Very good demonstration of how evil, meanspirited and hardhearted people who expect our Laws to be respected are.

No one has ever given any explanation as to why this proposed amnesty will have any other outcome than all the others as I recall your answer to that question was a vague

"That's detail work best left to the administration to, er, administer."

The er was a nice touch.

I have stated for the record that I support the inplace guestworker version, but as someone who DID for several years live on minimum wage I am wondering as to how low income workers will be able to pay the suggested fines,

I also wonder if massive numbers will bother to register at all and what the State intends to do iin that case,

If the situation is a repetition of the past it will be nothing.

All I hear are versions of "It is going to be different this time"

An amnesty program without inproved enforcement on the border and most importantly a drying up of illegal jobs is nothing but repeating the failed policies of the past.

So I will stipulate we TRY the system you so vehemently propose.

What do you propose if it is another total failure?

I read this, this morning.

It gave me a little more perspective:

http://lonestartimes.com/2006/04/07/mr-president-i%e2%80%99m-headed-to-mexico/

Papa Ray
West Texas
USA

How did that amnesty program in 1986 work out? Ahh, that was mean, wasn't it?

Better idea, let's ask the French and Germans how their "guest worker" programs are working for them.

Let Mexicans stay in their own country, overthrow the criminals that run it and join in the prosperity that the rest of the continent enjoys.

I’m in the “realist” camp. I think every last illegal should be sent back to Mexico/Middle America and made to stand in line. I also know that can’t and won’t happen.

With that said, I would also no appose blanket amnesty for crimes related to being an illegal, i.e. illegal border crossing, unauthorized residency, driving with out a license, and tax evasion. I don’t like it one bit, but America’s utter lack of enforcement is partly to blame, so we pay as well. But this is done under one condition and one condition only: SECURE THE FREAKIN BORDER!!!

Oh Dafyyd... stop trying to demonize those with whom you disagree!

You had me pegged until you got to the line "Even legal immigrants bother me when..." Oh yeah... Please paint me as a Bigot, it helps to dismiss my opinions. :sigh:

There are two camps of people attempting to come to the United States, each made up of Millions of people. One camp has tried to follow the laws and rules that are in place, as wrong headed as those rules are. They respect our laws, they respect our Country, and they want to be part of it. The other camp has participated in an invasion of our Country without any attempt to participate in our culture except to demand that we change to accomodate their desires.

We have just passed a law out of the Senate that rewards the later, and insults the former.

And yes, a SIGNIFICANT part of the invaders proclaim their allegiance to Mexico over the United States, and that does not help their cause in my eyes. Would you prefer they proclaim their allegiance to another foreign power? I don't care if they prefer Norway, if they come here they must proclaim allegiance to the U.S. in order to feel my welcome; and if they do so I don't care WHERE they come from... as long as they come as proud members of our nation, not thieves in the night.

Many illegals live in my town. They are, by and large, fine people.
A bunch of slimy (Republican?) businessmen get rich off them by paying low wages, no benefits. A bunch of slimy (Democrat liberal?) homeowners get cheap nannies, maids, landscapers without paying a decent wage.
I agree that the illegals are mostly sinned against, BUT I moved FIRMLY into your first camp when my local paper wrote about how "we" needed to pay for a city-run day laborer center because "we" were reaping the benefits of oppressing these poor people.
For the record: I don't approve of the exploitation and I am incensed that I am supposed to pay (schools, jails, hospitals, welfare, car insurance, ...) so that others can skate by and get rich from the oppression.

Dafydd,

I would have to admit I am a member of the camp that says "We have one hell of a friggin problem here and no easy way out!" BTW we can thank our politicos for allowing it to get so far out of hand. This whole issue has been about currying favor with the Spanish speaking communities and votes. It really got off to a gallop in 1986 when our great leaders gave amnesty to about 3 million illegals. It's real interesting to read the comments of people like Pelosi, Kennedy, Reid and McCain from the early 90's to catch the 180, with a snap roll at the top, they just did. Hipocracy, you say? Na. Just politics as usual with US paying the bills. Well the Senate failed to get its great compromise bill passed last night, and I seriously doubt we will see another version of amnesty without border control come out of this body for some time. While I really try to take a position of "do something because it's the right thing to do", There are too many perspectives from which to choose "the right thing". One position I am absolutely firm on: Shut Down The Damned Border!

Regards, JCC

If I may be forgiven I will quote briefly from a recent posting on my blog the Teleoscope. I think it is germane.

I have been left behind again and it is starting to piss me off. I showed up at the docks where the luxurious Right-Wing Conspiracy was boarding for its cruise through the Straights and Narrows of Immigration and I couldn't get on. I got as far as the sign by the gangplank -- "You Must be THIS Angry to Ride" -- and although I stretched and scowled, drawing on my full (and usually more than sufficient) reserves of peevishness, I just couldn't quite measure up. I tried remembering the Alamo but all I got was Peter Ustinov. I thought about the Mexican with the leaf blower who blows the grass clippings off of the sidewalk and onto the street, and the other Mexican who comes along behind him blowing it off of the street and back onto the sidewalk. Event then I couldn't quite reach the arrow on the sign.

So here I am on the dock watching all the people I usually agree with on almost everything waving farewell and drawing away. I wasn't really surprised to see Neal Boortz there on the rail. I agree with what he says 95 percent of the time but he does go on a tangent sometimes. But Thomas Sowell was a disappointment.

If Dafydd was slightly unfair in suggesting that those in the other camp might harbor some resentment of legal immigrants as well as the illegal ones it might be that he has been provoked by the poisonous atmosphere of the debate. From my point of view, and I presume from his, it is incredibly frustrating to find people with whom we usually have a wide range of agreememnt standing with their fingers in their ears yelling "THEY ARE HERE ILLEGALLY. I.L.L.E.G.A.L.L.Y They BROKE the LAW. All TWELVE MILLION of them need to go back NOW. Anything else would be AMNESTY. A.M.N.E.S.T.Y. That's Aye Emm Enn Eee Ess Tee Why!"

Papa Ray's link is priceless.
I shamelessly cut and pasted it into an email to my Senator.
btw, please consider calling or emailing your Senators and Congressperson. They need to hear.
Email is trivially easy, just do a search on "email senator " for example. I uses "scroogle.org" in order to bypass supporting Google ("Bend to evil"), but any good engine will find the link pronto. Phone calls have more impact, I'm told, and your reps can be reached through the Capital switchboard 202-224-3121.

I guess I am more in the second camp. I know a lot of people are pissed about anything that is remotely like amnesty but it is ridiculous to think that we can hunt down and force millions of people on cattle cars. Or that we can lock up millions of people. Yes, they are here illegally, but illegal entry is a class b misdemeaner and believe it or not we don't line people up against a wall and shoot them for that.

Now we should secure the border and staunch the flow and come up with better means to track people and know who is here... but it seems to me that there is more desire to punish people than there is to come up with rational workable policy.

So perhaps we need to take a realistic look at where we are and go from there.

Actually, I couldn't disagree more. I don't know what state you are from, but living in Atlanta, GA I can tell you this state probably has more illegals than any non-border state and maybe more than a few.

I'm sure I've met many illegals and I harbor no ill will against any individuals, but breaking the law is breaking the law. That's how a country that is based on the rule of law works. I don't agree with a lot of laws and some I have broken (i.e. speed limit), but if I was ever caught I would expect to pay the consequences as prescribed by the law.

The same is true of illegal aliens. And I am really sick of people calling them immigrants as if they are anything like the legal sort that came here with the intention of both becoming American and taking advantage of economic and individual liberty. My parents are legal immigrants from Europe and they can't stand what is going on with these illegals. They are not bad people, but they have to obey the law, like it or not.

We should definitely update our immigration laws, but our spineless politicians will never fix it properly and we will complain about this again in another 10 years and then another 10 years and eventually, we will just have no border and the term United States of America will mean less and less.

Aren't we all (including the Grand Liz himself) over-simplifying just a bit?

We should all be able to agree that among the however-many-illegals-there-are in this country:

1. SOME portion of them are here ONLY for the jobs and have no interest in giving up their ties to their homeland and pledging allegiance to the good ol' US of A.

2. SOME portion of them, as the Liz and others have pointed out, are true immigrants in the classic sense of the word (as we have understood it applied to European/Asian/African etc... immigrants), seeking to become U.S. citizens but frustrated by what many have called a broken immigration system (although I have yet to hear anyone give specifics on what is not working with our legal immigration rules vis a vis Mexicans, for example, but is(?) working vis a vis Chinese, other than there is a rather large bit of water between China and the U.S. and only a very thin trickle called the Rio Grande separating us from Mexico).

3. SOME portion of them, again pointed out by others, are thugs, hardened criminals, etc... looking for easy pickings north of the border.

OK, fine. We can haggle about what percentages to assign to each group, but these groupings are not controversial and are somewhat useful.

So far, however, everyone seems to be looking for a solution which treats the whole bunch of "Illegals" as one, convenient group whereas the question we should be asking is,"How can we best sort out one group from the other?"

We can't have a one-size-fits-all approach. We have to find the best way to identify each element and then deal with each element appropriately. And here, again, we should be able to reach some general agreement:

1. The hardened criminals need to be deported and permanently refused re-entry.

2. The "guest workers" as Dafyyd calls them, who are not interested in becoming Americans in every sense of the word, must not be treated as if they were typical immigrants seeking citizenship. Oncce identified, their stay in the U.S. should be sharply curtailed as the presence of a large body of non-citizen workers-- a sort of slave underclass-- is in no one's interest except employers looking to exploit desperate laborers.

3. The true immigrants seeking to become Americans need to be put on some kind of track that is consistent with the way we treat immigrants from other parts of the world, so they are neither favored simply because they can literally hop across the border, nor unfairly discriminated against.

So, what we need is a kind of sieve through which we can pour ALL of the Illegals and will effectively sort them into the three main groupings listed above. My humble suggestion is a series of requirements that would separate the ones willing to pay the price of citizenship from those who are not: Learn English. Register with the government for identification. Pay local and federal taxes including back taxes. Curb remittances of money back to their native country. Obey all laws.

Finally, it is obvious from all of this that we absolutely must get control of the number of people crossing the southern border. For anyone who doubts this necessity, just imagine what would happen if the U.S. did not have the Atlantic and Pacific oceans to separate us from Europe and Asia. It would take no time at all until we were completely overrun with people illegally crossing the border to live in the U.S. The only reason we are not having this debate about millions of asians, africans or europeans flooding the U.S. is because they do not have the easy access that latinos have through Mexico.

I am largely in the second camp. As I have explained on my blog, the system is so far gone that is has earned the defiance and resulting non-compliance.

Indeed, Dafydd's post on March 28, and his comment on it iced it for me. At this point, President Bush needs to do whatever it takes - even holding further enforcement measures hostage - to get the comprehensive reform this system needs.

rightong:

I had family come over the same way and many of them could not speak the language and they did not do any paperwork or make promises, they just got off the boat. The truth is if a lot of those people were held to the same standards we have today...they would have been considered illegal too.

And besides, we did not enforce our laws because for years it worked to our benefit not to. Right now we have an unemployment rate of 4.7% and it is said that illegals comprise about 5% of the workforce and many of these people have been here for years and have ties to their communities, not to mention minor children who are US citizens.

People can bitch and say that the last time we had an amnesty it made things worse, but if we had followed that amnesty with better border security not to mention the enforcement of our laws we would not be in this position today.

So maybe people need to be realistic and realize that speeding is illegal, cheating on your taxes, and not paying your child support...but that does not mean people do not have due process of law. The penalty is a fine, that is the law, make it a felony and then spend tens of billions of dollars building prisons and hiring law enforcement to lock up nannies.

BTW, according to the INS we have deported about 6 million people since 2001. And a full third of undocumented people are not border crossers, they are foreigners who come here legally and then do not leave.

i think regardless of what camp we are in maybe we could all be thankful the senate bill collapsed......

there still is hope. the fact that this senate mess looks and feels like the bills that came out in the 70's, 1986 , senator reid's textbook bill in 1993--showing how nothing ever gets done despite countless laws and assorted BS that they pass. read it at this link--very short.

http://www.drudgereportarchives.com/data/2006/04/05/20060405_155358_flash1hr.htm

and finally the barbara jordan commission from 1990-1994 that all stressed a fence. as you know they jumped up and down but never put up the key proposal a FENCE. i have not given up hope that the House of Reps will put up a fence even if they have to be shamed into it by public outrage. i truly believe if we can seal the border from san diego to brownsville we will be able to live with whatever madness gets passed on the home front. however, if as in the past, the border is only re-enforced (CODE FOR LEFT OPEN) i think we will have a slow civil breakdown. this link will be a slow natural outcome
.
http://photos1.blogger.com/blogger/4786/105/1600/Aztlan.jpg

i sent my long fence/illegal immigrants rant--i won't bore you with it again--to several columnists, senators etc. i will tell you, for the fence advocates, don't give up hope yet. charles krauthammer and tom friedman seem on board. i think its in the air. hugh hewitt interviewed a ten year border patrolman and he said most definitely that only a fence across the entire border can and will do the job. illegal immigration will grind to a halt. here's the audio link from hewitt's blog. at least read the transcript.

Border Patrol Bill
http://www.radioblogger.com/#001520

this is the picture i have been sending with all my rants
http://www.weneedafence.com/images/Fence_Idea.jpg

it is getting talked about. the washington post, in a editorial mentioned it in passing putting its cost at two billion. that's literally a drop in the bucket for what it produces. the fines they are talking about come to 10 billion or more.
it ain't over yet.........

and since we started this discussion back in the middle of march 30,000 more have strolled or otherwise crossed the border. is this a great country or what!

regardless of what camp you are in i think we can all be thankful the senate bill collapsed......

there still is hope. the fact that this senate mess looks and feels like the bills that came out in the 70's, 1986 , senator reid's textbook bill in 1993--showing how nothing ever gets done despite countless laws and assorted BS that they pass. read it at this link--very short.

http://www.drudgereportarchives.com/data/2006/04/05/20060405_155358_flash1hr.htm

and finally the barbara jordan commission from 1990-1994 that all stressed a fence. as you know they jumped up and down but never put up the key proposal a FENCE. i have not given up hope that the House of Reps will put a fence even if they have to be shamed into it by public outrage. i truly believe if we can seal the border from san diego to brownsville we will be able to live with whatever madness gets passed on the home front. however, if as in the past, the border is only re-enforced (CODE FOR LEFT OPEN) i think we will have a slow civil breakdown. this link will be a slow natural outcome
.
http://photos1.blogger.com/blogger/4786/105/1600/Aztlan.jpg

i sent my long fence/illegal immigrant rant--i won't bore you with it again--to several columnists, senators etc. i will tell you, for the fence advocates, don't give up hope yet. charles krauthammer and tom friedman seem on board. i think its in the air. hugh hewitt interviewed a ten year border patrolman and he said most definitely that only a fence across the entire border can and will do the job. illegal immigration will grind to a halt. here's the audio link from hewitt's blog. at least read the transcript.

Border Patrol Bill
http://www.radioblogger.com/#001520

this is the picture i have been sending with all my rants
http://www.weneedafence.com/images/Fence_Idea.jpg

it is getting talked about. the washington post, in a editorial mentioned it in passing putting its cost at two billion. that's literally a drop in the bucket for what it produces. the fines they are talking about come to 10 billion or more.
it ain't over yet.........

and since we started this discussion back in the middle of march 30,000 more have strolled or otherwise crossed the border. is this a great country or what!

Krauthammer seems to be in the second camp.

Terrye,

my parents immigrated in the 60s - I don't know when your family did, but laws change and that is a GOOD thing. Just because your family might have had to bear different standards does not make their LEGAL immigration and more or less valuable or right. I have my own ideas about enforcement and what to do with current illegals, but all I am saying is that what they did to get in this country is illegal. Simple as that. Those that broke the law should bear the consequences and not complain about it. I can't see how that is wrong. BTW, I don't believe a fine is the only consequence 'cuz if it were, they'd just pay it and be done rather than face deportation.

Our country has changed a great deal in 200 years and if we have shifting needs for immigrants then we should have laws that reflect that. There is nothing wrong with having a law this year to let everyone in and then close the borders next year. That does not mean that people coming in next year should be legal just because their friends got in for FREE this year. I realize that's a far fetched approach - just making an example.

rightong:

My point is that our history in terms of immigration has been very changeable and arbitrary and very dependent on politics. By the way, Europe is not next door, if it were I wonder how many Frenchmen would be crossing that border right now?

Back in the 60's we had a program for Mexican workers to come to the US to work the fields and other such jobs and it was canned because it was thought that our own poor would do the work. That did not work out that way. In other words when your parents came here, Mexicans were crossing that border to work just like they are now, but in fewer numbers. The border has never been closed.

We have gone through times when there were strong anti immigration movements, such as the 1920's and the 1850's. But illegal entry is a class b misdemeaner, one of the things some people wanted to change was to make it a felony. If you make it a felony then jail time is far more likely and people can not be made to suffer for a crime retroactively. Which means that most of the illegals here came in on a misdemeaner and as a general rule we do not shoot people for that.

Some of these people have lived here for years, the law enforcement people have not arrested or deported them. I am saying that treating all these people as if they are serial killers is not only not fair it is not realistic at this point. How would you do it? How many would you have to shoot? Who would do it? There are millions of them and we let them come in and for years we ignored them or even encouraged it. What about their kids who are citizens? They have rights.

It is easy to say that they are criminals, no different from mass murderers or rapists but as a general rule mass murdurers and car thieves are not allowed to to commit their crimes in broad daylight for years while law enforcement refuses to do lock them up.

I doubt if the American people want to turn on the news and see millions of men, women and children loaded on cattle cars at gun point and taken over the border and dumped there. Especially when you consider that we let them come here in the first damn place.

"I doubt if the American people want to turn on the news and see millions of men, women and children loaded on cattle cars at gun point and taken over the border and dumped there. Especially when you consider that we let them come here in the first damn place."

I agree completely.

"Everything should be made as simple as possible -- but no simpler" - Albert Einstein

Dafydd, you've oversimplified things to the point where I'm sorely tempted to yell "Strawman!" I don't think I'm alone in thinking there are a substantial number of people in both of the groups you define; I just think the percentage in the first group is a lot larger than you apparently do; far too large to ignore.

I'm way past tired of hearing about Storm Troopers and cattle cars -- there's nothing more fun than demonizing those you disagree with, is there Terrye? What we need is a law with real teeth in it against employing anyone who isn't here legally. If the guy at 7-11 can tell if my Visa card actually has any money behind it surely we can come up with some way for his boss to figure out if his Social Security cards the real thing.

I'm in the process of "growing a post" on the matter at Senate to America: Assume a compromising position. Smile! -- Part 2: A "compromise" on the rocks. OK, Now I'll smile!. I'll have more to say there as the evening wears on.

The folks who post to this blog are probably mostly of similar political leanings. But there seems to be general consensus on just one thing: Seal the border. As to what to do with the illegals already here, opinions are all over the map, even among this group of similar-thinking people.

I have a radical, subversive idea (posted elsewhere on this site before): Forget the “comprehensive solutions”. Just seal the border and wait to see what happens. That way, we’ll have a much better idea of what the ongoing problem will be -- how many illegals will still be able to bypass the secured border, and how many will decide to go back to their home countries. We might discover that the border needs to be even more secure than we first thought. And once the raging torrent of illegal immigration subsides to a trickle, maybe a consensus will emerge about how to deal with the remaining population of illegals.

Now comes the subversive part: If we don’t arrive at a consensus, just do NOTHING!!! (Stay with me -- I’m serious.) If (and only if) we succeed in reducing illegal immigration to a trickle, just let bygones be bygones. Don’t offer a fast track to citizenship. Don’t even offer legal status. And don’t ask employers to enforce immigration laws (I admit I’ve vacillated a bit on this point). Then, in a few years the problem will miraculously disappear. Some illegals will go back home, some will find other ways to legalize their status and, eventually, all of them (and all of us) will die. Their offspring born here will be citizens.

Our gracious host has previously hissed his displeasure at this idea -- sorry for the repetition, Dafydd. But if we don’t stop trying for the one, perfect “comprehensive solution”, we’ll never get the border secured, because there’s just too much disagreement about step number 2. A lot of the reason for disagreement is because we don’t trust the gummint to seal the border. The Senate seems to want to deal first with the existing population of illegals and then work on border security, as they did so successfully in 1986. I think most folks posting here would think that’s the kind of success we don't want to repeat.

Finally, I am one of the many voices opposed to amnesty. Of course, what I propose above would amount to a de facto amnesty. And I’ll let you in on a little secret: If we really succeed in sealing the border, and give it a few years to be sure it will continue to be secure, I might be tempted to be in favor of (horrors) amnesty.

So, whether you agree or disagree with my little subversive plot, call or email your Senators to let them know that you want the border secured. Don’t bother them with your idea for a comprehensive solution -- there are so many ideas floating out there that your number one message will just get lost in the cacophony.

Boy I tell you the blame the victim meme sure has a lot of proponents.

It is all our fault because our immigration laws are not what they should be,

Right and the girl got raped because she enticed the gang of punks with scanty clothing?

Same logic.

"THEY ARE HERE ILLEGALLY. I.L.L.E.G.A.L.L.Y They BROKE the LAW. All TWELVE MILLION of them need to go back NOW. Anything else would be AMNESTY. A.M.N.E.S.T.Y. That's Aye Emm Enn Eee Ess Tee Why!"

The above hissed in response by: BigLeeH at April 7, 2006 10:55 AM"

Actually I am FOR registration in place if I had any idea it would work. I am even willing to give it a try ONE MORE TIME.

BUT I expect SOME kind of enforcement if it does not work, if they do not show up to register, I expect deportations if it takes 2o years to round everyone up and I expect, no DEMAND business owners employing illegal aliens AND members of organiztions whether they be coyotes or militant leftists to do PRISON time for aiding and abetting.

In my opinion, making entry a felony is less about putting the illegal aliens in prison, we can just deport them and more about making it easier to prosecute those who aid them.

To be charge someone with aiding and abetting a misdemenour you have to show participation, for a felony all that is required is to show knowledge without reporting the offence to the Law, It is called Accesory after the Fact.

"Yes, they are here illegally, but illegal entry is a class b misdemeaner and believe it or not we don't line people up against a wall and shoot them for that.

but it seems to me that there is more desire to punish people than there is to come up with rational workable policy.

So perhaps we need to take a realistic look at where we are and go from there.

The above hissed in response by: Terrye at April 7, 2006 12:15 PM"

Cute Terrye to paraphrase Mark Twain that statement would best be used in the ground inspiring turnips.

No one is advocating gunning down thes innocent(?) illegal aliens, just returning them to where they came from before they broke the law.

Here are some of the issues ignored.

Alien Crossings
Ask ranchers along America's border with Mexico what's been going on, and they'll say "Invasion!"

Throughout the 1980's and early 90's the 14-mile stretch of border in San Diego was hostile, violent, and out of control. Border patrol agents use terms like "chaos" and "anarchy" to describe it, saying that they faced riot conditions every night. Crowds would gather on the Tijuana side and pelt border-patrol agents with rocks. Shots were sometimes fired across the border at patrolling agents, and almost daily thousands of Mexicans would gather on the U.S. side, then dash forward en masse in what were known as banzai runs.

The ranchers complained about fences broken daily by crowds of migrants, about gates left open leaving cattle free to stray, about cattle that were killed, watchdogs poisoned, water tanks drained, buildings broken into, and property stolen. One rancher estimates that the cost of constant repairs has run into tens of thousands of dollars. And everywhere there is the trash: piles of empty plastic water bottles, food wrappers, dirty diapers, clothing, feces, toilet paper, anything left by masses of people on the move. Indeed if you saw nothing but the litter you could well believe that a mass migration is underway.

The cost and bother of constant trespass and the fear of theft and burglary have meant that many rural people in Cochise County, where Douglas is located, are now arming themselves. Warning shots have been fired and many are worried that something worse might happen. What frightens the ranchers most, however, is not the aliens but rather drug smugglers. These are well-armed men, some carrying fully automatic weapons. Ranchers in both San Diego and Cochise Counties have reported seeing armed men on the U.S. side of the border, military in appearance, dressed in black, and armed with automatic rifles.(not these are the Zetas)

Larry Seligman is chief of the Tohono O'odham police. Like his counterparts in neighboring border communities he complains about the large numbers of illegals crossing his jurisdiction. They come in groups of well over a hundred, he says, the largest he has encountered numbering one hundred sixty-four. Like the ranchers of Cochise County, those Tohono O'odham living near the border are afraid to leave their homes for fear of break-ins, and those living along the migrant trails are disturbed by the crowds passing only yards from their homes, "violating their space" as Seligman puts it, and leaving the inevitable trail of trash behind them. The Tohono O'odham revere the environment, says Seligman, and are especially offended when they see it defiled in this manner.

and then there's this to add to the fence vs law enforcement.........

http://www.examiner.com/Top_News-a70996~Mayor__City_would_ignore_legislation_if_it_were_to_pass.html

SAN FRANCISCO - Mayor Gavin Newsom said Thursday that The City will not comply with any federal legislation that criminalizes efforts to help illegal immigrants.

The mayor also denounced a bipartisan congressional proposal that would beef up border security and allow as many as 12 million illegal immigrants to gain legal status.

Newsom, who has not been afraid to wade into controversial national issues such as gay marriage, appeared with a group of elected officials on the steps of City Hall to support immigrants, “documented as well as undocumented.”Newsom also signed a resolution sponsored by Supervisor Gerardo Sandoval, and passed unanimously by the Board of Supervisors, urging San Francisco law enforcement not to comply with criminal provisions of any new immigration bill.

“San Francisco stands foursquare in strong opposition to the rhetoric coming out of Washington, D.C.,” Newsom said. “If people think we were defiant on the gay marriage issue, they haven’t seen defiance.”

It is not the first time San Francisco has weighed in on the immigration issue. In 1989, the Board of Supervisors made San Francisco a “City of Refuge.” The ordinance forbids city resources from being used to enforce federal immigration laws or to gather or disseminate information regarding the status of residents of The City. The Board of Supervisors passed a resolution reaffirming the ordinance in January.

well i guess that settles that!

having lived in san francisco for almost thirty years i can attest to the fact that the bay area rolls out the red carpet. perhaps with a fence fewer people will walk on it.....

some facts

The San Francisco Bay Area is one of the wealthiest regions in the United States. According to the United States Census Bureau, of the 280 defined metropolitan areas, the San Francisco Bay Area has the highest median household income in the nation with $62,024. Six of the top ten California places with the highest per capita income are in the San Francisco Bay Area (Belvedere, Atherton, Woodside, Portola Valley, Diablo). Of the 100 highest income counties by per capita income in the United States, six are in the San Francisco Bay Area (Marin, San Mateo, San Francisco, Santa Clara, Contra Costa, Alameda). According to Forbes Magazine, published in 2005, 12 of the top 50 most expensive Zip Codes are in the Bay Area (Atherton, Ross, Diablo, Tiburon, Los Altos, Nicasio, Portola Valley, Los Altos, Los Gatos, San Francisco).

The region is home to several universities and seminaries, most notably the University of California, Berkeley and Stanford University. Most studies rank the San Francisco Bay Area population at or near the top in the Nation for overall education level. (The other two candidates would be Greater Boston and Washington D.C.)

I am an immigrant. I came here legally. I was a legal resident alien for many years, and I have been a naturalized American citizen for almost ten years now. I have never been illegal in my entire 20 some years of living here.

It was not easy to obtain the legal status. It took me months to prepare the necessary documents before I even got here. It took me another several years of anguish to obtain the citizenship. I did everything by the book.

And you know what? The system sucks!

I am no criminal. All I wanted to do was to live in this wonderful country. Many of my friends no longer live here, because they simply gave up. They did not want to become criminals, so they left.

Some lived here for over 20 years legally; but the minute the visa expired or the employment status changed, suddenly these law-abiding, productive citizens were given the choice of leaving or becoming "criminals."

They are criminals simply because we don't have a legal category for these people. In other words, the law is inadequate.

I believe in strict border control. I believe we should deport any "real criminal" who actually endangers our society.

I, too, resent immigrants who do not even try to assimilate into our society, instead creating their "little" version of the country of origin (Little Tokyo, Little Saigon, etc.)

We should definitely encourage immigrants to assimilate. We can do this by rewarding anyone who learns English or obtains higher education by giving them a leg up in their citizenship application process.

But many of these "law-breakers" were given hardly any choice, other than drop their lives, pack up, and move away for arbitrary reasons beyond their control.

Sachi-

Or is it Sachiko-san? If so, “hajimemashite”.

I agree, the law is inadequate.

I assume the people you refer to came here on temporary work visas. If so, I suspect they fall into one of two categories:

The first group arrived fully intending to work here for a while, then return to their home countries. Over time, their attitudes changed. They decided they want to stay here permanently. I fully sympathize. The law should be changed, so that someone who stays here for an extended period of time on temporary work visas and extensions should be given a leg up on permanent residency status. How long should it be? Certainly a lot less than 20 years.

The second group really want permanent residency but come here on temporary visas hoping to find a way to become permanent later. I have a bit less sympathy for these folks. They’re just trying to jump to the head of the immigration line. But even they should be able to get permanent residency if they stay here legally on temporary visas for 20 years.

Of course, there’s no way to know which category an individual belongs to when they first arrive. The second group leads me to think that the minimum amount of time should be more than a year or two. I don’t know what the rules should be, but it falls under Dafydd’s repeated calls for rationalizing our immigration policies.

Dick E

はじめまして to you too. My name is Sachiko, but call me Sachi.

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