The random political thoughts thread (Part Deux)

[Gemini Cricket]

Originally Posted by Motorboat Cruiser

How is that fair?

I hear what you are saying. But we were weak in the past about enforcing the rules. How then can we suddenly get all up in arms about the people who got through? Well, how did they get through? Shoddy border security. You can have a tougher presence now and make it harder for people to get in illegally now. However, it's hard to say 'Okay, now that we're paying attention, everyone who we didn't see get in is a felon.' ???

Personally, I find someone who floated here on a raft to be pretty courageous. That's moxie. We should include those people who would do that to get here. My friend goes to Harvard. Her family floated here from Cuba when she was 6 or so on a freakin' raft. What are we supposed to say? 'Darling, you didn't fill out the right forms. You must take your raft and go back?' My friend is an undergrad at Harvard now. She's going to be a brilliant professor in biochemistry someday. Her family busts their butts to pay her tuition... They are legally American now, but initially they weren't. But they were so unhappy with their country that they came here to make a change and they did. To me, it's patrotic to say, 'If you would risk your life to be here, then you should be here.'

[Motorboat Cruiser]

Originally Posted by Gemini Cricket

I hear what you are saying. But we were weak in the past about enforcing the rules. How then can we suddenly get all up in arms about the people who got through? Well, how did they get through? Shoddy border security. You can have a tougher presence now and make it harder for people to get in illegally now. However, it's hard to say 'Okay, now that we're paying attention, everyone who we didn't see get in is a felon.' ???

Yes, we have been weak on this issue but if I rob someone and don't get caught, haven't I still committed a crime? If they find out about it years later, they surely aren't going to say "Well, we were a little lax when you committed the crime so, even though we now know you committed it, you are free to go". A crime was commited and there should be a penalty, even if the person isn't caught immediately.

Personally, I find someone who floated here on a raft to be pretty courageous. That's moxie. We should include those people who would do that to get here. My friend goes to Harvard. Her family floated here from Cuba when she was 6 or so on a freakin' raft. What are we supposed to say? 'Darling, you didn't fill out the right forms. You must take your raft and go back?' My friend is an undergrad at Harvard now. She's going to be a brilliant professor in biochemistry someday. Her family busts their butts to pay her tuition... They are legally American now, but initially they weren't. But they were so unhappy with their country that they came here to make a change and they did. To me, it's patrotic to say, 'If you would risk your life to be here, then you should be here.'

You know what? I see the courage in these acts as well, and I am well aware that these aren't necessarily bad people who are doing this. I sympathize with them and were I in the same situation, I very well might take the same course of action. I don't fault them, I fault the mexican government and I fault ours for letting this situation get so out of hand. Still, replace the kind family you mention above with a rapist and tell me it's no big deal that they didn't go through the proper channels (which might have prevented it). Most people that come into this country are good, hard working people. Some are absolutely not though and we have no way of determining whether a person who snuck across the border wants to work, or detonate a dirty bomb at Disneyland. The legal process can determine if someone that wants to move here has a prior record and they can be prevented. Illegally crossing the border means that we have no idea what your background is. That is a major problem.

[Gemini Cricket]

Originally Posted by Motorboat Cruiser

Yes, we have been weak on this issue but if I rob someone and don't get caught, haven't I still committed a crime?
...
A crime was commited and there should be a penalty, even if the person isn't caught immediately.

Yes, but outside of being here illegally, don't these people also do us a lot of good? ie. These people are working the fields in Salinas. I don't see any kids right out of high school picking artichokes...
I don't put illegal aliens and thieves and rapists in the same boat. I don't think it's a black and white issue like that. I think some good comes from them being here.

Originally Posted by Motorboat Cruiser

Still, replace the kind family you mention above with a rapist and tell me it's no big deal that they didn't go through the proper channels (which might have prevented it). Most people that come into this country are good, hard working people. Some are absolutely not though and we have no way of determining whether a person who snuck across the border wants to work, or detonate a dirty bomb at Disneyland. The legal process can determine if someone that wants to move here has a prior record and they can be prevented. Illegally crossing the border means that we have no idea what your background is. That is a major problem.

I don't see what you're saying here. Someone who comes here legally could rape someone. Someone who was born here could do the same. The legal processes fail us all the time. Your statement, MBC, illustrates to me that the fear tactics that have been used about this issue are working.

The real issue at hand is that Americans are in this weird space right now where people are rising up in fear of people who are different. Post 9/11, America is a tough place to be if you're Muslim, Jewish, black, Latino, gay... Everything is a threat to our country or a threat to our moral fiber. Well, are those things really a threat to us? ie. People have been coming over illegally for many many decades now. Have we crumbled? People need to have more faith in their country's ability to survive than that. If every person who comes here illegally has the potential to topple us, then something's wrong with us (the U.S.).

[scaeagles]

Originally Posted by Gemini Cricket

Yes, but outside of being here illegally, don't these people also do us a lot of good?

I guess it depends on your definition of good.

Here is something I found and hate to admit it's from FAIR:

"Between 40 and 50 percent of wage-loss among low-skilled Americans is due
to the in-migration of low-skilled workers. Many American workers lose their
jobs through unfair competition. An estimated 1,880,000 American workers are
displaced from their jobs every year by immigration and the cost for
providing welfare and assistance to these Americans is over $15 billion a
year - FAIR research.

Immigration is a net drain on the economy; corporate interests reap the
benefits of cheap labor, while taxpayers pay the infrastructural cost. FAIR
research shows "the net annual cost of illegal immigration has been estimated
at between $67 and $87 billion a year. Even studies claiming some modest
overall gain for the economy from immigration ($1 to $10 billion a year) have
found that it is outweighed by the fiscal cost ($15 to $20 billion a year)
to native taxpayers."

In AZ Cesar Chavez is big. He was the man who organized farm labor. He was adamantly opposed to illegal immigration because illegals flooded the work market and drove wages down. He reported anyone of questionable status he found to INS.

[Gemini Cricket]

Originally Posted by scaeagles

I guess it depends on your definition of good.

I lived in Monterey, CA for 3 years or so. My commute took me through a artichoke field every day. Anytime there was something to harvest, there were illegal immigrants out there picking these crops. I'm thinking that these guys did the markets some good by picking these crops. No one else would do it. I think they're doing a good thing.

(Tangent: In fact, I spoke with a school teacher in Carmel about this. I told her that if I were running her school, I'd make it a requirement for the kids to do one day of labor in one of these fields to see how hard it actually is. She thought it was a good idea.)

Yes, they take the job of someone American and legal who could do it. But I find it hard to believe that there are stacks of applications that were overlooked at the foreman's desk. If these guys didn't pick these crops, the business would take itself to South America and veggies would have to be shipped over here. I think that's worse for our country.

[Alex]

Originally Posted by Gemini Cricket

(Tangent: In fact, I spoke with a school teacher in Carmel about this. I told her that if I were running her school, I'd make it a requirement for the kids to do one day of labor in one of these fields to see how hard it actually is. She thought it was a good idea.)

Yes, they take the job of someone American and legal who could do it. But I find it hard to believe that there are stacks of applications that were overlooked at the foreman's desk. If these guys didn't pick these crops, the business would take itself to South America and veggies would have to be shipped over here. I think that's worse for our country.

Growing up in Southwest Washington strawberries were the big crop and they came to harvest just as school got out for the summer. Pretty much every kid I knew put in time at the fields getting their $.50 per flat and finding out just how hard the work was. I think I was 13 the first time my mom woke me up at 6 a.m. and dragged me out the strawberry fields.

GC, at what point do you think our minimum wage laws, workplace protection laws, and employee right laws should be discarded to prevent an industry from leaving the country? Where we will then protest the corporations use of underpaid foreign labor without the basic protections we grant in the United States? And did you ever think you'd end up on the same side of an issue as evil corporations?

[Gemini Cricket]

Originally Posted by Alex Stroup

Growing up in Southwest Washington strawberries were the big crop and they came to harvest just as school got out for the summer. Pretty much every kid I knew put in time at the fields getting their $.50 per flat and finding out just how hard the work was. I think I was 13 the first time my mom woke me up at 6 a.m. and dragged me out the strawberry fields.

I think that's cool.

Originally Posted by Alex Stroup

GC, at what point do you think our minimum wage laws, workplace protection laws, and employee right laws should be discarded to prevent an industry from leaving the country? Where we will then protest the corporations use of underpaid foreign labor without the basic protections we grant in the United States? And did you ever think you'd end up on the same side of an issue as evil corporations?

I don't think those things should be compromised to prevent someone from leaving. I think it would be up to the consumer to see if they'd put up with that kind of thing. They don't seem to mind going to Wal*Mart to buy their cheap clothes and lawn furniture, they probably wouldn't mind if Earthbound Farms moved their crops to South America...
I don't know if I'm on the side of big corporations. But I do see your point. I keep thinking that these people have to work somewhere. Ideally, if they got here the right way things would be perfect. However, we enabled them to be here by being shoddy with our border security. So what happens next? They work nowhere and starve. Then you'd have the thieves and rapists. There needs to be some inbetween place for these people. There isn't.

[Motorboat Cruiser]

Originally Posted by Gemini Cricket

I don't see what you're saying here. Someone who comes here legally could rape someone. Someone who was born here could do the same. The legal processes fail us all the time. Your statement, MBC, illustrates to me that the fear tactics that have been used about this issue are working.

Sure, someone who comes here legally could rape someone. If they have no prior record, we would have no way of knowing that. But some (maybe only a few) of the people who sneak over here DO have a previous history of crime that might raise a red flag. Without them going through the proper channels, we have absolutely no way of knowing this.

If it is ok for a company in the US to require a background check before someone can work for them, it should also be ok to require a background check before we allow someone to become a citizen. That's not fear. That is common sense.

[Gemini Cricket]

Originally Posted by Motorboat Cruiser

But some (maybe only a few) of the people who sneak over here DO have a previous history of crime that might raise a red flag. Without them going through the proper channels, we have absolutely no way of knowing this.

Am I really going to trust border security to properly screen someone when they can't even keep people out?

Originally Posted by Motorboat Cruiser

If it is ok for a company in the US to require a background check before someone can work for them, it should also be ok to require a background check before we allow someone to become a citizen. That's not fear. That is common sense.

The sudden emphasis on this now is fear. Common sense should have been used for decades now and wasn't.

[Motorboat Cruiser]

Originally Posted by Gemini Cricket

Am I really going to trust border security to properly screen someone when they can't even keep people out?

Part of what needs to be fixed is more funding and more agents. The system is obviously completely overwhelmed at the moment and has been for some time. But that isn't really the issue here. The issue is, should we just allow anyone into this country with no safeguards whatsoever? Why even have a legal process if there is no penalty whatsoever for sidestepping that process?

The sudden emphasis on this now is fear. Common sense should have been used for decades now and wasn't.

The only "sudden" part of this is that politicians are now seeing that people are pissed off about this and the media sees a story that people are interested in. But this didn't become important to me because CNN started covering it. It has been one of my many gripes with this and former administrations for a long time. You are absolutely right, things should have never come to this point. We should have been taking this seriously for a long time and we didn't and we are paying a price now.

If there are fear tactics being used, they are the "nobody would ever do these jobs but illegal immigrants." There is no truth to that statement. An accurate statement would be "nobody is willing to do this work at the wage being offerred to illegal immigrants." Offer someone 10 bucks an hour to do this work and you would see that pile of applications materialize in a heartbeat.

Years ago, when I lived on Long Island, we had two family friends that were both landscapers. They supported their family by doing this and they did the work themselves. I'm sure that they were paid more than $4 an hour but they had plenty of work and didn't go out of business. People were willing to pay whatever they charged or they didn't use their services. I'm having a hard time understanding why it worked then but could never possibly work now.