Immigration Looms Large in Florida Vote (health care, illegal immigrants, employment, campaign)

[Benicar]

CAPITOL REPORT
Immigration looms large in Florida vote
Candidates' challenge: Get an immigration policy that appeals to everyone
By Robert Schroeder, MarketWatch
Last update: 7:25 p.m. EST Jan. 25, 2008

TAMPA, Fla. (MarketWatch) -- Cathy Farmer, a 49-year-old Tampa nurse, complains that illegal immigrants are taking jobs that Americans could do. Jon Santiago, 26, thinks there isn't a proper system in place to provide immigrants' children with health care. Seventy-year-old Dan Semenza doesn't have a problem with legal immigrants. But the illegal ones? They're a strain, he says, on American hospitals and schools.

But Semenza, a retired school teacher, speaks for many when he shrugs and says, "You're stuck between a rock and a hard spot" on immigration. That's because some illegal immigrants do jobs current U.S. citizens might not want to do. But they're here -- all 12 million of them -- already, so the issue for presidential candidates is twofold: what to do with them, and what to about those who'd like to come next.

Like perhaps no other issue, illegal immigration is Florida's Catch 22, and Republicans and Democrats alike agree that it's a problem in need of a solution. If the candidates don't have a clear, appealing message about this issue now, they're going to have to get one before they wrap up their campaigns for the state with the country's third-highest population of illegals.

The trouble for the candidates seeking this swing state's 27 electoral votes, though, is that feelings about immigration run the gamut. Some argue that immigrants are needed to fill low-paying jobs. Others say that immigrants ought to be welcomed but that lawbreakers should be sent home. Still others say that hospitals are strained by having to admit illegals.

Looking for a fix.....

Immigration looms large in Florida vote - MarketWatch

[Arizona Bound]

stop them before they have a chance to settle some where.. SECURE our borders! It will make a HUGE difference...

[ArizonaBear]

I also live in a Sunbelt state (Arizona); and I see no negative effect of the illegals bugging out courtesy of our Employer Sanction Law----------unless one wishes to count much less music blaring from vehicles, more and more places up for rent (which may help cancel out impending rent increases due to many people here losing their homes to foreclosure), less traffic and less 'attitude' as being 'bad'

[HoustonCynic]

I like the line below in the article. No wonder political hopefuls cannot focus.

"The candidates would have it easy if illegal immigration didn't touch on so many issues: crime, employment, health care and even homeland security."

[ArizonaBear]

Originally Posted by HoustonCynic

I like the line below in the article. No wonder political hopefuls cannot focus.

"The candidates would have it easy if illegal immigration didn't touch on so many issues: crime, employment, health care and even homeland security."

Yet the answer is obvious: all of the problems stated would diminish with significantly fewer illegals here. <--Emoticon directed to the politicians.

[crittersitter]

I've got an idea. ENFORCE THE LAWS!