Once again you’ve missed the point of the original argument –‘FAIR wrote that its “border school” had been approved by the High Intensity Drug Trafficking Area program (HIDTA), a program of the U.S. Office of National Drug Control Policy (ONDCP). But a spokesperson for the ONDCP says that no approval has been granted.’ This being an unpopular issue for the Libs I can understand why ONDCP would deny it. But I guess this subject is not as exciting as debating illegal immigration, so if we must…

By your reasoning if we just opened up the borders, that would cure our nation’s economic crisis, putting people back to work and pay off the national debt. Why stop there? Open the prison doors, they want to buy stuff too. And why not sell guns to terrorist…oh wait, Eric Holder already tried that. I know, I know that’s just silly, but that’s exactly my point.

Here’s the reality. According to the report The Fiscal Burden of Illegal Immigration on U.S. Taxpayers, the $113 billion in outlays for services and benefits to illegal aliens and their families represents an average cost to US households of $1,117 a year. The federal government recoups about one-third of its share of the costs of illegal immigration in the form of taxes collected. States, which bear a much greater share of the costs, recoup a mere 5 percent of their expenditures from taxes paid by illegal aliens. That bottom line $113 billion a year, and growing makes our nation’s failure to control illegal immigration one of the largest preventable burdens borne by American taxpayers.

Sure the government has beefed up the border patrol presence in the past 8 or 9 years, but it’s still failing. Failing to the point where individual states are forced to take matters into their own hands, only to be persecuted be their own government and threatened with law suits. Why the failure? Because there are far too many liberal government incentives available for illegal immigrant once they get here. Its’ is a dangerous game this administration is playing; putting our BP agents at risk on the border in a politically motivated show of force, while at the same time trying to appease their illegal immigrant voting base with incentives and free college educations here in the US.

Have I elaborated enough?

*Reference to the classic 1932 film ‘Freaks.’

** The NAU is the American ‘equivalent’ of the European Union, with it’s own equivalent currency: the Amero!

It’s a favorite topic of idiot conspiracy theorists to bandy about. Basically, it would conjoin Mexico, the US, and Canada into one political body. It’ll definitely happen.***

***NOT!

Sorry that your mom lost her job to undocumented workers. But the root of the problem isn’t desperate workers who are willing to work for very low wages–it’s the businesses that pit workers against themselves and the corrupt officials who are willing to do their bidding by looking the other way in regard to wage and safety violations.

This has traditionally happened in “unskilled” or physically demanding labor, but recently, the “we can’t find American workers to fill jobs so we have to bring in ‘foreigners’” thing has hit skilled workers in IT and other technical fields. Employers “prove” that their are no Americans to fill such jobs by soliciting resumes from job seekers, but then indicating that the job will pay only half the going rate. In other words — they can’t find American workers who will work for ridiculously low wages — not that they can’t find qualified American workers!

During the Industrial Revolution, male, native-born workers were replaced by waves of immigrants who were “cheaper” (thus incurring the enmity of the native-born workers). Male workers were also replaced by women, who could be paid less, and in many industries, wages were depressed yet again by businesses who got rid of adult workers and hired children.

The labor movement in the U.S. managed to gain enough clout (often through bloody confrontations with armed Pinkerton or other “enforcers” paid by employers) so that wages finally rose to the point where a middle class emerged. Even though many people didn’t belong to unions, we all benefitted because all wages rose. This is still true — workers in states where unions are still a force (and that don’t have right-to-work laws) earn more, whether they work for a union or not, than workers in states where unions have either been much diminished or never held much power (e.g., The South).

While it is true that unions have sometimes abused their power, what we are seeing now is what happens when employers and industries have a strong upper hand and no one to rein them in. Wages and benefits get squashed and a ridiculous percentage of money flows to the very top, leaving workers to fight over the scraps.

I am not a socialist, but unbridled capitalism is brutal. It also, ultimately, doesn’t lead to the best results, since it deprives such a large number of people, who might otherwise come up with innovations, scientific discoveries, etc. that could continue to move the economy along, of the education, time, and yes — the availability of capital — to strike out in new directions.

Incidentally, Americans had higher wages than those in Europe during the Industrial Revolution because there was the POSSIBILITY of native-born Americans and new arrivals to go west, stake a claim on land (admittedly, stolen from the Native Americans — a permanent blot on our history), and, if they stayed on the land and farmed it, to “prove” their claim and own the land. The fact that America had a “relief valve” for the ambitious, hale, and hearty to go forth and become landowners is one of the factors that kept America from settling quite so rigidly into the sort of class structure they had in Europe (note that the slave-owning South was attempting to hold onto a particularly noxious class system, in which black people were property, but poor whites were basically “peasants” who were in many cases forced to help enforce the status quo (I am referring here to requirements in slave territories that white residents–often poor white, non-slave owning residents–were required to do their part to serve on night-time patrols to ensure that slaves were unable to runaway). This vicious, classist way of life is what some of the neo-Southerners wax poetic about — go figure.

Anyway, my point is that we no longer have the “relief valve” for the ambitious to settle a new land — and we also are in the midst of losing the restraints that the labor unions used to put on employer abuses. We are in a time of wildly spiraling inequalities in terms of wages/compensation and wealth, and other workers aren’t really the bad guys — employers that can get away with hiring people, often undocumented, pay them low wages and cut corners on their benefits (e.g., healthcare), and then send them packing if they are injured on the job or contract a work-related illness (and this happens with disgusting regularity) are the ones who need to be called to account (along with the lickspittle officials who are willing to do their bidding by holding the line on wages and failing to enforce health & safety standards).

I’m also glad to hear we’ve helped you to view these folks in a more positive light. Once again, I find myself agreeing with you, this time regarding the refugee status. These are KIDS crossing the border, ALONE. Have these nativists no mercy? I just cannot understand.

A lot of these individuals crossing now are minors, children, with their parents sending them over to get away from the cartels. Those are REFUGIES and should be provided with sanctuary.

The more and more I read these types of threads the more I like what President Obama did for the younger immigrants.

You know it’s funny, I’m in a black neighborhood the other day buying a car, and I take my son to get some dinner. And in the middle of a large black neighborhood in South Dallas, mexicans are working the restaurant, not black people, or white people, Mexicans.

You know what, if they’re the only ones that want to work and not be on government assistance, God Bless Them. Let them work. At least (some of) if not most of the money they’re spending from those jobs is getting spent in the US and not being sent overseas.

Immigrants put my mother out of work too, so don’t come back with that argument. I was as poor as any of you, my mother couldn’t find a job because they accepted lesser wages. But it’s a free market economy right?

Personally – I think we should make Mexico a territory, just like Puerto Rico and the Virgin Islands. Move some jobs over there, create some industry, real estate development, and get some real law enforcement for those cartels. I think it would be an economy boost for both countries, free up some budget from DHS and the border between Mexico and Central America is much smaller…but that’s just me.

Shadow Wolf, in essence, there is no Central America. Continental drift brought North and South America closer, the Isthmus started from the North American side as a chain of volcanos, and sea level recession ultimately resulted in the Great American Interchange. Mexico has been part of North America since that split from Pangaea. Culturally, pre-Columbian Mexico shared with both North and South America, but the Aztecs came from the same stock as the Ute, Comanche, and Hopi. No competent geographer or ethnographer will call Mexico anything but North American.

Believe me, Guardian, if the federal government dropped the ball, it was in being overly strict about deportation. The simple fact is that immigrants, including those without papers, buy things, and being ticked off at them for sneaking into the country does not change that fact. Is it really “liberal” to consider how much sales and tax revenue might be lost as a result of throwing them out? Is it “liberal” to posit that businesses that see a decline in customer purchases might have to let people go? Is it “liberal” to post statistics that come directly from the organizations that handle border security?

Don’t just post once and leave, Guardian. Point out flaws in my numbers or my reasoning. Elaborate on your points.

And why wouldn’t I like pink? :)

I find it interesting that so many people in the Southwest are hostile toward “illegals.” America has had a history of tolerating and even inviting in Latinos, Asians, etc. Catholic Europeans, during times when the country was undergoing economic booms and/or had big “public works” programs going on (e.g., building of the railroads, digging canals, working in factories, slaughterhouses, etc.) but then attempting to send them packing–and in the Southwest, confiscating their property–during recessions/ depressions.

During the Great Depression, “Mexicans” were sent packing from northern cities as well as the Southwest — even in cases in which several generations had lived in the U.S. (I am aware that, at the time, Arizona, for example, wasn’t yet a state.) Up here in Illinois, many Latinos of primarily Mexican descent were working in the many factories in Joliet (e.g., railroad supply related, steel mills, brickyards). Many of them were summarily “kicked out” when the Depression hit, and their property was seized. It didn’t matter that some had been in this country for more than a generation.

In the Southwest, the first law against marijuana were passed specifically to have a law through which white authorities could prosecute–and chase off–”Mexicans.” While the Latinos in places like Joliet, IL obviously “migrated” there (and were welcomed with open arms by industry when they needed workers), the situation in the Southwest was vastly different. Many “Mexican” families had lived on U.S. lands for generations, because, ah, well, that Mexico place was just over an imaginary line. In other words, these folks were expelled from family homes and ranches because they were–wait for it–of Latino descent! (Gee–I guess race was involved).

White immigrants–even those who initially weren’t considered all that desirable, often because they were Catholic in a predominantly Protestant country (e.g., Italians, Irish)–got a pass and were ultimately accepted into American society. After all, they didn’t “stick out” the way those with dark skin or eyes with a different shape do in a see of “whites.”

Latinos have been used and abused in the U.S. for decades. This is especially ironic in areas like the Southwest, where many of them lived before “white” settlers and ranchers. Expelling them and continuing to villify them when you are, in fact, living on land on which they have a much, much longer history is either an expression of greed (we want their land) or racisim (we don’t want their kind around us “whites”) and often a combination of both.

I could say a lot. But that statement was meaningless. You would compare anti-racists (which means we don’t like those who hate, nor those who advocate violence in the name of hate, or who turn their backs on those who commit violence in the name of hate) to religious fanatics.

Why don’t you just come out and say what you want to say. Don’t use big words. Put the thesaurus down. Say exactly what you want to say…they’ll let you . You’ll feel better too. It’s a new week.

Yes we all know illegal immigration is bad. We all know the borders have to be secured. And we all know the Federal Government has dropped the ball. Worse yet they persecute those who try to enforce federal laws and do the job they won’t. And all the libs have left to argue is that anyone who disagrees with illegal immigration are all a bunch of racists. The federal government and the SPLC – The blind leading the blind.

Anyway to the original point, I much more believe FAIR than ONDCP any day.

With the discovery of the Higgs Boson, I believe science will discover more elements for the full rainbow of Hammerhead Awards, in their diverse and loving glory, before we get through the known ones.