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Well you have to look at the past to keep from repeating it in the future. Just because we a bigger nation, doesn't make my point moot.
He is getting turned down because he isn't skilled or anything. He meets the basic qualifications, but you have to be selected from an immigration lottery, and he just hasn't gotten selected. Why not increase the quotas? There isn't a limit on the amount of births people can in this country? What about all those "Octomom's" out there having a bunch of kids? Aren't they draining the system as well? Again, look at it from the other person's perspective. How would you feel if you were in a country that was in economic chaos with a corrupt government and there was a way for you to make money to help your family, would you not the do the same as them? This is an honest question.
Birth rates of people already here is a natural thing, allowing people to come here under immigration laws, going through established borders, registering, filling out forms is not, it is a process that is coordinated and governed. A US Citizen or legal resident doing the natural act of having a baby is natural. They are here, they are documented here and are free to have children. People who want to go to another country aren't owed that ability, but not many governments tell people that they can't have children. That's the difference. You can not compare the two. The US government doesn't at this point have the right to tell people how many children they can have, but they do have the legal right to say how many people from other countries can come into this country.
How are you going to try to say that having a bunch of children as a legal resident or US Citizen is not allowed because we don't allow more immigrants into the country? Besides, birthrates aren't even as high for the average US Citizen as you are trying to say.
Also, many of us here have looked at it from a different perspective. Have you? Do you? We know of the illegal immigrant and the pro-illegal immigrant's viewpoint and circumstances, but we also are very aware of what illegal immigration does to our family's future, our cities and the nation. I see it as unbalanced when we start giving illegal immigrants everything that they ask for (amnesty, social assistance, instate college tuition, jobs that could go to unemployed US Citizens and legal residents).
He isn't, but what makes me or you (if you were born here naturally) more deserving than either of them? We just lucked up. Again I'm not saying have an open border, but I don't see a problem with immigration if they are contributing as a whole to our country and the process was streamlined more.
It is pretty simple: it is 2010 and we are in a global world that is built up of countries, their policies and government. This isn't 1650 or something where we have no borders, or less borders or no nations. There is no problem with immigration. Most people here don't have a problem with immigration. Like I've said before, when I was little, one of my favorite things to do in NYC was to visit Ellis Island and NYC is my favorite place to be. It's a city of immigrants and they work hard. However, we have to be realistic and use our knowledge to understand that illegal immigration at these numbers won't be a benefit and isn't an overall benefit right now. As for legal immigration, exactly what needs to be reformed? I see people use the keyword (their favorite word) "reform," but they never say what specific policies need to be reformed or what needs to be introduced. It makes it seem that overall what people who preach about reform want is to make it easier for people to come to the US to live and work. But, who will these people be that are then able to come here because of reform? Are they skilled? We already have more than enough unskilled or low-skilled immigrants, why would you want to introduce more? Is our goal to simply give all who are poor and unskilled a chance to be in the US? That makes no sense, we will not have enough jobs for our own unskilled or low-skilled workers to work. We already have high school dropouts or low-skilled workers without work.
You tell other people to look at things from a different perspective, but you seem stuck in a euphoric state of mind where everyone should get a chance at living and working in the US. Have you looked at it from a different perspective? Have you done the research to support your ideas? Everyone does have a chance, but all will not be permitted to work here. If all the people that wanted to come to the US could come, do you think that would be realistic? What about the disadvantages of that for the US Citizen, naturalized or naturally born here?
"Just lucked up?" You are right we lucked up, we were born here in the US and that makes a person want to protect what is their right and opportunity. I've been all over the world and some places have things that we don't have, but overall, I feel very happy that I have citizenship here.
LOL our politician's are corrupt, I'm not going to argue with you there, they but aren't on the same level of corruption as other countries. We are no where like a Sudan, where people were routinely executed for speaking out against the government.
You do realize that we can't "help" everyone though, right? That's why I ask, "Just what do you all mean by 'reform'," because I don't understand what more pro-illegal immigratin or pro-immigration reform people would like to see. You also do realize that we have our own serious problems in the US right now, correct?
Population control? Is it really that crowded here or just certain places that appear that way? You want to see crowded places, go to Japan. We have plenty of open space in this country, not to mention cities like Detroit, Buffalo, and Cleveland that people are fleeing and never coming back to. Why not allow more immigrants to enter through a legal process and give them incentives to start businesses in those cities. There is a ton of wasted infrastructure, why not allow people, who want to be here and make better life here help rebuild those cities through creating new small businesses?
Would I? Well, it depends. If it came down to feeding my kids and family and there were little options left, yeah I probably would. I wouldn't view it as stealing jobs, if the employer hired me. That's what I don't get about the whole immigration debate. If it's about jobs, why not just go after the employers who hire undocumented workers? If they aren't getting paid money and no services, what reason would they have to continue to be here?
I don't see anything wrong with more immigration (if it is legal and the immigrants are going to contribute to things such as starting new businesses, academia, doctors, scientists, students), but I don't think enough is being done to slow illegal immigration from south of our border. You talk about business owners, but we're not getting that in the millions. We already have millions of unskilled, uneducated and already in poverished workers coming in from south of the border, so, how much more are you thinking that we should admit that are going to be starters of business and rebuild cities?
I rarely venture into this form, since it seems more hostile than the main Political and Other Controversies forum, lol, but I was watching a comedy show on HBO the other week. There was a latino comedian, (I can't remember who it was), but he had interesting take on illegal immigration. He was basically saying the founders were pretty much "illegal immigrants" of their and basically left their country's in Europe to escape hardships and oppressive gov't.
Since you can't violate a law that doesn't exist, the Europeans who came to this continent prior to 1776 were NOT illegal immigrants. It's as simple as that. They may have been unwelcomed by the native inhabitants, but they weren't illegal immigrants (unless you can prove that there were immigration laws in place in North America back then).
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Originally Posted by e2ksj3
Technically there were no laws against immigration at the time, but I kind of see his point. Just like the illegal immigrants, they left their country of origins, due to oppressive governments and economic hardships and came here. They didn't sign any paper work. People argue that illegal immigrants take jobs and use our resources (in the form of public services), but the original settlers, slaughtered and took land resources from the natives.
Like I said before, you can't violate a law that doesn't exist. But we do have immigration laws in place today, so any foreigner who comes to this country in violation of these laws is an illegal immigrant. It doesn't matter why a foreigner leaves their home country, they still need to come here by obeying and abiding by our legal immigration process. There is no comparison between what happened several centuries ago and the situation that exists today. Anybody who tries to make that comparison in trying to justify illegal immigration today is using an extremely weak argument.
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Originally Posted by e2ksj3
I'm not advocating amnesty, but I think people need to stop being so arrogant and look at it from a different perspective than your own sometimes. Do we need immigration reform? Yes and that means doing a total overall of the system. I have friends who live in Europe who would love to immigrate here, but have to wait because the process is so long and costly. I don't think it's fair that a family from Mexico can come here illegal and work, while they have to wait, but at the same time I can understand why. I don't think most people have a clue how long the immigration process is. If it's a choice between earning more money to feed your family or waiting for the process and starving in the mean time while your application is considered, what would you choose?
Being against illegal immigration is not being arrogant. I welcome foreigners who come here legally. I don't welcome foreigners who come here illegally. There is no arrogance involved in my feelings on this subject. The only immigration reform that we need is to secure our borders and to perhaps streamline the immigration process so that legal immigrants can complete the process in a shorter period of time.
Can you provide a link to prove that there are large numbers of people starving in Mexico? I've never heard of this problem on any TV news report or in any news source online.
I understand your point about the job and taxes. I don't think anyone should should get out of paying for resources, especially if they are more of a burden on the system. The Quakers may have worked in peace with the Native Americans, but a lot of original settlers, I wouldn't have called "entrepreneurs" when it came to how they acquired land and resources. They pretty much stole the land from the Native Americans and slaughtered them in the process, not to mention getting free labor of a group of enslaved people. Obviously we all benefited from this today, but I bring this up to contrast. I don't see how people think, well that's "okay", but people coming here to work, most of the time peacefully, "well that's a huge problem". Of course we need to do it in an orderly way for security but again, I think as long as they pay taxes and law abiding citizens, why not let more come in?
Who's saying that what the Europeans settlers did to the native inhabitants was OK? Anyway, the situation that existed back in the 1500's, 1600's, and 1700's on this continent are so dissimilar to the situation today that it's ridiculous to even try to make the comparison.
Here in the modern world in the year 2010, foreigners who want to come to the United States to work need to come here through the proper legal immigration channels. It's as simple as that. The number of legal immigrants that we let in each year is based on the needs of the United States, and not on the needs of the foreigners who want to come here. At this time, with 15 million Americans out of work, we shouldn't be increasing the number of legal immigrants that we let in.
Population control? Is it really that crowded here or just certain places that appear that way? You want to see crowded places, go to Japan. We have plenty of open space in this country, not to mention cities like Detroit, Buffalo, and Cleveland that people are fleeing and never coming back to.
When immigrants, both legal and illegal, come to the United States, they don't build new cities from scratch in one of these many open spaces. Instead, they head for one of our existing cities, usually a larger city, and that just creates more crowdedness and congestion for the current residents of these cities.
I live in the UK and from my personal research it doesn’t seem that I would have a chance at emigrating to the USA. As how much as I would like to move over there to live and work, and I believe that I could be of genuine benefit to the USA, I don’t meet the criteria for immigration and the UK is excluded from the visa lottery, plus I don’t have any relatives that are US citizens. So here I stay, nowhere to run to.
I find it very sad so many European countries are so willing to give their countries away to non native immigrants. It defies all logic and common sense. I think Europe has gone too far in embracing multiculturalism.
I find it very sad so many European countries are so willing to give their countries away to non native immigrants. It defies all logic and common sense. I think Europe has gone too far in embracing multiculturalism.
I agree. From what I see, the European dream of multiculturalism is precisely that...a dream. While Europe may feel it's "oh SO sophisticated", SO liberal, and SO non-judgemental, in taking into its embrace these restive, surly millions of 'others', it looks like strictly a one-sided love affair to me. I see no indications that Muslims are attacted to Europe because they want to 'become Europeans'...nor are they apparently interested in personal freedom, security, or 'rights' for anyone other than their own group. They've said so many times, and have been very 'up front' about their aims. That's not multiculturalism...that's simply one culture stepping aside and allowing the other one to take over.
If that's what the Europeans want, it's their continent...more power to them (no irony intended )...but it's sure not what I want, here...and I don't envy those Europeans one bit....their 'sophistication' notwithstanding.
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)...but it's sure not what I want, here...and I don't envy those Europeans one bit....their 'sophistication' notwithstanding.
