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

Dana lives in England. Totally different situation over there.

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

Here's the problem--they don't pay any taxes on that low-income job. So their "take home" pay is comparable to a citizen making higher wages. There are plenty of LEGAL immigrants who pay taxes and work to become US citizens and don't attempt to get free healthcare, foodstamps, and welfare. The ones who are a drain are the ones who willfully avoid detection, can make $8 an hour (the going rate at the day laborer site here in my city)--UNTAXED, which comes out to more like the take-home of a $10/hour job--then take their wife to the hospital to have their baby for free, who then attends public school for free.

jag - i haven't seen any specific number that i'm willing to place much credibility into just because of the difficulty in figuring something like that out. i think it is fairly obvious that if you have large numbers of people working for $3-5/hour cash under the table that would have a negative impact on wages as you move up the scale.

more important that the wage degradation though is the amount of money spent on illegals once they are here. if they are caught there are legal costs. if they are ill they are treated with tax payer money, if they have a child, the child is a citizen and can qualify for food stamps, etc...

don't misunderstand, i don't think these are bad people who are worthy of death. but if they can't get here legally, then they shouldn't be here.

It is difficult to work out, there is full methadology and all the gory details in the PDF.
Beyond that i'm staying out of this one.

The one internet company I saw firsthand was about 50% illegal aliens being paid in consumer electronics and housing.

Probably not a representative sample, though.

well, right until then, this was just a discussion. so fuck you, bitch.

how does it affect my life? well as i said, i live in a state that sees a large volume of alien trafficking. we've had shootouts on our roads in rush hour. an average of one "safe house" busted/ week containing from 50-254 illegals in bad health from living in unsanitary conditions - who then need medical treatment, LE screening to check for records, a place to stay, then eventually they are released back at the border not to be seen until the next time they cross. then you look at the fact that they can go to the hospital get treatment, and who pays for it? taxpayers, that is who. they get welfare benefits for their kids, etc. and they send a large amount (some studies say 40%) of their income south of the border. our government offices are required to have spanish speaking employees. it is not uncommon to see in the news that an illegal was involved in a traffic accident and then they just run, because they have no auto insurance... those are a few ways that illegals impact my life.

ps. if you will lay off the name calling, so will i.

So what you are saying is that they have affected your life by being so poor and unhappy as to require your society's help. What villains. I think you should just sit on the borders and take em out one by one.

......Or you could make it easier for them to find legal channels into the country, allow them the rights which come with that (including the right to a driving licence and the insurance which that opens up) and see how many of them add to your economy in a positive way. I am willing to wager the vast majority , if given a leg up would enrich your country not impoverish it. They come oftne from the poorest regions of their own country, seeking to improve their lives and their childrens'......I cannot see that as a crime. The fact that it is criminal, to me points to an overly restrictive immigration policy. The law should be altered to make it easier for people who are in that situation to enter legally. These are precisely the people a society should want. These are people who truly understand the poverty trap and who would likely work their fingers to the knucklebones to build a better life......In reality many of them are already working hard and long to scrape by in squalor with no tax paid......If they were able to gain legal status they'd be less vulnerable to abuse at the hands of unscrupulous employers and would be contributors to the economy through their paid tax and consumer spending.

dana - i don't feel the need to take care of everyone in the world. my family is my responsibility and i will try to help the person to the right and left of me as much as i can.
if they would quit abandoning their own country and work to reform from within they could go far, instead they choose to take the easy way out and go someplace where generations have worked hard to achieve the standard of living that we have. we have our own problems, we don't need to import more.

Not everyone is resourced or able to work for a country's reform. How much affect do you think you could have on the White house? on local government even? What if the region you lived in was so dirt poor that there was no local economy to engage in? How do you ever get past the daily struggle of subsistence living and find time to engage in the powerplays needed to make significant changes in a country?

How far to the left or right do you look before you say these people are nothing to me, I will not give them succour?

"instead they choose to take the easy way out"

oh man. entering the USA as an illegal alien and trying to survive is the easy way out.

Dude, tell me you don't actually believe that.

where do you live CB? is it in a border state? how much interaction do you have with illegals? how much time have you spent in mexico?

i'm in arizona, it is a border state, i have a lot of interaction with illegals, and i have spent a lot of time in mexico...

just curious if you want to keep pulling your ideas out of books and hearsay or do you actually have first hand experience in the area?

because, yes, coming to the states is the easy way out. it is pathetically easy to get over here, get a fake id, get a job, and even living on minimum wage, live a better life than they left. if they stayed it wouldn't be nearly so easy - they would have to fight the forces that be to create a better country to pass onto their kids.

*Sighs*
It never ceases to amaze me. People who can walk in with little difficulty are welcomed with open arms, but the ones who have risked all that they are and all that they have and fought tooth and nail to get into a country often with the sole intention of being successful are treated like pondlife. How many stories are there in the American psyche of immigrants arriving in the States with a dollar in their pocket and then turning that dollar into a business empire across 30 years?....These are the ones who have fought to get there, who will be most loyal and most grateful and will contribute more thna they ever take if only they are given a welcome instead of being blocked from legal channels and then driven out when they still fought to get in

Maybe you find it easier to see these people as some sort of infestation because you have reduced them to mere "illegals"

And y'know, people say they dont want illegal immigrants coming from Canad either, but then.......a canadian citizen aiming to gain access to teh states and a work permit is way less likely to be refused than is a mexican

Nor I think would an illegal immigrant from Canada ( as long as he wasnt dark skinned in any way) be treated with the same disdain by the authorities whne they are caught.

It's racism. You just feel safe with it because it's seemingly based purely on legality of status but in reality is based on a gut instinct response to people you see as alien to yourself.

and again - i hope you get to stay in your fairy tale world. it just isn't that way. i hold no malice to the people. if they can get here legally, then they are welcomed with open arms.

here is one that i bet you won't understand. the mexican immigrants who did get here legally hate the illegals more than i can describe. the ones with the greatest loyalty to the country are the ones who followed the laws and gained there place here lawfully. the others have jumped the system and are breaking the law. end of story. they are breaking the law.

have you ever met me? don't even begin to tread on this ground without knowing me or my family, there may be a few surprises for you, honey.

how much experience do you have here? as far as i can tell all of your info is based on heresay or out of a book. this is life here. i don't know what the situation is with your asylum seekers, so i don't pretend to pass some sort of judgement. i know this situation here intimately and i will stand on what i have said. so take your race card and shove it, you have no right to play it here.

No you're right, I know nothing about you and i know little about your country other than the little i have gleaned from living in an American led world and all that that implies.

Your words however bear an enormous resemblance to the words of my own anti immigrant countrymen. Scratch the surface of what seems like anti illegality and I usually find a great ugly blob of racism. If I had changed a few locations in your post and changed 2illegals" to "bogus asylum seekers" it could have come form the mouth of a British racist , so do excuse my error. Maybe if I re read your words with an American accent it will sound less bigotted