Are you aware of the Controversy over Illegal aliens workers in Connecticut?
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It is appalling and yet we the citizens of the U.S. are taxed to support them with all the benefits afforded citizens.  \n\nThe politicians talk about our health care problems and people who have paid taxes and obeyed the laws all their lives can't afford insurance and when they are treated they are billed by the E.R.s doctors, hospitals, and all the other specialties they require.  When they are discharged the creditor hound them,  their credit is ruined, they lose their property, are hounded by creditors, etc.\n\nYet an illegal immigrant or member of their family just shows up, receives identical treatment, translaters have to be hired to understand them and when they are discharged they suffer no dire consequences.  It's no wonder health care, prescriptions and insurance costs are so astronomical\n\nThe dishonesty in this system is shameful but with this new Congress the problem will continue to be ignored and we will be taxed more to support them and the employers can continue to cheat us by not paying payroll taxes. \n\nU.S. citizens are the ones suffering particularly the blue collar workers and those who can only be hired part time so employees can avoid paying for any benefits.  Unfortunately these are our people who are most in need of help.\n\nI'll join in the march another answerer suggested if it could ever be arranged.  Maybe we can picket in Washington when the new Congress convenes in January.  Our representatives will not do the will of the people unless they are pressured.  They are well taken care of for life, receive hefty salaries and a very lucrative retirement.\n\nSomething is very wrong with this picture.
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No, it isn't. It's quite simply that in recent years it is getting out of hand. As the owner of a fairly large construction company, I can give you an example why people like myself have such an issue with illegal aliens. In 1995, the cost of framing a custom home was about $7.00 per sq. ft. . In 2005, the cost for the same job is about $3.25 per sq. ft.. This is DIRECTLY related to illegal aliens, in that they are highly skilled craftsmen who can do just as well a job, but because they don't have insurance, or pay taxes, they can cut a bid in HALF, and still maintain the same profit margin. Almost 30% of every penny the company makes goes to taxes alone. Add another 5% of each individual's income for worker's comp. Which illegal aliens can't get, nor can they get the bonding and liability insurance policies I am requred to maintain as a part of doing business. Their average income is $12 per hour. My average payout for wages is $18 per hour. That's per man. So do the math. How much house do you think I can afford to build at $3.25 per foot, at $18 per man hour with a 9 man crew per jobsite? Notice, the cost of housing (along with the price of fuel) has increase almost 150 PERCENT in the past 10 years, yet the income of TENS OF THOUSANDS of AMERICAN construction workers has been cut in half, just so they can compete in an open job market. So tell me mister, who SHOULD I be pissed at? I don't see any senators running the bottom out of my business. But I do support ANY efforts they can make to keep ANYONE else from doing so. The White House has had ZERO impact on my particular job market. The criminal activities of 10 million Mexicans HAS.
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The illegal immigration issue is a really hot one right now
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We were duped into thinking "migrant workers" came here during harvest and went back afterwards. That, as we have found out recently, was NOT the case. They DIDN'T go back, they stayed and abused our welfare systems, brought in extended family members and produced their 'anchor babies'.  They settled in California, Arizona, New Mexico, Texas and Colorado.  The rest of the USA was not aware of it until the media brought it to our attention.  Then we started noticing the subtle changes to our own cities, towns and communities. Some of us have started paying attention.  Some refuse to take their heads out of their butts and really see what is going on under their very noses.
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I don't think so. Whose gonna do the unwanted jobs then? Easy for some people to say yes but they wouldn't dare do the jobs these people do. Did you ever think that some of these people came here legally to be able to support their families but majority of them ended up being abused by their employers so they ended up illegals? I have heard a lot of stories and verified them. Some of the bad things that happened to them were done by by our fellow Americans and you talk of having electric fences? What's the matter with you? I bet your ancestors would love to hear your comments when they came here as immigrants too. If they'd have known what the future generation would be maybe they would have aborted you.
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The reality is \nthat we don't have an "Illegal Immigration" problem in America.\n\nWe have an "Illegal Employer" problem. \n\nYet it's almost never mentioned in the mainstream media,\nbecause to point it out \ncould slightly reduce the profits and CEO salaries \nof many of America's largest multi-state \nand multinational corporations - \nwho both own the media \nand contribute heavily to conservative politicians.\n\nEncouraging a rapid increase in the workforce \nby encouraging companies to hire non-citizens \nis one of the three most potent tools \nconservatives since Ronald Reagan have used \nto convert the American middle class \ninto the American working poor. \n(The other two are \ndestroying the governmental protections \nthat keep labor unions viable, \nand \nending tariffs while promoting trade deals \nlike NAFTA / WTO/ GATT that export manufacturing jobs.)\n\nFor example, \nwhen Nike began manufacturing shoes \nin Third World countries with labor costs below US labor costs, \nit didn't lead to $15 Nikes - \ntheir price held, \nand even increased, \nbecause the market would bear it. \nInstead, that reduction in labor costs \nled to Nike CEO Phil Knight becoming a multi-billionaire\n\nThe fact is \nthat we have had an open border with Mexico \nfor several centuries, \nand "illegal immigration" was never a serious problem. \n\nBefore Reagan's presidency, \nan estimated million or so people a year \ncame into the US from Mexico - \nand the same number, more or less, left the US for Mexico \nat the end of the agricultural harvest season. \nVery few stayed, because there weren't jobs for them. \n\nNon-citizens didn't have access \nto the non-agricultural US job market, \nin large part because of the power of US labor unions \n(before Reagan 25% of the workforce was unionized; \ntoday the private workforce is about 7% unionized), \nand because companies were unwilling to risk \nhaving non-tax-deductible labor expenses on their books \nby hiring undocumented workers \nwithout valid Social Security numbers. \n\nBut Reagan put an end to that. \nHis 1986 amnesty program, \ncombined with his aggressive war on organized labor \n(begun in 1981), \nin effect told both employers and non-citizens \nthat there would be few penalties \nand many rewards to increasing the US labor pool \n(and thus driving down wages) \nwith undocumented immigrants. \n\nA million people a year \ncontinued to come across our southern border, \nbut they stopped returning to Latin America every fall \nbecause instead of seasonal work \nthey were able to find permanent jobs. \n\nThe magnet drawing them? Illegal Employers. \n\nOur borders have always been porous \nbut we've never had a problem like this before. \n\nAnd it's not just because poverty has increased in Mexico -\n\nToday, about half of Mexico lives on less than $2 a day, \nbut 50 years ago \nhalf of Mexico also lived on the equivalent of $2 today. \n\nYet fifty years ago \nwe didn't have an "illegal immigration" problem, \nbecause back then \nwe didn't have a conservative "Illegal Employer" problem. \n\nAs the Washington Post noted \nin an article by Hsu and Lydersen on June 19, 2006 : \n\n"Between 1999 and 2003, \nwork-site enforcement operations were scaled back 95 percent\nby the Immigration and Naturalization Service, \nwhich subsequently was merged \ninto the Homeland Security Department. \nThe number of employers prosecuted \nfor unlawfully employing ILLEGAL ALIENS \ndropped from 182 in 1999 \nto four in 2003, \nand fines collected declined from $3.6 million to $212,000, \naccording to federal statistics." \n"In 1999, the United States initiated fines against 417 companies.\nIn 2004, it issued fine notices to three."\n\nThe hiring crimes of Illegal Employers \nare being ignored by the law, \nand rewarded by the economic systems of the nation. \n\nProof that this simple reality is
226296
You can pick almost any issue and someone will feel that it is the top issue and the country is divided on it.  I believe that most people are in agreement that the Issue of Illegal Aliens is out of hand.  There are many things wrong with the way we handle this sitation and many of the problems are our governments doing.  \n\nWhen things are running smoothly in this country, people all working and no foreign issues on the top of our governments list of things to do such as fighting a war or negotiating a peace for someone else.  We all get along fairly well.  However we now see that people that are here illegally can hurt us as the hijackers of 9/11 did.  Many jobs have moved out of the country and replacement jobs are not as good as what you had and boom the Illegal Aliens are taking all of our jobs.  Well yes many American Jobs are performed by Illegal Aliens, however they get paid less than minimum wage, work long hours without overtime and if they did not perform these jobs the jobs themselves would cease to exist as Americans do not want those jobs.  I have noticed that on this forum at Yahoo Answers there seems to be a leaning to the fact that all foreigner's are Illegal as many people refer to either being Illegal or being a Citizens.  There is another category and that is being a Resident Alien and there are a lot of those out there.  Just because you are foreign does not make you an Illegal Alien.  I see a wave of mistrust of foreigners in this country that could in fact be very dangerous.  I also realize that because of things that happened 9/11 we may never trust as we once did.  While this issue looks to be all black and white it isn't and a lot of it is the governments fault for following antique laws instead of updating them to meet the needs of todays world. Our leaders need to figure this issue out and get something happening before it all boils over and makes one hell of a mess.
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Yes, all you have to do is to report it to the  Immigration Dept. in your city, you will find the telephone number in your Yellow Book and they will investigate any allegations that you report. Good luck!!
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To many Rats:\n\nDallas County Wants Refunds for Mexicans' Health Care \n\nCommissioners in Dallas County, Texas, plan to ask the Mexican government to pay for the medical care given to Mexican nationals at a local hospital. \n\nEach year, Dallas County taxpayers spend $15 million to treat Mexican nationals at Parkland Hospital - and that total includes only the first two days of the patients' emergency care, according to CBS 11 News in Dallas. \n\n"We will be sending a bill to Mexico's president to explain to him and to the embassy how much money it is costing the Dallas County taxpayer to treat their residents, and they need to reimburse Dallas County," said County Judge Margaret Keliher. \n\nJesse Diaz, local president of the League of United Latin American Citizens, complained: "Why punish Mexico? Mexico should not be a scapegoat ... the immigrants are paying taxes, buying homes and cars, and are contributing to the economy." \n\nDallas County will also send bills to nearby Texas counties whose residents seek care at Parkland - running up a tab of nearly $27 million a year, according to Keliher. \n\nDallas can't force those other counties to pay up. But Parkland's board chair Dr. Lauren McDonald said if outsiders don't pay their fair share of emergency and trauma care, it will have a devastating effect on the hospital and those who rely on it.
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The Army Corps of Engineers has awarded a contract worth up to $385 million for building temporary immigration detention centers to Kellogg Brown & Root, the Halliburton subsidiary that has been criticized for overcharging the Pentagon for its work in Iraq.\n\nKBR would build the centers for the Homeland Security Department for an unexpected influx of immigrants, to house people in the event of a natural disaster or for new programs that require additional detention space, company executives said. KBR, which announced the contract last month, had a similar contract with immigration agencies from 2000 to last year.\n\nThe contract with the Corps of Engineers runs one year, with four optional one-year extensions. Officials of the corps said that they had solicited bids and that KBR was the lone responder.\n\nA spokeswoman for Immigration and Customs Enforcement, Jamie Zuieback, said KBR would build the centers only in an emergency like the one when thousands of Cubans floated on rafts to the United States. She emphasized that the centers might never be built if such an emergency did not arise.\n\n"It's the type of contract that could be used in some kind of mass migration," Ms. Zuieback said.\n\nA spokesman for the corps, Clayton Church, said that the centers could be at unused military sites or temporary structures and that each one would hold up to 5,000 people.\n\n"When there's a large influx of people into the United States, how are we going to feed, house and protect them?" Mr. Church asked. "That's why these kinds of contracts are there."\n\nMr. Church said that KBR did not end up creating immigration centers under its previous contract, but that it did build temporary shelters for Hurricane Katrina evacuees.\n\nFederal auditors rebuked the company for unsubstantiated billing in its Iraq reconstruction contracts, and it has been criticized because of accusations that Halliburton, led by Dick Cheney before he became vice president, was aided by connections in obtaining contracts. Halliburton executives denied that they charged excessively for the work in Iraq.\n\nMr. Church said concerns about the Iraq contracts did not affect the awarding of the new contract.\n\nRepresentative Henry A. Waxman, Democrat of California, who has monitored the company, called the contract worrisome.\n\n"With Halliburton's ever expanding track record of overcharging, it's hard to believe that the administration has decided to entrust Halliburton with even more taxpayer dollars," Mr. Waxman said. "With each new contract, the need for real oversight grows."\n\nIn recent months, the Homeland Security Department has promised to increase bed space in its detention centers to hold thousands of illegal immigrants awaiting deportation. In the first quarter of the 2006 fiscal year, nearly 60 percent of the illegal immigrants apprehended from countries other than Mexico were released on their own recognizance.\n\nDomestic security officials have promised to end the releases by increasing the number of detention beds. Last week, domestic security officials announced that they would expand detaining and swiftly deporting illegal immigrants to include those seized near the Canadian border.\n\nAdvocates for immigrants said they feared that the new contract was another indication that the government planned to expand the detention of illegal immigrants, including those seeking asylum.\n\n"It's pretty obvious that the intent of the government is to detain more and more people and to expedite their removal," said Cheryl Little, executive director of the Florida Immigrant Advocacy Center in Miami.\n\nMs. Zuieback said the KBR contract was not intended for that.\n\n"It's not part of any day-to-day enforcement," she said.\n\nShe added that she could not provide additional information about the company's statement that the contract was also meant to support the rapi
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CURLIES_10-You Need To Learn The Underlying Issues Before You Become A Taxpayer(Im Assuming Youre A Student Living With Your Parents)\n\nFREEDOMHAMMER Makes The Point Best-It Is GREEDY Unscrupulous EMPLOYERS That ENABLE This Problem And Have Compounded It To This Point\n\nThere are jobs Americans simply won't do, so that the importation of foreigners is essential. Whether these foreign workers are ILLEGAL ALIENS,  guestworkers, or permanent Legal Immigrants is a detail to be worked out by us, the argument goes, but our need for them is unchanged.Even many opponents of the proposed Bush Amnesty assume this to be true, leading them to propose new and improved guestworker programs, with provisions for stricter controls against Permanent Settlement, greater incentives to return, tighter enforcement against Unscrupulous Employers, etc. As well-meaning as such efforts may be, the basic assumption is false — \n\nThere is simply no economic reason to import FOREIGN Workers.If the supply of FOREIGN Workers were to dry up (say, through actually ENFORCING the immigration law, for starters), employers would respond to this new, tighter, labor market in two ways. \n\n1: One, they would offer HIGHER Wages, INCREASED Benefits, and Improved Working Conditions, so as to recruit and retain people from the remaining pool of workers.\n\n2:At the same time, the same employers would look for ways to eliminate some of the jobs they now are having trouble filling. The result would be a NEW Equilibrium, with Blue-Collar Workers making somewhat Better Money, but each one of those workers being more productive.\n\nMany people fear the first part of such a response, claiming that prices for fruits and vegetables would skyrocket, fueling inflation..NOT TRUE..Labor accounts for only about ten percent of the retail price of a head of lettuce,  so even doubling the wages of pickers would have little noticeable effect on consumers.\n\nSeveral people told me they used to do the "jobs Americans won't do" until local employers figured out they could get ILLEGAL Aliens to work for less than half the same amount. As an example, a young landscaper who used to make $15 an hour 10 years ago, can't get a similar job now for more than $8 an hour. Same heat. Same difficult working conditions.  But with the Depressed Wage, AMERICANS – who live in a country where the cost of living is miles above that of Mexico's – can't afford to take such jobs.It's not that he and other Americans don't want to do landscaping anymore; it's just that in heavily trafficked ILLEGAL Alien environments, IT DOESNT PAY WELL ENOUGH ANYMORE.\n\n Younger U.S.-born high school graduates are squeezed at both ends. Jobs that would have gone to them in the past are now being grabbed by college graduates. The lowest-wage jobs are unappealing, and employers will not raise wages as long as ILLEGAL Immigrants will take them.\n\nIf this is what the open borders crowd means by ILLEGAL ALIENS doing jobs Americans don't want, they're right. American workers want jobs that can Earn them a DECENT LIVING in this country. Minimum wage is a fortune south of the border, but it doesn't go far here. \n\n\nthis is to illustrate the absurdity of a "comprehensive" approach to ILLEGAL IMMIGRANTS , and the more radical of the ILLEGAL IMMIGRANT  advocates who are proponents of an "open borders" policy. We don't take a comprehensive, humane approach with drug dealers because they are breaking our laws and causing great damage to this country by poisoning our children. Similarly, ILLEGAL IMMIGRANTS  violate our laws and Poison our system of Economics by TAKING JOBS  from American Workers, Keeping WAGES ARTIFICIALLY LOW, and Sucking MILLIONS of Dollars of TAXPAYERS MONEY out of our Welfare and Medical Systems. \nNot To Mention The Fact That A Majority Of ILLEGAL ALIENS Live And Work In This Country And Then Send Their Money Back Home To Their
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It attracted attention of mass media and politicians to the problem of illegal immigration. Hopefully it will be solved soon... and change situation for immigrants for better.
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I must say I was surprised by those poll numbers.  For me, and I suspect for many others, the situation is this.  I have no problem with LEGAL immigrants.  I have little problem with others coming here to work.  The problem is those who come here illegally and stay permanently.  They drain our resources (health care for instance), overburden our schools, and make little or no attempt to learn English and/or assimilate into our country.  Definitely a problem with no easy solution.  Unfortunately our government turned a blind eye to the problem for far too long.  As a result, millions of illegals took advantage.  Now it's unrealistic to expect that they will all be sent back.  I'd like to see them invest their energy into improving their own country.\n\nFor those asking about where the 79% came from, go here http://www.time.com/time/nation/article/0,8599,1179117,00.html
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Awesome facts!  Thank you; i had not found those yet.  Check this out:\n\nSome more info to help Americans realize what is going on before it's too late.  \n \nBecause the pro-illegal alien lobby has a bottomless pit of money and can hire PR people to spin (and fabricate) anything any way, there are an undue number of myths and lies that the public (and many politicians) has bought into. The FACTS are:\n \n1. It is NOT racist to call these people "illegal aliens" In fact, "illegal aliens" is the only term used in federal laws and regulations to describe criminals (and they ARE criminals) who come into our country illegally. They are not illegal immigrants, not undocumented immigrants, not migrant workers, and not day laborers - they're ILLEGAL ALIENS.\n \n2. Mexico is NOT a poor country. It has the fifth richest economy in the world, and by sending its teeming masses to our country, that status keeps on rising. Mexico has more resources per square mile than the U.S. and plenty of money to take care of its own people. Why should the taxpayers of this country subsidize Mexico's corruption?\n \n3. Illegal aliens are NOT necessarily coming here to work. Lou Dobbs recently reported that 33 percent of our prison population is now comprised of non-citizens. Plus, 36 to 42 percent of illegal aliens are on welfare. So, for a good proportion of these people, the American dream is crime and welfare, not coming here to work.\n \n4. Illegal aliens are NOT doing work Americans won't do. What jobs won't Americans do? In most states, Americans still clean their own houses, do their own landscaping, clean hotel rooms, work in restaurants and fast food places, paint houses, DO CONSTRUCTION WORK, work in airports, etc. - just like we have the past 200 years before "our" government allowed these people to invade our country. There are 18 million Americans who cannot find a job, so illegal aliens who are coming here to work do so at peril to American workers.\n \n5. Illegal aliens absolutely do not contribute more than they cost. Certainly the millions in prison and on welfare aren't contributing a dime to our economy, and the ones who are working often are paid in cash with no deductions for taxes at all. The ones who use fraudulent social security numbers and qualify to pay taxes and social security have so many deductions for dependents that they pay little if any taxes. We have seen them pay less than $100 in taxes and get back $4,000 refunds (thanks to earned income tax credits and multiple dependents). The Center for Immigration Studies estimates that the average Mexican illegal alien costs U.S. taxpayers a whopping $55,000 each. Some bargain, eh? \n\n6. The economy does NOT depend on illegal aliens. Sure, greedy CEOs (making $50 to $150 MILLION a year) and business owners depend on illegal aliens, but due to #3, #4 and #5 above, the only thing illegal aliens are contributing to is the collapse of our economy and making the rich richer.\n \n7. Without illegal aliens, the price of agricultural products and other goods and services will NOT soar. The definitive study on this subject is the University of Iowa's "How Much Is That Tomato?" The study concludes that 'since labor is such a small component of the end-price of agricultural products (which includes price to the growers, transportation costs, processing /storage costs, grocers' profit, etc.), using minimum wage workers instead of illegal aliens would increase prices of agricultural products by approximately 3 percent in the summer and 4 percent in the winter ... hardly the making of $10 heads of lettuce, $25 hamburgers, $1,000 per night Days Inn hotel rooms like the pro-illegal alien lobby claims.\n \n8. Consumers are NOT benefiting from lower labor costs. Again, it's CEOs and business owners who benefit from taxpayer subsidies for their illegal alien workers. The Big Three automakers say they moved so many
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Good point.  I know of many cases where people have worked the heck out of illegal aliens for days and when pay day comes they report them to the cops or immigration to avoid paying them.  The employer is usually someone that hires them for handyman work and it never involves major companies.  Bottom line is that the illegal alien usually get returned to their country.  Also this mostly occurs in border communities.
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This is some of what you are seeing in the news today about securing our borders, and prosecuting illegal immigration.  One of the new bills broached would actually scope in on the traffickers of illegal immigrants.  I hope it goes through, but other than some low budget movies there is not much publicity on the subject.  It should be paid more attention....and if you really care about the subject you will be the one to bring the attention.  Do some research, write a paper, and get it published...it's that simple.
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It will still be the issue of enforcement. We have a guest worker program. If they enforced the laws we would not be in this situation.