Surge 2014: A debate on Illegal Immigration and US Policies.

[Soldati Senza Confini]

Perhaps casual questions. Ex. 'Where are you from', if the person says a foreign nation than the next question could be 'so, did you find the process of obtaining a residency permit difficult'?' and finally 'how did you obtain your residency permit'?

If these 3 questions are answered in a detailed manner than chances are the person is legal. If the response is rude swearing than the person can be suspected of being an illegal immigrant and then it might be OK to say the rude anti-illegal immigrant comments. The questions could be asked in a friendly and casual manner, just like friends chatting about the weather or sports.

And I really don't have to answer them if I don't want to.

If I say I am from El Salvador, that doesn't give you any claim to receive a detailed account of the other two. I'd still tell a stranger it's none of their business if I am in a rush, I still am not going to answer unless it is required, and I'm still not seeing why all of a sudden I have to be put under the light of scrutiny simply because of bullshit xenophobic beliefs that EVERY immigrant must be illegal.

[Freiheit Reich]

There's no "hundreds of millions" trying to come into the U.S.; that's a pipe dream.

You honestly know nothing about other countries, do you? I mean, honestly, you know nearly zero about immigrants, I bet you've hardly met an immigrant in your life and talked to them in a respectful manner. But you know? That's fine, I'm not the one who speaks out of ignorance.

*Sigh*

I fear, soldi, there's nothing anyone can do to get rid of the ignorance of some people... :/

I still wonder how someone comes to that conclusion.. "hundreds of millions"? *snort* riiighht

Many immigrants to the USA come to escape poverty. There are 3 billion poor people in the world. If just 2/3 come to the USA than that equals 2 billion poor people entering the USA. Perhaps this number is a bit high. Lets assume just 1/3 of people in deep poverty decide to come to the USA (if we had open borders) this equals 1 billion people and would still strain the US economy.

If the USA had open borders, you don't think half of the people in Afghanistan, Honduras, Iraq, India, Somalia, and Guatemala would enter the USA? The poor people in the world love the USA, in their eyes, we are the land of milk and honey and the place where streets are paved with gold. I think many foreigners that are poor think this way and that is why they dream of coming to the USA to seek their fortune.

[Freiheit Reich]

Farmers managed to pick fruit 100 years ago with little Mexican labor. Are Americans too stupid to know how to pick fruit these days? We don't need Mexicans to pick fruit. The wages would be well over $3 a day, even if minimum wage rules were ended (I am against the minimum wage laws).

Prisoners could be hired out to farmers to pick fruit with some of the wages going to their upkeep and some going to their victims (let them keep 15-20% though as incentive to work).

In 2011, Governor Nathan Deal signed HB 56 in Georgia, which resulted in migrant farm labor—documented and un—declaring that they would not help pick the peaches in Georgia until the law was repealed.

What resulted was a scramble to find replacements for the chiefly Mexican migrant workers. Farms tried paying exorbitant salaries (upwards of $25/hour)—to no avail. The Georgia Department of Corrections brought out prisoners in chain gangs, and the prisoners sat down after less than half an hour and refused to continue. In the end, Georgian peach farmers lost billions of dollars because the peaches just rotted on the trees.

With some of the provisions forcibly relaxed by court order, migrant farm workers returned in 2012, and profits were back to normal. But the impact of these supposed protections of sovereignty were laid bare to any agrarian states considering similar measures.

If you think Americans will try picking peaches in 110-degree heat, well…you're wrong. You can't even pay them $25/hour to get them to do it, but these migrant workers will do it for minimum wage or less.

This is because the US govt. is stupid enough to pay welfare benefits for people who refuse to work. In the Great Depression, jobless benefits were less generous and Americans were happy to pick fruit instead of starving. Today we have a lot of lazy folks willing to sit around and sponge off the system instead of making an honest buck.

I would have loved to make $25 an hour to pick fruit in the USA. I had to work in Afghanistan and Iraq to make decent wages. At least they would get to stay in a place where they don't have ungrateful locals trying to kill them with rockets (no matter how generous Americans were to them). Iraq is hot as well. Also, I was in the army in Georgia and paid a lot less than $25 an hour to work outside. Plenty of Americans would take the wages, look at how many people join the army (or even harder-the Marines) and get paid less to endure harder work conditions.

In Uzbekistan, students often help in their cotton harvests. Perhaps, one day a week, different local US schools could take turns to help with the farm harvests. The income could help pay for their education (decreasing burden on the US taxpayers). It would help build character and encourage teenagers to value hard work. It will also help reduce childhood obesity. There are ways to harvest fruit without using migrant workers. Stop insulting the American work ethic, we can do it if we believe in ourselves.

[Freiheit Reich]

If you think Americans will try picking peaches in 110-degree heat, well…you're wrong. You can't even pay them $25/hour to get them to do it, but these migrant workers will do it for minimum wage or less.

You know? It always strikes me odd how people can say "let us Americans pick the fields and dig trenches with shovels! We need the money we'll do it!" and in the end they get beaten by a Mexican person in the same thing that they swear they can do it.

I've had many people come to me and tell me "why does your dad charge 95 bucks an hour for Sprinkler Repairs? All he does is replace a head and dig trenches" well, try to get out there with a sharpshooter all day under 100+ degree heat and try to think and replace heads, use a torch, find valves, repair them, and so on and so forth, all under the heat; let's see how you like it (not you specifically, I mean in general); the same people complaining about Mexican workers are the same ones who cannot do the job.

I'm really interested now to know if Reich has ever picked up a shovel and worked in the middle of summer digging trenches or picking fruit.

I was in the army and we had to dig foxholes occasionally as part of our training. I was stationed in southern Georgia which is very hot. We also had to constantly do inventory of water treatment supplies which required taking out numerous pieces of equipment from connex containers and placing it in the parking lot, counting it under the hot sun, putting it back. Sometimes a person miscounted and we had to do the same thing again. We also had field exercises in which we set up water distribution points. Our army unit had hard work, so yes, I have worked in the heat and so have many other Americans. We are not all lazy like you think.

[Soldati Senza Confini]

Stop insulting the American work ethic, we can do it if we believe in ourselves.

The fact you say this when I have seen people collapse in less time than what me and my dad work under (And we work in Sprinkler Repairs, which isn't even that hard) and people being less lazy such that the time I spend with my dad at a job (less than a day) would be stretched as far as 2 days with some other people is telling.

Yes, you can do it if you believe in yourselves. The problem is that you don't and you stopped doing that a long while back. Hell, even my dad is scared of selling the company as the business name and let other people use it because they can't both treat his customers the same and they can't do the job as well as he does. I don't want to work outside so that job's not for me, I got my computers.

[Soldati Senza Confini]

I was in the army and we had to dig foxholes occasionally as part of our training. I was stationed in southern Georgia which is very hot. We also had to constantly do inventory of water treatment supplies which required taking out numerous pieces of equipment from connex containers and placing it in the parking lot, counting it under the hot sun, putting it back. Sometimes a person miscounted and we had to do the same thing again. We also had field exercises in which we set up water distribution points. Our army unit had hard work, so yes, I have worked in the heat and so have many other Americans. We are not all lazy like you think.

And you fall under a minority of people I have met who are both American and can work long hours under the sun and do things right and fast.

Not all Americans are like you, and you have to realize that you don't represent the American work ethic. You have your own work ethic, and that's fine, but not everyone has the same drive you do. As far as myself, I have never met an American person in the civilian world who didn't come out as lazy in real life. It might be that I haven't travelled enough but that has been my own experience with people.

[Freiheit Reich]

The 1965 Immigration Act caused huge problems. We need to go back to a strict quota system that favors wealthy and educated nations over poor nations with high crime rates.

This article explains problems with the law, including strains on public assistance programs and loss of jobs for US citizens (perhaps a big reason US wages have been stagnant for many years).

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/803937/posts

Thirty-plus years of immigration at historic levels have also had an economic impact on America. In 1965, Ted Kennedy confidently predicted, "No immigrant visa will be issued to a person who is likely to become a public charge." However, political refugees qualify for public assistance upon setting foot on U.S. soil. The exploding Somali refugee population of Lewiston, Maine, (pop. 36,000) is largely welfare-dependent. Likewise, 2,900 of Wausau, Wisconsin's 4,200 Hmong refugees receive public assistance. In all, 21 percent of immigrants receive public assistance, whereas 14 percent of natives do so. Immigrants are 50 percent more likely than natives to live in poverty.

Ted Kennedy also claimed the 1965 amendments "will not cause American workers to lose their jobs." Teddy cannot have it both ways: either the immigrant will remain unemployed and become a public charge, or he will take a job that otherwise could have gone to a native American. What is presently undisputed - except by the same economic analysts at Wired magazine and the Wall Street Journal who gave us dot-com stocks - is that immigrant participation lowers wages.

[Soldati Senza Confini]

The 1965 Immigration Act caused huge problems. We need to go back to a strict quota system that favors wealthy and educated nations over poor nations with high crime rates.

This article explains problems with the law, including strains on public assistance programs and loss of jobs for US citizens (perhaps a big reason US wages have been stagnant for many years).

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/803937/posts

Thirty-plus years of immigration at historic levels have also had an economic impact on America. In 1965, Ted Kennedy confidently predicted, "No immigrant visa will be issued to a person who is likely to become a public charge." However, political refugees qualify for public assistance upon setting foot on U.S. soil. The exploding Somali refugee population of Lewiston, Maine, (pop. 36,000) is largely welfare-dependent. Likewise, 2,900 of Wausau, Wisconsin's 4,200 Hmong refugees receive public assistance. In all, 21 percent of immigrants receive public assistance, whereas 14 percent of natives do so. Immigrants are 50 percent more likely than natives to live in poverty.

Ted Kennedy also claimed the 1965 amendments "will not cause American workers to lose their jobs." Teddy cannot have it both ways: either the immigrant will remain unemployed and become a public charge, or he will take a job that otherwise could have gone to a native American. What is presently undisputed - except by the same economic analysts at Wired magazine and the Wall Street Journal who gave us dot-com stocks - is that immigrant participation lowers wages.

I am not sure why are you bringing this up. So does that mean that we also have to deny people the right to be able to live in better living conditions "just because they're a burden"? Should we perform defenestration upon the poor under a certain income level here, or should we just enslave them until they die, treating them like cattle who can be just easily replaced?

Also, you do realize that refugee programs are in all developed nations because it's a humanitarian thing, right?

I am not entirely sure what the fuck poverty has to do with anything if your argument is "the poor are a problem! Especially poor immigrants!".

[Freiheit Reich]

I was in the army and we had to dig foxholes occasionally as part of our training. I was stationed in southern Georgia which is very hot. We also had to constantly do inventory of water treatment supplies which required taking out numerous pieces of equipment from connex containers and placing it in the parking lot, counting it under the hot sun, putting it back. Sometimes a person miscounted and we had to do the same thing again. We also had field exercises in which we set up water distribution points. Our army unit had hard work, so yes, I have worked in the heat and so have many other Americans. We are not all lazy like you think.

And you fall under a minority of people I have met who are both American and can work long hours under the sun and do things right and fast.

Not all Americans are like you, and you have to realize that you don't represent the American work ethic. You have your own work ethic, and that's fine, but not everyone has the same drive you do. As far as myself, I have never met an American person in the civilian world who didn't come out as lazy in real life. It might be that I haven't travelled enough but that has been my own experience with people.

You must live in San Francisco or Malibu. If you visit some smaller towns in the interior states, I think you can meet Americans with better work ethic. It comes from parents who teach their children the value of hard work.

My work ethic is only average, I met plenty of people with much better work ethic. However, if the pay is good and the conditions are fair than why not work hard? You won't pass out if you drink enough water and eat healthy meals and perhaps wear a wide brimmed hat to protect you from the sun. A reasonable and fair boss can motivate his team to work hard.

[The United Colonies of Earth]

Maybe once the damn Republican's grow up and realize nigh all of the population of this nation are or were immigrants we can actually move forward.

Everyone knows this so lets not play the immigrants game ether most of my grandpearts were immigrants and my sister in law is also a immigrant.
Lets not spit in the face of legal immigrants

You think immigrants are the "other" so I'll forgive your foolishness.

And you fall under a minority of people I have met who are both American and can work long hours under the sun and do things right and fast.

Not all Americans are like you, and you have to realize that you don't represent the American work ethic. You have your own work ethic, and that's fine, but not everyone has the same drive you do. As far as myself, I have never met an American person in the civilian world who didn't come out as lazy in real life. It might be that I haven't travelled enough but that has been my own experience with people.

You must live in San Francisco or Malibu. If you visit some smaller towns in the interior states, I think you can meet Americans with better work ethic. It comes from parents who teach their children the value of hard work.

My work ethic is only average, I met plenty of people with much better work ethic. However, if the pay is good and the conditions are fair than why not work hard? You won't pass out if you drink enough water and eat healthy meals and perhaps wear a wide brimmed hat to protect you from the sun. A reasonable and fair boss can motivate his team to work hard.

California isn't the only lazy part of America, buddy.

[Soldati Senza Confini]

And you fall under a minority of people I have met who are both American and can work long hours under the sun and do things right and fast.

Not all Americans are like you, and you have to realize that you don't represent the American work ethic. You have your own work ethic, and that's fine, but not everyone has the same drive you do. As far as myself, I have never met an American person in the civilian world who didn't come out as lazy in real life. It might be that I haven't travelled enough but that has been my own experience with people.

You must live in San Francisco or Malibu. If you visit some smaller towns in the interior states, I think you can meet Americans with better work ethic. It comes from parents who teach their children the value of hard work.

My work ethic is only average, I met plenty of people with much better work ethic. However, if the pay is good and the conditions are fair than why not work hard? You won't pass out if you drink enough water and eat healthy meals and perhaps wear a wide brimmed hat to protect you from the sun. A reasonable and fair boss can motivate his team to work hard.

I actually live in Texas. So far I have not met a single American who has the same work ethic me and my father share.

For me even if the conditions are not ideal or even fair but they are bad I've been raised to work hard. I've been in times when I almost passed out from the heat and hunger and that hasn't stopped me, I just gather my thoughts, drink a soda, and move on. I've been several times with nothing on my stomach, not breakfast nor lunch just to get the job done.

At several places where I have worked people have pushed me to go get my lunch and stop whatever it is I am doing just so they don't get in trouble, both out in the heat and in an office environment; I even stay overtime if I have to just to get a task done, and whether they pay me or not it doesn't really matter as long as I get done what I was doing; if they pay me extra that's great, but if not I still do it because my own mentality demands of me that I actually finish what I'm doing before packing and going home.

It's not easy to find someone who works like what I just described.

[Soldati Senza Confini]

Maybe once the damn Republican's grow up and realize nigh all of the population of this nation are or were immigrants we can actually move forward.

Everyone knows this so lets not play the immigrants game ether most of my grandpearts were immigrants and my sister in law is also a immigrant.

Lets not spit in the face of legal immigrants

Legal immigrant here.

The problem is that anti-immigration advocates are speaking for us sometimes, and not all of us would like to have a mouthpiece such as them.

[Fireye]

Everyone knows this so lets not play the immigrants game ether most of my grandpearts were immigrants and my sister in law is also a immigrant.

Lets not spit in the face of legal immigrants

Legal immigrant here.

The problem is that anti-immigration advocates are speaking for us sometimes, and not all of us would like to have a mouthpiece such as them.

Anti-immigration, or anti-ILLEGAL-immigration?

I'm the latter, but I am definitely NOT the former.

[Threayce]

*Sigh*

I fear, soldi, there's nothing anyone can do to get rid of the ignorance of some people... :/

I still wonder how someone comes to that conclusion.. "hundreds of millions"? *snort* riiighht

Many immigrants to the USA come to escape poverty. There are 3 billion poor people in the world. If just 2/3 come to the USA than that equals 2 billion poor people entering the USA. Perhaps this number is a bit high. Lets assume just 1/3 of people in deep poverty decide to come to the USA (if we had open borders) this equals 1 billion people and would still strain the US economy.

If the USA had open borders, you don't think half of the people in Afghanistan, Honduras, Iraq, India, Somalia, and Guatemala would enter the USA? The poor people in the world love the USA, in their eyes, we are the land of milk and honey and the place where streets are paved with gold. I think many foreigners that are poor think this way and that is why they dream of coming to the USA to seek their fortune.

I already did the math that shows that your assertions about billions of people are incorrect.

We would be looking at, at the very most, upwards of fifteen million people. Please quit spouting this bullshit.

[Rio Cana]

*Sigh*

I fear, soldi, there's nothing anyone can do to get rid of the ignorance of some people... :/

I still wonder how someone comes to that conclusion.. "hundreds of millions"? *snort* riiighht

Many immigrants to the USA come to escape poverty. There are 3 billion poor people in the world. If just 2/3 come to the USA than that equals 2 billion poor people entering the USA. Perhaps this number is a bit high. Lets assume just 1/3 of people in deep poverty decide to come to the USA (if we had open borders) this equals 1 billion people and would still strain the US economy.

If the USA had open borders, you don't think half of the people in Afghanistan, Honduras, Iraq, India, Somalia, and Guatemala would enter the USA? The poor people in the world love the USA, in their eyes, we are the land of milk and honey and the place where streets are paved with gold. I think many foreigners that are poor think this way and that is why they dream of coming to the USA to seek their fortune.

Maybe the foreigners of long time ago thought the streets were made of gold. But today most people know better. Yes they know pay is better in the US but that gang violence is a problem especially in many low income parts of cities where many immigrants tend to settle in.

[Jamjai]

I was in the army and we had to dig foxholes occasionally as part of our training. I was stationed in southern Georgia which is very hot. We also had to constantly do inventory of water treatment supplies which required taking out numerous pieces of equipment from connex containers and placing it in the parking lot, counting it under the hot sun, putting it back. Sometimes a person miscounted and we had to do the same thing again. We also had field exercises in which we set up water distribution points. Our army unit had hard work, so yes, I have worked in the heat and so have many other Americans. We are not all lazy like you think.

And you fall under a minority of people I have met who are both American and can work long hours under the sun and do things right and fast.

Not all Americans are like you, and you have to realize that you don't represent the American work ethic. You have your own work ethic, and that's fine, but not everyone has the same drive you do. As far as myself, I have never met an American person in the civilian world who didn't come out as lazy in real life. It might be that I haven't travelled enough but that has been my own experience with people.

they are doing the indoor jobs not in the heat

they're are lots of hard working people

[Freiheit Reich]

The 1965 Immigration Act caused huge problems. We need to go back to a strict quota system that favors wealthy and educated nations over poor nations with high crime rates.

This article explains problems with the law, including strains on public assistance programs and loss of jobs for US citizens (perhaps a big reason US wages have been stagnant for many years).

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/803937/posts

Thirty-plus years of immigration at historic levels have also had an economic impact on America. In 1965, Ted Kennedy confidently predicted, "No immigrant visa will be issued to a person who is likely to become a public charge." However, political refugees qualify for public assistance upon setting foot on U.S. soil. The exploding Somali refugee population of Lewiston, Maine, (pop. 36,000) is largely welfare-dependent. Likewise, 2,900 of Wausau, Wisconsin's 4,200 Hmong refugees receive public assistance. In all, 21 percent of immigrants receive public assistance, whereas 14 percent of natives do so. Immigrants are 50 percent more likely than natives to live in poverty.

Ted Kennedy also claimed the 1965 amendments "will not cause American workers to lose their jobs." Teddy cannot have it both ways: either the immigrant will remain unemployed and become a public charge, or he will take a job that otherwise could have gone to a native American. What is presently undisputed - except by the same economic analysts at Wired magazine and the Wall Street Journal who gave us dot-com stocks - is that immigrant participation lowers wages.

I am not sure why are you bringing this up. So does that mean that we also have to deny people the right to be able to live in better living conditions "just because they're a burden"? Should we perform defenestration upon the poor under a certain income level here, or should we just enslave them until they die, treating them like cattle who can be just easily replaced?

Also, you do realize that refugee programs are in all developed nations because it's a humanitarian thing, right?

I am not entirely sure what the fuck poverty has to do with anything if your argument is "the poor are a problem! Especially poor immigrants!".

Because the poor immigrants will likely use social services meant for the citizens of a nation. The US has a debt meaning we are short of funds to care for our own citizens, never mind millions of poor foreigners.

The US should back away from the UN and say no to the refugee program, we shouldn't feel guilty that other countries abuse their people. Using income and education as qualifiers for admission into the nation would ensure the US has improved quality of life vs. a weakened quality of life.

The USA shouldn't be importing poverty:

http://www.heritage.org/research/report ... -of-charts

[Kraciva]

Are you fucking serious? We're not going to prevent people from coming to the U.S. because they're poor. Sucks for you. We've had poor immigrants come into the U.S. for centuries, during all kinds of economic situations that our country and government has faced. My great grandfather - God rest his soul - was a poor immigrant from Sicily. Italians were the Central Americans of that era, treated rudely and stereotyped. They rejected him at Ellis Island, so a few years later, he illegally immigrated to Chicago through Canada. And over time, some members of his family got out of poverty, and today, his descendents are accountants, crime scene investigators, cops, business owners, firemen, and nurses. You say "Let's kick out the poor immigrants and only let in the rich ones." If we followed that rule, we would not exist as a country. We were born from impoverished, persecuted peoples.

[Blakk Metal]

It's a degraded, stupid sounding, version of Negro. Use that word instead.

Why the fuck would I go around calling people "negroes"?

Go ask Geilinor. He's the one who loves the word 'nigger' so much.

[Soldati Senza Confini]

I am not sure why are you bringing this up. So does that mean that we also have to deny people the right to be able to live in better living conditions "just because they're a burden"? Should we perform defenestration upon the poor under a certain income level here, or should we just enslave them until they die, treating them like cattle who can be just easily replaced?

Also, you do realize that refugee programs are in all developed nations because it's a humanitarian thing, right?

I am not entirely sure what the fuck poverty has to do with anything if your argument is "the poor are a problem! Especially poor immigrants!".

Because the poor immigrants will likely use social services meant for the citizens of a nation. The US has a debt meaning we are short of funds to care for our own citizens, never mind millions of poor foreigners.

The US should back away from the UN and say no to the refugee program, we shouldn't feel guilty that other countries abuse their people. Using income and education as qualifiers for admission into the nation would ensure the US has improved quality of life vs. a weakened quality of life.

The USA shouldn't be importing poverty:

http://www.heritage.org/research/report ... -of-charts

You are using the Heritage as a source? Really?

[Kiruri]

Are you fucking serious? We're not going to prevent people from coming to the U.S. because they're poor. Sucks for you. We've had poor immigrants come into the U.S. for centuries, during all kinds of economic situations that our country and government has faced. My great grandfather - God rest his soul - was a poor immigrant from Sicily. Italians were the Central Americans of that era, treated rudely and stereotyped. They rejected him at Ellis Island, so a few years later, he illegally immigrated to Chicago through Canada. And over time, some members of his family got out of poverty, and today, his descendents are accountants, crime scene investigators, cops, business owners, firemen, and nurses. You say "Let's kick out the poor immigrants and only let in the rich ones." If we followed that rule, we would not exist as a country. We were born from impoverished, persecuted peoples.

"Inscription on the Statue of Liberty"

Give me your tired, your poor,
Your huddled masses, yearning to breath free,
The wretched refuse of your teeming shore,
Send these, the homeless, tempest tost to me,
I lift my lamp beside the golden door.

[Threayce]

Are you fucking serious? We're not going to prevent people from coming to the U.S. because they're poor. Sucks for you. We've had poor immigrants come into the U.S. for centuries, during all kinds of economic situations that our country and government has faced. My great grandfather - God rest his soul - was a poor immigrant from Sicily. Italians were the Central Americans of that era, treated rudely and stereotyped. They rejected him at Ellis Island, so a few years later, he illegally immigrated to Chicago through Canada. And over time, some members of his family got out of poverty, and today, his descendents are accountants, crime scene investigators, cops, business owners, firemen, and nurses. You say "Let's kick out the poor immigrants and only let in the rich ones." If we followed that rule, we would not exist as a country. We were born from impoverished, persecuted peoples.

"Inscription on the Statue of Liberty"

Give me your tired, your poor,
Your huddled masses, yearning to breath free,
The wretched refuse of your teeming shore,
Send these, the homeless, tempest tost to me,
I lift my lamp beside the golden door.

/thread

[Gig em Aggies]

"Inscription on the Statue of Liberty"

Give me your tired, your poor,
Your huddled masses, yearning to breath free,
The wretched refuse of your teeming shore,
Send these, the homeless, tempest tost to me,
I lift my lamp beside the golden door.

/thread

[Libertarian California]

Are you fucking serious? We're not going to prevent people from coming to the U.S. because they're poor. Sucks for you. We've had poor immigrants come into the U.S. for centuries, during all kinds of economic situations that our country and government has faced. My great grandfather - God rest his soul - was a poor immigrant from Sicily. Italians were the Central Americans of that era, treated rudely and stereotyped. They rejected him at Ellis Island, so a few years later, he illegally immigrated to Chicago through Canada. And over time, some members of his family got out of poverty, and today, his descendents are accountants, crime scene investigators, cops, business owners, firemen, and nurses. You say "Let's kick out the poor immigrants and only let in the rich ones." If we followed that rule, we would not exist as a country. We were born from impoverished, persecuted peoples.

"Inscription on the Statue of Liberty"

Give me your tired, your poor,
Your huddled masses, yearning to breath free,
The wretched refuse of your teeming shore,
Send these, the homeless, tempest tost to me,
I lift my lamp beside the golden door.

Because basing policy on a French statue is an astute idea.

[The Liberated Territories]

Immigration restrictions are economically protectionist. In order to contribute their fair share without having to massively cut the budget, immigrants have to be able to pay taxes, and the only way to do that is through an easy process of citizenship. A mix of budget cuts where applicable (e.g. welfare) and an easy path to citizenship would allow the most freedom to travel by immigrants, and help the economy as well.