No easy answers on immigration conundrum — Points well-taken. Who needs health insurance if you are an undocumented alien? An interesting half-serious essay.
Here’s my immigration “compromise”: We need to regularize the situation of the 298 million non-undocumented residents of the United States. Right now, we get a lousy deal compared with the 15 million fine upstanding members of the Undocumented American community. I think the 298 million of us in the overdocumented segment of the population should get the chance to be undocumented. You know when President Bush talks about all those undocumented people “living in the shadows”? Doesn’t that sound kinda nice? Living in the shadows, no government agencies harassing you for taxes and numbers and paperwork.
found by Pat McEntee
I love how the English language is strained in these essays to avoid the word “illegal”.
I’m all for being against a law, or set of laws, and protesting against it. However, I can’t support anyone who is for open, continued violation of the law without punishment.
I worked in Asia for a whle and married an Asian lady. I brought her to the US legally. What a hassle! It took better than a year and a stack of documents half an inch think (on both sides of the Pacific), not to mention the various fees and financial guarantees. All the while I was wishing she was a Cuban baseball player with a great hanging curve ball — she would have been here in two weeks! Of course, now it seems that the smart thing would have been to get her to Mexico and sneak her across the border. She would have been illegal for the past six years, but now, it seems, she might have gained legal staus via some “guest worker” program. In immigration, it’s the ones who play by the rules who get screwed. Sort of like DRM.
“In immigration, it’s the ones who play by the rules who get screwed. ”
Hmm…seems to apply to many other things a “legal” citizen has to endure here in the US.
I know of a doctor who is here legally and her car is still in my driveway for over a month now as she awaits to get her car registration so she can get a license plate. From a state that gives driver’s licenses and registration to illegals with no questions I find it frustrating also and so does my doctor friend.
Don, in Japan (pre-9/11, I don’t about now), it took 2-3 weeks to get a green card if the marriage was done through the American consulate in the country of the fiance. Literally, 2-3 weeks! No lawyer.
I suggest we rename California – Calico and Taxas – Taxaco
to appease our new wave of aliens be they illegal or inter-planetary.
Don, I thought hanging curve balls usually get knocked out of the park?
Many areas are facing health care crises because hospitals are closing and professionals are leaving because of lack of payment for services. The states can’t keep up with the Medicaid cuts. You get illegals with chronic health problems going to ER’s repeatedly. I have decent health insurance, but the ER co-pay is $250, just to discourage the use of the facilities for non-life threatening treatment. Many insurers will refuse all ER payments unless it confirms to policy stipulations. This is the most expensive facility there is in the hospital, and a real drain on their budget. The only answer is higher premiums for those that can pay, and higher taxes to cover those that can’t. These people are here now, and there’s no way to round them all up and send them home. We have to plan for the future, and be realistic about the consequences.
I know many illegals that pay taxes and social security that will never benefit from them. One guy pays more taxes in a year than I make.
RonD – You’re right! I should have said a Russian hockey player with a blistering slap shot!
Eat the RICH!
Then we all will be POOR!
I want to know what we are going to do about all those Americans who cross the southern border and purchase what should be prescription drugs! Those people are illegal and they are costing our pharmaceutical industry millions upon millions of dollars – that’s all costs they put back onto us decent folk!
It’s quite the interesting puzzle: What do you do with 11 million people that form the foundation of our economy? You can’t lock them all up – that would be terribly expensive. You can’t deport them all – because you can’t even find them to do that. How would you enforce existing immigration law if you wanted to? The law is broken and it needs to be fixed. Furthermore, the process for coming to this country legally needs to be streamlined – I know several people with stacks of paper at LEAST half an inch thick documenting their eligibility to be here. Us U.S. citizens would never tollerate it if the DMV were so cumbersome and slow with our applications for commercial drivers licenses!
By the way I have been paying SS since the 70s (paid a lot more then these illegals have) and I may never benefit from this but that is not the point. The point is they came in illegally. Do you think they will go through the typical red tape we (legal citizens and residents) go through in everyday life? Not a chance. They won’t even learn our language, our customs, or follow our laws!
And our President says they (illegals) are living in the shadows. Don’t think so. The regular citizen is because our laws that are already on the books are not being enforced and we are being forced to pay for it.
Everytime I hear the same excuses. In case anybody doesn’t realize the previous amnesties have done nothing but increase the number of illegals and giving into these people again will just increase the flow once again. What do you do then? I believe this was covered during the last amnesty.
Don’t say you can’t enforce the laws because you can if you want to!
People use to say we couldn’t go into space but that didn’t stop us, we did it!
It’s easy to follow the law….the law is clear, EMPLOYERS get fined for having illegals on the payroll. Why aren’t employers getting fined? Why is everyone looking the other way?
Don’t hire contractors who use illegals. Don’t go to businesses that use UNDOCUMENTED workers (meaning illegal….if they were legal they’d have documents, duh). Ask. It’s easy, say “do you have a green card?” If they do not, or get huffy about it, walk way, do not hire.
We ARE part of the problem. We want cheaper nannies, cheaper gardeners, cheaper services….so we look the other way and pretend not to notice. We let companies do the same thing.
Let’s enforce the laws on the books.
#11 Those people aren’t illegal. What they are doing maybe so depending on the amount they bring back and the laws covering it. The same goes with alchohol, you can bring so much back. As some of us know Kahlua is cheaper in Mexico (probably due to the taxes and distributor markup here in the states).
The pharmaceutical industry is an interesting twist as our government doesn’t have price controls like Canada, Europe, and our neighbor to the south as well as most other countries. Keep in mind while these other nations put government price controls on their drugs they are forcing the American consumer to pay for most of the R&D. That is one of the main reasons for the high prices. Even foreign Pharm. companies raise their prices for the US because they can.
Now what would happen if the US would put price controls on drugs sold in the US? Would you blame the US government and not all these other governments?
If these other countries didn’t have price controls would the prices be the same as they are in the states today? Probably so…it’s money, bottom line, it’s a business.
I came here on work visa last year and 10 months later i still dont have a drivers license. All i have a temp piece of paper that says that i can drive while they ‘process my application’.
Thanks to Missouri revenue dept.
Also
I couldnt get 5000$ exemption for my income tax so I had to pay lot more tax than my coworkers just cus it was my first year.
We need the illegals to do the jobs Americans won’t do? What a crock. We need the illegals so big ( and small) businesses won’t have to pay Americans respectable wages for what should be menial, entry level jobs.
Whats irresponsible is the costs of..
Medical supplies.
xray machines.. ALL the machines are over priced.
drugs, wouldnt you like to but a NEW farrari every 6 moths??
Making these costs ressonable to doctors and hospitals would decrease ALOT of the costs, and MORE Doctors could have the BASICS for starting a clinic…
Most restaurants around here have Americans working out with the public. But behind the scenes, the busboys, cooks, and washers are all Hispanic. There are quite a few kids fresh from school that could do those jobs, but then the owners would be required to pay into Workman’s Compensation and Unemployment for them. They would also have to pay minimum wage.
I still say, make hiring an illegal immigrant a felony and being illegal a felony. Any children born in the US will become wards of the state if the parents are deported unless the parents willingly take all minors with them. All assets would be forfeit and be used to pay for the detention and deportation of the illegal. If there are insufficient assets, then the employer would be forced to make up the difference. Once deported, that alien could never again be allowed into the US, even to visit, without a sponsor and sizable cash surety.
The Social Security Administration will notify an employer within 48 hours if a SSN is good and will advise as soon as they become aware that the SSN is being duplicated. If an employer becomes aware that an employee has been using fake, forged, or stolen ID then they must notify the INS as soon as possible. The INS will maintain a hotline and rapid response teams to apprehend all reported illegals. The legal Chief Executive Officer of the employer will be responsible to ensure that all employees are legally entitled to work in the US.
Did anybody notice that in today’s demonstrations there were significantly alot of American flags? As a matter of fact they were handing American flags out to demonstrators. Sounds like some good PR people are getting involved.
#14 Meetsy — Good questions. Why aren’t the employers getting fined? Well, for some reason politicians think if they pass a law everyone will obey it. I had to give my birth certificate in order for one of my employers to make a copy back in the late 80s to prove my citizenship. Since then I just give them my passport for them to copy.
If I were a laid off employee of a top Bank in this country I would look into it. You may have been laid off in lieu of an illegal alien. Think about it, back pay, damages. I think that is where it has to come from. Also people who want work at restaurant who have illegal aliens and can’t get hired because there are no openings…take them to court. If these companies can’t survive without the illegals they surely won’t survive being taken to court for refusing a job to a capable citizen in lieu of an illegal alien. These are some ideas.
Also ask the Mexican government what they do with illegal Guatemalans coming across their southern border? Trust me it is alot tighter than the northern border.