Immigration (1 Viewer)

[The Real McCoy]

Anyone catch Bush's immigration speech in Tuscon today? What are everyone's thoughts on this issue?

Personally, I feel a wall from the San Diego coast to the Gulf coast in Texas is needed. A wall that makes the Great Wall of China look like a picket fence. The wall should be lined with towers with licensed to kill snipers armed with .50 calliber M650 rifles and 6G-30 6-shot grenade launchers. The wall should be surrounded with minefields and patrolled by Apache hellicopters... Just kidding :lol: ...or am I?

Honestly though, I agree with Bush's plan for strengthening border security and his anti-amnesty policy and guest worker program.

Now if we can only secure those Iraqi borders...

 

[KCConservative]

Get ready to hear from the 'too little, too late" crowd. This president will never do anything to appease his haters....even if it is doing something that they directly ask for.

 

[JustMyPOV]

Get ready to hear from the 'too little, too late" crowd. This president will never do anything to appease his haters....even if it is doing something that they directly ask for.

Well, I'm glad you said it... Saves me the trouble.

As far as the guest worker program, I'm fine with it, but these people need to pay taxes while they're working here like the rest of us. Sorry, but rich people who staff their houses with foreign workers are just going to have to suck it up and pay out minimum wage and report their employees' income to the government, just like any other employer. Same goes for corporate farms. If they're not officially employed and paying taxes, their visas should be revoked, and they should be returned to their country of origin.

I do agree with some of the plan, but I think I would have liked to see him go a little further. We have two large, and very porous borders that need an increased level of security. While this is a start, I genuinely don't think it's anywhere near enough.

 

[Inuyasha]

I don't believe that a wall will work. The Spanish tested one around one of thier cities on the African side of the Med. The invested several million dollars in in and it hasn't been effective much les COST effective. They have TWO walls with a large space in between. The fences used chain link, barbed wire topped with razon wire and then electrified with soldiers every so many feet. The Africans just keep coming and find new methods everyday to scale the wall. If they want to get in they are going to get in.

One person suggested that the EU develope a kind of "Marshall plan" for the distressed nations. The key would be that the donor nations control the money so that it does't end up in some African despot's Swiss bank account. I don't know if it would really work but it's worth looking into. They have 1.3 million illegals in thier country. May not sound like many but when you consider that the whole country is the size of Indiana, Illinois and Ohio with just 40 million population you can see that it's an out of control situation.

 

[Kandahar]

I'm generally pro-immigration, but I don't advocate opening our borders to everyone. Immigration should be encouraged but controlled.

Immigration helps the economy; while it may temporarily depress wages in areas with lots of unskilled workers, it will more than make up for this in the long-term. Companies will save money on labor costs, and thus be able to produce more efficiently and reinvest that money into the economy. Also, companies can usually afford to offer lower prices for products if their labor costs are lower; this isn't a matter of them being generous, but the fact is that as soon as one company lowers their costs, the entire industry must follow suit to remain competitive.

Skilled/educated immigrants are an even bigger boon to the economy (although I assume that they aren't the ones you're concerned with). More minds generate more solutions to problems, and educated people are likely to help the country by making wise investments, starting their own businesses, helping their communities, and/or influencing politics.

Let me also point out a couple facts: The United States has always had huge numbers of immigrants, yet we have almost never (with a couple exceptions) had a high unemployment rate relative to the rest of the world. Also, the wages of jobs have steadily increased in the long-term, even as more and more immigrants have poured into the country. There are always new jobs being created.