I think the biggest problem with removing the 5+million illegals from the US is not lack of effort on the part of the INS, but simply an issue of shear volume. 5 million people is quite a large number to identify and ship back to where they came from. I am sure, that by relaxing some of the bureaucratic steps currently required to deport an illegal, that we could drastically increase the number being shipped out, but overall even that increase would not be a drop in the bucket compared to how many are currently here and on the way. I really don’t believe the slow processes being used by the INS are completely their fault. Maybe some are, but most have been thrust upon them by higher levels of government, such as congress. Clearing the hurdles to expedient deportation is something that congress needs to take up.

Along with the shear volume of illegals in the US is another problem that has to do with the difficulty in identifying illegals among the many legal immigrants and citizens of the same heritage. As far as I know, unless you are driving a car or buying alcohol or applying for a job (and a few other such circumstances), no one in the US is required to carry identification, so the task of identifying who is legal and who is not, can be very time consuming. The only way to simplify this task would be a national ID that every person is forced to carry at all time (something I’m not a supporter of).

Of coarse, many illegals can be identified through the normal interaction of the police with the people, but once again, unless your in a car when the cop stops you, there is no requirement that you have ID on your person. Current attempts by federal officials to get local police more involve in identifying illegals have not been received well. Mainly do to the fear by many police departments that illegals will no longer cooperate with them in their attempts at solving other crimes if they face deportation for doing so.

I guess my point is that solving the illegal immigration problem in the US is a very complicated matter. Short of barricading our boarders and forcing a national id on the legal population (that has much more stringent requirements then current drivers licenses have), I don’t really see any solution. Deporting them all after they are here is a very costly and time consuming effort which results in only a very small portion of those who enter illegally ever being deported.

Warron,

Granted the task is considerable and can be complicated, but it needs to be done. I have no problem with foreigners coming in legally but we have to quell this tide as it is estimated to continue at the pace of 250,000 more per year. How difficult is it to identify them? Everyone, including infants, are required to obtain a Social Security number and those that aren’t legal residents should have a visa or a green card. Hell we do sobriety check points on the presumption we can catch a drunk driver, why not the same or similar technique for illegal aliens?

I don’t see a nation ID card as essential either and am resistive of such action, but there are means and methods to locate and identify these folk. From what I have read and heard it is mostly antiquated systems used to track them and no real cooperation amongst the various agencies.

I also don’t see it as an exuberant cost when you factor in lost taxes, losses of revenues used to support them in our schools and hospitals, and some of their illegal activities.

Now we have the reports that corrupt employees have been selling visas to unknown persons (70+ in Qatar), who knows how many elsewhere? Is this only the tip of the iceberg? All I was saying is something needs to be done beyond the current non-existent efforts.

The penalty for employing an illegal alien needs to be so high that people will think twice before doing it. Employers are required to get a SSN and register new hires with state unemployment offices. Spot checks on employers to make sure their records are up-to-date shouldn't be so tough. So there you go.

Any other "complicated" problems you want me to solve for you, Warron?

Originally posted by vraiblonde
... Spot checks on employers to make sure their records are up-to-date shouldn't be so tough. So there you go.

Any other "complicated" problems you want me to solve for you, Warron? They don't even have to go that far if they really wanted to clean it up.

Many of the illegals congregate in 7-11 parking lots, shopping centers etc. to be picked up by construction companies for day labor. Just checking the crews pouring sidewalks would likely net a bundle!

Originally posted by vraiblonde
Any other "complicated" problems you want me to solve for you, Warron?

Unfortunately, your suggestions are nothing new, yet none of these problems have been solved. Pretty much every idea that has been suggested here has been put into practice in some area of the world in an attempt to control illegal immegration. But until someone comes up with something radically new, I don't see it even slowing slightly in the near future.

Originally posted by Warron


Unfortunately, your suggestions are nothing new, yet none of these problems have been solved. Pretty much every idea that has been suggested here has been put into practice in some area of the world in an attempt to control illegal immegration. But until someone comes up with something radically new, I don't see it even slowing slightly in the near future.

So your implication is unless its a radically new idea it won't work? BS, while these thoughts/ideas might have been tried "in some area of the world", have they all been tried here or do we just ignore it and let the situation become worse?

Originally posted by vraiblonde
The penalty for employing an illegal alien needs to be so high that people will think twice before doing it. Employers are required to get a SSN and register new hires with state unemployment offices. Spot checks on employers to make sure their records are up-to-date shouldn't be so tough. So there you go.

Any other "complicated" problems you want me to solve for you, Warron?

So you really think it's as easy as that or you're just joking? I'm not sure by the tone of your post. But if it was easy, then it wouldn't be a problem for us, now would it?
I'll tell you what IS easy.. sitting around here posting all your solutions on this board as if you had the key to solving them all.
Gee, if they would just come here and look at SoMd.com.... then they'd read all our great ideas and everything would be peachy.

It's NEVER as simple as that.

Darlin', it IS as simple as that. The reason we lowly dumbells on this here board can come up with answers to these and other questions is because we're not corrupted by politics and ulterior motives. Nobody's greased our palms. The only thing we have to gain is simplicity and safety for ourselves and our neighbors.

Now if someone came along and offered me a bazillion dollars to complicate things so badly that the unwashed masses could never understand it in a million years and would just ignore the whole convoluted thing, you might see me offering a different "solution". :really:

Originally posted by vraiblonde
Darlin', it IS as simple as that. The reason we lowly dumbells on this here board can come up with answers to these and other questions is because we're not corrupted by politics and ulterior motives. Nobody's greased our palms. The only thing we have to gain is simplicity and safety for ourselves and our neighbors.

Now if someone came along and offered me a bazillion dollars to complicate things so badly that the unwashed masses could never understand it in a million years and would just ignore the whole convoluted thing, you might see me offering a different "solution". :really:

I will give you that. Remove the corruption and the bureaucracy and it would be much simpler, but we both know that's not going to happen and with the system the way it is today, there really is no easy answer.

I hope you don't mind me jumping in on this one.
I don't really have a solution for this, just a story. About a year ago, down here in Georgia, the INS staged this big raid on some of the bigger poultry farms, which is big business here and is notorious for hiring illegals. They caught a whole bunch of them, but had to let them go because the big poultry companies basically said they would go out of business if they wiped out their labor force overnight. The politicians were supposed to come up with some kind of plan to fix this, but I don't think anything has happened.
So the bottom line is, if they get rid of all these illegals, chicken prices will go up 25%. And I guess a similar amount for construction. I am absolutely for getting the illegals out of here, but it's gonna cost us. Are we ready?

JT

That is the unspoken side of illegal immigration or at least the one no one ever mentions when they talk about kicking the illegals out for one reason or another. Its the illegals who are the ones doing all the dirt jobs that us real Americans would rather go on welfare than do. Personally, you'd have to pay me allot more than minimum wage to pluck chickens for a living or pick apples or dig ditches. It seems that we (as in us Americans) have put off dealing with illegal immigration for so long that a non-citizen underclass has developed that we can no longer live without, because they fill all the roles that we consider beneath us. If we collected every illegal immigrant today and deported them all, it would be allot more then chicken prices that would skyrocket. As I said before, its a much more complicated problem than many would like to think.

Look now - ya'll just wanted to know how to ferret out illegals. Nobody brought up "what then" until now.

I gotta tell you, I ride the line when it comes to illegal immigrants or migrant workers. Warron and Maynard brought up the excellent point of where else are we going to find labor that cheap.

I have an "off the top of my head" suggestion: what if we take all the people currently collecting welfare in this country and put them to work? We're already paying them, right? So why not get something for our money? Maybe they'll find that manual labor is so terrible that it will motivate them to get an education and a better job. Haven't really thought about the downside of this - that's ya'lls job
:lol:

Anyway, people come to this country and work cheap all the time legally. My husband's buddy employs almost exclusively Mexican immigrants in his labor positions. Very few are illegals. I find it hard to believe that everyone who labors in the chicken places is an illegal.

I have nothing against putting welfare recipients to work (even if its picking up garbage onlong the highway), but I don't think it would cure the illegal problem do to all the welfare recipients and illegals not being in the same place. You'd have to relocate (which means the gov't pays for them to move) all the welfare people to the location of the jobs the illegals are currently in. Then you have the problem of child care for people making minimum wage. Plus many jobs are transient, so you have the problem of schooling the kids and continual relocation costs. And so on.

I don't think that all the people is the chicken industry (or the produce industry) are illegals, but it is enough to have a significant effect if they were all removed at once. 6 million illegals are getting money from somewhere. If we remove them, we need to replace them with 6 million people from somewhere else. Maybe forcing more welfare recipients to work would help in some localized areas, but I don't think it would help over the entire US.

As far as putting welfare people to work, we're already trying to do that with the Welfare to Work program. But this involves finding private sector jobs for them, of which there may not be enough. For example, what is the population of Baltimore? 2 million? Unemployment is probably around 5%, which means 100,000 unemployed. Are there 100,000 jobs available right now?
The other option is a government program to have these people clean streets or whatever. But I don't think conservatives would ever go for another big government program. I think it would be good though. Hey, about getting then to clear the underbrush in the forests!

Welfare already IS a big government program. If they took recipients and made them pick up trash or clear the forest underbrush, I'll bet conservatives would be all for that.

You've got a point about the big cities being the primary places where welfare and unemployment are problems. Let's consider how they dealt with this before the Great Society came about: if you couldn't find work in your own town, you migrated to where the jobs were. Simple. But now there's no need to move your butt - all you have to do is go down and get a government check. If you abolished welfare right now, there would be an adjustment period but people WOULD rise to the occasion. I firmly believe that.

Anyway, that's off-topic. You can make a living in the US if you come here legally - people from other countries do it all the time. The main problem with illegals are the ones who come here wanting to blow up buildings and kill people - right? So the INS needs to get a handle on this right away.

Who cares how much those prices go up? High gas prices haven't stopped the economy have they? People need to quit pushing the myth that if we boot the illegals we won't be able to afford to live in our own country anymore. It isn't true and it's slowing down the fight to get rid of them!
:gossip: This thread is from 2002. Neither of these people post here anymore. :lmao:

:gossip: This thread is from 2002. Neither of these people post here anymore. :lmao:
I heard on the news yesterday that X number of "immigrants" had died because of the heat in the Southwest. I wondered to myself why they hadn't turned the a/c on in the immigration offices? Surely they were not talking about illegal immigrants were they? If they die do they become legal or are they just being sensitive or is it legal to come here just to die?