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Post by Benjamin Morgan on Aug 23, 2007 1:36:10 GMT -5
This is one of the first things people ask me about. So here it goes: The borders will be shut down. You will not get in unless we know where you're going and how long you'll be there. And then you'll have to "check out" of the country so we know you're gone. It will all be tracked and everyone will be accounted for. Illegal immigrants will be booted out or they can file for citizenship; which includes a minimal knowledge of the English language. Illegal immigrants will no longer mooch off our medical care or stay in this country without contributing to it. You'll either be a foreigner visiting or an American. Period.
I'd actually like to clip ankle-bracelets on people to track them wherever they go but I doubt that will happen. (That's a joke) It'd be expensive too. ;D
So that's my take on immigration. Please discuss, debate, ask questions. Did I leave anything out? Let me know what you think.
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42jeff
Junior Member
Posts: 68
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Post by 42jeff on Aug 23, 2007 9:31:44 GMT -5
I'm not going to say I'm necessarily AGAINST imigration...but... What I AM going to agree with is that strict control needs to be applied to it. My son said it best one day in a joke I overheard him telling his buddies "Why doesn't Mexico have an Olympic team? Because everybody who can run, jump or swim is already HERE." How is it that the President of Mexico could really care less if his people leave? Because when they come HERE, and send OUR money back THERE, it helps his economy. Why is it that rancers down in border areas are REQUIRED...BY LAW...to put out watering holes on their property so those...um...people...who choose not to follow proper immigration procedures don't dehydrate and die while they're breaking into our country. And why is it that Mexi-fornia and other southwestern states are required to supply multi-lingual ballots? To vote you have to be a citizen...to acquire citizenship, you need a working knowledge of English...hmmmm You shouldn't have gotten me started Ben... STORY TIME!!! I nearly had the police called on me once. Shortly after I moved into a new house, a fella walking down the street stopped to welcome me to the neighborhood and to chat a while. After a few minutes, I came to realize that he was a flaming moron. And then he saw the base sticker on the windshield of my car in the driveway. "Oh...you're military...." He couldn't have spoken more with the unspoken if he had spit on me. "What...is that a problem?" I asked. "Oh....it's just that I don't like anything to do with our government. Not until something is done with your president and his handling of issues like immigration." "Okay smartypants..what would YOU do about it?" And got the typical liberal stuttering and stammering about "more than he is doing" blah blah blah I asked him if we should just seal up the borders and he said that there is too MUCH control and restriction on the borders. What's the big deal with illegals anyway? He gave me a dismissive wave and wandered back down the street. So I saw the opportunity to perhaps make a point. I put down what I was doing and followed him down the street to what...I'd HOPED...was his house. He went inside. I sat on a chair on his front porch. About ten minutes later he came outside, so I asked him for a glass of tea. He shook his head and said "Uh uh...you gotta leave." "But why?" I replied. "This isn't your house and you weren't invited." "My wife is pregnant...if I bring her down here and she has the baby on your yard, can we stay then?" "NO! Get out of here!" "I still don't see what the problem is. You have tea. I don't have any. You need to give me some." "I don't have to give you SHIT! Get off my PROPERTY!" The guy looked like he was about to pop and the guy across the street had stopped mowing his yard and was watching what was going on. "So...let me get this straight. Even though you have tea, you won't let me have any. Your yard is MUCH nicer than my yard, yet I can't sit on it because you haven't invited me. Now you're saying I can't stay. How is that any different from illegals coming across the border every day?" "I'm calling the police...." and he wandered inside. So I chose then to depart. Everytime I saw him for the next year before I moved, I smiled real big and waved. I even asked him to come down for tea a few times...he never took me up on it though
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Post by Benjamin Morgan on Aug 23, 2007 11:39:41 GMT -5
Yah! I love story time! That's a good one too. That thing about ranchers required to have watering holes is ridiculous.
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Post by nathan bell on Aug 23, 2007 12:28:50 GMT -5
immigration i like it yes cuz they live here basicly for free without taxes they are filling up the jails and they all need to know english if we have to learn there language so do they im not scared to put my name this is what should happen and ben is doing the right thing
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42jeff
Junior Member
Posts: 68
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Post by 42jeff on Aug 23, 2007 12:43:32 GMT -5
And on the subject of prisons I saw...or heard...or read...or just plain ol' made up a stat last year or so about like 27% or something of people currently in our prison system being illegals. Now riddle me this...wouldn't a bus ticket to the border cost just about as much as would cost to house/feed/care for these people for a day? Doing this of course AFTER the fifty foot high barbed wire fence with snipers every 1000 yards of course.
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Post by Benjamin Morgan on Aug 23, 2007 12:53:40 GMT -5
And on the subject of prisons I saw...or heard...or read...or just plain ol' made up a stat last year or so about like 27% or something of people currently in our prison system being illegals. Now riddle me this...wouldn't a bus ticket to the border cost just about as much as would cost to house/feed/care for these people for a day? Doing this of course AFTER the fifty foot high barbed wire fence with snipers every 1000 yards of course. Hell yeah! We have got to get these people out. But that's an issue politicians won't touch because they're so afraid of it.
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Post by SymphonyOfDreams on Aug 23, 2007 14:59:53 GMT -5
Ok... I'm not American... nor do I plan in the near future to become an immigrant or anything... and like you I DONT SUPPORT ILLEGAL IMMIGRATION, but if you want to be taken seriously, you need to take a look for the wider scope, I suppose.
If we are talking about today, we'd be saying that right off the bat you'd have removed 11 million people in (a somewhat realistic timeframe) 5 years, off of your borders. Let's think for a second:
OPERATIONAL COSTS
For that operation only you have to consider how they'll be thrown out and how do you guarantee they'll stay out.
No wall can keep people going from one side to the other, specially if you consider how desperate these immigrants are. The most effective wall at that EVER, was the Berlin wall (and many still crossed) and that was filled with mines and traps and guards and stuff (and you wouldn't want to deal with the political outrage of any immigrant getting killed by a mine you ordered to be put there), the only thing you'll accomplish is to make it more expensive for illegals to cross, sooo the idea of cutting illegal immigration to zero is impossible. So how much does setting a wall like that up across the Rio Grande cost? several billion dollars, and it's maintenance even more during an (i suppose) unlimited life span. All coming from taxpayers money. But I'll assume you feel that americans wont have any problem to lose 1 cent out of every dollar just to pay for the wall. Considering though that your biggest (voting) minority as of right now are hispanic and mostly sons and daughters of former illegal immigrants, not to mention immigrants from other nationalities.
After that briefly resume of SOME of the costs (as you can be sure there are a lot more implications, which sadly time doesn't allow me to expand on) of keeping them out... now consider the costs of throwing 11 million people out.
How much does persuing, finding, hunting down 11 million people cost? I can imagine that only Hitler knows, and even with the use of brutal force he couldn't get them all, and I'm assuming that the use of brute force on 11 million immigrants is out of the question (after all, tiranny is a word that should be out of anyone's language), so use of non-lethal force (nationwide detection, officers, transportation, bureacracy, legal issues and lawsuits, etc etc etc) is at least 100x times more expensive than lethal force (one bullet to the head), so take whatever it costed Hitler and multiply it AT LEAST by a 100. So lets throw some random number and say that per each illegal immigrant, adding up all cost of personnel, transportation, food, fuel, weapons, legal issues, etc in average each illegal immigrant will only cost you 1K (wich we can tell, might be more expensive considering the size of the operation), so kicking out 11 million might cost you in the 11 billion dollars... sounds cheap, but dont forget you still have immigrants coming in... and we are using the numbers as off today.
ECONOMICAL COSTS
Illegal immigrants are said to be behind at least 20% of US current economical growth (which is expected to be 4%?).
They bring you young hand labor, which is something not to be taken lightly. The demographic impact of immigrants in the US makes it the only developed country where the population is still increasing and not decreasing and where the young still out number the old. Many european countries and Canada are now begging for immigrants to go to their countries, because of the old age of their workforce (wich eventually takes a huge toll on pension programs, because there wont be enough young workers to pay for their retirement) and decreasing population. The US doesn't have that problem.
However, if you remove in a full blow 6 to 8 million workers you have to consider huge and immidiate compensations for the affected industries, as they try to hire local hand work and not have their whole businesses go down in flames and create the domino effect between all the companies involved in the production, distribution and selling of products, you can just imagine what would happen to say... Walmart... if the companies that produce their products go bankrupt due to drop in production and failure to supply the current demand... and then apply that with almost every industry in the country, and you are looking at a complete economical meltdown.
The cost of such operation will have increased to proportions you cannot even imagine.
DETERRANT FROM FUTURE IMMIGRATION?
You have just sent 11 million people into already overpopulated poor countries that can barely meet their needs as it is, it is expected that poverty and famine will increase, surely social outburst will occur with their goverments unable to sustain the demands of the people, crime will increase, and thus you will have deemed an entire region as unstable... right next to your border.
So for the immigrant, the cost of staying in a socially unstable country pretty much balances on top of any cost you added by building the wall in the first place, but instead of 11 millions immigrants trying to cross it, you'll have 50 million or so.
MY SUGGESTION?
Eliminate the incentives for immigrants to cross the border, eliminate local incentives and eliminate foreign incentives. Figure out a way to incentivate poor countries into development. The amount of mexicans who cross the US-Mexico border has decreased in the last 10 years, whereas the amount of Central Americans attempting to do so, has increased. The free trade treaties have made such impact... consider it, along with other forms of mutually benefitial plans.
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Post by Benjamin Morgan on Aug 23, 2007 22:46:18 GMT -5
Great points SoD. And I will take all of that into consideration when figuring out the appropriate plan. That's the kind of stuff I want to hear about. So when I sit down with all the "smart people" we can think of all the consequences of all the decisions I make and be sure they are the best ones for the American people. And we don't need to kick out 11 million people. I'd imagine most of them would want to become citizens. They would just need a little bit of schooling. We'll figure it out.
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Post by Benjamin Morgan on Aug 24, 2007 0:05:37 GMT -5
After some "talk" on another forum, I had to post this over there:
First of all, with the immigration thing. As I've said, when I'm president, I'm going to sit down with a lot of "smart" people and discuss the best choices and figure out all the consequences and get all the numbers right. And it's not one issue. Immigration ties in to 20 different other issues (taxes, unemployment, health care) if not more. All that will be factored in and we will determine the best option. So if it's determined that keeping illegal immigrants here is better for the American people, then we're going to OPEN the borders and invite whoever wants in in. No view will go by the waste side (is that the saying?). And it's this type of feedback I embrace. If I'm dead wrong on something, TELL ME! I don't claim to know it all. But I do claim to posses the leadership skills and the desire to make this the best country for the people. That's the bottom line.
Priest, I'm not a Michael Moore fan, I am able to weed out the crap from the truth and I know that the health care system is f'd up in this country.
drummer_boy, the internet is the place to start something like this. NOTHING is bigger than the internet for connecting people and spreading the word.
Soldier, with the quiz, I was a little bit bottom left.
And yes, DT will be the "national" band. lol
ScreeminChikin and SymphonyofDreams, that's the type of stuff I need on my forum. Take it over there so we can figure it all out.
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42jeff
Junior Member
Posts: 68
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Post by 42jeff on Aug 24, 2007 8:41:07 GMT -5
In regards to Symphony of Dreams' post, your view was well written and thought out, I tried giving you a kudo...but you don't have an account yet..so, I owe you one. ;D However, I have a few things that need presenting. www.cis.org/articles/2004/fiscalexec.htmlI understand your numbers are based on today's econmy, so I'll stay with that scale to keep it simple. $11 Billion enforcing/deporting/pursuing individuals in violation of our immigration laws is acceptable. Especially considering that $9.6 B is spent annually on Medicaid, uninsured medical care, foodstamps, education, INPRISONMENT, and aid to schools with large quantities of children of illegal parents. Crimeny, it costs Mexifornia $10.9 B a year as it is usgovinfo.about.com/od/immigrationnaturalizatio/a/caillegals.htmAs far as economic impact, yes, employers would suddenty be forced to follow OTHER laws in regards to hiring their employees. Gone are the days of having somebody shingle a roof and only having to pay Pedro and Hector $10 for a days work. Now you'll have to pay John and Sam minimum wage, offer them breaks, and God forbid pay TAXES on their wages. But you know what? That will be money into the pockets of AMERICANS that will be spent in AMERICA where it will then be put toward the repurchase of other items by AMERICANS. I haven't had my second..or third...or fourth for that matter..cup of coffee yet this morning so I don't have the gumption to try and find it, but I saw an article once that kinda broke it down this way: Small business owner is forced to pay minimum wage to employees. Yes...it raises his cost, but this is capitalism. That extra money he has to pay goes into the pocket of his employee who then spends it Joe's Eatin Shack. Suddenly Joe's Eatin Shack needs a new roof, and with the extra money spent at his restaurant, he is ABLE to pay the higher fee for that new roof. That money however, would ordinarily have gone to Western Union and wound up in Campeche and spent getting Pablo's nephew up here to snatch up yet another job. And don't give me this "up here doing jobs American's don't want to do" bullshit STORY TIME!!!!! EVERYBODY GATHER ROUND!!! A friend of mine was having his house reroofed in New Mexico. He got an estimate that he accepted from a local roofing guy. I was over helping him with some computer issues the day work was supposed to start. Contractor guy showed up with a truck load of "obviously fresh to the country workers". My friend, stopped them at the street and asked to see green cards for everybody. The contractor just laughed at him and said..."Right dude...whatever". "Uh uh. No green card...no green back." The contractor got all pissy and threatened to sue him for breach of contract. My friend told him, "Okay man, you get them working, I'm going to go call INS." With added emphasis on that last bit... Of course, they all heard it and bolted. Contractor guy was all pissed off as he stood there all alone on the side walk. My friend looked at him, at the truckload of equipment and then back at his roof. "Well DUDE, looks like you better get to work! I'd hate to sue you for breach of contract." So the moral of this story, is don't fuck with somebody who grew up in Southern California and had multiple jobs taken from him while growing up by illegal immigrants who would pick avacados for pennies when you had originally been getting paid minimum wage. Granted, I had to hear him tell that story over and over again...but it helped that I had been there to see it first hand. ;D Yes, the lower wages paid to these people do help the business owner who employs them, but the overall effect on the economy isn't as great as the media would have you believe.
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Post by SymphonyOfDreams on Aug 24, 2007 11:44:10 GMT -5
In regards to Symphony of Dreams' post, your view was well written and thought out, I tried giving you a kudo...but you don't have an account yet..so, I owe you one. ;D However, I have a few things that need presenting. www.cis.org/articles/2004/fiscalexec.htmlI understand your numbers are based on today's econmy, so I'll stay with that scale to keep it simple. $11 Billion enforcing/deporting/pursuing individuals in violation of our immigration laws is acceptable. Especially considering that $9.6 B is spent annually on Medicaid, uninsured medical care, foodstamps, education, INPRISONMENT, and aid to schools with large quantities of children of illegal parents. Crimeny, it costs Mexifornia $10.9 B a year as it is usgovinfo.about.com/od/immigrationnaturalizatio/a/caillegals.htmAs far as economic impact, yes, employers would suddenty be forced to follow OTHER laws in regards to hiring their employees. Gone are the days of having somebody shingle a roof and only having to pay Pedro and Hector $10 for a days work. Now you'll have to pay John and Sam minimum wage, offer them breaks, and God forbid pay TAXES on their wages. But you know what? That will be money into the pockets of AMERICANS that will be spent in AMERICA where it will then be put toward the repurchase of other items by AMERICANS. I haven't had my second..or third...or fourth for that matter..cup of coffee yet this morning so I don't have the gumption to try and find it, but I saw an article once that kinda broke it down this way: Small business owner is forced to pay minimum wage to employees. Yes...it raises his cost, but this is capitalism. That extra money he has to pay goes into the pocket of his employee who then spends it Joe's Eatin Shack. Suddenly Joe's Eatin Shack needs a new roof, and with the extra money spent at his restaurant, he is ABLE to pay the higher fee for that new roof. That money however, would ordinarily have gone to Western Union and wound up in Campeche and spent getting Pablo's nephew up here to snatch up yet another job. And don't give me this "up here doing jobs American's don't want to do" bullshit STORY TIME!!!!! EVERYBODY GATHER ROUND!!! A friend of mine was having his house reroofed in New Mexico. He got an estimate that he accepted from a local roofing guy. I was over helping him with some computer issues the day work was supposed to start. Contractor guy showed up with a truck load of "obviously fresh to the country workers". My friend, stopped them at the street and asked to see green cards for everybody. The contractor just laughed at him and said..."Right dude...whatever". "Uh uh. No green card...no green back." The contractor got all pissy and threatened to sue him for breach of contract. My friend told him, "Okay man, you get them working, I'm going to go call INS." With added emphasis on that last bit... Of course, they all heard it and bolted. Contractor guy was all pissed off as he stood there all alone on the side walk. My friend looked at him, at the truckload of equipment and then back at his roof. "Well DUDE, looks like you better get to work! I'd hate to sue you for breach of contract." So the moral of this story, is don't fuck with somebody who grew up in Southern California and had multiple jobs taken from him while growing up by illegal immigrants who would pick avacados for pennies when you had originally been getting paid minimum wage. Granted, I had to hear him tell that story over and over again...but it helped that I had been there to see it first hand. ;D Yes, the lower wages paid to these people do help the business owner who employs them, but the overall effect on the economy isn't as great as the media would have you believe. Thanks for the kuddos man In regards to the numbers of the cost of deportation, I was just wanted to bring the operational cost into the plate, since I feel it should not be dismissed, I have to do a more thorough investigation as to how much does it cost the US to deport one illegal alien. Oh, and you cant deport a criminal until he finishes his sentence in the US... and it should remain like that, but that's another issue really. Because of time, I'm just gonna focus on this part of your post: What it doesn't take into account is that the small business owner is forced to reajust the final prices of all of his merchandise up, therefor affecting his demand therefor decreasing his sales (affecting the goverment's tax return) and jeopardizing his entire business if he doesn't cut down on personnel or invest a lot of money into automatizing some of his chain of production. So this business owner is going to have to squeeze in a smilar production with less employees and still sell his products at a higher price, affecting the consumer. If we are talking about a company that's higher in the line of commerce, meaning... in production, if a company that grows and cuts corn for example to distribute to multiple companies, we would be talking about a whole chain of highs that will affect prices in ALL products related to corn production (corn syrup, ethanol, corn flakes, corn, you name it), thus affecting demand and seriously affecting consumers. So in the end the american employee that got hired at the company gets no real return as his salary wont be enough to afford the new high prices, and lets not even mention what that would mean in the macroeconomics of the entire nation and the stock markets. So it's a reeeeeally delicate matter.
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Post by SymphonyOfDreams on Aug 24, 2007 11:49:51 GMT -5
And I also forgot to mention that the remittance business in the US (that for wich Pepe goes to Western Union to send money to Pablo) is an anual 30 billion dollars industry, wich would die at a sudden cut of immigrants.
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Post by marcusthames on Aug 27, 2007 10:45:29 GMT -5
I have something to add on to this immigration issue. About 5 or 6 years ago in Northern California where I used to live where there is a lot of wine grapes in that region, I had applied to work for my best friend's dad who grew about 600 acres of wine grapes. So when I started working for him this was before harvest, I was assigned to keep an eye on the irrigation for the grapes. As I was working one day, I happen to notice that there was a good amount of hispanic's working for him. But I never thought anything of it at first until I asked my buddy if his dad is hiring illegal immigrants. His reply was yes and that after harvest he usually lays some of them off and keeps a few after harvest depending on how hard they worked. I also asked how much they were making hourly and his reply was $7.50 an hour. I was making $8.50 an hour. Just a dollar more than these guys and I worked hard I at my job as well. To make a long story short, harvest came around and my irrigation job had been put to a hold because of winter being around the corner. My irrigation job became into doing yard work for my boss. Something that his kids could do. As the immigrants were working to prep for next year's harvest, I was doing bitch work! I would have been more than glad to be doing what the immigrants were doing. But no, apparently that wasn't the plan for me. Well, it then came to the point where he was "running of things to give me." And he laid me off!! I was in shock! I had bills to pay too!! I was one of the people who got laid off at the end of the harvest. So Ben, what is reply on that?
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Post by Benjamin Morgan on Aug 27, 2007 13:16:18 GMT -5
Well that's f'd up. That's the kind of stuff that needs to stop. And with a stricter policy on immigration and illegal aliens, we can insure a standard minimum wage for all.
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42jeff
Junior Member
Posts: 68
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Post by 42jeff on Aug 28, 2007 8:42:12 GMT -5
Aye..but you see, according to what "they" want you to believe, is you don't WANT to work. See? So the illegals were doing you a favor and doing the hard stuff, while you did bitch work. Okay, so I shouldn't joke about it, but how in the world did that mindset get such a hold on society? "They're doing the work Americans don't WANT to do"... um [shadow=red,left,300] [/shadow] STORY TIME!!! There once was a man from Nantucket...oh wait, that's for another forum. But anyways, to SOD, yes, the business owner WILL experience several increases in expenses due to the fact of having to pay DECENT wages to AMERCIANS who are holding jobs that they WANT. But I, and I assume there are several more MILLION people like me unless they're mindless halfwits believing everything the talking heads on TV tell them, am willing to pay that extra if I know it's going into the pockets of my fellow Americans and not down south so Pablo can bring up more of his family to steal more jobs. I lived in New Mexico for 14 years, and after coming here and seeing "HELP WANTED" ads EVERYwhere you look, it really opened my eyes to the effects of illegal immigration. Here, there are folks doing manual labor and getting paid for it. Down there, there are no manual labor jobs available so everybody's taking the retail/fast food jobs that they can get their hands on because that's all that's left. Hence...no jobs availabe. And as for Western Union and them losing business because of the lack of cashflow OUT of the country? I have one thing to say to that... TOUGH SHIT!
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