Deporting U.S. Citizens

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Beautifully said LKD. Illegal means illegal.

Except political refugees. They should be allowed to come into the country before getting visas/permits, because their life is in serious risk. I interviewed a guy who's government wanted to kill him, so he escaped, and is now a citizen. Thats fine.

 

I think "desperate for an opportunity to make some kind of future for themselves" would be more apt. They are illegal. They aren't spitting on our laws. They come to the US because they can actually create some kind of future for themselves and their children. Say that they are illegal and should therefore be sent home because we have laws for a reason. Don't say that they are spitting on our laws. Intent, I think, is a necessity for such accusations to actually hold any water.

 

Spitting is not literal... I think he means (or I interpreted it) that they know the laws for immigration, or they would not go to such great measures to get in, and because they know it is illegal, they are spitting on the laws by breaking them.

 

"Spitting" implies a degree of derision. It should not be used, since if they really had such derision for our laws they would have stayed in Mexico. Our laws are one of the reasons they want to come here, even illegally.

 

Well said. I don't think it matters, if the illegals give a net benefit to our country or not....they broke the law and need to go back. We wouldn't have this situation to begin with, if our country had done any kind of a decent job at border control. To let these people stay now, however, is making even MORE of a joke of our immigration laws. Just think of it....we had ILLEGALS demonstrating in the streets! LOL -- "Here we are!" "Here we are!" Come on -- how ludicrous is that?? They don't even bother to hide anymore! The whole thing is classic American government at its finest.

 

If the laws are getting rid of something that is beneficial - then they're not very good laws and aren't worth enforcing or following...

 

I don't see illegals as beneficial. True the migrant workers may help to keep prices down because they work for low wages, no benefits, poor housing, no schooling. But if it is true that the average wage of illegals is $9.00 they are taking jobs from people who live here legally. (If they are working illegally and the people who hire them are breaking the law how can we be certain what wage they work for?) The people who hire them are breaking the law and not contributing. I know of people who hired illegal household employees. The main reason is they are cheaper and the employer doesn't have to contribute to Social Security.

The whole thing is a mess and much too easily accepted. Not only is it illegal but imo morally deficient. The illegal employee takes advantage of the system and the employer takes advantage of the illegal employee.

It is very early in the morning for me so I hope I make sense. If not, ask and I'll be happy to elaborate this evening.

 

I don't see it as the immigrants taking jobs. Its not like they hide in the bushes and say "Look an American, lets take his job!".

If you loose your job to an immigrant, its probably because they work harder than you do and for less money.

We get lots of Polish, Lithuanians, Indians and Romanians, but I am not worried about them 'taking' my job because I work hard and know that I am good at what I do.

 

My point exactly. Like I said before - If you're working for less than minimum wage, it's a safe bet that you're getting paid under the table, and therefore you aren't going to file an income tax return. I don't see how else we would know how much these people are making. So the $9 per hour is already a misleading figure, because it's assuming all illegals file income tax returns.

Furthermore, even if the average illegal is making $9 per hour, it's not like that's some great salary. In fact, it's pretty damn low. I had summer jobs in college that paid me more than that - and that was several years ago. I don't know anyone who makes anywhere near as low as only $9 per hour, and that includes friends of mine who only have a high school education. So from my perspective, yes, illegal immigrants are taking jobs that I wouldn't want.

 

I've been following this thread since I'm a 'legally' immigrated citizen.
First off, 'legal' seems to be a rather general 'rubberband' (seat belt, smoking, driving, etc.); whats legal today might be illegal tomorrow and vise versa; ultimately its 'man made' and normally serving someone's purpose or believe.

I am also wondering, as Laches states, how it is possible for an 'illegal' person to legally pay his/her taxes?

I think, as usual, the problem is 'ridden' out on the weak and defenseless - if 'legal' citizens would not offer/hire 'illegals' the problem would resolve itself; how about taking our own fellows into the responsibility - they broke the law in hiring these people and taking their taxes (yes, the government should be prosecuted also for collecting 'illegal' money).
If these issues were to be tackled first (other than just a slap on the hand), I think the base would be established to clean up the 'secondary' problem of the immigrants...

The whole thing just looks to me like 'reverse engineering' of Castro's Cuba - locking in vs. locking out.
(just my 2cents worth...)

 

All this talk about the illegal aliens -- just how have their children broken the law? On what grounds do we deny the children born in the US citizenship?

I believe we send the parents home -- the children need to be with their parents, but they ARE US citizens and may return whenever they want.

 

Here's an interesting if slightly off-topic article. It states that to raise minimum wage to a "living wage" we would actually have to increase it to $9 per hour - so maybe I'm a little off on my statement that you can't live on $9 per hour. Read it here.

 

Just because it isn't intentional doesn't mean it doesn't happen.

 

The immigrants aren't the problem, it's the people hiring them.

Our wonder bourgeois fat cats are taking advantage of the exploited situation that illegal immigrants are in. Not to mention that the upper crust is primarily responsible for the **** hole conditions that the likes of Central America is in. If we want to stop illegal immigration, it isn't going to be through building fences. Give them a reason to stay in their country because no one wants to stay in a nation that being used as a staging ground for manual labor and the harvest of natural resources.

And by Heaven above, if we believe in Capitalism, like so many Americans say they do, we should be welcoming this flood with open arms. It's just the best rising to the top right?

 

Since it has come up again, the 9 buck an hour wage was reported on NPR's Talk of the Nation. I would assume that the folks methodology is sophisticated and intelligent enough to take into account more than just reported income to the IRS since the same reporte acknowledged that many illegal immigrants don't pay personal income taxes (though about 2/3 do.) Others have assumed they didn't take this into account. I don't have the study so I don't know but neither assumption is supported in this thread - I'm relying on the professionalism of the academics who were part of the report. *shrug. I also initially acknowledge that it was an average and not a median, but, the sample size is large enough (millions of people) that the 2 person Bill Gates/homeless person example may not be a good comparison.

And, since it was questioned as to whether illegal immigrants can pay taxes since they don't have a social security number - the IRS will issue an individual income tax number so that people can pay taxes without a social security number. They've done this for a long time. It is official IRS policy not to ask folks looking for such a tax number if they are legally here - they just want the money.

Interestingly by the way, the Social Security Trustees have relied on illegal immigrants in their estimates for how this nation can fund the Social Security program. See, the US has a relatively low birthrate. This low birthrate is going to make funding SS very difficult. To increase the lenth that SS will be funded the Trustees have to assume higher levels of illegal immigration. To retain funding for a minimal number of years of funding they assume over 200,000 through 2080 and beyond (250k+ for another decade plus at least.) For the funding to exist further into the future they have to assume 550,000+ illegal immigrants per year for a number of years and then at least 450,000 plus through 2080.

So, despite rhetoric otherwise the 2005 OASDI Trustee report (the Trustees) acknowledges that illegal immigrants are paying taxes and not only that we rely on them to do so and will be increasingly reliant in the future. (you can google up the report if you want, it is long.)

Personally, I think it is pretty crappy for the gov't to explicitly rely on illegal immigration to fund its programs and at the same time stir up the masses against them there illegal immigrants who are draining the economy - speaking out of both sides of their mouth if you will.

[ May 26, 2006, 01:12: Message edited by: Laches ]

 

It was not a 2 person example. It was showing the extremes inherent in any large group. Meaning that just beacuse the average is $9, does not mean there cannot be those above or below it (i.e. migrant workers paid less than minimum wage). That's all.

 

Well, of course there are people above and below the average. By definition there would be otherwise it wouldn't be an average. But, the point is, with a sample size of between 11 and 12 million people, for something like this, when you're looking at an average, you're more likely to have a bell curve than you are to have the upside down bell curve. That's just my gut feeling. Do you feel it is more likely that you have an inverse bell curve with more low and very high wage earners than there are average wage earners?

The Bill Gates thing referred to a specific example that was used - it was used to be demonstrative (1 high can skew numbers) but I was pointing out that due to the size of the sample such skewing was less likely, i.e. a few very high wages have far less impact when you divide by millions rather than two.

 

No. I never said anything of the sort. Though with a average of 9, there isn't much room before the bell curve gets down into the migrant worker area. It'd be oddly shaped, but still recognizable as a typical curve, I think.

So you're telling me how I used my example. Right after I explained your mistake. Hello? Is this thing on?

 

In that case Sabre, you should blame the company for giving the job to an immigrant.

If these companies were patriotic, they wouldn't be hiring illegal immigrants, would they?

 

It won't be that odd of a bell shape at all if there aren't a large number of extremely high wage earners. If there are large number of illegal immigrants earning an average of millions in income it will look strange. But, if the numbers really start to go down at the 40-50,000 range per year (i.e. 20 to 25 bucks per hour) then the bell curve is likely to look quite normal.

Not everything is about you. If you go look back, you'll see there was an example of Bill Gates and a homeless person's income giving an average of 30 billion in wealth and, it was this that I was responding to. Yes, you mention Bill Gates but you aren't the only one to do so. I am pointing out that when you are dealing with millions of people the impact of high earners is decreased. So, what you explained is irrelevant to what I said beause I wasn't responding to you.

With that said, if all the example is supposed to show (and this is according to you and not in response to the other person) is that there would be people above and below the average(your explanation) then the example is uninteresting because by definition we know that an average is that. I think everyone here knows what the definition of 'average' is.

Basically, I said, 'according to NPR the avearge is 9" and you said "yes, that's the average." If all you mean is that there are people above and below the average then I just shrug and say, 'that's exactly what I just said' (i.e., you're just subsituting the definition of aveage for the word average.) If you mean something more interesting, and are implying as the other example does that maybe the 9 average is artificially high and not meaningful because of either a large number of high wage earners or a smaller number of illegal billionaires in the United States then I'm pointing out that with 12 million people the skewing is lessened (and I would be surprised to find billionaire illegal immigrants in the US - not that I think Aldeth believes there are.)

[ May 26, 2006, 13:51: Message edited by: Laches ]