you've got people walking across that shouldn't be walking across (I also think that putting the military down there is an obvious solution, too, since defending the nation's borders is a totally legitimate use for the military -- why is it OK to use our military to defend some other country's borders and not our own?). My personal suspicion there is that the opposition is pragmatic rather than philosophical -- there are a lot of agribusiness lobbies that depend on illegal immigrants and don't want anything that makes the labor supply tighter, and a robust border defense would do that. Also, Bush seems to be almost comically cozy with the Mexican President, and the Mexicans obviously don't want any U.S. border defenses, because illegal workers in the 'States are a major source of income for Mexico. (But why we should really care about that is beyond me. Last time I checked, Mexico didn't have a seat in the Senate.)
At any rate, I think it's not at all hypocritical to be against the internal borders that Real ID would create, while also supporting firm control over our external borders, both to the north and south.
"Ladies and gentlemen, my killbot features Lotus Notes and a machine gun. It is the finest available."
You are forgetting you are talking about 20 million people who are already here. They aren't rich as it is, but if you cut off their income what do you think will happen?
Do you realise that you are proposing to forcibly starve 20 million people and children? Turn 20 million homeless? To give 20 million helpers to the mob/drug lords/gangs/anything that will feed the 'illegal' families?
More importantly, Mexico does not want these illegals any more than you do. And how would you prove whom to send where? Most 'illegals' don't have their name/number/country of birth tattooed on their forehead, you know. Most people will not leave because they have nowhere to go since they have no home outside of here.
What you are proposing would deter new immigrants from coming here illegaly, it would not get those already here to leave.
Obama likes poor people so much, he wants to make more of them.
Of course Real ID will be implemented. Just watch those resisting states come crawling back to implement Real ID when the feds tie federal highway funds to implementation of Real ID.
e ed_Law).
Don't think they will will do it? Of course they will, because they've done it before. Look no further than 1973 when another administration that fancied itself above the Constitution was in power (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Maximum_Sp
Isn't that clever? They take your money then refuse to give it back to you and your community unless you submit to their dictates. The only difference between the federal government and a highway bandit is that the government robs you in broad daylight and gets away with it.
I hope every one of you so-called Republicans out there wake up to what your party has done to our country. But you have a way to redeem yourself. It takes a true patriot to state on national television that those who nonviolently resist the IRS and the unconstitutional federal tax are freedom fighters, not criminals. http://www.ronpaul2008.com/. And you can be certain he will fight tirelessly against Real ID, because he has already been doing so for the past 2 years.
Additionally, the widespread deportation of undocumented laborers and its associated increase in labor costs will likely spur development of automation technology in the agricultural, manufacturing, and service industries.
This has already started.
Calculations (assuming 12-20 million 'illegals,' not including their children that you would also have to deport):
12 million / 300 million = 4% (1 in 25)
20 million / 300 million = 7% (1 in 14)
As for the rest of your comment, I would assume most of those marching are actually legal (the 'illegals' are too scared to draw attention to themselves). I would also assume you are not serious about calling for these people to be executed, and your comment just reflects your frustration with the status quo.
Obama likes poor people so much, he wants to make more of them.
That's what killed the immigration bill. In the real world, no one has yet associated RealID with it. This is about preserving what American culture we have, and not becoming assimilated as our corporate overlords want us to. Who's the biggest advocate for more immigration in the computer industry? Bill Gates. Need I say more? Preserve culture, fight greedy corporations!
Anti-Globalism
300 / 12 = 25
US population is 300 million
number of illegals is about 12 million.
The 1 in 20 number probably came from some media report like this one
If you don't understand the size and scope of the problem, and can't even do the basic math to find out, what the heck are you doing proposing solutions?
T
Laws are horrible moral guides, moral guides make even worse laws.
to the immigration issue that would make more people happy than it would piss off. All the solutions that have been brought to the table so far either piss off the anti-immigration crowd or the pro-immigration crowd, usually both. Any solution is going to make some group of people unhappy.
So why not have state-issued green cards? The federal government need only be involved in naturalization and issuance of visas, and in deportation in the case of federal crimes. States could set their own quotas (even to zero if they desire) and issue provisional green cards to foreign applicants. The green card would be valid for employment only in the state of issue, and it would only remain valid as long as the holder continued to file state tax returns (or other documents proving employment, in the case of states with no income taxes). States could set other requirements as they see fit.
The idea of a one-size-fits-all federal solution to immigration just isn't going to fly in a country that includes states as different as Michigan, Iowa, Oregon, California, Massachusetts, and Alabama.
OK, I'll get off the soapbox now.
But, I wanted socialized health insurance!
Hopefully Real ID cards will have a unique number so that they can be used in databases and such. That way we can replace the usage of Social Security Numbers for unique identifiers.
He who said 1,000,000 monkeys on 1,000,000 typewriters would eventually type the great novel, never saw an AOL chat room
My question is why don't we want a national ID? It seems to me that our social security number has already become a defacto national ID number. Whenever I have to fill out official paperwork, for either governmental things, or even for national corporations or whatever, they all ask for the social security number, supposedly for identification purposes. However, with identity theft rampant, I don't want to give that number away so easily but often the alternative isn't pleasant, so I do it anyway. I wish I had a national ID number which I could give away as easily as my telephone number for identification purposes, knowing that nothing can be done to my financial accounts if someone had only this number, while guarding my social security number as much as I guard my ATM PIN.
Look at this this way. For cases where a drivers' license suffices, mal-use/identity-theft is already trivial. National ID won't improve that, since it will be used everywhere.
What can someone do with your license? Well, they could test-drive a car at a dealership, steal it, and cause YOU some "interesting" days... Endless possibilities at a bank... (Although some now ask for 2 forms of ID).
And what I want to know is this: When I do give my SSN, what do THEY do with it? I would think more than just record it and forget it. (Is there some service that companies use to verify/look-up SSN information)? Does the SSA provide special access to companies? Seems to me they could only do a credit check. But then they know a heck of a lot about you (address, credit cards, loans, etc).
Me? I think the solution lies in something like everyone using a something like public encryption for ID.. Merchant supplies random string, your ID encrypts/signs it, and then merchant verifies that your encrypted version is really signed by you (using national database of public keys). [I suppose even the government should not be able to know/store your "private" key, but that probably is not realistic].
'Calculations (assuming 12-20 million 'illegals,' not including their children that you would also have to deport):
12 million / 300 million = 4% (1 in 25)
20 million / 300 million = 7% (1 in 14)'
Why would we assume 20 million illegals again? For the most part the children are born here, they are citizens. You deport the illegals, not the citizens. Fortunately we have a substantial backlog of parents wanting to adopt.
'I would assume most of those marching are actually legal (the 'illegals' are too scared to draw attention to themselves).'
I wouldn't make that assumption. Illegal aliens aren't cowering in fear in California, they walk the streets openly. Even if we were to accept that 4% of the population is illegal, at least 95% of those are in California. Hell, no small number of them are in LA.
'I would also assume you are not serious about calling for these people to be executed'
All illegal aliens? Of course not. Anyone who walks down the streets of the United States, proclaims loyalty to a foreign state and waves its flag and then proceeds to claim that they will conquer our nation? Absolutely, they should be shot on sight. That is a declaration of war against our culture, our people, and our nation. I couldn't care less if you want to take down our government but the moment you declare your hostility to the actual citizens and our way of life you should be dealt with quickly, efficiently, and without remorse.
Please don't misunderstand. I have nothing against legal immigrants from any nation. I don't have any issues with immigration in general and I certainly have nothing against hispanics. Although I am partial to the hispanic females (I like the skin and eyes, sue me). I also don't believe illegal immigrants should be killed simply for entering the country illegally. I am referring only to traitors who declare war on our people and culture.
I think we need to implement strong border protection methods. I think active deportation needs to be adopted, I think those deported should be printed and marked in a manner that is clearly visible in any encounter. Of course anyone in the country illegally should be barred from returning if caught. Anyone applying for employment, public services, trying to open a bank account, etc should be printed and prints submitted for a check against the deportee database (afterwards all prints taken should be destroyed to protect the rights of innocent citizens).
I also think we should grant the mexican government substantial relief aid with stipulations. The more mexican illegals we find, the less they get. We should also strongly encourage them to enact criminal penalties for those who are turned over to them by our authorities. Another requirement would be a formal declaration by the government of Mexico that it releases any claims on the territory of California.
Last (as in after doing all of the above) I think we should start a healthy immigration program for Mexicans. This program should include mandatory classes and testing. First and foremost anyone immigrating to the United States must learn english with a reasonable degree of proficiency. Mexicans should be familiarized with our labor laws and minimum wage requirements. They should also be instructed on TYPICAL wages for a variety of jobs and education requirements. Finally, after all is approved, tests passed and two oaths, one disavowing any allegence or association with their former nation and another swearing loyalty to the people and the constitution of the united states (as well as to use only the american english language in public); at this point they should be bussed into the United States.
These immigrants should be bussed in a manner that scatters them all over the United States. This prevents the kind of pocket communities and ghettos that have prevented immigrants from fully integrating with our society and culture in the past. This is particularly important if we are ever to allow large numbers to immigrate from Mexico since their culture could quickly begin to dominate our own rather than the immigrants integrating and our culture absorbing the best of what the Mexicans bring with them.
If you define "National ID" to mean "the dark side of the collective American psyche" then the headline might be reasonable.
The higher the technology, the sharper that two-edged sword.
'number of illegals is about 12 million.'
Excellent, we can just have the ones who did the counting round them up then.
You should come to my house and pick peaches.
I suspect it was more like a small percentage of the population actually supports this lawbreaker rewarding act. US loving citizens lit up the senate switchboard.
Where do you want to be, What are you doing to get there.
First "Kill Bill" reference!
Maybe on slashdot. But powerline blog has you beaten by a day or more.
I think drudge used it, too.
Bantam Dominique roosters crow a four-note song. Once you've heard it as "Happy BIRTHday" you can't NOT hear it that way
Heh, the convention of naming an internal war a Civil War has always tickled me pink considering that they tend to be just as nasty if not nastier than normal wars.
Millions of illegal people with jobs in this country and I can't find one
That's because YOU have to obey the laws, as does an employer who hires you. Not necessarily true for the illegals and their employers (who are both already breaking at least one law just for starters).
Minimum wage. Workplace safety. Health benefits. Union activity. Mandatory overtime. I could go on for paragraphs.
Point is that an employer can't get away with paying you as little as he can pay an illegal. The government won't let him.
Further, employers who chose only to hire legals - residents and citizens - are at a competitive disadvantage relative to those who hire illegals. In some industries (such as construction) the disadvantage is massive - often leaving the employer with the choice of hiring illegals or going out of business. (This is the fault of the government, for failing to enforce the law on his competitors.)
Bantam Dominique roosters crow a four-note song. Once you've heard it as "Happy BIRTHday" you can't NOT hear it that way
Perhaps if these childish lawmakers want a new immigration law, then they should enforce the immigration laws they already have.
Just because you can, does not mean you should.
They're just looking for work to support their families and buy some booze and video games on weekends.
ARREST THE BASTARDS THAT HIRE THEM.
Some random latino looking for work isn't a threat to America. The American 'citizen' who is breaking the law and hiring him is directly betraying our laws and our people to save himself some cash. By definition, if Americans refuse to work in your job, you aren't offering enough money for it. That is how capitalism works, and it is the cheapskates hiring illegals who are driving down the living wage and options for advancement for the American poor.
I'm fine with bringing anyone who wants over here to work - legally and for the same wage that I would get at that position, so they can compete on merit, and the price of labor doesn't get driven down. I used to work in construction, and every time just rich jackass complains about how the guys he hired to build his addition don't speak English and messed up his house, but he's hiring them back because "they're so darn cheap" I just want to spit.
Of course, none of this will ever happen because half of Congress will get arrested or lose their gardeners.
There's people how will hire them, a construction worker makes in Mexico like 15 dollars a day (8 hours) they can do that flipping burgers in 2 hours, no illegal immigrant will leave, believe me, hunger is stronger than fear!!!
No, I don't believe California is Mexico, Thank God it's not!! I don't want that, I ran away from the corruption, poverty of Mexico and I don't want the same thing here in California.
If you're in North Carolina, please take a moment to read this blog post and then contact your General Assembly representatives:
North Carolina government brags about Real ID compliance
// TODO: Insert Cool Sig
let see, if you hire legal immigrants or US citizens let say on the fields, you are going to have to pay let's say 12 or 15 dollars an hour! so the price of the tomatoes will increase, if a company like WAltMart or Albertsons can get those tomatoes cheaper they will improt them, and now these company's will have 2 choices go out of bussines or move overseas! And THEY WILL!! A lot of IT companies are doing that!! and then there's not going to be work for legal, illegal or us citizens. That's the problem with this!!!
I knew that this bill was going to fail, I don't blame people for supporting Lou Dobbs, the thing here is that I'm not going to leave, no illegal will do that, as I said on a different post hunger is stronger than fear and there's no doubt in my mind that the problem will be worst because we have more of the same, no work verification, no more border agents, no wall, millions of people living, working and doing everything with different names, different ID'S , things will remain the same, I know that I'm doing something wrong but I don't have any other choice. Yes I had a job in Mexico but I was making 500 dollars a month for a full time job, not very nice!! I don't work on the fields and you will never find me outside of Home Depot. I work as an IT manager here in sillicon valley, and yes there are people with college degrees in computer sciences from a 5 year university like me illegally working. (why do you think that I read slashdot) So what am I going to do now?? The same, I will keep working and keep smiling, life it's too short to be worried Peace!!
Sure, it will cost a few billion up front, but the long-term savings would be enormous
There would be no long-term savings. If you could convince every illegal immigrant in this country to leave, what you would see is a tremendous contraction of the US economy.
Cheap labor from undocumented immigrants lowers the price of goods and services for countless staple goods that you and I purchase every day, and illegal immigrants have created value in homes and commercial construction probably worth trillions of dollars that otherwise would not have been built. Cost savings from cheaper goods and services are spent on more new goods and services, which create jobs.
The whole thing is based on the deeply stupid idea that there are a fixed number of "jobs" in an economy, and if somebody is employed they will take up one of the "jobs" and that job will be used up now. If we kick out that person we will create a "job" for someone else. It's ridiculous. If someone is employed, their work will create value for their employers that creates jobs, and that persons income will be expended on goods and services that will create more jobs. That is how economies grow. Take that person away, and jobs will be destroyed, not created. Kicking out illegal immigrants would result in a gigantic contraction of the US economy, with fewer jobs for non-immigrants available until the economy can recover, and a general rise in price level for consumer goods across the board.
The real question is whether or not significant wage increases for menial laborers in the US would hurt the economy...
Disclaimer: I am not an economist. That said...I seriously doubt that paying unskilled labor a bit more would hurt the US economy in any way. I agree with your point about aid and social services, but keep in mind many using these are not illegals, rather they are citizens who can't make ends meet.
As for wage levels, here are some things I rarely see brought up on Slashdot:
1).I do realize that a unionized, legalized immigrant workforce would earn higher wages if they could remain employed. I estimate that any undocumented workers who attempted to "go legal" and then unionize would find themselves out of work or suffering major layoffs, just the same way many unskilled or low-skill union laborers have already suffered in this country.
Furthermore, many of these workers have even lower levels of education, literacy, and English-fluency than native-born highschool dropouts. Not all of them, but many of them. Once they start demanding $10-$12 per hour instead of the $3-$7 per hour they were making when undocumented, do you think they will find employers lining up to hire them? They will be competing with Americans and legal immigrants who will have numerous advantages over formerly-undocumented converts.
2). Current estimates place immigration rates from Mexico to the United States at 1-3 million per year. Not all of them stay, of course, but that's a lot of people. Our current crop of undocumented workers can be replaced in the space of maybe 4-5 years, minimum, and that only assumes that they all "go legal" (which I doubt that they would). Considering the fact that it took us 21 years since our last amnesty bill to get up to an estimated 12 million illegals, it is not a stretch to assume that business owners and corporations will let more illegals flood in to replace legalized migrant workers over the next 4-15 years.
3). Cheap labor is preventing technological development primarily in the agricultural sector. There are numerous crops, ranging from lettuce to tomatoes to oranges, that are still harvested by hand because, according to growers, "you can't harvest those with machines". Of course, that's doublespeak for "we don't really want to invest the money necessary to buy first-generation harvesters that people haven't invented yet, even though we know that people would put more work into making such machinery were we actually interested. But hey, we can get illegals to do it for $7/hour, so why rock the boat?". I suspect that the presence of undocumented workers in the construction and meatpacking industries may also be serving as human impediments to progress, of a sort. Eventually, someone will figure out how to beat the cost/benefit ratio of hiring illegals and automation will take over anyway, but it'll take much longer as long as cheap human labor is available.
Also, it should be noted that slavery, by the end of the 18th century, was anything but cheap. As an institution, however, slavery stunted the growth of the Southern (and American) economy for years and years until plantation owners began to realize what an economic dead-end it could be (well, some of them anyway). Furthermore, while slavery in America (and elsewhere in the Western world) may not have necessarily stymied the development of the steam engine, it quite possibly prevented the ancient Romans from inventing steam power. But that's all speculation at this point. Whatever damage child labor may have done to technological development in the paste is also nearly impossible to estimate, but I can guarantee you that technological development in the textile industry in low-wage foreign countries (Bangladesh, China, and elsewhere) will likely be stunted so long as labor stays so cheap and plentiful. Why increase worker productivity beyond current levels when they can just throw more disposable humans at the problem? Why replace workers with machines when the workers do the work so cheaply?
Please stop spreading FUD. It would do wonders to get them to leave.
All we would be doing is returning to the former state of immigration when the only work they could do was seasonal (harvesting tobacco crops). When the season was over, they returned to Mexico. This kept them from coming back without a greencard. Now, they can continue to work at McDonalds for years and years after their greencard has expired. If you want to play the game where we discuss the effect of millions of unpaid illegal immigrants on our nation, you have to play the other side too and consider the effect millions of illegal immigrants have had on the wages our children can earn when they turn 14. Think of all the children that can't save up for the ever escalating post-secondary-education bills because they can only get $5.15/hour. Think of the effect this extra debt they take on themselves has on the economy and their wellbeing.
You see, either way some are hurt, and some benefit. The ones that benefit under illegal immigration are a few individuals at the top, and all the illegals' children getting free schooling (and free English, which they can't be bothered to learn, I hear). The people hurt? The higher income (still working for their money) paying the majority of the taxes. Our children, who can't save up for even a semester of half of the universities out there, in the 4 years they work from age 14 to 18. Our children, who take on enormous debt to finance this education.
Now consider the other option-- a few high societies take home a $2million bonus as opposed to an $8million bonus, little Jonny goes into college with a whole 2 years worth of tuition saved (which he has had invested in the economy with the help of his parents ever since he had the job) and ready to rock; oh and the illegal immigrants are no longer employed, but we don't care about, and shouldn't care about them anyways in our own country. If you want to improve their lives there are a myriad of ways to do that without penalizing the American middle class.
Sure, it will cost a few billion up front, but the long-term savings would be enormous
The Economist had an article on this very topic, and I'm afraid that your assessment is wrong.
" In the short term the fiscal burden imposed by illegal immigrants may outweigh the economic gains they bring. In other words, the average native-born American has a higher pre-tax income thanks to the country's "broken" border, but his post-tax income may be slightly lower. All told, Mr Hanson thinks that illegal immigration might cost native-born residents some 0.07% of GDP.
But that net cost, if it exists at all, is clearly less than the price of keeping illegal workers out. Since 2001 Congress has more than doubled the amount of money spent on securing the borders and enforcing immigration laws. Mr Bush's 2008 budget proposes spending $13 billion, or 0.1% of GDP. The senators' plans would be even more expensive. A needlessly cumbersome guest-worker plan and a costly war on gatecrashers are bad ideas--even if you don't give a fig for the welfare of would-be migrants." (Guests v gatecrashers: May 31st 2007, The uncomfortable economics of immigration reform, The Economist)
One solution is, if it is a corporation, the corporate charter is suspended until all illegal workers can be removed, and revoked indefinitely for repeat offenses. If it is a small business with a distinct owner, the owner is put under similar pressure, and possibly convicted of criminal offenses.
Ooops. I forgot that you were also talking about the long term costs as well. From the same article.
"Set against this economic gain is a fiscal cost, as immigration's opponents are quick to point out. Illegal migrants, with their low skills and large families, are likely to consume more in government services, such as education and health care, than they pay in taxes. The exact fiscal impact is controversial. The federal government is probably a net winner, whereas states, which pay a bigger share of schooling and emergency health care, lose out. Today's taxpayers may suffer--they must pay for educating the children of illegal immigrants. But tomorrow's may gain--these first-generation Americans will likely earn far more than their parents, adding to the pot of taxes in the future."
I wholeheartedly recommend that US of America quickly implement the federal ID card system for all 300-something million people, because if it is not done an even scarier system will come. You think nothing can be more orwellian than a biometric chip equipped federalized photo ID card but you are wrong, very wrong.
A well-funded israeli-british private startup is already working on a "genetic personal name" technology. The gist is that they are about three years from creating a market-ready desktop rapid DNA-sequencer and about five to six years from a portable terminal version. Their ingenious observation is that 98% of human genome is invariably identical among all 6,3 billion people of Earth so that can be disregarded for purposes of personal identification. The rest, the difference that makes people individuals is quite little data even by today's standards. Within three years that can be sequenced by a 2500USD desktop machine in a matter of minutes (their aim is 2 minutes). The result is then converted by one-way hashing (to prevent abuses) and that hashed genetic result is displayed in an SSH babble-like style format (a meaningless sequence of easy to remember words for user friendly human interpretation and processing).
You may be born John Smith or Jane Doe according to the church register, but your true name, your genetic name is displayed something like: Big Thunder Muddy Lake Bent Arrow Sitting Moose Fallen Cairn - as the company currently uses a scheme quite like native american tribal names, which they think could win popular acceptance easier. From a purely practical point of view following the chinese people's naming system with its many, short members, like Liu Xing Wang Peng Chang whatever would be better, but of course this would be impossible to push down the throat of public in the G8 countries. When you are born your swab will be immediately sequenced right at the hospital and your genetic name put into the birth certificate besides you civilian (baptism) name.
Obviously, the big news is that faking your identity will be impossible. To prove your identity you just have to spit into the swab collector and the machine will inevitably tell your true genetic name. You will be uniquely identified no matter how far away you flee on Earth. If you want a loan from a bank you have to spit and in 2 minutes they will see you are already on bad debtors' list. You wish to cheat wife and bring horny pussycat to a hotel and tell a made-up name to a clerk to deceive a suspected private eye. The hotel calls police because info does not match and so the wife finds out anyhow. You cannot travel on a fake passport as well. You become your own certificate of authenticity, with all the benefits and drawbacks associated to the system.
There are a few unsolved questions however: should the genetic name (the DNA-hash converted into babble) contain any obvious info on race and gender? Currently most, but not all, human names disclose prima facia if you are a girl or a boy, but very few disclose ethnic or racial info. European countries would probably refuse the genetic name system if it presented any race info, due to the nazi past, but USA would likely prefer it, e.g. americans are regularly told the negro or hispano ethnicity of an accused when the police show goes on TV.
Another unsolved question is: should the genetic names babble contain info which allows plain eye recognition of family relations? That is, if you are shown two full babble names and have a basic understanding of the system, should you be able to exclaim: Look these are father and son, even if you never saw them face-to-face? The obvious answer is YES and that may be wrong! For example an estimated 12% (twelve percent) of children in France are NOT from the father who is specified in their birth certificate so it could cause a lot of social turmoil. Another consideration is that many americans, especially the richer clases like to give their kids completely unrelated names, so they can make self on talent rather than fami
I'm a little late to the discussion, but I do have to mention something -- the summary is wrong. In March, REAL ID implementation was postponed to December 2009. That one year is just more time to try and stop it...
And my oh-so-authoritative wikipedia source: REAL ID
"Banking establishments are more dangerous than standing armies." -Thomas Jefferson
"The bill will not flood our cities with immigrants. It will not upset the ethnic mix of our society. It will not relax the standards of admission. It will not cause American workers to lose their jobs." Ted Kennedy, 1965, in support of the Hart-Celler Act.
"This amnesty will give citizenship to only 1.1 to 1.3 million illegal aliens. We will secure the borders henceforth. We will never again bring forward another amnesty bill like this." Ted Kennedy, 1986, in support of the The Immigration Reform and Control Act
"Now it is time for action. 2007 is the year we must fix our broken system." Ted Kennedy, 2007
Thanks to file sharing, I purchase more CDs
Thanks to the RIAA, I buy them used...
Michelle Malkin's been using it ever since this amnesty bullshit started...
Jesus is coming -- look busy!
I guess the thousands of calls the Congresscritters got denouncing the bill for providing amnesty to illegal aliens had nothing to do with it.
There is no "-1 offended" or "-1 you don't agree with me" mod options for a reason.
Or maybe it was just the fact that the American public overwhelmingly resists granting amnesty to the 12 million people whose first action in the country was to snub the law and enter illegally, and the ass-clowns we've elected are concerned that this is a big enough issue to the voters that they feared for their political futures?
Ask not what your developer can do for you; ask what you can do for your developer.
I can think of a dozen American industries that are quite happy with the way things work right now. Including the tech industry.
http://www.maxineudall.com/2010/02/should-economists-be-sued-for-malpractice.html
I think you're confused, liberals are the guys that are opposed to any and all social programs. Liberals and socialists are opposing factions.
Justice is the sheep getting arrested while an impartial judge declares the vote void.
Only in the small, unimportant part of the world that isn't the USA.
Unfortunately, right now there is nothing that is a valid piece of identification in the US that most people have. A Driver's License is a joke. Nobody has a passport.
*Raises his hand*....I have a passport.
the idea of a national database and IDs is horrible- for years now I have been suffering through identity loss.
my SS# comes up invalid on security checks, credit checks etc. I am still valid through the federal gov't but my life has become a pain because it is difficult to find a place to live w/o credit checks, I can't buy a car or a house- I have to get paperwork from SS everytime I start a new job, I can't get a credit card, etc. So what happens when you have to be ID'd at all times with the national database- you fall through the cracks like me and have to be deported to ummm who knows just get out of the country?
No offense but screw that.
I hope the White House complies with the subpoena's because if the judicial can't work anymore and clean out the corruption, Real ID and Immigration ain't going to matter. At which point in time it is time for rebellion anyway. And if we ain't gonna let Mexicans or others come to the United States we may as well get rid of the statue of liberty. We won't need that no more. Na, what this nation needs is an internal police force, to FORCE the White House to comply, to FORCE the security checks, to FORCE border control, to FORCE inspections of the "other 98%" of the cargo at our ports, to FORCE the removal of electronic voting machines. I might be dreaming, but the day you come to me with your un constitutional shit is the day your going to meet your maker (whoever that might be for you.)
You're assuming the US government would allow the mexican people to fix their government. If they did it might severely inconvenience US economic interests in Mexico like controlling the banking system and having US citizens buy the best beachfront property, against Mexico's constitution.
Other big businesses affected: drugs. You constantly hear about yet another Latin American drug lord captured, and in Latin America most people know the names of all the drug lords in their country, but how comes we never hear about the big drug lords in the US? I've read that aroud 90% of the drug money moves inside the US, certainly somebody must be benefitting from this, how can we buy the version that it's only a lot of small street gangs the ones controlling this money?
Guns. Drugs flow north, guns flow south. And lots of them.
So, if lax immigration laws allowed the US to colonize Texas, and a US-backed government allows US corporations and individuals take over Mexico, you shouldn't be whining that millions of Mexicans see moving to the States as their only option. And it's going to get worse because in the past it was poor farmers moving north. Today it's the middle class stampeding to the US to work as masons, nannys, etc. I get my kicks when I hear my American friends saying "but there are changes in the Mexican government now, isn't it?". Well, yes, they changed a group of thiefs by another one.
I'm not saying the US caused the problem in the first place, but it certainly is stopping Mexicans from fixing it. The Mexicans are perfectly capable of fixing their problems given half a chance. And believe me, most of them would rather live in their country and not in a semi-intolerant, racially divided country, that makes it difficult for them to integrate. Not racially divided? Why are there still white, blacks, reds, browns and yellows in the US? All races should have merged hundred of years ago like in Mexico.
Don't get me wrong, I, like Karl Marx, admire the US and its people, but like an illegal alien friend of mine said: "there is much we must learn from the Americans, but there is also much we MUST NOT learn from the Americans"
I think most people like myself that were opposed to this bill were not opposed to it on the basis of the ID card amendment. We just feel that 20 years of broken promises to control immigration was not a good basis to trust more promises from our elected officials. The other side would like you to thing that we are all racists. I am married to a Korean immigrant and my kids are mixed race. I don't hate my wife and kids no matter what anyone would like you to believe. The true racists are the ones that have no problem exploiting immigrants as nothing more than "Cheap Labor". It is not racist to want people to live in the light of day by encouraging legal behavior. Lets increase the number of legal immigrants to this country by 15 or 20 million so that these people can come in and quickly rise up to your level and mine in society instead of relegating them to cleaning toilets and mowing lawns.
Telecommuting! What about socialization?
Please read my reply to the post just above yours; I actually agree with you more than I think you realize. Although I believe in secure borders that doesn't necessarily imply a one-size-fits-all solution. The problems on the U.S./Canada border are entirely different from those on the U.S./Mexico border, as well as the relationship between the countries themselves, and thus I think the solutions will be quite different.
On the northern border, the U.S. and Canada have a lot of mutual interests, both in having secure borders but in also allowing the free flow of ideas, people, goods, and capital; the perceived risk on the northern border, from the U.S. standpoint, isn't from Canada itself, but rather the possibility of Canada acting as an unwitting conduit into the U.S. from less-friendly places. It seems to me as if much of that risk could be mitigated through cooperation.
The problem in the south is that the U.S. and Mexican governments are at odds over a great many things; the Mexican government has goals that are frankly not conducive to U.S. border security. (E.g.: Mexico's economy is dependent on the money that illegal workers in the U.S. send back, and those workers depend on a porous border to get here; on lower levels you have corruption caused by drug cartels who benefit by insecure U.S. borders.) Lacking any basis for an effective cooperative solution that's not highly offensive to people in the U.S. (in other words, one that doesn't involve legalizing drugs or illegal workers), I think the U.S. government has a mandate to act in its citizens' best interest and deploy a more or less unilateral solution.
Although the U.S. and Canada have significant political and cultural differences, I don't really see many of the issues that are leading to calls for a border wall or military deployment on the southern border becoming an issue in the north.
"Ladies and gentlemen, my killbot features Lotus Notes and a machine gun. It is the finest available."
"Do you realise that you are proposing to forcibly starve 20 million people and children? Turn 20 million homeless? To give 20 million helpers to the mob/drug lords/gangs/anything that will feed the 'illegal' families?"
What the hell is the point of this crap? You know damned well that this is garbage.
You would be restricting their right to work here illegally. Stop pretending that ANY of those things you list are unavoidable consequences for them.
Stop with the ridiculous hyperbolic ranting.
... now these company's will have 2 choices go out of bussines or move overseas!
Try that with building construction.
Non-union illegals have replaced virtually all the domestic construction workers - union or otherwise - except crane operators. (Those are very closely watched because a foulup with a crane is easy to do and can take out a lot of surrounding buildings and people.)
Bantam Dominique roosters crow a four-note song. Once you've heard it as "Happy BIRTHday" you can't NOT hear it that way
I didn't like the way they tried to pass this law this time, but I think the law made sense in the general (of course the devil is in the details). I do not think any of the yes votes (or the noes for that matter) mark anybody as a traitor. Certainly not traitors to America. Maybe to the KKK ?
That's certainly not the type of liberal we see on Slashdot, those always preach that we should leave everything to the free market to solve and that the government should do absolutely nothing and people don't need help, if they can't help themselves they can die, etc etc.
Justice is the sheep getting arrested while an impartial judge declares the vote void.
Your plan -- in a best-case scenario would cause a serious depression that would affect native US citizens and illegal immigrants alike.
In a worst-case scenario, you'd be indirectly committing genocide.
I have too much faith in humanity to believe that something like this would even work. If we started seeing widespread poverty and homelessness in our own backyards, we'd step up and do something about it (even if we may be ignorant to it abroad). That is the true Christian ideal, right?
And even then... where do you expect to send these people? "Back where they came from" isn't exactly an option, considering that many immigrants left little to nothing behind them when they came here.
I don't think I could go find my great-grandparents descendants in Europe and Russia even if I tried, nor would I expect them to welcome my homeless self into their homes with open arms purely on the whim that I got deported. I also sure as hell wouldn't be able to find any relatives of my great-great-grandparents who came here illegally from South America over 100 years ago.
Immigration is quickly becoming a humanitarian issue. If you want to curtail the flood of illegal immigrants, offer amnesty to those who are already here, tighten border security, and create a reasonable process that people can take to immigrate into the US. Unless you have amnesty, we're going to have a massive humanitarian crisis on our hands (which is pretty much the LAST thing the US needs right now)
-- If you try to fail and succeed, which have you done? - Uli's moose
One of the problems of discussing immigration is that there *is* a big element of racism and xenophobia in the anti-immigrant camp. This of course does not make the ideas any less true, but makes it hard to discuss rationally. Of course, most Latinos can't discuss the issue rationally either :)
I don't see the problem. He's in his own country, and if the people there don't like him, then it's their job to deal with him. As long as he doesn't try to invade other countries and impose his rule on them, I don't see the problem; the Venezuelan people elected him, so now they have to deal with him.
As for privately-owned oil fields, that's not true. They were "owned" by foreign companies. It can be argued that these companies took unfair advantage of the situation and bought these oil fields for far less than their real value, probably thanks to some well-placed bribes. In reality, anything sitting on land in a certain country is truly owned by the Citizens of that country. So as far as I'm concerned, your ownership of anything in a separate, sovereign country is subject to the whim of the current regime. You have no right to actually keep anything you pay for in a foreign country, if you're not a Citizen there, and if the current government decides to take it away from you, that's just too bad. Don't like it? Stay in your own country, where you have voting rights and rights as a Citizen. If there's a big potential profit in a foreign country, you can take the risk if you wish, but understand it's a much bigger risk than staying in your own country.
You stood in line to get her papers, so it is/was not for nothing. We Americans have a right to say who we want in or not, and which hoops they have to jump (or not jump) through. It is NOT against you or anybody if we want to let other people in; in fact, we let Cubans in with very little fuss, why should it be different if we decide to do the same with any other group of people ?
Also, illegals DO pay many taxes, the only ones they *may* avoid is FICA (of which they don't get the benefits) and income taxes (which, usually would be very low or zero if they were legal due to their levels of income). If they use a fake SSN, they usually pay all the taxes, and if they work under the table for a business, then the business pays income tax on that money since they can't deduct it; they only avoid taxes if they work under the table for another person, but many other people do to (including computer geeks who get a little money or food for fixing somebody else's computer)
sorry for replying to my own post :) I re-read it and it can be construed to mean ALL anti-immigration are racists and/or xenophobes. That is not true and is not what I meant.
:)
However, I do think *many* of the anti-immigration people are racists who are hiding behind the 'they're illegal' issue. Of course, many are not
If it would reduce the traffic I drive through in the morning and help my wife (considered unskilled even with college after 12 years as a home maker) get a job that pays relatively well, I say deport them!
Seriously though, I take issue with your numbers. Most sources say there are about 12 million illegals in the US. Wouldn't that be about 1/25 instead of 1/10?
When the only tool you have is a claw hammer every problem starts to look like the back of someone's skull.
There are other ways to get them to leave than deportation. We could adopt an attrition strategy: punishing employers who hire illegal aliens and denying them all but emergency medical care (and the doctors decide what an emergency is, for once). We could also spur economic development in Mexico by giving the undocumented workers land to farm. Since we have $250 BILLION in uncollected employer fines, we have quite a bit of money to use.
---- "XML is like violence. If it doesn't fix the problem, you aren't using enough."
Using the military to enforce the countries laws is a blatant violation of the Posse Comitatus act.
"The whole text of the relevant legislation is as follows:
Sec. 1385. - Use of Army and Air Force as posse comitatus
"Whoever, except in cases and under circumstances expressly authorized by the Constitution or Act of Congress, willfully uses any part of the Army or the Air Force as a posse comitatus or otherwise to execute the laws shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than two years, or both"."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Posse_Comitatus_Act
Instead of "native"working people and immigrants fighting we should unite against the corporations who use our fighting and the threat of off shoring to drive wages ever farther down to the point that probably 30% of jobs in the U.S. don't pay a living wage no matter where you are from. THINK people before you react.
Tired of all the isms, don't exploit people as an employer, or a government, mmmmK?
The thing is, ALL of the things I list will be unavoidable. Can the deportations be done? Absolutely, but it will cost us both our economy and our liberties. You would have to have a Gestapo to know who is who, and we will need to turn into El Salvador after we pay for all those stormtroopers, ID checkpoints, concentration camps, courts, and deportations).
I understand your frustration and I am not saying it's right for them to be here. All I am saying is that we have to be pragmatic, cool, and reasonable about any action we take.
It's dumb to hunt a deer with a nuke, if you know what I mean...
Obama likes poor people so much, he wants to make more of them.
Repeating the same stupid hyperbole doesn't make it less stupid.
This
"The thing is, ALL of the things I list will be unavoidable."
is a lie.
"All I am saying is that we have to be pragmatic, cool, and reasonable about any action we take."
and lie about the consequences of actions you don't like.
Stop lying.
What I was talking about does not call for any kind of Gestapo. It becomes completely voluntary. No one is checking papers for the random person on the street. Anyone who wants to go home may do so simply by getting on a train. Most of them carry ID from their home country, which allows easy verification of where they need to go. They're allowed on bus, train, or boat as soon as they've signed their waiver, and sent on the trip to wherever they need to go, be that Mexico, Guatemala, China, Poland, or Ireland.
Many of them make periodic treks home, anyway, risking getting caught coming back. Some of them do get caught and are returned to their home countries, where they start over again. This gives them an incentive to do it right the next time, and in the meantime, maybe try to improve their own neighborhoods.
You can never go home again... but I guess you can shop there.
I agree with you that it would be nice to get them to leave voluntarily, but I disargee that it can be done in a reasonable way.
Right now, the only way to get them to leave is to make it more miserable in America than in their own country. Since their country is probably one giant shithole, this would mean turning America into an even worse shithole. I don't think this is what anybody wants, do you?
Can it be done? Sure! Should it be done (by turning US of A into Nazi Germany or El Salvador)? Hell no!
Obama likes poor people so much, he wants to make more of them.
You have no right to actually keep anything you pay for in a foreign country, if you're not a Citizen there, and if the current government decides to take it away from you, that's just too bad. Don't like it?
Please let me know when you are planning to travel and where, so I can illustrate the logical conclusion of these statements to you first hand.
As for privately-owned oil fields, that's not true. They were "owned" by foreign companies.
Since when does foreign company != private?
I laughed at the weak who considered themselves good because they lacked claws.
> You have no right to actually keep anything you pay for in a foreign country, if you're not a Citizen there, and if the current government decides to take it away from you, that's just too bad. Don't like it?
Please let me know when you are planning to travel and where, so I can illustrate the logical conclusion of these statements to you first hand.
And what are you trying to prove with this inane comment?
It's really simple. If you're not a Citizen in another country, you have no rights there, except those they grant you as a guest. If they decide to take those rights (like property rights) away, that's just too bad. You can go back to your own country if you don't like it. In your own country, you certainly have cause to complain if the government takes stuff away from you. But in another country, no, you don't. That's the whole point of Citizenship: it gives you rights and powers over non-Citizens. Again, if you don't like it, go home, or apply for Citizenship (which they're not obligated to give you unless they feel like it).
I've travelled to Canada many times, and had no problems there. As long as that continues, I'll continue to travel there as a valued guest. In other countries where I'm not treated well, or I hear that Americans are not treated well, I simply don't go there. I have no right to travel someplace where I'm not a Citizen and I'm not wanted, and I'm certainly not going to try to force myself on others like you seem to advocate here.
> As for privately-owned oil fields, that's not true. They were "owned" by foreign companies.
Since when does foreign company != private?
Since when does it not? From the perspective of the country where these oil fields are located, it doesn't matter if a company is privately-owned or owned by a foreign government; it's still owned by foreigners. If they feel they have struck a fair and equitable deal with the foreigners by allowing them to temporarily own and operate those fields, in exchange for some money or other services, then that's fine. If a new government comes to power and decides that these deals, done in the past by prior governments (which no longer exist or have power), are not fair and equitable, then they have every right to terminate these relationships.
I guess you're an imperialist.