Originally posted by muntus:
Originally posted by sigma:
Originally posted by muntus:
Originally posted by sigma:

I'm certainly not saying that we should make it "easy" to enter the country legally. But we damn sure need to make it easier and cheaper if we actually want to get a hold on our illegal immigration problem.



But if we actually want to get a hold on our illegal immigration problem, we damn sure need to make it easier and cheaper.

You see, I tried making that claim sound non-retarded, but I failed. Do you care to explain how making it cheaper and easier will solve our illegal alien immigration problem?



Ask yourself a very simple question:

Why didn't we have an illegal immigration problem 100 years ago when the population of our nation doubled between 1880 and 1920?

Quite simply because it was easy and cheap to enter the US. Few people want to be here illegally. Most people will take the time to enter legally if it's a viable option as history as shown.

Even as recently as 25 years ago, the illegal immigration problem was practically a non-issue. As the time and money involved in entering legally has grown exponentially, so has the illegal immigration rate in response.

They don't come here illegally because they want to enter illegally. They enter illegally because entering legally isn't an option for them. Not because we don't want them to enter legally, but because the costs and time in doing so, because of mind-boggling amount of bureaucracy created around the process, has made that not a viable option.

The government openly acknowledges that this is a problem. The process is so expensive and so time-consuming and so incredibly difficult to actually go through fully legally, that the government even has a Lottery for Green Cards to entice citizens of under-represented nations to enter the US because few can actually afford to do it the legal way.



Try this one: The Welfare State. You cut off the free health care for illegals, the drivers licenses, the welfare checks, and you would have 50 percent of the illegals pack up and go. In addition, you would slow the influx of new illegals coming because they would not have "the dole" incentive. This is why the illegal alien problem has worsened in the last 25 years.

[long sentance]We don't have an illegal alien problem because legal naturalization is hard and time consuming, we have an illegal alien problem because it is cheap and easy to get welfare and be rewarded for crime once you're here. [/long sentance]



Even the worst of statistics only put 1 in 4 illegal immigrants as receiving the benefit from government-sponsored welfare programs; the vast majority of that in aid to various walk-in clinics, not the type of welfare that most people think of. So at least 3 out of 4 aren't entering to abuse the dole at all, and probably much more don't intend to when entering but end up becoming one of that 1 in 4.

So, at best, you'd only have 25% "pack up and go" if there was no such spigot, and that's presuming that every single one of them decided to leave once welfare was no longer an option, which of course wouldn't happen, because even without welfare almost of them are still better off here than in Mexico.

1 in 6 American households receive benefit from the same welfare programs. And while they of course deserve those benefits, it's clear that illegals clearly aren't coming over here to abuse the current welfare system at significantly higher rates than even Americans themselves are.

As for ZoomZoomDiva, I agree with everything you say. We shouldn't take people in this nation that clearly can't care for themselves. We should enforce our existing immigration laws, and not tolerate breaking them anymore than we do breaking any other law. I just believe that an overhaul of the incredibly dense bureaucracy involved in immigration should be part of the over-arching plan. America shouldn't be a place where only the middle-class and above can successfully emigrate to. Anyone capable of supporting themselves should be able to come here and become a part of our nation with a reasonable exertion of time, energy, and money.

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