Do you think until we have helped our own homeless, poor, and starving, we should shun illegals?

trutbknown

If you are a legal immigrant

If you are a legal immigrant and break the law, you get sent back where you came from. I know because I immigrated here three years ago and the INS made that very clear. If you are an illegal immigrant, you have already broken the law so you get invited to stay here as a â€œguest workerâ€ for six years. Thatâ€™s what our politicians want. Why is the concept of â€œillegalâ€ so difficult for politicians to grasp? U.S. immigration procedures are crystal clear and are there to protect the country while ensuring that everybody here is on record. A fundamental part of the process is demonstrating a respect for U.S. law. You donâ€™t have to agree with all the laws, just show that you are prepared to live by them.

The immigration process is clear. First, pay the fee for handling your application. Then visit a doctor to make sure you have no nasty diseases. Considering our paranoia about weapons of mass destruction, it makes sense to keep TB, AIDS, smallpox and a host of other things out.

Next, you get interviewed at your local U.S. Consulate. They check your desirability and that you can support yourself when you arrive in the U.S. The trips to the Consulate are inconvenient but probably less inconvenient than swimming the Rio Grande. You get fingerprinted so the FBI can check your criminal record and the Consulate contacts your local police for the same reason. If all goes well, you are given a sealed package of papers with the warning that, if you open it before you get to the U.S., you go back to square one.

Now, if you have border hopped, you could be a disease-ridden destitute bank robber and nobody will know or be able to trace you as you infect the country. Bird flu, anyone? If you commit a crime, your prints are not on record, making the job of the police that more difficult. Thatâ€™s why border-hopping is illegal.

Opinions on what to do with illegal immigrants range from packing them all off home immediately to various euphemisms for amnesty. If a legal immigrant gets in trouble with the law, itâ€™s â€œpack your bagsâ€ time â€” I look forward to hearing why illegal immigrants deserve to be treated more leniently.

But letâ€™s be humane â€” these are people weâ€™re talking about. Criminals, certainly, but still people. So give them a month to get registered at the local immigration office, police station or town hall and fitted with an electronic tracking tag. Anyone who canâ€™t be bothered registering gets deported.

Once registered, there are a number of options ranging from starting citizenship proceedings (tricky, considering youâ€™ve already broken U.S. law) to applying for one of the range of visas that are currently available. If your application is eventually declined then youâ€™re headed home.

One problem facing a poor immigrant is the difficulty of getting together the cash to pay for it. There is an obvious Catch-22 here that you need money to be able to afford to come to the U.S. to get some money. If we allowed immigrants to pay for their papers after they arrived, it would remove one incentive for border hopping. Naturally, you donâ€™t get a green card until the bill is been paid.

The reasons for offering amnesty are many, mostly spurious and ignore the fact that illegal immigrants have knowingly broken the law, a sign of a profound disrespect for the U.S.

â€œIllegal immigrants do jobs Americans wonâ€™t do.â€ This depends on how you define â€œjob.â€ If the job is raking lawns, picking oranges or washing dishes then there are thousands of Americans who would be glad to do it.

If you add â€œfor $2 an hourâ€ to those job titles then it is not right to expect an American to want it, any more than it is right to call it a job.

â€œCheap labor keeps prices down.â€ According to a study by the University of California, Davis, laborers in Florida get 1 cent a pound â€” $40 a day â€” to pick oranges.

Paying three times that should increase the price in shops by 2 cents a pound. Hardly likely to break the household budget.

â€œCracking down will alienate Hispanic voters.â€ This one really scares the Republican Party who have spent millions courting Hispanic voters recently.

Perhaps we should give amnesty to child molesters, too, so that we donâ€™t alienate the child-molesting voter. The job of the government is to run the country, not to ensure their own continued occupation of the White House.

There is nothing ambiguous about the term â€œillegal immigrant.â€

A person here illegally is as guilty as a burglar in a warehouse at night. Theyâ€™ve knowingly broken the law and do not belong here.

snizzleborfin

One has nothing to do with the other. Helping our poor and less fortunate get a job and feed themselves is a swell idea. Giving handouts to people over and over is a bad idea.

You will always have poor and that is what the welfare system is for. If you truly see a child without a coat give that child yours and get on the cell phone that is in your pocket and call the police and they will get child welfare involved and get that baby warm. Giving that baby's irresponsible parent another dollar and a pat on the head does not solve anything. Give a man a fish you feed him for a day, teach that man to fish and he can feed his family for a lifetime provided he is willing to get off his drunk butt and do it. If not we can find a place for his family and a place for him too. That is called detox.

As far as people like Bill Gates and Warren Buffet donating billions to third world countries that have never seen a computer much less crashed one that is another issue in and of itself. I think that money, should have stayed right here and help the people in this country.

cowboy

yes deport the other leeches who won't work in their own country. and just run away like cowards. break laws.and could care less about crime

Big Bear

Yes, this is my argument exactly.

American-born citizens do not have as many rights or the right to get help from social service agenies as illegals do.

All they do is tax our system and our country.

thomkirby

Illegals should be deported. period.

Yet your question begs another.

Should we provide for people who will not provide for themselves. Be they legal or illegal.

My answer is no, we should provide a limited hand up.

pops

I'm proud of you.
This head injury stops me from answering your like I could before March 5th.
Keep her safe and between the lines.
God bless

ibelieve

tripledigit that is a very hard question to answer but this is the best I could come up with:

The United States refuses to ratify the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural rights and took negative attitude to the economic, social and cultural rights of the laborers. Poverty, hunger and homelessness have haunted the world richest country.

The population of people living in poverty has been on a steady rise. According to a report by The Sun on July, 6, 2004, from 1970 to 2000 (adjusted for inflation), the bottom 90 percent's average income stagnated while the top 10 percent experienced an average yearly income increase of nearly 90 percent. Upper-middle-and-upper-class families that constitute the top 10 percent of the income distribution are prospering while many among the remaining 90 percent struggle to maintain their standard of living. Worsening income disparities have formed two Americas. (Two Americas, The Baltimore Sun, July 6, 2004). According to a report of the Wall Street Journal on June 15, 2004, a study on the fall of 2003 by Arthur Kennickell of the Board of Governor of the Federal Reserve System showed that the nation's wealthiest 1 percent owned 53 percent of all the stocks held by families or individuals, and 64 percent of the bonds. They control more than a third of the nation's wealth. ( US Led a Resurgence Last Year Among Millionaires World-Wide, The Wall Street Journal, June 15, 2004). In Washington D.C., the top 20 percent of the city's households have 31 times the average income of the 20 percent at the bottom. (D.C. Gap in Wealth Growing, The Washington Post, July 22, 2004).

Since November 2003, the average income of most American families have been on the decline. The earning of many medium and low-income families could not keep up with the price rises. They could barely handle the situation. According to the statistics released by the US Census Bureau in 2004, the number of Americans in poverty has been climbing for three years. It rose by 1.3 million year-on-year in 2003 to 35.9 million. The poverty rate in 2003 hit 12.5 percent, or one in eight people, the highest since 1998. (Census: Poverty Rose By Million, USA Today, August 27, 2004, More Americans Were Uninsured and Poor in 2003, Census Finds, The New York Times, August 27, 2004).

The homeless population continues to rise nationwide. On Dec. 15, 2004, an annual survey report released at the US Conference of Mayors showed that the number of people seeking emergency food aid increased by 14 percent year-on-year while the number of people seeking emergency shelter aid increased by 6 percent. (http://www.usmayors.org). It is estimated that the homeless population reached 3.5 million in the United States. But the US Federal budget has stopped providing fund to build new affordable housing, which forced many local governments to cut the public housing projects. The city of San Diego has a homeless population of 8,000, but the government could only provide 3,000 temporary beds. Those without lodging tickets are regarded illegal to live on the streets. They would be summoned or detained. In January 2004, an investigator with the US Commission on Human Right denounced the US for large-scale infringement on human rights on housing issue.

angela R

Actually we do help the homeless.....I don't know where you got that idea....

But many 'homeless' refuse help....Most, studies show, many homeless, have mental illnesses and refuse to get help, should we force these people? No, its still a free country and these people choose to be homeless.....

Illegals, take care of themselves.....Most work and have a work ethic, which comes from Mexico and their roots, because over there, there is no public assitance and if you don't work you don't eat!

Mr Wolf

Some of your own poor and homeless are that way for their own fault..

It is hard to understand why people could be so poor in a nation with such a massive rate of employment..

Time to teach those guys to quit panhandling and make use of the wealth and opportunities in their nation..

Does it take living in a 3rd world to realize how easy life is here?

senior citizen

How about our own homeless, poor, and starving get up off the cot at the shelter and ask for a job? Oh, I get it, they're too good to work for minimum wage? Or minimum wage won't support their cocaine or meth habits?

helixburger

That should be number 1!!!

DAR

yes

Golosa

That's just it, this country can't even help they're own homeless and starving people. But yet you say that you do everything for **illegals**. In the words of a famous person that I admire: Paaaleeessse.

helpme1

hmmm.. There are 2 sides to this...
On the one hand, my family came from Canada and I was born here in the U.S.
On the other hand, I believe we should take care of our own house before we try to clean up someone elses..
I'm not sure.

akablackbetty

we shouldnt help them,even if we had no homeless or starving children.they are criminals.let their own countries worry about them.

Roadrunner58-79

YES!!!

R J

great point...

bullwinklejmoose

yup

Beejee

Amen, Tripledigit. Dare we hope sense will ever replace the nonsense of our national policy misdirection?

nicolasraage

where are these thousands of starving children in the U.S.?

Most homeless people have an option to be helped, but choose not to because they would have to quit drinking, and or using drugs. There are thousands of shelters, churches, etc that are set up to help people get on their feet.

I saw a documentary about a homeless man they gave 100k dollars to, and the first thing he bought was a 32 thousand dollar truck. he was broke in 6 months, and couldnt pay the rent for his apartment anymore. Guess, what. He never got a job.

EVY

the do the work that no one want to do

mommato4boys

helping LEGAL Americans should be America's number one responsbility. Stop caring about people that treat us like **** and talk about how lazy and stupid we are while they have their hand out!

Common Sense

Shun ?....No...
Deport ?....Yes....

thelogicalferret

you are absolutely right. and yes we should shun and deport them!

gidget lil bit

OMG When did you think of this America has never cared about the homeless proven by the posts here. America would rather ignore them it proves we are flawed and not perfect which goes to show how egotistical the citizens are. America would not even care about the illegals if it were not a political issue,it won't be after a while you realize that right? The homeless used to be until it became overwhelming for the politicians to do anything about.The same will happen with the illegals.

Enter Your Message or Comment

User Name:
User Email:
Post a comment: