Cut illegal immigrants some slack

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Do you mean argue for your points, or argue against them?

I mean, one of our debates hinges completely on the word "desperate" with your own implicit definition being something I already reductio ad absurdumed by pointing out that any better deal would be something people were "desperate for", even though we would not call this desperation at all.

One of our debates hinges entirely on your explanation of the lack of Canadian illegal immigration. The issue is that your explanation isn't even the most plausible explanation given how illegal immigration patterns work. The workings of illegal immigration patterns are such that we should expect that location would be one of the more important things. Even further, the lack of Latin American immigration, while the US surplus of it seems difficult to explain if the only real variable is immigration policy. Nor does your explanation make much economic sense for laborers if there is a clear-cut way for them to make higher wages and more protected living just by moving up to Canada. All of this really strongly suggests that you were pulling your idea out of a certain body part.

As for talk about "gaps" and all of that other stuff. I think you are just muddled. A lot of our debate might be about language, and I am having difficult interpreting you, and I don't think we have a common framework enough to make that into a shared language about economics. You can call this personal, you can refuse to do so, but I have problems even seeing how your framework makes sense.

In California, Mexican neighborhoods are sh*tholes, and eventually some Mexicans move to other neighborhoods and create new sh*tholes wherever they go.

you are arguing indirectly insteadf of arguing the core points, and you are arguing semantics, which is boring to me. it was fun until you started to question my education. then it got silly.

Actually, there is research by a sociologist named Robert Sampson who argues that mexican immigrants are generally better neighbors, and commit less crimes for their socioeconomic background.


I'd say that it is probably too hard to immigrate into the US. I mean, it is possible for immigrants to get over here, often the best route is by going to a US college, and finding an employer to employ them for a visa.

Really, it is very impossible to get unskilled people to enter, and it is not surprising.

I don't even know what you are saying in the "core points", that's why we moved to semantics, as you seem to be saying things that really aren't correct if the words mean what they tend to mean. As for your education, I would really guess that this is a bit of a factual claim. People without an economics background really do not know how to talk about economics much. The very language they use is insufficient for the task in many cases.

And your evidence of this would be? Both my personal experience of many years and studies by experts contradict your view.

Exactly. Sampson, who is a Harvard sociologist writes, in the New York Times:

Hispanic Americans do better on a range of various social indicators -- including propensity to violence -- than one would expect given their socioeconomic disadvantages.

Surprisingly, we found a significantly lower rate of violence among Mexican-Americans than among blacks and whites...Indeed, the first-generation immigrants (those born outside the United States) in our study were 45 percent less likely to commit violence than were third-generation Americans, adjusting for family and neighborhood background.

My evidence is that I have lived in a town for 23 years that went from a military town to a barrio, and there are towns around me all over the place that have turned into barrios, and the only people who are nostalgic for those barrios have lots of gang tattoos. They are sh*tholes.

My problem with the immigrants are that they don't want to assimilate into the culture, especially around the border. But with the economy the way it is, Mexicans have been heading back to Mexico. I guess the drug war doesn't compare with our unemployment rate. The Harvard paper probably doesn't hold up anymore. Data for it was collected between 1995 and 2003, and there wasn't a drug war back then. I've been to border towns, and I've never seen so many houses with fencing and walls bigger than the houses, with all the doors and windows fortified with bars. That doesn't seem vary safe to me. They can't drive either, so you gotta really watch yourself when driving. Call up your insurance company and tell them that your moving to some border town, and see how much your insurance premiums would go up, even if you have no violations. I've talked to border agents and they say the picture is getting worse, not better. The towns act like everything is peachy, but it isn't. "Yeah, our city is a great place to be!". Whose city doesn't want to claim that? When border town's are filled with immigrants that don't speak English, have town's that look no different than Mexico's towns, and have city counsels that are all Hispanic, there is no difference in what country your in.

I'm under the impression that this is what the government wants, and to ultimately dissolve the borders. If America was so worried about terrorism, immigration wouldn't be a problem, but who(really) cares about terrorism anymore, that was so 2000s

Last edited by takemitsu on 26 Sep 2010, 11:16 pm, edited 1 time in total.

Fire trucks and ambulances aren't afraid to go into white neighborhoods without police escort, and in turn the police won't escort emergency vehicles in without backup in the minority neighborhoods.You never hear about police helicopters getting shot down in white neighborhoods, which has happened twice in my area in the time I've lived here- once in a black neighborhood and once in a Mexican neighborhood that a city councilman suggested building a wall around it and let the people destroy each other. My dad likes to listen to the police radio over the internet and you don't hear alcohol and drug fueled domestic disturbances in the early afternoon on a weekday. If there were no more Mexicans in the area the Sherriff's department would have to start laying off cops.

My family moved to Chicago from Mexico legally. It was easy only because of our economic background. The sad thing is we didn't have to move here. We would've been ok if we stayed back home. The people who immigrate illegally usually have the most need to and its nearly impossible to get the United States government to give you a green card or a workers permit. My cousin that was a licensed nurse in Mexico came here. She had to wait tables and go to college all over again to get her degree from an American school. (She has a Masters or something now). Another thing you don't realize is that the people in Mexico that are in political power are "white" they have last names like "Fox" "Becker" "Wegmann"'Colucci". The wealth is spread around the white people and the darker the mexican person is the poorer they usually are. It's almost exactly like America except way more blatantly corrupt. I don't want to turn this into a race thing either. But that's just the way things are.

The only allure I can see about America is that it really is the only place I've ever been where you can do or be whatever you want. You can rise above whatever "class" you were born into and make something of yourself. Canada is not bad either. In my observation though. Most people that were born in America are either too lazy or too apathetic to take advantage of such opportunities. You guys have it so good and you don't realize it.

On a side note I had to learn American History and I had to learn to speak English to be here. I just don't understand how, just because you were born in America, no one judges you for atrocious grammar. If I hear one person end a sentence in a preposition I'm going to punch them in their genitals. And most of the people I encounter on a daily basis can't even answer simple elementary school history or literature questions.

I suppose I was just ranting. English is my second language so forgive me if have made any errors while writing this.

You're talking about Mexican drug gangs, which have nothing at all to do with the majority of Mexicans who immigrate to the US looking for unskilled work and who live peacefully in neighborhoods that are improved by their presence.

there are lots of different people.
we have a similar problem in the UK with Poles and Arabs. we have had a huge wave of polish migrants that have taken whatever jobs they can get (some of them are okay some are not) and we have had a lot who squatted houses.
with the Arabs we have a lot of hate preachers and a lot of people moving to live of benefits (they don't have to work to live and its better than Pakistan or any other middle eastern country for that matter) but we also have a few who have embraced the English/Welsh/Scottish/Irish lifestyle.

its annoying because you can't paint them all with the same colour, you have to be an artist about it.

Their kids are left to run amuck, their teenagers are stoners and delinquents, their young adults are hoods or gang members, and the older adults perpetuate the cycle. They use up welfare, food stamps, medicaid, strain hospital budgets because they can't pay, they create crime, they spread diseases that were eradicated before they showed up, and they fill up more schools with anchor babies than school districts can afford to build and operate. With unemployment being at about 10% and people's unemployment benefits running out, there aren't too many jobs Americans aren't willing to do so the alien invaders are stealing badly needed jobs from citizens and green card holders.

So exactly how do we benefit from alien invaders again?

you're talking about white people right? because there are more white people than hispanic people on welfare
in the united states:

39% white 11,661,000 of 29,900,000 recipients
17% Hispanic 5,083,000 of 29,900,000

If you were one of those "alien invaders," would you appreciate people talking about you like that? Put yourself in someone else's shoes for once, instead of just assuming that you're always right.

You're making all these wild generalizations that are not backed up by any facts. The statements you are making are simply not true.