Immigration

[word]

Why do all the protesters against the new immigration bill, that has passed the house and the senate committee, look the same ? 11 million ILLEGAL immigrants' ( and they ain't Canadian, or Russian, or Chinese or Pakistani.

First and formost, a nation of law, over immigrant. Besides the big wave of immigration into the US, that made it what it is, is 150 years passed and no longer necessary.

Take that

[E20]

All the Mexicans at my school are yelling and protesting. It's funny because they don't know what they are actually protesting.

[Cant_Be_Faded]

omg, I saw on the news the protestors in california...i fucking laughed my ass off

This is a true fucking paraphrase, probably 98% correct (i fuckin swear)

"I was born here, in america, but I consider myself an immigrant" (he went on to say why he thought the bill would be wrong)
I don't remember exaclty what he said after that cuz I was too busy laughing my ass off. I was born here in america, but I consider myself an immigrant? wtf?

Kinda like saying "my screenname is gtownspur, and i am a worthy human being".

I'm still undecided about the bill, mostly cuz its hypocritical, but I would never protest that shit.

[GrandeDavid]

Living in Brazil and knowing so much about South American immigration freaking tsunami waves to the U.S. (illegally), I can tell you that its about freaking time America clamps down hardcore. Its getting ridiculous. But I have more of an issue with the Chinese, whose government often refuses to take their illegals back. At least Brazil doesn't do that shit. Anyway, you gotta feel for the poor around the world, but you gotta protect your own house and family first and foremost, and being that America is so flooded with illegal immigrants and probably several terrorist cells taking advantage of immigration loopholes, you gotta crack the fucking whip.

[Murphy]

All the Mexicans at my school are yelling and protesting. It's funny because they don't know what they are actually protesting.
Lol, these people are protesting the bill but they probably can't understand the first sentence of it!

[Cant_Be_Faded]

I don't believe that. I also think that if a bunch of white conservative high school students protested, they would be presented as heroes and better than your normal high schoolers. Even O'Rielly and gtownspur would bow down to them and give them verbal handjobs.

[word]

All the Mexicans at my school are yelling and protesting. It's funny because they don't know what they are actually protesting.

They're racist and don't even know it. If 11 million illegal Irish immigrants were illegally in the US I wouldn't be flying an Irish flag on the streets. I don't even know what an Irish flag looks like.

[Nbadan]

They're racist and don't even know it. If 11 million illegal Irish immigrants were illegally in the US I wouldn't be flying an Irish flag on the streets. I don't even know what an Irish flag looks like.

They’re not racist, just wrong, none-the-less it's good to see there is an issue that will mobilize the hispanic community. I agree that there should be more controls on illegal immigration, but I don't think we should be arresting people who help illegals that come across, especially members of churches and organizations that have traditionally helped illegals in the past - it's immoral. I also don't agree with building a border-wall, I thought we were better than that, but I guess not.

North of the Border
By Paul Krugman
The New York Times
Monday 27 March 2006


"Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free," wrote Emma Lazarus, in a poem that still puts a lump in my throat. I'm proud of America's immigrant history, and grateful that the door was open when my grandparents fled Russia.

In other words, I'm instinctively, emotionally pro-immigration. But a review of serious, nonpartisan research reveals some uncomfortable facts about the economics of modern immigration, and immigration from Mexico in particular. If people like me are going to respond effectively to anti-immigrant demagogues, we have to acknowledge those facts.

First, the net benefits to the U.S. economy from immigration, aside from the large gains to the immigrants themselves, are small. Realistic estimates suggest that immigration since 1980 has raised the total income of native-born Americans by no more than a fraction of 1 percent.

Second, while immigration may have raised overall income slightly, many of the worst-off native-born Americans are hurt by immigration - especially immigration from Mexico. Because Mexican immigrants have much less education than the average U.S. worker, they increase the supply of less-skilled labor, driving down the wages of the worst-paid Americans. The most authoritative recent study of this effect, by George Borjas and Lawrence Katz of Harvard, estimates that U.S. high school dropouts would earn as much as 8 percent more if it weren't for Mexican immigration.

That's why it's intellectually dishonest to say, as President Bush does, that immigrants do "jobs that Americans will not do." The willingness of Americans to do a job depends on how much that job pays - and the reason some jobs pay too little to attract native-born Americans is competition from poorly paid immigrants.

Finally, modern America is a welfare state, even if our social safety net has more holes in it than it should - and low-skill immigrants threaten to unravel that safety net.

Basic decency requires that we provide immigrants, once they're here, with essential health care, education for their children, and more. As the Swiss writer Max Frisch wrote about his own country's experience with immigration, "We wanted a labor force, but human beings came." Unfortunately, low-skill immigrants don't pay enough taxes to cover the cost of the benefits they receive.

Worse yet, immigration penalizes governments that act humanely. Immigrants are a much more serious fiscal problem in California than in Texas, which treats the poor and unlucky harshly, regardless of where they were born.

We shouldn't exaggerate these problems. Mexican immigration, says the Borjas-Katz study, has played only a "modest role" in growing U.S. inequality. And the political threat that low-skill immigration poses to the welfare state is more serious than the fiscal threat: the disastrous Medicare drug bill alone does far more to undermine the finances of our social insurance system than the whole burden of dealing with illegal immigrants.

But modest problems are still real problems, and immigration is becoming a major political issue. What are we going to do about it?

Realistically, we'll need to reduce the inflow of low-skill immigrants. Mainly that means better controls on illegal immigration. But the harsh anti-immigration legislation passed by the House, which has led to huge protests - legislation that would, among other things, make it a criminal act to provide an illegal immigrant with medical care - is simply immoral.

Meanwhile, Mr. Bush's plan for a "guest worker" program is clearly designed by and for corporate interests, who'd love to have a low-wage work force that couldn't vote. Not only is it deeply un-American; it does nothing to reduce the adverse effect of immigration on wages. And because guest workers would face the prospect of deportation after a few years, they would have no incentive to become integrated into our society.

What about a guest-worker program that includes a clearer route to citizenship? I'd still be careful. Whatever the bill's intentions, it could all too easily end up having the same effect as the Bush plan in practice - that is, it could create a permanent underclass of disenfranchised workers.

We need to do something about immigration, and soon. But I'd rather see Congress fail to agree on anything this year than have it rush into ill-considered legislation that betrays our moral and democratic principles.

[Nbadan]

Another wonderful column by Tom Hartmann...

Today's Immigration Battle - Corporatists vs. Racists (and Labor is Left Behind)
by Thom Hartmann


The corporatist Republicans ("amnesty!") are fighting with the racist Republicans ("fence!"), and it provides an opportunity for progressives to step forward with a clear solution to the immigration problem facing America.

Both the corporatists and the racists are fond of the mantra, "There are some jobs Americans won't do." It's a lie.

Americans will do virtually any job if they're paid a decent wage. This isn't about immigration - it's about economics. Industry and agriculture won't collapse without illegal labor, but the middle class is being crushed by it.

The reason why thirty years ago United Farm Workers' Union (UFW) founder Caesar Chávez fought against illegal immigration, and the UFW turned in illegals during his tenure as president, was because Chávez, like progressives since the 1870s, understood the simple reality that labor rises and falls in price as a function of availability.

As Wikipedia notes: "In 1969, Chávez and members of the UFW marched through the Imperial and Coachella Valley to the border of Mexico to protest growers' use of illegal aliens as temporary replacement workers during a strike. Joining him on the march were both the Reverend Ralph Abernathy and U.S. Senator Walter Mondale. Chávez and the UFW would often report suspected illegal aliens who served as temporary replacement workers as well as who refused to unionize to the INS."

Working Americans have always known this simple equation: More workers, lower wages. Fewer workers, higher wages.

Progressives fought - and many lost their lives in the battle - to limit the pool of "labor hours" available to the Robber Barons from the 1870s through the 1930s and thus created the modern middle class. They limited labor-hours by pushing for the 50-hour week and the 10-hour day (and then later the 40-hour week and the 8-hour day). They limited labor-hours by pushing for laws against child labor (which competed with adult labor). They limited labor-hours by working for passage of the 1935 Wagner Act that provided for union shops.

And they limited labor-hours by supporting laws that would regulate immigration into the United States to a small enough flow that it wouldn't dilute the unionized labor pool. As Wikipedia notes: "The first laws creating a quota for immigrants were passed in the 1920s, in response to a sense that the country could no longer absorb large numbers of unskilled workers, despite pleas by big business that it wanted the new workers."

Do a little math. The Bureau of Labor Statistics says there are 7.6 million unemployed Americans right now. Another 1.5 million Americans are no longer counted because they've become "long term" or "discouraged" unemployed workers. And although various groups have different ways of measuring it, most agree that at least another five to ten million Americans are either working part-time when they want to work full-time, or are "underemployed," doing jobs below their level of training, education, or experience. That's between eight and twenty million un- and under-employed Americans, many unable to find above-poverty-level work.

At the same time, there are between seven and fifteen million working illegal immigrants diluting our labor pool.

If illegal immigrants could no longer work, unions would flourish, the minimum wage would rise, and oligarchic nations to our south would have to confront and fix their corrupt ways.

Between the Reagan years - when there were only around 1 to 2 million illegal aliens in our workforce - and today, we've gone from about 25 percent of our private workforce being unionized to around seven percent. Much of this is the direct result - a Caesar Chávez predicted - of illegal immigrants competing directly with unionized and legal labor. Although it's most obvious in the construction trades over the past 30 years, it's hit all sectors of our economy.

Democratic Party strategist Ann Lewis just sent out a mass email on behalf of former Wal-Mart Board of Directors member and now US Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton. In it, Lewis noted that Clinton suggests we should have: "An earned path to citizenship for those already here working hard, paying taxes, respecting the law, and willing to meet a high bar for becoming a citizen." Sounds nice. The same day, on his radio program, Rush Limbaugh told a woman whose husband is an illegal immigrant that she had nothing to worry about with regard to deportation of him or their children because all he'd have to do - under the new law under consideration - is pay a small fine and learn English.

The current Directors of Wal-Mart are smiling.

Meanwhile, the millions of American citizens who came to this nation as legal immigrants, who waited in line for years, who did the hard work to become citizens, are feeling insulted, humiliated, and conned.

Shouldn't we be compassionate? Of course.

But there is nothing compassionate about driving down the wages of any nation's middle class. It's the most cynical, self-serving, greedy, and sociopathic behavior you'll see from our "conservatives."

There is nothing compassionate about being the national enabler of a dysfunctional oligarchy like Mexico. An illegal workforce in the US sending an estimated $17 billion to Mexico every year - second only in national income to that country's oil revenues - supports an antidemocratic, anti-worker, hyperconservative administration there that gleefully ships out of that nation the "troublesome" Mexican citizens - those lowest on the economic food-chain and thus most likely to present "labor unrest" - to the USA. Mexico (and other "sending nations") need not deal with their own social and economic problems so long as we're willing to solve them for them - at the expense of our middle class. Democracy in Central and South America be damned - there are profits to be made for Wal-Mart!

Similarly, there is nothing compassionate about handing higher profits (through a larger and thus cheaper work force) to the CEOs of America's largest corporations and our now-experiencing-record-profits construction and agriculture industries.

What about caring for people in need? Isn't that the universal religious/ethical value? Of course.

A few years ago, when my family and I were visiting Europe, one of our children fell sick. A doctor came to the home of the people we were staying with, visited our child at 11 pm on a weeknight, left behind a course of antibiotics, and charged nothing. It was paid for by that nation's universal health care system. We should offer the same to any human being in need of medical care - a universal human right - in the United States.

But if I'd applied to that nation I was visiting for a monthly unemployment or retirement check, I would have been laughed out of the local government office. And if I'd been caught working there, I would have been deported within a week. Caring for people in crisis/need is very different from giving a job or a monthly welfare check to non-citizens. No nation - even those in Central and South America - will do that. And neither should the United States.

But if illegal immigrants won't pick our produce or bus our tables won't our prices go up? (The most recent mass-emailed conservative variation of this argument, targeting paranoid middle-class Americans says: "Do you want to pay an extra $10,000 for your next house?") The answer is simple: Yes.

But wages would also go up, and even faster than housing or food prices. And CEO salaries, and corporate profits, might moderate back to the levels they were during the "golden age of the American middle class" between the 1940s and Reagan's declaration of war on the middle class in the 1980s.

We saw exactly this scenario played out in the US fifty years ago, when unions helped regulate entry into the workforce, 35 percent of American workers had a union job, and 70 percent of Americans could raise a family on a single, 40-hour-week paycheck. All working Americans would gladly pay a bit more for their food if their paychecks were both significantly higher and more secure. (This would even allow for an increase in the minimum wage - as it did from the 1930s to the 1980s.)

But what about repressive régimes? Aren't we denying entrance to this generation's equivalent of the Jews fleeing Germany? This is the most tragic of all the arguments put forward by conservatives in the hopes compassionate progressives will bite. Our immigration policies already allow for refugees - and should be expanded. It's an issue that needs more national discussion and action. But giving a free pass to former Coca-Cola executive Vincente Fox to send workers to the US - and thus avoid having to deal with his own corrupt oligarchy - and to equate this to the Holocaust is an insult to the memory of those who died in Hitler's death camps - and to those suffering in places like Darfur under truly repressive regimes. There is no equivalence.

It's frankly astonishing to hear "progressives" reciting corporatist/racist/conservative talking points, recycled through "conservative Democratic" politicians trying to pander to the relatively small percentage of recently-legal (mostly through recent amnesties or birth) immigrants who are trying to get their relatives into this country by means of Bush's proposed guest worker program or the many variations thereof being proposed.

It's equally astonishing to hear the few unions going along with this (in the sad/desperate hope of picking up new members) turn their backs on Caesar Chávez and the traditions and history of America's Progressive and Union movements by embracing illegal immigration.

Every nation has an obligation to limit immigration to a number that will not dilute its workforce, but will maintain a stable middle class - if it wants to have a stable democracy. This has nothing to do with race, national origin, or language (visit Switzerland with it's ethnic- and language-dived areas!), and everything to do with economics.

Without a middle class, any democracy is doomed. And without labor having - through control of labor availability - power in relative balance to capital/management, no middle class can emerge. America's early labor leaders did not die to increase the labor pool for the Robber Barons or the Walton family - they died fighting to give control of it to the workers of their era and in the hopes that we would continue to hold it - and infect other nations with the same idea of democracy and a stable middle class.

The simple way to do this today is to require that all non-refugee immigrants go through the same process to become American citizens or legal workers in this country (no amnesties, no "guest workers," no "legalizations") regardless of how they got here; to confront employers who hire illegals with draconian financial and criminal penalties; and to affirm that while health care (and the right to provide humanitarian care to all humans) is an absolute right for all people within our boundaries regardless of status, a paycheck, education, or subsidy is not.

The Republican (and Democratic) corporatists who want a cheap labor force, and the Republican (and Democratic) racists who want to build a fence and punish humanitarian aid workers, are equally corrupt and anti-progressive. As long as employers are willing and able (without severe penalties) to hire illegal workers, people will risk life and limb to grab at the America Dream. When we stop hiring and paying them, most will leave of their own volition over a few years, and the remaining few who are committed to the US will obtain citizenship through normal channels.

This is, after all, the middle-class "American Dream." And how much better this hemisphere would be if Central and South Americans were motivated to stay in their own nations (because no employer in the US would dare hire them) and fight there for a Mexican Dream and a Salvadoran Dream and a Guatemalan Dream (and so on).

This is the historic Progressive vision for all of the Americas...

[gtownspur]

I don't believe that. I also think that if a bunch of white conservative high school students protested, they would be presented as heroes and better than your normal high schoolers. Even O'Rielly and gtownspur would bow down to them and give them verbal handjobs.


OMG!

You are the most complete moronic fool on the face of the earth. Not only do you know shit about politics, but you try to paint me as a verbal handjob extrodanaire, when everyone on this board knows that right now, your hand is gripping Mookies small 3in cock while he types for you a brand new comeback line. Sadly you're the biggest fakes ass, unoriginal wannabe Mexican revolutionary-douchebag, with old repeated and ignorant rhetoric, dick sucking commie! :lol

Remember the qoute that made you cry like a big faggot and led you to exile from here for 2 months? I believe it was this:

"If gay buttfucking becomes an olympic sport, we'll have CBF to thank.

Well it holds true to this very day.



Do you always have to talk about rich people and white people, do they scare the bejeebus out of you?

Or are you mad because you walked in on a redneck named Randy, chillidoggin your mom's titties?(BTw, a chillidog is when a man takes a shit between a woman's breast and titty fucks her)

Is that why you sound like a weak envious little pussy?

[SA210]

^^^ needs psychotherapy.

[Sec24Row7]

^^^^^ get out of here with that crap


As for not prosecuting people that help illegals come over...

You are a moron... the coyotes are the WORST part of the equation and deserve the most punishment.

[SA210]

^^^^^ get out of here with that crap


As for not prosecuting people that help illegals come over...

You are a moron... the coyotes are the WORST part of the equation and deserve the most punishment.
What crap?

[101A]

It is sad that these protestors do not understand the gravity, and negative image, it casts upon them to fly the flag of another country. They do their cause a great deal of harm, and certainly it does not foster sympathy for them.

I lived in SA my entire life until last August. Now I'm in a rural area of Pennsylvania; about 97% Anglo. These people have never much talked about latinos, and are fascinated when I talk about Mexican food, or the fact that I was literally in the minority in S. Texas; they really have no clue.

However, now, with the scenes they are witnessing on TV, they certainly have opinions. (those opinions are not positive ones)

[smeagol]

OMG!

You are the most complete moronic fool on the face of the earth. Not only do you know shit about politics, but you try to paint me as a verbal handjob extrodanaire, when everyone on this board knows that right now, your hand is gripping Mookies small 3in cock while he types for you a brand new comeback line. Sadly you're the biggest fakes ass, unoriginal wannabe Mexican revolutionary-douchebag, with old repeated and ignorant rhetoric, dick sucking commie! :lol

Remember the qoute that made you cry like a big faggot and led you to exile from here for 2 months? I believe it was this:

"If gay buttfucking becomes an olympic sport, we'll have CBF to thank.

Well it holds true to this very day.



Do you always have to talk about rich people and white people, do they scare the bejeebus out of you?

Or are you mad because you walked in on a redneck named Randy, chillidoggin your mom's titties?(BTw, a chillidog is when a man takes a shit between a woman's breast and titty fucks her)

Is that why you sound like a weak envious little pussy?
How old are you?

[smeagol]

I don't even know what an Irish flag looks like.
Green, white and orange. :rolleyes

[Phenomanul]

^^^^^ get out of here with that crap


As for not prosecuting people that help illegals come over...

You are a moron... the coyotes are the WORST part of the equation and deserve the most punishment.


The difference is that coyotes do it for money... whereas people in churches help immigrants out of humane compassion.

Besides it's not like church ministers are actively bringing people across the border... they simply feed and clothe them....

[nkdlunch]

For all of you bitching at the protests, think about it, you think the illegals are gonna say "oh well, ok we'll go back where we came from now" fuck no! The 11 million are here to stay, face it. And most of them don't really give a shit about the new laws, they still rather break their back cleaning your shit and get harrassed than eat shit in their 3d world countries as they were probably doing for years. they took the same decisions your ancestors took long ago. all these laws are doing is uniting the immigrants even more. And no, the wave is not gonna stop as long as US economic policy keeps pushing 3rd world countries deeper and deeper in shit.

so NO the protests are not gonna stop, NO the 11 million are not gonna go, and NO we won't stop talking in our languages and waving our flags in your face. after all this is mostly political propaganda to divert from the catastrophic war in Iraq and other shit.

[smeagol]

I have said it in the past, and got blasted and earmarked as a socialist (by some posters whom I respect), but as long as the 1st World does not help the 3 World develop, the inmigration problem, which is as big in the US as it is in Europe, will not go away.

And I'm not talking about giving away money but helping create the conditions for 3rd World countries to develop. Doing away with trade barriers and state subsidies would be a good start.

Oh, by the way, I'm as far away from socialism as an Argentine could be.

[101A]

I have said it in the past, and got blasted and earmarked as a socialist (by some posters whom I respect), but as long as the 1st World does not help the 3 World develop, the inmigration problem, which is as big in the US as it is in Europe, will not go away.

And I'm not talking about giving away money but helping create the conditions for 3rd World countries to develop. Doing away with trade barriers and state subsidies would be a good start.

Oh, by the way, I'm as far away from socialism as an Argentine could be.

You're getting dangerously close to espousing a world wide "trickle down" theory there Smeagol.

Internal and external free-markets, along with education and at least the hope of class mobility is what will pull 3rd world countries up. India is doing it. China is doing it. France is peddling backwards.

[smeagol]

You're getting dangerously close to espousing a world wide "trickle down" theory there Smeagol.

Internal and external free-markets, along with education and at least the hope of class mobility is what will pull 3rd world countries up. India is doing it. China is doing it. France is peddling backwards.
China and India are huge economies that will eventually muscle themselves out of poverty.

But how can other poor countries who's survival depends on the export of a couple of crops develop, if those crops are being subsidized by the rich nations, or worse, rich nations impose trade barriers to protect their own inneficient farmers?

[101A]

But how can other poor countries who's survival depends on the export of a couple of crops develop, if those crops are being subsidized by the rich nations, or worse, rich nations impose trade barriers to protect their own inneficient farmers?

They cannot.

But in the political climate of the big nation, eliminating those subsidies or barriers would be seen as simply more "jobs going overseas".

In other words, how can a rich nation maintain it's population's standard of living if it has to compete with workers from a country whose living standards are nearly a century and a half removed?

An enigma.

[smeagol]

They cannot.

But in the political climate of the big nation, eliminating those subsidies or barriers would be seen as simply more "jobs going overseas".

In other words, how can a rich nation maintain it's population's standard of living if it has to compete with workers from a country whose living standards are nearly a century and a half removed?

An enigma.
SO, you are saying it's the chicken and the egg enigma. i.e. the poor countries won't develop until the rich countries drop their trade barriers but the rich countries won't drop their trade barriiers until the poor countries don't start paying decent salaries and stop "stealing" jobs from rich countries (i.e. develop).

Well, who is the one who is suffing the most? The poor farmer in Ecuador who was to subsist with $2 a day, or the poor/middle-class American who might lose his job but will be able to find another one or, in the owrst case scenario, is contained by the socail security net?

Go check out the conditions the poor people live in Africa or LatAm and compare them to the conditions of the poor in America or Europe and then come and talk to me.

[Crookshanks]

Mexico is not a third world country. They have tons of oil and are benefiting from so many companies moving there from U.S. The problem is that they have such rampant corruption that the money never gets to the people who need it.

Until Vincente Fox addresses the corruption problem, nothing will EVER change!

[smeagol]

Mexico is not a third world country. They have tons of oil and are benefiting from so many companies moving there from U.S. The problem is that they have such rampant corruption that the money never gets to the people who need it.

Until Vincente Fox addresses the corruption problem, nothing will EVER change!
I agree with you.

[boutons_]

Mexico is probably categorized euphemistically as a developing country, which like so many others, is really keptocracy with corruption to be assumed dominating every business and governmental function.

[Sec24Row7]

What crap?


was talking to gtown

[DarkReign]

For all of you bitching at the protests, think about it, you think the illegals are gonna say "oh well, ok we'll go back where we came from now" fuck no! The 11 million are here to stay, face it. And most of them don't really give a shit about the new laws, they still rather break their back cleaning your shit and get harrassed than eat shit in their 3d world countries as they were probably doing for years. they took the same decisions your ancestors took long ago. all these laws are doing is uniting the immigrants even more. And no, the wave is not gonna stop as long as US economic policy keeps pushing 3rd world countries deeper and deeper in shit.

so NO the protests are not gonna stop, NO the 11 million are not gonna go, and NO we won't stop talking in our languages and waving our flags in your face. after all this is mostly political propaganda to divert from the catastrophic war in Iraq and other shit.

Fuck you and your illegal friends. Protest all you want. Make a bunch of noise, hoot and hollar waving your silly-ass flag that you people love so much but left anyway.

I dont care. Your day will come.

[nkdlunch]

Fuck you and your illegal friends. Protest all you want. Make a bunch of noise, hoot and hollar waving your silly-ass flag that you people love so much but left anyway.

I dont care. Your day will come.


everyone's day will come dumbass :lol

[cheguevara]

:lol

[DarkReign]

everyone's day will come dumbass :lol

Sooooo, let me get this straight...

You seem to be claiming allegiance of some sort to these aliens, correct?
Therefore you are sympathetic to their "cause" yes?

What is it you want? Migrate your whole damn population from the shit-stain on the undergarments of America named Mexico? Workers rights? Regulation? Open borders for all the people with the ability to walk come over the border to work in landscaping for all their lives?

I just dont get it. Birth rate by ethnicity...take a look. Why is it SOME minorities, who are coincidentally always below poverty lines, the ones who have the most kids? When Pappy makes his killer $25k a year and has 7 kids, who pays for it?

Us. Thats who. You want that?

[nkdlunch]

Sooooo, let me get this straight...

You seem to be claiming allegiance of some sort to these aliens, correct?
Therefore you are sympathetic to their "cause" yes?

their cause is to survive and feed their children. of course I'm sympathetic. they are protesting now because they don't wanna be considered felons for being in this country.



What is it you want? Migrate your whole damn population from the shit-stain on the undergarments of America named Mexico? Workers rights? Regulation? Open borders for all the people with the ability to walk come over the border to work in landscaping for all their lives?

Illegal aliens want nothing but the opportunity to feed their children. They are already here. I am not talking about ppl who have not arrived here yet. If US wants they can fuckin put a wall and shit so noone comes in and isolate themselves like East Berlin. But if some ppl manage to come in, they need rights and the right to feel their children.

I just dont get it. Birth rate by ethnicity...take a look. Why is it SOME minorities, who are coincidentally always below poverty lines, the ones who have the most kids? When Pappy makes his killer $25k a year and has 7 kids, whopays for it?

WTF does that have to do w/it? all poor people, even legals fall into this category, so it has nothing to do w/being illegal. Don't tell me Billy Bob doesn't have 10 children living in his trailer. Actually Billy Bob can take welfare, the poor illegal has to actually work to feed the 10 kids himself.

[Crookshanks]

But Billy Bob is a US CITIZEN! What do you think would happen if Billy Bob took himself and his 10 kids and snuck into Mexico because his piddly money would go farther? Would he be able to educate his children for free, get medical care for free, and get to work? Probably not - he'd probably get thrown into a Mexican jail faster than you can say "arriba" and he'd quickly be forgotten.

[nkdlunch]

But Billy Bob is a US CITIZEN! What do you think would happen if Billy Bob took himself and his 10 kids and snuck into Mexico because his piddly money would go farther? Would he be able to educate his children for free, get medical care for free, and get to work? Probably not - he'd probably get thrown into a Mexican jail faster than you can say "arriba" and he'd quickly be forgotten.

tough shit cause Pedro is here to stay. Look for a Taqueria opening in a neighborhood near u

[Phenomanul]

Mexico is not a third world country. They have tons of oil and are benefiting from so many companies moving there from U.S. The problem is that they have such rampant corruption that the money never gets to the people who need it.

Until Vincente Fox addresses the corruption problem, nothing will EVER change!


In the U.S. these companies masquerade their own corruption... ask Haliburton or Enron... wait... Enron doesn't exist anymore.

Corruption is more transparent and frustrating in countries like Mexico, but don't fool yourself into believing it doesn't exist in the U.S. at all.

For all I know, half the lobbyists and legislators in America are crooks in some way form or manner.

[gtownspur]

How old are you?

Why don't you the say the same when others do like wise like for instance, the person my post was reffering too?

Scumbag.

[gtownspur]

tough shit cause Pedro is here to stay. Look for a Taqueria opening in a neighborhood near u


29 percent of the population in prisons are a bunch of Pedro's. :lol

Ship them all back.

[gtownspur]

was talking to gtown
Talking to me about what? Since my post had nothing to do with illegal immigrants.

If people talk shit, they will recieve it back. Quit standing up for those who sling it. It's not as if CBF is gonna massage you're culo.

And Btw, i agree with you on immigration, so get off me.

[Cant_Be_Faded]

Talking to me about what? Since my post had nothing to do with illegal immigrants.

If people talk shit, they will recieve it back. Quit standing up for those who sling it. It's not as if CBF is gonna massage you're culo.

And Btw, i agree with you on immigration, so get off me.

I did comment on the topic, and then stated an opinion. I don't need mookie's help for comebacks, you seem to be doing enough damage to yourself without even my efforts :lol

[gtownspur]

I did comment on the topic, and then stated an opinion. I don't need mookie's help for comebacks, you seem to be doing enough damage to yourself without even my efforts :lol

Damage to what? on a internet sports forum? :lol GMAB!

IF you're proud of the respect you have here because you have none in your real life, then out of pity i salute you. :lol

And i believe i was talking to SEc27rowwhatever.

[Cant_Be_Faded]

Glue your freckles back onto your wannabe ginger face. GMAB indeed, from the person who spent 16 type lines of time on a post about me.

[gtownspur]

Glue your freckles back onto your wannabe ginger face. GMAB indeed, from the person who spent 16 type lines of time on a post about me.

That's fine that i spent however many lines it was. Since it's a task for you to even type more than two sentences anyway.

And what's worse is that i atleast don't talk about you unless you bring me up. You on the other hand love to obsess about me when i'm not around, or am even addressing you. You even go as far as venting your frustration with me at the Club forum. You're sad in the fact that i am what gives you a purpose to linger on this site. With out me, you're just good for one liners and stroking Vince Young all over the <internets> :lol !

[Cant_Be_Faded]

No, I said in the club you're the only poster in this entire spurstalk forum that I truely hate and despise, and I told that to someone who said I hated them. They were wrong. If you're faux-freckles are gonna fall off your face cuz of that, then go for it, but you're acting like this is high school.

At least I try to be funny when I mention how much I detest you. Like when I first called you gculo. That's funny. And others agreed.

But when you spew shit like you did on page 1, people tell you to take it elsewhere. Cuz you're not funny.

[DarkReign]

tough shit cause Pedro is here to stay. Look for a Taqueria opening in a neighborhood near u

So thats your stance? Let aliens bleed thru the borders and milk the system?

What happens when all the successful folk move out and all you have is welfare sucking, health care draining aliens "supporting" the economy?

Those losers going to swim to England and milk off them?

fucking losers. My ancestors immigrated LEGALLY and were renamed, then had to learn a new language.

No, Latinos arent taking over by any stretch of your imagination. This is America so you can keep dreaming, its legal here, provided to you for free on the sweat of those rich people you so dearly hate.

[cherylsteele]

These illegals are using your schools(although I wonder about that sometimes), police/fire protection, emergency health systems, etc and not paying anything to help the system. Then add to that those sponges who are actually citizens and getting money when they could be working. I have no problem helping others out but not if strains the system in place so the legitimate worker is let out in the cold.

I have no problem with immigration just go through the proper channels, that's all. I know this country was built on immigration but weren't the vast majority of the immgration in the past done through channels?
Make those "sponges" either work some king of job or they don't get as much.

[Sec24Row7]

I dont need to read the vile imagery you posted on this thread.

I could give a shit if you agree with me.

[cherylsteele]

I dont need to read the vile imagery you posted on this thread.

I could give a shit if you agree with me.
Who are you talking to?

[CubanMustGo]

Here's some vile imagery. In Dallas, a young Hispanic woman showed her pride in this country by waving not a flag of Mexico, but one of the US. Check out the reaction from her compadres:

http://www.dallasnews.com/sharedcontent/dws/img/v3/03-29-2006.n1a_29protestJUMP.G0R1RKVII.1.jpg

She said this: 'My heart is with the Mexican flag and Mexico, but I'm standing on American ground, and I'm Mexican-American,' Michelle said. Pretty extreme stuff.

Her reward was not only the abuse rained upon her by her fellow students, but getting called out in a Dallas Morning News op-ed story (http://www.dallasnews.com/sharedcontent/dws/dn/opinion/columnists/all/stories/DN-hernandez_30edi.ART.State.Edition1.25c4cda.html): "So I understand the confusion between Michelle and the other students ditching class to protest proposed changes to U.S. immigration laws. Hyphenated Americans are squeezed between two worlds and often forced to choose. But the Mexican flag is a symbol of cultural pride, the same orgullo felt by the Irish, Polish and Germans when they were new to our shores. It doesn't make a person less American.

Michelle, you can't pick sides, nor should you. Americans come in all flavors, baby. "

Seems Michelle wasn't the only one "taking sides" ... :depressed

[Cant_Be_Faded]

This, along with a shitload more, was all in one single edition of the Dallas Morning News. I was very surprised by the amount of protesting going on in the metroplex area.

Even like 200 students in Lancaster walked 3 miles from school to take a bus to a protest site, then they were bussed back to school :lol

[RandomGuy]

At the risk of interjecting a fact or something insane like that, let me do so now.

The foreign-born population of the US is 9.5 percent of the total population (in 2000). This can be compared to the 2000's proportions of 22.7 in Australia; 16 percent in Canada; 6.3 in France; 7.3 in Germany; 3.9 percent in Great Britain; and 5.7 in Sweden.

Though the volume of illegal immigrants is difficult to estimate, its estimated through a consensus of methods, that the number is approximately 3.2 million, lowered by the amnesty of 1987-1988, but not very different from the previous decade. The rate of illegal immigrants is agreed by experts to be about 250,000 to 300,000 per year. More than half of illegal immigrants enter the US legally and overstay their visas.

The United States as the great "melting pot" has become a myth. The reality is that there is a continued geographic concentration of minority groups in certain regions and in specific metropolitan areas. This holds true especially for Hispanics and Asians, who tend to enter the US through "gateway cities" such as Los Angeles and New York and then remain there.

Los Angeles is home to one fifth of the US Hispanic population. First in growth of all US cities; it gained18 percent of the Hispanic population between 1900 and 2000. Mexican and Latin-American immigrants and continued high fertility rates account for the increases.

The Census of 2000 made clear minorities grew at 12 times the rate of whites. By the year 2050 according to Census projections racial and ethnic minorities will outnumber non-Hispanic whites. In the next fifty years this demographic shift will transform politics and business.

California will achieve a statewide "minority majority" in 2004 and Texas by 2010. Though generally most communities in the US lack true racial and ethnic diversity, the Census Bureau identified twenty- one counties that qualify as "multiple melting pots" (see box below) where there is a significant presence of more than two minority groups. These communities will continue to become unique markets as the blending of culture and intermarriage transform their personality.

[RandomGuy]

For the myth that "immigrants milk the system"

Bull puckey. There have been some pretty solid studies that have given support to the fact that the vast majority of immigrants don't collect welfare or any other government support.

People at risk of deportation don't like the entity that would deport them to know where they are or draw attention to themselves.

The best way to curb illegal immigration is something I heard Robert Reich talk about on the radio:

Enforce minimum wage and safety laws.

If the low-wage, dangerous jobs that these immigrants are literally dying to come here for aren't there, you have cut off demand at the source.

Not too hard.

Of course this would be enourmously unpopular with the business interests that control our government. It would also force us to actually pay (gasp) higher prices for things like food and construction.

This is my never-to-be-realized dream. Too bad it would actually solve a host of problems.

[RandomGuy]

Illegal immigrants pay rent, buy groceries, buy cars, shop at walmart, and do a host of other things in our economy.

Yes, they even commit crimes and do bad things.

BUT

Immigrant populations in the US and otherwise tend to be more productive and take about 3 generations to "catch up" economically with the rest of the country. The current wave of immigrants, legal and otherwise will be no different.

I can only shake my head at the do-nothing reforms that are being considered and will likely pass. They will satisfy both sides but will not change the status quo.

In time the current wave of immigrants will assimilate just as the past waves have, and the U.S. economy will be better off in the long run for it.

[gtownspur]

I dont need to read the vile imagery you posted on this thread.

I could give a shit if you agree with me.


Fuck you then, stick it up your ass. :lol blow me.

[gtownspur]

No, I said in the club you're the only poster in this entire spurstalk forum that I truely hate and despise, and I told that to someone who said I hated them. They were wrong. If you're faux-freckles are gonna fall off your face cuz of that, then go for it, but you're acting like this is high school.

At least I try to be funny when I mention how much I detest you. Like when I first called you gculo. That's funny. And others agreed.

But when you spew shit like you did on page 1, people tell you to take it elsewhere. Cuz you're not funny.

It's funny that you even hate me.:lmao. I can't hate you, in perspective, you're just a brick on the wall to me.Even funnier that you need others approval to make you feel like you're wanted. It's a forum, and i could care less about making freinds with spineless punks like Suc247row, who feel like the way to get accepted in here is to tell me what to do. Look dude, i'm not gonna reverse all the hate and anguish I've caused you.

Fact is, you spewed some hateful shit about handjobing, and you deserve to get the same shit back at you. If people like Suck247row want to defend you and come off as high and mighty, then they and you can go teabag your dogs.

[smeagol]

Why don't you the say the same when others do like wise like for instance, the person my post was reffering too?

Scumbag.
I asked you a question which I hoped was not that hard to answer. What's your age. By the quality of your posts, I'd say not more than 21.

[Sec24Row7]

This message is hidden because gtownspur is on your ignore list.

[mookie2001]

all of yall with gtown on ingnore-- take him off
youre missing a vulgar display of historic neocon status and unmeasured, previously implausable ownage

[JoeChalupa]

I don't ignore anyone up in here.
My grandparents came here to work and they had green cards which I have as memory of their struggle for my sake.
Protest under the American Flag is my take. I'm proud of my Heritage but I am an American first.

[JoeChalupa]

Many immigrants have left their native lands to come to America and this goes way back.

[MannyIsGod]

Ok, lets end this myth once and for all because I'm tired of seeing it said.

ILLEGALS PAY MOTHERFUCKING TAXES JUST LIKE ANY OF YOU OTHER FUCKERS.

The vast majority have deductions taken out of their checks just like the rest of you.

[word]

Well, Socal and Texas can't really be compared in this situation. The hispanic 'culture' while hard working, doesn't appear to value the things we need to compete. By and large, they don't value education, which is a huge minus. 1/2 of LA county is illiterate, for example.

China has University educated engineers working in factories being paid less than your average busboy in San Antonio.

What scares me about immigration from Latin America is not what they do or value, I think most of 'em are hard working good people, but what they DON'T value. Education being number one.

[Oh, Gee!!]

Ok, lets end this myth once and for all because I'm tired of seeing it said.

ILLEGALS PAY MOTHERFUCKING TAXES JUST LIKE ANY OF YOU OTHER FUCKERS.

The vast majority have deductions taken out of their checks just like the rest of you.

Except when they're paid "under the table."

[xrayzebra]

Except when they're paid "under the table."

Which is often and on a regular basis. They also
use many social services which come out of taxes
paid by everyone. Like their children who are
borned in this country and wives, or husbands, who
they marry and are US citizens.

[word]

Tax the money orders to Mexico and a huge problem has been solved.

BTW (http://lookatthebeaners.ytmnd.com/)

[nkdlunch]

:lol fuck! ^ that's a good idea. we should also put major taxes on tortillas and salsas... and beans of course

[word]

All money orders sent to Mexico and central america should be taxed 10%. Period.

[MannyIsGod]

Except when they're paid "under the table."I'd wager big money that the amount of American citizens who get paid under the table far exceeds the number of illegals being paid the same way.

[Oh, Gee!!]

I'd wager big money that the amount of American citizens who get paid under the table far exceeds the number of illegals being paid the same way.


you shop at wal-mart, you don't have big money.

[word]

It is sad that these protestors do not understand the gravity, and negative image, it casts upon them to fly the flag of another country. They do their cause a great deal of harm, and certainly it does not foster sympathy for them.

I lived in SA my entire life until last August. Now I'm in a rural area of Pennsylvania; about 97% Anglo. These people have never much talked about latinos, and are fascinated when I talk about Mexican food, or the fact that I was literally in the minority in S. Texas; they really have no clue.

However, now, with the scenes they are witnessing on TV, they certainly have opinions. (those opinions are not positive ones)

I suppose the 'taking jobs americans don't want' doesn't fly. I've lived in areas that are in the 90% white as well. The trash was still picked up, there were cooks and busboys ..whatever....all done by white people.

In fact, the first time my parents came to see me in Minneapolis back in the late 80's my mother was shocked that the cooks were white...the people who picked up the trash...were white.

I told her, " Hell, everyone is white up here."

This idea that immigrants from mexico are taking jobs that 'americans' wouldn't do is nonsense.

Tell ya' who is taking this issue more serious than white people and why immigration is gonna be clamped down on and that is that..

black people.

By and large, in the south, that's who's jobs illegal immigration is fucking with.

This isn't a white/brown thing. It's a black/brown thing.

80% of black peoples roots in the US go back further than most white people.

[DarkReign]

80% of black peoples roots in the US go back further than most white people.

That is the truth.

[Sec24Row7]

Ok, lets end this myth once and for all because I'm tired of seeing it said.

ILLEGALS PAY MOTHERFUCKING TAXES JUST LIKE ANY OF YOU OTHER FUCKERS.

The vast majority have deductions taken out of their checks just like the rest of you.


Most of them wish that they could actually get a check and file a tax form instead of getting paid in cash. Now... let's not pat them on the back for wanting to be good citizens just yet. The reason they would love to file their taxes is because they would get almost all of it refunded because of # of dependants/income level etc.

[Sec24Row7]

That is the truth.


yeah because of the ban on importation of new slaves that took effect in 1800 most have been here a long time... the big westward land rush and other immigration spikes are when a lot of whites got here...

Not me though :lol

[spurster]

It's easy to stop illegal immigration. You just need to levy big penalties on the businesses and people who hire them.

There will be lots of talk, but no one is going to shut off the cheap labor.

[bull62400]

i heard from somewhere that 4,000 illegals come to this country everyday. I know we should help the poor and give to the needy. Thats not wrong. I'm against the humanitarian part of the bill. However, if u help them with the means to help them find work illegally then i agree that it should be a crime. Plus, America does not have a shortage of workers, if we allow illegal aliens to work and as Bush proposed to give 4 year cards that can be renewed to work in the USA and still not be a U.S. citizen, I think we will not only have more problems w/ illegals, but also unemployment will go up even more. If 4,000 ilegal aliens per day cross and find work, If we help them find work, i wonder how unemployment will be in the next 10 years esp. if Bush were to propose this "4 year card" thingy. Also, I understand that a family is poor and wants to advance in America and dont have the means in Mexico, but i dont think we should be blaming the USA for this problem. We should put our citizens first. If people from Mexico are extremely poor then that is Mexico's problem, not ours. The fact that the social classes in mexico are far apart does not mean we (US) should we responsible in helping these people find work, working illegally, and elevating our unemployment. I know it sux for people who want to cross the border, but we as a nation need to worry about the long-term. i dont think the future will be very bright if we allow illegals to work in america.

[word]

My sister is the keeper of the family tree, I'm not up on all of it. I know the direct bloodline on my dads side and the family name, came from Cork, Ireland in 1856 and landed in Bangor, Maine then settled in California, where my dad was born, then to Texas.

Moms side goes back to the American Revolution. Mom and sister are both DAR members.

Family history, geneology, the study of America, who we are, is fascinating stuff.

I have my grandfathers dress blues from WWI in pristine condition as well as a photo of him in that uniform in 1917.

People were midgets back then, btw.

[Sec24Row7]

My sister would be a DAR on both sides if she cared...

My mother's family had a bussiness in downtown San Antonio in 1860.

[word]

My sister would be a DAR on both sides if she cared...

My mother's family had a bussiness in downtown San Antonio in 1860.

Shame she doesn't care.

[Sec24Row7]

Why?

Your family is who you are, not who you've been.

[word]

Why?

Your family is who you are, not who you've been.

what do dat mean ?

[nkdlunch]

Ok, lets end this myth once and for all because I'm tired of seeing it said.

ILLEGALS PAY MOTHERFUCKING TAXES JUST LIKE ANY OF YOU OTHER FUCKERS.

The vast majority have deductions taken out of their checks just like the rest of you.

this is true. and another myth is that illegals get tons of free medical aid. Bullshit, the illegal will NEVER go to a hospital UNLESS he is dying. If they need a doctor or dentist they will pay CASH 99% of the time or stand the pain till it goes away. the main reason for this is because they are scared of la migra.

[Sec24Row7]

^^^^^

That's not true.

I have first hand experience that says otherwise.

[smeagol]

Bottom line is as long as the gap between rich and poor countries continues to be as wide as it is, the inmigration problem will not go away.

You can toughen the laws or build a wall accross the Mexican border, iligal inmigants will keep coming in.

The solution is elsewhere.

[jochhejaam]

Leave it alone, it subsidizes your SS.


(I haven't seen this posted, apologies if it has).

Illegal Immigrants Are Bolstering Social Security With Billions
NY Times ^ | 4/5/05 | Eduardo Porter




Since illegally crossing the Mexican border into the United States six years ago, Ángel Martínez has done backbreaking work, harvesting asparagus, pruning grapevines and picking the ripe fruit. More recently, he has also washed trucks, often working as much as 70 hours a week, earning $8.50 to $12.75 an hour.

Not surprisingly, Mr. Martínez, 28, has not given much thought to Social Security's long-term financial problems. But Mr. Martínez - who comes from the state of Oaxaca in southern Mexico and hiked for two days through the desert to enter the United States near Tecate, some 20 miles east of Tijuana - contributes more than most Americans to the solvency of the nation's public retirement system.

Last year, Mr. Martínez paid about $2,000 toward Social Security and $450 for Medicare through payroll taxes withheld from his wages. Yet unlike most Americans, who will receive some form of a public pension in retirement and will be eligible for Medicare as soon as they turn 65, Mr. Martínez is not entitled to benefits.

He belongs to a big club. As the debate over Social Security heats up, the estimated seven million or so illegal immigrant workers in the United States are now providing the system with a subsidy of as much as $7 billion a year.

While it has been evident for years that illegal immigrants pay a variety of taxes, the extent of their contributions to Social Security is striking: the money added up to about 10 percent of last year's surplus - the difference between what the system currently receives in payroll taxes and what it doles out in pension benefits. Moreover, the money paid by illegal workers and their employers is factored into all the Social Security Administration's projections.

Illegal immigration, Marcelo Suárez-Orozco, co-director of immigration studies at New York University, noted sardonically, could provide "the fastest way to shore up the long-term finances of Social Security."

It is impossible to know exactly how many illegal immigrant workers pay taxes. But according to specialists, most of them do. Since 1986, when the Immigration Reform and Control Act set penalties for employers who knowingly hire illegal immigrants, most such workers have been forced to buy fake ID's to get a job.

Currently available for about $150 on street corners in just about any immigrant neighborhood in California, a typical fake ID package includes a green card and a Social Security card. It provides cover for employers, who, if asked, can plausibly assert that they believe all their workers are legal. It also means that workers must be paid by the book - with payroll tax deductions.

IRCA, as the immigration act is known, did little to deter employers from hiring illegal immigrants or to discourage them from working. But for Social Security's finances, it was a great piece of legislation.

Starting in the late 1980's, the Social Security Administration received a flood of W-2 earnings reports with incorrect - sometimes simply fictitious - Social Security numbers. It stashed them in what it calls the "earnings suspense file" in the hope that someday it would figure out whom they belonged to.

The file has been mushrooming ever since: $189 billion worth of wages ended up recorded in the suspense file over the 1990's, two and a half times the amount of the 1980's.

In the current decade, the file is growing, on average, by more than $50 billion a year, generating $6 billion to $7 billion in Social Security tax revenue and about $1.5 billion in Medicare taxes.

In 2002 alone, the last year with figures released by the Social Security Administration, nine million W-2's with incorrect Social Security numbers landed in the suspense file, accounting for $56 billion in earnings, or about 1.5 percent of total reported wages.

Social Security officials do not know what fraction of the suspense file corresponds to the earnings of illegal immigrants. But they suspect that the portion is significant.

"Our assumption is that about three-quarters of other-than-legal immigrants pay payroll taxes," said Stephen C. Goss, Social Security's chief actuary, using the agency's term for illegal immigration.


http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1377523/posts

I work in a Union and although there are some very good workers there are also some of the laziest people you'd ever want to meet. I'd take hard working illegal immigrants over them any day of the week.

[word]

The rich and poor in Los Angeles. Hell, what place has such a huge disparity between the poor and filthy rich people than Los Angeles and New York ?

No where. This is why this is not really a Texas issue. You can count the billionaires and mulit-millionaires in SA on your hands. You can't count 'em with the hairs on your head in LA. There are FILTHY rich people in LA and a LOT OF 'EM.

Here, we're basically all the same. There's not that deep economic chasm that exists in LA.

That's just one angle on the topic I thought I'd throw out there.

[cheguevara]

Leave it alone, it subsidized you SS.


(I haven't seen this posted, apologies if it has).

Illegal Immigrants Are Bolstering Social Security With Billions
NY Times ^ | 4/5/05 | Eduardo Porter




Since illegally crossing the Mexican border into the United States six years ago, Ángel Martínez has done backbreaking work, harvesting asparagus, pruning grapevines and picking the ripe fruit. More recently, he has also washed trucks, often working as much as 70 hours a week, earning $8.50 to $12.75 an hour.

Not surprisingly, Mr. Martínez, 28, has not given much thought to Social Security's long-term financial problems. But Mr. Martínez - who comes from the state of Oaxaca in southern Mexico and hiked for two days through the desert to enter the United States near Tecate, some 20 miles east of Tijuana - contributes more than most Americans to the solvency of the nation's public retirement system.

Last year, Mr. Martínez paid about $2,000 toward Social Security and $450 for Medicare through payroll taxes withheld from his wages. Yet unlike most Americans, who will receive some form of a public pension in retirement and will be eligible for Medicare as soon as they turn 65, Mr. Martínez is not entitled to benefits.

He belongs to a big club. As the debate over Social Security heats up, the estimated seven million or so illegal immigrant workers in the United States are now providing the system with a subsidy of as much as $7 billion a year.

While it has been evident for years that illegal immigrants pay a variety of taxes, the extent of their contributions to Social Security is striking: the money added up to about 10 percent of last year's surplus - the difference between what the system currently receives in payroll taxes and what it doles out in pension benefits. Moreover, the money paid by illegal workers and their employers is factored into all the Social Security Administration's projections.

Illegal immigration, Marcelo Suárez-Orozco, co-director of immigration studies at New York University, noted sardonically, could provide "the fastest way to shore up the long-term finances of Social Security."

It is impossible to know exactly how many illegal immigrant workers pay taxes. But according to specialists, most of them do. Since 1986, when the Immigration Reform and Control Act set penalties for employers who knowingly hire illegal immigrants, most such workers have been forced to buy fake ID's to get a job.

Currently available for about $150 on street corners in just about any immigrant neighborhood in California, a typical fake ID package includes a green card and a Social Security card. It provides cover for employers, who, if asked, can plausibly assert that they believe all their workers are legal. It also means that workers must be paid by the book - with payroll tax deductions.

IRCA, as the immigration act is known, did little to deter employers from hiring illegal immigrants or to discourage them from working. But for Social Security's finances, it was a great piece of legislation.

Starting in the late 1980's, the Social Security Administration received a flood of W-2 earnings reports with incorrect - sometimes simply fictitious - Social Security numbers. It stashed them in what it calls the "earnings suspense file" in the hope that someday it would figure out whom they belonged to.

The file has been mushrooming ever since: $189 billion worth of wages ended up recorded in the suspense file over the 1990's, two and a half times the amount of the 1980's.

In the current decade, the file is growing, on average, by more than $50 billion a year, generating $6 billion to $7 billion in Social Security tax revenue and about $1.5 billion in Medicare taxes.

In 2002 alone, the last year with figures released by the Social Security Administration, nine million W-2's with incorrect Social Security numbers landed in the suspense file, accounting for $56 billion in earnings, or about 1.5 percent of total reported wages.

Social Security officials do not know what fraction of the suspense file corresponds to the earnings of illegal immigrants. But they suspect that the portion is significant.

"Our assumption is that about three-quarters of other-than-legal immigrants pay payroll taxes," said Stephen C. Goss, Social Security's chief actuary, using the agency's term for illegal immigration.


http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1377523/posts

I work in a Union and although there are some very good workers there are also some of the laziest people you'd ever want to meet. I'd take hard working illegal immigrants over them any day of the week.


gracias :tu

[Mucha Lucha]

pinche jorge boosh...

[xrayzebra]

You mean no one else would pay those billions in SS if
they were filling the same jobs, legally? Strange, I
would have thought they would.

[boutons_]

"Mr. Martínez is not entitled to benefits."

Not officially, but if he shows up badly sick/injured, nearly all health care orgs/doctors will provide "humanitarian" care for him, then send the bill to state/federal authorities for re-imbursement, so that his payroll contributions and those of other state/federal tax end up paying for him anyway. Same is true of the 10s of millions of health-uninsured Americans.

ie, "uninsured" doesn't mean "uncared for"

In fact, the USA already has a fully socialized, stealth "national health insurance" system via this humanitarian back door. But because uninsured/"illegal" people don't seek medical care until they are critically sick, their care is much more expensive to treat.

A majority of Americans want a national health insurance system, but the right-winger/red-staters/conservatives controlling the Repug party block even the mention of a national "anything" except bullshit trillion-dollar wars.

[boutons_]

http://graphics8.nytimes.com/images/2006/04/02/weekinreview/02broder_graph.gif

[Cant_Be_Faded]

You mean no one else would pay those billions in SS if
they were filling the same jobs, legally? Strange, I
would have thought they would.


You, my retired army friend, are a dumbass.

[Trainwreck2100]

You mean no one else would pay those billions in SS if
they were filling the same jobs, legally? Strange, I
would have thought they would.


They wouldn't be doing those jobs at all.

[Cant_Be_Faded]

This forum needs more Trainwreck

[smeagol]

I've said it once and I'll say it a million times, the inmigration issue will not go away while the gap between rich and poor nation continues to widen.