Just an honest question, because where my husband works as a maintenance manager 95% of the workers (OK here I have to be PC so here goes) I won't say they are illegal BUT no one speaks english. This situation causes many problems everyday for him. He's even had them turn the machines on while he's still working in them. This situation (I think) is going to cause more problems for everyone, we can't have a communications barrier in this country and its NOT right that I should have to learn the languages of the world to communicate in my own country! We have to know who's here.

A many-faceted question, Vicki, and a good one.

While I could be wrong, I see if as the 'cart before the horse' woe. What to do about the illegals that are:

a) already in the country that are working, paying taxes and contributing to both their community and country, learning English as quickly as possible and truly want to participate fully in being an American

already in the country and working but don't speak English and/or don't feel they need to - and cause hardships (as you described above, Vicki) or perhaps even worse, endanger other's lives because of the inability to communicate while on the job.

c) already here and have no intentions of working or being a decent citizen

And on and on and on it goes. And how does one deport two parents, for instance, if 3 of their 4 children were born in the United States/Canada, etc

I don't have answers but you've brought up an interesting topic, Vicki.

I have mixed feelings on Illegal Immigration and no solid stance. I can see the pros and cons of prohibiting it and allowing it.

The only thing I can't stand about this conversations is this:
They are not taking "our" jobs. They are taking the ones that we never went after. If they were taking our jobs, someone would have already had the job, got fired, and then the illegal would have it.

As for illegal immigration, it's only illegal if you "skip" the legal steps. Either way you're walking on America soil, using our taxes, working, using the public funds, so why does it matter if they are on paper? Does the government want to control them? Is that what they are afraid of? A bunch of anonymous people doing legal services? You can't sue "anonymous." ...

Illegals can be a tuff call, I don't support any govt. help for any one who's here illegally and refuses to do any thing to learn the language and demands we cater to them. When caught they should be deported. The ones who come here illegally, learns to speak well enough to converse with what ever locality he's in and is willing to pay taxes and abide by local laws and customs, well then thats a horse of a different color. Unless you're genealogy is 100% pure Native American (Scot / German here) we were all immigrants at some point . If a "illegal" from what ever country, can speak and read english at at least a fundamental level, passes some sort of screening, and serves in a branch of the military and does so honorably, I would have no qualms with allowing him to be come a US Citizen after discharge. My personal experiences (tho some what limited) in knowing several fellow Marines who were not US Citizens (although legally here) at the time is that they loved America as much as I and was willing to defend her with all they had, same as I .

If someone is in a country illegally - any country, by the way - it should not be acceptable.

If somebody thinks it is OK to break a law for whatever reason, then is there any law that can't be broken if the reason is acceptable to somebody?


Once someone is in a country illegally, then everything they do in the country is based on their law breaking act.

That's my take.

I think I can understand where it seems unfair, but as no one mentioned, circumstances can change many things surely? Would we take a person who risked his life for 'his' country and then deport him and his family the moment he is discharged if his 'papers' turned out to not be in order?

And in all honestly ... if we take a family that have entered illegally (I don't actually think of them as 'immigrants') and they've been here for 20 years, paying taxes and trying to be good citizens, have children and perhaps grandchildren born in our Countries ... surely amnesty would be far more humane than just declaring them illegals and tossing them out?

Stop all incoming illegals as quickly as possible and yup, home they go if they get past our security. Find as many as possible that are not what we were ever consider 'good citizens' and home they go too. But for the others, offer them amnesty based on individual criteria having to be met - then teach them English, if necessary, help them as we'd help anyone else.

I'm not condoning those working at jobs who put others at risk because of their lack of skills or a language break-down, rather I'm blaming the employers.

For dod only knows what I'd do if I lived in a country where my family stood no chance of having a decent life - I too may be tempted to head to a Country that I likely thought was the greatest on earth in order to give them a future. Honestly don't know because I was lucky enough to be born in an incredible Country.

Bingo, the employers know who is and who isn't "legal" . Not all "illegals" come from south of the border. A guy that worked with my dad years ago was deported even though he had been here 15+ years and had a US wife ("ex" for a few years when deported) and 2 kids. He had come from a "Great White North" land called Canada didn't hear all the details but he was sent back all the same (after about a years worth of court dates)

Yes, I think I remember that case no one, and the ones I feel badly for are his wife and two little ones.

Vicki, I wonder if your husband's employer doesn't care about the safety, etc of others in the work place - or perhaps he's just happy to be hiring people willing to work at what is likely an inferior wage. Either way, it must be frustrating as heck for your husband. Sigh.

I always think of the 'illegals' and 'stolen property' as sharing a lot in common. Our laws quite rightly come down hard on the perpetrators but rarely come down hard enough on the people benefiting. If the people receiving stolen property faced huge penalties and those hiring illegals stood to loose their business licences instantly, perhaps it would make more sense?

This is one of the toughest problems we have to deal with and it is going to have to be dealt with soon. One of the large problems we have is with illegal aliens using our medical facilities without any coverage, our laws say that we must treat these people if they have life threatening conditions. One of the other aspects of the medical issue is that these people are coming here from a third world country where diseases that we have all but eradicated are still rampant and they are reintroducing these diseases here. One example is the drug resistant form of Tuberculosis. One of the most pressing issues is that the free medical treatment is costing hospitals enough that this is actually closing them down.

There is a practice that has been going on for years which also drains our resources and this is called "anchor baby" or "jackpot baby". Do to the 14th amendment to the constitution if a baby is born here in the USA it is automatically an American citizen and the parents then have the right to welfare, and in states like California the mothers are eligible for free pre-natal care and free deliveries. In a study made in 2001 it was estimated that there are around 165,000 anchor babies born in the USA every year, in LA 60% of the babies born are from illegal alien parents. Because the babies are American citizens the parents are seldom deported, and once the baby grows to be an adult they can sponsor their relatives to move here.

There are nine states in the USA that will allow illegal aliens to pay in-state tuition, yet student who are citizens of the USA and come from out of state to attend school have to pay a higher tuition than the illegal aliens.

There are no just or fast answers to this problem, but I have to agree that the first thing we should do is go after the employers of the illegal aliens and make it cost them dearly and have prison time for repeat offenders. I am not interested in an amnesty program that is going to reward the illegal aliens for flying under our radar for years, but I would like to see some sort of work exchange program that would make it easier to get work visas. When ever I think about this I always come away with more questions that solutions.

And that's it in a nutshell.

First, terminology. There are no "illegal immigrants" They are foreign criminals. They are here against the laws of this country, and many are here in order to evade the law in their own country.

After several complaints, one of the Police Chiefs here took a novel approach to handling the situation. After banging his head against the INS wall, he simply arrested the criminal for criminal trespass!! Once officially entered into the system, INS had no choice but to take notice and deport him. Good job, right? Not according to the Libs. that have somehow been allowed to come to power in this state. The Chief was admonished for picking on the poor, helpless criminal and told not to do it again. If I were him, I'd keep on doing it. Maybe some people would see the headlines and wake up. "The Libs. are making trouble for this Police Chief because he's enforcing the laws of this country?!? That ain't right." And when the people here see real injustice, as opposed to the "injustice" portrayed by the Lib. media, they are quick to rise in opposition to it. At least they used to be. But the true Yankee seems to be a dying breed.

i couldnt agree more and I feel no need to be PC on this. our government has a legal obligation to protect our borders yet those in power refuse to enforce laws already existing and even attempt to ease restrictions on illegals, in direct contradiction of those same laws. in the recent immigration debate lawmakers of both political parties blatantly dismissed the the obvious objections of the public to the proposed legislation. they tried to "fast track" the vote in order to slip this by the public proving they knew it would be unpopular! when that didnt work and we caught on to them they stopped the bill but passed a vote for cloture which allowed them to reintroduce the bill later so we probably havent heard the last of this nonsense.
i find it deplorable that your husband should be placed in such a situation. if the non english speakers at your husbands place of employment arent legal they shouldnt be here period. if they are legal they should have been required to learn our language as a term of their citizenship. i worked as a consruction supervisor for several years and have seen first hand the problems a language barrier can cause. workers get hurt, people lose or simply quit their jobs, building practices become substandard, and lots of american greenbacks get sent to mexico doing our economy no good whatsoever.

Nothing difficult to understand about illegal, it is a crime, some sort of legislation is violated. A greater problem is discovering who is in charge and who is obligated to fix it.

In “constitutional” USA citizens are obligated to judge crime and criminals and dispense justice only when serving on a jury as a Juror.

Elected Officials are obligated to take the Constitution’s oath of Office and honor it. Citizens are obligated, in preserving the Republic and Liberty, to vote to elect only those candidates that will honor that Oath.

Illegality exists simply because some sort of government legislation is violated. Government police and courts enforce government legislation. So when the same crime continues and is not addressed government is not doing its job. In that case citizens only remedy, or recourse, of force is to fire incumbents by not reelecting them at the next election.

Allan

the idea that illegals only take jobs we dont want is a myth. i worked as a consruction supervisor for several years and noticed one subcontractor getting all the contracts within his scope of work. this in itself didnt strike me as unusual as many contractors have a good business relationship with a particular sub, cost is not all ways the only factor. the quality of the work his crew performed was excellent and always completed on time, thus my supervision of them was minimal. then over the course of about 2 months his lead man took another job and two others moved to different states. instead of hiring from the 16 qualified applicants he had on file he hired 3 men whom years later he admitted were illegal aliens. once hired the changes were obvious. the quality of work suffered, projects werent being completed on time, and there were several close calls involving workers safety because these men didnt speak english. it finally got to the point that i had to recommend to my boss that we not use this sub for any other jobs. i was told that we would continue to use the sub because for the previous 12 months his estimates were consistently 25% lower than the others. fact is, in construction, companies of similar size that do similar work have very similar expenses, its a fact. the only ways you can cut cost by 25% are by cheating on taxes or hiring illegals. eventually the inevitable happened, one of the illegals was severely injured because he couldnt understand the safety instructions of an english speaking foreman. the illegal probably cant work anymore, the foreman was fired, and the sub went out of business. certainly the contractor bears some responsibility here but in the end who benefitted from this? ABSOLOUTELY NO ONE!

Personally as a descendant of legal immigrants in this country I feel there is a serious problem with immigration today, especially illegal immigration. I live in an

urban area and I know how hard some of these immigrants work to make something of themselves in this country. Some learn English and work dead end jobs,

pay taxes, and put their kids through school in order to make a contribution not only to their community but to the U.S. as well. Others come here and do not work

at all or make a positive effort at improving the reputation of immigrants coming into the country. They are also responsible for many of the rapes, and

robberies in my area. All in all we have two types of immigrants to look at when we deal with illegal immigration. Those who want to contribute to society and the

well-being of man and those who just want to loot off of this great country of opportunity. Its a daunting task, how are we going to deal with that? How is any

president going to deal with that? I need an answer.

I believe your statement. My nephew is in kindergarten and when the latino kids are going wild shes sings a song in Spanish just for them. I believe that if you come to this country you have to learn our language.