The reality in cases like this is that these kids often come here at such a young age they're completely unaware that they're "at risk" because they're not U.S. citizens - some of them actually believe that they ARE U.S. citizens until they find out that they're not. The teenager popped for crystal meth was surpised as hell when U.S. Immigration started trying to deport her. She had just assumed that she was a citizen because she came here when she was so little and had been here for so long.

I understand the perception, but I don't think that's the reality. In my experience, the ratio of bad vs. good is about the same, whether you're looking at U.S. citizens, legal immigrants, or illegal immigrants. I think the perception is caused by the fact that there is a definite positive correlation between poverty and crime and some segments of the immigrant population (both legal and illegal) are very poor. Because of this, the crime rates are higher in those areas. People point to this and say "See! Illegal immigrants are criminals!" However, this is more of a poverty issue than it is an immigration issue. You see pretty much the same crime rates in poor areas that don't have significant immigration populations.

Unfortunately, there are quite a few racist groups who are backing the anti-immigration movement. They view it as a way of kicking out all the brown people without saying "we want to kick out the brown people". Because of this, whenever I see someone backing the anti-immigration movement, I want to know what their reasoning is. If it's circular, or non-existent, then I start suspecting that they are more "anti-brown" or "anti-accent" than "anti-immigrant"

I agree, actually. I'm all for allowing many of the illegal immigrants to stay because I think they are beneficial to this country. However, I'm having trouble swallowing some of the self-righteous rhetoric.

I agree. If they are allowed to stay, it should be because they are beneficial to us, not because they "deserve" it.

Absolutely - but these requirements are already in pretty much all of the immigration reform bills currently being discussed. Medical clearance, criminal/security screening, and financial support are the basice requirements which must be met by any alien wanting to come to the U.S.

__________________
Frank

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How that happens is complicated and there's more than one way it can happen. Trust me. Immigration law is extremely convoluted and some of the ways the various laws interract is pretty bizarre.

Up until 2001, there was a provision that would allow someone like this who had fallen through the cracks to become legal by paying a $1000 penalty. The $ was used to help fund the agency. It was an elegantly simple solution. Congress allowed the law to sunset because the anti-immigrant lobby complained it was rewarding illegal immigrants.

That is a very common perception - and one of the reasons Congress made things so much more difficult for illegal aliens in 1996. The belief was that if we just made it impossible to ever become legal, they would stop coming. Well, that was nearly 10 years ago and so far the tougher laws have had exactly ZERO effect on the rate of illegal immigration.

This guy was actually my roommate when I was a freshman. He came here with his family when he was 9 years old. He had scars on his back from crawling under a barbed wire fence at the border. He got his undergraduate degree here, went to medical school, then stayed at the school as a post-doc doing cancer research. He can't legalize his status because he entered the country illegally. I kind of think it's more beneficial to us to keep him here, instead of sending him back to Mexico to "punish" him for entering illegally when he was 9 - but that's just me.

So are you saying it would be OK with you if my "stupid teenager" had just been deported instead of doing jail time and diversion? If that's what you're saying, that's pretty harsh, IMO.

That's easy to say; a lot harder to do. Any attempt to "seal the border" without addressing the reasons underlying illegal immigration is just going to make the smugglers rich. I'm actually in favor of increasing border security, but I don't believe for a moment that we will EVER be able to "seal it" until we significantly reduce the number of people trying to cross it.

"setting an example" doesn't work - nobody's looking at the example. This has been tried numerous times over the years and it has had exactly ZERO effect on the levels of illegal immigration.

How is it going to get resolved? - As I said before, we need to figure out why these people are coming here. We need to create the means to legally immigrate for the people who provide a net socio-economic benefit and create the means to keep everyone else out. Easy to say, harder to do - but I think it CAN be done.

__________________
Frank

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just to clarify on the issue of deportation with jail time what i meant was if they are going to deport them they should skip the whole put in jail in US idea theres no point. as for sealing the border yes its hard to do but limiting the number of people crossing it is rather impossible it seems. as for the room mate that does suck but in cases like his he has an education he is a different story and i dont mean to have kids deported for their parents wrong doing its a hard thing to do because if you say how can you get rid of kids well then parents will bring kids in to the country and hey we cant get rid of em so they stay. but heres the problem the ones here lets say they become legal so now they go on welfare because now they have rights so now your and my taxes go up and sure they work for nothing at the grocery store and thats why they are on welfare but now they are given the right to vote next thing you know they elect one of their own because quite frankly in parts of NYC as in LA and much of California the white groups along with many others are simply out numbered. this is no easy issue and someone has to lose but why does it have to be you and me when we earned our rights here why should we make it a "communistic" feel of them fleeing and becoming one of us when we were here and have the same rights.?

In case you were wondering, the thing that started all this "illegal immigrant" hoopla was a Bill that was passed by the House of Representatives last fall. The Bill made it a crime to be an illegal immgrant and provided both procedures and funding for State and Federal law enforcement to start rounding up and prosecuting the approximately 12 million "criminals" it would create. Halliburton (that's the company that "Tricky Dick" Cheney is affiliated with) had "coincidentally" just finalized a long-term contract with the government to construct a bunch of additional federal prison and detention facilities which "coincidentally" this new bill would probably require. These 12 million new "criminals" would have to be arrested, housed and fed while they were being prosecuted for the "crime" of being illegally here (since the Bill also made them inelligible for bail once they were arrested). Once convicted, they would have to serve up to two years in prison, then turned over to U.S. immigration to be deported.

In brief summary, the Bill wanted us to arrest people we want to kick out, then forcibly keep them from leaving while we feed them, clothe them, house them and pay for their criminal defense. Stupidest Bill I EVER saw.

Thankfully, Congress came down from their crack high and the Bill never even made it to the Senate floor. However, the fact that this piece of idiocy was passed OVERWHELMINGLY by the GOP controlled House generated a certain "angst" within the immigrant community, which fueled the start of a grassroots campaign protesting this stupid Bill, which continued to gain momentum until it became what you see today.

So if you don't like all these demonstrations and demands for "civil rights" for illegal immigrants, you can blame the GOP

As I said, there's no easy fix. However, I don't have a problem being "outnumbered" by people who aren't white - and neither should you, quite frankly. It's just skin color. If you are REALLY concerned about "white groups" being outnumbered, you might want to take that "concern" out and examine it more closely.

__________________
Frank

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not a matter of color on being outnumbered but a matter of having to change my ways to the "majority" as i said since they dominate a lot of southern cali and some places in NYC the running officials are the same hence my vote doesnt count (not that it ever does any way)
as for GOP they are the reason i hate politics

Seriously?

You managed to, somehow, link Haliburton to the ILLEGAL immigrant problem?

Since we're on the subject of conspiracies (which is all that your allegation amounts to) could you please link the grassy-knoll, not pictured in the Zapruder film, to an illegal alien with a chip on his/shoulder?

Or, better yet, please link the fact that illegal immigrants, fabricating steel on the Titanic, ultimately led to its demise due to their shoddy craftsmanship.

You do what every liberal/left-sympathizer does: When you run out of rationality, you invoke 'Halliburton' and 'Bush lied' and various other "dead-end" utterances in the hopes of seeming to be informed and aware. I see you even resurected Tricky Dick...I'm sure Nixon would be happy to have that monkey off of his back. And speaking of Nixon, Deep Throat, though recently publicly identified, was auctually an illegal immigrant himself (of hidden Mexican heritage) bent on bettering the causes of the illegal immigrant through the demise of a republican president.

I'm sure you will have something to say about this; some spinning some alleged memorandums indicting Haliburton...Maybe even a 'Deep Throat' of your own somewhere who wishes to not be identified. Seriously, the notion that the government would give out contracts to build prisons to arrest and house illegal immigrants is tantamount to lunacy in its purest form.

Chris

P.S. I'm also guessing you believe that Patrick Kennedy didn't remember waking up the other day and didn't remember drinking any alcohol? Please tell me that Halliburton isn't behind this also?

not to beat a dead issues like a horse but imagine they do get their citizenship, if you are so affraid of prices at the store going up then you should now be petrified because guess what? Citizenship yields rights and they will no longer work for food and will sit on welfare and demand more money then what?