🔷 Open Thread

[BostonUrbEx]

<-- Doesn't understand why people are upset that a state made it illegal to be illegal.

I'd just like to know what exactly about this people are mad about. Media is so vague about it that I'm not even sure I understand what it is.

 

[kennedy]

That missile looks awfully sketchy...I bet the guidance systems are particularly sophisticated. An AEGIS is certainly no match for the Club-K!

 

[JohnAKeith]

 

[tobyjug]

 

[kz1000ps]

Doesn't understand why people are upset that a state made it illegal to be illegal.

I'd just like to know what exactly about this people are mad about. Media is so vague about it that I'm not even sure I understand what it is.

The only drawback is that it gives something of a free pass to racial profiling. Still, I definitely agree with both your points. Seems like such a Captain Obvious thing to do... making something that's illegal illegal.

 

[blade_bltz]

The only drawback is that it gives something of a free pass to racial profiling. Still, I definitely agree with both your points. Seems like such a Captain Obvious thing to do... making something that's illegal illegal.

Racial profiling is ENTIRELY the reason why people are so incensed.

And this article from the Chronicle suggests the Arizona bill is unconstitutional, since the power to regulate immigration lies exclusively in the hands of the federal government.

 

[Lurker]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vyPuXPaOJkc&feature=player_embedded

To some this was like watching Hell freeze over. I'm slightly bemused....

 

[Shepard]

illegal to be illegal

Actions are illegal; branding a person as "an illegal" makes no sense. Did they break a law coming to work here without authorization? Yes. Should they be sent home because their entire existence here is illegitimate?

So the next time you run a red light trying to get first dibs on the wings at Stevie's superbowl party, the cops are not only going to write you a ticket but also demand you promptly return to where your trip originated without enjoying any of Stevie's wings. Because that makes a lot of sense.

Now the same scenario, except all the lights between your house and Stevie's are permanently red, and driving is the only way to get there. Get it? There is no legal means for unskilled labor to enter this country "legally."

Now to add another wrinkle. You're going to Stevie's to cook his wings, not consume them. You're pulled over and sent home. Now poor Stevie must rely on his inbred hick friends to cook. Stevie's screwed, and his party is going to suck.

Stevie is America, and all of you who want to see Stevie's party fail must hate the superbowl and everything America stands for.

Quod erat demonstratum

 

[Lurker]

Actions are illegal; branding a person as "an illegal" makes no sense. Did they break a law coming to work here without authorization? Yes. Should they be sent home because their entire existence here is illegitimate?

The proper term is "illegal alien", which makes perfect sense. Something foreign which is present in violation of the law. How is that difficult to understand?

Illegal aliens should be heavily fined and deported out of respect to all the LEGAL immigrants whom waited in line, filed their paperwork, passed their exams, and followed the legal process to immigrate here. It's incredibly insulting to me that these criminals are being coddled by corrupt politicians and bleeding hearts after everything I went through getting out of the Soviet Union.

 

[Ron Newman]

Illegal aliens should be legalized. The waiting line should be abolished. Let them all in.

 

[Lurker]

Ron do you really want citizenship to be worthless?

 

[Ron Newman]

I didn't say grant them citizenship, just the right to work.

 

[Lurker]

Do you really think that's a great idea with double digit unemployment? Part of the reason why unskilled labor wages are so low and many of the least educated citizens here can't get jobs is because illegal aliens are willing to work for the minimum wage or less than the legal minimum wage.

Businesses get cheap labor and consumers maybe get lower prices, but then the cost of social services to taxpayers for those same illegal or the affected unemployed citizens goes up dramatically. Tolerance of illegal aliens doing unskilled labor has essentially been one giant subsidy to many industries at the cost of many citizens opportunities for a job, or higher pay or higher taxes to pay for more social services which offset the illegal employment/under-compensation of citizens/unemployment of citizens.

 

[Ron Newman]

If the immigrants are no longer illegal, then their employers will have to comply with labor laws and no longer pay sub-minimum wages.

 

[Shepard]

Tolerance of illegal aliens doing unskilled labor has essentially been one giant subsidy to many industries at the cost of many citizens opportunities for a job

If all of your so-called "illegals" left this country, I doubt that many of our allegedly afflicted working class citizens would take their jobs, being too addicted to fast food and welfare to even notice that employment picking tomatoes is available.

 

[Beton Brut]

^^ Sounds like a Sunday dinner conversation with my dad.

 

[Lurker]

If the immigrants are no longer illegal, then their employers will have to comply with labor laws and no longer pay sub-minimum wages.

Why give those jobs and wages to foreigners first when there are plenty of citizens out of work? During economic periods where the labor is needed and despite raised wages no one is available or willing to do those jobs, then by all means grant work visas as a last resort, but not in economic conditions like these.

If all of your so-called "illegals" left this country, I doubt that many of our allegedly afflicted working class citizens would take their jobs, being too addicted to fast food and welfare to even notice that employment picking tomatoes is available.

They aren't 'so called', it's a fact they are ILLEGAL.

Those who are working will appreciate their wages going up a few dollars an hour. If the pay for menial or generally boring labor became more profitable than being a welfare layabout, at least some people would start working rather than remaining on the dole.

 

[Shepard]

Lurker, many of the jobs that have evaporated in this economic climate have been more of the "associate-systems-analyst" type than the "tomato-pickin" type. A late-20's laid off systems analyst is not competing with your so-called "illegals" for employment, and deporting your so-called "illegals" will not raise her wages or find her a job. And despite what you say, no American citizen would give up welfare to pick tomatoes. Not even the yokels who gleefully chomp down KFC double-downs are that dumb.

 

[ablarc]

^ So ... your point is ... ?

 

[Shepard]

Once again for those who need it spelled out: Immigrants who enter this country without proper work visas - people who are branded "illegals" by the prevailing crypto-racist conservative discourse - do not actually harm American employment because 1) the recently unemployed are typically employable in a different category of jobs than that of the "illegals", and 2) the welfare-dependent unemployed don't want or need the type of jobs typically held by "illegals".

Only politicking, xenophobia and old-fashioned scapegoating lies behind draconian immigration measures. There's no economic rationale.