If we were able to establish a track record of mostly stopping illegal immigration and drying up the job opportunities for those already here, amnesty would be fine.

She's saying that treating illegal or undocumented immigrants as universally criminals and nigh subhuman is the problem. Everyone who speeds breaks the law but we don't villianize "speeders." Hell society doesn't villianize drunk drivers in some places either. Villianizing, or "othering" illegal immigrants leads to knee-jerk laws that typically don't solve the problem.

The options aren't only "Amnesty and nothing else" or "Kick them all out" either.

Personally I think we need to reform immigration, see the link I posted, there's a reason why "getting back in line" isn't effective. Whether that means making the hiring process easier, so that employers can/will sponsor more, or whether we add more "basic labor" positions to the immigration code, I'm not sure. We need to pass the DREAM act. We need to grant citizenship to immigrants who have been working, living, otherwise contributing to our economy. And we need to crack down on employers who hire under the table and exploit their employees (and typically subsequently abuse them).

But you can't expect to do part of it without doing all of it.

people will react and villanize who and what they want to villanize. someone might view armed robbery as not a big deal, but will view jay walking as a big deal. and that's their prerogative and their issue.

just because folks don't make a big deal about speeding, drunk driving, or drug use and choose to make a big deal about illegal immigration, doesn't mean that the former offences aren't a big deal to someone else.

i comment on illegal immigration. we're in an illegal immigration thread. does that mean that i should have the same level of opinion in a thread regarding tax evasion? no.

i don't know what about the immigration process that needs reforming. and no one has been able to say what's wrong with the process. just because folks bypass the process, doesn't mean the process is wrong.

I see the pros and cons of amnesty and the children of illegal immigrants being citizens by birth. It does give illegal immigrants a way out and contribute to the moral dilemma of kicking illegal immigrants out ("how can you kick the parents out when their kids are citizens?). Crafty.

Well . . . the majority of people would rather go through the arduous, expensive and dangerous process of crossing illegally instead of using the established legal process. That pretty much indicates the legal process is broken, by definition - it clearly is not working in the intended fashion.

It seems pretty clear there has to be a better way. Whether or not the process is "wrong" is irrelevant at that point (indeed, it seems that immigration policy was intended for European/Asian immigration and educational opportunity, and not low-income immigration).

As far as what needs fixing, it seems similarly clear that there are two fundamental angles of attack that need to form the basis of any reform:

1 - End the system of employers essentially enforcing immigration policy by proxy - employers have no incentive to enforce, and actually have disincentive (cheap labor, tax burden, etc.).

2 - Shift the risk/reward axis to give better incentive to legal entry rather than illegal entry, whether that is by establishing a new, "temporary worker working toward citizenship" class or whatever other method.

The point is not that we're not taking speeding seriously in this thread. Or tax evasion. Or anything. It's not about being "soft on crime" or "not caring about illegal immigration." It's about not dehumanizing people, or villianizing to the point where you write laws based on fear instead of facts. I don't know how you're continuing to miss this point.

This is what is wrong with the process: http://lafinjack.net/images/random/immigration.jpg

It takes decades, it is incredibly expensive, and nearly impossible if you're the average person from Mexico. In the meantime, it's cheaper to pay a coyote, even if it's more dangerous, and you can find work here. If you don't fix both sides, the difficulty getting in as well as the incentives to come illegally, you won't solve the problem.

If you don't know what's wrong with immigration then you're probably not going to be able to talk about the issue of illegal immigration on any level other than "throw them out" because you're lacking the basic understanding of why they're here illegally in the first place. Most illegal immigrants aren't rampant law breakers and wouldn't just be kicking around the US with a fake ID if they had other options.

really?

people will villanize what they want to villanize. and people are entitled to villanize who and what they want. whatever they're passionate about. and just because (by your definition of dehumanization), them villanizing people is dehumanizing them, doesn't mean that it's they (by their definition of dehumanizing) think they're dehumanizing them. your definition of dehumanizing is likely different from my definition of dehumanizing.

so the us doesn't want unskilled labor. it wants people with talent. ok, so?

i understand why they're here illegally. does that mean i think the immigration process is flawed? no.

is it the process's fault that illegal immigrants choose to bypass it? no.

i also understand the process which one undertakes to become an immigrant. does that mean i think there's something wrong with the process? no.

me thinking there's nothing wrong with the process doesn't mean i don't understand the process.

being illegal is a quick fix. can it be streamlined? likely. can a lot of red tape be removed? likely.

but no matter how short you make it, coming here illegally will always be easier and quicker. we can wax philosophical on what exactly about the process needs to be changed, but the fact of the matter is that many people would rather cross the rio grande than file the paper work.

So the goal, then, is to create benefits/incentives to overcome "easier and quicker" (which are clearly NOT the only two driving forces).

Right now, this is the norm. It is NOT a universal given - there's nothing special or enticing about crossing the Rio Grande to the point where we can say the appeal simply cannot be overcome.

Will some always take the path of not filing paperwork? Sure, of course. But you can knock it down from 90% to whatever small percentage (likely 10% or less, if we use crime stats or IRS stats as a guide) - and while it's theoretical now, that's just because nobody has tried it. There is no reason theory can't convert to practice.

noted. we can make it easier, quicker, and give folks better access to this country. the crux is should we? is our process that much more difficult than our peers?

There are other ways to give incentive other than making it quicker and easier to enter - that's probably the most important thing to note in the entire conversation.

The "should we" portion is difficult - personally I view the problem as essentially 'sunk cost' at this point. From that angle, it makes little to no sense to me to increase ineffectual methods (hi fence!) that are not really making a dent in the issue. Without getting too long, I'm not sure I see the downside to easier integration, though.

Strain on social services and public education. And those aren't insignificant items.

An argument might be made for increased violent crime, but that's speculative. It is a fact that lots of crimes do go unreported in illegal communities, but to what extent is entirely speculative.

The border, and yes, even the wall, could be effectively controlled if the government actually expended the necessary resources to do so.

You mean, those social services and public schools that already exist and are already being strained (hence "sunk cost")? You mean those same services that would be largely made more efficient by increasing things like English integration, early-childhood education, parental involvement without fear of retribution, etc.? Add better-targeted funds (with an accurate 'head count') and similar improvements, and . . . well . . .

It may seem counterintuitive, but shouldn't the strain go down with a properly-implemented and accounted-for immigration process?

So the problem with easier access is cost, and the solution to immigration is to increase costs/funding?

This assumes that these "properly implemented and accounted for immigration process[es]" are able to experience any greater degree of success at solving whatever problems exist in the immigrant community that they set out to fix. From my vantage point [yes, anecdotally], government solutions to community problems are not typically successful. For every successful program, e.g., Rural Electrification, we have boondoggles like NCLB.

Your proposal is to essentially solve the problem with newer/better bureaucrats. Wouldn't money be more effectively spent at actually eliminating the problem of illegal immigration altogether (border enforcement), and THEN focusing on meeting our country's need for immigrant labor rather than focusing on meeting the immigrant labor's need for our country?

Isn't the first step to climbing out of a hole you've dug yourself into to stop digging?

Yes. Really.
It's not about that. You don't understand. And frankly I don't understand your sentence.


We need the unskilled labor, it's getting hired here all the time, and exploited. We're working against our own best interest.
The problems with the process exist whether you think they do or not.
No one is saying it's OK to break the law. But if it's broken, better to fix it.

The problems with the process exist whether you think they do or not.

You're entitled to your opinion, if there's nothing wrong with the immigration process then lets not change a thing and keep having illegal immigrants in the numbers that we have.



This isn't getting the government to solve community problems, but to solve it's own immigration laws and processes. Removing government influence doesn't make sense here.
You have to do it all at once or it will not work. The border is too big, and we USE immigrant labor. All of those jobs that hire illegal immigrants aren't going to go away, and as long as farms aren't required to pay minimum wage, Americans aren't signing up in droves either.

Not if the dirt's going to fall down on top of you if you just stop without taking other action.