Cut illegal immigrants some slack

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I think I recall not so long ago some conservatives on this site were arguing about mexican immigrants "taking jobs" from Americans. I'm pretty sure that happened and I know there are a lot of conservatives who are mad about mexican immigrants. This thread is about my take on this issue.

First of all, my stepdad says that the police in Mexico are brutal and there is a lot of gang violence there. He has even vowed never to go there again. I can't blame anyone for wanting to escape from that sort of country - even if they do it illegally. Maybe they sometimes bring crime with them, but even if they do America is still in better shape than Mexico.

Second, nobody's job is being "stolen". Employers are giving jobs to immigrants because they will do the same work for less money - and therefore deserve the job more. the best way to prevent your job from being stolen is to lower your money expectations or else work harder at the job.

My question on the whole immigration issue is, why do we have so many illegals here? Surely it's not that hard to legally come and live in America? Sure the red tape is a bit of a problem, but if Latinos are so desperate to escape Mexico and Central America, you'd think they'd take the extra initiative to go through the immigration process set up by America, to ensure they aren't deported back?

Of course, with America's current xenophobic trend, it wouldn't surprise me if they jacked up the difficulty for applying to immigrate to America. If we're going to complain about people just crossing the border, we should remember that it's our desire to keep the number of foreign immigrants in America to a bare minimum that is causing this problem.

Obviously if the process for legal immigration were more manageable, people wouldn't choose to enter illegally. Our system is not generally welcoming of, or encouraging towards, legal immigration, so people will take the only path available to them.

An instructor for one of my math courses last spring was a (legal) immigrant from Colombia. Colombia was going to hell so he decided to get out. When he first came to America, in order to get a job his employer had to prove to the government that they tried to find an American citizen to do the job and weren't able to find a single American qualified for the work. That's a rather high standard if you want to come here and work: you have to be able to prove that you can do something that none of the 300 million current Americans can do. It's not surprising that many people coming here to do unskilled work will prefer to do so undocumented.

Regarding your first paragraph about Mexico being not as enticing a place to live: Sure, but so what? They already have 2 options other than illegal immigration to deal with it -- clean up their own country, or legal immigration.

Regarding your second paragraph about 'stolen' jobs -- Sure, 'stealing' isn't the best way to phrase it. But the effect of really cheap labor can be bad anyway. We have a minimum wage for a reason -- to keep people from having to make the choice between starving and accepting pathetically low wages.

So what if it's hard to legally immigrate here, go some place else. I don't believe we're obligated to take everyone who wants to come here. These people should focus on fixing their own countries not invading ours and our government should enforce the law to make sure these people don't come to this country illegally.

okay, come on over to canada! we like when people immigrate and bring their skills with them. our country is a richer place because of generations of immigrants.

p.s. aren't most americans descended from immigrants also? why should it be harder to immigrate now than 200 years ago? you're ancestors had no greater right to be here than illegal mexicans (unless you are 100% native american). and lots of canadian and american ancestors sneaked illegally into canada and the u.s. over the last few hundred years.

Illegal immigrants are unskilled labor. They might not even speak the language. Even Canada is unlikely to have an immigration policy so loose as to allow them entry.

200 years ago we were desperate for labor. Also, indentured servitude, the major way of paying one's passage to America, was tolerable in those days.

Hyperlexian, the world isn't structured around rights. We also didn't have the right to put Indians into camps that we force-marched them into. Even further, I doubt you have a good rights theory for land acquisition anyway, as you can't say Indians mixed their labor with all of the land. Nor is there a clear definition of mixing land and labor, and I doubt that you have something more clever than something half-borrowed from Locke. (few people would) Even if a lot of people came to the area illegally, it still has no bearing on whether the current policy exists, or even whether it should exist. The past is a set of facts about the world, but the what is true has a problem in actually interacting with what ought to be, a problem pointed out by Hume a long time ago:

i have no clue what you are talking about with land and labour. so i have no comment on that.

the united states is apparently STILL desparate for cheap labour, because illegal immigrants find jobs. your argument actually proves the point - unskilled labour is vitally needed in capitalist countries, and illegal immigrants of yesterday and today fill that void.

we do have many, many unskilled people come to canada, both legally and illegally (we don't keep very good track of illegal immigrants here, so there are few repercussions). but they can carve out a place here too... just like we did. there are enough jobs for all of us. worth noting is the fact we have fewer illegal immigrants than the u.s. because we have a lot more *legal* immigration.

You've never had a job or tried to get one, have you? If Mexicans want a better life they need to work on fixing Mexico, not destroy our standard of living by making American citizens compete for jobs at a non-living wage. That would bring back the abuses of labor from the industrial revolution. The United States government has no legal obligation to look after them- even if that means leaving them to die in a Mexican shantytown.


HELL NO! When they eat up all your jobs and social services like locusts, they will start jumping our northern border and then we will have to fight them off on 2 fronts.

That's the smartest thing I've read all day.

Also, I'm sick of this crap about "they could just clean up their country." One Mexican does not have the power to affect the whole country. One Mexican is just a slave to the system. That's how countries work. Even a small group of Mexicans don't have much power. The collective bourgoise have a lot of power but they won't use it to make things better because they are bourgoise and hate proletarians.

Representative democracy doesn't work. Most people blindly obey authority and the majority get to see the policies they believe in put into practice. The ideas if the thinking, non-sheep minority never get put into practice.

Well when they sneak in over here they always proceed to revert back to the same old s*** and turn what used to be a decent white community into a crime-ridden barrio.

Your crime-ridden barrio is still probably better than Mexico. You don't know how good you have it. Stop whining.

It doesn't matter that it's better than Mexico. They don't have any right to be here. I don't care if their families have to go sleep in a box. We have to get rid of them before they do drag us down with them and make this place just like Mexico, and they will if left unchecked.

So Americans deserve to sleep in a house just because they were born in America? That's horsesh**.

"I don't care if their families have to go sleep in a box."
That says it all doesn't it? Saying that such a difference in living conditions is just the way things should be is just wrong.

"If I want it I can have it but you want to have it you can't."

lol!! !! ! immigrants are no lazier than residents! and yes, some of us do sneak on down to your country, it's true. the total migration Canada-US is higher than US-Canada. but you have a population about 10 times higher, so the per capita migration is actually skewed to having more of you folks head on up to canuckville.


in 2001 (based on 2000 u.s. pop. 281,421,906 and can. pop 30,689,000)
Canadians who migrated to US: 30,203 / 0.01% of u.s. population
Americans who migrated to Canada: 8,750 / 0.03% of canadian population


but we don't mind... bring the kids and we'll have a picnic!

They can gladly have a house and a nice life. I don't have a problem with that. They just have to find a way to do it in Mexico. They need to make Felipe Calderon and the Mexican government make changes. Their incompetence should not create a crisis for us.

Last edited by John_Browning on 26 Sep 2010, 4:14 pm, edited 1 time in total.