Why are there immigration laws
 

UT and I hare having a debate on this topic and we need some more input - so we are turning to the cellar.

Why are there immigration laws?

I say it's to control the economy - UT says it's because people don't like foreigners

what say the cellarites?

My redneck take on this's mostly about economy, but it's a hell of a lot deeper than that. Maybe more along the lines of haves & have-nots. I find it strange that, with all the staff, resources our law-makers have they can't find, fix the problem. Pandering for votes? You bet. Just look at the laws that pass in this state. My :2cents:

I'd say both with the economy being the overt reason. I don't see why we bother with them actually other than to make work for the employees of the INS. The immigration problem could be squelched by coming down hard on employers who hire workers without green cards. But I guess those employers grease the right palms, the workers get an all expense paid trip back home and then walk back over to their job again.

"So, why'd you miss work last week, Gonzalez?"

"La migra, senor!"

"OK, just don't get picked up again at the height of the season."

So much for immigration laws. :neutral:

I don't know, they dont enforce the laws we have. Whats wrong with having the military patrol the borders? Just my:2cents:

I don't think so. I know some Africans that live in MA that have overstayed their visas by as much as 9 years. Every year they get a letter from the INS telling them to get out within 30 days.
The INS knows where they are, they send them letters, for gods sake, but they don't come looking for anyone....ever.:(

What? Have the military protect our national borders? What are you? Some kind of whacko libertarian or something? Everybody knows that we have a military to go bring democracy to other countries (preferably oil producing ones) whether they want it or not.

I suppose the next thing you'll want is a congress that is actually responsible to the people and not Halliburten!

Jeez! :right:

You are both correct. Sort of. Immigration laws pacify the isolationists. The utter lack of enforcement pacifies big business. The paradox pacifies the intellectuals. The highly publicized spot enforcement pacifies the rest.

Immigration is a politicians' wet dream.

That is a nice little blurb.

Since government is really just an artifact of tribal society, promoting fear of the other is governments most important job.

This is what I ment to say.

Without a doubt, those are the most cynical, paranoid, and concise explanations I have ever seen.

I love you guys!:love:

And accurate, Rich......don't forget accurate.:thumb2:

First learn reasons why so many immigrants. United States laws for corporate welfare make it virtually impossible for many jobs to be created where jobs would be better located AND where the same labor exists. Sugar and corn are but two industries, heavily subsidized with corporate welfare, but better performed overseas. US government corporate welfare checks lower world prices of sugar and corn making such jobs impossible in Central America, South America, and Africa.

Free trade - we hype it publicly and then subvert it with policies that undermine jobs where immigrants reside. Then we so hype a fear of THEM as to even demand that Canadians carry passports.

The problem is not immigration. Immigration is only a symptom. The problem is why we are not putting vast resources of labor to work - which is historically how America got rich. Another symptom of that failure is a vast disparity created only by that border.

Yes many jobs require immigrants. And there are many industries - such as mushrooms - that are better performed by those immigrants in their home countries. Illegal immigrant numbers around The Cellar are so large that a nearby suburban radio station for those illegal immigrants is 690 AM.

Since not willing to address the problem, then we will waste vast time and resources promoting hate to keep them out - curing symptoms while only make more enemies. The economy controls itself if government does not distort it - tariffs, et al increase the need for illegal immigrants - corporate welfare. Meanwhile hate and fear promotes knee jerk responses such as military border campaigns rather than address the reason for that immigration. Yes, many immigration laws get promoted due to fear of foreigners rather than to address a problem. America historically resorts to walls when America cures symptoms rather than solve a problem.

How entrenched is American corporate welfare? Previously noted was the Cancun WTO conference terminated three days early because of American corporte welfare that also makes illegal immigration worse:
Isolationism But instead the entire conference failed three days earlier for reasons including this one: How can one have an informed opinion of illegal immigration and not even know what happened in Cancun? Its called curing symptoms - too often using hate, fear, and other emotions to justify immigration laws.

No free trade? Then people flee to where jobs are available. A subtitle from that Economist report was It included this picture to demonstrate an attitude that also increases our immigration problem:

Theodore Roosevelt's ideas on Immigrants and being an AMERICAN in 1907.

"In the first place, we should insist that if the immigrant who comes here in good faith becomes an American and assimilates himself to us, he shall be treated on an exact equality with everyone else, for it is an outrage to discriminate against any such man because of creed, or birthplace, or origin. But this is predicated upon the person's becoming in every facet an American, and nothing but an American... There can be no divided allegiance here. Any man who says he is an American, but something else also, isn't an American at all. We have room for but one flag, the American flag... We have room for but one language here, and that is the English language... and we have room for but one sole loyalty and that is a loyalty to the American people."

Theodore Roosevelt 1907
And here is a link to http://www.snopes.com/quotes/teddyroos.asp

So how is Roosevelt's point relevant to this discussion?

Don't fit for you? Don't read the damn post.

What does that mean? The original question also remains unanswered: So how is Roosevelt's point relevant to this discussion? Simple question. Answer should be just as simple. How is Roosevelt's point relevant?

Well, I don't know what busterb's point was, but Teddy's little diatribe sounds a bit xenophobic to me. Sure, we shouldn't allow people to come over here and be citizens while at the same time working actively to overthrow the government on behalf of some foreign power, but I have no problem with "hyphenated" Americans. So someone is Mexican-American. BFD. This is an English speaking country, so if people want to get anywhere here, it would be helpful for them to learn English. If they want to speak Swahili or pig Latin in the privacy of their own homes, I couldn't care less.

As far as a person becoming in every facet an American, look at the Pennsylvania Dutch. They've been here longer than a lot of other folks, they still speak a form of German dialect among themselves, and they haven't exactly blended into the main stream. I notice that none of them have tried to blow up any government buildings lately, either.

Old Teddy made his pronouncement at the turn of the last century when this country was getting flooded with European immigrants. Folks were feeling pretty overwhelmed by them all, and you can see that in Teddy's statement. Given the times, his words were actually rather magnanimous of him.

Bully.

The root of the immigrant problem isn't really within our borders. Where we get illegal inmigrantes from are those places not blessed with a middle class visible without strong magnification. Examine the matter from that point of view: once there are opportunities at home, the illegals aren't going to have to thrash their way up the economic fish-ladder past the barriers of work skills, language, et cetera that are presented here. It's the utter paucity of opportunity at home that drives them to try their fortune here.

This is why the whole of South and Central America could use a thorough dose of libertarianism. Right now corrupt officialdom and a prevailing disenlightenment among the wealthy stand in the way of a prosperity that would be fairly easily gained otherwise.

Mari: Dutch is a form of terrorism unto its own ;)

From Mechanix Illustrated 9-1949. You can see the rest of the pictures and read the article, here. :cool:

Yes, the US does seem to have those problems. :p

I've always been (and still am) an open borders guy but our recent problem with sewer rats in the cellar kinda makes you think. I'll assume the boredom of slow replies is our friend here, but then again lack of content apparently isn't boring so what is?

That's a good question -- and that was a bad answer. Mexico still needs a visible middle class.

Then it would be Mexico with the inmigrante problem.

What part? The march? The law they were protesting?

These parts, I think.

Those would be the bits, thank you.

I wonder how many of those 700,000 are registered voters? Also, excluding illegals and children, what %tage of those eligible are registered?
Like the civil rights movement, they'd have to work on registration and getting the voters to the poll. :eyebrow:

Aztlan activists unfortunately identify with the Palestinians. (Forced off their land and all when the US map was drawn). Its the radical far left, you can find a parallel with the radical far right advocating shooting the wetbacks. Note that they are not the majority, even if they have a website and a digital camera. Nor, do I hope are the border vigilantes.

This thread was created in anticipation of AG's demise.

I never considered that aspect before, but its an interesting point. The Spanish settlers of New Mexico and southern Colorado (many of whom can trace their ancestry back to the time when Mexico was still a colony of Spain), were deprived of important land and water rights which had been given them by law from the Spanish Crown.

Naturally, when the US won the Mexican American War, it had little interest in any legal documents between inhabitants who had been there for almost 200 years and any treaties they might have had with a foreign nation. The US usurped any water rights (VERY important in the arid American West) and rights to common grazing lands that the people who were living there once had. This was done (as always) to benefit a few backers of the administration currently in power. Whatever lands these sycophants didn't want were later turned over to the Forest Service and the BLM. Without water to irrigate their fields and land on which to allow their stock to graze, the small farmers who had at least been making a living were turned ultimately into welfare recipients and deemed "lazy Mexicans."

If you ever drive through Magdalena, New Mexico and get a rock thrown through you're windshield, you'll now know why. :eyebrow:

While history is important, immigration today is a different matter. It's hard to disassociate the two statements these days - control vs don't like foreigners.
For as long as I can remember the population here hovered around 55 million. Suddenly in the last few years its catapulted to 60 million (and these are government 'official' figures which we know are incorect - lower than the reality).

This has all come about because of uncontrolled immigration. What has it meant? People being exploited, hopes of the arrivals dashed, anger at such an outcome, country's resources stretched to breaking point (health service, housing, state aid), and more negative results. It is this outcome that breeds/feeds distrust and intolerance from the existing population. Result: growth in racial tensions and violence, crime etc.

Much as I hate to see controls, it equally does no one any good to allow a free-for-all. IMO that will create more problems. Controls, however distasteful on the surface give the proscess of immigrant integration a chance to work, and so prevent discrimination - but only if the control is undertaken in the context of a country's ability to sustain the increase in its population vis-a-vis its services and opportunities, and not for reasons of colour, race or creed.

Note the US looks like it's going to "pop". How can we possibly let this go on unchecked?

Who the hell is immigrating to the Middle East? Unless they're counting refugees who go back and forth.

Quite a few people, actually. The Middle East is not all about war torn Iraq or Palestine. Its also about countries and sheikdoms which have become VERY wealthy off of oil money. People from the poorer countries of Africa and S.E. Asia have been immigrating their in droves to face often miserable working conditions and a hostile native population (sound familiar?) There was recently a huge strike by migrant workers in Dubai over draconian treatment and low wages. (Dubai Ports, anyone?)

The United Nations Research Institute for Social Development (UNRISD) is an autonomous UN agency engaging in multidisciplinary research on the social dimensions of contemporary problems affecting development.

From a recent UNRISD report:

The major influx of foreign workers into the Middle East began following the oil price boom in 1973, which resulted in an enormous surge of wealth for the Arab Gulf states (United Arab Emirates, Oman, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Kuwait and Bahrain, comprising the Gulf Cooperation Council, or GCC). The Gulf countries were faced with grand development plans and the funds to pay for them, but with a totally inadequate workforce: the GCC countries had a combined workforce of only 1.36 million. Initially, both skilled and unskilled workers from other Arab countries (principally Egyptians, Yemenis, Palestinians, Jordanians, Lebanese and Sudanese) and from Asia (mainly Pakistanis and Indians) almost doubled the populations of Saudi Arabia and Kuwait within the decade between 1975 and 1985. By the early 1980s, an increasing number of migrants were recruited from Southeast Asia. Until the end of the 1980s, these comprised over half of the Asian migration to the Middle East.

In 1985, oil prices fell rapidly, prompting a cutback in infrastructure development in the Gulf states, and migration from Asia dropped by almost one-third. This fall was less severe because of the growth in employment in the service sector, which absorbed large numbers of workers, especially women from Sri Lanka, Bangladesh, Indonesia and the Philippines. At the same time, the numbers of expatriate migrants from other Arab states were being reduced, as often for political reasons as for economic.

Unlike the Arab sending countries, Asian governments pursued active policies
for overseas employment, partly to alleviate unemployment and partly to generate foreign income. Their labour force became a major export item that generated considerable earnings. For example, in 1999 total remittances to Sri Lanka from workers abroad totalled $1 billion, which constituted around 20 per cent of foreign goods imports for the previous year and more than the trade deficit of $0.7 billion.

As increasing numbers of “cheap” foreign workers from Asian and African countries have fulfilled the demand for unskilled workers, so the particular kinds of jobs found in the secondary labour markets have become racialized. That is, the dirty, dangerous and difficult jobs become associated with foreign (Asian and African) workers to such a degree that nationals in these countries refuse to undertake them, despite high levels of poverty and unemployment.

If the above weren't bad enough, there have been reports of children as young as two years old being kidnapped to function as camel jockies in the highly popular Arab sport of camel racing. These children are captured by local gangs in their home countries and sold as slaves to the Middle East Camel Racing crowd. Once the children become too old (and too heavy) to make good jockies anymore, they face an existance as low paid stable hands at best, being dumped back into the nearest poor country whether that's where they originated from or not, or even being imprisoned as illegal immigrants.

I've got this one sussed, Wolf. Its real simple. If you are an oppressed minority, you cannot possibly be racist. If you are, say, Caucasian, American, and...gods forbid...*male*, it is impossible for you to be anything *but* racist. And sexist as well. Oppressed peoples who blame the Jews or the Americans or any other group that isn't them are simply giving voice to their oppression and identifying the responsible parties...or so the societal dogma would seem to indicate.

We've touched upon this here on The Cellar before, but I'll say it again. It is illegal to discriminate against anyone except for Caucasian Americans. I'm not saying I am personally oppressed, because I am not. I'm just noting how things have worked out. Political Correctness has more than done its part to push this bizarre state of affairs along, BTW, because Political Correctness is only required of the oppressors, and not the oppressed.

Having said all of this, I note an article in USA Today that stated that there is an investigation beginning into voting practices in one Southern county whereby the accusation is that non-black voters were being deprived of some voting rights. I didn't read it thoroughly, because I know it isn't going to go anywhere, but still...

From the NY Times of 9 Apr 2006:

My friend's mother was one of their attorneys, got at least one of her clients reidency status.