Illegal Immigration (My Personal Anecdote)

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It is funny how we in the USA hold immigrants to a higher standard than average citizens: They have to take a test to become citizens, while people who just happen to be born here do not. IMHO, this test should either be mandatory for every voting citizen (my personal choice) or abolished, just to be consistent to all citizens.

Because immigrants have to deal with hardships that native born citizens do not, they on average appear to be better educated and more competent that native born citizens. I know this from experience going to 2 high schools in 2 different states with a huge immigrant student proportion: African, Hispanic, Far Eastern and Southern Eurasian immigrants all regularly performed far above native born citizens in school, were better behaved than them and had a far stronger desire to learn than their native born piers who were similar economic situations (low income, mostly.) Thus, all but one of my friends at the first school and the only friend at the second were immigrants.

Immigration will never stop happening but it can be well controlled and the best way for the USA to do this would be to stop ripping off Latin American countries by such means as CIA coups and NAFTA.

It is also interesting that Americans think themselves superior to Mexicans: From a historical perspective, Mexico is one of the great ancient civilizations and a great fusion culture of their lucky Spanish conquerors of the occidental civilizations and that of Mesoamerican civilizations, developing writing before anywhere in Europe, the compass, huge cities and sophisticated philosophy, while the USA is basically just the result of a bunch of poor immigrants invading the territory of far less developed indigenous peoples. And because of racism towards the darker skinned Mexicans who were under a decaying Empire that did not exist towards the lighter skinned-people-ruled essentially neo-European USA, the latter country industrialized along with its former colonial master, Britain, while Mexico lost Oasisamerica, stagnated and was oppressed by the Monroe Doctrine, while its former colonial master, Spain, was even defeated by the USA at the turn of the 20th century.

We do have a few cities that have a lot of vacant housing (Las Vegas and Detroit). Sending some immigrants that way would be helpful.

Illgeal immagration is a small price America has to pay for taking land that wasnt theirs in the

first place im native american my father is 3/4 cherokee so I have no problem wtih

immagration it gives me great joy seeing so many whites offended that people come into their

stolen country illgealy since im cherokee I think thats a oxymoron

Anecdotes are all well and good--but I think the truth of the matter is that undocumented aliens contribute more to the economy than they take from government in benefits.

A few hard truths:

There are only four routes to a green card: employer selection, family sponsorhip, diversity lottery or Convention refugee status. None of these allow for self-selection. No matter how bright and successful a potential immigrant, in the absence of a petitioner, there is no way in.

But in the meanwhile, there are vast areas of economic activity where Americans simply will not work with the wages and working conditions on offer. Why are California food exports so competitively priced? Largely because of the cheap, manual labour provided by undocumented workers. Are you prepared to pay the price at the grocery store for strawberries that have been picked by American workers paid a wage and provided with working conditions that would permit an American worker to be employed? Are you prepared to pay the cost of a new house built by labourers who are paid a wage and provided with working conditions that an American worker would be able to accept?

Many prices of American goods, and services consumed domestically and exported are kept artificially low on the basis of exploited workforces--primarily undocumented workers, but also prison labour.

So what's the off-ramp?

-tolerate the illegal population, knowing that it keeps your food and housing prices low?
-clamp down on the illegal population enough to slake the anger of the mob, but not so far that you create a labour crisis in the agriculture and construction industries?
-clamp down realistically on the illegal population, and force farmers and construction contractors to pay real wages, and jack prices accordingly?

The welfare family ruining the house across the street could just as easily be permanent residents or citizens--in this case they are not, perhaps--but that does not mean that welfare abuse is limited to undocumented aliens. And in turning the considerable power of the state at "illegals", what is the consequence for the prosperity of the rest of the population?

The language/culture issues remind me of the situation here in my native Quebec. I feel for you buddy, it doesn't even matter if you learn the language if prejudice is institutionalized