Tuesday, July 02, 2013

A useful summary of the Senate immigration bill

This is a very repressive bill, full of police powers and sanctions for people who make the mistake of being the "wrong" kind of people. If passed -- and that is a huge "if" -- it would at least halt many deportations of people who are already part of our communities.

We're not a very generous country, are we?

3 comments:

Rain Trueax said...

Nations really aren't generous. They are in place to maintain their own existence, but the worst of this to me is this bill's increase of government programs and the border fence that is so bad environmentally-- and no proof it really stops entry. Then doubling the agents.

It doesn't make sense although the biggest problem on the border, in my opinion, is drug traffickers because of the kind of people they are (legalizing pot would help some on that but not solve it considering all the illegal drugs Americans like to buy). Those coyotes, who also abuse and sometimes kill the immigrants they bring across, are not nice people. If you have been down around the border towns recently and seen them, you know how rough they are. A type of group that is going into Mexican villages and cutting the heads off maybe as many as 40 people to terrify everyone else. I don't see anything in this bill to really deal with that because the border patrol has been increased a lot and militarizing the border doesn't seem it will do more than throw dollars at the problem.

How we deal with those already here is a problem that mainly impacts laboring people already here as that is where they compete for jobs and keep salaries down. (and the desire to increase immigration of technical people from around the world will do the same thing to say engineers).

Some would say have no borders and let people come freely whoever and however they want but nations do have borders. Mexico has one and you cannot work there unless they enable you. Unless it's changed, Canada only lets those work there who they don't have a resident who can do the job. It's a sticky wicket however it's dealt with and it's when you get down to real lives that it's the toughest to figure out what to do. Generosity is easiest for those not paying the price.

I used to have an opinion on the border and what to do about it. Now I really don't. It seems to be so complex I don't know what's right. I live in a state that pretty much enables anybody to work and even get driver licenses without being legally here. There are a LOT of illegals in most of the places I shop or go because originally of the agricultural jobs (and yes, you do know who they are not just by language but size and manner). I feel sympathy for them as I understand what they have faced to get here and their fear they might be sent back. But how many of them could afford the kind of penalties this bill suggests?

In Arizona, the backwoods areas I used to be able to roam around freely, are no longer safe potentially. And, that's the catch-- potentially as it's all about running into the wrong person seeing you in the wrong place where there is a risk and it's random. The ones mostly hurt by these people are those they bring across who have no recourse. It is though tough on the ranchers in the region because of the lack of respect shown for the water tanks and fences.

If we allow in all who want to come and do it legally, it will bring down costs for awhile for consumers, but long term, I don't know what it'll do. I guess it's a righteous experiment. For now the Congress just mickey moused their way through it and to me solved none of the problems. Worse by the time the right gets through destroying our education system, we will have a lot more people here already who need the bottom level jobs. It is enough to make a person feel a little hopeless especially when you find out the schools have given up on teaching cursive to kids-- not just in poor schools. Say what!

Hattie said...

I think we should stop policing the border and just declare Mexicans to be welcome as residents in the U.S. We could work out a reciprocal deal, maybe, allowing U.S. citizens to reside in Mexico (though I think that is fairly easy to do anyway). As far as I'm concerned, Mexicans should have the right, at the very least, to live in any part of the U.S. that was stolen from Mexico.

Rain Trueax said...

I think Mexicans can live anywhere they want in the US but working is what is the issue in all nations. As I understand it, it requires special permission for Americans to work in Mexico or Canada and has to be a job a resident can't do. As for stolen lands, I think all lands, anywhere in the world, were stolen (which generally means wars or treaties that got broken) if you go back a ways. Shall we give them all back and if so-- to whom? Over here maybe the mammoths who got killed off which maybe we can recreate through DNA. *s*