Illegal Aliens.

White House verifies immigration review


By Jerry Seper
THE WASHINGTON TIMES

The White House yesterday said a new immigration review is under way that could lead to amnesty for millions of illegal aliens living and working in the United States.

Homeland Security Secretary Tom Ridge said during a town hall meeting in Miami that the government had to "afford some kind of legal status" to the 8 million to 12 million illegal aliens in the country.
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There's more to the article, but this is enough to gag a maggot.

In MY experience, aliens attempting to obtain a visa for legal immigration to the US are required:

1. To obtain and provide a medical clearance certificate from a source recognized/designated by the local American Embassy.

2. To obtain and provide a police clearance from the applicant's city or community of residence.

3. To provide proof of assets or supportive income so they will not become dependent upon charity or welfare for support.

Will this be required of the 8-12 million illegal aliens in order for them to obtain "some kind of legal status"?

For legal immigrants, countries and areas are admitted under a strict quota system. Depending on the category, in the Philippines, applications have been on file for as much as ten years, waiting for their turn to be processed and be granted immigration status.

I have a friend, an American veteran, who wants to return to the US with his 3 American children and their alien mother. She was denied a visa because of his income. (and how can he apply for a job while he is overseas?)

His best bet is to get her to Mexico, and teach her how to swim.

Does any of this make sense to you? If it does, please explain it to me.

Swartznegger violated the conditions of his student visa thereby becoming an illegal alien at one time.

Just something to think about.

Why doesn't he just come and get a job with enough income and then have his family join him?
Life is full of hardships, this one seems minor.

800,000 ANNUAL immigrants, from Mexico alone. Illegal. Key word.

Like the 1st Sgt said, we've all seen issues w/ bringing FAMILY home!

WTF!?

Wait till Mr. Ridge, and his ilk, run for President.

'No way', you say?

Politicians parlay their approach to their constituency, i.e. minority, religion, etc.

Wait and see. Go ahead and try to tell me Spanish isn't being forced into our culture and BASIC curriculum, while our children's ability to be competitive on a global scale in regard to scholastic performance lacks.

This, from the greatest country.

Grab a slice of reality, people.

And take a BIG ASS BITE!

Understand, cultures differ from ours.

Adjust accordingly.

Semper Fi

Rich

A point was made that 8 million illegal aliens should be overlooked because Arnold Swartznegger was once one of them.

I guess the point being that if we didn't accept the 8 million illegal aliens, we wouldn't have an Arnold Swartznegger.

By extention, does that mean that if we eliminated all restrictions, and 40 million aliens entered the US that FIVE Arnold Swartzneggers would arise from the group?

We could save a lot of money, time and trouble just by cloning Arnold.
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There are two types of illegal aliens.

One, those who passed the visa processing, as to health, police record, and financial stability, and then overstayed their visas.

And the other, those who just snuck in, and we know absolutely nothing about them.

I never said that the illegal aliens should be overlooked (look before ya leap to conclusions).

Overstaying/violating a student visa was how some of the 9/11 bombers were in the country at the time.

The INS doesn't know anymore about those that violate VISA requirements than those that simply slipped across the border undocumented.

We focus on the southern border but there the northern border besides both coasts where illegal aliens might enter...

http://www.house.gov/judiciary/smit0414.htm

The crackdown on illegal drugs and immigration along our Southern Border has caused illegal aliens to enter from the North. A former Acting Associate Commissioner for Enforcement stated that "as Southwest border enforcement continues to stiffen and the price charged for smuggling escalates, many chose the alternative of illegally entering the U.S. from Canada." Drug and illegal alien smugglers and terrorists are going to enter at the least secure point of entry.

It may surprise many people to learn that Mexican nationals can enter Canada without visas. So it is cheaper for them to fly to Canada and walk across the Northern Border than to have smugglers bring them across the Southern Border.

The number of Asian nationals being smuggled into the U.S. also is increasing. Regarding third country nationals, Canadians themselves make up the fourth largest group of illegal aliens in the U.S.

One of the most dangerous threats to our national security is the risk of a terrorist crossing our Northern Border undetected. This happened in 1997 when Gazi Ibrahim Abu Mezer crossed the Northern Border and attempted to blow up the New York subway system.


http://www.eagleforum.org/psr/2001/oct01/psroct01.shtml

The threat of terrorism comes from an identifiable group of alien males, between the ages of 20 and 35, whom our government has willfully or negligently allowed to live and travel in the United States. Yet, in the thousands of print articles and television and radio segments that have recorded the events of 9/11 and their aftermath, one has to search with a microscope to find any mention of the government's culpability in regard to immigration and visa practices. Most if not all of the hijackers were illegally in this country because their visas had expired.

People who come to the United States do not automatically absorb our values, our respect for the Rule of Law, and our belief in individual liberty. It's up to our immigration laws and regulations to screen out those who come with a world view of hate and terrorism.

Since the 19 hijackers are all dead, no national security reason can justify withholding information about them from the American public. Who were the immigration officials who let them into our country and under what pretenses? What did the hijackers say on their visa applications and airport arrival cards? Who okayed those documents as legally filled out and signed?

What was the hijackers' previous employment and country of emigration? Who were their U.S. guarantors of employment after arrival in the United States? Who is responsible for failing to keep track of them in this country and failing to expel them when their visas expired?

It's important for Americans to understand that the 9/11 hijackings are a problem of the U.S. government allowing illegal aliens to roam freely in our country and of promiscuously issuing visas without proper certifications. It's also a problem of our government failing to enforce current immigration and visa laws, and failing to deport illegal aliens including those who overstay their visas. At least 16 of the 19 hijackers fit in one or more of these categories.

There a price to pay...

We are not going to tolerate a system that treats U.S. citizens and aliens the same. All aliens are not terrorists, but nearly all terrorists are aliens.
We do not want to live in a police state, where every American is treated like a terrorist, drug trafficker, money launderer, illegal alien, or common criminal.

So what the answer to all this?
Many Mexicans, Mexicans -Americans have served this Nation, the highest percentile of Medal of Honor recipents are from those two.
Many have paid the price of Freedom, by their service to the Nation.
Why single out those that have my blood by birth?
Illegal aliens come in many shades, so why single out those of bronze skin?

Semper Fidelis
Ricardo

There also the farm labor to consider.
Many Mexicans work on farms for cheap wages.
Without those laborers, the cost of our produce would be more than it is.
Many farms would fail dued to the high cost of labor.
I don't see many Americans willing to do what they are now doing.
So that another price to pay.
What the answer to all this?

Semper Fidelis
Ricardo

That IS one heck of a tough one to answer. There are plenty of smart people, that are paid to figure this stuff out, that haven't yet.

And, Americans WILL pay to have their azzez wiped, if it's cheap enough.

"We are not going to tolerate a system that treats U.S. citizens and aliens the same. All aliens are not terrorists, but nearly all terrorists are aliens.
We do not want to live in a police state, where every American is treated like a terrorist, drug trafficker, money launderer, illegal alien, or common criminal. "

Nicely said!

"Illegal aliens come in many shades, so why single out those of bronze skin? "

I agree. We have a 'color blindness' issue, that although is slowly receeding, but will never go away.

I think the fear that is bred, due to ignorance, is summed up by your statement; "but nearly all terrorists are aliens. "

That, coupled with the security of America (ah, fast food, the abuse of the automobile, etc., the trappings of $$ and lazyiness), and our crappy 'mass media' hyping everything short of gnat farts, I don't think there will be an answer anytime soon.

Your post kicks ass, Ricardo.

Semper Fi

Rich

You said it Ricardo!

The Bush administration will never allow the country to find out its culpability in the 9/11 disaster.

Let's just blame the immigrants. If I remember correctly the Oklahoma City bombing was done by dudes that were whiter than white.

I was stationed at MCAS Yuma 1984, and spent many nights
along the Colorado River, which is the border with Mexico.
As soon as the sun went down, you could watch the men
come across the river, headed for who knows where. The
Border Patrol was overwhelmed then, and I am sure that it has not gotten any better, only worse. One night, along perhaps
a stretch of perhaps two hundred yards of riverfront, I quit
counting the number of men coming illegaly into the United
States after I reached one hundred. This continues to go on, and if anyone thinks that our border is anything but a leaking faucet,
they are mistaken. The solution is not the border, or keeping
people out. The solution is changing the way people outside the
United States view us, so these awful terrorists act stop. Just
my thoughts, and I am wrong often. Semper Fidelis, Tom Murray

ivalis, if you think that "the Oklahoma City bombing was done by dudes that were whiter then white", then you need a wake-up call. Color of skin had nothing to do with it.

Roger that, Greenside.

Purple with pink polka dots wouldn't have mattered.

Tom, I respect your opinion, but getting others to change the way they think of us is idealistic, at best.

We are Americans. Most of us try to represent our country the best we can, even try to compensate for our 'traveling partners' ocasionally (I travel for work).

Albeit, it's difficult to compensate for the 'ugly American', I won't feel guilty for being one.

Hell, I was down in Mexico last week (along with anothe Marine friend of mine, long story, if your interested: http://www.grunt.com/forum/topic.asp?TOPIC_ID=8139)

I like it. Simple people, trying to get what they can. Border town, Naco, south of Bisbee.

The solution is not as clear as 'borders', like you say. But it may be a start.

Semper Fi

Rich

January 9, 2004
OP-ED CONTRIBUTOR New York Times
American Jobs but Not the American Dream
By DAVID ABRAHAM

President Bush's immigration reform proposal, unveiled on Wednesday, is a classic guest worker program on the European model. As such, it may be doomed from the start: Europe's guest worker programs created as many problems as they solved, and to this day they remain unpopular.

Guest worker programs were widely used in Europe from the 1950's through the 1970's during a period of extreme labor shortages. Most of the several million Turks and Yugoslavs in Germany, for example, are there today because of Germany's substantial guest-worker program of that period. Lesser but substantial numbers of guest workers are also to be found among the Muslim populations of Central and Northern Europe.

Germany's guest worker program was ended more than two decades ago. Yet Germans still have not resolved the question of what to do with the millions of immigrants living in their midst. Although these immigrant workers get some benefits of citizenship — health care, for example, and unemployment insurance — they are not citizens. They are not allowed full membership in German society, yet neither are they forced to return home. It is virtually impossible to find anyone in Germany today who would favor re-establishment of its guest worker program.

The details of the program announced by President Bush have yet to be worked out. But its outlines are clear. At the invitation of employers, workers will be permitted to stay in the United States for a limited time without having to wait in its long immigration lines. They would also secure many of the benefits and protections of American-born workers.

The chief virtue of the program, as the president made clear, is that the guest workers would be allowed to move relatively freely between their country of citizenship — overwhelmingly Mexico — and the country in which they are "guests." Such movement could reduce the disturbing smuggling and illegal border crossings so common along America's frontiers.

But the drawbacks of guest worker programs far outweigh their advantages. To begin with, experience shows that guest workers are not good guests: they rarely want to leave. In Germany today there are more than two million people of Muslim Turkish origin, many of whose families came as guest workers four decades ago. Guest workers marry locals; they have children; they encourage their kin and friends to join them in the host country, legally or illegally.

After all, guest workers are not just labor, they are people. Where will these people live, and how will they be treated? Can we look forward to new urban ghettos or rural guest-worker "villages"? Fifty years after the civil rights movement, will we now have a new caste of subordinated foreign workers? Once the economic need for guest workers abates (assuming, in fact, that there is such a need) what happens to them?

It is true that America has more experience with assimilation than Europe. But that does not mean finding answers to these questions will be any less difficult.

And in some respects, the dangers of a guest worker program in the United States are graver than they were in Europe. Germany, the Benelux countries, Scandinavia and other European host countries had and still have very strong labor unions. Those strong unions were able to make certain that guest workers were not used by employers to depress wages. By contrast, American labor unions are weak to nonexistent in most segments of the labor market.

In addition, President Bush has clearly expressed his intention to put employers in charge: guest workers will be selected by employers and will be able to remain in the United States only so long as they stay with the employer who brought them. This is a sure recipe not only for the exploitation of these "guests" but also for the depression of American wages generally, especially among those who can least afford it — many of them immigrants.

The United States has always been a "welcoming country," as the president said, "open to the talents and dreams of the world." But this plan is an abandonment of America's ideals, not an expression of them. It values immigrants' talents over their dreams. Instead of hope, it offers them simply a job.