Illegal immigrants could be granted US amnesty within 8yrs

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Tequila
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18 Feb 2013, 8:08 am

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Illegal immigrants could be granted US amnesty within eight years
  • Millions of illegal immigrants in the US could be granted amnesty and become permanent residents within eight years, under plans being drawn up by President Barack Obama.
Leaked White House proposals to overhaul America's immigration system would give the nation's 11 million undocumented migrants the chance to apply for a new "lawful prospective immigrant" visa.

After eight years, they would be eligible for a green card granting legal residency - provided they learn English, pay any back taxes, and study "the history and government of the United States".

The bill is being drafted by Mr Obama and his aides as a fall-back option in case much-heralded bipartisan talks by senior congressmen fail to produce solid plans.

Surely, if thought about logically, this would encourage more illegal immigration from Mexico and other countries and not less?



lotuspuppy
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18 Feb 2013, 11:12 am

This "amnesty" is just one of the proposals for overhauling our broken immigration system. You may recall the U.S. did this once before, in 1986 I believe. At the time, that amnesty was billed as a one off thing. It may have attracted more illegals, but I think the strength of the U.S. economy relative to Mexico's was a bigger factor. Of course, now that our economy has slumped, there is actually net migration to Mexico.

Whatever happens, we need to do something about our 12 million uninvited guests. I personally favor a guest worker program with no option for citizenship, unless they can get a green card.



Tequila
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18 Feb 2013, 11:30 am

If these people are not citizens and are living in the U.S. illegally, they should be deported. They must not be allowed to think that they can simply disobey the laws of the land in the country they are illegally living in.



Jacoby
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18 Feb 2013, 12:28 pm

This "leak" is just pandering to Hispanic voters and nothing more. It has 0 chance of becoming law.

Deportation for 12 million or however many people is unrealistic but people that enter the country illegally should not be given citizenship.

End the drug war, secure the border by bringing our troops home, don't provide services for illegals, end automatic birthright citizenship for those born by non-citizen parents that enter the country illegally. That would just put us on par with pretty much every other country on earth, what do you think would happen if you enter a place like Japan illegally?



lotuspuppy
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18 Feb 2013, 12:35 pm

Tequila wrote:
If these people are not citizens and are living in the U.S. illegally, they should be deported. They must not be allowed to think that they can simply disobey the laws of the land in the country they are illegally living in.

By whom? How do you propose to find them? How do you propose to deport them?



Tequila
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18 Feb 2013, 12:36 pm

Jacoby wrote:
Deportation for 12 million or however many people is unrealistic


Unfortunately. Though if it was realistic, they can hardly say that they have an excuse. They broke the law of the land.

Jacoby wrote:
but people that enter the country illegally should not be given citizenship.


The problem with this is that this leaves their children and grandchildren in an absolutely awful bind in that their parents may have moved to the U.S. illegally, had their children here and they may now be adults. They cannot vote, receive services or have anything else that normal U.S. citizens would get. I think we also have to be careful not to punish teenagers and adults of illegal immigrant parents that have grown up here, as it's not their fault after all.

Jacoby wrote:
End the drug war


Agreed - as a mild libertarian, it isn't the state's business what we put into our bodies.

Jacoby wrote:
secure the border by bringing our troops home


Agreed. I favour a similarly non-interventionist policy for the UK. Unless there are exceptional circumstances, we should be defending the UK and territories (and our very close friends), nothing more.

Jacoby wrote:
end automatic birthright citizenship for those born by non-citizen parents that enter the country illegally.


Switzerland do this. They call them secondos. These secondos I think usually get Swiss citizenship when they become in their twenties or so, but many of them are the grandchildren of non-citizenimmigrants and even they are not allowed Swiss citizenship! Swiss citizenship is one of the toughest kinds of citizenship in the world to get.



Tequila
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18 Feb 2013, 12:37 pm

lotuspuppy wrote:
By whom? How do you propose to find them? How do you propose to deport them?


That's not my job. That is the job of the border services.

The usual way is to raid places of employment and things like that, and demand to see their credentials.



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18 Feb 2013, 12:56 pm

It would be better if we could grant amnesty to the undocumented immigrants and then deport all the social conservatives. That way, we'd make sure not to hurt our economy or put an undue strain on our welfare system or budget. :lol:



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18 Feb 2013, 12:57 pm

Tyri0n wrote:
It would be better if we could grant amnesty to the undocumented immigrants and then deport all the social conservatives. That way, we'd make sure not to hurt our economy or put an undue strain on our welfare system or budget. :lol:


The social conservatives are more likely to pay for your welfare system.

Anyway, it's not - by a long chalk - just social conservatives that are against mass (legal or illegal) immigration. Not by a long chalk.



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18 Feb 2013, 1:01 pm

I think the average cost of a deportation is something like $12,000. It just isn't cost effective on top of a whole bunch of other issues. We'd be better off offering them money to leave the country voluntarily versus forcibly removing them. There just can't be any incentive for a person to enter a country illegally.

I think ending 'jus soli' and making English the official language would at the very least streamline integration. Creating more ethnic enclaves is not going to help anything. When you come to live in another country you should embrace its culture.



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18 Feb 2013, 1:06 pm

Tequila wrote:
Tyri0n wrote:
It would be better if we could grant amnesty to the undocumented immigrants and then deport all the social conservatives. That way, we'd make sure not to hurt our economy or put an undue strain on our welfare system or budget. :lol:


The social conservatives are more likely to pay for your welfare system.

Anyway, it's not - by a long chalk - just social conservatives that are against mass (legal or illegal) immigration. Not by a long chalk.
'

Um, no economic conservatives who are socially liberal are often rich. Social conservatives are usually like Irish in your country traditionally were --- poor, uneducated, rural, and usually sexually promiscuous with lots of out-of-wedlock children, in spite of their so-called religiosity. Just look at states like Mississippi.



Tequila
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18 Feb 2013, 1:07 pm

Jacoby wrote:
Creating more ethnic enclaves is not going to help anything. When you come to live in another country you should embrace its culture.


I've been saying that for years.

Jacoby wrote:
I think ending 'jus soli' and making English the official language would at the very least streamline integration.


At the moment, the United States has no official language, amirite?



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18 Feb 2013, 1:19 pm

On a federal level, there is no official language. In the majority of states English is the official language however.



lotuspuppy
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18 Feb 2013, 2:08 pm

Tequila wrote:
lotuspuppy wrote:
By whom? How do you propose to find them? How do you propose to deport them?


That's not my job. That is the job of the border services.

The usual way is to raid places of employment and things like that, and demand to see their credentials.


Those are two aspects of the problem. There are scant Border Patrol for all of our borders, let alone inside the country. In terms of employment, raids like this do happen from time to time, but not frequently. Most states do not care to enforce immigration employment law, and in any case are powerless to do so. The federal government typically only conducts such raids if there is a broader problem, or they somehow have an overwhelming amount of evidence. Congress can change this, and I think it will, but it hasn't been in the mood to change immigration enforcement much since the last major reform in 1986.

More broadly, I really think a lot of Americans do not care about immigration. Some truly do, and a lot others think they do. But cheap labor illegally in this country give us the cheapest groceries in the OECD, and in the boom years, were a cheap and dependable gardening and landscapping service. They are also a cheap source of nannies and live in help. Every so often, you hear of an illegal working as a domestic servant in near slave like conditions, and s/he escaped only when s/he figured deportation was better than slavery.

There are a lot of powerful economic interests in the U.S. that want immigrants here. They outweigh any cultural push factors.



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18 Feb 2013, 5:14 pm

Tequila wrote:
That's not my job. That is the job of the border services.

The usual way is to raid places of employment and things like that, and demand to see their credentials.


The policy proposals of the mental midget.

First things, first: yes, these people have no legal right to residency or work in the United States. But that point is academic. They are already there and they are already well established there. Why do they have no status? Because for years Congress has indulged its political cowardice, failing to answer the needs of employers who rely on these workers by creating some legal mechanism for their admission and their continued presence. Congress has simply assumed that by focussing on the border, and not on the interior, that they can pander to the bigots, and allow for "business as usual" in the cities.

Well states have demonstrated themselves to be first-class morons and have gone rushing in where any sensible government would fear to tread. So now, Congress' hand will be forced.

The US economy cannot survive an wholesale assault on improperly documented workers. Cities would collapse. Every policy maker in Washington is well aware that every major city in the United States operates on the basis of undocumented workers. There are entire industries that function with almost complete reliance on them. And let's not forget the amount of consumer spending that 12,000,000 people contribute to the economy.

Like it or not, these people are there, and their presence is no longer optional. So Congress can either continue to turn a blind eye to it, or Congress can finally pull its collective thumb out and take control of this policy agenda.


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18 Feb 2013, 9:45 pm

visagrunt wrote:
Tequila wrote:
That's not my job. That is the job of the border services.

The usual way is to raid places of employment and things like that, and demand to see their credentials.


The policy proposals of the mental midget.

First things, first: yes, these people have no legal right to residency or work in the United States. But that point is academic. They are already there and they are already well established there. Why do they have no status? Because for years Congress has indulged its political cowardice, failing to answer the needs of employers who rely on these workers by creating some legal mechanism for their admission and their continued presence. Congress has simply assumed that by focussing on the border, and not on the interior, that they can pander to the bigots, and allow for "business as usual" in the cities.

Well states have demonstrated themselves to be first-class morons and have gone rushing in where any sensible government would fear to tread. So now, Congress' hand will be forced.

The US economy cannot survive an wholesale assault on improperly documented workers. Cities would collapse. Every policy maker in Washington is well aware that every major city in the United States operates on the basis of undocumented workers. There are entire industries that function with almost complete reliance on them. And let's not forget the amount of consumer spending that 12,000,000 people contribute to the economy.

Like it or not, these people are there, and their presence is no longer optional. So Congress can either continue to turn a blind eye to it, or Congress can finally pull its collective thumb out and take control of this policy agenda.


And what would be the effect if they were to become legal and documented, would they still work for an illegal undocumented wages? If you believe that the entire economy is built on the backs of illegal immigrants, then you probably should be strongly in favor of the status quo.