Your thoughts on the immigration debate?

[Xose]

We need to deport illegal aliens from this country back to their own. I'm sorry, but yes, a person can be "illegal" when it comes to not following the laws of the land.

That was just funny you know that the land the US occupies today was once the domain of several hundred independent Indian nations right? You know how that land was gained? Wonder if the Native Americans felt the same way... that’javascript:emoticon(':roll:')s just funny.

Are you serious? The whites haven't always been here? Wow. Thanks for enlightening me!

The past is past. The U.S. is not owned by native americans, it is owned by U.S. citizens, who have the right and obligation to impose and enforce laws that suit them, as a citizenship. That's what we're doing, and what we should do, including laws that address immigration.

I'm sure the natives did indeed feel the same way, but they did not have the political, economic, or military muscle to push the Europeans back home. Sucks for them, it's good for us, and that's the way history works, like it or not. Illegal immigrants should not decide U.S. immigration policy. Period.

[Bob]

This may be a good thread in which to wish one and all a happy Cinco de Mayo. Whether our migrants are legal or not, and whether or not they are of Asturian ancestry, we should not forget the positive contributions they make to our economy and our culture.

Legality is a problematic concept. How about the Alien and Sedition Act? I recall that it was once illegal to harbor fugitive slaves, and that many people were imprisoned during WWI for what any reasonable person would regard as issues of free speech (Constitution anyone?). In several cases, refusal to kiss the American flag in public (being forced to kiss anything is a humiliating act if there ever was one) was considered grounds for prosecution and/or persecution (We're, talking jail sentences here).

Personally, I'll concentrate on morality rather than legality. A law deserves our respect and obedience only if it is ethical.

[Eli]

You are correct, historically the strong were able to impose their will on the weaker nations. That is no longer the case though. Lets follow your reasoning, we own this land we make the laws, we say you go. And so, we round up 12 million people and send them back. For the sake of argument we’ll leave all other concerns aside and assume this nation has the military muscle, logistical capacity and political will to do so.

What do you think Mexico from were we import 1.8 million barrels of oil per day would do when we start sending about 7 million people back? How about Venezuela from were we import 1.2 million barrels a day? What will they do when we send back half a million people? The US is by no stretch of the imagination a self sufficient nation, it depends on natural resources from the rest of the world, to get an idea of the amount of resources this nation imports take a look at http://www.intracen.org/tradstat/sitc3-3d/ir842.htm a tremendous amount of those imports comes from the very nations that we would be deporting all these people to, what do you think they will do? That is simply not an option in our world. However, I don’t think this is not why deportation is not an option.

I have always been fascinated by what the Nazi’s did to the Jewish people, not so much by what they did but by how the Jewish people accepted it. By in large they simply went along without a struggle, that is not a normal reaction and have always wondered why that was. Of course there were a couple of exceptions like the Warsaw Ghetto uprising, but those were the exceptions not the rule. A normal reaction to such a roundup would be to fight back, and I would bet anything that will happen at least by 1% of the population. Imagine 120,000 people fighting back... right here. This nation is so technologically dependent that all it takes is two men to paralyze a city.

In my opinion if what you propose ever becomes reality, somebody somewhere will get carried away and blood will be spilled. When that happens it will escalate, and escalate and escalate. Why do you think there are more insurgents in Iraq today than at the end of the war? At the end of the war an estimated 1,500 today close to 30,000. People for the most part are not fighting for a cause, they are fighting for their dead relatives “you killed my brother, I’ll kill you” you kill him and you get two more. Think about it.

Couldn't agree more with Bob

A law deserves our respect and obedience only if it is ethical.

I believe that the army holds soldiers responsible for their own actions, if a superior commands them to shoot and they do so when there is no military need/justification both the soldier and the officer are held accountable.

[ayalgueru]

I think the whole debate is misled ,,, the problem is not immigration

If a country is economically free there should be no issues letting people in because only those who are truly looking for work and opportunity will be coming to us. And then people who come to us will always make a valuable contribution to society ,,,

The problem being that we have a well intentioned but disastreous generous welfare system that do seem to attract spoungers from all over the world and that is even worse in europe that it is in the states.

Unfortunately we are not a true blue free economy ,and that seems far away since our economy have got heavy socialist aspects. While this is the case there should be control and people in europe (or the US or anywhere) have got the right to invite whoever they think is right and appropriate to come and live among us.

People who have made themselves illegal by violating the law coming to the country uninvited should leave.

[Art]

I think part of the problem in the US is too much population. Sure, there are huge sparsely populated areas, but our urban areas are really densely populated. Immigration adds to this.

I'm prettty sure that this has changed dramatically in the past few decades. When I moved back to Maryland I was shocked by how much more crowded it seems now than when I was a kid.

High population density leads to feeling anonymous in the crowd and anti-social behaviors like "road rage". It may also be related to our turn to the Right economically (caring less about the community or the poor). It's a "I've got mine" world. I don't think we were so strongly self-oriented a few decades ago. Population studies with rats show that anti-social behavior increases with density. Evidently we're pretty similar.

I think excessive immigration also promotes anti-social attitudes and behaviors because it makes many people feel less connected to their community when there are people who speak different languages or look different.

At the very least, at some point high population density and feeling different increases our communal level of anxiety. It occurs to me that it might be in the ruling elite's self-interest to make us feel anxious so we give them free reign. Is that why they've pushed the idea of immigration reform? (Also, is increasing our anxiety the real purpose of the "war on terror"? Is our government terrorizing us for their own political and economic gain?)

Anyway, in a sense Ayalgueru is right: immigrants have become the current scapegoat for America's anxieties.

[Eli]

Completely agree with you Ayalguero, however you are describing Utopia or a one world nation, that’s not about to happen any time soon.

Interesting you would mention population growth within that context Art. Just today the CSM had an article about that
http://www.csmonitor.com/2006/0512/p01s04-ussc.html makes for some interesting reading.

Most people think that a person is a person, so, from an ecological point of view it doesn’t really matter whether he/she is in the US or anywhere else. Two arguments in that article make a compelling argument against immigration. One; Hispanic women once in the States tend for procreate more than they would had they stayed put, and two; because the US is a developed nation the ecological footprint of every individual here is much larger worldwide than anywhere else. For instance, to maintain the lifestyle of United Statesians we need 24 acres per person (If the available area was to be evenly distributed among the population worldwide, that would give us 4.2 acres per person or 1.7 hectares). 300 million times 24= 7.2 billion acres. The US has 2.2 billion acres so it ‘borrows’ 5 billion acres from the rest of the world in order to maintain it’s lifestyle. This works out because other nations like Bolivia, Angola, Mongolia etc. clearly use less than what they would be allotted. When immigrants come into the States they adopt the consumerism lifestyle of United Statesians and dramatically increase the ecological burden they would’ve otherwise imposed on the world. Assuming those 11 million were to have the ‘normal’ ecological footprint it would translate into 46.2 million acres, however, after immigrating into the US it becomes 264 million acres.