Immigration

[ironsides]

Texas lawmaker to introduce anti-immigration bill.

AUSTIN, Texas – A Texas lawmaker says she plans to push for a law similar to Arizona's get-tough immigration measure.
San Antonio Express-News and Houston Chronicle report Wednesday that Republican Rep. Debbie Riddle of Tomball says she will introduce the measure in the January legislative session.
The new Arizona law would require local and state law enforcement to question people about their immigration status — and make it a crime for immigrants to lack registration documents.
Riddle says if the federal government did its job "Arizona wouldn't have to take this action, and neither would Texas."

Texas lawmaker to introduce anti-immigration bill - Yahoo! News


Aside from opening up the borders, is there another way to handle this problem if the Federal goverment won't touch it?

 

[DurkaDurka]

Put a massive wall up along the Mexico border, Israeli style. If they can't sneak in the first place you wouldn't need these laws.

 

[YukonJack]

"Put a massive wall up along the Mexico border, Israeli style. If they can't sneak in the first place you wouldn't need these laws."

Better still, do what the former Soviets did: Lay down land mines on either side of the border. Build watch towers every 200 yards. Shoot first and don't bother asking questions later.

It worked for the Soviets. It is working for the North Koreas. These are the people Obama's crew views as shining examples of social justice.

 

[eh1eh]

"You haf zee papers pleeze comrade, vee haf a immigration problem." You have my sympathies America.

 

[Icarus27k]

The US federal government could pass a law saying that it's illegal and punishible to just randomly ask people to prove their US citizenship. Thus, the Supremecy Clause of the Constitution being what it is, the Arizona and potential Texas law would be rendered invalid.

 

[eh1eh]

The US federal government could pass a law saying that it's illegal and punishible to just randomly ask people to prove their US citizenship. Thus, the Supremecy Clause of the Constitution being what it is, the Arizona and potential Texas law would be rendered invalid.

That would be idea but it seems, IMO, that the US gov. is going the other way since 911. Chipping away at their citizens rights.

 

[Praxius]

"You haf zee papers pleeze comrade, vee haf a immigration problem." You have my sympathies America.

"hmmmm.... Zee foto dos not look vike'Oo...." *snaps fingers* "GÜNTER!!! MÜLLER!!!! Take zis person to zee train vit zee others. Don't vorry, ve are taking Oo to a nize... ah.... resort, ya. Yor zootcases vill follow very schnell. Pleez vear zis armpatch too."

 

[Icarus27k]

The reason the US federal government doesn't enforce its immigration law is because most in the federal government recognize that US immigration law is ridiculous, draconian, and untenable. This is a situation where some culturally conservative states are battling a slightly more liberal nation as a whole.


/serious commentary


The obvious solution is: sign a treaty with Mexico and trade Arizona and Texas for something else, under the stipulation that Mexico finds some way to physically move the two states somewhere that is not as close to the US.

 

[coldstream]

I'm almost completely sure that the Arizona law will be declared Unconstitutional because it is too broadly defined to be enforced without infringing on the rights of personal privilege & privacy.. and without inflicting undue harassment and profiling on certain demographic sectors.

But it likely could be rewritten to clearly identify legal circumstances in which individuals must provide proof of citizenship or legal residency, which would likely pass muster. Texas might be wise to wait for an outcome to court challenges, since its law might be immediatley suspended on that basis in any case.

Another of the challenges will be that entire area of Immigration is a Federal responsibility and laws aimed at enforcing Federal statutes, must be enacted by the Federal, not the State, government.

 

[Icarus27k]

A Schegen Agreement-like treaty between the US and Mexico seems like the way to go to solve immgration controversies between the countries.

Schengen Agreement - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia


Of course, this has a high probability of inflaming all those people who believe a North American Union is coming, but the US shouldn't be forced into bizarre alternatives (like building a big wall) just because of some insane beliefs in a New World Order.

 

[coldstream]

The European Union model, which opened borders and created a common currency, might be the model for a North American Union IF it is not proving to be a complete disaster.

It is falling apart now, with Greece unable to meet protocols for debt levels and being forced into austerity measures by the IMF and EU Central Bank, having lost all the privileges of a sovereign national currency and independent National Bank. Ireland after a brief period of prosperity is now mired in a recession deeper than that it experienced when it was not alligned with the EU.

Countries like Poland find their Catholic moral laws under seige from the Post Structural ethics of legitimization of abortion, homosexuality, cultural disassembly.. while at the same time being dictated to on economic policy by the European giants of Germany (especially), France, Britain to their own benefit.

There will never be a North American Union, and it is highly likely the European Union will fall apart, just like all of its predecessors.. (The Roman Empire, The Holy Roman Empire, the Napoleonic 'Peace, the Third Reich).. and like all of these it will crumble in conflict and war.

 

[Icarus27k]

Just to be clear: I'm not supporting anything like a North American Union. I just said those international treaties that allow people from one country to travel unhindered to another country that has geographic, cultural and economic ties makes sense.

And in the context of the illegal immigration problem that the US and Mexico have, it seems to be the only right course of action.

 

[CDNBear]

And out trot the Nazisms...

Godwin here we come...

I guess it likely isn't relevant that all immigrants are considered "aliens" under US immigration laws, and have been for sometime? Thus having to carry with them at all times their "Green Card".

I mean if you want to paint a whole country, or even just the whole of a couple states red with one big brush, then spray paint a swastika in the middle of them, by all means go ahead.

It looks good on those doing so...

 

[coldstream]

The establishment of a North American Union would be opposed even by those who framed the North American Free Trade Agreement.

The profit equation of that treaty depends on a desperate, captive work force on the U.S. border, with a compliant Mexican government to disrupt any labour organizing activities in the Maquilladoras.

In fact their was no immigration crisis in the U.S. before NAFTA destroyed rural Mexican agriculture, and legions of poor people were drawn to the Free Trade Industrial zones on the border.

Most of these enterprises employ only young women, considered more exploitable than young men, pay them subsistence wages, house them in shanty towns, and fire them when they marry, leaving a huge glut of unemployed with no alternative than to look for work in the U.S.

The answer to the immigration crisis in the U.S., the only one, is to ditch NAFTA and Free Trade, which will allow Mexico to develop national economic policies which will fully employ its workers at sufficient wages to feed and support their families.

Then the immigration crisis will then resolve itself.

 

[talloola]

maybe it is a good thing to take a 'rash' approach to at least get the attention of government so they will get off
their butts and address a very serious matter,
then spend time finding a solution that is just.

I will never understand how and why many mexican citizens
are allowed to stay in the u.s. when they have not gone
through legal immigration applications, and others do, and
are there legally.

Looks like they just play with the u.s. government, get all
the subsidies and medical coverage etc that many u.s. citizens can't even get, and enjoy the priviledges of
a u.s. citizen, and should have their 'butts' kicked back
across the border, and forced to enter the country legally.
I have no sympathy at all for illegal aliens, then of course they quickly have children, who apparantly are
considered legal, give me a break, it's a joke.

It just looks like a complete out of control mess to me,
and add to that all of the drug smuggling and criminal
activity along the border, and how they will ever get that
under control seems almost impossible without some sort of
border 'war', and then bring in the politicians who only
want to say 'whatever' will get them elected in those states, and that stops anything positive that would ever
even 'begin' to sort all of it out.

The u.s. and canada, (with exception of first nations) are
built from immigration, all are immigrants, first generation, second or third and on. It is the strength of
both countries, legal immigrants are not aliens, they are
the backbone of the countries.

Illegal immigrants are criminals as soon as they cross the
border without papers.

 

[Icarus27k]

You have to understand that illegal immigration is illegal in the US only on paper. The only reason the US federal government hasn't repealed its immigration laws and replaced them with more liberal laws is because no one has the political will to start that fight.

The federal government doesn't want the immigration laws, but they also don't have the courage to eliminate them. And this creates a situation wherein a person who crosses the border without filling out any papers is practially as legal as someone who actually does fill out papers and get a visa, etc.

 

[DurkaDurka]

Does anyone in their right mind really want to have open immigration with mexico? I could see far more problems then benefits.

 

[ironsides]

We already have laws, they just have to be enforced, which Obama and Bush did not do.

 

[CDNBear]

We already have laws, they just have to be enforced, which Obama and Bush did not do.

Completely true...

The laws are already there. The USCIS has been using them for years. Arizona just extended them to the Police.

 

[ironsides]

This is getting serious, and seems more states are joining in telling the federal goverment to enforce the laws.

This is Alabama; we speak English,' governor candidate says.

Amid a national debate over Arizona's tough new immigration law, Republican Alabama gubernatorial candidate Tim James (and son of previous Gov. Fob James) vows in a new campaign ad that if he's elected, he'll give the state driver's license exam only in English, as a cost-saving measure.
"This is Alabama; we speak English," he says in the ad. "If you want to live here, learn it."

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ynews/20100428/ts_ynews/ynews_ts1831