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JimInMD 
Group: Members
Posts: 3112
Joined: Feb. 2011
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Posted on: Jan. 06 2013, 11:06 am |
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I'm tired of arguing about guns, let’s try something new.
What's the answer to illegal/ undocumented immigration? What would you like to see happen, what do you think is a realistic approach and what do you think is actually going to happen?
Side question, do you believe English should be made the official language and should proficiency be required for citizenship?
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Checking out for a while, find me on FB.
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| Post Number: 2
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HighGravity
Group: Members
Posts: 2324
Joined: Oct. 2009
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Posted on: Jan. 06 2013, 12:08 pm |
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Should immigrants be allowed to own guns?
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ol-zeke
me in the Tetons
Group: Members
Posts: 10792
Joined: Sep. 2002
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Posted on: Jan. 06 2013, 12:12 pm |
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English should not be our official language. To do this, our gov't would be discriminating against the many cultures that make this nation great. I see nothing wrong with printing multiple sets of instructions for whichever languages are common in each region. However, I do think children benefit from learning other languages, so ESL should be implemented at all schools that have a sufficient population that needs it.
We seem to be having no luck with our current Immigration policy, so perhaps a change is in order. We can either enforce the laws regarding employment, which will reduce the opportunities here for illegals, or we can throw up our hands and allow an open border.
Enforcing the current laws will drive up the cost of most of our food, as well as other services. I am not sure our economy could stand this option, as we are too used to cheap goods and produce.
Opening the borders and allowing as many people to immigrate as they wish might create some other difficulties such as illegal drugs, terrorists, and shoddy goods. Ok, so 2 of those are already happening.
I do not think a wall is the answer, either a material one or one made up of guards. Fences and walls can be tunneled under, as we see on the news regularly. The amount of personnel it would take to properly man the borders is so prohibitive that it cannot be taken seriously.
We seem to be trying an electronic fence in places, with cameras and responders. If we really want to be inhuman, perhaps we can use drones there as well.
IMO, we need to just open the borders and allow people the chance to improve their living conditions. Canadians deserve this. 
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Everything I know, I learned by doing it wrong at least twice.
The easiest way to ruin a Friday is to realize it is only Tuesday.
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Lisasvoice
Group: Members
Posts: 323
Joined: May 2012
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Posted on: Jan. 06 2013, 1:15 pm |
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Seeing I come from a family of European immigrants, as well as Native American blood, I do spend time pondering the immigration issue. Ideally, we humans can just float about the planet, and live where we feel compelled to live. Human politics are not so easy on the issue though. We are far more territorial for that! History says it all, as do current events.
To improve the human condition costs money. Right now the government and people of the US are very short on that (except for you rich folks). With more people come more problems, and things are becoming increasingly overcrowded. Schools are chuck full, resulting in a loss of quality education opportunities. Class sizes are insane, making it difficult to help individual students. Federal and State Programs are forking out huge amounts of money and services, and are stretched thin...very thin.
I used to be less biased, until I worked with a group of the most ungrateful, in-your-face middle school kids, most of whom where from Mexico, their parents being illegal immigrants. This group blatantly told the teacher and I that we had to teach them, and they could do anything they wanted in the classroom. That if we protested their behavior, they would report that we were sexually harrassing them (not the case). I would've given anything to have recorded that abuse on their part. They were awful! They told me they could do anything they want to in the country, and there wasn't a thing we Americans could do about it. That the country was theirs now. I was floored. I also didn't stick around past the year that I agreed to. I left wickedly perturbed with the state of things.
Obviously there are a lot of well meaning folks immigrating here, illegally or otherwise, but that time spent in the school was an eye opener for sure. Where did that many kids get those ideas from? Their families? Are we as a country saying, "come take it all, we won't stop you"? If you want to be a guest in someone's home, you first knock on the door, then wait for permission to come in. You only take what is offered to you. And you don't take everything from that home to give to your family in another country unless it is offered to you. Same to inviting your whole extended family to join you in the host's residence. I guess we have given illegal immigrants the impression that it is OK to do all that...that we are easy to walk on.
Now what? Good question!
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Lisasvoice
Group: Members
Posts: 323
Joined: May 2012
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Posted on: Jan. 06 2013, 2:07 pm |
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Pardon my spelling on that last one...
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High_Sierra_Fan
Group: Members
Posts: 39564
Joined: Aug. 2005
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Posted on: Jan. 06 2013, 2:23 pm |
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100% issuance of a national biometric identification card the presentation of which is mandatory for employment.
Get prospective employers out of the forged document detection business for once and for all.
[sarcasm] I love the enabling of all those extra languages! Since the top rated universities don't teach in any of them it ensures there's lots of people trapped in the language ghetto to perform the menial tasks the actually educated won't do. [/sarcasm]
Bi-lingual is okay as long as the most proficient is English, but that's often not the case and jollying a child along in something other than English until they're out of their neurological window for the best language adoption doesn't do them any favors at all. Fill out an application to Stanford Law in Somali recently?
It seems to me that maximizing ones potential in the United States beyond your own small circle means first having a great facility with English, just like having a great facility in Spanish is necessary to maximize ones potential in Mexico or Spain....
For the sake of maximizing everyones contribution to the nation there does seem to be a necessity for a far greater effort at getting / incentivizing people's abilities in their communication skills in English.
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bbobb169
Group: Members
Posts: 674
Joined: May 2009
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Posted on: Jan. 06 2013, 4:36 pm |
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English as offical language. Have to have ONE common language. I delivered mail and quite often a house getting certified mail, only the youngest kid could speak English...the one born in the US. How do these people survive here, etc not knowing English? Worked a fire SW of Sierra Vista, AZ.....the fence definitely disrupts illegal access. Camera's work as well. Border patrol is using drones and blimps as well. Problem is the manpower to arrest and the backbone to prosecute. Prosecute individuals or businesses hiring illegals would go a long way....but then you need a decent ID card system...then ACLU cries. Open borders don't work anymore. We cannot afford unlimited immigration, government is still broke much less add more people wanting 'entitlements'
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| Post Number: 10
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wwwest
Group: Members
Posts: 4057
Joined: Dec. 2002
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Posted on: Jan. 07 2013, 11:58 am |
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Immigration will work out on its own, just like it did for the last four waves of immigration that disturbed the establlishment so badly in the 18th, 19th, and early 20th centuries.
The German and Irish immigrations were a far larger part of the population, and the economy, than the Mexican immigration could ever become in today's world. The same language issues have been decried, time after time. We almost adopted German as the official language in 1790. (Dodged a bullet on that one!)
In parts of New York City Yiddish was the only language recognized for more than a generation.
As soon as Mexico builds up an industrialized economy, greatly helped by Free Trade policies, get their drug violence shut down and grow a middle class, the immigration crisis will fade away, as it has always done in the past. And it will be good for the US economy, once again.
Whining, and crying and passing nonsense laws that are wholly ineffective in the meantime seems to be the norm. But it will barely effect the long term outcome, if at all. The Mexican kids who are getting psychology, medicine, economics, business, high tech, engineering and law degrees in our universities will turn out to be much more important in the future than all defensive anti-immigration laws combined.
The human spirit, the drive to get ahead and individual freedom to think and act will prevail in the end, but whine away if it makes you feel better today.
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| Post Number: 11
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TigerFan
Group: Members
Posts: 2003
Joined: May 2010
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Posted on: Jan. 07 2013, 12:44 pm |
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No brilliant ideas but some random thoughts.
I have no issues with anyone from anywhere coming to this country to work. If you can apply for a job and get it, pay taxes, contribute to the economy... Great. I think it's ultimately a win-win situation for everyone.
I knew a lot of undocumented workers when I was a chef. They couldn't hire Americans to wash dishes -- nobody wanted the job and those who took it never lasted more than a week. I learned that many of them had spent a fortune to buy black market documentation (visas, social security numbers, etc.) Once in the US, they worked multiple jobs until they'd saved enough to buy black market documentation to bring over their families. What a waste. It would have been better for everyone if they could have just used that money to get started -- rent an apartment, buy a car, etc.
I do think that there should be some sort of waiting period before immigrants and their families are entitled to government assistance over and beyond things like public school. If you come to this country without a job, I don't think you're entitled to food stamps or state health care or whatever until you've worked a certain amount of time. I also think that these things should have lifetime limits for non-citizens.
I think it's totally unrealistic to require English proficiency as a criteria for emigration. People who advocate this generally have no clue how difficult it is to become proficient in another language as an adult. Proficiency comes *after* you emigrate and it really helps if you have a job. Kids will pick up English in school easily. We were an emigrant family when I was 7; I was babbling away in English within a few months.
>> How do these people survive here, etc not knowing English?
The same way Americans survive in other countries knowing only English.
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Duct tape is like the Force. It has a light side, a dark side, and it holds the universe together.
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| Post Number: 12
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wwwest
Group: Members
Posts: 4057
Joined: Dec. 2002
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Posted on: Jan. 07 2013, 1:02 pm |
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Very good points, Tiger! Thank you.
I too have worked with undocumented Mexicans and found them to be very good workers, and actually paying taxes for which they can never get a benefit.
Every worker getting a standard, accountant backed pay check has Social Security and Medicaid deducted every week but unless they get legal status they will never be able to draw Social Security and can't be enrolled in Medicaid.
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| Post Number: 13
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Old Frank
Group: Members
Posts: 624
Joined: Sep. 2007
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Posted on: Jan. 07 2013, 2:25 pm |
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Easy to tell who the illegal immigrants are around here.
When the weather gets horrible, they are the only ones outside still working.
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My favorite compliment: "GrandPa, I've seen other old men, and their faces are a whole lot cruddier than yours is".
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| Post Number: 14
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bbobb169
Group: Members
Posts: 674
Joined: May 2009
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Posted on: Jan. 08 2013, 2:50 pm |
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Opposite here......see em around in summer...........gone with the cold and snow......
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Survival Skills 101 • Eat Better
