It's interesting to see your equivalent of our illegal alien discussions ... funny, though, that in Britain (and other parts of europe) you give these lawbreakers (semantically, anyway) automatic justification because they are seeking asylum from some (presumably) oppressive system or somethingoranother.

i live in arizona so i get to deal with the ramifications of the illegal alien debate all day long. i'm not sure if the UK's asylum seeker is the same thing as an illegal alien, but if it is, damn... maybe we should ship our illegals over to the UK if you welcome them. because we sure as hell don't want them here. (that is not a racial statement. i don't want the illegal canadians, etc here anymore than i want the illegal mexicans.)

I think you should be allowed to set up at the border and pick 'em off as they try to cross. And yes, the brits are welcome to ours ... problem is that if they got our kinds of numbers of illegals (from all over the world, incidentally) the British Isles would become the new Atlantis from the weight of the population suddenly added (please note, previous statment is hyperbole. I know that GB would not sink into the sea under these circumstances, much as she may want to).

you know, some ranchers did post "no trespassing" signs and said they were going to pick them off, but i haven't heard too much since then. i know some activist group is attempting to sue because they were banned from placing water aid stations in the desert for the border crossers.

and in further news another group representing the families of 14 aliens who died in the desert from heat exhaustion a few years ago is suing the state for $47million because we didn't have water aid stations in place, our border agents made crossing difficult so the dead folks were "forced" to cross in a very dangerous area. if that isn't a load of shit i don't know what is.

on top of that - mexico's new border control guy, supports eliminating the border.

I think maybe you'd get along with the BNP , they want to shoot pakis you want to take potshots at the poorest most hopeless people who straggle across your borders in the hope of a better life. What a grotesque parody of humanity.

no i don't want to shoot poor hopeless people. i want to stay in their own country and work from within to reform it. if they are unwilling or unable to do so, i want them to stand in line and try to gain entrance legally. what i do not want is for them to cross the border, have children who are instant citizens, have access to my tax dollars in the form of foodstamps, medical care, etc... then because they are illegal they take jobs at a lower rate of pay than required by law, driving down everyone's wages, not to mention that they send, on average 40% of that money south of the border, which doesn't help our economy. then lets remember the cost of dealing with the drug trade running back and forth, along with the coyotes who scam their money, then dump them in my community...
so dana - until you see the actual consequences of large scale illegal immigration - take your judegment and bugger off.

You think the UK hasn't seen the impact of large scale immigration?
Get a clue.

NumbersUSA

Investors Business Daily, Feb 4th, 2004

and really, the numbers don't matter. they are Illegal aliens. they entered illegally, they broke the law so pardon me if i don't endorse the behavior

I'm really amazed at the number of apparent native americans, and native British people posting here.

Because obviously you all didn't immigrate into the countries you currently live in...right?

Right?

i've heard the argument before.
we're not talking about closing borders so no one else can get in. most of our ancestors did come here under whatever legal system was in place at the time. the US that existed 2,3 or more generations ago could sustain larger numbers of immigrants with the type of work that was available. farming was still an extremely labor intensive endeavor, factories were abundant, land was plentiful and cheap.

What are you saying, labourers per unit area is greater with farming than it is with, say, the IT industry?

Or did I miss your point?

Because somehow I think that working 12 people on 200 acres of land is a little less efficient than, say, a modern internet firm with 100 employees and almost no overhead.

I love your argument, that the USA was more "ripe for immigration" than it is now.

Shows me the type of fact-checking I can expect from you.

no, but thanks for ignoring the biggest fact. we are not talking about stopping immigration. we are talking about ILLEGAL immigration.

but just to answer quickly - how many illegal aliens show up and are prepared to go to work in an IT dept.? or anywhere in the business world for that matter? no - even proponents of throwing open the borders state that the vast majority of illegals will work in low income, labor intensive positions. of course, i can check those facts by taking a brief stroll through the area here.

I did see a fairly well respected study that pointed out that immigrant workers, legal and illegal were responsable for an average 2.5% wage retardation in the US over the last 20 years.

How many are allowed to work those jobs?

Didn't Dana just state a few posts ago that it takes forever before they're ALLOWED to seek work?

And you wonder why they take low income jobs at less than minimum wage. It's the only way they can eat, man.

And for a country that can produce edible panties, The Simple Life, a microwave with the Internet, an SUV culture, and Wal-Mart, I think it's our duty to take on a few of the "illegal aliens" from countries we've been fucking over with dirt cheap labour and such for the past bunch of decades.

Americans are a culture that loves to bitch when their precious way of life is tampered with.

Explain to me exactly how illegal aliens have made your life hell, moron. Explain why you are suffering as a human being, due to them.

edit: that was pretty harsh. I'll be more rational now, but I stand by my opinions, i'm just having a shitty day.

Found the source for that:
Here
I've read a few by this guy, seems to produce some of the better recent work on the labour market.