And there it is. I agree with you 100% on this point, Ace.

You are right in that we have let this situation get out of hand but I am not so sure that everyone benefits from illegal (less expensive) labor. Where I live most of the illegals work in the construction, manufacturing and restaurant industry. The business owners and customers benefit from lower labor costs but not so much the legal workers who also work at those jobs.

I bet if the managers in those businesses were being replaced by illegals they wouldn't be touting the advantages of the lower wages so much.

It strikes me as odd that a local owner of a contracting business would turn his back on guys he has worked with for years to save a few bucks on a bid for a new project. I wouldn't do that. But if I were having problems filling jobs, I might hire illegals.

I would also think an experienced construction worker who knows his job, the language would generally be more productive and more skilled than an illegal. But anyway it seems unlikely that local government officials and people building homes, stores, office buildings, roads, etc. did not know illegals were on the jobsite. Also I wonder why the local trades unions where silent on the issue.

I am going to go to hell for posting in politics. I feel my butt clenching already, the heat is rising and I am sitting in a handbasket. Here are my 2 unwanted cents.

Illegals have an employment problem. So do we. I see american citizens struggling to find piss poor paying jobs and here comes an illegal willing to work for peanuts. Fair? No.

When america can support a job market for all of its tax paying citizens, then perhaps we can help out the other countries with their issues.

Better yet, if all the illegals want to come here, lets give them america and we can all move to Mexico. Seems a popular enough vacation spot.

When are we gonna start worrying about our own country instead of playing mommy to the rest of the world. One of these days our jabbing our nosesaround where they dont belong is gonna kill us all. We are the United States of America, not the world police of america.

/ Sages 2 cents.

Mexico is especially heinous and hypocritical. Their immigration policy makes the US looks like an open door state. They are very harsh with illegals that enter their countries and have very zealous border agents as well. Mexico has been criticized by the UN Human Rights Commissioner of violating illegals (mostly from Guatemala) human rights at the border and in deportation centers along the Mexico-Guatemala border.

I'm not sure but I vaguely remember there may even be a wall or fence along the border between Mexico and Guatemala (I cannot verify this at the moment).

Anyways, I much prefer a more liberal immigration policy period. It's the illegals I have an issue with.

Had to bump this thread again so I could insert a little comic relief from the Onion...
<embed src="http://www.theonion.com/content/themes/common/assets/videoplayer/flvplayer.swf" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowScriptAccess="always" wmode="transparent" width="400" height="355" flashvars="file=http://www.theonion.com/content/xml/59953/video&autostart=false&image=http://www.theonion.com/content/files/images/Immigration.jpg&bufferlength=3&embedded=true&title=Immigration%3A%20The%20Human%20Cost"></embed><br/><a href="http://www.theonion.com/content/video/immigration_the_human_cost?utm_source=embedded_video">Immigration: The Human Cost</a>

I apologize for responding to a post that is so early in this conversation, and I am aware that there are 3 more pages of discussions after it, but that segment of pushpull's post is one I have to argue.

Mexican people who live in america, whether legal or not, is part of your society, whether you want to accept it or not. They grow your food, cook it, serve it, bus the table after you're done eating. They build your cars, your houses, the buildings you work in, and they get paid less than you would if you were doing it.
And the use of the term "leeching" is offensive. It makes it sound like they are parasites or vermin feeding off of you. The fact is, whether American factories are located on US soil or Mexican soil, it's often Mexicans that work in them, for much cheaper wages, so USA also "leeches" a lot out of Mexico.
Your society is based on immigrants living in a same nation, and I think our neighbor from south of the border deserve more respect than that.

The only culture that is curernlty developing away from the past in Europe, is the supplantation of the dominant culture by radical islam, which has already through force of intimidation changed the outcome of a national election in spain and effected, or would that be affected, national policy in several countries.

I will admit that the American Culture is somewhat schizophrenic but to state that America has no culture of its own is erroneous. America has culture that has been exported to the rest of the world for the last 100 years. Jazz music, Hollywood, Fundamental Protestant Christianity, these are all things that mark the American Cultural Identity.

bump

there absolutely is...i'm all for letting people work in our country, but they shouldnt get the benefits we all have to pay for with taxes if they are not paying taxes themselves...i don't feel the gov. is really doing anything to kick the aliens out either.