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[Pancakes]

-snip-

I think a lot of the hate towards illegals is from the lack of tax funding from them, and government programs still somehow benefiting them.
That's mainly what the chatter is from my location is anyway, which is fairly moderate politically. I don't get some of the logic around my parts, but then again, I'm too apathetic to really strain myself about it.

[smjjames]

True, we don't technically HAVE to do something about it, we can just let the problem sit and fester.

However, the problem is that being undocumented causes all sorts of problems like not being able to get employment or get into college and we're talking about people who are practically as American as someone who grew up in America. It's a product of policies that led immigrants to decide to bring their whole families over to America instead of travelling back and forth, it started in the 80's and 90's (more the 90's). The average age of DACA enrollees on entering the US is 6 or so.

Basically, we've got an entire population who came in young and naturalized, but yet aren't seen as legal citizens in the eyes of the law.

Isn't one of the rules to become a legal citizen if you immigrated young, that if you lived in the US for a certain period of time (10 years or something)? Or maybe I'm thinking of something else there.

[Frumple]

I think a lot of the hate towards illegals is from the lack of tax funding from them, and government programs still somehow benefiting them.
That's mainly what the chatter is from my location is anyway, which is fairly moderate politically. I don't get some of the logic around my parts, but then again, I'm too apathetic to really strain myself about it.

Well... sure. Lotta' people buy that, 'tis true.

It's also fairly unfiltered bullshit, since undocumented folks still pay most taxes anyone else does and rarely even attempt to take advantage of gov't programs. What with the whole "may be deported" thing doing so involves, heh.

Common talking point for certain sorts of bigot, though, and enough of one it sometimes infects more reasonable people by sheer exposure.

[redwallzyl]

-snip-

I think a lot of the hate towards illegals is from the lack of tax funding from them, and government programs still somehow benefiting them.
That's mainly what the chatter is from my location is anyway, which is fairly moderate politically. I don't get some of the logic around my parts, but then again, I'm too apathetic to really strain myself about it.

That's strange because they pay taxes and cant get government support. the "public funds" that they get would be normal stuff like infrastructure, emergency services and schools. sense theses things are funded through mostly local funds they are in fact paying for them and actually getting less as they cant get welfare and stuff. Cant remember where I saw it but I'm pretty sure the undocumented are net contributes to such programs.

[NullForceOmega]

They also have no federal protections, and are regularly exploited by unscrupulous employers being used as cheap expendable labor who don't get any sort of medical coverage, unemployment benefits, workers compensation, etc.  To the point that there are places that knowingly employ illegals and work them literally to death.

They should not be here, their lack of legal presence leaves them vulnerable and without any recourse, nevermind the social and economic ramifications.

Edit: and "deporting people who've been here most of their lives is bad m'kay" is a terrible argument that shows no understanding of just how bad the situation really is.

[redwallzyl]

...I've never figured out why people are so unhappy with illegal immigrants in the US. Aside from some paperwork, what's the difference between, say illegal immigrants and people here with visas? Or naturalized citizens? They're not significantly different from the people around them and generally come here because they want to participate in the economy. Sure, they take jobs, but they create more jobs by being here. Economically, there doesn't seem to be a difference between "a bunch of illegal immigrants moving in and working" and "a bunch of Californians moving in and working". AFAIK there aren't even major culture differences like you see with refugees in Europe. If they're undocumented, they don't even impose as much of a cost in welfare/other government spending. The recent DACA stuff seems especially misguided because it specifically targets those immigrants who are guaranteed to be well-adjusted to living here.

Theirs not on any real level a difference between Joe from Florida and Joe from Mexico who grew up in the US besides paperwork. Economically its probably in the our best interest to grab as many young adults from other countries as we can. their the most motivated kind of people and grow the population with people who can contribute to our programs. The entire concept of "stealing" jobs is ludicrous, the economy doesn't care where your from and if you have a specific piece of paper.

[Pancakes]

Aye, my area is... odd. I know many people who identify as Republican, but when I've talked to them, they support virtually all left-wing ideas, except for gun control. From my experience, people tend to choose one issue they hold dearly and base their vote on that issue, not the dozens of other, albeit smaller ones.

I'm not sure if focusing on one thing the way they do is a bad or good thing, it just seems to be an odd method of voting, I suppose.

[smjjames]

They also have no federal protections, and are regularly exploited by unscrupulous employers being used as cheap expendable labor who don't get any sort of medical coverage, unemployment benefits, workers compensation, etc.  To the point that there are places that knowingly employ illegals and work them literally to death.

They should not be here, their lack of legal presence leaves them vulnerable and without any recourse, nevermind the social and economic ramifications.

There's ethical problems with deporting those who grew up here and never knew and don't remember their home country and may not have any nongovernment resources that they can easily access in their home country.

Whether they should be deported or not is something that can be debated on, what can't be debated on is whether or not to do anything about it. Pretty much everybody agrees that something needs to be done, and yet.....

Edit: and "deporting people who've been here most of their lives is bad m'kay" is a terrible argument that shows no understanding of just how bad the situation really is.

No, I get how bad the situation is, that we have to deal with this population is exactly how bad it has gotten. The issue is that we're running right into the problem of splitting up families. There's going to be moral and ethical issues that we can't avoid.

[redwallzyl]

relating to Immigration, I have been of the opinion that the west really dropped the ball with Syrian refugees. specifically the former Syrian middle class. If people hadn't been so xenophobic and stupid or if say America in particular hadn't been we could have taken the entire Syrian middle class and all their remaining capital and skills. Talk about a brain drain and missed opportunity.

[NullForceOmega]

I'm going to be completely honest here, and I'm really not trolling or trying to be shocking.

I do not give a damn if we have to split up families.  The problem must be resolved and we do not have good ways to resolve it.  Deportation is extreme but so are the other solutions.  Blanket amnesty leaves us with dangerous criminals that we have to deal with.  Trying to process all of them is completely infeasible, the money to do it is just not obtainable, and the sheer amount of manhours necessary is ludicrous.  There are no good solutions to this problem.

[redwallzyl]

I'm going to be completely honest here, and I'm really not trolling or trying to be shocking.

I do not give a damn if we have to split up families.  The problem must be resolved and we do not have good ways to resolve it.  Deportation is extreme but so are the other solutions.  Blanket amnesty leaves us with dangerous criminals that we have to deal with.  Trying to process all of them is completely infeasible, the money to do it is just not obtainable, and the sheer amount of manhours necessary is ludicrous.  There are no good solutions to this problem.

Seeing as DACA has the requirement of not having a criminal record i would say they are not dangerous criminals. most immigrants aren't either.

[smjjames]

Perhaps instead of looking at illegal immigration, we should look into reforming the legal immigration system. There are stories all over the place about how the legal immigration system takes so long.

We can deport and wall ourselves off all we want, but we won't solve it for the future unless we deal with the problems with the legal route. In fact, most illegal immigrants came in on green cards and simply overstayed their visas I believe.

I'm going to be completely honest here, and I'm really not trolling or trying to be shocking.

I do not give a damn if we have to split up families.  The problem must be resolved and we do not have good ways to resolve it.  Deportation is extreme but so are the other solutions.  Blanket amnesty leaves us with dangerous criminals that we have to deal with.  Trying to process all of them is completely infeasible, the money to do it is just not obtainable, and the sheer amount of manhours necessary is ludicrous.  There are no good solutions to this problem.

Seeing as DACA has the requirement of not having a criminal record i would say they are not dangerous criminals. most immigrants aren't either.

I don't think our politicians would be quite that dumb to do a blanket one time amnesty. As redwallzyl mentions, DACA has checks for dangerous criminals. Unless you count having been caught with a bag of weed as being a dangerous criminal.

[NullForceOmega]

I agree with you on that point, most of them are not criminals (beyond their basic crime of illegal entry), but some of them are, and while it is a small percentage, it is still problematic.  Also, I'm not singling out DACA here, I'm talking about the entirety of the illegal immigrant problem, but I probably wasn't clear enough about that.

smjjames: Yes, we need to completely rebuild our immigration services, but that WILL require putting a complete halt on all immigration while the services are completely restructured and yes, we do need total restructuring at this point.

Also, they've done the blanket amnesty thing before, it was stupid then and it will always be stupid.

Edit:  I actually approve of what DACA was trying to accomplish, providing methods for undocumented people to gain citizenship is a good thing.  I'm not personally sold on DACA itself, but the idea was good.

[smjjames]

How long would a complete halt have to be though? It'd have to be done in a way that doesn't disrupt, well, tons of things.

edit: When was the blanket amnesty? I think Reagan did something with immigration, but not sure of the scale.

[Frumple]

Illegal entry generally isn't actually illegal, heh. Maybe it should be, but it's rarely classified as an actual crime, never mind all those who enter entirely above the board and just overstay the official welcome.

Also they tend to have lower rates crime wise than natives. If criminals are your concern you'd probably be better off throwing out citizens :V