What is a realistic answer to the immigration problem?
477976
If Congress were to pass a law that said, quite simply, that the CEO(ANY EMPLOYER) of any business that was caught employing ILLEGAL IMMIGRANTS went to jail for a year \n- NO EXCEPTIONS \n- then within a month there would be ten million (more or less) people lined up at the Mexican border trying to get out of the United States And Back To Whatever Country They Came From.\n\nThey WILL NOT Stay If They CANNOT Work\nNO Deportation Costs\nAND They Will STOP COMING\n\nRealistic Answer To The Problem
253968
I think that the problem is the perception that it is okay to come here illegally.  We need to secure the borders, and allow legal immigration.  We need to raise minimum wage so those we allow in will not be unemployed, poor, and taking more from the society than they give.  This should go to ALL Americans!  \n\nWe need to amend the constitution to change citizenship to be for children born to LEGAL immigrants or that have one CITIZEN as a parent, otherwise they are not American.  This would eliminate the "Anchor Baby" issue.  \n\nWe need to NOT make all services available in any language requested.  We need to help folks learn english, and we should not disparage those that are learning.  If governement programs, driver license tests, IRS forms, and many others, were not made in Spanish, primarily for illegal immigrants, the need to learn english would be more important.  That being said, English classes should be taught for free by charitable organizations supported by the government.\n\nWe need intelligent, sane policies.  We need to be willing to pay the cost of farm products picked and handled by legal workers.\n\nIf we do all of this, MORE legal immigrants could come to America, because we would not be paying for and hunting down so many illegals!
363148
Problem #1: Population \n\nThe first problem I see with the current state of the immigration laws is the significant rise in population that has, and will, continue to occur over the next fifty years. According to the Federation for American Immigration Reform (FAIR), an estimated 1.1 million immigrants, both legal and illegal, enter the United States every year. 700,000 of these are legal immigrants; 120,000 are refugees, and between 250,000 to 300,000 are undocumented or illegal “aliens” ( Baldwin, 1995). The United States population at the moment is roughly 288 million people. If this trend of aliens is not decreased, the population will reach 400 million by 2050. How many people can America hold? \n\nProblem #2: Benefits Illegal Aliens Recieve \n\nCurrently, under federal law, undocumented foreign citizens are eligible for emergency healthcare, free schooling from kindergarten through high school, and W.I.C. or Woman, Infants, and Children nutritional program ( Baldwin, 1995). This is important to note because there are currently between eight and ten million aliens currently living illegally in the United States. An estimated 2.5 million of these illegal aliens currently reside in the state of California alone, due to the agricultural jobs that are readily available for cheap labor (Kadetsky, 102). It should not be surprising then that the residents of California were outraged over the amount of money that they were being forced to spend, and the amount of resources that were being used to support aliens that are not “allowed” to be in the United States in the first place. \n\n \n\nProblem #3: Homeland Security\n\nIn the Fiscal year of 2002, which runs October 1 through September 30, the United States Coast Guard, which is the country’s primary maritime, or sea going, law enforcement agency, intercepted 4104 immigrants from various South American countries (USCG, Para 2). Since then, the numbers of immigrants intercepted by the Coast Guard, has continued to climb at an alarming rate; jumping to almost 11,000 in 2004, 9,500 in 2005, and currently with less than two months into the 2006 physical year, there have already been 1,000 migrants accounted for and processed through the Coast Guard (USCG, Para 1). Illegal immigration can potentially cost American tax payers billions of dollars a year. The United States Coast Guard, whose primary obligation is to prevent the loss of life at sea, can not stop this problem by its self, it is mearly the first line of defense. It is up to the rest of America to join the fight and help put an end to this awful practice.\n\n\nthanks cherokee rose i put my signature on  petition you rock
661819
Ask this in the immigration Q&A.
544860
Call immigration on his ass.\n\nHahaha, just kidding.\n\nIn all honesty, I'd try to convince him to go through the process and become a citizen.
892977
I think I like this kind of talk\nBottom line: The issue may come down to what one veteran pollster called "sequencing" -- where voters want the government to demonstrate that it's serious about reducing illegal immigration before legalizing 12 million people. That would mean first controlling the border and creating a tamper-proof citizenship card so that employers who hire illegal workers can be prosecuted then assembling a legalization plan.  \n\nI could definitely live with this.Thanks for the great information\nIn the words of that great sage Yogi Berra(not sure of the spelling)\n"It ain't over till its over"
924952
I agree that immigration is an exaggerated problem, because if it was so bad it would have been brought up years ago.  Honestly, I wish that everyone had the opportunities that Americans have, so I understand why people do cross the borders, but many are being exploited and I think the government should find a better and faster way to make them citizens because, honestly, the only thing that is different between Americans and the people who come to America is the country that they were born in.  I don't feel that immigration is hurting the america people as much as the war is.  I believe this because immigration has not driven up the gas prices and it has given many people the chance to live a decent life.
959782
What can we do to stop illegals?\n1. Actually enforce the immigration laws currently on the books.\n\n2. Imprison the landlords, employers and anyone giving any assistance to illegals.\n\n3. Place automated cameras and remote operated fully automatic weapons on the border.\n\n4. Deny citizenship to children of illegal aliens.\n\n5. Set up an actual hotline for people to report the presence of suspected illegal aliens in the workplace or neighborhood.\n\n6. Adopt English as the official national language making it easier to identify people that are not citizens. Even if you must use broken English, although humorous at times, it is understandable and you will get better at it if you try. If you can't speak English you obviously are not a citizen, where is your visa?\n\n7. Adopt English only for all government paperwork to help eliminate the filing for benefits by foreign nationals with the one exception of visa applications.\n\nWhy are they harming us?\n1. They want a better life. We can't blame them for that, but it is not our job to support them nor should we look the other way from the crime of illegal entry. If they wish to have the same rights as our citizens, they can apply for citizenship after they have met all of the other legal requirements.\n\nHow are they harming us?\n1. By draining billions of our tax dollars with free medical care, requiring the hiring of Spanish language teachers due to the fact that they refuse to learn English, welfare benefits for children of illegals.\n\n2. 15-20 or more people living in a single family residence creates unsanitary living conditions and lowers the values of all of the neighboring properties. If you want to live in these kinds of filthy conditions, you can do that in your own country; do not drag our neighborhoods down.\n\n3. Over crowding in the schools is making it so that our own citizens cannot get a decent education.\n\n4. Refusing to immigrate legally bypasses the required health screen and allows previously eradicated diseases back into the country.\n\n5. Illegals accepting jobs at below minimum wage suppresses the wages of our own citizens.\n\n6. Using stolen SSN and other US identification wreaks havoc for taxpayers by totally screwing up the tax bracket they are currently in, forcing people to waste hundreds of hours to even attempt to get this straightened our with the IRS.\n\n7. Illegals often support themselves with drug smuggling bringing the drugs across the border with them.
267151
Well, here's some ideas to fix it...\n\n\nThe Latin American immigration crisis must include these items...\n\n1) A wall to prevent further immigration\n2) A guest worker program for those who are here\n3) New national id cards holding electronically encrypted information that must be reconciled against a national database.\n4) Fines or prison time for anyone who employs illegal aliens without proper validation of their identification against new parameters.\n5) Reform of judicial system to handle immigration cases more efficiently. An immigration court would be nice...\n6) And structured control of new applicants for the guest worker program so that we get to choose who enters. My votes says that we only favor countries who have signed free trade agreements with the U.S. That way we can favor the Latin American countries who are under NAFTA and CAFTA and we can restrict applicants from countries where the bulk of the population would rather just kill us and take everything we have. The Hispanics are seen as GREAT workers and would be quite welcome if they were legal. \n\nBut those who come from cultures where women are oppressed, where people cannot individually choose their religion, opposition to the basic free market principles that made our country wealthy and safe, and believe that violence against our citizens is a cherished avenue to achieving their own political ends are NOT welcome. And those people will try to come just as they went to Europe. They didn't assimilate there and they won't assimilate here. But, the Latin Americans are much safer and are generally not trying to kill us
889251
I support a guest worker program. I think it's impossible to throw all of them out. How are we going to find 12 million illegals? I'm a realist and know that we have to build a fence and send troops to guard it. But I know that is impossible to find all of the illegals here. We need to fine employers who hire illegals and reduce legal immigration with quotas. Illegal immigration is a serious problem and needs to be stopped.
954376
"Do you think that immigration should be limited or that any limits should be lifted - Why"\n\n"Do you think that it is different today than in the past and why?"\n\n"Do you think that illegal immigration should be punished and why?"\n\n"Who do you think should have to pay for the immigration process (background checks etc.)?"\n\n"What do you think should be the criteria, if any, for someone wanting to be a citizen (in the past there were job and or monetary requirements, should there be now and why)?"\n\n"Should our immigration laws be stricter or more lenient than other countries'?"\n\nHope this gets you started.  Good Luck!
657173
Never!  Americans by our very nature are immigrants.  I think that illegal immigration is a problem, and there are solutions.  But to deport every person who is an immigrant is not only impossible, it is wrong.  All of us are immigrants.  I think the question should be about illegal immigrants and what we can do to solve the problem.
401632
It will eventually subside after the government decides and announces what their plans are for immigration.  Yes, there are a lot of very important issues today, but this is one of them.  This issue needs to be settled in a fair and just way and the laws of the land, whatever they be, must be strictly enforced.  Giving the illegals amnesty can only encourage more illegals to come to the USA because they will see that as a tacit okay to them coming illegally and it will be encouraging to them by saying, "If you come illegally and stick it out - eventually you will get rewarded for it, just like those before you."
963548
It's doubtful - the population is increasing, but people die every day.  Also, there is a recent concern about the population possibly stagnating because many families are opting out of having children.  It's a problem in Germany and many European countries, who also have strict immigration laws (stricter even than America), and they have been considering upping the immigration quotas.  \nWhy should America stop "accepting" immigrants anyways - most of Americans are products of immigration anyway.  Maybe we should focus on stopping fourteen year olds from having babies, and then we wouldn't have a population problem.
1161675
Issues like immigration are easy to take a stand on and propose an answer to. It's a way to get people to follow you because its an election year, so the important things get thrown to the side and these sorts of issues take the forefront.\n\nSome would also like to make you think that there's a definite connection between all of these things and that closing our borders would fix these problems however untrue and potentially dangerous that connection is.
924277
No....\n\nBut deporting 11-20 MM illegals is darn near impossible.  And, at this point, it may cause some serious harm if we do get rid of illegals.  There is a place in PA (I think) that has enacted laws prohibiting illegals from renting or getting jobs.  They have largely left the city- now businesses are failing in that town.\n\nAmesty is not a solution but neither is total deportation-  It is next to impossible to accomplish.  there has to be some way for them to stay, become legal, no to citizenship and pay steep fines.\n\nSecure the borders.\n\nLet's not place this all on the Dems-- Bush has advocated some form of Amnesty as well.  And Reagan DID grant amnesty in the 80's.
605444
I think you need to consult an immigration attorney.