Gooserider said:Did your great-grandparents come here legally, through Ellis
Island(or whatever)? I'm sure they did. The problem is ILLEGAL
IMMIGRATION. If people
want to come here they must follow the rules. You can't just sneak
in.
Yep, mine came legally, through Ellis Island, but they came at a different
time, IN a different world, FROM a different place and FOR different
reasons.
A substantive difference, IMHO, is /why/ the immigration problem currently
exists, and on the scale to which it does.
Let me propose one reason: employers virtually never take the heat for
knowingly or "wink-wink" knowingly hiring illegals. The illegals who are
caught are deported and more follow on their heels into this country for the
employers to hire. Cheap, local labor is a Business imperative in this
country.
If illegals were made legals--either through an amnesty of sorts or a
revision upward of current quotas--that would make them eligible for Minimum
Wage (and to pay taxes). That--if you believe Big Business--would simply
/crush/ business, make restaurants and produce unaffordable, blah, blah,
blah. What it really would do is hurt the profitability of some
corporations and make Suburbanites have to dig deeper in their pockets for
their domestics and landscapers.
Illegal aliens are like Big Tobacco in this country. Sure, it's a problem,
but we profit so immensely from it that nobody wants it to go away. If
that's the case, I'd rather that the victims at least be educated, healthy,
and protected . . . in some fashion.
Plus, take a look at our immigration policy. If you're Cuban, it's the "wet
food, dry land" policy. IOW: we don't like Castro's Communism so it's open
season for immigrants. Show up in Miami from Port-au-Prince, Haiti, OTOH,
and go to jail until you're deported.
Our current immigration policy is a political tool, for sale just like any
other. I don't happen to care for the current owners. /Wholesale/ reform,
I'd be interested in seeing.