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We are not a global welfare state, however. We are a nation of limited resources. We cannot become the safety net for other nations when we have numerous issues that should be a priority over those. If the private sector wants to help, more power to them, but ultimately, the issues in these other countries are the obligations of those other countries to improve. We have to put in place policies that force Mexico to improve its conditions. One of those policies should be an obstacle preventing income earned in America through illegal labor from being forwarded to Mexico. That is a huge economic generator for Mexico, and it's unfair and inhumane to American taxpayers and the American poor. And there is no reason to believe that Mexico would ever cooperate with America to improve their own lot in light of those revenue streams. They profit from illegal immigration at our expense, and the ramifications for us are broad-ranging when it comes to taking care of our own struggling citizens, who should be our priority.
All nations have to prioritize their expenses given limited resources. And there is nothing cruel or inhumane about prioritizing your own citizens over those who don't have citizenship or legal permission. In fact, given the relationship between government and its people, it's the only humane thing, to take care of them.
Bottom line is to get rid of the causes behind illegal immigration, we need to evaluate a couple things -- if those nations are benefiting from our porous illegal immigration policy, how are they benefiting; what can we do to reduce/eliminate those benefits; implement those policies while plugging the holes in our borders. American citizenship is not an entitlement. My parents realized this, struggled to get here, did not take any shortcuts, went through the waiting periods, saved the money to pay the fees. People going through the process like this should not be lumped together with those who don't.
So much discussion about immigration, but nobody seems to have brought up the CAUSE. WHY would somebody be desperate enough to leave his or her family, culture, language, etc. to take a dangerous trip to a hostile environment where he or she doesn't speak the language, has very few rights and must do difficult work with little job security? Let's look at Mexico, specifically.
Obviously, people are desperate because they are poor. In Mexico and many other Latin American countries, there is a large population of very educated people and a small number of jobs. (Most of the posters seem to assume that the population coming from Mexico to work in the U.S. is uneducated and unskilled. That's true to some extent, but there is a high number of extremely qualified people particularly from South American countries like Peru. I've met doctors, lawyers, surgeons, and engineers working as busboys, farmworkers, etc.) In Mexico, a college educated public school teacher earns about $3,000 A YEAR. That used to be a living wage in Mexico, but today the living expenses are almost as high as they are in the United States. Ok, so Mexico is a difficult place to survive economically, even for the educated and highly skilled.
WHY? Why is a country with many natural resources and a huge labor force so poor? Corruption? A little bit, but if anything corruption exists because of the poverty... it is not the source of the poverty. So why? NAFTA and free trade. Duh. The same year NAFTA was passed, there was an enormous influx in undocumented Mexican immigration to the United States. Free trade DESTROYED the Mexican economy by flooding their markets with cheap US imports, deregulating labor and thwarting industry. NAFTA has played a huge role in the downfall of the Mexican economy and the desperation of its people.
What kille me though is that the same people in the House and Congress who pushed NAFTA through are also completely anti-undocumented immigrant. If they really wanted "the illegals" out, they should repeal NAFTA and let Mexico handle its own economy.
Also, the argument that undocumented immigrants are coming here for the public service benefits is completely ridiculous. First of all, if you don't have a social security number YOU ARE NOT ELIGIBLE for assistance. End of story. Immigrants without papers are only eligible for "Charity Care" which includes only the most BASIC services at a hospital and some primary care at clinics. (For example, it doesn't include anasthesia while giving birth.) If you don't have papers you can't get food stamps, medicaid, TANF, TRA... nothing. The $420 figure refers to families with documented children and undocumented parents.
Finally... the government hasn't cracked down on illegal immigration because it actually benefits the US economy. According to the National Academy of Sciences, immigrants (legal and not legal) pay between 90 and 120 BILLION dollars in taxes. (About 20 Billion of this can be specifically attributed to undocumented people alone.) The media never seems to mention that MILLIONS of undocumented people pay taxes using tax ID numbers provided by the government. (ITIN or Individual Taxpayer Identification Number). The net benefit of immigration is $10 BILLION dollars every year. According to Alan Greenspan, 70% of immigrants arrive at prime working age. That means we haven't spent a penny on their education, but they are transplanted into the workforce and will contribute $500 BILLION dollars into the social security system.
I think it behooves the government to allow people to blame illegal immigrants for problems in the U.S. and abroad... keeps us from turning our eyes towards them.
First, I gave natural birth...nothing wrong with that. BASIC hospital/ doctor care I don't even get, and I am here legally AND working!
I had to apply for emergency food stamps once, after getting hit with 2 hurricanes down in FL....All I needed was a SS#, and illegals usually have a fake one
I have observed "round ups" down in FL, lawn care workers, hispanic helping with building houses down there, and every single one of them is an illegal immigrant. How I know? Watch them running, when a cop car comes by ( cop lived in my neigborhood....lol)
After all the running they did, I am surprised they got the house done.....lol
Sorry, no matter who's fault it is, what they get and don't get....whatever....not my problem. If you are here illegal, you need to get out, because you are breaking the law.
You can't use the government as an excuse for EVERYTHING, but you are expected to follow the laws......or I would rob a bank, and say it's the governments fault, because I deserve more pay!!!
Wouldn't that be grand???
"Them" pay taxes....PPPLLLLEEEAAASSSEEE!
(They run away from police, but pay taxes?.....I think NOT!)
Last edited by MB2; 05-20-2007 at 08:24 PM..
Reason: typo...one out of many :-)
There are jobs Americans do not want? That's a BIG bunch of crap. Give anyone who is hungry an opportunity to work and they WILL.
Have you ever tried to hire someone for manual labor such as heavy yard work? I have been looking at the yard crews for almost four years. EEOC might have a diversity issue. At least in my town.
I have some questions about this paragraph and I am hopeful you can elaborate a bit to help me better understand the issue.
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Originally Posted by travisalta
......Also, the argument that undocumented immigrants are coming here for the public service benefits is completely ridiculous. First of all, if you don't have a social security number YOU ARE NOT ELIGIBLE for assistance. End of story.
This is not true. WIC is provided to illegal aliens. Pro-illegal websites post this information so new arrivals are aware of this benefit available to them.
Women, Infants and Children Program (WIC) –
Provides food benefits, in the form of vouchers, for low-income families to obtain certain foods including infant formula. Immigrants of any status who are otherwise eligible may receive WIC food supplements. http://www.workingforamerica.org/doc.../checklist.asp
Furthermore, since forged or stolen SS#'s are freely used by this group of individuals, what is to prevent them from using the SS# to collect other benefits they are not entitiled to?
Free lunch and breakfast at school is provided to children irregardless of immigration status.
If the 'public service benefits' do not act as a magnet, why the anchor baby phenomenon?
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Immigrants without papers are only eligible for "Charity Care" which includes only the most BASIC services at a hospital and some primary care at clinics. (
Under the EMTALA, ER's are required to treat anyone who shows up. Every complaint, no matter how trivial, must be evaluated. In the hands of a malpractice attorney, a hangnail from 6 weeks ago can be transformed into an 'emergency'. Hopspitals know this so anyone who walks through the door must be seen. In an ER, illegal immigrants receive the same care as everyone else. Hospitals are forbidden from inquiring about immigration status so no illegal aliens is ever actually identified as such. About half of all hospital admissions have the ER as the point of entry. If it is decided that an illegal alien seen in the ER needs to be admitted to the hospital, they are admitted. This is typically when the bills really begin to pile up.
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For example, it doesn't include anasthesia while giving birth.
Now, this is the most amazing thing. Many years ago I spent 3 months of my training at a county OB hospital in a border state. It was a very busy place, logging over 18,000 deliveries a year. It was well known among the staff, residents and student CRNA's that a large number of these women were illegal aliens who crossed the border in order to give birth in the US. When you were on call, you put in epidural after epidural after epidural, never having a remote idea whether the patient was illegal or not. Everyone received the same care. A lifelong taxpaying US citizen who had fallen on hard times and could not afford care got the same treatment as someone who had crossed the Rio Grande 2 hours ago.
I am not working now but my husband is an anesthesiologist with over 20 years experience. He takes OB anesthesia call every other Friday night. We live in a city with a high illegal population so undoubtedly some of the patients he cares for are illegal. There has never been a policy of denying epidurals to illegals. Some smaller hospitals do not offer epidurals because of the need for 24 hour in house anesthesia coverage. If an illegal alien does not receive an epidural at one of these hospitals it is because no one else is getting one either.
To me, this doesn't even make sense. Can you imagine the outcry from LaRaza, MALDEF, LULAC, MEChA, et al if a hospital denied an epidural to an illegal alien who requested one while providing this service to other patients?
I look forward to discussing this further with you.
"Hospitals are forbidden from inquiring about immigration status so no illegal aliens is ever actually identified as such. About half of all hospital admissions have the ER as the point of entry."
Hospitals can ask where you are from and our county hospitals here do ask..They do have to treat them but they can ask....But the public school system cannot ask....And this came from our county tax collector on a local new show...he was telling county tax payers how much we as tax payers pay for illegals health care...We pay here close to 100 million dollars a year for them and he said that cost is above any taxes they may pay....
Last edited by texanborn; 05-21-2007 at 12:15 PM..
"Hospitals are forbidden from inquiring about immigration status so no illegal aliens is ever actually identified as such. About half of all hospital admissions have the ER as the point of entry."
Hospitals can ask where you are from and our county hospitals here do ask..They do have to treat them but they can ask....But the public school system cannot ask....And this came from our county tax collector on a local new show...he was telling county tax payers how much we as tax payers pay for illegals health care...We pay here close to 100 million dollars a year for them and he said that cost is above any taxes they may pay....
My understanding is that hospitals are not permitted to directly ask about immigration status. They can ask tangential questions that could lead them to conclude that this person is here illegally, but they cannot come right out and ask, "Are you here illegally?" or a similar question. So I think when hospitals apply for reimbursement from the govt for care to illegal aliens, they must give a 'guesstimate' of how many they treated as opposed to providing firm figures.
The public school system situation puzzles me. You would think from a public health point of view you would want this information so the child could be screened for contagious diseases and receive the req. immunizations if they haven't already. The school district where I live goes to great lengths to root out students from other districts who give a false address in order to be able to attend the schools here. I guess an American citizen hoping to attend a school district that is better than their home district needs to be stopped, but if you are an illegal alien you get a pass. It doesn't make any sense.
Last edited by andreabeth; 05-21-2007 at 12:51 PM..
My entire family survives on farming. If you've drank milk or eaten squash, it might just be ours. We employ immigrants who, once illegal, have since obtained green cards. We've done this because we CAN NOT FIND "Americans" to do the jobs that we need.
Oh well I guess a nice Mexican and South American Style farming cooperative will suit a pro-immigration Farmer activist like You!:
Originally by Jabogitlu
Quote:
I'm actually not a poor "Dirt" farmer. (I think we have enough dirt.)
Well you're gona be a poor dirt Farmer after your poor immigrant workers turn the US into a poor third world economy and take over your farm and deport you just like they did to farm owners all over Africa and South America! ::
"First of all, if you don't have a social security number YOU ARE NOT ELIGIBLE for assistance."
Macaderos are selling social security numbers (and other fraudulent documents) on the street corner - they will make a little hand sign to let you know (if they think you are a potential customer).
"First of all, if you don't have a social security number YOU ARE NOT ELIGIBLE for assistance."
Macaderos are selling social security numbers (and other fraudulent documents) on the street corner - they will make a little hand sign to let you know (if they think you are a potential customer).
But if those social security numbers were easily verifiable, would we then really have this problem? I think the social security card is a really bad piece of of id, I'm all for a much more secure national id and allow government agencies to share data so there would be less occurences of fraud.
Do you really think that the immigrants legal or illegal that come to the US actually even try to assimilate to US language or culture? The ones I have come across are very racist and are very reluctant to bother to learn english or make friends outside of their own culture. Is this the American way? Should American's even have expectations from the immigrants who come here?
That's interesting. In the old day, immigrants were recruited to come to the united states. They spoke no English. So coached by their friends they were told a few words in English to get through the Island. They were told, you are a "Carpenter". You are a "Smith". For the jobs that were available. So when they got to the us and were going through Immigrations, the only English word they knew was Carpenter. So they were listed as a name of Carpenter and their occupation was Carpenter.
But we're only talking about your and my ancestors. They got here with no English other then a couple of words. But what the heck, we've built a wonderful country with those folks.
As far as culture and racism. We did it. Think about the colonys. If you don't understand, visit Eastern South Dakota, Minn, Iowa. There are still colony's of people that speak their native tongue. My grand parents came from Tripp South Dakota, they spoke English. But with their neighbors, they spoke Bohiemian. (Can't spell that word for crap).
100 years after they arrived, they had their pockets of their people and their language. But each and every one of them spoke fluent English in order to stay.
It's a complex problem that's going to take time. We should have been working on it years ago to keep the standards. We've let the standards lax and now we're paying.
It's darned hard to draw lines on something like this. There were our ancestors comeing over here with no English, but we expect the news ones to be Road Schollars? Now, our ancestors had to learn English and speak it clearly to become citizens. That should still be a requirement.
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