Lots of news today regarding a new immigration reform initiative.
"Immigration is a tough issue for a lot of Americans," Bush said. "The agreement reached today is one that will help enforce our borders, but equally importantly, it will treat people with respect. This is a bill where people who live here in our country will be treated without amnesty, but without animosity."
I am not sure how all this is going to pan out since the bill still needs to be composed in a final form and voted on. At least if the Reps and Newt are pissed, something good must be happening.
"The pact could shatter at any moment. Immigration is among the most complex and emotional issues that Congress confronts. Senate debate, scheduled to start Monday, will determine if the bipartisan coalition can fend off Republicans opposing legalization and Democrats wary of a massive new temporary worker program that would start at 400,000 low-skill workers a year and could rise as high as 600,000."
Some suggest this is proposal will weaken American security, yet when was the last time a terrorist has come through the Mexican border?
"The president is so desperate for a legacy and a domestic policy win that he is willing to sell out the American people and our national security," Tancredo said."
"Mr. Dobbs opened the program by calling the deal an apparent victory for “the pro-illegal-alien lobby.” The administration was “hellbent on creating a North American union without the consent of the American people,” he said, and the plan could “threaten national sovereignty and security as well.”
But the idea of a points systems for skilled labor seems to ignore the need in America for unskilled labor. Bringing only those with an education will make it tougher for American workers to get high paying jobs. Bringing unskilled laborers fills a demonstrated need.
"The proposal also would shift the criteria for permanent residency away from immigrants with family in the U.S. and toward those with skills that could help the economy. About 40 percent of "guest worker" visas would be earmarked for applicants with in-demand skills or job experience, advanced degrees and English language skills who would be expedited ahead of others seeking a work visa. "
It also seems unfair that those who want to be become permanent citizens in the future will have to return to their home countries for a year. I would think that we should want the money and the industry of these immigrants to contribute to the American economy, not their homeland.
"David Guerra wants to be legal, but he says the path to citizenship offered by the Senate on Thursday would be too risky and too expensive, and could end up driving him deeper into the shadows. Guerra's wife and children in El Salvador depend on the $300 he sends home each month from his job as a day laborer. Key provisions of the legislation would require him to return home to apply for residency, pay a $5,000 fine and spend thousands more in application fees."
Overall, there seems to be lots of contradictions and bad ideas, but something is better than nothing...right?
Immigration FAQs
Details of immigration proposal
5 comments:
so from a social security perspective, this is definitely a good thing. all of these new American citizens will now be contributing money from their wages to social security. which in turn will help pay for the aging baby boomer generation. only problem is 30 years down the road when this generation wants to retire, who will bail them out? who am i kidding, the current politicians dont care, they will be long gone by then.
Well, immigrants typically pay into social security anyway. They usually take on a fake SS# and pay into the fund with their wages but never collect. Now that they are legal, they can collect when they retire which may lead to problems in the future.
NY Times link on this http://www.nytimes.com/2005/04/05/business/05immigration.html?ex=1270353600&en=78c87ac4641dc383&ei=5090
I saw someone "quantifying" the immigration thing on the news. The guy said if we give amnesty to all illegal immigrants here it would cost us 1.3 trillion dollars or something like that. The reasoning behind that is the cost of services vs. the contribution per capita. Apparantly most of the illegal immigrants (60%+?)have not finished high school. The jobs they perform are low paying. I don't know the accuracy of anything the guy said, mainly because I don't care, but that's just another angle to look at it from.
Here is my observation on the whole thing. Borders are there for a reason. Activists for this try to group legal immigrants and illegal immigrants into one category which is BS. It's not fair for those who waited, and followed the proper channels.
If you want to ask someone about immigration control you should ask Mexico. Mexico has one of the toughest immigration policies as well as border control in this world. I've been to the southern border of Mexico and I can vouge for that. There are very poor people coming in to Mexico from other nations which are less prosperous. The military runs around the jungle there with assault rifles (drug trafficking operations). You can only imagine what goes on. The people from northern Mexico don't like those from southern Mexico; they are "darker" and are mainly poor. When you introduce people that are not from Mexico and share the same qualities in a ddition to being even poorer there are inherent problems with that.
I don't get who exactly is waiting in line? No one seems to cover that issue. Everyone would come legally if they could, but they can't because they either can't afford it or don't have access to the proper channels. The people who don't wait in line come across the border because its close, there is no such thing as a "line" when the deli counter is 1951 miles long and there are lots of "servers" calling people over.
That's probably the first problem. This issue was visited before in the same manner. I believe it was in the 80s when there was some sort of amnesty for illegals provided that they lived in the US before a certain year along with some other guidelines. A major provision of that was to stop the flow at the border. Obviously that was not done.
ONe major premise of a sovereign nation is that it maintains its territorial integrity. We can't sit there and let people come into the country as they please. They should probably focus on stoping the flow of illegal immigrants across both of our borders first. After that is accomplished the amnesty issue can be addressed. Without that all we keep doing is telling people "no, don't do this" and after they do it we say "ok, but don't do it again." This does not solve anything... congress, instead of talking about pointless crap and fighting over stupidity should sit down and start figuring something out.
As for the protestors, they should be thankful that they are not in a different country. It is never a good idea to say that you are an illegal immigrant when its illegal. Any other country would just round the people up and send them back to where they came from - not that it wasn't done here before.
Anyways, the news said paris hilton is going to jail - of course they had to get 3 expert commentators to opine... that's more important than immigration.
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