The immigration issue (YouTube Republican debate)

[DVaut1]

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If you really want to read the truth about McCain rather than the BS that the MSM has put forth about him:

Be Afraid of President McCain

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I don't really understand what you're attempting to prove here; McCain's personal philosophy about the proper role of government isn't what's at question here. It's about the [censored] he endured in Vietnam and why he endured it and the way AlexM characterized it.

Recall what AlexM said, which gobbomom found just "hilarious":

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"McCain is a national hero?

Oh wait, I forgot that for some reason people consider bad things happening to you to be heroic. Nevermind, carry on.

*goes and heroicly jumps into the Grand Canyon"

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So does the following really = "jumping into the Grand Canyon"? From the article you linked to:

"So after being shot out of the sky during a risky raid over Hanoi in 1967, then pummeled by a mob of local Vietnamese and detained at the notorious prison nicknamed the Hanoi Hilton, McCain comported himself heroically despite two broken arms, a mangled knee, and innards wracked by dysentery and other maladies. Every morning for two years a guard the prisoners called The Prick would demand that McCain bow to him. Every morning McCain would refuse, then brace for his beating. Herded into a made-for-propaganda Christmas Eve service in the prison yard, McCain punctured the enforced silence with repeated shouts of “[censored] you!” while raising his middle finger to the camera. Beat senseless for days on end for refusing to divulge information or accept early release (which would have given the North Vietnamese a propaganda victory and violated the Navy’s honor code), he would reveal only the names of every player he could remember from the Green Bay Packers."


The guy had a dearly-held principle, and then got beat senseless and tortured for adhering to it. This is like jumping into the Grand Canyon how, exactly?

[gobbomom]

I found it hilarious because heroism is completely subjective, as Alex so astutely pointed out. It's just as easy to consider McCain stupid as heroic in that example, because sometimes "dearly held principles" are just the ego's folly.

[AlexM]

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The guy had a dearly-held principle, and then got beat senseless and tortured for adhering to it. This is like jumping into the Grand Canyon how, exactly?

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Kamikaze!!!!!!!!!!!

[InTheDark]

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Can someone explain to me why the Republicans seem to be so rabid about the immigration issue? It seems to be the #1 issue on republican voters' list (even above Iraq, terrorism, the economy).

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At the top of my list is rule of law. I want the US to decide on who becomes new immigrants, not criminal economic motivations from a failed state.

If you hang drywall in CA then your objection is simple economics. Your pay has gone backwards due to serious competitive pressure.

Much of the less informed cohort's objection is cultural. Non-english speakers are in your face and impossible to ignore. Press 1 for English? F that, they think.

[Moseley]

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Can someone explain to me why the Republicans seem to be so rabid about the immigration issue? It seems to be the #1 issue on republican voters' list (even above Iraq, terrorism, the economy). So much so, that the crowd was booing a national hero (McCain, one of the few who actually tried to attack the problem with something other than rhetoric), because he suggested that deporting every illegal immigrant might not be a workable solution.

What percentage of this issue is just racism, do you think?

[/ QUOTE ]

I think only a small part of it has to do with racism; that small part of the public who are racists.

I saw last night on fox, where one state recently passed a law against illegal immigrants, that was so strong, the illegals packed up and left and it brought much of the construction industry to a halt. They interviewed new would be homeowners, who will not be in their new home by xmas as they had hoped.

Those are not jobs that citizens will not take.

About a yr ago, I saw on Lou Dobbs, where in the mid 90s the avg butcher in a meat processing plant made $16.50 pr hr. Now they make $9.50 an hr.

Who do you think was doing the job in the mid 90s and who is doing it now?

Dobbs cited a report, that if we were paying the butchers from the mid 90s (Americans) and adjusted their hourly wage for inflation, it would cost us approx 10-15 cents more per pound.

There are a couple of the reasons why citizens are so rabid about illegal immigrants. There are many more.

Now I DO NOT hold the same view as many: Deport all 12 million of them asap!

I believe, as McCain does, that they are human beings just like us. I believe the only reason they came here is because they saw a way to obtain a better life.

The only reason they saw that: American businesses were willing to break the law to increase their profit margin at the expense of American citizens.

The hatred for this mess should be directed towards:
1. The federal gov't & 2. The employers.

If I was living south of the border, had a family I couldn't give a decent life to because of the crooked govt and saw a way out up north, I would have packed my bags also.

So, I believe we need to build a double fence all the way across the southern border asap. Then, once we have frozen the illegal immigration, we can discuss melting the 12 million immigrants into society. You can't pack them up and send them home, when it was our govt and our crooked employers who made it so tempting for them to come.

Finally, we have all (except those who lost their jobs because of illegal immigration) benefited from lower prices from their cheap labor.

So, when I see a construction co. full of what could possibly be illegals doing the labor, my hatred is directed towards the contractor, not the brown colored laborer who has risked so much to make it here and get employed by the criminal who calls himself an American.

My feelings toward the immigrant: God Bless you and your success.

FINALLY: My next door neighbor is a bookkeeper for a mexican restaurant chain, that hires numerous illegals. They have fake ss numbers and she gets letters from the SSA all the time about them not matching.

Three years ago, the owner did 10 months in prison for paying people under the table. When he got out, he found out that what the govt wants is the taxes, not proof he is hiring legal citizens.

Now all the illegals pay taxes, including SS taxes and he has not heard from the fed despite the fact that the SSA sends him mismatched SS number letters every month.

[DVaut1]

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I believe, as McCain does, that they are human beings just like us.

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You know the debate about immigration is in a good, healthy place when we must reaffirm that these entities which have come across the border without the proper documentation are indeed human beings after all.

[Copernicus]

Just a couple of disagreements/clarifications of the above, otherwise I agree.

1. Meat processing salaries have little to do with illegal immigrants, salaries came down because of automation.

2. You can't deport X million illegals, but you must immediately deport an illegal committing another crime after they serve the appropriate punishment.

3. They must register, get legitimate SS Nos, pay taxes etc. Employers are the only feasible way to police that they do.

4. No illegal/family of an illegal should be entitled to "in state" benefits that aren't available to out of state legal residents. (Eg Children of illegals residing in Arizona shouldnt be entitled to in state college tuition if a citizen of NJ isn't, whether or not the illegal is registered.)

[John Kilduff]

I don't mind people just trying to better themseves, yet sympathy is dfifferent than pragmatics sometimes.

It is really the responsibility of the USA to take care of the whole world? Why can't Mexico and other countries fix their own countries and make them reasonable and prosperous places to live????? Are we to fix their countries for them? If their government is corrupt and ineffective who needs to fix it: we or they? What about their responsibility to better their own countries? Does that not exist at all?

It is a similar mindset to policing the whole world, to think that the USA must extend welfare to the world and also admit anyone who sneaks in. I'm not saying that you think this. But those two mindsets are just different sides of the same paternalistic nanny-state coin.

IMO we shouldn't be in Iraq, or Korea, or be policing the world. IMO we shouldn't feel that we are somehow responsible for taking up the slack for every corrupt government in the world that cannot get its act together enough to allow its citizens to develop relatively free and prosperous lives of their own initiatives.

We've got plenty of problems right here at home (if you don't think so, just wait 5 more years).

As Ron Paul pointed out, this country is intended to be a Republic: not an empire, not a welfare state, and not the nanny of the wide world.

You personally can't feed every homeless person that you see on the street. The USA can't admit everyone in the world (billions of people, if they could, probably) who would prefer to live here.

Of course that homeless guy you see on the corner several times a month is a human being too. So why don't you at least let him sleep in your garage for a few months, and mow and rake your lawn for food? I'm asking this of everyone, not just you, Moseley. Now apply the answer to why the USA can't be expected to open its doors to unlimited numbers of desperate unskilled uneducated people.

At most you might let one person sleep in your garage, right? Why have limits on the number of homeless people you can accomodate?

What about the responsibility of the homeless to better their own lives? Does that exist at all?

If I were formerPresidente Vicente Fox, I'd have been DAMN EMBARRASSED to have touted more illegal immigration to the USA from Mexico as a solution BECAUSE MEXICO CAN'T GET ITS ACT TOGETHER.

What is Mexico supposed to be, like a totally dysfunctional person or something?

Mexico has oil, Mexico has a tourism industry, Mexico has natural resources. Mexico has plenty of people who obviously can work. WTF? Why is Mexico's solution to send as many as possible here? And why do Mexican Presidents see that as their solution instead of getting their country's act together???

Yes, we hear how corrupt the Mexican government is and that that is why it can't get its act together. So is corruption in the Mexican genes or something (obviously not, lol)? The problem can be fixed if it is not inherent, right? So...when the government of the USA becomes too corrupt (and it's well on it's way [img]/images/graemlins/wink.gif[/img] ), the solution will be for most of us to move to Canada, instead of fixing the U.S. system???

If prospective immigrants have job skills, or a solid job offer, and are non-criminal and not carriers of TB or something: fine, let them immigrate through the established process. But why does 20% of the entire country of Mexico need to emigrate to another country??? And why isn't the focus on fixing that underlying flaw, rather than on a surrogate solution?

/baffled

/questions off

/rant off

Thanks for reading.

[revots33]

Fair enough but what we're talking about are the millions of illegals (and their children) who are ALREADY here - not the new immigrants who might come. Blame Mexico if you like, but the fact is there are many illegal immigrants living and working in our cities and towns. Their kids go to school with our kids.

This is a practical issue. Rounding up all these millions of illegals and sending them back to wherever they came from would be inefficient, costly, and probably harmful to segments of our own economy. So a guy like McCain has the guts to try and find a workable compromise solution to this very complex problem - and everyone just yells "amnesty!" as if it's the most horrible thing they could imagine.

I don't think most democrats or republicans would object to better control of our borders. If only legal immigrants came to the US from now on, that would be fine with me. I am not a fan of illegal immigration. But it seems counterproductive (not to mention mean) to insist on rounding up and deporting millions of people who are already here because their own country was horrible, and we couldn't control our borders to stop them.

[John Kilduff]

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Fair enough but what we're talking about are the millions of illegals (and their children) who are ALREADY here - not the new immigrants who might come. Blame Mexico if you like, but the fact is there are many illegal immigrants living and working in our cities and towns. Their kids go to school with our kids.

This is a practical issue. Rounding up all these millions of illegals and sending them back to wherever they came from would be inefficient, costly, and probably harmful to segments of our own economy. So a guy like McCain has the guts to try and find a workable compromise solution to this very complex problem - and everyone just yells "amnesty!" as if it's the most horrible thing they could imagine.

I don't think most democrats or republicans would object to better control of our borders. If only legal immigrants came to the US from now on, that would be fine with me. I am not a fan of illegal immigration. But it seems counterproductive (not to mention mean) to insist on rounding up and deporting millions of people who are already here because their own country was horrible, and we couldn't control our borders to stop them.

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Ok and I'm not opposed to lenience as a general principle in most kinds of enforcement (including lenience even in criminal matters unrelated to immigration).

I think a big part of the opposing argument, though, is not how bad a current amnesty would be, but what it would do for the future: it would send a clear signal that amnesty is what to expect and thereby encourage even more illegal immigration. I've read that's what the last actual amnesty did (under Clinton or was it Reagan? I forget).

I do think the USA has been getting more illegal immigrants than can effectively be assimilated for the given time span and I suspect that problem would become more exacerbated.

I don't think balkanization (non-assimilated pockets, cities or perhaps even later, regions) within a country is a good thing.

So that's what I see as the opposing argument. I don't think there are any clear or easily workable solutions on either side of this debate. Perhaps removing all welfare would greatly disincentivize most illegal immigration; I don't know, but that's the only relatively "easy" and likely fairly effective solution I can see at this point. I'm leery of a fence because I suspect it could be used in the future to keep people IN as well as OUT.