A wall or fence on the border will have a minimal effect on the tide of illegal immigrants entering the US from Mexico, walls and fences have never been a deterrent to people who have wanted to cross borders. The Berlin wall and even the Great wall of China did not prevent crossings or invasions from other countries.

Illegal immigration is certainly a problem in the US and even other countries are having problems with legal immigrants. Lower classes of workers have seen an effective reduction of real wages over the last 20 years, in part because salaries and wages have not kept up with inflation, but also because illegal immigrants are willing to work for less then an American for the same service.

The government is not unhappy about this because they get income taxes from people who use false SS numbers, and never file tax returns. They also contribute to the economy as a whole.

Its estimated that Houston Texas has one million Illegals, and cities that have "sanctuary" policies have similar populations who make up a large part of the economies. Eliminating these people would effect nearly all aspects of the economy, possibly in a way that would positively effect Americans, and negativity effect the businesses in these cities.

Rents would go down as thousands of apartments suddenly came on the market, salaries and wages for Americans would grow as the result of positions opening, and competitions increased for jobs.

America would be better off if illegal immigration was curtailed, and illegals here were removed from the picture.

I'm not disagreeing with that. The only problem is, how do you do it?

A first step might be to divide illegal immigrants into two classes.

The first class would be comprised of:
1. All members of families that had at least one person born on US soil, and therefore a citizen of the US.
2. All illegals who had resided in the US for more than five years.

Those in this class would, without prejudice, be given a special "green card" that would expire in two years, during which time they would be expected to become naturalised citizens, pay taxes, learn English, and not be convicted of breaking the law. Residing in the US for that time, or having family members born here ,seems to give them a stake in the country that should not be ignored.

The second class would include all others. The real problem is how we should handle them.
Z

But what do you do about the fact that they are coming in faster than we can get them out? Especially since not all of them are from Mexico.
Visa violations are part of the problem too. A wall won't fix that.

Certainly a wall on the border does not resolve the entire illegal immigration problem. It is but 1 small step. This problem did not develop overnight, nor will it be resolved overnight.

I just find irony in the fact that in today's world, with access to the best technology and science, we're still using methods that we're used thousands of years ago to keep out invaders. Just a really big wall.

Well, Hadrian's wall worked, as long as it could be manned and maintained by Roman cohorts up to the task. As I understand it, a virtual wall using all the latest technology was tried, and didn't work well at all.
At best, a wall is a short-term solution.

Perhaps an alternative would be to make entering the US to work a much easier proposition; at least then, we would be able to keep tabs on who is where, and get some tax revenue from their work to pay for the services they receive. It would also discourage American companies and farmers, who need the cheap labour, from locating plants and fields in Mexico, keeping more dollars here.
Z

LoL, I find it very amusing that a country based on immigration wants to tell anyone they can't come here. I understand that it has to be regulated, but we used to say, "bring me your tired, your poor," and now we say, "no vacancy." Very funny to me.

Got an idea, send all illegals to Montana, there is plenty of room there!

No, we are saying you must come into the country legally.

We still take the "tired and the poor" and we document them as they enter.

I'm sure we would rather have "the energetic and the rich", though.

I'm sure we would rather have "the energetic and the rich", though.
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Those people stay put though. I'm tellin you, Montana is the answer!!!

This post has been edited by Tebow4President: Apr 15 2008, 09:25 AM

I am sure the wonderful folks in Montana are eager to learn Spanish.

Again we are faced with a crisis because previous administrations have ignored the problem and not thoroughly discussed what our immigration policy should be with the electorate, and we have something akin to 10 million (the figures differ---I wonder why---but they are substantial) people living and working in the US surreptitiously. Our policy not only prevents these people from honestly contributing to the general welfare, but an archaic quota system and rules keep out many well-trained (mostly here in the US) people that want to become citizens and who can make a difference to our future.

Certainly, we can find far better and more long-term solutions to the problem than mass deportations and long stretches of barb-wire or concrete walls.
Z

One thing we First have to do is legally establish English as our national language. They are indoctrinating us to learn spanish to make communication easier in this country. At this rate we all will be forced to learn spanish - as it is the kids MUST take a foreign language to graduate high school. I'm not sure how many languages are in the world but there is no way we can learn them all just to survive in this country.

This post has been edited by Vicki: Apr 15 2008, 10:10 AM

First thing we have to do is start SPEAKING English in this country before we tell Spanish speaking folks to learn it

Ok, I'll give you that point!

I don't think a wall would be such a bad idea, as it would at least slow the flow of illegals.
Right now there are so many coming across the border, we have no-way to catch them.
There might be a large problem with what kind of wall we would have to build, as it would have to be very tall. It would have to have a lot of razor wire. And you would have to build a second wall just as big right behind it, so there would be a place where you could catch the people who got over the first wall. LOL
I guess if you didn't want to have to patrol the area between the walls, you could have a robot running about three hundred miles an hour. That way you could break the legs off of the people who got over the first one, and it would be a cou[ple of months before they could try again!