Terrapin Tables

Here's a good blog entry I just read on the immigration issue. It's not specifically addressing what to do about the situation, just clearning up a lot of the misconceptions that people have.

I feel like illegal immigration has been a 3rd priority problem for a long time - everyone knows it's happening, it wouldn't be too hard to prevent, but it's not the hugest deal so we can take care of other business.

Now, though, illegals are demanding "Things." Whatever those Things are, they want them. Things take time, Things take money, and Things take resources. It's no exaggeration or leap of reasoning to state that many, if not most, Americans could use Things as well. I haven't had health insurance in about 5 years. My sister can't get into medical school for purely social reasons. And people like me and Casey have it really, really good.

So, with illegals now demanding Things from a system insuficient to handle the people that are already citizens, illegals should move up to a first priority problem. Get every single one the fuck out, make sure they can't get in so damn easily, etc.

Did anyone see FoxNews' coverage? It was so incredibly racist and condescending, I would have been amazed if it wasn't FoxNews.

Oh, also, all these protests are on weekdays. Insert joblessnes joke here.

I like the blog Fatboy posted.

1. Protesting on a weekday makes the protest substantially more visible, at least locally.

2. It's not like the health care/insurance system works now and adding the immigrant population into the pool will break it. It is broken now.

3. I doubt as many people were care if all the immigrants were German.

I don't think people are going to the streets protesting because they just all of a sudden decided to start demanding "things." Most of them were just happy living their lives under the status quo until the Senate & the House decided to pass sweeping immigration reform, like making it a felony to offer aid to an illegal immigrant, you know, like food & water or medical assistance; or to make it a felony, not just a misdemeanor, to be in this country illegally for any reason, even accidentally overstaying a visa.

Yes, there is a problem when 10 million people in this country are breaking the law simply by being here, but the currently proposed legislation doesn't seem to be the right answer. Neither does it seem to be telling them to "get the fuck out."

The callousness of some people strikes me about this debate. It's not like this is some high school prank where kids are trying to sneak into the movies without paying - these are people living in truly shitty conditions who are just trying to make a better life for them and their families. I'm pretty sure that if I was living in the same type of poverty as many of them came from, I'd be seriously tempted to move to the U.S., even if it meant breaking a law that said I wasn't allowed in.

The law doesn't say you're not allowed in. It says if you want to be here you have to play by the rules everyone else does. They want to be American citizens, fine, I have no problem with that. Get a soc. security number, sign up for the selective service, and pay your fuckin' taxes. Don't skip by the system and then ask that system to help you out.

Not to be too critical, but I think if everyone were to take a couple moments and read the blog, the issues regarding taxes and military service might viewed in a little different context.

I read the blog, and it doesn't change my point of view. While I agree that there are plenty of problems with our own people and Georgy's billionaire buddies, it doesn't change the fact that, in our country, these people do not have the same rights as our citizens.

There are more than enough programs in place to give these millions of illegals opportunities to become citizens and have the voice they so desperately want. They just fail to realize that voice will be ignored just like everyone else.

Your previous statement was, "...and pay your fuckin' taxes." A following statment was, "I read the blog, and it doesn't change my point of view." Considering that illegal immigrants actually pay more than their fair share of taxes, and your viewpoint hasn't changed learning that, what exactly is your viewpoint? Is there any relevance to your "pay your ... taxes" statement? Or is it just a general public service announcement applicable to everyone, that shouldn't be directed solely at illegal immigrants?

I fundamentally disagree with the assumption that everyone plays by the same rules, but that is not terribly relevant in this discussion.
There are programs to allow immigrants to become citizens. However, there is a quota system that limits the number of legal immigrants permitted into the country.
Presently, the immigrants seem to be voicing their concerns through the appropriate means and channels. I think ignoring them will only lead less desirable methods of voicing discontent. That is not to say I am in favor of granting every request without consideration, but I can't see how ignoring them is productive.
Anyway, so what does anyone think of some of the idea forwarded. Either legalizing the present illegal immigrant population or deporting the illegal immigrant population. It seems as though both plans come with a tightening of the borders.

How do you figure they pay MORE than their fair share? Income tax? I paid over 35,000 dollars between my home, income, and my rental property in taxes. I'm sure that's a hell of a lot more than the family of illegals down the street paid including their 10 other family members in their 2 bedroom townhome, who probably made about as much as I did.

And I realize everyone doesn't play by the same rules. But why in the world should we allow for people who don't even have proper citizenship dictate what our politicians do? We can't even get them to listen to us, but they'll listen to people who are seemingly proud to be here illegally?

I have no problem with people from other countries wanting to become U.S. citizens. I don't care if it's on a quota basis or not. The U.S. is by far the easiest country in the world to obtain citizenship. Don't cater to those who aren't citizens, we have bigger fish to fry and allowing a bunch of illegals to have their way undermines issues more important to the current U.S. citizens.

Immigrants pay taxes on income, property, etc, while their status as illegal prevents them from utilizing some of the programs that their tax money goes towards, although public schooling is a noted exception.
So would you like to change places with the family of illegals down the street to ease your tax burden and have yourself some more company?
Personally, if the deportation plan manages to succeed somehow, I will be interested to see who ends up having to fill in the vacated jobs and how much more expensive certain things become.

I wouldn't change places at all. My point is there is no need to cater to those here illegally. I know there is a huge problem with the "lazy american" and them not wanting to do the jobs that illegals take. We need to take care of our in-house problems first. There are plenty of lazy citizens content with taking advantage of our system that could fill the void.

Don't get me wrong, there are definitely people that need helping hands, and there are also those that are just flat out lazy. I would just rather see assistance and jobs go to citizens instead of illegals.

Nate's last sentence was kind of what I meant. It's the same philosophy I apply to, say, Iraq, Mars, and stuff like that. It goes like this: yes, it would be nice if America (any country, really, for that matter) could take the world under its big bald eagle wing, like it usually tries to. Unfortunately, there is unquestionably way too much in this country that needs serious attention. We currently have the highest infant mortailty rate, the highest murder rate, and the lowest percentage of insured adults amongst ALL industrialized nations. Our schoolchildren consistently show up near the bottom of all performance measurements. When we handle our own business, then we can start to try to help others - that's why we should stay the hell out of the Middle East, it's why we shouldn't spend a billion dollars on space travel, and it's why, right now, the best thing to do with illegal immigrants is to round them up and send them home.

If it's worth anything, Mexico turns more illegals away than America does. If these protests had been held in Mexico, every illegal would have been deported by now. Maybe these people could have it better here, but we're not in a position to try and save the world right now. If we want to be the physician, we have to start by helaing ourself.

And, I paid like 2400 in taxes. Fuck you Nate and your "success."

I don't agree with the "physician, heal thyself" philosophy. Yes there are things that need to be fixed in our country, but ignoring all else to focus on what some consider to be the most import factors seems a pretty poor way to do it. More importantly, many problems that we're facing are not restricted to inside our borders, and if we ignore them they'll just get worse (global warming, destruction of native habitats & terrorism come to mind, but I'll stay focused on immigration for this discussion).

If your solution is to round up all of the illegal immigrants and kick them out, how do you honestly expect to do that? And how do you really expect to keep them from coming back, or to keep new immigrants from trying to get in? These people obviously have a lot of motivation to get into this country. Just look at how they get here- getting smuggled aboard cargo planes where they could suffocate; navigating home-made rafts across the ocean; paying coyotes to bring them in the backs of overpacked non-ventilated trucks, homemade tunnels, etc; and many of them die in the process. If they're willing to risk their lives and their family's well-being (if they die during the trip & can't earn any money in the U.S., the coyotes still get their money from the families), how much of a deterrant is it going to be to threaten them with some jail time? Or the threat that they might get sent back to their home country?

The reason there's so much illegal immigration is because the situations in the countries they're coming from are so bad, and the living conditions in the U.S., despite the problems we may have, are so much better (I'd much rather be living in a trailer park in the U.S., or even be back in Springhill Lake, than be upper middle class in the Quiche region of Guatemala). And even though the U.S. is probably one of the easiest countries to immigrate to, it's still difficult for poor, uneducated people from non-industrialized nations. Because they're uneducated, they don't know the legal process. And because of their economic situation, the $500 citizenship application fee could be a year's salary to them, or more, when they're busy spending that money on things like food, clothing, & medicine.

So, short of some huge program that's going to cost lots of money, I don't see any way in the short term that we could stop so many people from coming in from other countries. And if we're going to start a huge, expensive program, that kind of defeats the economic point that many people are arguing. And to use another doctor analogy, that really is treating the symptoms without trying to find a real cure. So to me, the obvious solution is to help developing nations bring their standards of living up to a decent level as quickly as possible, and then there won't be nearly the motivation for them to illegally enter the U.S. In the short term, the question becomes, do we tighten up immigration, which would result in a higher percentage of illegal immigrants, or loosen it up, so that more of them can be legal? I vote for loosening up immigration. When this many good, decent people are breaking the law, it probably means that the law's broken.

(p.s. I think space exploration is a wortwhile endeavour for the government to be spending billions on. Maybe not necessarily a cowboy trip to Mars, but things like Hubble and the Mars rovers have been invaluable scientifically. And for the more practical, we wouldn't have nearly the understanding of the atmosphere and global warming if it weren't for satellites, and we wouldn't have GPS, either.)

I don't think deportation is a viable option - there would be too much backlash and resentment. Not to mention the logistics of moving several million people who don't want to be found.

Also, to chime in, any child born in this country is an American by birthright, and we should keep that in mind. I have no problem naturalizing any illegal immigrant who already has an American child living here. Even for those that don't, we just need to get them into the system. Having the workers and their employers pay the appropriate amount of taxes would benefit us all (unless we owned an orange plantation in California).

But I do hold some resentment for the protestors who took down the American flag at their school and replaced it with a Mexican one. That kind of behavior is not condusive to winning the sympathy of the representatives/senators who are trying to work on keeping you here.

It seems like all the arguments for illegal immigration come down to "because they want to." And my opinion is, we're not in a position to acquiesce to that. We can't take care of ourselves.

Yes, there has been a lot of good that came out of space travel. But, seriously, that's a luxury. Nobody will live or die if we don't find out the mineral content of rocks on Mars, or the different isotopes of nitrogen (or whatever) that are present on Europa. I'm all for space travel when it's not irrresponsible to do it. But Bush is talking about a billion to go to Mars, the same year that he cut benefits to war veterans and medical benefits to the elderly. I can't reconcile those moves.

And all that feeds my idea that for this country to take all comers it has to be a strong country. Right now it is not. An unfettered influx of destitute people can only weaken the country. However, if we take the time to make this country a good one, than the people that come here for help can truly find it. Right now, we are unequipped to take care of ourselves, let alone the world.

I think I could sum up my illegal immigration policy a little differently. Instead of being, "because they want to," I'd say "because there's no way we can stop it without spending an inordinate amount of money that would be better spent elsewhere." Also, I'm not as pessimistic as you, Chris. True, we may be ranked low in a lot of areas compared to other industrialized nations, but that's like calling someone a crappy hockey player because they're the worst player in the NHL, when they could easily wipe the floor with any of us. The U.S. is still a good, strong country, even if there are areas for improvement. And if you're going to wait for it to be perfect before moving on to other issues, you'll never move on to those other issues. And like I said before, I think illegal immigration is just a symptom of a larger problem or inequality between rich and poor nations, so we'd do better trying to address that larger problem.

On to space, yeah, a lot of people were upset by Bush's Mars plan, NASA included. The problem wasn't that he said, "Let's add a few billion to NASA's budget to make a trip to Mars," it was something more along the lines of, "NASA, take your current budget that's already insufficient to do all of the scientific studies you'd like to do, and send men to Mars," killing a lot of the good research the agency does do. I personally think that doing science for science's sake is important - you don't know where it's going to lead until you actually do it, and I don't think that increased knowledge & understanding is ever a bad thing.

For an example, the destruction of the ozone layer above Anarctica wouldn't have been discovered except for basic research, and without the corrective action that followed, it might have become worse and spread to more of the world, greatly increasing the rates of skin cancer. What's the monetary value on that? Or satellites in general - how many lives a year are saved by predicting the weather, like blizzards, hurricanes & heat waves? And if you're going to argue that it's frivolous to spend money on probing the history and structure of our universe because it doesn't directly aid our citizens, should we also do away with national historic landmarks, art endowments, and pretty much every other aspect of government that isn't directly aiding people? Well, maybe if you're a libertarian...