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Subscribe to RSSA study finding Alabama's crackdown on illegal immigrants will cost the state up to $11 billion is under fire from the law's supporters.
The cost-benefit analysis by University of Alabama economist Samuel Addy estimated up to 80,000 jobs were vacated by illegal immigrants fleeing after Alabama's tough law passed in June 2011, costing Alabama's economy up to $10.8 billion.
The lost jobs also cost Alabama up to $264.5 million in lost state sales and income taxes, and as much as $93.1 million in lost city and county sales taxes, it said.
The study found potential economic benefits include saving money used to provide public benefits to illegal immigrants, increased safety for citizens and legal residents, more business, employment, and education opportunities, and ensuring the integrity of various governmental programs and services.
The study asks: "Are the benefits of the new immigration law worth the costs?"
"Economies are demand-driven and so any policy, regulation, law, or action that reduces demand will shrink the economy no matter how well-intentioned," Addy asserts in the study.
"That's baloney," state Rep. Micky Hammon, R-Decatur, immigration bill cosponsor, told the Huntsville Times. "It's clear the study overestimates the negative and underestimates the positive to skew the result toward an agenda," Hammon said. "If 40,000 illegal workers leave the state, they free up jobs that homegrown Alabamians are happy to have."
Addy said the university research staff has looked at key issues facing Alabama, including the economic impact of last year's tornadoes, the BP oil spill and Gov. Bob Riley's Amendment 1 proposal to overhaul state taxes, the Times reported.
Addy's study said, "Anecdotal evidence to date seems to point to less than 9 of every 100 vacated jobs being filled by unemployed legal residents and citizens."
Hammon told the newspaper that the state unemployment rate fell since the bill was signed, especially in Marshall County, "once a known hotbed for illegal immigration."
A spokeswoman for Alabama Gov. Robert Bentley, who signed the bill into law, told the Times that Bentley also questioned the study's conclusions. Alabama has the lowest unemployment rate among seven southeastern states, the spokeswoman said.
In its latest unemployment rate report, which was for December 2011, the state's Department of Industrial Relations said the state unemployment rate was 8.1 percent, down a full percentage point from December 2010. the governor's office said the rate had been falling since August, when the rate was 9.9 percent. April 27 tornadoes that tore through Alabama had caused a spike in the rate, officials said.
In Marshall County, the December jobless rate was 6.9 percent, down from 8.0 percent a year earlier.
A U.S. appeals court has blocked Alabama from enforcing parts of the law, including a provision that permits Alabama to require public schools to determine the legal residency of children upon enrollment. But the court left most of the law untouched.
There are an estimated 11.2 million illegal immigrants in the United States.
Alabama, Georgia, Indiana, South Carolina and Utah have passed "omnibus" immigration crackdowns since Arizona blazed the trail in 2010 with a law requiring police to check the status of all those they arrested and suspected of being in the country illegally. That measure has since been blocked by a court.
msnbc.com's Jim Gold and The Associated Press contributed to this story.
More content from msnbc.com and NBC News
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Sorry, but I live in Alabama and this guy is wrong. Home grown Alabamians are NOT happy to take crop picking jobs and brick laying jobs that require long days in extreme heat that pay below what minimum wage is. I see it everyday. It just shows how out of touch with reality these republicans are on these issues.
Well I see people in Alabama glad to have the jobs. It beats sitting at home on their fat ass and doing nothing. The tomatoes were picked and the potatoes came in as well. Education is now able to be taught to english speaking kids. The hospital emergency rooms are not over crowded in Rocket City and you can actually be helped now if you do have an emergency. The police dept says its safer. The down side is 20 people and cars living in one rental house. Slave labor at rock bottom prices and the store full of illegals all with a Gov swipe card.
@ anderson evans. What area of Alabama does not like this new low unemployment rate?
Sure Americans are soft and spoiled and there will be a few jobs they do not want to do. Like picking up hay bales. Wait we did that when we were kids to get in shape for football. Now illegals do it . Maybe America will not be the soft kid on the block anymore?
Never mind stupid illegal is still illegal , you just want them here so they can vote with the rest of the dumb liberals.
That's sad because there are a lot of American's taking welfare payouts for far less than what these wages would produce and taxes that could be produced to benefit schools, roads, police, fire, courts, etc. If your State has an unemployment office or welfare office filled with unemployed able-bodied American's and these jobs are available, then those who refuse to take them should be refused benefits, period.
American's used to take pride in their work, especially hard labor, but for some odd reason over the past 25 years this is no longer viewed as an a honorable thing to do. I'm sure there are plenty of teenagers, high school dropouts or even High School gradutes in Alabama who could learn a lot from working these jobs, gain some experience, and use it as a stepping stool to better opportunities.
This "entitlement" ideology that you espouse is warped and creating a lot of economical turmoil. If Alabamians are not willing to take crop or brick laying jobs like their ancestors have done for hundreds of years, then let them friggen starve! And I'm not a Republican, nor a Democrat, but an American citizen who's tire of BOTH sides wanting "something for nothing" and continually TAKE, TAKE, TAKE without putting in any of the "sweat equity" required to reside in a country and survive on this planet! Ugh!
And Mike, stop slamming Liberals, which is an "ideology" not a friggin political party (60 y.o. old campaign rehtoric). Liberalism sprang from the "Era of Enlightenment", and was used to write our Declaration of Independence and US Constitution. Liberals were abolitionists, suffragettes, unions, civil rights. Geesh, if you hate Liberals so much, maybe you visit Saudi Arabia which is very conservative and then decide which you like better.
Wrong again LIB. Its called supply and demand. If the demand for Workers illegal ones goes up and up, yet not many around. Guess what then they will have to put out wages that would attract people to come do the work. Then you start getting people filling them Legal ones and up and up the wages start to go. As the wages start to go back up for skilled workers so does the job that they provide.
That's what ignorant people like you don't get, the reason wages and pay have not gone up is that there was a source of people who would do the jobs for less. Now that they are gone it will take time, but in the end jobs and wages will start to go back up to meet the demand...
Economics 101
I saw an article that said one farmer who couldn't get migrants to come pick anymore raised the wage he paid. Where he would have paid $2 a bushel for tomatoes he offered $10. He had a lot of applicants come to pick the first day, including people from the local welfare office. Most of the white Americans didn't come back from lunch break; the second day it was just a trickle; the third day the only ones who showed up were minorities, and most of them spoke accented English.
You can read a fair assessment of the economic impact of illegal aliens here:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economic_impact_of_illegal_immigrants_in_the_United_States
When all is considered, there is very little benefit to them being here, and there is no significant long term affect on the economy if they all go home.
All of you are arguing about a mole hill and ignoring this mountain pushed by culture terrorist like La Raza:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RM9uH4XgOmI
40% of Alabama's produce rotted in the field this year as a result of the anti-migrant law, according to Alabama's agriculture secretary. Many farmers testified to the legislature that non-migrant workers would only show up the first day, and would only pick a fraction of the produce the migrant workers picked.
Amanda, that's why it's a waste of time to read the Huffington Post. Try reading articles in reputable sourcecs.
The bottom line is that this contributes to food prices. Do we want to pay more for produce picked by higher-paid Americans or buy cheaper food on the backs of illegal immigrants? I vote for the former.
I also vote for welfare recipients putting in a few hours to pay for their checks.
Hmmm, so how much has Alabama spent to support the 85-120,000 ILLEGAL IMMIGRANTS social services ?
Nah, don't want the readers to know the total costs of the State(s) and the Federal government to support ILLEGALS social services. Gotta spin it towards AMNESTY.
Since the real issue is pumping illegals into the for-profit jails that these politicians have stock in, the, "work for homegrown Alabamians," always was, and continues to be, a load of chicken crap.
They have the same racket going in Arizona.
Leatherneck918, has anybody actually paid you to teach economics 101? I think labor markets are a little more complicated than that. For example, if the going rate is too high, businesses may shut down, or move, outsource, or change how they do business. It is not always that they pay more.
Sure AG99. I know the GOP is into the whole, "labor camp," mentality. Luckily, this is America, not the Soviet Union. Or China.
Not yet, anyway.
The GOP always gets annoyed when facts are put onthe table. Yet, it's hard to believe the state government could be so dumb as to not know this would happen.
soazDan said:
Amanda, that's why it's a waste of time to read the Huffington Post. Try reading articles in reputable sourcecs
Since I, as a former illegal who already got on the wrong side of Homeland Security once, am trying to stay out of trouble and stay out of sight disappear to the legal system so my name never EVER comes up in front of them again (when I was released from the deportation camp they said if my name ever came up in front of them again they would revoke my naturalization and deport me anyway), I stay away from webistes that Homeland Security is monitoring for purposes of national security. The article I was referring to was posted by MSNBC and was also the subject of a news report filed by NBC's 30 Rock news show that aired last fall on my local NBC channel.
Remeber that 'alternative media' has been classified as domestic terrorism by Homeland Security. (So have food stockpiles, militias, and anti-technology proponents--those who don't use electricity, etc.)
Anderson (#1) --- Your post evidences incredible ignorance.
1. Businesses are not entitled to pay below minumum wage. That is a FELONY. Support for ILLEGAL immigration only encourages this lawbreaking business model. If you know the identities of such businesses, please let me know, so their full legal names and the names of the principals of those companies so that I can report them to the Department of Labor and the Attorney General's offices.
2. Refusing to enforce our immigration laws results in hundreds of billions of corporate welfare benefits to the lawbreaking businesses, as when they pay the employees no benefits and poverty level wages (even if they are paying the minimum wage), the TRUE COSTS of doing business are imposed upon the unwilling American taxpayers who are being forced to pay for the healthcare, infrastructure, and other costs of the lawbreakers. This is a DESPICABLE and INTOLERABLE business model! This results in cheaper goods on the surface only--- the TRUE COSTS of the goods produced with ILLEGAL labor is made up from U.S. taxpayer subsidies. So, just please understand that you are supporting corporate welfare!
3. Further, the lawbreaking businesses can out-compete the lawabiding businesses --- AND THAT IS UNACCEPTABLE.
4. The subject study is a sham. Clearly, if the employers are forced to hire American citizens and LEGAL immigrants (which is the law), the wages will increase to a true market wage and the Americans (who are now receiving unemployment) will receive increased wages, more job opportunities, and pay taxes.
5. This study is also a sham because it fails to detail the costs of the identity theft, wage depression, social welfare costs, etc. It admittedly uses "anecdotal" evidence. It's a ridiculous intellectually dishonest publication.
6. Americans across the political spectrum (including this Democrat) are FED UP, and we demand that our government enforce its own laws. The Democrats are pandering to the ILLEGAL FOREIGN NATIONALS and their insufferable advocates and the Republicans are pandering to the Chamber of Commerce. No one is standing up for the American worker. I have to give Romney credit, as he has so far pledged to require enforcement of our laws. American voters must vote for candidates who pledge to enforce our laws and throw out the ones who do not.
Not very much, since non-citizens are generally not eligible for any social services.
In fact, the vast majority of undocumented workers pay taxes but receive no benefit from those taxes, and can never benefit from the social security taxes their employers withhold.
http://reason.org/news/show/122411.html
Cavalier: I assume you're referring to my support for making welfare recipiants work for their checks. I don't see a problem with that nor do I see what it has to do with the former USSR. Why should they get tax money for free? What incentive does anyone have to get off welfare otherwise? And I'm not talking all day, every day; how about a few hours (with free state childcare) in a field to help support themselves?
Working is a habit someone on welfare loses. Just getting them up everyday to report for a job will help make them more employable.
And did I mention the GOP?
Uhhh WRONG SKREKK (#1.17)--- Just a few examples of the catastrophic costs to American taxpayers as a result of ILLEGAL IMMIGRATION:
1. As reported by the Miami Herald Editorial Board on February 14, 2010:
(This means that virtually the ENTIRETY of the additional tax paid by South Floridians goes to pay for the healthcare of those who aren't even supposed to be in in the United States. Meanwhile Jackson is on the verge of collapse. This means that American citizens and LEGAL immgrants are in jeopardy of losing
their fail-safe healthare safety-net!)
2. Also, as posted on the LA County Mayor's website:
3. On April 3, 2011, the Seattle Times reported as follows:
4. As if the foregoing enumerated catastrophic costs of ILLEGAL immigration were not intolerable enough, on September 2, 2011, the Washington Post reported as follows:
skrekk - You quoted ldo -
Skrekk, You said;
Here is what Wikipedia says on education alone.
Education Spending for public education of undocumented immigrant children in K-12 public education in Minnesota for 2003-2004 was a total of $78.76 million to $118.14 million.
[22]For the same time period, total spending in New Mexico at the state and local levels for undocumented immigrant schoolchildren was about $67 million.
[23]During April 2006, Standard & Poor's analysts wrote: "Local school districts are estimated to educate 1.8 million undocumented children. At an average annual cost of $7,500 (averages vary by jurisdiction) per student, the cost of providing education to these children is about $11.2 billion."
[24]Undocumented immigrants who have attended school in California for three years are eligible for reduced in-state tuition for public colleges.[25]
AG99 said:
I also vote for welfare recipients putting in a few hours to pay for their checks.
I don't know how it's done in your neck of the woods, but where I live in order to collect food stamps or any form of public assistance, if you're unemployed you have to do 20 hours a week in a state-approved welfare-to-work program (I filed paperwork and type stuff for social services and handled roadkill dispatch for local Animal Control) and you are also required to do 20 hours in a volunteer organization (I did mine doing laundry, dishes, walking dogs and cleaning cages for Animal Control) AND turn in 4 verifiable job contacts per week (applied, spoke to, interviewed with).
Yeah, I live in Tuscaloosa. Roll Tide!
People who think that urban unemployed are going to pick crops are smoking whacky weed. I have done my share of farm work in the past and it's hard work and it has NEVER paid well. But we used to have migrant workers (Americans) who traveled around harvesting crops. They were mostly whole families and just barely got by. moving from farm to farm and state to state picking different crops. But everybody hated them too. They were blamed for all the crime in rural towns and for taking jobs from local high school kids and for bringing disease (both polio and TB were widely blamed on migrant workers.) While none of these things were particularly true, the states and counties all across the country passed laws --- mostly "educational" in nature to get rid of them. In Alabama, you can still go to prison if your child misses more than 5 days of school a year if you are a migrant worker. The locals succeeded in getting rid of migrant workers in the 1950's using laws about kids in school, laws requiring you to carry at least $5 at all times, laws about posting bizarre labor bonds, and residency laws that only applied to migrant workers. Crops rotted in the fields for almost a decade all across the country then too. But gradually, illegal immigrants from Mexico replaced the migrant workers picking the crops under exactly the same conditions.
It is difficult to find farm work. Farmers deal with labor contractors so they can be at arms length from the "1099 contractors" who do the actual picking. (They routinely withhold 25% for taxes, but it is very doubtful that many actually turn the money in to the IRS and states.) If you drop by a farm looking for work the farmer is very unlikely to hire you unless he can pay you in cash somehow and still claim the expense as a deduction on his taxes. (Under the table payments are hard to hide from the IRS and farmers, just like anyone need to have the deduction or they wopuld actually pay taxes on the under the table payment as their own income.)
And jobs on farms last from a few days to a week or ten days then the picker has to move on to another farm. This is how the labor contractor is important to the picker. The labor contractor takes a cut of the pay --- 20-50% for finding the next job and often providing gas money or transportation. If you are a picker picking tomatoes in Alabama, it is difficult to be looking for eventual jobs picking apples in Washington. Suckering tobacco in North Carolina comes close to tomato season in Georgia. You have to aknow all this, know how to actually pick the crops effectively. And above all you have to be willing to live in shacks if you're lucky or caves dug into dirt banks if you're not. And you have to know how to avoid the cesspool of insecticides, pesticides, herbicides, and fungicides that are sprayed on the crops and linger in the soil. They are serious people-cides as well.
Farm work is not the fairy tale world of the GOP. It is hard, gritty and low-paying with absolutely no future and no way to every put down roots anywhere. The idea that somehow people can pick tomatoes for a couple of weeks and then live on the money for a year until the tomatoes come in again is stupid.
Tuscaloosa is already considering the size of the business tax hike to replace the 13 Latino oriented businesses that have closed here. Property taxes will be going up because of the money lost to the educational system from state and local student head counts. Add that to the loss of 16% of the city from just the tornadoes on April 27th, I wish the state had just left things alone.
Chris--- You do realize- that the "money lost to the educational system from state and local student head counts" consists of American taxpayer proceeds--- do you not? This is money we are SAVING in taxpayer proceeds that would otherwise be paid to Alabama to educate the offspring of ILLEGAL IMMIGRANTS. I understand that the State of Alabama may not be getting it, but IT DOES REPRESENT THE SAVING OF TAXPAYER DOLLARS!
@Angelica,
Actually it is much more complicated than that. The schools have to created bonded debt to build the schools and they have to pay back the bonded debt regardless of whether the immigrants har here or not. From all accounts the losses in students were about 1/3 illegal immigrants and 2/3 legal residents. The savings are very, very unsubstantiated since the immigrants who left, illegal and legal, paid business taxes, sales taxes, property taxes, fees such as car tag fees, state and federal income taxes, etc. Myuch of the law is being rewritten to soften its blow a bit, but the damage is done. The state will be raising income taxes and localities will be increasing sales and property taxes to make up the shortfall.
Now exactly how do the increased taxes that I will have to pay benefit me?
Chris--- I understand what you are saying--- the schools have been built to accommodate the prior numbers. The bottom line is, though, that if our goverment will enforce its own laws, ultimately the costs resulting from this ILLEGAL nightmare will be reduced, the strain on taxpayer resources will decrease, etc.
Very funny that AngelicaS and sonar guy were unable to point to any costs that Alabama is incurring due to undocumented labor, nor could they point to how any costs compare to the taxes undocumented workers pay.
Of course, the teabaggers in Alabama don't care that farmers are losing their businesses and family farms because of the anti-immigrant law:
No. It's not funny Skrekk--- I didn't do my own a study in Alabama, but if you have even the least bit of intelligence, you can poke about a million holes in the study discussed in the article including major factors that the author of that study failed to consider and his admitted use of "anecdotal evidence". In fact, as you well know, Alabama has reported the lower unemployment rates, etc.
In what universe would ILLEGAL foreign nationals (many of whom pay no taxes) who are paid poverty level wages and no benefits result in a net benefit to our macroeconomy???!!! Poor people (in general) cost the government far more than they contribute. So, when you support a blackmarket of cheap ILLEGAL labor, you support oppression of poor people, wage depression for Amercian citizens and LEGAL immigrants, lost job opportunities, decreased tax revenues, increased tax burdens upon American citizens, fraud, a blackmarket labor scheme by which only the lawbreaking businesses benefit, etc. NO business is entitled to hire ILLEGAL LABOR--- It's just a cost shifting mechanism designed to impose the true costs of doing business onto American taxpayers. If you cannot perceive these manifest realities, you lack sufficient intellence to comment.
I did, however, cite reputable news sources for the costs reported in other (liberal) jurisdictions. These sources and facts remain uncontroverted by you and otherwise. Further, I am not a "teabagger". I am a life-long Democrat. Your posts evidences the fact that you've bought into to media lie that only the far right-wing fringe wants for our immigration laws to be enforced. That is FALSE.
The politicians are doing knee jerk without scientific proof. Sure unemployment may have gone down, but how many jobs are lost and income lost because of the loss of people willing to work the horrid jobs. What happens is that cost for a lot of things will go up (will cost more to build a house), and employers will move to products that do not require the labor, but also do not have the rewards. Grow corn instead of some high value crop (the corn needs little manual labor). Of course other countries will be thrilled since they can now provide the US with these labor intensive, high value items. Obviously the Alabama republicans are idiots, and should be removed from office since they do not research before they do something stupid.
Sonar guy, the problem is that people tend to only report one side of the argument hoping that he/she will persuade the uninformed. Given that you read the Wikipedia on the impact of illegal immigration, you probably also read (but failed to quote) that ;
Didn't know that. Sounds good to me.
Angelica said this:
In our universe, Angelica. Many countries--including Saudi Arabia, Japan, Egypt, the US--import people who are not considered "legal" so that they can be paid less money than legal individuals (who would also pay "no taxes"--if you mean income taxes because they don't make enough--but all of whom will pay any other sorts of taxes). This benefits the companies, as they do not have to pay full wages, and increases their profits. The increase of profits benefits those at the top.
There is a little thing called "slavery" that is completely parallel to having illegal immigrants who are paid very low wages. While slaves had to be cared for, the immigrants can be paid wages that are barely enough to care for their own needs. It has the same effect on the economy--it makes it boom. The Southern US did not want to get rid of slavery because their whole economy was built on the concept.
This is why a house in Texas will cost $250K while a parallel house in Indiana will cost $400K. When goods can be produced for a lower cost, then the economy booms--well, that's what Republicans tell us when they explain how it is that getting rid of the minimum wage will benefit our macroeconomy.
Or did you miss that whole part about how getting rid of the minimum wage will benefit our macroeconomy? If you did--go look it up. It's pretty easy to find.
Remember that the "macroeconomy" benefits the wealthiest people in the country--not the middle class. The middle class will suffer, but the macroeconomy will do great. And, it has. It remains to be seen, however, whether the people of Alabama will benefit or suffer due to these anti-Hispanic (many of the people who left were legal Hispanics) laws. The jury is already in for Oklahoma--it has hurt Oklahoma's growth. Granted, the lack of growth due to similar laws in Oklahoma (which go way, way back) kept things from getting worse during the recent recession years--because when you are already on the bottom, it's hard to go down further--but the net impact has been negative. I'm not sure what will happen in Alabama--it is possible that the migrant workers will be replaced with US citizens when the unions and minimum wage are overturned, so that US citizens can have the amusing situation of living like the migrant workers used to.
I hope that you are one of the so affected--since you think it is going to be so marvelous. Enjoy.
I do think it is funny that AngelicaS and Sonora guy whine about the problems of undocumented. Yet they don't have the problem of spending excess amount of tax payer $ to building fences and patrols that has not proven records. The current administration has clearly done their best in helping to minimize the immigration problem.
So you have a $1, what do you want to spend it on, Republicansa & Tea Partiers? Homeland security, health care? illegal immigrants?
Instead of trying to improve the economy Repbulicans and the Tea Partiers want to give that $2 (not just the orginal $1) to the corporations, and then whine about how we don't have any problems to solve their problems and their deficits. You guys are one sick puppy....
Fund and stock managers, and other people who make their money contribute an average of less than 15% of their taxible income while average middle income famiies contribute over 30% of their taxible income. For those BS artists on this vine, REMEMBER THIS, even President Ronald Regan said that this is BS. The analogy he used was capital gains vs bus driver. Hence he placed both income rate at 28%. Today, capital gain earners (hedge fund manager, stock brokers, etc) pay 15% while middle income workers pay 32-36%.
I don't care if they pay more, because it is only reasonable that if I make more => I pay more. Our system is not the old European system, that is based upon a caste system (wolves vs sheeps).
I only have to comment to lol at the guy who said illegals pay social security tax from which they can never get benefits... LOL!
That's just absolutely ridiculous. An illegal immigrant CAN'T legally be employed, therefore no taxes can legally be withheld from their paychecks (yeah, right...cause under the table cash jobs are all "on the books")
In order to LEGALLY be employed, you must provide documentation that you are eligible...ANY illegal immigrant collecting a paycheck will have to have committed identity fraud to do so and therefore any taxes paid are the fruit of a criminal act. I've absolutely no problem with those funds being forfeit.
It's simply a fact, apparently one with which you're unaware.
J R Brownenstein: W is generally not an academically accepted source, however the data arrived from our own Social Security System. It is a well know fact, but it appears that you and many Republicans and Tea Partiers were not aware of. It is a simple search, but is also confirmed on CBO as well.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States/Economic_impact_of_illegal_immigrants
Hopefully you will look it up and research it for yourself. You can then dive deeper and perhaps find other problem that will arise from it...
BeanatHome--- The fact that the ILLEGAL blackmarket is akin to slavery (and I agree with that), IS ANOTHER REASON WE MUST ENFORCE OUR LAWS! I support a higher minimum wage, Fair Trade, etc. I DO NOT SUPPORT THE BLACKMARET LABOR SCHEME! Only the wealthy profiteers benefit! Regular Americans get screwed!
I don't really care about skewed numbers or reported cost and loose, what I'm worried about is companies not relocating to states that burden and threaten them for minding their employees documentation. My company in particular was going to relocate 380 jobs to a new sight in Jefferson County Alabama, but pulled their application saying that a large swath of the very specialized workforce is Hispanic or from Porto Rico and they have downright refused to relocate. Basically all have said you go ahead and move, but were not going with you because they felt they would be ostracized for their language and English skills, most I might add are better than anything the gang of 5 states has to offer. It really boiled down to why face the possibility of a cultural collision course with a reluctant work force. The Company ended up moving two miles away from their old location at a cost of 14 million dollars. More than half I might add for what a new plant In Bama would have cost them. When you have a one sided policy state like many below the Mason Dixon line your going to see a lot more of this occur. It will happen often, But Alabamians won't even know they got spanked and lost valuable high paying technical jobs....To Bad so Sad!
The only ones full of baloney are the Teabaggers who made this disasterous Teabagger Draconian law. Also the State of Alabama is under a severe Economic Boycott too. That has to sting I bet.
And thats my opinion
Typical liberal...doesn't want to work and would rather be spoon fed at the expense of working Republicans...nothing new here!
I have a solution for Both problems. The Illegals, and the jobs they leave open when deported.
Deport them ALL. Get rid of that section of the 14th amendment that applies to people born in this country automatically being citizens. If at least ONE of the parents is not a legal citizen, then neither is the child.
For all the jobs that are left open. Require welfare recipients to work them. Now I am not talking about the elderly, or people who truly are not physically able of working, but the vast majority can certainly work 20hrs or more a week. Pay them a standard wage (to be deducted from their welfare checks). Let them learn what it means to work for a living. If they are NOT willing to work, then they don't get paid. Just like the rest of us.
There are many construction jobs that are now filled will illegal workers. Get rid of them and bring back the workers that have been left unemployed by the slow economy.
We need to get rid of the Illegal Population in this country. We also need to get rid of the "Gimmee, Gimmee" poplulation. That take and take and take, but give nothing back to society.
We could do that (or at least reduce it) in one swipe if we have the courage to enforce it.
Of course it won't happen. The liberals and all the groups supporting the welfare groups will never allow it to occur.
Janine,
Not to rain on your parade but the law which notes that folks born here are legal to the US is probably (almost 100%) the only reason that you're a citizen. If you go far enough back in your family's history its almost certain that you're family had someone come here from somewhere else and their kid(s) earned their citizenship from being born. I'm just saying.
A few points that I noticed are worth mentioning:
Obviously the study was SOMEWHAT politically motivated. One item that is of note though is that it is nearly IMPOSSIBlE to put all the factors for this type of situation into the study. The scientist obviously can never predict the impact of these illegals on the benefits systems (hospital, welfare, unemployment etc) nor can he know their impact on sales or inocme taxes (hence his use of anecdotal evidence). To be 100% honest with you until the impact is felt (a few years down the road) and all factors are considered including businesses shutting b/c they can't sustain the higher wage and businesses either leaving or coming due to the law's impact, we will never know. Alabama at this point is just an experiment.
I don't think you can argue that the costs associated with teaching illegals is not substantial nor could you argue that the costs associated with their health care and/or their lack of insurance (car/health/home) is not pretty substantial. Additionally though there are payments made by illegals that benefit the country (SS, sales and property axes etc). I think overall the biggest obstacle that Alabama will have is other states. No federally elected official is going to get comprehensive immigration reform through anytime soon. The country is still too divided on the topic. So if crops are sold from GA at $2 b/c of illegals then Alabama's $10 tomatoes are destined to fail. Just simple economics on that.
On the point about crop-picking, one thing I keep saying and I cannot understand why USCIS and ICE don't make more of an effort to point it out - there is no quota on hiring people to do agricultural work. It's called H-2A, it requires employers to pay at least minimum wage (obviously) and provide basic housing and medical care to the employees. Any employer should be doing that anyway for any worker, immigrant or not, which is why it is a standard imposed by the Dept. of Labor. This is not really an immigration issue - there are relatively straightforward ways to do it legally. So not doing it legally is either (a) profiteering or (b) ignorance of the law. (b) can be solved easily with a little education of the public and (a) should be cracked down on by law enforcement.
This is not a "do you like immigrants or not" argument. There's nothing in particular stopping them from doing it legally, just costs a bit of money to pay minimum wage and pay for the processing of the visa. Which you should be happy to do if you really are desperate for workers.
agree, majority of ignorance assume the problem is strictly that of the the workers. The other half is really that of the employer. If the demand is that there, then there would probably not be undocumented workers...
ROFLMFAO!!! Getting exactly what they wanted and serves them right!
You actually think that an obviously politically biased Economist's opinion represents reality? These are the same clowns who are "surprised" by "unexpected" news every week.
"..estimated up to 80,000 jobs were vacated by illegal immigrants fleeing after Alabama's tough law passed in June 2011, costing Alabama's economy up to $10.8 billion.
The lost jobs also cost Alabama up to $264.5 million in lost state sales and income taxes"
A. VACATED jobs are not LOST jobs... they are now AVAILABLE jobs for American citizens.
B. Illegals getting paid in cash are not paying income taxes on it.
Alabama can now potentially remove 80,000 people from welfare/unemployment AND begin collecting income taxes on wages that it didn't before.... add in the related school and medical costs of the illegals and the state is clearly saving itself and it's citizens a fortune.
Based more in fact than Romney-Gingrich plutocratic bs.
I would point out what the article did not: DOCTOR Sam Addy is a very high-ranking and experienced economist. He is himself an immigrant from Ghana who became a citizen in 2007. He is extremely well-respected and well thought of in the community, where he is usually called Doctor Sam.
Most of those jobs are lost to other regions/countries. Companies will add robots, or move production, or change their products to something that is not as labor intensive. If you beleive that Alabama is a closed economy, then maybe you should get some education on global economics. besides, emotional science. How about actually looking at the study before assuming (we all know about assumptions).
Toejam, it is alway funny to me when a researched story is considered biased ONLY if the message doesn't agree with YOUR message... what a joke.
I can't wait to see how many of those Alabamians will take the low rung jobs like chicken workers, brick layers, etc. Just why do you think the illegals were hired to begin with??? Those true Americans didn't want those dirty jobs, so companies had to hire the illegals...
We want the job, we just won't do it for such crappy pay.
Me-"Sorry, I don't work over eight without time and a half. I'm going home now."
Supervisor-"It's a right to work state, we don't have to pay overtime."
Me-"No problem then, just call the state to come and unload your truck."...I was actually a little surprised that they didn't send me home when I showed up, the next morning. Then again, I'm a good worker.
The employers in Alabama will just have to get their damn wallets out. If the only way you can stay in business, is to exploit your labor force and keep them in abject poverty, then screw you, you POS, you don't deserve to be in business in the first place.
The true major, overall damage to the economy, and to every working person in the US, that is done by illegal immigrants, is that they lower the wage scale for everybody. Everybody! Higher wages mean more tax revenue and stronger consumer input.
SonofMolly, you have got to be kidding. So you assume employers are paying dirt cheap for these jobs??? I run a resort. Avg pay for waitress is $13 an hour and up. Guess how many applied for my last opening??? TWO in two weeks... and they both had criminal records. They will go work a McDonalds for $8, but don't want to work hard as a waitress. Same goes for other areas of my business. Nobody applies... rather sit around smokiing pot or crack. I don't hire illegals, but I'm here to tell you Americans will NOT do some of these jobs... we are a chicken producing state. NOBODY will do chicken work other than latinos.
so all latinos work in feilds? does your comment go to all latinos or illegals.
and im pretty sure no american wants to have to work in the feilds for such a crappy pay.
the fruit you eat probably got picked by illegals. if they didnt due it who will? and working in the feilds aint chicken work. i took a job in the feilds for a summer job looks easy when driving by but when your there crouched 6 hrs straight youl see that it aint "chicken work".
trx250ex I believe the woman stated that she lives in a "chicken producing state" which probably means that there are a large number of "chicken farms" that require these animals to be caught and loaded for shipping to processing plants where they are killed cleaned and processed. I do not believe that she stated all farm work is "chicken work". Maybe you should take a few comprehension classes so that you do not make such a ridiculous mistake again.
Thank you for clearing up my post. You are exactly correct.
Law of supply and demand, Macro/Micro economics, hmmm... "That's baloney," state Rep. Micky Hammon says. So what's your stand on staying in school, going to college, is that a lot of "baloney" too? Since you just negated everything I learned in all my regular/advance Accounting and Economics classes while using both "baloney" and "homegrown" in the same sentence. Clearly you are a true genius!
"Jobs Lost" DOES NOT EQUAL "Jobs Filled" and open positions means less product, thus much less profit, also higher labor costs, means again even less profits and few worker income to be spent.
5 Poultry plants closed, and crops rotted in the fields, none of the losses were posted yet, but clearly the value of the products is much more than the costs of their production, both of which where lost from our local economy. When you add the labor lost (80K workers @ $12K) to the food lost/rotten ($200Mill+ in Dec) then that 1 month alone adds up to over 1 Billion already, which is gargantuan when compared to the minor losses ($100's of thousands) Bentley claims illegals were taking from Alabama. Surely the results are somewhat exaggerated, on both sides, but nothing changes the fact that Bentley has taken a lot more from our local economy in single month than the immigrants have ever taken in the past 10 years combined!
Alabama has always had over 200,000 unfilled permanently open positions, that nobody ever fills, mainly due to the lowest minimum wage of all 50 states, in fact, the USA has over 3,000,000 million permanently open positions available nationwide on any give day of the week that nobody will ever fill. Google it! "permanently unfilled job openings" Alabama often tops the list percentage wise because business here is both bad & slow, so mainly minimum wage part time jobs are offered, which no American can survive on, and even if they could, they would all qualify for full benefits, a lose/lose situation.
Even in the best case scenario, Americans will fill 'some' of these job positions temporarily, but won't get paid enough to survive, and food cost will rise, as will all products as labor rises and production falls, so they will either quit and relocate or start up on the public dole, additionally raising our taxes and prices yet even more.
This is basic economics. If you don't have enough sense to understand it, then you have no place in office, but I'm sure you'll do just fine in Alabama since we are also one of the least educated states, and completely insignificant when it comes to both immigration and the nation's GDP.
In fact, 50%+ of the entire nation's GDP comes from 3 states alone, California, New York, & Texas, which also happens to be the states with the largest (and only significant) numbers of illegal immigrants nationwide. But surely state Rep. Micky Hammon will verify for all the slow people that there is no correlation between production and more cheap laborers, nor any significant profits from lowering labor costs, all that is just "baloney..."
It would appear that the unemployment rate was not affected much by the law. 1% isn't much and the other 91 out of 100 jobs that are still vacant are probably going to stay that way as citizens balk at doing heavy work for low pay. Time will tell who is the big loser and it will probably be the citizens who can least afford it.
Cheap ass Farmers and others who hire Illegals have become to used to huge profits, To Fing bad, Pay a higher wage, Help the Country and your Fellow Country men out, To all the Bleeding hearts out there crying over the Illegals, What is the Difference of a Farmer hiring illegals or a Corperation sending jobs overseas..?
softdude
That would be correct sir as the unemployment rate is calculated by the number of unemployment claims.
Unemployment statistics are pretty much bunk for that very reason. When the benefits run out, and the person still has no job, he/she is not included in these statistics.
They are a classic example of lying with statistics. I'll bet you even knew that, and still used that argument. Hmmmmm !!!
@US Citizen,
It isn't just the desire for profits. Farmers are under incredible pressure from commodities markets and the prices they get for their crops are highly manipulated by companies like ConAgra and ADM, some of the crookedest corporations in the world. They are literally between a rock (weather) and a hard place (manipuilated prices for their crops) and have to eke out enough profits from every three years to be able to sustain uninsured losses in two more. It runs in about 5-7 year cycles depending on the crops.
Farmers won't let their family and people in the community work in the fields because of the nastiness of the chemicals that they know are toxic despite the need to assure the community that they are as safe as rainwater. Most people don't even realize that loopholes let about 90%+ of these toxic (cide means "killer") chemicals be used in "organic" farming. It's not the bucolic business that most suppose.
And @sonarguy ---- you're absolutely wrong. There are several methods of calculating unemployment that yoeld several different numbers to be used for different reasons. But none is based on the number of unemployment claims. That's what The Number of New Unemployment Claims is used for. Think!
Most people don't like high food prices - especially during a recession.
But regardless, Alabama farmers were unable to find enough people to work the fields this year so 40% of the harvest rotted in the fields. That drives up food prices for everyone.
Shrekk you can go Occupy yourself where the sun Don't Shine.
chris u r wrong. us is right
Farmers need to realize, that , if they expect people to work harder than they have to work flipping burgers, they need to expect to pay more. In the meantime I can still make a BLT to chew on while I blog, for pretty cheap. I can afford to pay more if it gets some some guy I don't know, a long ways off, enough pay to be able to live on the road and send the mortgage payment home to his wife and kid.
If they don't start paying enough to attract a workforce this year, then I guess losing 40% of the crops wasn't enough, lets shoot for 60% this year.
Most of the cost of your groceries is fuel, not labor anyway. The food price comments belong on an oil related thread.
While the problem of immigration, both legal and not, can be deabted hotly by both right and left-wing, Democrat and Republican, Tea Party, and practcally everybodty else --it remains a divisive and deeply controversial topic and almost everyone with any decent information o the topic can agree to one thing: the immigration system needs reform.
Plenty of people want to complain about 'the illegals' but few have concrete solutions for the problem. As a former 'illegal', now-naturalized US Citizen--I was adopted by an IL-born Army vet but spent time in the deportation camps as an 'illegal' when ICE lost my adoption paper and since my parents never told me I was adopted and never kept the paperwork, ICE told me I couldn't leave the deportation camp until I found the adoption record. It took me three years but I eventually found it. So here are my solutions, from both the perspective of an American taxpaying citizen and a former 'illegal':
1. Refine the definition of 'illegal'. Illegal should mean those who hopped the border to do drugs and shot a cop on the way. No amnesty no matter how long ago the incident occurred. 'Illegal' should NOT mean those who came here legally but ICE took 16 years to process their applications. 'Illegal' should not mean those for whom ICE lost paperwork a decade after the fact. 'Illegal' should NOT mean those who were trafficked in as children, either through international adoption by crooked adoption agencies, by legal American citizen pedophiles for child sex, by their illegal parents, or are refugees. Yes, I am advocating amnesty--for anyone under 18 or who was under 18 at the time the offence was committed.
2. Close the borders. Use the returning troops from the war to secure our northern and southern borders if necessary. President Obama has already sent 1200 National Guard troops along with unmanned drones to the border, and Homeland Security is currently testing their 'Wide Area Surveillance System' on the citizens of Nogales, AZ. If those tests prove sucessful they could be implemented in all the border towns. Send out advance notice to the world a year in advance that we will be closing our borders. This will give everyone who wants to immigrate to the US time to get their applications in prior to the closure date. Stress to the world that we are NOT closing our borders forever, we are NOT going to become isolationists; we just need to get caught up on the paperwork backlog. Keep the borders closed for 2 years or until ICE catches up.
3. Use the time the borders are closed to catch up on the enormous backlog of applications waiting to be processed. In 2010, ICE was just getting to applications filed by Mexicans in 1994, China in 2001.
4. For those already in detention: prioritize the cases. Deport the truly 'illegal' first (see above definitions) then address cases for minor children, elderly/infirm, and terminally ill. Don't make those children wait for years in detention, it's inhumane. Offer them basic English language and civics classes while they are in detention so they will learn about our country; instead of penalizing them for their ignorance, offer them a chance to learn.
5. If you have a case of someone who came here legally but ICE has not gotten to their paperwork and time expired (undocumented), release them on electronic monitoring once they have not been deemed a flight risk. This will ease the overcrowding in deportation camps and make room for more of the truly illegal, higher-priority cases--ICE's own stats say electronic monitoring has a 98% compliance rate--98&% of people released on electronic monitoring do show up in court for their immigration hearing. A 2009 Associated Press article said an examination of ICE records showed that ICE currently asks Congress for $1.7 billion to detain 33,000 people per year ($141 per night) and 18,000 of those people were simply undocumented and had not committed any crimes. Do the math:
18,0000 people x $141 per night x 365 day a year=$926,370,000
Releasing those 18,000 undocumented, non-flight-risk elderly, terminally ill, and minor children on electronic monitoring would free up $926 million. That should be enough to hire more pencil pushers to get caught up on the backlogged paperwork and detain and deport more of the truly illegal in the 2 yr deadline above. Also add in the funds from the 'seized civil assets' the government takes from those who are detained and deported as illegal, that's a lot of money, definitely enough to get caught up on he paperwork backlog.
6. Improve conditions for those in detention. I'm not saying they should have bingo night and TVs in every cell. I'm talking about adequate food; no meals with maggots, please give us eating utensils, and please give us clean underclothes and jumpsuits; NO ONE should have to wear underclothes still crusted by another woman’s period. And adequate medical care; if someone is having a seizure don't tell them to fill out form for an aspirin. If someone is on medication for something please allow them to continue taking those meds. Look up 'Victoria Arellano' for an example.
7. Allow non-violent ICE detainees out on a day-labor program. You do it for nonviolent offenders, why should we be treated any different? Sitting for 24 hours a day in a deportation camp does no one any good whatsoever. The detainee has nothing to do but go crazy; let us out to work while we wait for the judge to throw us out. Prisons allow their inhabitants to work if they are not considered a flight risk or a threat; why can't we?
8. If the judge says they have proved they are a citizen RELEASE THEM. There is absolutely no excuse for keeping someone after a judge has ruled they should be released. Look up George Ibarra.
9. If someone says they have proof that they are indeed a US citizen or a diplomat from another country, INVESTIGATE. The law of the US is 'innocent until proven guilty', not 'guilty until YOU prove you're innocent.' Don't automatically assume that because the person looks Latino or foreign that they MUST be here illegally. Look at Hans Keil of American Samoa.
10. ACCOUNTABILTY. If one of us dies in ICE custody our legal US citizen relatives have a right to know if we have died! It won't matter to us, we're dead, but our relatives outside the deportation camp have a right to know we have died so they can claim our bodies and take care of us according to our respective beliefs. Even if you believe the 'illegal' doesn't have a right to Last Rites, not everyone believes so and if there are relatives willing to claim the body, they as legal citizens have the right to do so.
This isn't a comprehensive list, by any means; the problem is wide-reaching and there is no simple solution. There's no 'one size fits all' solution to this problem and each situation needs to be looked at on a case by cases basis. But this is, in my opinion, a good start.
Plenty of people want to complain about the illegals but few have concrete solutions for the problem.
That is complete BS,
Simple solution.
Boarder wall, Stop giving money to illegals in Food Stamps, Housing Assistance, SSI money. These people would deport themselves, no need to round them up or find them. They would leave all on there own and on there own dime....
So don't say but few have concrete solutions for the problem is total BS. You just dont want them to leave then who will pick up your yard for pennies on the hour....
Leatherneck; you do realize that:
1) not all the 'illegals' are coming in through the Mexican border
2) not all 'illegals' receive food stamps, housing assistance, and SSI
3) many 'illegals' can't 'self deport' because they can't leave since they have applications for residency still pending in the system (16 years, currently, for people from Mexico)
All right, instead of saying few have concrete solutions, let me say that few have 'feasible' solutions.
We don't need a border wall. Have you not kept up with the latest trends in technology? Homeland Security is now tresting what they call a 'Wide Area Surveillance System' on the citizens of Nogales, AZ; it's a camera/infrared camera scanning system that can monitor up to 10 square miles of territory. The infrared can pick up heat signatures on Nogales streets, can see through certin types of building materials to see if a citizen of Nogales is growing pot in the shed or cooking meth in the garage. All of this can be mounted on a Predator drone and can overfly and monitor neighborhoods silently as well as remote stretches of desert. If these initial tests are sucessful in capturing illegal activity by the citizens of Nogales they will supply every border town with this WASS system, and eventually every town in the US will have them. It'll eliminate the need for police patrols because the person watching the monitor can direct a police team directly to the location of the incident.
They also tested a portable DNA scanner on illegals at a border checkpoint in McAllen, TX, forcing these people and their children to give up DNA samples for storage in a database so that if anyone else attempts to cross the border, whether legally through a visa or passport, or illegally and are caught, that person can either be arrested or turned away.
Amanda
Had you put a period at that point you would have the true definition of ILLEGAL. It is ILLEGAL to enter into the USA without clearing customs or at a point other than those defined by LAW.
il·le·gal
[ih-lee-guhl]
adjective
1.forbidden by law or statute.
2. contrary to or forbidden by official rules, regulations, etc.: The referee ruled that it was an illegal forward pass.
This is not football nor soccer or hockey so I believe 1. covers the topic.
Remaining in the USA without legal entry is continuing to break the law. So stating someone is NOT breaking the law by remaining here is not a valid argument.
I'll debate your other 9 arguments, which I have read and in some ways could agree with, once the illegals are taken out of our country and the discussion. but will touch on them a little
2. To post MILITARY on the borders will require more than simply putting them there. There are legal issues as to what the US military can do to non combatants, unlike the Mexican military. BTW if what I have read is correct, the Mexican military is much harsher than simply discouraging illegals in Mexico. They capture, detain and physically remove without out trial or other due process everyone crossing illegally. Give the US Military unrestricted power to close the border and they WILL close it. Just tell Mexico to STFU if we do the same thing they are doing and to DUCK when the stray rounds cross the border.
3. Process those that were filed correctly from outside the usa for entry, not once they were here illegally. If they have a US address to respond to they are obviously breaking the law by being here 99.9% of the time and therefore as a criminal are not eligible for entry. NO OTHER country accepts criminals, why should we?
4. Agreed, make them a priority. If they are here illegally ship them home and put them in line with those who are here legally.
5. Here legally? You mean with a visa that has expired? I'll give some wiggle room there. However, they should not be free to just roam the streets. We've tried that and it's been catch and release. What would you suggest they do while out? go on welfare? They can't legally work without a greencard.
6. It's prison. Maybe make it like boot camp? Up at 5. Eat at 7. morning activity... including cooking and cleaning and laundry, lunch at noon, afternoon activity.. dinner at 5.... taps at 9 repeat. They can't be detained beyond 8 weeks and are deported if their story/papers don't clear by then.
Again they cannot legally work so no daylabor.
7. See 6. prisoners can legally work some jobs. Non citizens cannot.
8. Agreed. If they are a citizen and the only charge is being here illegally let them go. Now on the otherhand if they broke a law hold a trial and either clear them or convict them. Fraud, id theft, and the like violate their citizenship.
9. If they can prove they are a citizen... SSN, ID, BC WITH fingerprint confirmation then let them go on their way. it IS that simple. If they are a "diplomat" they should be registered with the State Dept and Embassy. If they are then they cannot be working here and need to return to the embassy or their home country. If they are not registered with the State Dept and the Embassy they must be spies and should be treated as such. I forget the name of the Mexican Id card that they pass off to citizens abroad but that is NOT an official diplomat any more than my being a diplomat when I visit another nation.
10. No issue there. There are already legal paths that cover those things. The person being detained needs to provide valid contact information. ICE cannot read minds and contrary to some beliefs the USA does not have a family tree and address of every person on the planet. If they are too afraid to provide valid contact information for fear of getting someone else deported... no notification should be attempted other than to notify the embassy or country of origin. Reality is the notification of country of origin should be the first and last step required as that is how it works in all other cases.
Amanda, although I'm sorry for what you've been through, but historically our immigration laws were put in place to PROTECT the US Citizens. States demanded immigrants aks for permission and pass certain requirements prior to and after entering the US to make sure: 1) They were not criminals or dangerous to society; 2) Not carrying communicable or deadly diseases; and 3) were able bodied and capable of supporting themselves and family members so they would not be a burden on society.
If they met these requirments they could ultimately become US Citizens...which is how my Irish great grandparents did it in the early 1900's and took over 7 years for them to achieve it. This is LEGAL IMMIGRATION...there's no such thing as "illegal immigration" as that's a legal oxymoron.
I don't know exactly why or when this country became "soft" on immigration, but it has not only allowed for too many crimes and abuses to take place in a country that purports to be "law abiding", and by doing so has allowed for an invasion of an untold number of unknown foreigners (approx 12+ million) to reside within our borders right under our noses without knowing what are their intentions are, and it needs to end.
The US Constitution has a two-pronged citizenship test. "All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the state wherein they reside."
The KEY element is "and subject to the jurisdiction thereof" in determining the citizenship of a person born or naturalized in the US. Jurisdiction in the 1800's didn't mean the place of the child's birth, but whether who had "jurisdiction" over the parents that determine their child's citizenship if born here. It works the same way if you were temporarily residing in Italy for a job and had a child, it would NOT take the citizenship of Italy because it does not have jurisdication over US citizens. If the parents, or those seeking naturalization have not formally or officially denounced the citizenship to their home country having jurisdiction over them, and accept the US as their new country, then they nor their child can become a US citizen.
BTW -- this was clearly stated and agreed to in the discussions, debates and Speech made right before the official vote of Congress who then ratified it. So unless the citizenry FORMERLY AMENDS this, then this is the Supreme Law that our society adopted and must follow until it is formerly amended---it's how our Federal Republic operates.
So the definitition of illegal is every person on this planet, either here or somewhere else, who does not meet the Constitutional citizenship test. If you want to debate that fine---have at it.
ELECTRIC MONITORING???? 80,000 people????? Come on!!!
I wonder what that radar screen would look like!!!!!
Leatherneck,
You sure are full of simple solutions to very complex issues. But, as my old second-grade teacher used to say, "simple things please simple minds".
TrustVerify said:
Remaining in the USA without legal entry is continuing to break the law. So stating someone is NOT breaking the law by remaining here is not a valid argument.
If you read what I wrote:
'Illegal' should NOT mean those who came here legally but ICE took 16 years to process their applications.
'Illegal' should not mean those for whom ICE lost paperwork a decade after the fact.
'Illegal' should NOT mean those who were trafficked in as children, either through international adoption by crooked adoption agencies...or are refugees...
All of the above samples are people who CAME HERE LEGALLY. Read highlighted words. These people came here legally an became 'illegal' through no fault of their own, except for the children trafficked in for child porn. Those children deserve our compassion, not our hate.
2. To post MILITARY on the borders will require more than simply putting them there.
President Obama posted 1200 National Guard troops to the border plus unmanned drones. These soldeirs are instructed to fire only uin self defense--pleae don';t shoot the woman carrying the infant alert Border patrol when they see someone and have Border patrol intercept them.
3. Process those that were filed correctly from outside the usa for entry, not once they were here illegally. If they have a US address to respond to they are obviously breaking the law by being here 99.9% of the time and therefore as a criminal are not eligible for entry.
Actually it is possible to file from a US address legally. A person can file for a travel visa from outside the country or an extension on an existing travel visa from inside the country. Once they get to a border station the visa is stamped for entry. The person can then legally enter the US, find a temporary address and apply for additional documentation once inside.
5. Here legally? You mean with a visa that has expired? I'll give some wiggle room there. However, they should not be free to just roam the streets.
If your documentation has expired but you have paperwork that shows they have some sort of proceeding currently with ICE and it's just taking ICE a long time to get to (for Mexicans it's 16 years) there is an alternative to deportation camps on taxpayer dollar. ICE has a procedure in place that utilizes electronic and physical monitoring, like a crimoanl on parole; anle braceletm, can still work and live at hime and continue to have taxes withheld from income, and check in with a monitoring agent (i.e. parole officer) at designated intervals. ICE's own records say this has a 98% success rate; once the immigrant has been determined to not be a flight risk and is released on electronic monitoring, 98% of the time they do show up 5 years later for the court proceeding, and this can be done at a budgeted cost of $13 per day as opposed to $141 per person per night for a deportation camp. That $13 can even be deductd from the monitored person's own wages, taking them off taxpayer responsibility altogether.
6. It's prison. Maybe make it like boot camp? Up at 5. Eat at 7. morning activity... including cooking and cleaning and laundry, lunch at noon, afternoon activity.. dinner at 5.... taps at 9 repeat. They can't be detained beyond 8 weeks and are deported if their story/papers don't clear by then.
What you're describing there sounds like heaven. Remember I spent 3 years in ICE custody-one in prison while waiting for space to open at a deportation camp, then 2 at a privately-run deportation camp before I finally found my adoption record and they let me go. The privately-run camp was worse than the prison. The Supreme Court has decreed that ICE needs to let detainees go after 6 months, but this is regularly missed--after you spend 6 months at 1 site they can simply move you to another camp and start the countdown all over again. ICE has unlimited power to load you onto a plane in the middle of the night and ship you across the country to another camp without informing local authorities. They have to file a flight plan but are not required to tell anyone there are people on this plane. It's for 'national security reasons'. I keep thinking one day one of those planes will go down and authorities are going to be shocked to find bodies on a supposedly empty Homeland Security flight...
'If their story/papers don't clear by then." You're running under the assumption that ICE/DHS investigates claims of citizenship. They don't. YOU are guilty of being illegal until YOU prove you're innocent--and you have to prove that from behind bars. Let's take me for example, I was living in upstate New York and transferred to a deportation camp in TX. There is little access to lawyers and being that far from everything familiar there were no friends, etc. to help. If you want to make a phone call you have to work around the deportation camp for $1 a day. one days work gets you an envelope, one day is a pen, one day a pad of writing paper, one day a stamp. Take a letter still open to a guard, let them read it and check it for 'factuality and relevance', and if it looks okay and you're not complaining in the letter, they'll put a stamp on it and let it get sent out. A phone call is $10 for 5 minutes. At that rate, do you wonder why it took 3 years for me to write letters to every courthouse in 3 states trying to figure out where my adoption paper was filed so I could get a copy? ALL ICE had to do was ask the military for Dad's records--Dad was in the Army and I was listed as his dependent on all the paperwork and had to prove relationship in order to live on base housing.
Again they cannot legally work so no daylabor.
Yes, I could legally work, and so could a lot of the other undocumenteds in the camp with me. An adoption paper is not required to get work. I had a legally filed BC, had a legal SS card, DL, HS diploma.
9. If they can prove they are a citizen... SSN, ID, BC WITH fingerprint confirmation then let them go on their way. it IS that simple. If they are a "diplomat" they should be registered with the State Dept and Embassy.
Did you look up any of the cases I referenced in the above post?
Hans Keil, American Samoa:
Hans Joachim Keil was arrested in Dutton in September and accused of being an illegal alien. He was an official representative of Samoa, a current Member of Parliament and a prominent businessman with many family links. He had diverted to Missouri on the way home from trade talks in Brussels where he represented Samoa. “They were going to lock me up for five years plus five years. Five years for impersonating a US citizen and five years for using an illegal US passport. They said that I’m an illegal alien and I have no right to be in the United States. They knew I was a Samoan diplomat but they had no regard for my diplomatic passport.”
Lack of proper training of immigration inspectors resulted in their mistaken conclusion that Sharon McKnight’s passport was fraudulent. McKnight spent eight days in Jamaica before returning to New York. While there, her luggage, containing all her money, was stolen. Airport workers contributed money so she could reach family members. Once there, her mother flew to Jamaica from New York to take her case to the US consulate in Kingston. With the help of Rep. Michael Forbes (D-NY), consulate officials determined that the passport and birth certificate, which immigration officials had declared fraudulent, were in fact real, and established McKnight’s US citizenship.
Mr. George Ibarra, 46, was born in Mexico but was raised since infancy in Arizona. In his late 20s he enlisted in the Marines and served three years on active duty, including time in Iraq, before being honorably discharged. On February 23, 2011 Department of Justice adjudicator Richard Phelps ruled in Eloy, Arizona that George Ibarra had by a preponderance of the evidence proven that he is indeed a citizen of the United States. Rather than apologize to Mr. Ibarra for previously wrongfully detaining him, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) is holding Mr. Ibarra in solitary confinement at the Eloy Detention Center, in clear violation of the U.S. Constitution and a memorandum requiring Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) to release anyone with "probative evidence" of U.S. citizenship.
The issue here is that ICE refuses to acknowledge the legality of presented documentation seemingly at random and at will.
10. No issue there. There are already legal paths that cover those things. The person being detained needs to provide valid contact information. ICE cannot read minds and contrary to some beliefs the USA does not have a family tree and address of every person on the planet.
The legal paths my cover it but immigration officials DO NOT ALWAYS notify relatives even when they have that information available:
In California, relatives of Walter Rodriguez-Castro, 28, said they were rebuffed when they tried to find out why his calls had stopped coming from the Kern County Jail in Bakersfield in April 2006. Then in June, his wife went to his scheduled hearing in San Francisco's immigration court and learned that he had been dead for many weeks, his body unclaimed in the county morgue.
The coroner found that Mr. Rodriguez-Castro, a mover from El Salvador in the country illegally, had died of undiagnosed meningitis and H.I.V., after days complaining of fever, stiff neck and vomiting. The cause of death on the government's list: "unresponsive." Immigration authorities said on Friday that the case was now under review, but would not answer questions about it or other deaths on the list. Sgt. Ed Komin, a spokesman for the jail, said the death had been promptly reported to immigration officials, who were responsible for notifying families.
Note ICE was responsible for notification and didn't.This isn't an isolated case, either, it happens over and over. No medical care and when someone dies relatives or legal family are not notified. There is no accountability. I saw it firsthand at the deportation camp I was in.
The easy solution is a Guest Worker Program. Under such a program, workers with clean criminal records would be eligible to work in the US for 6 months out of every year. They would pay income taxes and all other taxes that an American would, except Social Security/Medicare taxes. The employer contribution for these payroll taxes would be paid to the worker instead. The employer would have to purchase Workmens' Compensation Insurance, just as with any other worker. But, in order to keep working here for 6 months out of the year, the employee would have to return home for six months. No exceptions. And entry preference would be given to previous Guest Workers. Guest Workers would be required to have valid Intternational Drivers' Licenses and car insurance if necessary and to obey all other normal requirements. Any crime other than something like a speeding ticket would end the Guest Worker priviledge.
Put a Guest Worker Program in place and then crack down hard on employers whop violate the rules. Few people seem to realize that when ICE raids an employer such as Armour Meats or Moe's, the company is fined. But then the government refunds the employer portion of payroll taxes and even workmens' compensation insurance premiums, usually actually paying the crooked employer more than the amount of the fine. This sort of thing has to be stopped.
And putting troops on the border is a stupid idea. There is not way we will tolerate a 14-16 times increase in the size of the military so that we could guard our borders. The tax increase alone would be horrendous. Even countries like Iran and Israel who think that they guard every inch of their borders are eaten up with smugglers. The troops can't stop the drugs and they won't stop illegal immigration.
And I would add to the story that in Alabama, the two headline arrests under the new law have been executives from Germany in Tuscaloosa and Japan in Pell City who were arrested because they did not possess the required documents. This has raides quite a stink amoung foreign auto monufacturers and the Chinese are currently re-evaluating putting an auto plant north of Mobile because of "the hostile work environment in Alabama." Alabama has already spent close to a million dollars in the project and while the Chinese are unlikely to withdraw, they are likely to ask for more subsidies and concessions to go forward.
Amanda, while I have sympathy for your story, the one thing that snuck thru was that your adoptive family did not do the basic responsible things they should have with regard to your adoption paperwork. (0r, evidently, to giving YOU the tools you would need in the future, by being open and honest.)
NONE of your problems should have BEEN problems, if you had had access to legally filed adoption paperwork.
ICE does have its flaws. NOT the least of them is the number of vulture lawyers who make a living off of illegals by dragging our legal system out as long as possible (with billable hours, of course) to avoid LEGAL deportations.
MoMaid said:
Amanda, while I have sympathy for your story, the one thing that snuck thru was that your adoptive family did not do the basic responsible things they should have with regard to your adoption paperwork. (0r, evidently, to giving YOU the tools you would need in the future, by being open and honest.)
My adoptive family did everything they were supposed to as regards my paperwork. I came here legally, was legally adopted, all paperwork was legally filed. I'm not absolving them of blame, I do wish they had told me, but this is not entirely their fault. The only thing they DIDN'T do was to tell me I was adopted, which was common practice at that time. A lot of people from my generation weren't told they were adopted because the prevailing opinion at the time was that if the child knew they were adopted that might cause emotional/mental problems later from 'being unwanted'.
Do YOU know if you were adopted? Do you know you were actually born here? My birth certificate, SS number, DL, and every scrap of paper I ever had, plus my parents, told me I was. And I wasn't.
It is customary, in an adoption, that once the adoption decree is signed by a judge and filed with a court, a birth certificate is then issued with the adoptive parents' names on it plus the name of the child who has been adopted. This applies whether the child is adopted domestically or internationally. Once the birth certificate is issued with the adoptive parents names on it it becomes a legal birth certificate valid for everything a birth certificate is valid for.
USCIS had the legally filed birth certificate with my parents names on it; that was indisputable. So the birth certificate itself IS proof that an adoption record WAS filed somewhere. And, in fact, when I finally did track down my adoption paper it was filed in the same jurisdiction that my BC was issued--USCIS DID verify my BC but never bothered to check for the adoption decree. That was left for me to find--from behind bars.
ICE does have its flaws. NOT the least of them is the number of vulture lawyers who make a living off of illegals by dragging our legal system out as long as possible (with billable hours, of course) to avoid LEGAL deportations.
The lawyers are NOT the ones dragging out the deportation process. Please don't make statements like that if you can't verify them. I spent three years in a deportation camp, do you have any idea how many lawyers I saw? Zip. Here's what actually takes so long:
Please keep in mind the camp I was in had 1,500 people.
Laywers visiting hours were restricted to five hours a day four days a week. There were four interview rooms and you and your lawyer had to either wait in line for one of those four rooms or talk in the hallway, which many do. However, standing in the hallway talking means that your communication with your lawyer is not privileged; anything you say can and will be used against you later. Your cell/living area has voice recording working 24/7, everything you say is recorded with or without your consent. Only communications in the interview rooms are private.
Immigration judges held court proceedings for four days out of the month--four hours a day (10AM-2PM, with an hour for lunch) two days a week (Mon and Thu) two weeks out of the month. Since ICE has virtually unlimited power to ship you to a different facility at will without notifying local authorities and the also don't have a realtime tracking system to keep track of where they send people, a judge can call a case, no one stands up, judge marks the person as a noshow and only after court is over does he/she find out that the person whose case was just called was transferred to another camp a week ago. Since the judge sees you in the order of your arrival in the camp, people can wait for as long as one to five years in order to get a hearing in front of the judge, get transferred out to a different camp a week or even days before their hearings, and then have to wait again for 'their turn' at the new camp. Currently there are 260 facilities across the country and you can be flown to any one o f them without notice at any time.
ICE does not keep track, the movements are for various reasons such as 'overcrowding' or 'disruptive'. If you complain that your neighbor is being raped at night by the camp chaplain, you can be sent to solitary or simply shipped to a different camp to silence the rumors. This is particularly evident in the privately run camp as opposed to a government-run or leased facility. Within the government run facility there is some accountability and inspections/visits to be sure that humane conditions are being maintained. In a privately-run facility there is no accountability and government inspectors are rarely allowed in; they are completely autonomous. Complaints about guard abuses goes to the guard supervisor and stop there, they are rarely, if ever, reported to the facility warden and in the rare case that it is it is in the interests of the corporation runing the facility to keep such complaints quiet from the government. Which is why all mail, even lawyers letters, are opened and read before being given to the detainee and why detainees letters are read before being sent and phone calls are taped without consent from either the detainee or the citizen they are calling.
EDIT/DELETE: Accidental double post
amanda... I thought I recognized your name.... The long sob story right out of the RHETORIC pamphlets attempting to make ALL illegals legal. How many, percentage, of the 11 - 13 plus million do you think are here legally? Overstaying a visa is ILLEGAL. Just like an unwanted guest in your home or at a hotel. When the visa expires GO HOME. If you are LEGAL then you have a SSN that belongs to YOU not borrowed from someone else. Having a HS diploma or any education paperwork has zero to do with making one legal or illegal.
Again ICE is only REQUIRED to to notify the foreign embassy of the status of those in their custody. If they did that and the embassy dropped the ball then put the blame where it belongs.
As to boot camp being heaven... how many of those in custody would feel safe mingling with the other detainees?
Detainees are in JAIL. Of course all communications are monitored. As to communications with lawyers.... If the letter is address to a lawyer I doubt very much if those letters are read. If it is not identified as lawyer communication and ADDRESSED to said lawyers address of practice then it isn't privileged communication.
cute story... sounds like the Catholic Priests from your home country. Provide documentation of ACTUAL happenings not rumors and hearsay.
The only reason those jobs pay low is because the illegals have been doing them for so long. Take away the people who will work for that pay and the pay will go up. But it may also drive prices up to increased labor costs. But whenever I hear this will cost x, and this will create x amount of jobs I know it is a bunch of bs. People who deal with numbers and spreadsheets rarely ever see the connection to reality. If it is on the spreadsheet it must be so. Not likely. How about waiting until the full effect of the law has come in, like a full year. Then start counting dollars and cents. That will give a true amount not an estimate not based in reality.
Another good way is to look at what has happened in those states that passed these laws over a year ago. It has been economically detrimental to those states and the proof was out there before Alabama jumped on the wagon. I'm waiting until spring to see how the planting goes and then wait and look at how the harvest goes. I doubt that Alabama's pudding will prove to be any different than Arizona's.
This sort of thing will never work until it's universal. Why would Wal-mart buy its produce from Alabama, where it's more expensive, when it can buy the same stuff from Georgia for less because they have cheap labor? These anti-illegal immigrant labor laws need to be applied everywhere before you can expect any real change.
The Left-wing-bat Libs Never tire of making up "studies" which suit their Whacko Liberal Left Slant...There is Never Any Gain without some Pain....I Do NOT care if there IS some short-term losses for booting the ILLEGALS
O-U-T...It IS the LAW, if you Don't like it, And Enjoy Lawlessness, then Move on Down messico way ...!!!
rked Really? You don't think both sides don't do this? Whether it be whacko right or whacko left wing both produce the studies and the stats to prove their own agenda. I prefer the non-whacko members of the two of the party, these are the ones that actually make sense you can reason with debate with and don't hold the party line because they are told to, oh and don't watch FOX!
Oh I agree if you want to come to the US to live do it legally and above the law. Be the type of person the US wants and that will pay their taxes and be an asset.
Sometimes racism has a cost. The KKK lost their headquarters in a law suit. The southern college sports began to lose before they agreed to integrate. Now this law, which in addition to possibly being unconstitutional, is based on bias and meanness. The Republicans continually enforce this issue by going after the workers instead of taking any reasonable steps to enforce the laws that prohibit employers from hiring illegals.
It's mean to enforce the law? Maybe its mean to make people work for less than minimum wage at backbreaking jobs because they don't have a choice.
What planet are you from? The KKK? Republicans?? It is only unconstitutional when before a liberal Judge or some whacked out kid skipping school don97524.
why is nobody going after the @!$%#s hiring illegals?
It is against the law to hire illegals and it would be much easier and much cheaper to enforce those laws because there are far fewer employers than illegal workers and the employers are very easy to find. However, Republicans don't hate employers nearly as much as they hate Mexicans, so they pass law to arrest the workers even though it is much more difficult and expensive to enforce. Racism does have a cost.
Yes, and why were they interested in the legal status of students? I'm pretty sure that if employers were activiely prevented from hiring undocumented workers, the undocumented worker will go elsewhere and take the children with them. It is racially motivated and biased.
E-Verify, First offense Ten thousand per head to the Employer, Second offense One hundred thousand per head, One year in Prison, I do not think there would be a Third? But in Case someone is that stupid Two hundred and Fifty thousand, Five years in Prison and the business is Closed, Look at the penalty for Copying a DVD, This is More than Reasonable?
eVerify is not perfect. One of my coworker's mothers was deported back to Germany 2 days before Christmas this year as an 'illegal' and yet she passed eVerify at work. And at her previous work. She was a USC for the last 50+ years of her life until Dec when ICE declared her illegal.
So if a person passes eVerify but ICE changes their mind and declares them illegal later, does the employer still get the fine? And does the fine carry on down the line to second-most-recent employer even if that employee no longer works there and WAS legal the entire time they worked for the employer?
Not everyone ICE designates as 'illegal' actually is illegal. 'illegal' is an arbitrary designation that ICE can apply at random and ignore court rulings seemingly at will:
When Angela Boneva, a 34 year old went to renew her passport in 2003, the State Department told her she was no longer a citizen. Boneva's father was born in Indiana, and the US consulate in Bulgaria gave her U.S. citizenship while she was growing up in Bulgaria in 1981.The State Department said that an employee at the consulate broke a rule that required her father to have lived in the U.S. for 10 years before she was born, the Tribune reported. Her father had only lived in the U.S. for six years before his parents moved to Bulgaria.
The fact remains that her father was born here. That DOES make her a citizen by blood.
The son of a decorated Vietnam veteran, Hector Veloz is a U.S. citizen, but in 2007 immigration officials mistook him for an illegal immigrant and locked him in an Arizona prison for 13 months. Veloz had to prove his citizenship from behind bars. An aunt helped him track down his father's birth certificate and his own, his parents' marriage certificate, his father's school, military and Social Security records. After nine months, a judge determined that he was a citizen, but immigration authorities appealed the decision. He was detained for five more months before he found legal help and a judge ordered his case dropped.
Hector proved he was a citizen and ICE still continued to hold him.
In violation of a federal immigration judge's order, ICE officials placed plaintiff Victoriano Lorenso Jeronimo in shackles and illegally deported him to Guatemala before the court could rule on his application for political asylum in the United States. Lorenso Jeronimo had fled Guatemala in 1982 after the Guatemalan army accused indigenous villagers of being guerrilla sympathizers, massacred the villagers, and burned their homes.
He came here legally. He filed a request for political asylum. An immigration judge ordered that he be allowed to remain until they had a final ruling but ICE ignored that ruling and deported him anyway.
There is a very fine line between being 'legal' and 'illegal' and oftentimes its purely arbitrary. What are you going to do when HR3166 goes into effect and the government starts stripping citizenship from everyone who speaks out against anything that runs counter to the interests of the US or any of its allies?
Funny how Northern states did not historically rely on migrant labor and were still able to make profits. Here's a little free advice to those Alabam farmers: don't be so effing cheap, invest in machinery. Every farmer worth his salt knows not to put all your eggs in one basket. Welcome to the 21st century.
According to what I read there are a few lucrative crops that simply can't be harvested by machine, like tomoatoes, because the machines bruise the fruit and render them more susceptible to spoilage before they reac the grocery store.
Well we are not talking corn and soy beans here sir. You have to remember that below the Mason Dixon line other crops you enjoy are grown. But we do have the big green tractors for the simple rotations crops. I think they are having the same issues in California. Crops that need to be hand picked that is.
Cotton used to be handpicked too, but someone came up with a better way. Even if you "need" to handpick crops, how about paying minimum wage? And don't give me that crap about it makes the crop too expensive. If that is the case, then it seems that people have been counting on exploitation of labor and now have to pay the piper, so to speak. If the market cannot bear what you have to charge, you plant a different crop. Being a farmer, no matter the location, does not give you the right to encourage people to break the law and then exploit them because they are afraid of being turned in.
Maybe the farmers of AL need to use the Detroit automakers' model of solving production and labour issues: export half of jobs and production to Mexico. The remainder in country get federal bailouts to keep you alfoat. Design and make a quality product for a year or two, then go back to designing total crap like the Big 3 did and charge outrageous prices while lobbying to keep tariffs high on imports. Worked for 4 decades for Detroit.
Glock,
isn't that what they are doing now? The jobs are being done by Mexicans, and the farmers collect federal subsidies.
Illegal Immigrants lost 80,000 jobs.
Legal immigrants from around the world just found 80,000 jobs.
Money lost to Alabama: NONE
Money now being taxed with legitamate social security numbers: Money from those 80,000 jobs.
Money going "south of the border": NADA!
STOP SPREADING LA RAZA PROPAGANDA!
Bullfighter said:
Illegal Immigrants lost 80,000 jobs.
Actually I believe after the law was passed legal immigrants also left, so some of those 80,000 jobs that you say 'illegal immigrants' lost were also lost by hardworking citizens, green card holders and migrant workers.
Money lost to Alabama: NONE
I believe there was a Chinse company who was looking at potentially building a plant that makes copper wire for all sorts of industrial uses, and since the work didn't require a degree it would have been a boon to AL's middle and lower-income people. After the fiasco with the Mercedes executive they decided not to build their new factory in AL and I believe at last report were looking at Detroit instead, so yes, that's money for lease of the land that won't be coming to AL, business permits, building permits, and business licenses that won't be coming to AL, plus the revenue for electricians licenses, and trucking licenses to bring in the raw construction materials to build the plant, as well as export and trade tariffs from the sale and export of the finished product.
Money now being taxed with legitamate social security numbers: Money from those 80,000 jobs.
Since some of those workers that left were in fact legal residents, the state is no longer receiving those taxes, as well as those with ITIN numbers that green card holders and permanent residents are assigned in order to have taxes withheld. And since, from the general tone of this article, it sounds like many of those jobs remain empty, then 'money from those 80,000 jobs' is not being taxed because there is no person working from whom to withold said taxes.
Money going "south of the border": NADA!
I'm sure there are still drug dealers, users, buyers and sellers still in AL. Can you say for absolute certain that NONE of the drugs used there ARE from Mexico or South America, and all the cocaine, marijuana and other controlled/illegal substances are ALL HOMEGROWN? If you cannot say that, then you can't make this generalized statement.
Also--some US manufacturers have moved their plants down to Mexico, because labor is cheaper and they see that Stabilizing Mexico's economy could help, in the long run, to stabilize immigration since, if there are American employers willing to pay American rates in Mexico, there is no need for someone to pack up his family and try to sneak in. Raw materials are cheaper there also. So when you say 'no money from AL is going south of the border', there is no way to verify that statement.
Mexico is full of people crossing the border and they will keep coming to the United states.. We are having more kids than White people and blacks.. just get used to us being here in the united states because we are taking Over. we farm better than most white folks thats why we make money here and send it to our loved ones that we left behind in mexico..
way to go breeders! so scary that so many w/low intellect are reproducing! As a white person i preferred to be called an American - wait! A Legal American! the illegal mexicans in America are raping and pillaging their way across it. It is truly sad that our own government could care less! Beware though, one day things could change for all illegal mexicans here in the United States of America - NOT the United States of mexico
Right on.
Now the Alabama taxpayers will not have to pay for their medical bills, education, free lunch programs, get their rental houses destroyed, and their automobile insurance may go down as a result of less hit and runs. The wages paid to U.S. citizens will balance out to what they should be at in fields such as construction.
Many hidden costs of harboring the illegals may never even come to light. All I know is they are not supposed to be here.
Hidden Costs. Example, I live in a small town in the Midwest. Our school budget has been cut and many programs and classes gone for good. BUT The board has had to hire EXTRA Spanish speaking teachers and purchase Spanish textbooks. Reason a student that does not understand English does not get the quality Education they deserve! No child left behind clause. This is not a one time cost its every year now. We need to follow Alabamas lead!
Average IQ rose 25% when illegal immigrants leave an area!
Are you writing in past tense or present tense. Maybe your IQ should be questioned. Or, to put it your way, maybe we should have question your IQ. Also, with reagrd to your earlier post, do you really think that illegals are the only immigrants sending money accross the border?
Ted Kennedy, LA RAZA's mouthpiece, proudly claimed that 48 BILLION DOLLARS was sent back annually to Latin America by those proud illegal immigrants.
In what lunatic asylum did anyone learn that sending 48 billion dollars out of the US is a good thing for America?
Bull$hitter
You are correct sir! However in Alabama it only went up 1% (apparently you are still there?)
It can be proved that these invaders ruin the educational systems in the US. All American students must wait for the teacher to s-l-o-w-l-y explain the instructions to every lesson, over....and....over.
When these foreigners graduate high school in their Mexican overrun community, they are ready to attend an American 5th grade class in the neighborhoods still controlled by loyal Americans.
that is not where the dollars are lost. Medical is the biggest looser followed by justice. as a tace.x payer we asorb the costs. not fair. send them all back or line them up and use them for t practi
Cost of educating and Feeding their phuc trophies are not helping either?
USCitizen:
Calling children 'phuc trophies' is horribly rude!!!!! They are people and children!!!!!
Amanda he meant anchor baby's. It seems we are the only country in the world that allows this.
There is one thing the article did not mention which cannot be assigned a monetary value. That would be the sense of pride that Alabamians can take in having actually done something to take out the trash in their state.
These are people, not trash!
da doc, you are rude.
da doc-Only in Alabama would they have a sense of pride in being complete idiots! But what the heck, they can't look any more stupid than they already are!
we work hard for min wage ... with 10000.00 dollars you can buy a mansion in mexico
Jaime Valle
For an additional $10,000, you can get bullet proof glass and armor plating for your home there.
Why does Latin America smell like a toilet??? Don't they have air fresheners????
The state's politicians utterly missed the point. The immigrants' jobs were theirs by default because the state's residents didn't want them and were reluctant to do them, even in hard times.
SP4, "The immigrants' jobs were theirs by default because the state's residents didn't want them and were reluctant to do them, even in hard times".
If that's true it's just proof that all the social programs (handouts) have created a generation of non-working parasites that will eventually suck the system dry. LBJ would be soooo proud to see what he created.
Jobs "vacated" cost nothing, the workers are replaced with Americans, they actually gain dollars from those jobs.
80,000 fewer criminals, 80,000 fewer welfare cases, trials, thousands of fewer kids in schools, millions in medical costs for moochers who simply wander out of the hospital and never pay a dime,SAVED.
Getting rid of 80,000 criminals will cost nothing,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,supporters of crime and drug trafficking are simply trying to put a dollar value on the loss of their partners in CRIME.
The true cost of removing 80,000 criminals from Alabama? Unemployment DROPPED 2% since the law took effect.
Imagine the benefit to the nation if 11,000,000 criminals departed tomorrow.
paidmyfee-Are you really that stupid too? (Obviously you're from Alabama)-sorry to pee in your Cheerios pal, but the jobs that were left vacant were NOT filled, so YOUR state buget will not get the taxes from any of the jobs. By the way, everything your "illegals" bought was taxed too (oops I guess we cut offf our nose to spite our face?), so take those funds out too. I love how illiterates call everyone who is not here legally "criminals", "welfare cases" and "moochers", when they probably don't even know what the words mean. Really, did anyone in Alabama finish High School? By the ones responding here, I seriously doubt it.
Reading further on the matter, you will find that 2011 Christmas hiring and Mercedes, Honda, and Hyundai auto production callbacks accounted for the slight drop. It is not due city residents taking agri-jobs to earn $2/ box of picking tomatoes. The GOP are so out of touch.
It is good to see that 2% is considered a slight drop.
Illegal immigrants are in FACT criminals. Hence the word "illegal".
I know the average democrat cannot actually comprehend words, but I will try and help you.
Section 1325 in Title 8 of the United States Code, "Improper entry of alien", provides for a fine, imprisonment, or both for any immigrant who:[47]
The maximum prison term is 6 months for the first offense and 2 years for any subsequent offense. In addition to the above criminal fines and penalties, civil fines may also be imposed.
Notice only the 80,000 jobs vacated were mentioned. What about the 240,000 people that left and took the strain off of the system?
That went down when the illegals left.. we have a few extra want some of them? It was about 15% like yours is now.
It's a sad day that the only complaint that scared white people in Alabama have about a blatantly unconstitutional law... Is that it costs money.
Toasty- We are talking Alabama here, so don't start using those fancy 16 letter words cause they will have to run to the outhouse to look it up in the Dictionary/toilet paper book! If you use small words and write them big, they might be able to understand.
lots of black folks in alabama too
...but lets just keep this to a immigration thing....and not a racist thing, okay ?
Meh, good point, Hugh...
@Hugh. You have a small mind. Do your parents know that you are on the computer again?
Simple message. If you're illegal - leave now!
No matter what sympathizer's say with their bogus analyses, the times are changing, and you better be legal.
Must feel uncomfortable to be white with the ever increasing number of LEGAL HISPANICS in America.
No matter what legislation gets passed, one cannot argue with population growth....I do believe that the soon to be "minority whites" need to start now with learning how to get along with non-whites.
Several states ALREADY FACE THIS SITUATION....the southern end of California, Arizona,New Mexico and Texas speaks more SPANISH than English and everywhere you look you see brown skinned Americans.
Bigoted and racist whites are in for a bad ride.
Iheard, no one has any problem with LEGAL any race. It's the illegals that we want to get rid of.
The FBI arrests 100 Italians in NY for Mafia connections. That's called Justice.
Police stop an Hispanic/Muslim and ask for legal Identification. That's called racial profiling.
I'm sure that Rep. "Bubba" Hammon know more about the market than U of A Prof. Addy does, not. That said, the State of Al. did lose alot of money, of all kinds, because of this law ask almost any farmer that needed crops brought in that.
One good thing, when illegals are deported out of Alabama, back to their home country, there is no downgrading in living accomadations !
It's called self-deportation by the GOP elite. Other states absorb them.
For the story to be justified, How much has been saved on the handouts we give to the illegals. How much did we save on housing, food, medical and schooling their brats. No to slave wages and no to illegals. Time for this bleeding hearth @!$%# to go away. I do not see food getting cheaper, so who is raping us.
I have no idea what the costs are, but I can state unequivocally that if the FEDERAL GOVERNMENT had been DOING THEIR JOB and controlling the BORDER for the last thirty years, you know, since Reagan gave amnesty to about 8,000,000 people, the cost would be ZERO!!
In WW2, the SW borders were not secure either. It predates the invention of television.
First we have politicians disputing scientific factual information. Now we have politicians disputing economic factual information. I guess politicians will dispute anything that doesn't square with there baseless ideologies.
Exactly, these are the "I believe people" whatever they believe is true.
I love how liberals are anti-corporation except when it fits into their agenda, like it does in this case. Big farming = big business = the only ones benefitting from illegal slave labor. Oh Noes, the poor farming industry actually has to pay a living wage, the horror!
Sorry, but you forgot about that humans who lost their jobs and were chased out of the state by the threat of incagement. I hope the Alabama police state continues to cripple your economy.
BTW, just because this "study" was done at a university, doesnt automatically make it scripture or something.
LOL, if it were "scripture" then we'd know it was total bs.
Sorry, but I live in Alabama and this guy is wrong. Home grown Alabamians are NOT happy to take crop picking jobs and brick laying jobs that require long days in extreme heat that pay below what minimum wage is. I see it everyday. It just shows how out of touch with reality these republicans are on these issues.
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The law is just starting and this guy makes a lot of very broad assumptions that condemn it. What he doesn't realise is that the Federal Government knows well how many illegal aliens are in the fields, and they put that number at 13% of the population. So 77% of the people in the fields are American Citizens and 13% are illegal aliens. Oooh. Doesn't sound like he knows much about any of it.
Excuse me but brick laying and many of the blue collar jobs do pay taxes when they are not in the hands of illegals. That spells lost revenues and lost jobs to citizens. As far as crops being picked, they are picked by LEGAL alians who come to the usa yearly to pick crops. This has nothing to do with illegals.
Joel you seem to be out of touch with the fact democratic people dont like illegals sucking the little bit of life this nation has left after the rediculous spending spree the last two presidents dumped on this nation.
Isn't it about time we put the citizens and legal immigrants first in this nation and stop suporting job sucking illegals. This nation has no duty to illegals and every duty to its legal residents.
During hard times many illegals have been sent home and we are and will be in much harder times with this goofy spending because every tax is a roll down cost to every person in the usa.
We the citizens and LEGAL residents need our valuble resourses.
sandyshores, I agree with you. I used to do work comp. defense work in FL. Most of the claimants were illegals. They had claims for injuries all over the place and it is perfectly legal, under our laws, for them to collect work comp. if they're illegal. What made me boil over was in preparing deposition summaries, case analyses, etc., that the attitude of so many of them is right in your face like ha ha ha - there's nothing you can do about it sucker. These transcripts are accurate and I haven't gotten the facts screwed because these illegal work comp. claimants are always provided with a Spanish translator whether at a depo or a doctor visit. They are not all berry pickers, most do roofing, construction, concrete and stucco work and many are landscapers. The construction jobs generally pay $1.00 an hour less than an American citizen would be paid and that's why they get the jobs. All the money goes home to Mexico, Guatemala, Ecuador or wherever. It costs $7.00 to wire a paycheck to Mexico from the Walmart in Tampa Bay FL. They live in apts about ten men to a unit, taking up all the parking spaces, and live like ants in an ant farm with no furniture. They don't spend money here - they take our jobs, send the money home and that's that. They are parasites and blood suckers, that's all and seem to think it's funny.
I wouldn't lay bricks for less than minimum wage either.