Actually, I think it should be made easier for people to GET green cards & citizenship - that would get them into the system and would stop a lot of the problems. I tutor Latinos ... many of them are illegal (we don't ask). They want to learn English & get a better job. I don't think they WANT to be illegal ... it's just that they have no choice (other than to not come here, and many of them don't see that as an option - there is work here, and there is no work where they come from).
I replied:
I can't agree with rewarding people whose first act in entering the country illegally happened to have been...
Illegal.
There are millions of people all over the planet who want to come to the United States and are IN LINE, going through the process LEGALLY.
To reward the millions of illegal aliens we have in the country is a slap in the face to all who have emigrated here legally.
My Mother was one of them. She emigrated here with her family, legally, from Nova Scotia, Canada, and, after waiting a prescribed amount of time, studying the American Constitution and American history, and passing examinations on what she had learned, she proudly became a naturalized citizen. December 8, 1941. Coincidentally, the day after the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor.
My late friend, Fred, was another. British by birth, he met and married an American girl. He applied to become an American citizen. Well over two years later, after having played by the rules, Fred became an American.
Nationally, unemployment hovers at just under 10% (it is really well over 20%, when one considers the "underemployed," those who have simply given up, and those who have exhausted their unemployment benefits (who are therefore, in some warped kind of Washington-think, no longer counted as "unemployed")).
Perhaps we differ in opinion because you are in New York, Patty, and you "...tutor Latinos ... many of them are illegal (we don't ask)," while I am in Southern California and have had to witness and deal with those illegal aliens and the havoc they've wrought upon our school systems, healthcare systems, neighborhood crime, prison/jail systems, and how they've depressed wages in nearly every industry here in the formerly "Golden State" for my entire life. Nine months ago, there was a Mexican gang-related shooting across the street from my house...
The Sheriff arrested... you guessed it... an illegal alien for the shooting. The shooting victim, also an illegal alien, went to the hospital in serious condition, costing taxpayers goodness-knows how much for his hospitalization and care.
What is needed, IMHO, is to enforce the employer sanctions that were part of President Reagan's amnesty package from 1986. Employer sanctions, ignored since those days when Reagan signed the Simpson-Mazzoli bill into law, need to be stiffened. Fine employers $10,000 for every illegal alien they are found to have hired. Charge them with felonies for second and subsequent offenses. The job market for illegal aliens would dry up and the majority of them will "self-deport."
Obama and his minions need to STOP playing political football with the serious business of the nation's security. Lest you think this is just an Obama-bash, I detested George W. Bush's "wink and a nod open border policy," as well.
I'm afraid that it's only a matter of time before some really bad people cross that border with some really evil intentions and our government will have been looking the other way, ignoring one of its core responsibilities as enumerated in the Constitution.
Here in cash-strapped California, the cost of our 2.6 MILLION illegal ailens that legal taxpayers have to shoulder is pegged at $21.8 BILLION dollars this year (more than our $19 billion budget deficit).
New York state is facing something like a $6.8 billion budget deficit this year, with Governor Paterson slashing things left and right to try and make ends meet; illegal aliens cost New York state $9.5 billion this year. Without the burden of illegal aliens, New York could be enjoying, even in these troubled economic times, a budget SURPLUS of $2.7 billion this year.
Control of our southern border must come first, before our elected "leaders" even consider extending any type of amnesty to the millions of illegal alien lawbreakers in our country. This is only fair to a.) American citizens, b.) those who want to become American citizens and who are playing by the rules to achieve that end, and c.) all American taxpayers, citizens or not, who, this year alone, are paying $113 BILLION in services to illegal aliens.
Just my $ 0.02
I thought surely that I would be assailed by the left-wing members of that online community, as so often happens when a conservative dares to express an opinion.
The "usual suspects" were... oddly silent.
Instead, I received many positive replies. Perhaps there is hope, now that the majority of the country is waking up to the consequences of the 2008 elections.
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