Mayor: Give Illegals a "Path to Legalization" (McCain, license, giving birth)

[SmerkyGrl]

Originally Posted by andreabeth

Illegal aliens are overwhelmingly poorly educated and unskilled. The small amount they will pay in taxes will not offset the cost of the services they use as citizens. American immigration policy must be structured so that it benefits America, just as Canadian immigration policy must benefit the citizens of Canada. This is common sense. I doubt that any country can labor forever under the burden of ever increasing millions who are a net cost to society. The people who come here legally are carefully screened to make sure that they will not become a public charge. Our legal immigration system works. The immigrants who come here are motivated to become Americans and they contribute a great deal to our society. What you are proposing involves importing a whole new underclass and I fail to see how the average citizen will benefit from that. The illegal aliens need to return to their home countries and use their new found skills as activists to lobby for change there.

What I am proposing is creating an addendum to our current legal immigration system. If you haven't noticed, most LEGAL citizens that come here are generally poor and "not paying much in taxes" either. The system that the Mayor proposed, from what I read, is designed to give those illegals who made a ONE TIME mistake the opportunity of PROVING that they are, as you call it, " motivated to become Americans and they contribute a great deal to our society".

[malamute]

Originally Posted by SmerkyGrl

Have you not read the thread at all? What the MAYOR is doing is finding a way to decrease the illegal population by providing true and sincere illegals a way to become honest, tax-paying citizens.

I think what you are not saying but want to say is you want Mexicans gone. Which is fine, I won't judge you. But at least be honest about it.

I want illegals gone. I don't care where they come from.

And what illegals were working should be replaced by Americans first for those jobs and then by legal immigrants who chose the legal route in the first place -- and they should be from all countries not just one.

[SmerkyGrl]

Originally Posted by malamute

No I am not. We do not need trash immigrants. We need responsible immigrants that believe in education, and self-reliance.

No immigrant shoudl be coming to get on food stamps, Medicaid or any other handout program. Like I said -- self-reliant, hard working immigrants who believe in some self-responsibility.

And the "path to legalization" is designed to find the handful of people who may have been unfortunate to have status of "illegal" but are still wishing to be "self-reliant, hard working" immigrants who believe in self-responsibility.

It is clear by now that your image of any Mexican is someone who leeches off the system, does not work at all, and wants to turn America into the next Mexico. While it is true there are such miscreants (as there are our own citizens who quit their jobs to have babies to get subsidies from the Government), what I'm saying is that those who are willing to prove their sincerity despite crossing the border should be given a chance.

[SmerkyGrl]

Originally Posted by malamute

I want illegals gone. I don't care where they come from.

And what illegals were working should be replaced by Americans first for those jobs and then by legal immigrants who chose the legal route in the first place -- and they should be from all countries not just one.

I'm still not sure where you get the idea that our immigrants are just from one country. I myself am from China. There you go, now you know of 2 countries. But I assure you, we have legal immigrants from all countries. I don't think you're reading anything I'm saying at all at this point.

[andreabeth]

Originally Posted by SmerkyGrl

Now you're just pulling at straws and relating babies born out of wedlock to illegal Mexicans. As I stated in another thread, the social problems we experience from Mexicans are equal to the caliber of social problems we experience from our own trailer trash citizens. To put such issues solely on the shoulders of illegals is both uneducated and unfair.

This is exactly why amnesty in any of it's many guises is such an appallingly bad idea. We already have enough of our own citizens who commit crimes, have children they cannot afford and so forth. We do not need another country's problems, we have more than enough of our own. We are trying to deal with a dysfunctional healthcare system, and education system that has been in trouble for decades, crime, a middle class that is being squeezed out of existence and other issues. In the middle of all this, why on God's green earth are we allowing other countries to dump their problems on us, too? Our plate is already full.

[SmerkyGrl]

At any rate, to those in this thread, I'll leave with these couple of thoughts before I run off to do errands. You have stated many counters as to why the path to legalization is bad. Some of them include:

-They will drain our economy(not true, because they'll be putting money back into the economy)
-The money they put back in won't make a difference (it will, because there's so many of them and taxes is taxes is money back into the system)
-They have babies out of wedlock (ridiculous)
-They will fly the Mexican flag (Not if the path to legalization is strictly monitored and used as a screening process rather than a handful of amnesty papers)
-We need more immigrants from other countries (Move to a city and you'll see a mosaic of immigrants from all countries, legal and illegal)
-They're lazy and unskilled (Sweeping statements that cannot be applied as a general rule as each immigrant's motivation for emigrating is different)
- I just don't like immigrants.

So far, only the last statement holds even the slightest bit of water in this argument against giving the sincerely wishing-to-be-a-productive-American illegal a chance.

[SmerkyGrl]

Originally Posted by andreabeth

This is exactly why amnesty in any of it's many guises is such an appallingly bad idea. We already have enough of our own citizens who commit crimes, have children they cannot afford and so forth. We do not need another country's problems, we have more than enough of our own. We are trying to deal with a dysfunctional healthcare system, and education system that has been in trouble for decades, crime, a middle class that is being squeezed out of existence and other issues. In the middle of all this, why on God's green earth are we allowing other countries to dump their problems on us, too? Our plate is already full.

Please go read the original thread. It is not a plan to grant amnesty. It is a plan to give illegals to prove themselves to earn legal citizenship.

[malamute]

Originally Posted by SmerkyGrl

And the "path to legalization" is designed to find the handful of people who may have been unfortunate to have status of "illegal" but are still wishing to be "self-reliant, hard working" immigrants who believe in self-responsibility.

It is clear by now that your image of any Mexican is someone who leeches off the system, does not work at all, and wants to turn America into the next Mexico. While it is true there are such miscreants (as there are our own citizens who quit their jobs to have babies to get subsidies from the Government), what I'm saying is that those who are willing to prove their sincerity despite crossing the border should be given a chance.

Like I said -- as long as they have no criminal record here, they have a chance to become legal immigrants. They can return home and apply to come the right way this time.

That way they are not rewarded over someone somewhere who has already done that and has been patiently waiting.

You want them rewarded for breaking the laws. That should never be the case. Let those who would like to become citizens and be here legally do so. Go home and start over the right way. Those who choose to be here illegally should face the consequences of that decision. When they are caught, they will be deported with that deporation staining their record and they will not get preference over a law-abiding type.

[malamute]

Originally Posted by SmerkyGrl

At any rate, to those in this thread, I'll leave with these couple of thoughts before I run off to do errands. You have stated many counters as to why the path to legalization is bad. Some of them include:

-They will drain our economy(not true, because they'll be putting money back into the economy)
-The money they put back in won't make a difference (it will, because there's so many of them and taxes is taxes is money back into the system)
-They have babies out of wedlock (ridiculous)
-They will fly the Mexican flag (Not if the path to legalization is strictly monitored and used as a screening process rather than a handful of amnesty papers)
-We need more immigrants from other countries (Move to a city and you'll see a mosaic of immigrants from all countries, legal and illegal)
-They're lazy and unskilled (Sweeping statements that cannot be applied as a general rule as each immigrant's motivation for emigrating is different)
- I just don't like immigrants.

So far, only the last statement holds even the slightest bit of water in this argument against giving the sincerely wishing-to-be-a-productive-American illegal a chance.

Those who have no other arguments like to pull the race card.

No one on here is saying deport only Mexican illegals -- all illegals of all races should be deported.

As for not liking immigrants -- most people like immigrants just fine. like water -- some immigrants are good for this country -- but like a flood -- too many are not good for this country.

[andreabeth]

Originally Posted by SmerkyGrl

What I am proposing is creating an addendum to our current legal immigration system. If you haven't noticed, most LEGAL citizens that come here are generally poor and "not paying much in taxes" either. The system that the Mayor proposed, from what I read, is designed to give those illegals who made a ONE TIME mistake the opportunity of PROVING that they are, as you call it, " motivated to become Americans and they contribute a great deal to our society".

Here's the kicker:

Except for refugees, most legal immigrants have individual sponsors, who must provide financial support to the immigrants until they become citizens. Whenever a sponsored legal immigrant applies for food stamps, the sponsor's income may be counted as available to the immigrant's household for purposes of food stamp eligibility, often disqualifying the immigrants' household for benefits. Additionally, states may require sponsors to pay back the value of benefits issued to the immigrants they sponsored, although no states in our study have developed policies to do so. Sponsor deeming rules currently affect a very small fraction of the noncitizens with five years of legal residency who became eligible for food stamps under the April 2003 restoration. That fraction is expected to grow over time, however, as the number of legal immigrants who entered after 1997, have completed five years of residency, and have not become U.S. citizens increases.

An illegal alien with a 7th grade education is simply not going to contribute much in the way of revenue to society. Multiply this by millions and we have a problem. Since you believe they should be allowed to stay, how many families are you planning on sponsoring?