[CD]

So, what is your take on this whole Immigration issue? I won't chime in myself just yet. I am asking a couple of poll questions so please answer with your post.

Please remember, respect other opinions and do not flame one another.

[Sleepy]

..The world changed on 9-11-01 and we'll never be able to go back. I'm bringing this up because it's a question of security. I know that relations have been strained between the head governments of our two countries, about the directions taken in regards to security issues, Iraq, Afghanistan.
I know that I will need a passport to go in to visit your country next year and it will be more difficult for "legitimate" passage. What needs to be done IMO is to make sure the borders are secure for any passage not just us guys flashing a passport. The poll is interesting. I don't believe in guest workers, this only serves to drive down wages and working conditions. I would question the motives of an employer who would hire illegal aliens to pad the bottom line. I don't think illegal aliens should be considered felons, this would require them being institutionalized at a great cost, the money would be better spent in means to keep them from entering the country in the first place. As a Canadian, I take a dim view of a non-national doing the work, or displacing a national. A friend of mine, a number of years ago had to go to Billings MT to work on a project and it was made very clear to him if he was going to do the work that an American was able to do that he was going to shipped out pronto and he wasn't going to come back for any reason. I'm OK with that. So if you're keeping the skilled out, why would you want unskilled in. Guest workers would make for a short term gain..but possibly a long term pain. You've exported enough work..don't displace the domestic work with imported labor..remember what made your country great.

[Big Ben]

CD, there's a bit of a technical issue with the poll. You've got three questions but you can only select one radio button at a time, so you only get to answer one.

I agree these are tough issues, but I wonder why we're not talking about making hiring an illegal a felony. There's an endless supply of people willing to take great risks to come to the States and pursue the dream that our ancestors were allowed to pursue, and making the ones we catch into felons only makes the ones we don't catch easier for unscrupulous employers to exploit. Our borders are too long and porous to expect any new fences or punishments will make a serious dent in the numbers of people coming here. If we can't affect the supply, we should try to hit the demand by cracking down on the people who hire illegals.

Most of the people who come here as illegals are decent hardworking people who are trying to make the best of a really bad set of options (yeah, they're breaking the law, but are all the mods on your bike legal?), and filling up our already overcrowded prisons with them doesn't help anybody. The people who get rich off their underpriced labor are the ones who are hurting American workers, and they should be the ones we hit with the big punishments.

[FLHTbiker]

Amen Bob, your right on


Marc

[SPORSTERBOY]

Not That Anyone Likes The Idea Of Border Jumpers, But That's The Real Concern. It's Not The People Who Come Here To Do The Work We Won't Do. If We Stop Those People From Doing Those Certian Jobs, Just Think Of What It Would Do To Our Econemy. The Simple Foods We Buy Would Get So Jacked Up In Price. Or They Would Just Stop Farming And We Would Have To Buy From Over Seas. So If They Want To Come Here And Work, I Think Thats All It Should Be. They Shouldn't Get American Rights Or Get Any Of Our Tax Dollers. They Should Give Worker Prifilage With Certian Papers And If They Don't Have It, It Should Be Treated As A Crime, And They Should Be Sent Back.

[stevenh]

One approach might be to address why they are coming here in the first place. It's amazing that a country which sits right below us can exist in such poverty.
There's plenty of big US companies that move their factories or operations down there to exploit the ridiculously low labor rates they can get away with paying. It's hard to fix a government that is corrupt and in the pockets of big corporations.
Also, you never hear about Latin America at all in the media these days. Our current foreign policy is limited to overseas and this is going to hurt us eventually as there is a growing anti US sentiment being fueled by some of the politicians down there. It's easy to redirect anger to the US because we are viewed as rich and spoiled. If you are poor, it's easy to shift blame and anger to those who "appear" to have it made. This takes the focus off the real cause of one's poverty which is typically corrupt leaders taking it all for themselve's.
The middle east is a good example of that resentment. The majority are poor while the King's and princes and a few families or clans take the bulk of their oil revenues. There's obviously been a successful campaign of shifting the focus off the reasons of their misfortune and directing their anger to the West which is why there's so many idiots blowing everbody up and calling it religion.

[AZ05FXST]

Sleepy, Big Ben, and stevenh all make very valid points about this issue. IMO we don't need new laws, we need to enforce the laws we have. If someone is here illegally no matter where they are from or what they are doing here they are still here illegally and should be deported. We have a system in place for people to enter our country legally.

Who came up with this ideal that if someone has been in our country illegally for 5 years they suddenly become citizens? I don't get it, commit a crime for 5 years and get rewarded for it.

Build a wall? Yes, Bigger and better than the Great Wall of China.
Felony for hiring illegals? Big fines and time in jail, not time in prison. If we did these two things it would at least slow the flow of illegals way down.

[CD]

Here is my take on the wall. Is it possible to construct and patrol a wall? Absolutely.

10-12' high solid steel with a 4' footer. Concertina wire on top razor sharp and hard as all get out.
REMBASS sensor technologies developed in SEA and pretty well perfected now. Power trench with fiber optics etc encased in a tough material.
Sensors looped to control points. Lighting without gaps and speakers that blare out warnings as they are sensed by the REMBASS. A gate every so often would allow the BP to just kick them back across without any hassle. Need water? Take a jug, bye bye.

A while back, I had a conversation with a customer that works in the DOD and he gave me these examples. From the inferences he made, I think it is being looked at as a problem to solve with technology and some strategic planning. He knows a lot about the REMBASS and how it works and this basic plan was what he outlined except I added in the razor wire.
That leaves border towns like Nogales but, it would be a start. Even if you built it a mile at a time, you slowly close the border.

[GreyBear]

Howdy,
It seems to me that there are several issues at play here, some in the spotlight, some lurking in the shadows. First of all the security issue. Most terrorists are part of extremely well funded, well run organizations. Paying several K for good papers isn't a problem. So the idea that the poor bastards facing death from dehydration or asphyxiation while being smuggled in in a sealer tanker or coming over by foot is pretty lame. Just like Donald Trump doesn't need to hitch hike terrorists can get in no matter what the border security is.
Of course most of the hoopla is political posturing anyhow, just like it was back in the 80's with Reagans immigration battles. Those congress men and women from largely White districts will be talking tough the ones with a large Hisapnic constituency will be the "voices of reason and moderation". Smoke and mirrors in DC as usual.
Could we, using the technology CD mentioned effectively seal our borders? Sure. And just like the Great Wall in China the barbarian hordes would be shut out...and we would be shut in. You cannot seal us off without sealing us in. And with the current climate I am not real sure that this isnt what it's really about anyway. Seal the population in. Drive up gas prices so travel is limited. Add the Patriot act and some other things and you have a bad scenario waiting in the wings. We have already lost more freedoms than I ever thought US citizens would tolerate losing.
As to the illegal workers, well they come here, and bust thier asses. Sure they work cheap, and live in crowded conditions and put up with a ration of crap. Yet they WORK. And we have a huge segment of our "native" population that lives on the dole. So we reward those too lazy to get a job and deport the ones busting thier buns to make a decent life for themselves? Don't seem too ethical to me.
And like someone else said here: What about the ones hiring them? If you are gonna make anyone felons hit the companies that hire these people. Just like dope, as long as theres money to be made there will be dealers. And as long as corporate America can keep a healthy bottom line they will hire illegals.
I don't know what the answer is. It's a really complex issue. Do you uproot people that have been here for years, working and trying to make a life and send them back? And if you do that....what about their kids that were born here? Those kids are US citizens. Do we deport them too? Or split up families and spend more money to institutionalize these kids? Like I said theres a whole lot to consider and I for one am tired of the politicos using polls to decide what knee jerk legislative action they can garner the most publicity and votes with this week. We need to settle and look at the overall picture realistically.

[Big Ben]

CD, I don't think anyone's arguing that it can't be done. The question is whether it's practical.

A wall like you describe across our whole southern border would cost billions to build and millions per year to maintain, and the people who want to get in will just start using boats unless we turn our thousands of miles of coastline into a fortress too. The Great Wall of China didn't stop the Manchu invasion and the Maginot Line didn't stop the Nazis. If enough people want to get in badly enough they'll find a way.

I also think GreyBear has a good point about how keeping them out means sealing us in. Security is important, but when my 3 year old daughter has to take off her shoes to get on an airplane, something is seriously wrong. Something has to be done, but let's try to make sure that the things that we're doing actually make sense.

I think people need to figure out exactly what the problem we're trying to solve is.

If you think the problem is "they're breaking the law" then change the law--problem solved.

If you think the problem is "too many brown people", then sorry buddy, you* are the problem.

If you think the problem is American workers losing their jobs, you could make all the unemployed Americans pretty rich if you just gave them the money we'd spend on a new Maginot line. I think there are plenty of ways we could go about solving the problem of immigrant workers being exploited at wages that put American citizens out of jobs, but throwing brown people into prison and turning our free nation into a fortress don't look like very effective ways of doing that.


*(I'm not accusing anyone here of thinking that, but plenty of the anti-immigrant folks do.)

[scooter]

The issue is to ENFORCE the existing laws.

Penalize those who hire the illegal immigrant and thereby give reason and impetus to gain access to our country by illegal means.

The current situation is a drain, at best, on our economy. It really matters not if we have people in this country who don't "WANT" to do that type of work...we need to get them off of their third and fourth generation welfare @sses and get them in the fields, and kitchens, and street repair work that the illegal is "good" enough to do. Copy?

Bottom line, enforce the existing laws, and fund those that do the enforcing.

scoot

[SK]

Enforcing the current laws is something that needs to be done in many areas..not just immigration.

Making felons out of folks just trying to make a living isn't right, so I agree we need to crack down on the people doing the hiring.

While there's definitely a need for farm workers like in California, many low paying jobs just keep get cheaper and it's affecting our poor..blacks and whites alike. They shouldn't be displaced because of an illegal.

CD..if we build a wall..how deep in the ground do we go? They're good at digging tunnels pretty deep into the earth and popping up in some basement in a house here in the US. Plus, as mentioned..floating a boat into Texas or California will increase. I think it's a lot of money for little gain.

An article in the paper this morning shows a lot of employers are firing folks for skipping work to protest the issue. Kids are being suspended for skipping school to protest. Definitely a controversy that's going to get bigger before it gets better.

Bush blasted my senator from Nevada (Reid) yesterday for single handedly stopping the passage of the immigration bill in the Senate. While I'm not a big fan of Reid..I understand his retort. "The Republicans run the White House, the House and the Senate, and I stopped the passage of this bill?". I think Bush is trying to appease the Hispanic population as much as possible and it's causing a big rift among the GOP. I'm not a Democrat, but somewhere along the line both sides need to forge an alliance and get something done.

[hotroadking]

I am of the change the rules and ways people can come in to work camp.

Look, no matter how much you spend and how big a wall you build the money is being spent to keep out what the majority is = Cheap Labor.

America needs a reliable stream of cheap labor in certain industry segments, without it the cost of producing some items would double or triple.

I doubt many of us would ever consider a 15 hour day humped over in a lettuce field, people that would fit that work just in many cases won't work, or get the first paycheck cashed and are strung out on drugs and alcohol again and back on the streets.

I am against illegal immigration, I can see where people would like to come work but don't want to immigrate, they want to go home to Mexico. So why not make it easy to do so, legal and provide security with the means to track them, and the IRS with a way to monitor them. Seems we'd get the best of both worlds Security and simplicity.

Then guard the border and anyone comes over is a felon and goes to jail.

So we have a couple of types

Legal Immigrants - Citizens or want to be
Work Visa Immigrant - can come to work for a certian period or
Perminant Work Visa - must be renewed each year, they can come and go and it's monitored.

[SPORSTERBOY]

Isn't That Pretty Close To What The Law Is, That We Already Have? I Guess My Next Move Will Be To Canada. Feel Sorry For You Guys Down South. Been There. Ethinecly It's A Caucasion World Here. And You Guys Didn't Think Nothin Of The Taco Bell Slogan [make Your Way To The Border]

[chucktx]

as for the cost of the wall.....if we stopped sending money overseas to other contries....they hate us but love our money.... we could build the wall and clear the nations debt.
chuck

[GreyBear]

Ya know I have a friend, Sonny, down in Florida. He's Russian a LEGAL immegrant...and an ex Spetz soldier. We were BSing the other day and the subject came up. And his views although cold and in I am sure in some peoples opinions brutal are something worth thinking about. We want things both ways. We want the cheap labor, we want to be the "good guys" (although it's hard to find many places in the world that thinks we are) we have a really cockeyed way of looking at things that not only doesn't make a lot of sense, makes some things just not workable.
Sonny said, quote: "How many people would be crossing the border....if you made the crossing ground a kill zone?" Now that was Russias way of deling with such things. Am I suggesting we just shoot those coming over? No. But If we arent willing to do so.....what teeth do we have. We can not as some idiots on capitol hill have suggested make felons and imprison illegals...it would bankrupt us. They go on TV and say that we can't even afford the manpower and resources it would take to round them all up and ship them home. So we are a whole lot like a parent that counts. You know the ones. "Now I am NOT going to put up with this....you are in big trouble ONE now I mean it I am not kidding you TWO".... and they count and the kid KNOWS they are not going to do anything so big deal. Threats without action are just BS. We need a multi step way of dealing with the problem. We simply HAVE to get control of the borders....A wall? Why spend the money? You can use electronic sensors and heat detection etc much more cost effectively. HIRE ENOUGH BORDER PATROL TO GET THE JOB DONE. Equip them and stop shafting them like we do our military...using the Walmart system of making sure they are pushed out before retirement age. Start hitting places like the carpet industry in Ga and others that hire undocumented workers and hold them accountable. Go in and sweep them up and fine the companies 10K a worker per day. They hire them so they have a healthy bottom line....take the profit out and the illegals wont have jobs....stop furnishing welfare and all of that to non residents....no one else does.....It takes doing something constructive and looking at the base of the problem. But my friends it aint gonna happen. Just like the "war on drugs" The fat cats all the way up continue to make money....the kid on the street with a pocket full of crack or bags of weed gets locked up. As long as big business is making a buck off illegals, drugs or anything else...the problem will continue and all we will get is a lot of talk and some band aids.......
Ride Free.......

[mwelych]

Man that is a tough one. I have a few Mexican friends (although they are legal). We have to get tough on this one, but also they do fill a nitch in society. Mainly doing jobs that no other american will do (except for teenagers). China took care of there drug and alcohol problem by rounding up known addicts and drunks giving them one chance to recover/rehabilitate, and if they fell back into it, they were executed. No more problems. I am not saying we need to get this tough, but we have to do something. I think the idea of going after businesses hiring illegals is the best method. We can't blame a person that lives in squalor in another country coming here illegally to make things better for themselves and family still in the other country. Well my .01 for my thoughts. Peace

[CD]

We have a group called the Minutemen that observe
News quote from local news channel: The Border Patrol will inform the Mexican Government of the location the Minutemen are observing. This will prevent migrant rights from being violated.

Other than basic human rights what rights does an illegal alien have that are guaranteed by law? Remember, we not speaking of a legal migrant but an illegal migrant (alien). There is a very big differrence.

SK,

Current motion sensor can detect sound from tunneling also.

[hotroadking]

Originally Posted by CD

We have a group called the Minutemen that observe
News quote from local news channel: The Border Patrol will inform the Mexican Government of the location the Minutemen are observing. This will prevent migrant rights from being violated.

Other than basic human rights what rights does an illegal alien have that are guaranteed by law? Remember, we not speaking of a legal migrant but an illegal migrant (alien). There is a very big differrence.

SK,

Current motion sensor can detect sound from tunneling also.

that Piss's me off, It's part of a "legal method" to change the situation, to get money for illegals?

Frig them, they are illegal.

We need congress to pass a law that says under US Law you are not entitled to the benefits of the country and that you have no rights as you would as a citizen,

Once caught, you get bundled up and dropped back in your country.

Again, change it so they can feel they can come to the border and register and once approved come in to work, and the problem of border security drops drastically.

It's like being in a fight with your spouse, you know you're right, she thinks shes right so all you do is stand nose to nose, and in the end, you will sleep on the couch, and you won't get sex but you're right. Better to find a compromise that allows you to win and get sex.

[GreyBear]

[

It's like being in a fight with your spouse, you know you're right, she thinks shes right so all you do is stand nose to nose, and in the end, you will sleep on the couch, and you won't get sex but you're right. Better to find a compromise that allows you to win and get sex. [/quote]
Well I guess. I was a bachelor for a whole lot of years because I just dont do that crap. I dont argue. We can discuss something but if it's get up in my face time....find a mirror and get in your own face. I am gone.Cause when it gets to that point it isnt about the point any more...its personal and about whos alpha dog. A pissing contest..and the only way to win is just not play. My sweety now heard that and believed it but ya know how things are ya gotta see if real is really real. I called 4 days later and asked if she had cooled down. That was 6 years ago and we havent fought since.....and I havent split.
Ride Free......