Illegal Immigration on the Decline

[we vs us]

No one even started to hint illegal immigrants were the sole problem of emergency room log-jams, but it is a significant contributing factor. 

Sorry.  That's how I read dback's comment. 

[nathanm]

We can de-criminalize anything we like, Nathan.  There's usually a good reason something is deemed criminal in the first place.  Our immigration laws exist, not out of spite, bigotry, or hatred but to protect existing U.S. citizens and the assets of the United States Government.  It was designed to ensure orderly immigration so as not to overwhelm our social systems, over-burden our infrastructures, and peel jobs away from existing Americans as refugees show up willing to work for less wages.  They also exist to protect the immigrants from exploitation by unscrupulous coyotes and being kept in virtual slavery by unscrupulous employers here in the states.

It's perfectly clear that the immigration laws we have are not preventing any of those things that you say they exist to prevent. Why continue to keep useless laws on the books? I've never said we should just throw the doors open and let anybody and everybody in. I think we should let anybody in who has the means to support themselves, whether that be savings, a job offer, passive income, or whatever else. Their visa should be of a length commensurate with their capacity to support themselves and should require regular renewal until such time as they become eligible for a green card.

Continuing a failed system is just stupid.

[Conan71]

It's perfectly clear that the immigration laws we have are not preventing any of those things that you say they exist to prevent. Why continue to keep useless laws on the books? I've never said we should just throw the doors open and let anybody and everybody in. I think we should let anybody in who has the means to support themselves, whether that be savings, a job offer, passive income, or whatever else. Their visa should be of a length commensurate with their capacity to support themselves and should require regular renewal until such time as they become eligible for a green card.

Continuing a failed system is just stupid.

The laws aren't the problem, it's the lack of enforcement, or should I say an apathetic tendency toward enforcement of the laws which is the real problem. 

[dbacks fan]

Sorry.  That's how I read dback's comment. 

I did not mean that they were the sole cause, but alot of the poor and uninsured get help paying the bills or at least try to. I when I refer to ER's I don't just mean the county hospital.

[nathanm]

The laws aren't the problem, it's the lack of enforcement, or should I say an apathetic tendency toward enforcement of the laws which is the real problem. 

The laws aren't working, despite spending many billions of dollars each year precisely for the purpose of enforcing them.

[Conan71]

The laws aren't working, despite spending many billions of dollars each year precisely for the purpose of enforcing them.

It's like that pesky stimulus you said we didn't spend enough on.  Apparently we aren't spending enough.

[nathanm]

It's like that pesky stimulus you said we didn't spend enough on.  Apparently we aren't spending enough.

That's not really equivalent at all. The stimulus did work, it just didn't do as much as we wished it would have, thanks to the concurrent slashing of state budgets. The numbers show it had an effect which is now trailing off as the stimulus dollars stop flowing. We've already been through the doubling-down on immigration. But hey, keep pursuing failed policies, it's just money.

[we vs us]

The laws aren't the problem, it's the lack of enforcement, or should I say an apathetic tendency toward enforcement of the laws which is the real problem. 

Not to pick on you, but do you have any good cites for this?  I hear this repeated over and over as conventional wisdom but have never seen it actually proven.  Or even reported on in detail.

[Conan71]

Gee, I dunno where I heard that guys. Something about a legislated wall which was never funded for starters? If you spent as much time reading real news as you spent reading the questionable legacy of Keynes, you'd know that.  That's one example of the lip service the GOP has paid to the problem as they passed the border fence w/o funding  SoCal and Az have serious unemployment problems and NM is inherently under-employed without fed jobs. Build the damn wall, that will stimulate the economy based on the Obama model in those states and do the rest of us a huge favor.

[we vs us]

Gee, I dunno where I heard that guys. Something about a legislated wall which was never funded for starters? If you spent as much time reading real news as you spent reading the questionable legacy of Keynes, you'd know that.  That's one example of the lip service the GOP has paid to the problem as they passed the border fence w/o funding  SoCal and Az have serious unemployment problems and NM is inherently under-employed without fed jobs. Build the damn wall, that will stimulate the economy based on the Obama model in those states and do the rest of us a huge favor.

Who pissed in your Wheaties?

I'm asking an honest and pretty simple question, and if the only answer is, "we were promised a wall and don't have one yet," then the idea that we're underfunding the policy is pretty thin.  From my quick research I've found that roughly a quarter of the 2000 mile wall has been built to-date (barely 5 years after passage of the Secure Border Initiative), but much of the money allocated was sunk into SBInet, Boeing Corp's state of the art camera-sensor-drone border control solution -- which has so far turned out to be a flop.  So much so that Janet Napolitano (at the urging of the GAO) has suspended funding to Boeing because their stuff has been so much of a dud.  She has reconfigured some of the cash into other proven border control strategies, according to some of the reporting I've read.

So it's not funded because SBI's main solution has become a money pit.  And Obama has already gone head and shoulders above previous administrations and sent Nat'l guard troops to the border. 

Is there anything else I need to research or is that the nut right there?

[Red Arrow]

Is there anything else I need to research or is that the nut right there?

Sure, research the potential effectiveness (not niceness) of machine guns every 100 yards or so.  Shoot everything that moves.   

[heironymouspasparagus]

Oops... sorry to disappoint, Conan, but Fox is not real news.  If you spent as much time reading/listening to real news as the questionable legacy of Murdoch, you'd know that.  Even the most prominent front men (all of them) for Rupert declare emphatically that they are NOT news, they are ENTERTAINMENT!

BS alert!!
Quote;
There's usually a good reason something is deemed criminal in the first place.

How can anyone with ANY sense (or knowledge) of history make that comment??  Once you get beyond the Golden Rule and the Ten Commandments as basis, there is as often as not NO good reason something is deemed criminal, and way too often not only is there no GOOD reason, but only bad, evil, self-serving greedy reasons!  Do we need a list??  (How about the law that made it a crime to have sex in any other than the missionary position?  Not necessarily evil, but no good reason.)

Or a significant portion of our drug laws?

[Conan71]

Oops... sorry to disappoint, Conan, but Fox is not real news.  If you spent as much time reading/listening to real news as the questionable legacy of Murdoch, you'd know that.  Even the most prominent front men (all of them) for Rupert declare emphatically that they are NOT news, they are ENTERTAINMENT!

BS alert!!
Quote;
There's usually a good reason something is deemed criminal in the first place.

How can anyone with ANY sense (or knowledge) of history make that comment??  Once you get beyond the Golden Rule and the Ten Commandments as basis, there is as often as not NO good reason something is deemed criminal, and way too often not only is there no GOOD reason, but only bad, evil, self-serving greedy reasons!  Do we need a list??  (How about the law that made it a crime to have sex in any other than the missionary position?  Not necessarily evil, but no good reason.)

Or a significant portion of our drug laws?

Are you really a retard or do you just play one here?  I couldn't tell you what's playing on Faux Snooze, I don't watch it.

[Red Arrow]

Oops... sorry to disappoint, Conan, but Fox is not real news.  If you spent as much time reading/listening to real news as the questionable legacy of Murdoch, you'd know that.  Even the most prominent front men (all of them) for Rupert declare emphatically that they are NOT news, they are ENTERTAINMENT!

I hope you aren't proposing that I get my real news from the MSM.

Fox News does claim some shows as news but many are self described as commentary and opinion.

[heironymouspasparagus]

Naw....no name calling from the far right on this place.

And no reply to the questions/comments.

Burned any Koran's lately??