Mandatory deportation has illegals on the run

[Chicken Little]

You can't hold US citizens in jail for days and days, it's the kind of bullcrap that sends a message to ALL legal residents...guilty until proven innocent.  Can't blame them for leaving, can you?  And another thing, Jamesrage, you should go ahead and pledge your support for some sales tax increases to offset the economic damage done here.  Will you do that?  You can't drive off twenty thousand people and expect things to be hunky-dory, can you?  This will hurt Tulsa and help competitors in neighboring states.  I guess what I'm saying is crappy solutions are not necessarily better than no solutions at all.

[Breadburner]

They brought it all on themselves....

[Chicken Little]

quote:Originally posted by Breadburner

They brought it all on themselves....

How did US citizens "(bring) it all on themselves?"  

/It occurs to me that you may be speaking about Oklahoma taxpayers.  Then yes, a small group of conservative jerks are responsible for driving taxpayers to competitor states.  But I do not expect them to step up and take responsibility for the economic havoc that ensues.  They'll find somebody else to blame...Indians, maybe?

[Breadburner]

I'm talking about the illegals......

[rwarn17588]

You may not think your rhetoric is comedy, james, but I do. It's hilarious satire.

Jabbing quip removed.

[USRufnex]

http://www.cato.org/dailys/06-24-04.html


Reagan Embraced Free Trade and Immigration
by Daniel Griswold

Dan Griswold is associate director of the Center for Trade Policy Studies at the Cato Institute.

In the many eulogies to Ronald Reagan since his passing, virtually all acknowledge his role in defeating Soviet communism and reviving America's self-confidence. But another aspect of Reagan's record that should not be forgotten was his commitment to keeping America open to trade and immigration.

Reagan's vision of an America open to commerce and peaceful, hardworking immigrants contradicts the anti-trade and anti-immigration views espoused by Lou Dobbs, Bill O'Reilly, Pat Buchanan, Rep. Tom Tancredo of Colorado, and many others who claim to speak for the conservative causes Reagan largely defined.

Reagan's heart and head were clearly on the side of free trade. While president, he declared in 1986: "Our trade policy rests firmly on the foundation of free and open markets. I recognize ... the inescapable conclusion that all of history has taught: The freer the flow of world trade, the stronger the tides of human progress and peace among nations."

It was the Reagan administration that launched the Uruguay Round of multilateral trade negotiations in 1986 that lowered global tariffs and created the World Trade Organization. It was his administration that won approval of the U.S.-Canada Free Trade Agreement in 1988. That agreement soon expanded to include Mexico in what became the North American Free Trade Agreement, realizing a vision that Reagan first articulated in the 1980 campaign. It was Reagan who vetoed protectionist textile quota bills in 1985 and 1988.

During Reagan's eight years in office, Americans eagerly expanded their engagement in the global economy. In 1980, the year before Reagan became president, Americans spent a total of $334 billion on imported goods and services and payments on foreign investment in the United States. By 1988, his last year in office, American spending in the global economy had nearly doubled, to $663 billion. If Reagan was a "protectionist," it had no discernable effect on the ability of Americans to spend freely in the global marketplace. Fittingly, one of the major federal buildings on Pennsylvania Avenue is named the Ronald Reagan Building and International Trade Center.

Like most post-war presidents, Reagan championed free trade while selectively deviating from it. Critics of trade note correctly that Reagan negotiated "voluntary" import quotas for steel and Japanese cars and imposed Section 201 tariffs on imported motorcycles to protect Harley-Davidson. All true. But those were the exceptions and not the rule. They were tactical retreats designed to defuse rising protectionists pressures in Congress.

Reagan's words and deeds regarding immigration were equally expansive. At a ceremony at Ellis Island in 1982, he spoke movingly of immigrants who "possessed a determination that with hard work and freedom, they would live a better life and their children even more so." As with trade, Reagan's record on immigration was mixed. He signed the Immigration Reform and Control Act of 1986, which included stepped up border enforcement and sanctions against employers who knowingly hire illegal workers. But that legislation also legalized 2.8 million undocumented workers. More immigrants entered the United States legally under President Reagan's watch than under any previous U.S. president since Teddy Roosevelt.

Like President George W. Bush today, Reagan had the good sense and compassion to see illegal immigrants not as criminals but as human beings striving to build better lives through honest work. In a radio address in 1977, he noted that apples were rotting on trees in New England because no Americans were willing to pick them. "It makes one wonder about the illegal alien fuss. Are great numbers of our unemployed really victims of the illegal alien invasion or are those illegal tourists actually doing work our own people won't do?" Reagan asked. "One thing is certain in this hungry world; no regulation or law should be allowed if it results in crops rotting in the fields for lack of harvesters."

In his farewell address to the nation in January 1989, Reagan beautifully wove his view of free trade and immigration into his vision of a free society: "I've spoken of the shining city all my political life, but I don't know if I ever quite communicated what I saw when I said it. But in my mind it was a tall, proud city built on rocks stronger than oceans, windswept, God-blessed and teeming with people of all kinds living in harmony and peace; a city with free ports that hummed with commerce and creativity. And if there had to be city walls, the walls had doors and the doors were open to anyone with the will and heart to get here."

Compare Reagan's hopeful, expansive, and inclusive view of America with the dour, crabbed, and exclusive view that characterizes certain conservatives who would claim his mantle. Their view of the world could not be more alien to the spirit of Ronald Reagan.

[Wilbur]

quote:Originally posted by jamesrage

quote:Originally posted by aoxamaxoa
That report tonight was painful for those watching and fighting against hatred and intolerance. I felt the pain in the hispanic community seeing that story.

What a load of horse ****.Hatred and intolerance?The only intolerance is towards law breaking,which is what illegal immigration is.Most people do not have a problem with LEGAL IMMIGRANTS.Most people do not give a **** what color your skin is as long as you are here LEGALLY.The only people in the Hispanic community feeling any pain are those who are here illegally and those harboring criminals aka illegal aliens.

quote: The report on the two legal immigrants who were held in the Tulsa jail for 4 days by ICE were direct results of racial profiling. Lawsuit pending. Rightfully so.

No it was not a result of racial profiling, it was the direct result of someone not providing proof their legal status.

These two people were born and raised in the United States.  Both had valid driver licenses as legal forms of identification.

I will ask my question again, which nobody seems to want to answer:  What do you, as a citizen of the United States, carry on your person to prove you are a US citizen?  When you were born in the US, what did the government provide to you to prove you are a US citizen?

What more could these two individuals do, in your mind, to prove they were US citizens?

This community is going to be paying this lawsuit off for a long time, and rightfully so.

[Breadburner]

And these 2 were the first people held for longer than they should have been.....You don't think anyone white has been detained for as long if not longer....Why do you think we will be paying for it....Your other question about my status does not really make much sense.....

[truth4freedom]

This is exactly what I envisioned would happen and I am so proud to have been a part of making sure this legislation was passed. The voice of the majority has spoken over the cries of a few disenchanted Stalinist's who would keep a slave class here under the guise of compassion. While I am thrilled that this law is sending law breakers running this is only the start. The border must be sealed and even more importantly our guest worker and legal immigration programs must be totally reworked so we can regain any lost immigrant workers back that are a necessity to our economy. Interestingly enough, the schools have reported that very few Hispanic students are missing so it sounds like either we are hearing a false cry of foul from the liberal slave holders or the illegals leaving are the ones that wouldn't have been able to be here legally in the first place in which case I can only say bravo. Now watch the rest of the nation follow and the healing of our nation can begin!

[rwarn17588]

Hmm. Sounds like truth4freedom is dabbling in satire, too!

Keep it up, guys. It's good for some laughs.

[}:)]

[aoxamaxoa]

quote:Originally posted by Breadburner

They brought it all on themselves....

Actually, in Texas when dubya was guv he brought it on knowing the illegals would help grow the states economy.

[shadows]

Admin:
No; I don't believe that we can discuss imigration in any form without posters going overboard that in the end is reduced to the racial cards.   Many do not understand we are a nation without a race nor a specific national species.  We are the melting pot of many races that is overflowing.

[jamesrage]

quote:Originally posted by Chicken Little

quote:Originally posted by Breadburner

They brought it all on themselves....

How did US citizens "(bring) it all on themselves?"  

/It occurs to me that you may be speaking about Oklahoma taxpayers.  Then yes, a small group of conservative jerks are responsible for driving taxpayers to competitor states.  But I do not expect them to step up and take responsibility for the economic havoc that ensues.  They'll find somebody else to blame...Indians, maybe?

Illegal workforce does not equal significantly cheaper prices.Labor legal or illegal is only a small percentage of the cost.It is a bold face lie to sit there and that if we don't have illegal labor then prices will go sky high.

quote:
http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/localnews/2003265139_imprices19.html
More than 7 million illegal immigrants work in the United States. They build houses, pick crops, slaughter cattle, stitch clothes, mow lawns, clean hotel rooms, cook restaurant meals and wash the dishes that come back.

You might assume that the plentiful supply of low-wage illegal workers would translate into significantly lower prices for the goods and services they produce. In fact, their impact on consumer prices — call it the "illegal-worker discount" — is surprisingly small.

The bag of Washington state apples you bought last weekend? Probably a few cents cheaper than it otherwise would have been, economists estimate. That steak dinner at a downtown restaurant? Maybe a buck off. Your new house in Subdivision Estates? Hard to say, but perhaps a few thousand dollars less expensive.

The underlying reason, economists say, is that for most goods the labor — whether legal or illegal, native- or foreign-born — represents only a sliver of the retail price.

Consider those apples — Washington's signature contribution to the American food basket.

At a local QFC, Red Delicious apples go for about 99 cents a pound. Of that, only about 7 cents represents the cost of labor, said Tom Schotzko, a recently retired extension economist at Washington State University. The rest represents the grower's other expenses, warehousing and shipping fees, and the retailer's markup.

[USRufnex]

quote:Originally posted by Lister

So if you want the laws enforced you are a racist? Wow, this country has slid down in morals since the days of my youth.

Morals?  Yeah, right.  Segregation, Jim Crow laws, civil unrest in the 60s.... every generation of old farts insists the previous generation has loose morals...

Let's talk about what's been legal and illegal over the years....  

http://www.netstate.com/states/intro/ok_intro.htm

quote:The Sooner State: "Unassigned Lands" in Oklahoma were offered to settlers through a series of "Land Openings" where newcomers initially competed for the land in horse races. The Land Run of 1889 began the process of disposing of these Unassigned Lands. The Homestead Act of 1862 provided that a legal settler could claim 160 acres of public land, and those who lived on and improved the claim for five years could receive title.

People who entered the district illegally to lay claim to lands, before the designated entry time, were called "Sooners." The name came from a section in the Indian Appropriations Act of March 2, 1889, that said that nobody would be permitted to enter upon and occupy the land before the time designated in the President's opening proclamation and that those that did would be denied rights to the land. This section became known as the "sooner clause."

Early legal settlers had a very low opinion of Sooners of course. This began to change by 1908 when the University of Oklahoma named the football team the "Sooners." Like many nicknames, this one's negative connotations faded over time and the name, Sooners, is now worn with pride. Though not official, Oklahoma is popularly known as "The Sooner State."

Hypocrisy, thy name is Sooner.

[Chicken Little]

quote:Originally posted by jamesrage
Illegal workforce does not equal significantly cheaper prices.Labor legal or illegal is only a small percentage of the cost.It is a bold face lie to sit there and that if we don't have illegal labor then prices will go sky high.

You really don't get it, do you?  20,000 people is about 5% of Tulsa's population, and they support city services by purchasing goods and services (sales tax).  It's really straightforward.  If you chase off 5% of the sales tax (and by that I mean YOU, specifically), then you should be willing to pay an extra amount in sales tax, water bills, ambulance fees, etc., in order to offset those losses.  Are you willing to do that?  Are you willing to raise taxes on yourself?

I didn't say anything about the cost of roofs, or yardwork, or hvac, I'm talking strictly about sales tax.  If you chase off 20,000 people, the revenue that they provided for streets, police, fire, water, sewer, etc., goes with them.  Either you are willing to bear the extra burden or you aren't, which is it?