Arizona was wrong, but the Feds are even more wrong...

[newtothegame]

National Security is the only thing the federal government has really been expected to do since the inception of this country. I believe their lazy, do-nothing attitude on the safety of its border states is what led to a situation where fanatics could create enough hysteria to pass the new immigration law. Even worse, it gives the right-wing nutjobs an example of what happens when government dependency falls through, and you KNOW they'll milk that...

ed for sp

[Recursion]

1. Dirty little secret: Americans don't have enough babies to let us stop immigration

You can have Social Security and Medicare, or you can stop illegal immigration. Your pick.

[MIprogressive]

3. I want to have my SSI and Medicare when I retire. ive paid into that shit.

[havocmom]

4. Another dirty little secret: too many businesses LOVE illegal immigration

It's good for bottom lines if there is a big labor pool full of people who will accept abuse and exploitation without raising a voice.

It is tolerated because the top tier wants it so. The failure of the federal government is it's subservience to a very small part of the population, and not just on border security.

Did you read the one about the president who decided it was OK for more offshore drilling at the same time there is a catastrophic oil leak from one that blew up? Top tier getting what they want, not matter the damage to the huge majority of the population, yet again.

[metalbot]

7. Or you can have legal immigration

If we stopped illegal immigration, would that somehow stop us from allowing in people from all over the world who would like to come here to work?

One of the reasons that it takes anywhere from 15-20 years for a US citizen to bring a non-citizen sibling into the US is that they have to wait for a visa number. The rate at which visa numbers are issued is based on our LEGAL immigration policy. If our illegal labor pool dried up today, we could simply allow the US embassy in Thailand (or any other country) to issue immigrant visas to the next 10000 people waiting in line.

[grantcart]

2. lazy do nothing?

The reason that Arizona now has the largest numbers of illegal immigrants is that the aggressive actions by the government over the last 15 years has significantly reduced the areas that smugglers can use to bring people across and end up using more and more isolated and remote areas, which AZ has the most of.

The increase of Border Patrol, Customs and ICE agents on the border is so substantial that vast stretches look like armed camps. The recently opened Border Patrol trainin facility in El Centro is the size of a large college, and it only serves that small area.

The proof of the governments activity is in the rising fees that smugglers charge to get here


Estimated Costs of Smuggling

Smugglers' fees vary from destination to destination, but on the whole, they have risen dramatically over the years. The prices paid to human smugglers by immigrants vary depending on the geographic location. For border crossings such as from Mexico into the United States, human smugglers can charge up to $4,000, while trans-pacific crossings of say, Chinese immigrants into the United States can cost up to $75,000. <10> These prices are significantly steeper than they were a decade ago, as demand for smuggling services continues to rise, operations become more complex, and costs of smuggling individuals become higher.

From the NYTs

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/05/15/us/15immig.html?_r=2&ref=americas

Some researchers argue that the drop in crossings from Mexico proves that tough law enforcement at the border and in American workplaces can reduce illegal immigration in times of rising unemployment in the United States. Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials stepped up factory and community raids last year, and the Border Patrol expanded its force by 17 percent in one year, to nearly 17,500 agents.

[havocmom]

5. Well, that's not the only reason. Lots of rich business owners in AZ love exploiting cheap labor

[Commie Pinko Dirtbag]

10. What did this nice RW talking point ever do to you

for you to bludgeon it to death with the evil liberal tool called reason?

[sinkingfeeling]

6. Funny, I see absolutely no connection to the Arizona law and 'national security'. And I expect my

federal government to do a heck of a lot more than guard a border, since we all know they failed at 'keeping us safe'.

[zipplewrath]

8. Actually, pandering is the real problem

The government has been overly influenced by the right on this subject. So they pass "tough" immigration laws, and then quietly don't enforce them. We could accept way more "legal" immigration than we do. Generally, we benefit more from the immigration than we suffer from it, illegal or otherwise. And many in government know this. But they refuse, for political reason, to acknowledge it. So you end up with this situation where the right has something to complain about (illegal immmigration) because no one will tell them the truth.

[dkf]

9. An American worker can't compete with a no benefit no tax paying no insurance using illegal

Immigrant. In the end many non technical positions are a Competition for the lowest wage worker who will do the job.

[zipplewrath]

11. And rarely has to

A large number of illegal workers are doing so with fradulent documentation. They are paying into various systems, including SS and workers comp, but they have little if any hope of actually using them. And many employers are afraid to pay them otherwise, because it would be a tacit admission that they are employing undocumented workers.

[Johonny]

12. Are our border states unsafe

I lived in New York, Texas and California. Not once in my life have I been unable to sleep do to fear of invasion from our borders. I mean post like this demonstrate actual hysteria rather than reality.

[pampango]

13. What if ... illegal entry was down 50%, border patrol agents had doubled, and crime along the border

was low and declining? Do you think that would cause right-wing nutjobs to ditch their wedge issue du jour? Do the actual facts have anything to do with what the right wing chooses to harp on or do they just go with what the focus groups tell them scare people the most?

[SemiCharmedQuark]

14. Oh good. Thanks for bringing Megan McCain's defense of racial profiling to DU.