Less than a week ago, the second attempt at a bill granting amnesty to illegal aliens failed. This second bill was filled with more promises to the American people that we will be able to secure our borders, and the illegal aliens would be held accountable for breaking our laws. We didn't buy it. The citizens of this country are sick of hearing promises we know will be unfulfilled and we are speaking out. I anxiously awaited the outcome of this bill in the Senate and flipped through the AM stations on my radio to see how it would unfold. While listening to the Tom Marr show based out of Baltimore, something interesting happened. The switchboard in Washington went down. There were so many calls - and I'm only guessing here - by angry citizens wanting it to fail, that the switchboard collapsed. I believe this sent a clear message to everybody from Bush's administration, to Congress and the Senate that we do not believe that this bill would be beneficial to America (to say it mildly). There were many Senators that could have voted either way and I would figure that this incident swayed them to vote against it.
Recently my job sent me down to Texas for a two week class. One of the other people also in that class was a border patrol agent. Though he had many stories about his job and what he is allowed to do and not allowed to do, one story really caught my attention. He was out on patrol one day and noticed a whole group of people coming towards him rather quickly. At that point, the only thing for him and the other agent to do was to hide and call it in. The Mexican military was escorting what he believed were drug runners right into our country. They passed our border and continued inland until they felt the people they were escorting made it safely across. At that time, the Mexican military proceeded back into Mexico where they belong. He told us the only reasonable thing to do during a situation like that WAS to hide. Their military doesn't fool around and if they would have tried to stop them, they most definitely would have been shot. My friend said this happens more than you can imagine.
Here are some things that I feel would help deal with our illegal immigration problems:
Step One: The only way to stop illegal aliens - not undocumented Americans - from coming into this country, is to secure our borders. What ever happened to the money that was allocated to build that fence? With terrorists coming into our country - most likely on a daily basis - how is securing our borders a political issue? Isn't this more of a national security issue? Not if you ask the people in Washington.
Step Two: Enforce the laws on the books already. Adding more laws will do nothing if we aren't willing to enforce the ones we have. Deport all lawbreakers that aren't Americans. Seek out the ones that have already been convicted and released that we know are still in this country illegally and as new ones are caught, deport them also. This will curb the gang violence and send a whole lot of undesirable people out of this country. There is no place for them here.
Step Three: Work on some sort of plan that will allow people to come to this country to get educated or work for a specified amount of time. Make sure they leave once their time is up. Set up some sort of task force that only deals with ensuring "guests" leave our country. Force them to leave if they are still unwilling to do so. Arrest the individual, annotate his/her unwillingness to leave and the circumstances surrounding the incident, ensure that person does not come back because there is a strong possibility he/she would do it again. That individual knew that at some point he/she would have to leave. I am all for people coming to America to receive an education or to work for a specified amount of time. I believe that we are a country that wants people to come here (if they do it legally) and it shows the rest of world that we are an accepting, peace loving society.
Step Four: Deal with the illegal aliens that we have in our country already that besides being here illegally, have not broken any other laws. Yes they haven't paid a single dime of taxes, or paid their own health care, but a lot have been here for a very long time and to just deport everybody would be unreasonable. The logistics of that alone would be impossible. There's also the human factor here. A lot have started families and have kids that are Americans and a lot have set up roots whether we want to accept it or not. There are ways to allow these people to become citizens without putting their applications ahead of someone who is patiently waiting. A huge penalty would be to make them wait behind everybody else, pay the amount of taxes that they owe (this would most likely be a roundabout guess) and force them to know the English language before they could even apply.
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12 comments:
"deport[ing] everybody would be unreasonable."
Not as unreasonable as you may think. it's simply a matter of trying. Earlier this year the streets of Los Angeles was flooding with rioting illegal aliens. How many arrests were there?
"Yes they haven't paid a single dime of taxes"
Well, actually they often have. Illegals use forged ID documents to obtain employment, and their employers do pay payroll taxes. This is where the argument that illegals should get Social Security comes from; they pay into the system under their sham ID, and think they should be entitled to the benefits.
And yes, they should absolutely have to learn some English. There's no sensible reason that I should have to 'press here for English' at my ATM. I'm all for a guest worker program, but part of being able to work here is being able to handle basic communication in the language of the land.
Whoopsie! Almost forgot the main point. Step one should actually be "get rid of career politicians". Institute congressional term limits; one term in the senate, and two in the house. Democrats will care less about seizing the voting block that illegals represent, and Republicans will care less about appeasing campaign donors whose labor costs are kept nice and low by the abundance of cheap labor.
When they're less concerned about holding onto their jobs, they can focus more on things like good governance. "Will it keep me in office?" can be replaced by "Is it good for America?"
I would say that an alarming majority work under the table jobs and just get cash, especially anyone who works in agriculture, landscaping, construction, day laborers, ect. Most don't hold jobs that require proper documentation.
Employers like Walmart, Tyson, and sundry hotels don't pay under the table, and all are know to employ/have employed illegals. Agriculture workers may be much easier to pay off the books, but contractors, landscapers, etc. all have to be able to show where their money went. It's hard for a $500k business to say that they went through $160k in petty cash last year; in contrast, it's pretty easy to not look too carefully at the documents you're shown when you hire someone.
So what if the baritone applicant is 6' 2" with a face full of stubble? Their driver's licence says she's Marisol Guerrera, so just file the I9 and pay the taxes.
I'm not disagreeing that there are tons of fake documents out there allowing illegals to get jobs, but I'm mainly talking about the thousands and thousands of really small businesses that hire these people, like Joe Schmo liquor store owner who has 3 employees. We've even seen on the news a few times where the Feds have caught big businesses hiring illegals. How many people do you know have had a job that pays under the table? Since there is a consensus that between 12-20 million people are in this country illegally, they have to be working somewhere. When the Feds raid companies they'll find dozens of people, but highly unlikely they'll find thousands. And even then, you'd be talking about thousands of large businesses that hire thousands of illegals. I still think that most people here work under the table for small businesses. It's entirely too easy to do it and make good money.
I've worked off the books, and I've known others who have, but only on a part-time or temporary basis. My point was that it's too hard for a small business owner to pay full time employees off the books; that's too much money unaccounted for. If it really were easy, everyone would rather go that route - the business owner saves money, and the employee doesn't pay taxes either. What's not to like?
I agree that small business is where most illegals will probably be found, but small business owners need to account for their money at tax time. They, even more than larger businesses, need to have any regular employees on payroll. They can only disguise the disappearance of so much money as legitimate-but-undocumented expenses.
Illegals needn't even have faked ID to get a job. They can use legitimate documents that simply aren't theirs. It's not that uncommon for an illegal to get a job using a (legal resident) friend or family member's ID. They can even split a tax return that way. Hector just has to pretend to be Jesus while at work.
My current employer has hired illegals under the table for a handful of odd jobs. He did it by paying himself extra (which he had to pay taxes on) and then paying them cash out of his pocket.
I know there are plenty of illegals off the books, I just have a lot of trouble believing it could even be a majority of them. It's just not so easy for millions of people to get paid tax-free.
I believe it's definitely possible for millions of people to live not paying taxes. Spread the illegals out all over the whole entire country, let them work various odd jobs for not a particularly long period of time, and it's very easy.
I think you are mainly right when it comes to keeping people on a payroll, off the books for a long time. I've seen it done. A friend of mine has worked off the books full time for years while going to school.
Remember, that I'm also looking at the big picture. Will the Feds deport everyone, absolutely not. The ramifications of looking like a racist alone are enough for them not too. The big picture is that these people are in America illegally, we can deal with them as long as we secure our borders first. We can't begin to touch the problem we have with illegals if the number just continues to grow and grow. Bite the bullet, secure our borders, try to assimilate the good ones that are here that have roots for a specified amount of time and deport all criminals. I think that isn't out of the realm of possibility for our government.
No, you're right, we can do that - although you make a "good ones" distinction that I'm not sure I agree with. Consider that my own border plan includes components like automated miniguns along the 30' southern wall, and tasers to the genitalia of any law enforcement officer found to have caught & released an illegal alien, and you should have some idea where I stand on that.
I think the automated miniguns might be a little bit excessive. They would cost a lot of money and may not be as reliable as they need to be. You also would have to put vast amounts of them in very short intervals to cover the what, 1500 miles or more (I don't know how long the border is) of the border. They won't be able to make a distinction between us and the illegals or innocent people that are walking by the border (my friend who lives in El Paso says that people do it quite a bit), or deer type animals.
How about a team of people with unmanned aerial aircraft that monitor the border. They really can cover a great deal of land, like a mile or two at a time. Those are really cheap and if you have agents on the border that are always on standby, you can cover greater distances that way if this is included with a 30 foot/double fence. Make it really really hard to get into this country. It would look like a prison, but who cares as long as we are securing our borders. If you put censors on the fence you can tell exactly where people are and can respond very rapidly, especially if we have the assistance of the UAVs.
Oh yeah, and the tasers to genitalia of the officers who just let them go would be interesting.
screw the fence, landmine the entire border! then we can take out the border jumpers AND their military escort!
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