I can't be the only one (Illegals in America)

I agree that they do the work the we won't do. I do give them a lot of credit for coming where they don't know the language and where their families are so far away. Would I intentionally report them to get them deported? No. But I can see where some people don't like it. Its really hard to communicate with some of them sicne they don't speak very good English. But most of them can get what they want or need across to you.

My personal take on this is, if they are coming into the country ILLEGALLY, and stealing social security numbers to get jobs, then they DESERVE to get tossed.

It isn't about being down on your luck - I've been homeless, I've raised a child on welfare, and I KNOW what it is like to go hungry for an entire week having nothing to ingest but water so my child could eat.

We have LOTS of opportunity in this country, but it shouldn't be handed out to illegals, and I don't care how nice they are as individuals, I'm sure some of them are really nice, caring people, but they are breaking the law.

If they want to go through proper channels and become a citizen, or at least get a green card and APPLY for a SS# through the right channels, then I have no issues with them.

But as long as they are here illegally, I have ZERO sympathy for them.

That's MY opinion, and obviously, I feel pretty strongly about it.

I agree with Ginger.

I still am not one who buys the "they do jobs americans wont" tag line. Many of the farm type jobs I have done myself...

at any rate, while i can realise how its hurting industry..illegal is illegal. stolen SS numbers is not something to take lightly.

Ginger said it much better than I could.

I never said it was a simple issue, nor did I state anywhere that I think they should all be sent back.

And I strongly disagree that "they" do the jobs we won't do - I spent time myself standing over a horribly hot oven making Nerf items in a factory for Parker Brothers a long time ago. It was one of my first jobs, and one of the hardest on me physically that I ever had. I did what I had to do to earn money. I used "Ov Gloves" way back before they marketed them to consumers.

It isn't that American's aren't willing to work, it is that the company owners need to be willing to put less in their own pockets and pay their workers MORE. But it is much easier to argue that "they" are doing jobs we won't do so the deep-pocket business owners can justify paying them extremely low wages.

Americans can't work if they can't earn enough to support themselves and their families. But it ISN'T that we're too lazy, by any means.

I know someone who works cleaning out paper pulp digesters. That is one of THE worst, most dangerous and most disgusting jobs in this country. He does it because it pays well, because the company he works for likes to keep Americans employed. A rarity, in this day and age.

Like Scamper said, I just don't buy into that argument AT ALL. We have far too many unemployed American citizens that are no longer even statistics because they are no longer eligible for unemployment, and therefore not formerly counted in the numbers of unemployed. They might have jobs if there weren't so many illegals employed by unscrupulous employers.

In my stand point, which I've stated before is that to me, all of your family were "illegal" immigrants at one point in history.

America seems to have a double standard going. What was ok for their ancestors is no longer acceptable. Perhaps all of the First Nations and Metis people should kick all of the "illegal" immigrants off their land, after all it is the millions of "illegal" immigrants who are destroying our turtle island and natural resources.

So the what you are saying is that ALL of the U.S are middle class? Granted it is the majority, BUT there are still a substantial amount of people in the U.S without high school or college degrees that are looking for work AND THEY ARE LEGALLY HERE.

IMO,
1) it's unfair to those that actually save their pennies prior to coming here and obtain their citizenship legally.

2) While we are a nation based on immigrants, some legal and some illegal, after 9/11 we really need to begin to start scratching the liberal point of view and protecting ourselves. By "legalizing" illegal immigrants, we are running a HIGHER risk that some group who hates the U.S. will come in by being an illegal immigrant, work on a farm all because they say their family is poor...I just see that as one BIG security whole in the immigration process.
INS was split into 2 branches after 9/11 for security reasons and now we're shooting ourselves in our foot.
In short, if they lie about their social security, they lie about where they live, then who's to say that they aren't going to lie about what country they applaud.

Your people were immigrants too. Who's to say they were totally welcomed by the people who may have been here even before them? There is no written record of the very very early immigration.

Anyway, it is the same land, and perhaps it was cheated, stolen, and taken by force so many years ago, but it was also bought, treatied, or given in some cases, but America as a political entity, with entirely different borders, and the legality of new immigrants, is an entirely different issue, and one that anyone alive today can actually do anything about.

In the Wall Street Journal on Tuesday there was a big article about all the illegal workers at the Swift plants. I think the government is trying to send a message that if you are not here legally you will not be allowed to stay. In the past 2-3 years the hispanic population in this part of Wisconsin has increased dramatically. There are big meat packing plants like swift that have a large number of immigrant labor.
When I worked in finance we experienced a fair amount of credit applications where the social security number was suspect. We required to actually see the card and found out in some cases that several people were "sharing" the social secuirty number.
I know a great number of immigrants take jobs that unfortunately have to be done and that American won't or don't want to do them. Then there is the potential problem I will run into being self employed and having people not in this country legally undercut my prices for the same type of work. Of course most people will go the cheap route instead of the right way.
Its an uphill battle that the US faces.

For me, I always believe that there is often a big difference between what is ILLEGAL and what is IMMORAL. I don't believe these people are doing anything immoral, no matter what the law says. They are people like you and me who are trying to make a better life for themselves.

I might be pushing things a little far for some here... but from a moral stand point, I really don't see what right anyone has to exclude people based on nationality. To me, it's not any different from excluding people based on skin color.
Sure, people of any nationality can earn American citizenship (which takes time, efforts and probably money too)... but why should THEY have to earn it if people who are born in the United States get it for free? Why is someone more worthy of having those benefits based on where they are born?
I'm not American myself, but really, I don't feel like I've done anything special to deserve all the benefits of being Canadian. Sure, I love the free health care and (relatively) cheap education, ability to get a roof over my head and enough food. But I haven't done anything special to deserve it.

So I guess I just don't believe in borders and I don't believe anyone should be considered "illegal". I know abolishing borders isn't a realistic goal right now, but I think we really need to think about what the moral basis of them is... And unless we can find one, we need to open them up more.

Sorry, I just really disagree. What a common misconception from immigrants is that they believe that they have a RIGHT to be in the U.S. The way the laws are set up, it is not a RIGHT, but a PRIVILEGE to be in our country. Once you earn your citizenship or green card then you can establish rights.

You being Canadian, while you believe YOU haven't done anything to be Canadian, YOUR ANCESTORS did. They helped establish the country you live in, sway the type of government that Canada has, and helped vote for the health care system there. Whether your 2nd, 3rd or 105th generation in your country, your family helped establish the for the current living situation that you live in.

The same concept/idea goes with outsourcing. Only there are Americans that WANT to do that job (i.e. technical phone support), but got laid off because companies wanted to/had to save money so they looked to the poorer countries and now I know of at least 5 technical people that lost their jobs to someone who's willing to do it for 1/2 or a 1/3 of their salary.

I have no issue with anyone from any place that comes here legal. I love the ethic coummity and the color and lets not forget the food!!! hmm want chinese go to the china area, want some russian style go to that area. i love that.

But This is my country, i was born here. If you are not born here and you do not come here by legal means then you do not have the right to be here. If things suck so bad in your home country then stay there and fix it.

" America is going to quickly be priced out of all industrial work"
WE already all, along with the rules and lawyers that are put in place make it very hard for any type of mfg business to work here..

When i was living in indo, the avg indoensia worker was making about 1 US dollar a day. But ecco shoes moved out of indo along with several other colthing mfg to china cause there cost for labor 24 cents a day( a dutch friend was the manager for the shoe company), If 1 dollar a day it so much to pay someone to live on, then how can we complete with that

So if I can not know if my people were immigrants or not, then you can not say that they were either. I know that my people were here thousands of years before yours were. FYI, Oral tradition/knowledge that has been passed down is given the same legal merit as written history. I should talk to the older people and see what they say about this.

I don't know if you are familiar with treaties or not, but in the case of Canada, our lands we're never sold EVER! My people intended to share with them(non-aboriginal) as that is the wish of their Creator. It is only through the manipulation and destruction of the white man that over 95% of the First Nations population has been wiped out through wars and disease and then forced into treaties because of starvation and other factors. To this day in Canada, not one single treaty has ever been even half fufilled on behalf of the government. So what payment are you talking about?


Anyways, I know that is the past but to ignor it is being ignorant. Wasn't it the Americans who wanted the Berlin wall torn down so badly? There is more than one double standard going on!

My Grandma came thru Elis Island during the Bolshavik revoltion in her Native Poland... she didnt cross a desertat night , or get a fake SS to get a job... she had the papers and then worked her butt off .... I of course think now the US should close its borders for safety sake

i think think anyone who is allowed to stay here illegal is, well a spit in the face to those who have worked their butts off to be here. I am german and Irish so i know my family worked to get here...

Its not fair for someone just to come on over the border and say "Hey i am here"

There are two issues here, IMO. We've already hashed and re-hashed the immigrant vs. ILLEGAL immigrant issue, so I'm not going to touch it again.

The other issue is that being and ILLEGAL worker here means that they have to find a way to get credentials to work in this country. The reason the Swift workers were targeted was not because they were simply illegally here, but because they had stolen identities to get those jobs. The IRS was going after people in other states asking them why they weren't paying taxes from their pay from Swift. So, most of those who were arrested were not just guilty of illegally entering and staying in this country, but also of identity theft and tax fraud.

Not trying to be a smart aleck or anything, but perhaps we here in the US could send you about 5 million of the illegal aliens we have here, that is about roughly half of them.
I feel it it easy to say what you have said when it hasn't directly and substantially impacted YOUR country and life.

Ummm...my predecendents came in through Ellis Island and did all the appropriate paperwork, so NONE of my family were ever illegal immigrants.

Granted, the U.S. was first populated by "Native Americans," and I don't agree with the genocides, but my family had nothing to do with that, coming to the US after the Civil War, so you can't say that every person's families were illegal.

Oh, and by the way, technically, I am a native American - I was born here - doesn't that make me a native?

So ... we don't have any illegal immigrants in Canada? Gosh, somebody ought to tell them that ... I'm not sure where someone would get the impression that the problem of illegal aliens hasn't impacted Canadians or the country of Canada as a whole (or other countries besides the United States), but that impression is mistaken. We have illegal immigrants. We just don't think we need to build a big wall to keep them out. 'Cause that'll help ...

I agree with another poster who said the real insult is to the legal immigrants who come to our countries and work their butts off and abide by our rules in order to obtain legal citizenship. I'm a first-generation Canadian, and I can tell you with certainty that my grandparents and my father earned their citizenship. They took crappy, low-paying jobs because that was all they could get; they lived in lousy, unsafe homes because that was all that was available to them; and they went through the paperwork, red tape and endless bureaucracy. For them to put in all that hard work and then see another immigrant who skirted past the laws and still gets to live here ... Yeah, it's a slap in the face. It makes them wonder, why bother with the paperwork?

You're right, a wall won't help because they know how to dig tunnels. Even if you place a wall 5 feet into the ground, they can dig deeper. A concrete wall would serve no purpose than another way of wasting tax money.

I don't give a about papers. They were "illegal" to me. It would have been a different story if the savage europeans could have controlled their thirst for blood and capatalism and just SHARED or actually treated First Nations and Metis people with a little humanity, but they were not capable or compassion or sharing, much like a toddler isn't able to share toys! (sorry I am slightly upset right now)
I don't refer to First Nations people as "Native Americans"...I find the word American and the word Canadian offensive to ME. I don't speak for anyone but myself and my history and what I hold to be true just to make that clear. These country is founded upon fraud, genocide, and pure racism and then they try to pretend to take the moral high ground. To answer your question point blank, NO you are not a "native american". You are not a native to this land IMO unless you come from a First Nations band or have been adopted as kin. You may have been born on this land, but it was only through the *******ization of the land and original inhabitants. Doesn't matter if you family wasn't involved because they capatilzed on the evil work of other people. I don't really want to talk about this anymore. I know what is true and it is okay if people want to continue being ingorant about the past even though by denying it, it is being hypocritical.

Your country was behind the deconstruction of the Berlin wall not that long ago. WHY don't ya'll just put up your own version because you're(in the general sense) being hypocrites anyways.

WOW. Just how long do all of us living now have to suffer the blame for what our ancestors did? That is ridiculous IMO. That was hundreds of years, there is nothing to be done about it now.

What you fail to mention is the good this country does. We are the most generous country around. It is NOT all bad and I feel the good far outweighs the bad now.

I can't change history and I refuse to feel guilty about it.

And to go back On topic, check out this link. Looks like many people want the jobs left vacant at the Swift Company. This kind of blows the "they do jobs no one else wants" theory.
Although in CERTAIN instances I think that may be true but not in this instance.

http://www.rockymountainnews.com/drm...215724,00.html

Let me get this straight: I'm a hypocrite because I consider myself to be a native of the country I was born in???

HELLO???

If you feel that way, maybe you ought to go buy an island to live on, seriously, because no matter what we do today we are doing it on the blood and sweat of those who came before, and that holds true for every single country on this planet, NOT just the USA.

I'm NOT denying the past, but I don't dwell there, either. This is 2006, almost 2007, and I refuse to be held accountable for the actions of those that came here hundreds of years before MY ancestors did.

You can get as upset as you want and use foul language and be accusatory, but that doesn't CHANGE anything about the way things are TODAY.

By the way - most of my predecents are CANADIAN, and just because I am against illegal immigrants does not mean that I am a racist for goodness sake! I don't care what color, race, gender, age, sexual orientation they are, if they are here illegally, then they should take steps to become legal. How does that opinion make me racist?

And what does ANY of that have to do with the Berlin Wall? Why is having the wall come down a BAD thing?

I just do not understand where you are coming from with all this anger, I really don't.

I think this sums it up pretty well right here, there are those who follow the rules and those who don't, why should those who don't follow the rules enjoy the same rights as those who do?

And as far as the Native peoples stuff, like Betsy said, every single nation in this world was founded out of war and pillage and domination. that is how humans are unfortunately. I'm pretty sure that Native Americans fought wars amongst each other and took over lands and killed or imprisoned other tribes' people, but now its only the "white" man who did this?
we are all Americans or Canadians now, no matter what our original heritage is.

You pretty much summed up my feelings about it.

I don't judge all illegals the way some do, thinking that they're just here to mooch of the system. It's the truth that some are, but alot of them are just here to make a better life for themselves or their families. Kudos to them, but they need to do it legally.

Has anyone ever seen the show on FX (I think) called 30 Days? They did a show on Illegal Immigrants and the family was very nice, although somewhat racist, saying that they hoped the person coming to live with them wasn't blonde hair with blue eyes, but that's beside the point here. They were very hard working and they had a daughter in high school who had a 4.0 and wanted to go to college. She wound up getting accepted. Great, but later I found out that obviously as she didn't have the money, couldn't get financial aid and didn't get a scholarship because she's not legal, she set up a website asking for handouts basically so she could attend..

A couple of things that happen when there are many illegal immigrants to the us-health care and education. Since the US does not have a universal health care policy most hospitals treat people regardless if they have insurance or not. Along with the other under and uninsured people in the US that is a large cost to the health system in general. As for schools many "illegal" immigrants either do not or have limited grasp of the english language. This influx of children to the schools causes strain on the already limited resources of the schools and the cost of hiring ESL teachers. So not only are jobs being worked by "illegals" there are also other costs involved. Sure you can say well they have to live and shop in the place where they live-but many of them send a good share of there income back "home". IMO America looks so good to them vs where they live but look at their sacrifise. They are away from their families for a long time-they are not improving their economy in their home country-who is really getting the benefit of the "illegal" immigrants??

All I can say is that is how I feel. I don't have to defend it, because those are my honest to God feelings. I know the past cannot be changed, but it is still influencing the present. We are all responsible to hold eachother accountable but we don't do that as a society. We let injustice prevail because it is the easy thing to do or we feel that these are not our problems. I'm just sick of this attitude.

I never thought or said you were racist and I don't think that at all. I respect that you don't agree with me. You also may be mistaken...the stars are not a swear....it was b a s t.... ize sort of meaning to debase..not a swear and I guess I could have put darned for the other one, but I was in the mood for a good Also, please keep in mind that we are not face to face and there are no tones to go along with my posts.

Part of my anger, I PMed you some stuff about my life so perhaps you would understand better, but another part is that it really bothers me to see that people feel like they own this land and that they should be able to dictate who comes here after what has happened in the past. I don't hold it in my belief that Americans or Canadians "own" the land and I don't think they should be the ones dictating who should be allowed to come or stay or whatever. I don't think that any Americans or Canadians should have to leave or go anywhere, but I also don't think that they should say that the next generation of immigrants not be allowed to come or stay.