If you feel you cannot compete for work on a level footing with a Mexican immigrant then you are doing it wrong.

facebook ? I have no idea what you are talking about.
Is there an other JohnWilkes posting there? John is a very common name, as is Wilkes. Then there is the history behind the name. Perhaps you overlooked both these facts.

Menial labor, me ? Are you confusing what you somehow infer from my words with the facts, again.

Fly: inference != implication.

That is clearly a racist comment.

How is it racist?

Surely you are just race baiting.

I meant twoplustwo and wrote Facebook for some reason. I'm just saying that for someone accusing Wookie of being a member of the idle liberal rich elite you seem to have a job that allows you to **** around on the internet. Or, more likely, you're on SSDI.

You benefit from lower wages for unskilled labor just as much as Wookie every time you buy produce at Publix, John. Also I dunno why you'd want to draw attention to your choice of name when you're trying to deny that you're racist. Again, while apparently having no idea what racism is. Phil says the word "Mexican" and you think that's racist, probably because you remember saying something offensive about Mexicans and getting called racist.

gold jerry! gold!

I sure am glad that we have elevated the conversation to a middle school level, where calling me names is a substitute for an actual argument.

The obvious solution to the horrors of people who are willing to do a tough job voluntarily for low pay and low/no benefits is to legalize them, not kick them out. If American citizens aren't willing to do either a better job for higher pay or the same job for the same pay, why should I subsidize their inadequacy in the form of higher strawberry and drywall prices? Immigrants "hurt" them only to the point of their laziness, or minimum wage laws preventing them from doing a job they want to do for a wage they're willing to do it for. And if the latter is the case, the cheapest and most effective solutions are to either eliminate/lower the minimum wage, or legalize the immigrants.

Your wording is the problem. When you say "legalese" them, most people are assuming green card, citizenship, future welfare etc. If by legalizing you would mean "seasonal work permit" without any future naturalization rights, your point would sound a lot better for a lot of people.

Well, generally, what people mean when they say "legalize" them is that they should be given some sort of resident status (extended work visa, resident alien, the specifics of what would be best, I'm not totally sure), allow them to stay here if they are otherwise law abiding citizens, and give them a path to citizenship so that after x years of obeying the law, paying their taxes, and waiting their turn behind those who initially came through the legal process, they can get citizenship. Saying "seasonal work permit without any future naturalization rights," I think is both inaccurate, because that's not really what people are talking about, and misguided, because if you just give people who are already here seasonal work permits, then force them to return home afterwards, it doesn't give them any incentive to come up through the system legally, and the problem will remain.

Who said anything about "cannot compete"? This is about not bearing the costs of competition, such as lower wages.

and there you hit it!!! Same people who don't mind them working for $5\hour picking strawberries are outraged about prospect of giving 8mil illegals all the rights associated with citizenship. Major argument against is really simple, once they gain citizenship they will be no longer willing to work for $5\h and instead helping economy will hurt it.

Curious for your argument on this.

I guess we should have just deported Eli Whitney. The way he promoted interchangeable parts and mass production slashed the wages of gun makers everywhere! And ****ing Henry Ford and his production lines! Won't somebody please think of the machinists?!

I'm waiting till 10th grade level before getting involved.

I am intentionally vague because i do not have the answer. Legalise is the opposite of illegal. Whether that means work permits, citizenship green cards or whatever else could be envisages i have no idea. By being specific you then get off track and get bogged down by arguing over what is the best form of making them no longer illegal which is an entirely different debate. It allows the "deport them all" crowd to hide as "well they dont deserve citizenship" if that is what you suggest.

You realise there are also benefits of competition, such as lower wages?

The point is how you define the cost benefit analysis, but to simply argue that immigrants lower wages in unskilled jobs so Americans in those jobs are no longer willing to do them is just stupid.

The goal of the country is to do what is best for the country. To limit immigrants because they lower wages of construction is great if you are one of the few Americans in that industry, but its really crappy if you want to build or own property at any point in the future and it would fundamentally make everything in the entire economy more expensive as the cost to build factories, houses, schools etc etc goes through the roof.

When comparing natives to immigrants the natives should have the advantage of a much better education system and better language skills - so they should be aiming at the higher skilled jobs an immigrant fresh off the boat cannot do. If you dont then so what, go work that unskilled job for $5/hr, why do you deserve special treatment because you were born one side of an imaginary line?

Whitney and Ford introduced new modes of work, not substitute workers.

Big difference. Had they done the latter, then yeah ship 'em to ACland.

That "imaginary line" represents the beginning of the claim of sovereign property rights which the people of this country, through their hired legislators in Congress who passed the immigration laws, lay claim to.

Yeah! And if Boeing passes on a Stanford grad and instead hires a Washington grad for 10% less, it's boycott time! **** them in the ear for driving down wages!

Having a security of public assistance giving people more options or at least an option of NOT grabbing first available job.

Not really paying much attention to this thread, but I just happened upon this article, explaining how immigration increases your pay.

And I'm guessing it has some relevance to whatever is being discussed here.

A substitute which dramatically lowered the number of workers needed. Technology has destroyed many magnitudes more jobs than immigrants have.

"Deport them all " line is ridiculous just like "ignore them all" line is unsustainable. There has to be a mechanism where person is forced to get a "working permit", employer is allowed to hire people but forced to provide them with "working permit" and both should pay taxes according to their "permit". You can't legalize 8mil people without having a plan of what to do with them and how to support them but clean and consistent employment record should be used as a tool in any kind of "road map" to legalization.

Technology has also created magnitudes more jobs than illegal aliens have.

Brool Story Co. Immigrants, legal and illegal, have produced tons of goods and services that benefit virtually all Americans. This is a good thing, too.

There are many reasons to be pro-immigration, which is why this nation of immigrants provides methods for continuing immigration here, though increasing the competition you will face in the job market is not one of them. That is more a cost than a benefit.

Cliffs: Fox News slanted ldo
"Legal expert" Fail

Arrghh FoxNews makes my head asplode...Does Megyn Kelly even try to be neutral, they were talking about the ICE memo and she tried to make it look like ICE was trying to hide it from the public...It's been available for days and in fact I posted it earlier itt. Then they have some clown "legal expert" on talking about how its backdoor amnesty...Where the f*** do they find these people? The ICE memo says it only applies to those who have eligible relief available and are eligible to adjust, meaning criminals or ppl who simply came across the border un-inspected would not be eligible until they have waivers processed. These are not the people who this memo applies to. They explain in the memo that the reasoning for dropping certain qualifying cases is to reduce the court backlog as the cases which will now be dropped would have simply taken up valuable court time as the factors against their deportation greatly outweigh the factors for their deportation...Cases with greater factors for deportation will still go before the Court.

/rant