Boot

Nice chromakey.

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Hambergler

I'm not sure about this, but if I lived in Mexico. And I wanted to visit you in America. What is stopping me from buying a ticket, getting on a plane and coming here to stay for good. Why should I pay a coyote $2000? Am I missing something here?

Lucky Shot

I have seen estimates of the number of Illegal Immigrants from Mexico in the US somewhere between 10 million and 15 million. Mexico's population is estimated at 105 and 106 Million (http://www.nationbynation.com/Mexico/Population.html) people. So why is it acceptable that 10%+ of the population is in our country illegally? Looking for work or not, that percentage is obnoxiously high and at that rate, invasion may not be the wrong term to use.

Lucky Shot

CingularDuality

You would have to have a valid passport and visa to get past the immigration inspector, same as at a port of entry on the land border. That's why millions of illegal aliens cross the border other than at a port of entry every year.

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TacticalGamer TX LAN/BBQ Veteran:

Hambergler

I know you have to have a passport to fly. I drove back and forth into Mexico with just a drivers licence. Also when I worked in McAllen TX, I worked with people who lived in Mexico and worked in TX. They went back and forth everyday, with no passport.
The question is how come they don't all have passports? I can get one here at the post office. Are there so many people born in small towns with no governments and birth certificates? Or do you have to have money to get a passport?
There are alot rich people who fly in to have surgery at my surgery center in Houston from Mexico. I'm sure they didn't scamper across the border.

Maybe the real deal is that they have slavery down there. And the rich aren't handing out any passports to there poor underclass slaves. They don't want there cheap labor getting away!

CingularDuality

Heh... No.

A US Citizen doesn't need a passport to enter the United States (although it could eliminate some lengthy delays to verify citizenship). Mexicans are able to get Border Crossing Cards that are a special type of B1/B2 Visa, which allows them to enter the US for 72 hours at a time (very common along the border), or to pay a small fee to enter for 6 months at a time (just like any other paper visa). I have no idea how much Mexico charges for their passports, but it's about a hundred bucks for a US passport. The difficult part of entering the US (ignoring border hopping) is getting a US Visa. Remember that a passport is a document issued by your country to provide proof of citizenship. A visa is a document issued by another country that is placed in your passport that allows you to enter that country.

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TacticalGamer TX LAN/BBQ Veteran:

Hambergler

What do you mean heh no...
You have just reiterated my point. The people who are issued visas are people who can prove they have large bank accounts, property or have a business. People who can establish they aren't flight risks. The rich. The poor people have to stay and work and can't go visit anyone. If you can't even come close to decent life on the money your making. And your not allowed to leave the country, while other people are getting rich on your labor. It's called slavery in my book.

Lucky Shot

Paying people under minimum wages under the table to save additional taxes and forcing illegal foreigners to live in substandard housing is also Slavery in my book.

Lucky Shot

Boot

Countries have every right to assess the likelihood of a visitor to violate their visa, and award visas or not based on that assessment. It's not slavery to say you can't come in because we can't trust you. People who want a better life in their substandard countries have 2 choices: stay and fix it, or leave. The problem with Mexico is that no one chooses option 1.

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leejo

Slavery is when you beat or kill an "employee" who tries to leave and you do not pay them at all.

I don't think the hyperbolic language helps anyone. Slavery exists in the world today: there are plenty of sex slaves, for example. The situation in which people who illegally enter this country exist is not slavery.

Hambergler

I agree, our country has never really quenched it's appetite for slave labor or very cheap labor(whatever you want to call it). At least they can make a better life here then in Mexico. Substandard housing to you, may be the Ritz to them. They can also wait around for amnesty every ten years or so. Indentured servants if you will. The reason the government put national guard there instead of giving border patrol more money for more officers is that. Its a temporary fix untill the hot issue blows over.

Lucky Shot

They could have a better life in MANY different countries. Ultimately allowing them to work in the US outside of the green card system we set up, or providing amnesty to those who sneak around our laws only provides a disincentive to those who try to do it the right way.

I certainly hope that amnesty does not come every 10 years. In the 80's when it was first done, there were 3 million immigrants nationalized. This is 12 million. How many next time? 48 million? That's the trend. Substandard housing to me, to you, to average joe american.

Lucky Shot

Kerostasis

This one quote really gets to the heart of the matter. People existing in poor conditions in a poor environment can 1) Fight and/or Work to improve their environment, or 2) Flee to another, better environment.

We here in the US have made it a habit for decades of placing absolutely no barriers in front of option 2. And of course the Mexican Government doesn't want option 1 to EVER happen, so they do everything THEY can to promote option 2 as well. As long as this continues, is it any wonder that most lower-class Mexicans choose option 2?

The only stable, long term answer to the flood of illegal immigration from Mexico is to make Mexico a place where people WANT to be. Unfortunately, there is no practical way to do that from outside--it has to be done from inside. And it is precisely those millions of people flooding into the US that SHOULD be providing the drive to change Mexico into a better place. So its a self-sustaining problem.

If, however, we actually put together a decent level of enforcement to force Mexican citizens to *gasp* stay in Mexico, then some of them just might think harder about option 1. And that would benefit everyone involved.

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Hambergler

I have a hard time believing. The mightiest nation in history can't stop a few poor people from swimming across a river. That's comedy. The trend to give amnesty is here to stay if they will not secure the borders. The government wants their tax money. The billions spent on homeland security and all the creepy laws that have been past infringing on our privacy are meant to control us. If they were for the terrorists they would close the damn borders. But they wont, because the civil rights act is only forty years old, and the old money wants their cheap labor. It's like living in the worst part of your city or town and leaving your front door wide open all night long while your family is sleeping.

CingularDuality

You're trying to say that the USA is intentionally promoting slavery in Mexico by not allowing poor people to legally visit the USA?

Heh... Again you're so right and so wrong. It's not a few poor people trying to swim across a river, it's millions and millions of people from many different countries that are invading our nation, sometimes with the help of sophisticated smuggling organizations, sometimes even with the help of the Mexican government. The relatively small amount of money that goes to immigration enforcement is simply not enough, and that's where you're right. It's because certain industries want their cheap labor. It's not just big business, either. It's the American people at all levels that want their lawn mowed cheaply, that want cheap food in restaurants, that want cheap home construction, etc.... The "ten dollar head of lettuce" may be a myth, but stricter enforcement of our laws will raise the cost of labor, whether we simply deport all the illegal aliens, or give them status with a guest worker program so that they're no longer afraid to report their employers that violate labor laws.

This problem may seem simple, but it's not. And the reason that it's not is that we haven't been seriously enforcing our laws for the past thirty years. Ever looked at old laws that seem silly because they haven't been enforced in our lifetime, but are still on the books? There are people alive now that have never seen our immigration laws enforced. Believe me, these are laws that need to be taken seriously.

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TacticalGamer TX LAN/BBQ Veteran: