Many of the beneficiaries of this bill are effectively working below the minimum wage. What happens when they are legalized and therefore demand to be paid the minimum wage? Will they still even have a job at the minimum wage? After they attempt to unionize? What happens during the severe recession that will result from the Bush/Greenspan years? What does the addition of millions of new workers do to wages of the working poor? Where doea the money come from to pay for the additional education, health care and social security expense when we can't even afford what we have now?
Please explain again how this bill would be a good thing.
Posted by skeptic at June 28, 2007 10:00 AMI'm confused. If the bill was blocked, how come my undocumented Mexican friends were at my door ten minutes ago offering to trim our palm trees without malice?
($17.50 each, if you need yours cut let me know, I have their undocumented phone number)
Posted by TIKI AL at June 28, 2007 11:29 AMSo you're saying, Steve, that this was more of that Kabuki so that later the Dems can say we tried it Bush's way, now we're doing it our way?
Is their bill going to be similar to this last one, because if it is, it deserves death as well. All of these fines and waiting periods and buiilding that boondoggle Government Contractor fence make this current version poisonous, in my mind.
People aren't going to pay fines, they aren't going to go back to Mexico for a time out, I mean, what are they going to do for a year, that's why they come here in the first place, right, for work?
And we don't need that god damned fence destroying our border environment for the aggrandizement and enrichment of some latter day Halliburton. I hope the next incarnation addresses this because the current bill was just chock full of bullshit and irrational thinking.
Posted by Duckman GR at June 28, 2007 11:43 AMDuckman's right..this bill was full of shit from the time it started talking about getting 12 million Mexicans to go back to Mexico, fill out some forms and send them to the US, and wait around for a reply to see if it was OK to come back (if they learned English while sitting around Matamoros). As long as Big Business is making money on illegals, illegals will come here to make money working illegally. Make 'em legal and tax 'em instead.
And as for Bush, this pretty much marks the end of his presidency from a domestic policy standpoint. Lets look at his legacy: No Social Security reform, No immigration reform, destruction of the legal system as it pertains to individual rights of privacy, dismantling of the ability to respond to natural disasters.
What does he have to show for his eight years domestically? Tax cuts for the very rich and forcing us take our shoes off to ride a damned airplane.
I live in a state that is only recently (last 10 yrs) showing explosive immigration by Hispanics. How many undocumented? No idea. Is Spanish language becoming common in the streets and schools? Yes. But for the life of me I don't see this as some sort of problem for America, at least not deserving of 9-11 caliber rhetoric (an issue of the weight of war or Attorney-gate).
The folks in the border states obviously do not share this view, and I can understand that. The immigration bill was obviously not a good one for what it purported to do. But I do not believe this deserves the attention it receives as among all the other problems facing the nation.
Posted by gtash at June 28, 2007 12:55 PMThis approach by Bush of guest worker status to the illegals was probably the only best thing he was doing for the country. It is a shame that his own party defeated the bill. The bill did have the provision of building a fence and providing more border petrol. So the problem of illegal immigration continues and before we know, the number will be so large that our border states will have spanish as the language of communication.
Posted by suresh at June 28, 2007 01:13 PMalot of the problems created in southern border states..there are only 4, have to do with civil/social services being strained by illegals getting the benefits without contributing to the tax base. One solution would be to not award automatic US Citizenship to anyone born in the USA, if the parents are non-citizens. And another would be to require citizenship to receive citizen benefits such as schooling and medical care. The bottom line to those two items would be a method of making citizens out of non-documented aliens. If they want to live and work here, make them citizens and start taking taxes.
Posted by T2 at June 28, 2007 01:23 PMI wonder if the Hispanics will love her when they find out how much money she took from banks to support changes in the bancruptcy laws? Or the vast sums she will get to block universal healthcare? Whores give it away. Hillary charges an assload to sell Americans down the drain.
Posted by phidipides at June 28, 2007 01:24 PMWhores give it away.
Not very smart whores then.
Posted by snark at June 28, 2007 02:40 PM
It's all about corporate greed.
Recently Bush has claimed that we have to have a new guest-worker visa program to help secure our borders! He didn’t bother to mention the fact that we already have eight (8) guest-worker visa programs on the books. We have the "H-B" guest worker visa program, the "E" guest worker visa program, the "I" guest worker visa program, the "L" guest worker visa program, the "O" guest worker visa program, the "P" guest worker visa program, the "R" guest worker visa program and the NAFTA guest worker visa program. A veritable alphabet soup bowlful of guest worker visa programs… And Bush claims that adding a ninth guest worker visa program will help secure the border?
All we need to do to solve the whole problem of illegal immigration is to vigorously enforce the present Federal laws against corporations illegally hiring illegal aliens. The Bush regime has been reading our Emails, checking our internet searches and can monitor our credit card purchases; and yet they cannot figure out who can legally work in the United States? Oh, please. In this age of computers, Internets and massive databases, it would be simple to find out which potential employees have legitimate Social Security cards or green cards. This whole "immigration reform bill" is just another gift to the greedy large corporations that are mindlessly destroying our middle class and lowering wages with cheap imported labor. Just say "No" to corporate greed and this bogus "immigration reform bill."
If the Federal government vigorously enforces the present laws against the hiring of illegal aliens, this whole problem will solve itself. We won’t have to deport a single alien. They will just buy bus tickets back home if they can’t find any legal employment in the U. S.
It would be better to wait until 200 to enact an immigration bill. In 2009 there will be a Democratic president to go with the Democratic congress and such a bill will have less corprate influence and more protection for labor and the enviroment.
Bush went all out to get this bill passed. That alone make the current bills failure a good thing.
Posted by herbal tee at June 28, 2007 06:59 PM"In 2009 there will be a Democratic president to go with the Democratic congress"
Sorry, after the past 6 years I NEVER want to see one-party rule ever again.
Posted by skeptic at June 28, 2007 07:13 PMIn 2009 there will be a Democratic president to go with the Democratic congress...
There is a Democrat running? Could've fooled me.
Posted by phidipides at June 28, 2007 10:15 PMIf this skeptic is the same one I remember writing here a couple of years ago, one party GOP rule was fine and dandy with him for a long time.
The current Republicans are so corrupt at this point that, like in the 1930's, they're going to have to lose power for several election cycles before they are willing to rid themselves of the Rovian types and reform themselves enough to be trusted with power again.