Are we talking about any particular immigrants into any particular country?

First offense, deport. Second offense, put them in Alcatraz with minimal food drops from a helicopter that they all have to fight over.

That's very civilized Draugnar...

Sorry, illegal immigrants into the USA. Don't really know where they come from other than Mexico, I'll leave that up to you informed people to discuss.

Illegal immigrants into the USA come from all over. I met some Scots once who illegally entered the US through Canada.

Sealing up the borders wouldn't be a bad idea, and then changing the laws so that only children born to US citizens are US citizens. That way we wouldn't have the problem of an illegal mother being here and having a kid, so then they can't deport the mother and leave the kid to fend for himself, ect, ect. Also, although this might sound crazy, it might be a good idea to give the border patrols authority to shoot on sight. I'm not entirely sure if this is the right path, but it's one to think about.

Two parts (which need to be done simultaneously):
1. Increase the number of legal immigrants allowed to enter the country (since the presence of illegal immigrants clearly indicates that we don't have enough legal ones).
2. Increase border security and send back any illegal immigrants that are caught here.

Ilegal immigration is like illegal drugs. As long as there is a need, they will come. You have to eliminate the need for cheap labor while changing the laws. This is NOT an easy problem to tackle. However, I am sure that some of you have the "correct" answer, so I can't wait to hear it.

Wow.

As a nation of immigrants (and of course, all of our ancestors entered this country legitmately.... riiiight), its a bit odd to see this.

You know why we get a lot of illegal immigrants in this country: Because there are jobs for them.. Jobs that your average American won't do for the amount of money it pays. You want to dry up illegal immigration, go after the companies that hire them.

I can't fault anybody who is trying to make a better life for themselves.... and the immigrants I've worked around are some hardworking bastards..... they worked harder than I did, for damn sure.

Not to mention Cuba.

Thanks vamos. I was secretly hoping someone would start one so I could spectate and maybe inform myself since to be honest, I haven't given much critical thought to illegal immigration. Both my parents were immigrants (fully legal) so that probably affects my default position of sympathy for illegal immigrants. Well that and I'm not much of a nationalist.

I'm not sure I understand the logic that as long as the need for low-paying laborers exists, we will have illegal immigration (as both jimgov and Nola claim). I'm not saying its incorrect - however from an economic standpoint, even if the need didn't exist, we may still have illegal immigrants who come and push down wages. Perhaps its not that low-wage laborers are needed, but wages need to rise in certain industries?

Literally millions of Mexicans are working for wages that very few citizens would work for doing jobs that are as physical and brutal as you can imagine. If you remove them all of the sudden, who does those jobs? And you can't just raise wages for gardeners, manual laborers, strawberry pickers, etc. The price of everything would skyrocket. This not a simple problem. This isn't some kid wanting more spending money for his job at McDonalds.

It's pretty hilarious to see anyone who claims to believe in liberty say that it's justified to send people to prison (or shoot them!) because of where they choose to live and work. It's one more reminder that "liberty" is a code word for "the freedom for people like us to do what we want."

No problem Chris:]

"Literally millions of Mexicans are working for wages that very few citizens would work for doing jobs that are as physical and brutal as you can imagine. If you remove them all of the sudden, who does those jobs? And you can't just raise wages for gardeners, manual laborers, strawberry pickers, etc. The price of everything would skyrocket. "

Yes, prices would go up, but they wouldn't stay up, although you probably need to look at each job separately. Take gardeners/landscapers. The price would go way up, as landscapers would need to pay a legal wage. Two things would happen. 1, more legal residents of the US would go into the 'gardening' field, which would increase the supply. 2, people would forgo landscaping, or do it themselves, lowering demand.

Same with picking strawberries - prices of strawberries would go up, allowing the wages to rise, making more people become strawberry pickers. People would also buy less strawberries.

Any company or individual who employs someone without legal residency papers, should be fined Dollars/€uro's 100,000 per offence, and 200,000 for each successive offence.
That would stop illegal migration (for work) dead in its tracks, and it's not only a US problem - here in Western Europe it is a major social-economic hardly controlled phenomenon, and I believe it's global (also Taiwan, Japan, Thailand etc are having similar problems).

Simple solution - so why has that never been implemented yet? Answer: Big business - equals - big government...... Dahhhhhh!!! Low wages are to big business like honey to a bee....

Build a fence to the heavens, increase border patrol spending, deport illegals without question. However, make the legal residency and refugee statues processes easier to encourage legal immigration.

Legal immigrants are awesome, but if you enter a country illegally I have no sympathy for you if something bad happens to you as a result of that illegal entry.

I was being facetious earlier with the Alcatraz comment, but I see a lot of options here that, if implemented together, could make the system much better.

Pantalone's fines are one such example. Discourage illegal employment by making it financially unviable. But seizures of property work even better. Find a group of illegals working a field or mowing lawns and every piece of equipment they are using becomes forfeit. How long is a landscaper going to stay in business having to constantly rebuy their mowers and trimmers and such.

And I agree with TMW (my God, did I just say that?) that legal immigration should be made easier. There was a time when a simple trip through Ellis Island got you in the country legally and we didn't turn anyone back. Yes, we have to be careful of flooding an already stressed economy with a bunch of new workers, but the current laws are so complex and restrictive as to make would be legal immigrants feel like their only option is to sneak across the border.

Finally, the jobs the illegals currently do could still be paid a fair wage by providing tax breaks to companies who sponsored legals and paid them a fair wage. This would allow the landscapers and farms to pay the wage to the immigrants looking for a better life without unduly burdening them or significantly raising the cost of their goods and services.

@Draugnar

That last post sounds pretty good to me.

My thoughts...

There are two big reasons illegal immigration is unacceptable to me as an American citizen: 1) the potential danger some illegal immigrants represent (some of the 9/11 hijackers came through the border crossing that enters into the county in Texas where my grandmother lives, close to Brownsville, TX; the drug cartels already spill into the US, and it's probably only going to get worse) and 2) if your presence in this country is illegal you shouldn't be getting free benefits of any sort from the government (yes, it does happen...and no, the recent health bill doesn't prevent it - if you disagree please read the bill itself).

The biggest issue is the potential danger to American citizens. Realistically if Mexico can't get the cartels under control (my mother just got back from south Texas a week ago and witnessed two shoot-outs in Nuevo Progresso, just across the border from Hidalgo County, Texas - one of which involved automatic weapons) it will spread across the border and become our problem in a more direct way.

For an example of how bad it already is there, last I checked the mayor of Juarez, Mexico, was still living in El Paso because he was too scared to live in his own city.

Anyone who has ever seen the Rio Grande knows you just have to find the right place and you can walk right into Texas, and nothing can/will be done about it (people "sin papeles" are extremely common in my grandmother's town and lots of her neighbors are renters who are illegal immigrants - they're great people, but realistically there are too many risks because of the not-so-great people who also want to come over, and there numbers will only increase as the cartels gain more power in Mexico and thereby become hungry for even greater growth of power).

@ jman777: "Also, although this might sound crazy, it might be a good idea to give the border patrols authority to shoot on sight."

You're right, that sounds crazy. Because it IS crazy. What if someone with dual US/Mexican citizenship was taking a walk in the border area? Would you encourage the border guards to take a pop at them?


@ DingleBerryJones: "even if the need didn't exist, we may still have illegal immigrants who come and push down wages. Perhaps its not that low-wage laborers are needed, but wages need to rise in certain industries?"

Yes. You need a proper minimum wage which is rigorously enforced.


@ pastoralan: "It's pretty hilarious to see anyone who claims to believe in liberty say that it's justified to send people to prison (or shoot them!) because of where they choose to live and work. It's one more reminder that "liberty" is a code word for "the freedom for people like us to do what we want."

Pastoralan +1. The USA is a nation of immigrants. But a few generations down the line, the descendents of those immigrants have forgotten that.

Also, if the USA hadn't spent years pursuing a foreign policy of fucking on the people of places like Puerto Rico, Haiti, Cuba, El Salvador etc, people from those countries wouldn't have to try to get to the USA in search of a decent life.


@ Pantalone: "...and it's not only a US problem - here in Western Europe it is a major social-economic hardly controlled phenomenon, and I believe it's global (also Taiwan, Japan, Thailand etc are having similar problems)."

As a resident of the UK, I can honestly say that immigration is not a major problem in this country. Oh, people THINK it's a problem, because right-wing conservative newspapers such as the Daily Mail, the Daily Express, The Sun and the Daily Telegraph are constantly frightening them with horror stories about the dangers of immigration. But it's not. It's a phantom problem. If the papers stopped talking about it, it would become a minor issue most people would neither notice nor worry about.

Here's an example to illustrate the difference between reality and the fictional, percieved reality that people have thanks to the press scare stories:

I was recently in a pub in the town of Stanley, County Durham. At the last census, Stanley was reported as being one of the WHITEST towns in the UK, with over 98% of the town's population listing their ethnicity as "White British". In the pub, a man said these exact words to me:

"The amount of immigration into this country is a disgrace. In ten years' time, you won't see a single white face in this town. Indigenous white people like us will have been ethnically cleansed by all these blacks and musilims the government is shipping in."


@ TMW: "make the legal residency and refugee statues processes easier to encourage legal immigration."

Oh my god. I share Draugnar's shock. For the second time this year, I agree with TMW.

I suspect I'm about to agree with Jamiet, now.

I don't believe that there should be restrictions on immigration beyond:
- No immigration if you have a criminal record for an offense of the nature of theft or violence against another person. (speeding or the like doesn't count)
- Terrorists may not enter the country.

I believe that people have the right to employ whomever they wish, and it is illegitimate for the government to say that you can't employ him because he is foreign.

In order for this kind of policy to work, "social security" cannot be maintained in the manner of today, and minimum wage legislation should be scrapped too.

Once you institute this policy, you also have the pleasure of being able to police the borders much more easily: that man climbing the fence is definitely a criminal, so just shoot.

"I believe that people have the right to employ whomever they wish, and it is illegitimate for the government to say that you can't employ him because he is foreign."

They don't do this now. You can employ foreigners that are legal residents.

I hope you are being facetious, Ghost. First, you can ask your country to handle immigration that wya if you like: people are clamboring to get into it like they are the US. Second, not only would that open of immigration policies cause us to have to scrap Social Security, but welfare and both our current and the new healthcare systems as well. Oh, and a mandated minimum wage is all that stands between some unfortunate souls and homelessness, starvation, and death.

* people *aren't* clamboring...

I do not agree to TMW. Building fences, border patrols, fetching and deporting illegals: it's all VERY EXPENSIVE. What do you think such a system will cost? Now I'm not an American civilian myself and I don't know if it's much better here.

What if the American government makes naturalisation more accessible? That way illegal immigrant groups will get civil rights and increased power on the labour market. Or am I just being naive now and would that lead to a higher unemployment rate and more immigrants from other parts of the world?

If you just open the border wide, letting everyone except terrorists and criminals in, economic theory says that people will come across the border until economic conditions (housing, health, wages) on both sides of the border are identical. If you take things from a world view, this is a great thing, spreading the wealth.

However I don't think this is something most Americans would get behind, as it would mean a great reduction in their wages and a big change in their way of life. Nor pressed with a similar issue do I think most Europeans would get behind either.

Post the national guard every 200 feet or so with fully automatic machine guns. When they come across the border, mow them down and harvest their bodies for organs.