Illegal Immigrants- What to do?
 

Mosty for people in the USA but... Clicky
What would you do about the illegal immigrants that would solve the problem and keep the US from economic meltdown?

They just won't stop coming, and they force US workers out of jobs due to being hired for under minimum wage. If america passes laws to get rid of them, then the USA goes bankrupt (or the equivilent). Thoughts?

I think the entire premise is false. The economy won't melt down, but businesses will be forced to keep everything legitimate. If anything, it's more of a drain on our economy than a boon.

:thief:

Also, there is no solid proof that they take away jobs from Americans.
that is just silly, will you pick strawberries, or work at a meat packing plant, or clean hotel rooms? They do jobs that we WONT do. they are nessesary. Controls are needed, but not total bans.

What to do about it? Jack nothing and then go deal with the real problems that this nonsense is being trotted out to scapegoat for, the same way immigrants have been scapegoated for every real economic problem for the last hundred and fifty years. Here's a rule of thumb, any time wealthy individuals with political power start telling you that your problems are the part of impoverished minorities with no political power, those individuals are trying very hard to keep you from noticing that they are fucking you.

Remember back in the 90s when everyone was so concerned about illegal immigration? Oh no wait nobody* was concerned about illegal immigration in the 90s, because the economy actually worked, more or less, so people didn't so much give a shit.

You know how you solve illegal immigration, if anyone actually cared about solving illegal immigration? Mandatory ten-year jail sentences for any employer who hires an illegal immigrant, and throw in exhorbitant fines and summary revocation of business licenses and charters whereever it seemed like fun to do. You know when you'll see that happen, fucking never, that's when you'll see that happen. Because Wal-Mart loves them some low-wage employees who can't complain to OSHA or the NLRB for fear of deportation, and there you go.

I've never bought that, they just do the jobs we won't do for the shitty wages employers want to pay under the shitty conditions employers expect people to work. I mean shit, if picking strawberries paid fifty grand a year you're telling me someone wouldn't do it? Shit yeah they would.

*Well okay, a few nutters cared.

The way you phrased the question almost inherently classifies immigrants, or even illegal immigrants, as a "problem." I'm not saying it was malicious, just that there's the moral angle.

The moral angle being, the absolutists who fellate the law are missing the point of its existence in the first place. The whole spiel has ben said nad done before, but to recap: in most scenarios these are people escaping poverty, and oftentimes taking huge risks just so they can send money back home to their family. The fact that it is illegal is merely a technicality.

I've heard many people say, "I don't have a problem with immigration, just illegal immigration." "Regular" immigration is not so easy or necessarily cheap. Illegally crossing the border is almost always the only method of escape, and to be met by guns and arrests is humanity failing at altruism. In countries like Spain, they are making progress on this front, granting amnesty to mass batches of immigrants.

We're still thinking too broadly. That won't solve the issue. If anything, this will deprive the immigrants who are in such dire need of the prospective jobs they could be hired for. The solution is re-thinking our immigration policies themselves. Reclassifying what we consider "illegal," and why. Until then, punishing companies is only an indirect way of punishing the people.

And it's not even that "we need the Mexeekans to do our dirty work." Ideally, they could assume any work or job they wanted. True, in our current system/society, there is a slightly intangible caste system that almost necessitates a 'bottom class' to do its 'work.' However, what we have on our hands is a legalised, dumbed-down version of slavery: the incentive for the workers is any money at all, and the incentive for the companies is low wages and no insurance to speak of.

However, if we force companies, through debate, social pressure, and reform, to pay immigrants, even the "mercenary" (re: illegal) ones, the same pay as citizens, the incentive will be lost and the job will go to the best suited. But this, at the same time, is reducing the job-chances for a poor immigrant.

Step towards more reasonable goal: talks with other countries and groups on how to facillitate the move of immigrants.

Any and all reasons relating to "I can't understand them," "damn, I really can't understand them," or "oh shit I'm racist but deep down inside it's just a knee-jerk xenophobic reaction to what I don't understand and couldn't possibly hope to grasp" are null and void.

When I say "solve" I mean "solve according to the parameters set out by crazy nutters who get all fever-brained over illegal immigration," IE the Minutemen / Build A Big-Ass Silly Fucking Wall Around Mexico crowd.

I'm not saying there isn't a reasonable immigration debate to be had, but unfortunately, what we actually have is crazy-ass Tom Tancredo stirring up shit because fag-bashing isn't polling as hot as it used to. And alls I'm saying is if Tom Tancredo were at least honest in his raging hatred of brown-skinned people, then he'd be barking to his following of idiots and thugs that we'ere going to make it so illegal to hire an illegal immigrant that a business owner can't even think about hiring an illegal immigrant without the cops swarming in upon him en masse and beating the shit out of him. But that ain't gonna happen because Tom Tancredo is in hock to people who loves them some cheap-wage-receiving no-rights-having illegal immigrants and all any of this is about is the Republicans trotting out their latest bullshit wedge issue to distract everyone from how badly the Republicans have fucked up on every level.

Does anyone remember the story about this 8 year old kid and his mom who tried to escape from Cuba a few years ago? That story made the news for a really long time, and I think they even made a movie out of it. Here's the most that I can remember out of it, because it hapenned when I was about 10 or 11 years old:

A mother and her 8 year old kid were escaping Cuba on a merchandise boat heading for the US. She was going to join her brother, who I think was also an illegal immigrant...all she wanted was her child to live a good life in the US, away from the dreadful Fidel Castro regime...

Almost arriving at destination, an accident arrives on the boat and sinks; the mother was able to save her child, but she unfortunately drowned, leaving the 8 year old kid alone on the US shores.
Now, I don't remember how the kid got to his uncle's house, maybe he was waiting for them on the shores or something like that, but the kid arrived safe and sound at his uncle's place, completely traumatized by his mother's death.
I think the kid was able to stay a few months in the US before his father came into the picture and demanded that the kid came back in Cuba to live with him...by this time, almost every news stand in the country knows about this story( and probably in pretty much every country in the world) and a lot of people protested that it was against the dead mother's wishes if the kid went back to Cuba. And his uncle got attached to him pretty quickly, naturally. He didn't want to let the kid go, even after losing to his father in court, saying that the child was his legal responsibility and that he would decide what he would do with him.
I think the uncle tried to run away with the child to another household where he hid the kid in a closet, but some US corps forced the kid out of there; he couldn't do anything, theses guys were wearing huge machine guns(there was even a video of this moment, where the kid comes out of the closet with the US corp holding the gun) and he was just traumatized by them.

And so, after trying to escape from Cuba and losing his mother in the process, the kid has to go back and live a miserable life back there.

When you hear stuff like this, do you think what's happening to most people in Cuba is actually fair ? Do you think that they have good reasons to try to escape? It's not worth losing lives for this...

That was my point of view. I'll try to find the story, for a referrence. But believe me, it's a true story...

1. His name was Elian Gonzalez.

2. Please for the love of God let's not say another word about Elian Gonzalez.

Um...what year did this happen because I don't remember a thing about it and I know my memory isn't that bad.