From CNN:


Heres my take on it.. First of all, I question Senator Harkin when he said:

From Learfield Communications/Radio Iowa:



What I see here, is a United States Senator saying that "Oh Well, We dont care if they've been here for years illegally.. we're just going to turn our backs on that little detail and make them legal." What are they thinking? Immigrant workers taking jobs that others wont take? Well we would take them if the illegal immigrants weren't gobbling them all up!

I dont want to get too much into this in THIS post.. I would like to open it up first.


This post has been edited by OpaQue: Dec 4 2006, 10:19 AM

You'd think so but in a lot of cases, locals aren't prepared to do the type of work that immigrants (legal or otherwise) seem to pick up. As for making illegals legal, maybe it's actually cheaper for the government? I don't know anything about how your system works, I'm just posing a possibility.

Yea, they're gobbling them up, cause they're not filled! Where were these other people, legal citizens, when these jobs became available? Apparently, nowhere. These immigrants came here to earn a living. How does that happen? By getting hired.

Well, it is not all that simple. Maybe the people were there looking for the jobs, but the organization hired some employment agency to do their hiring for them. Then this employment agency is working for the purpose of finding jobs for illegals. This is what happened in Michigan. A tribe of Indians in Acme, MI, bought a large hotel complex. They didn't have the knowledge to hire the employees they needed, so they contracted an employment agency to do it for them. Unfortunately, this agency had a pool of illegals to draw from and they hired them on to work for the hotel. They were eventually found out, but look at the jobs that legal citizens could have been hired for if this agency had been on the up and up. Jobs are hard to find on your own. I went through a legitimate employment agency years ago myself. So don't be too quick to condemn the legals that "weren't around". Another thing you need to take into consideration is that these illegals are most of the time working and living as a group. This way they can gobble up all the minimum wage part-time jobs, combine their resources and survive. So many employers are going to this format to save having to pay benefits. People cannot survive in today's economy in these sorts of jobs. My goodness, it takes two full-time incomes at least just to buy a house.

Now as to the Senator's solution. Bah, Humbug. If they are in this country illegally, they need to be sent back where they came from.

That was the point I was trying to make: what if the cost of tracking down, rounding up, detaining, processing and deporting these people is more expensive than letting them stay and making them pay taxes?

But isn't of America the land of promise for years now? Weren't your ancestors immigrants? How were they different from these immigrants? Why not incorporate them into the melting pot that is America and make it harder for them to leave?

I happen to be an immigrant. Me an dmy family immigrated here when I was three years old, and we were honest hard-working people. And about the thing PsyberMind said about immigrants "gobbling up" our jobs, that is just plain STUPID. It's not like some Mexican waits in a parking lot, ambushes some guy and literally takes his job. That's not how it works. Some lazy fat American elitist snob is probably thinking that mopping up vomit is "beneath his dignity" so what do you think companies like walmart and target are going to do? Of course they're going to hire illegal immigrants! (or legal immigrants for that matter)

And I totally agree with what Kim said about our ancestors being immigrants and America being just one big melting pot. If it weren't for immigrants, America would just be some bland and boring country.

And as for Mich saying that illegal immigrants need to be sent back to where they came from, that is the epitome of American mentality. Face it, the culture and appeal of America is built on illegality and vice. Would Las Vegas be so tempting if their were no casinos and prostitutes? Back in the 1920's during Prohibition, were there not people in speakeasies brewing illegal alcohol?

Now, don't get me wrong, I'm not anti-American or anything. I'm proud to be a citizen of this country and I am glad that I escaped from the anti-semetism of the USSR at the tender age of 3. But sometimes, Americans can just be downright ignorant.

But typically that isnt the case. Employers hire immigrant workers simply because they will work for any compensation rate. Because employers are too cheap to pay people what they are worth. Instead, they pay someone peanuts to mop up a floor when a qualified janitor, who is worth at least 6 bucks an hour, is just too expensive. And I'm not talking about coroporate jobs. I'm talking about labor based jobs.. Fields, meat processing plants, etc.. companies like that hire migrant workers because TYPICALLY.. not always.. they can get away with paying them under the minimum wage, when someone who WANTS to work, who is legal, but KNOWS how much they should be paid, is shunned away because it costs the employer too much

I mean, I'm all for immigration reform, but to simply turn our backs on people who have been here for years illegally and just issue them a green card like they did nothing wrong? I dont think thats the best course of action