Nostatic,

I was trying to compromise with you and refect a little humility. But its obvious you are avictim of your own rhetoric....Go back and read your post...Its almost as bad as mine....

Gong...!

Lets go get a taco and give the beaners some money...Ok

Is there really a Taco King in East LA?

Sorry Rick, but I disagree. I understand your point, and agree that some feel the way that you describe. But with others, there is a distinct xenophobia between the lines. At least to my eyes. Maybe I'm reading too much into the frustration that is driving the posts...

http://www.kingtaco.com/

You need to get out of the 909 more ;)

It's not xenophobic at all to be irate about laws being ignored to the detriment of our public services and way of life. Obviously, breaking immigration laws/illegally crossing into the US can only be done by foreigners, since they don't apply to Americans. But that does not at all mean outrage at such equals xenophobia.

Yeah, but when there is talk citing crimes by people with Spanish surnames, people making assumptions of legal resident status based on the color of their skin while driving by...that tends to fall more towards xenophobia, doncha think?

Nostatic ..

You want to armwrestle?....Rick of me?

Loser buys the beans....Oh buy the way are you a Gringo? LA diversity is less than diverse. lets see ...how about 95% latino, 2% *White trash and 3% Asian. Blacks got smart and moved to Moreno Valley.

* reflects the low income whitey's that are too poor to get out of the ghetto...

I'm fine with amnesty under one condition, allow true conservatives to opt out of paying for ALL the social programs that these people are burdening us with in taxes. Then allow the amnesty leftists to put there money where their mouth is and support their own ideas (ie provide those illegals un-employment, social security, education, food stamps etc).

The illegals are going to be here regardless, burdening the country, might as well legalize them (with the condition above), and make the libs pay for their poor ideas.

Which is an extraneous tangent having nothing to do with amnesty for illegals.

The only Spanish surname criminal I know off the top of my head is Jose Padilla. But when something like 29% of federal prison inmates are non-citizens, even though I don't know where they came from and it doesn't matter, that means we have a border control problem that turns into a much larger problem after they've been here a while.

Mexico yes
Canada No

If you enforced those laws who would be responsible for driving all those low rider cars around real slow? They don't drive by themselves ya know.

This is one of the consequences of the current situation, not one of the causes. I've said before that if we don't properly implement immigration policies and continually reward illegal entrants the result will be that all latinos will have to carry the baggage of the illegals. Amnesty penalizes those who enter legally and rewards those who enter illegally. Pretty stupid.

As I have also said before, my position on this issue is not borne of xenophobia or some obsessive "obey the law" compulsion. It's based on purpose. The primary purpose of government is to protect its citizens. I would note that I think many things that the gov't does are outside its proper purview, but, regardless, the primary purpose is protection. To that end, gov't has a responsibility to know who is coming across the border and control who is let in; those entering need to be vetted (no history of rape/murder/etc. for example) and need to be compatible with our national interest (if we need engineers or farm workers, for example). I would submit that nobody - the gov't especially - has even minimal knowledge of the character or skill sets of the 12 million or so illegal entrants. I would also submit that is gross negligence, and giving them amnesty only compounds the negligence. Furthermore, we have established one set of criteria for immigrants from East of the Atlantic (difficult) and another for those from South of our border (none). Why should my European neighbors have to jump through hoops and spend thousands to get their green card but the vineyards are full of illegals who did not? This is also, in my opinion, negligent and even racist.

One of the base premises of being a "nation of laws" is to equally and fairly apply law. As in: to everyone. We don't do that, and that is a societal time-bomb. We also absolutely have to recognize that creating a whole class of illegal entrants is creating a class of people that is exploitable and is a class that has to live largely outside the law. Need someone for illegal logging or to spread banned herbicides/pesticides? I can tell you where to find them. Need someone to do dangerous work without proper safety consideration or disability insurance? I can tell you where to get them.

The current situation is pure idiocy - it has to be gotten under control. Another amnesty is just another reward for negative behavior. How smart is that?

Where is Superman...?

Jim727 you are an OAK! As soon a Tony Snow has to throw in the towel. I think Jim Or Rick should be up to bat....and tell Dubya what is right....

it isn't about laws, it's about money. Companies are making gobs of money off the backs of illegals and taxpayers both reap the reward (in lower prices) and pay the price (in taxes/services).

Somebody is winning big and it ain't you or me. Unless you own a company that employs illegals...

Never been called a tree before. Or an Oakland, for that matter.

Seriously, I doubt George-The-Lesser would like me any more than I like him. Would be a marriage made in hell.

Absolutely correct. Amnesty won't fix that - it will only make it worse. I have posted my opinion on a solution earlier; when I'm willing to do that much typing you know I'm serious!

Yep, I said this before, somewhere. If we have a certain economy that can't sustain itself in a first world country, then it's time that economy, itself, be exported to a third world country.

The workers can stay in their own country working, improving their economy, raising a family close by. If we are a global economy why do we act like those goods cannot be found anywhere else? Why are we so afraid?

The economy out will be replaced by one sustainable for a first world nation. It happens all the time in a free market system.

I have read this thread from the begining and after considerable thought, the vast amount of intellect expressed here has indeed caused me to change my opinion. Yes I do support amnesty for illegal aliens. I didn't before, but I do now. Thanks for convincing me.

OK, since I don't consider myself to be irrational and since I have given more than passing thought to the issue and since you have come to a position the complete opposite of mine, I would appreciate an elaboration. If you have found flaws in my logic I would like to know what and where. Really.

The main question is, what are you going to do with the 20 million of them that are here? Root them out and deport them? Shoot, them, which apparently has considerable appeal for some on this thread. How are you going to identify, remove, and keep deported 20 million people, many of whom have good jobs, pay taxes, own property, and have US citizen children who cannot be deported no matter how brown their skin is? Maybe we should lock them up indefinitely at a cost of $30,000 to $50,000 per year?

Here's a better alternative: Give them an incentive to get legal, be regulated, and joint the great unwashed masses of law abiding citizens. Make them prove no criminal activity, all taxes paid, employability, pay a fine, add whatever penalty you want, and you have converted a great underclass of exploited second-class members of society into productive citizens. Giving legal status to the aliens will prevent employers from taking advantage of illegals and paying below market wages in exchange for looking the other way or threatening to turn illegals in if they make work comp claims or complaint about unsafe work places.

And the ones who don't qualify or who are criminals or who break the rules - they go to jail. And their relatives don't get to qualify for citizenship unless they go back and stay back.

Glad I don't have this job anymore. It was my first night job when I moved to DC fresh out of college.

RNC fires phone solicitors
Published May 31, 2007

The Republican National Committee, hit by a grass-roots donors' rebellion over President Bush's immigration policy, has fired all 65 of its telephone solicitors, Ralph Z. Hallow will report Friday in The Washington Times.

Faced with an estimated 40 percent fall-off in small-donor contributions and aging phone-bank equipment that the RNC said would cost too much to update, Anne Hathaway, the committee's chief of staff, summoned the solicitations staff last week and told them they were out of work, effective immediately, the fired staffers told The Times.

The national committee yesterday confirmed the firings that took place more than a week ago, but denied that the move was motivated by declining donor response to phone solicitations.

"The phone-bank employees were terminated," RNC spokeswoman Tracey Schmitt wrote by e-mail in response to questions sent by The Times. "This was not an easy decision. The first and primary motivating factor was the state of the phone bank technology, which was outdated and difficult to maintain. The RNC was advised that we would soon need an entire new system to remain viable."

Fired employees acknowledged that the committee's phone equipment was outdated, but said a sharp drop-off in donations "probably" hastened the end of the RNC's in-house phone-bank operation.

"Last year, my solicitations totaled $164,000, and this year the way they were running for the first four months, they would total $100,000 by the end of 2007," said one fired phone bank solicitor who asked not to be identified.

There has been a sharp decline in contributions from RNC phone solicitations, another fired staffer said, reporting that many former donors flatly refuse to give more money to the national party if Mr. Bush and the Senate Republicans insist on supporting what these angry contributors call "amnesty" for illegal aliens.

"Everyone donor in 50 states we reached has been angry, especially in the last month and a half, and for 99 percent of them immigration is the No. 1 issue," said the former employee.

The RNC spokeswoman denied that the committee has seen any drop-off in contributions.

"Any assertion that overall donations have gone down is patently false," Miss Schmitt said. "We continue to out raise our Democrat counterpart by a substantive amount (nearly double)."

MRM -

First, just making them legal is avoiding the problem, not solving it. While I completely agree about giving an incentive, it needs to be done from their home country, not here. To do otherwise is to reward illegal entry and encourage further illegal entries. Remember, it is Reagan's amnesty of 2 Million that got us 12 Million more. I also think it's grossly unfair to punish all those who spent their time and money to enter legally by rewarding those who snuck in. My neighbors are German; they entered legally and are model citizens, but I have no doubt that had they entered illegally the INS would be all over them. They incurred substantial expense and expended great effort to get here - are we going to tell them that it would have been better to sneak in? Are we going to repay them for their substantial expenses because we "really didn't mean that there are immigration rules"? Are we going to have one set of rules for "south of the border" and another set of rules for the rest of the world? To treat them differently than entrants from Mexico is, put simply, racism.

Second, the idea of deporting 12 million people is ludicrous; however providing motivation to voluntarily return to their home countries to obtain proper visas which should provide decent working conditions as legitimate guest workers or green-card holders is quite within the realm of possibility. I wrote up my ideas on page 5 of this thread so I won't repeat myself. I've been a guest worker in Germany. Nothing unpleasant, difficult, or demeaning about it.

Third, you suggest proving that they are not lawbreakers in order to remain. Given that they had to "break the law" to enter and that vast numbers are using stolen social security numbers and driving without licenses or with fraudulent licenses there is a whole batch of problems embedded there. Is it going to be ok for an illegal entrant to steal social security numbers or a driver's license but not anyone else? I don't want to see us go there. How would you then prosecute identity theft?

Fourth, the fine proposed by this legislation is so bogus it doesn't deserve consideration. It's a legalized mugging.

Finally, you bring up skin color. I have been around long enough to remember the desegregation riots. It is not something to take lightly. If you want to guarantee that this will become about skin color, then all you have to do is keep granting amnesties to illegal entrants. Society as a whole must be able to look at everyone and have a reasonable expectation that they got here legitimately. To continue to grant amnesties to illegals means that there is a cloud over the best of the immigrants from the south, and they will never be free of that cloud. I don't want that.

I agree wholeheartedly that there has to be some dignity at the end and the elimination of exploitation. I would maintain, however, that the place to weed out the bad apples is on the other side of the border. And we shouldn't demean those who entered legally.