All this talk about legal and illegal immigration. Yes it's true that this country owes much to immigrants. But those people in the late 1800's and early 1900's were given "instant amnesty" because of the needs of Chinese labors on the railroads in the West, and Irish and German laborers in the factories in the East. They came in droves and were instantly amnestized and all were perfectly "legal" at the time. Now the laws have changed, and migrant workers are "illegal". There has been no change in the shift of populations, but only in the laws of this land. So to argue that the prosperity of this country is shouldered upon earlier immigrants who were "legal" is moot. Those immigrants would be considered just as illegal as today's Mexican immigrants.

My family was FORCED to emigrate from their homeland. It didn't have as much to do with economics as it did with political and religious persecution.

Immigration is good.

Illegal immigration is a crime.



Some people seem to think that all these 'white' immigrants just got a free pass, and based on the color of their skin everything was just milk and honey for them.

I would suggest that the people that are claiming that these criminal aliens "just want to do the jobs that Americans won't" visit Ellis Island and see what hurdles that those legal immigrants had to got thru.


During the Potato Famine/English Genocide and Forced Diaspora of the Irish people, even though the people were literally starving to death, any of the Irish found to have even the slightest defect were forcibly repatirated to Ireland or England, where they invariably died of hunger.

The two things are not equivalent.

In the debate on illegal immigration, I have listened to politicians focus on provisions of the bills, morality and fairness, and present costs. But has any one looked at the intended, or more importantly, the unintended, consequences? I’ll give two examples of my concerns.

Example A: Unintended Consequence

Granting legitimacy to non-documented workers, will allow them to compete with American workers in the open, not underground, marketplace. As part of the McCain bill’s provisions, they must have jobs for all but 45 days of their six- year transition period.

However, it is a myth (with some rare Agro exceptions) that Americans won’t do the work that migrants do. Americans won’t do the work at the price point or wages offered. The proof is that Mexico itself is finding that it’s own people won’t work for the wages offered, and agriculture workers in their Southern provinces come form Guatemala So Mexicans won’t do the labor for the wages paid in Mexico, but will do the work for the wages and benefits in the US.

But what happens when these Guest Workers are forced to work above board, like American Workers? Employer will not hire them, because then they will have to pay Worker’s Comp costs, Unemployment taxes, and the like, increasing the cost of employing the same worker about 25%.

So the unintended consequences are that the now quasi-legal workers will either continue to work under the table, violating their agreement, or as we have seen before, the employers will hire the next wave of non-documented workers that will come into the country, as we will not enforce the boarders.


Part 2.

Sorry if this is overdone – I just would like someone to show me where I am wrong.

Example B: Intended consequence

Once legitimacy is granted, what other “rights” not specifically spelled out in the law will be granted? One that frightens me most is a driver license. A driver license not only grants mobility, increasing the risks of terrorism, but also is the key identification of citizenship for voting.

If undocumented workers have a license, indistinguishable from citizen licenses (and how could you not do this, as they now have legal status and need to get to work), they are but a post office away from registering to vote.

Under the Motor Voter provisions in California (I think, help me out here) the only identification needed to register is a driver’s license, and all a person has to do to obtain voting rights is to sign a paper stating citizenship. Would a voting block of 11 million self-interested immigrants not break this law, too, in order to gain political power?

I believe that this is an intended consequence of the Hispanic leadership in California.

Ultimately, citizenship becomes meaningless. The destructive power of this psychologically and economically (why should I not cheat on my taxes, when others do the same and granted special favor) is inevitable.