Your reference to “some” study only shows that one can prove anything using statistics. Liars, damn liars, and statisticians.

It happens regularly along the border. It may be that the greatest numbers of illegals come here for other reasons but many come in order to gain access to our welfare support system.

Beleive what you wish. If you want the truth, come live on the border for a decade or so and see for yourself.

Remember: Believe none of what you hear (read) and only half of what you see.

Legal immigration following the rules is proper. Why not review the many Jews who were denied immigration in the late 30s trying to escape Germany before deciding we should just let people go where they damn well please?

I don’t really get your first argument; our social welfare isn’t even that good. If someone intends to immigrate to a place purely to be a social parasite, they’ll take a bus through America and stop in Canada. The whole social parasite thing is a canard anyways, the vast majority of illegal immigrants have jobs. They also tend to rent their homes, so they pay property taxes by proxy, and simply living here forces them to pay all forms of sales tax. Many of them are of such low income they wouldn’t qualify for most forms of income taxes, and its not like they’ll ever get social security or medicare.

When you consider how much they pay in vs. how much they loose, its easier to make the argument that they’re being exploited. We essentially have a group of second class citizens that pay 90% of the same taxes as we do, but have no protection against minimum wage violations, loss of overtime pay, dangerous work environments, or any other number of exploitations. Many illegals won’t report serious crimes like robbery, assault, or rape for fear of being discovered. The end result is that the Americans that do enjoy those protections can treat “illegals” like shit while complaining about social parasites that don’t really exist.

“so how is the argument . . . . supposed to make me ignore that the law was broken?”

Again I tend to be in the camp of unjust laws deserve to be broken. No one is harmed by people peacefully moving from one place to the next, be it county, states, or whole countries. I don’t view the parents act as a harmful one deserving punishment or forced deportation. Its not a real crime, its just paperwork.

You’re absolutely right about the founding fathers comment, that was just a brain fart on my part. I don’t think its safe for anyone in this country if politicians start seriously considering a redefinition of what it takes to be a citizen. That’s a power I wouldn’t be willing to grant any administration in the last 50 years.

I guess it depends on who you are around …. I’ve been surrounded a large portion of my life by 1st/2nd gen immigrants. And they are the most “follow the rules” of any group you’ll see.

“Honestly I’m for open borders.”

Here’s where I differ with most libertarians: It’s the order in which to accomplish libertarian goals. Do I think Open (and safe) Borders is a good idea, sure. BUT I think ALL forms of socialism/welfare in the US need to be shut down FIRST and then you can open the borders all you want. Right now, with our current messed up society, we couldn’t afford to say “hey world, give us ALL your poor people”. If this country was truly about survival of the person who plays the capitalist game best, sure (most immigrants are harder working than the average American and would come here and excel). But what we have now? Not an option.

“whose parents don’t intend to go back to”

(If we correct the issue with it being tough to do) What’s the damn excuse for their parents to not just become a citizen then? I get tired of hearing the crying about “It’s not my fault my parents came here illegally” … well we all suffer for the ‘sins of our fathers’ if you will. If you have better/smarter parents, you probably have had a simpler life in general … so how is the argument that “my parents broke the law, not me” supposed to make me ignore that the law was broken?

“I don’t trust them to come up with a better answer than the founding fathers.”

Technically the founding fathers didn’t get this one right or wrong at all, remember … it was an amendment. I obviously have the same distrust of our leaders or else I wouldn’t be on a site like this, but something has to change. What we’ve got isn’t working.

Honestly I’m for open borders. As the image in Rick’s post details, the US only gives out 10,000 visas to unskilled laborers with no conections and thats after wading through a mountain of red tape. Its ridiculous when you consider that we have about 30 million illegals currently living here, clearly the country is big enough. The whole thing is just bureaucratic mess. It robs immigrants, you know actual human beings, of all the legal protections we enjoy and gives them a hard time in return for no other reason than a few pieces of paper.

The anchor baby thing is not a problem to me, the alternative seems like it would be. I mean under current laws you’re a citizen if 1) you are born within the US or 2) born to US citizens living abroad. But if you get rid of the natural birth rule what are you going to do about children born in the US, but not to citizens? Should the baby become a citizen of a country they’ve never been to, and whose parents don’t intend to go back to? For a lot of countries the child wouldn’t even have citizenship because they weren’t born there. The whole “stateless babies” problem is unnecessary complication to what is, in my opinion, the non-problem of people trying to immigrate into this country.

Also, I really don’t want congress to open the whole can of worms as to what should or shouldn’t make you a citizen. I don’t trust them to come up with a better answer than the founding fathers.

Not at all, if this loophole was closed and the border tightened up, the legal immigration process would necessarily have to be simplified and the numbers increased.

“Let me just say that there are plenty of non-citizen green-card holders who have children.”

Then they should become citizens, problem solved. Why live here for 5+ years and NOT become a citizen?

Wow, I knew it was a slow process, but… just, wow.

That particular incentive is already in huge overabundance. The problem is that there’s almost no way for about 99% of the world to legally immigrate here within a timeframe that makes any sense at all.

http://toestubber.com/images/immigration.jpg

I find that most “protect the border” activists also oppose making legal immigration more accessible. Very sad.

I don’t think there’s anything to it. A professor made this point very well in an econometrics class I took in college.

He wrote a program that would randomly generate trend lines. He assigned two to each student and had us run a regression as if they were actual time series data.

_Most_ of the time we were able to find statistically significant relationships.

Some data to mull over in this anchor baby debate.

2. What if someone has an “oops” and triggers the switch on accident? or some software bug spazzes out and triggers the switch thus knocking out American commerce and interrupting every Americans daily life for potentially days? Our world relies on the internet more then you could ever imagine. Something as basic as even electrical power lines are controlled by internet servers.

3. Then there’s the intentional censorship angle that is just as worrisome..

From a cyber security standpoint this is pure madness…

I’m against ‘anchor babies’ because it’s being exploited and was designed to right the wrong of slavery. Right now, your geographical location at birth determines your citizenship?

I’d also propose that the same time it be revoked, in it’s place the law should be changed that children of legal citizens are automatically citizens too. So the citizenship of your parents determines your citizenship. And it works real-time. Talk about an incentive to be a legal citizen: all your children are automatically citizens …. and even if you had an early/surprise pregnancy while in another country, your child is still a citizen. Makes far more sense to me than our current system.

“My kids went to school in Jordan and Kuwait with many kids who said they were American but my children were confused because these kids hardly spoke English. After a few months they found out they had been born in the USA to get the American passport but then came back to their home country. I knew two pregnant women in my daughter’s gymnastics class in Egypt who told me they were going to America to have their baby so their kids could get the American passport but had no intention of staying in America. Definitely anecdotal but that was just in our limited experience.”

I then replied:

“That is interesting Catherine. Perhaps there’s a difference in demographic here. It seems this research was focused on Hispanic groups.”

Then her:

“Yes, true. And the article seemed to focus on those who are coming illegally and I don’t think the ones we knew came illegally, necessarily. But the point of them coming was definitely for their children to be American citizens and the parents weren’t looking for jobs. At least in the Middle East it seemed that the parents knew their kids would have more opportunity with an American passport. So it makes me curious what the data would suggest if these situations were included.”

Perhaps someone should research wealthier foreigners coming to the US to get their kids citizenship, rather than only poor illegal immigrants.

The average age for representatives is 55 and 62 for senators. At least one of them thinks the internet is a series of tubes, and the supreme court seems to have trouble with the concept of email. It is a generational problem, but since when has total ignorance of something stopped a congressman from writing and signing laws for it?

far more likely to be the truth than “groups of pro-Mubarak supporters” which implies “non-government employees”. governments around the world lie and use violence to impose their will.

Over the weekend, the family of and attorney for Jeremy Marks held a press conference to denounce the massive police raid on his home.

Yes, a press conference organized by ANSWER. If Marks or any of his family are reading this – you need to tell the communists “thanks but no thanks”. They will not help you, they will help only themselves. You will lose credibility by association.