I was once an illegal immigrant

Well, many people come for the free education and health care, but assuming those functions were handled by charities then I think the immigration problem might be an easily solvable non-issue.

Although, I've heard that the current level of immigration will overwhelm our infrastructure in a few years, I don't know if that's true but it may be something to take into account, limiting the level of immigration so that doesn't happen.

I don't really try to take a firm stance on either side of this issue as I live in New England and it's not a big deal here. Maybe it could become a state issue, give individual states power over all aspects of it. Localization might solve everything.

(Also, it's ludicrous to be punished for hiring someone. Absolutely the wrong way to try and solve anything.)

the "illegals" become scapegoats.

I respect that this is an emotional issue for people. Here is a view that I am sure has as many holes as anyone else's. I will insist on this, hate has no reward, none.

This country was built by people who emigrated here. We are all the descendants of people who came from somewhere else, except for the native Americans and I have Roanoke blood and don't claim to be a victim of whitey....so there.

The politicians do not make it any easier to deal with the situation with their unworkable approaches. Big business, and small business too, do some exploiting, but, in my experience, the laborers are paid the going rate. Yes the farmworkers get screwed, who's damn fault is that? They agree to work for nothing while another immigrant is down the street working for more. Your problem, bucko, not mine. Up in the northeast we have few farms and sweatshops and the immigrants have decent work.
Start at the bottom, guys...that is the tried and true plan.

I don't buy the victim crap. You agree to pick tomatoes for nothing it is not my job to rescue your butt from that decision. Big business is a bunch of a%$holes? Take a number.

Doc says knock off the welfare for the immigrants because it creates MORE OF IT. I am in total agreement with that. He says try to LIMIT the amount of non legal immigration. Makes sense to me.

You can hate these people all you want. Is it right that 20,000 people show up on the border every night? Of course not. Is it going to stop? You are crazy if you think it is. Does corporate America want these people? Yup. MORE CUSTOMERS. Make sense? Yup.

Are you a victim of rampant illegals? Make your case. In a free country it is not my job to pay taxes so you can get rescued from the immigration problem. Vote for someone else then America will suck so BAD nobody will want to immigrate here....problem solved.

T

Anti-immigration (legal or illegal) is actually a conservative position. On the other hand, true supporters of liberty know that immigration laws are a form of tyranny. The idea of national borders is actually a collectivist idea. If I own my property free and clear I should be able to invite any person from anywhere in the world to come and visit me on my property and nobody should have any right to stop me. The idea advanced by people like Pat Buchanan, that our country is our "homeland" ( a term invented by the Nazis) and just as you would have a right to put a fence around your property to protect it from trespassers so the nation has a right to put a fence around it's borders. The problem with this idea is that a nation is not the same as an individual or a family because "the will of the nation" is impossible to determine, unless you accept the looney idea that majoritarianism (rule of the majority) is a legitimate way to work these things out.

Immigration in our current context is a difficult issue to deal with because people persist in thinking in a collectivist way about it and it sure doesn't look anything like freedom.

Is there a point to your post?

My point is: it is very easy to fix the illegal immigration problem.

Payroll deductions make legal/documented labor artificially more expensive. Getting rid of payroll deductions (SS, Income Tax, etc.) also removes the incentive to hire illegal labor. When there aren't jobs, the illegals go home or stay home.

http://br.endernet.org/~akrowne/writings/illegal_immigration...

breaking the law is the right thing to do.
Famous Quote from Justice William O. Douglas

"The Constitution is not neutral.
It was designed to take the government
off the backs of people."

Individual states hire more illegal immigrants than private business does. States have been granting business licenses to illegal immigrants for decades. There are thousands and thousands of illegal immigrants that are licensed as Realtors, Attorneys, and all forms of other licensed individuals. States do NOT cross reference license applicants with the Department of Homeland Security. The states can stop what is going on, but they choose not to because lobby groups have the politicians by the throat. We need people in office that can make a change.

In Liberty!