It's up to citizens of United States to stop illegal immigration

[natty bumppo 297]

Is the U.S. in danger of overpopulation?

check out how many states are bickering amongst themselves over water.

urban sprawl ... traffic ...

[rebeccajo 14]

Peejay -

Labels are relevant when people decide to lower the debate of the facts to the labeling. You don't want to be labeled 'xenophobe'. You believe your issues are better thought-out than that. Likewise I don't care to be called a 'pro-illegal advocate' when I believe the same about my issues.

Any concerns I have with limiting the current level of legal immigration have more to do with where we draw those lines. Do we institutue a point system? Do we stop allowing legal professionals from 'importing' their families? That is where I don't profess to have the answers, but where my concerns for human beings come into play.

Your Mr. Beck uses the image of gumballs in jar when he speaks of immigration levels, and that is compelling. What is the level of maximum population density for the US? Can someone - a credible independent source - give us that data? I'm not asking you to provide that for us. I'm saying that if there is such data, a government would be foolish to turn a blind eye to it. If maximum population density were nearing such levels in a nation, indeed native born segments of that society would probably find themselves under reproductive restrictions.

Let's go back to the "gumballs as people" example and the point that our infrastructure is over-taxed by too many of them. Just as Mr. Beck puts more gumballs in his jar because his population is increasing, he needs to set another jar beside it representing tax revenue. After all - if the gumballs can reproduce - the gumballs legally earning a living produce tax dollars which support the infrastructure.

I don't purport to have all the answers about illegal entrants to our nation. I certainly don't subscribe to a theory of lawlessness. But neither do I support rounding them all up and sending them all back home because (from a practical standpoint) I believe that effort would put far more of a drain on our treasury than the present cost of those abusing the system. I'm fairly certain you would counter that it's a price we must pay now to protect our future interests, and that argument is not without foundation. If our government puts into place an effective method of verifying legal work authorization (highlight 'effective) IMO then the flow of illegal entry that causes real infrastructure inequity should end. By inequity, I mean people not contributing tax dollars to the society from which they are benefitting.

I cannot, however, subscribe to arguments for limiting real legal immigration until someone can show me where the two gumball jars start to break open. That may, indeed, be a question better left to a Higher Power than any of us here.

[mawilson 2,133]

Totally. What will the next one be about? I'm on my fourth day of the flu, so I need more entertainment here.

Wow. Me too. Fourth day of the damn flu.

[Fandango 1,439]

Totally. What will the next one be about? I'm on my fourth day of the flu, so I need more entertainment here.

Wow. Me too. Fourth day of the damn flu.

Mid last night, I got shockingly bad pains in my stomach and back, mad crazy chills, a headache and 101 fever. Today I feel better than that, but not great by any standard!

Must be goin around

[Alex+R 0]

Totally. What will the next one be about? I'm on my fourth day of the flu, so I need more entertainment here.

Wow. Me too. Fourth day of the damn flu.

OMG is it stomach? Mine is stomach. There aren't supposed to be more than 3 days of stomach flu. I want to kill myself. I'm losing precious time for writing my master's thesis, first draft of which is due Jan 22. Gulp.

[peejay 327]

Peejay -

Labels are relevant when people decide to lower the debate of the facts to the labeling. You don't want to be labeled 'xenophobe'. You believe your issues are better thought-out than that. Likewise I don't care to be called a 'pro-illegal advocate' when I believe the same about my issues.

Any concerns I have with limiting the current level of legal immigration have more to do with where we draw those lines. Do we institutue a point system? Do we stop allowing legal professionals from 'importing' their families? That is where I don't profess to have the answers, but where my concerns for human beings come into play.

Your Mr. Beck uses the image of gumballs in jar when he speaks of immigration levels, and that is compelling. What is the level of maximum population density for the US? Can someone - a credible independent source - give us that data? I'm not asking you to provide that for us. I'm saying that if there is such data, a government would be foolish to turn a blind eye to it. If maximum population density were nearing such levels in a nation, indeed native born segments of that society would probably find themselves under reproductive restrictions.

Let's go back to the "gumballs as people" example and the point that our infrastructure is over-taxed by too many of them. Just as Mr. Beck puts more gumballs in his jar because his population is increasing, he needs to set another jar beside it representing tax revenue. After all - if the gumballs can reproduce - the gumballs legally earning a living produce tax dollars which support the infrastructure.

I don't purport to have all the answers about illegal entrants to our nation. I certainly don't subscribe to a theory of lawlessness. But neither do I support rounding them all up and sending them all back home because (from a practical standpoint) I believe that effort would put far more of a drain on our treasury than the present cost of those abusing the system. I'm fairly certain you would counter that it's a price we must pay now to protect our future interests, and that argument is not without foundation. If our government puts into place an effective method of verifying legal work authorization (highlight 'effective) IMO then the flow of illegal entry that causes real infrastructure inequity should end. By inequity, I mean people not contributing tax dollars to the society from which they are benefitting.

I cannot, however, subscribe to arguments for limiting real legal immigration until someone can show me where the two gumball jars start to break open. That may, indeed, be a question better left to a Higher Power than any of us here.

Yes...but as you add more people you must add more infrastructure. That costs money. More people may add more tax revenue, but they also use more services and need more infrastructure. You're not gaining anything. Your just magnifying the scale without actually getting ahead. You're just adding more people (which you then have to accomodate or fail to accomodate). And we are doing it on a huge scale by importing them through mass immigration, not through internal sources.

More people add more congestion, more sprawl, more pollution, use more resources, create more impact on the environment, etc., etc. The carrying capacity of the USA is not limitless. There are consequences. These are issues we create and exacerbate unnecessarily through mass immigration. In other words...doubling our population in 80 years primarily through self induced mass immigration makes existing problems worst and creates more problems that otherwise would not be there.

Of course it is great for the corporations that sell more toothpaste, cars, gasoline, beer, etc. and it grows the economy, but it is growing their economy...not mine or most American citizen's economy. Sure...more people are working to increase production, but we imported them and now we need to produce more to accomodate them. There was no labor shortage until their presence created it. The immigrants themselves and the corporations are the big winners. Everybody else is the loser because we have to endure the consequences listed in paragraph 2. Consequences we never volunteered for and are imposed on us.

As far as humanitarian issues, compassion, empathy, etc. I'm not a cold hard ####### and your points are well taken. By the grace of God go I. However, I do not believe mass immigration into the USA would even alleviate by a tiny fraction the world suffering or even reduce the magnitude of it. It won't even slow it down. Is it our obligation to save the world through mass immigration into the USA? We cannot possibly accomodate the entire world...so who would you save and who would you condemn? Is giving someone else a better life at the expense of our own a solution? Misery loves company?

I still do not see any compelling reason to add another 120 million people to our population in the next 43 years through continued mass immigration policies. As I said earlier...I'm not against immigration or immigrants, however it needs to be drastically reduced to more sane and sustainable levels. It certainly does not need to be increased. I do not believe continued mass immigration into the USA is necessary or desirable. It does not benefit most Americans while imposing present and future consequences upon us and our descendants. Why go there?

Read The Worst Hard Time: The Untold Story of Those Who Survived the Great American Dust Bowl by Timothy Egan to find out how foolish and blind eyed the US government has been.

Here is some more food for thought. I heard the links mentioned on CNN and found them insightful (especially the arguments against the 10 immigration myths/cliches) :

http://projectusa.org/popup/wealth_compare..._4_senators.php

http://projectusa.org/arguments/index.php

Edited January 7, 2008 by peejay

[Trumplestiltskin 5,791]

Totally. What will the next one be about? I'm on my fourth day of the flu, so I need more entertainment here.

Wow. Me too. Fourth day of the damn flu.

OMG is it stomach? Mine is stomach. There aren't supposed to be more than 3 days of stomach flu. I want to kill myself. I'm losing precious time for writing my master's thesis, first draft of which is due Jan 22. Gulp.

People have been out sick in my office. Crossing my fingers that I don't get it - I haven't had flu in 5 years and I'm just fine with that.

[one...two...tree 2,762]

Totally. What will the next one be about? I'm on my fourth day of the flu, so I need more entertainment here.

Wow. Me too. Fourth day of the damn flu.

OMG is it stomach? Mine is stomach. There aren't supposed to be more than 3 days of stomach flu. I want to kill myself. I'm losing precious time for writing my master's thesis, first draft of which is due Jan 22. Gulp.

People have been out sick in my office. Crossing my fingers that I don't get it - I haven't had flu in 5 years and I'm just fine with that.

There was a recent article that came out about an outbreak of a stomach flu that can be transmitted from keyboards and mouses. I'd recommend wiping yours down every morning or anytime they come in contact with someone else at work. Buy a can of Lysol spray and keep it at your desk.

[HAL 9000 96]

Peejay -

Labels are relevant when people decide to lower the debate of the facts to the labeling. You don't want to be labeled 'xenophobe'. You believe your issues are better thought-out than that. Likewise I don't care to be called a 'pro-illegal advocate' when I believe the same about my issues.

Any concerns I have with limiting the current level of legal immigration have more to do with where we draw those lines. Do we institutue a point system? Do we stop allowing legal professionals from 'importing' their families? That is where I don't profess to have the answers, but where my concerns for human beings come into play.

Your Mr. Beck uses the image of gumballs in jar when he speaks of immigration levels, and that is compelling. What is the level of maximum population density for the US? Can someone - a credible independent source - give us that data? I'm not asking you to provide that for us. I'm saying that if there is such data, a government would be foolish to turn a blind eye to it. If maximum population density were nearing such levels in a nation, indeed native born segments of that society would probably find themselves under reproductive restrictions.

Let's go back to the "gumballs as people" example and the point that our infrastructure is over-taxed by too many of them. Just as Mr. Beck puts more gumballs in his jar because his population is increasing, he needs to set another jar beside it representing tax revenue. After all - if the gumballs can reproduce - the gumballs legally earning a living produce tax dollars which support the infrastructure.

I don't purport to have all the answers about illegal entrants to our nation. I certainly don't subscribe to a theory of lawlessness. But neither do I support rounding them all up and sending them all back home because (from a practical standpoint) I believe that effort would put far more of a drain on our treasury than the present cost of those abusing the system. I'm fairly certain you would counter that it's a price we must pay now to protect our future interests, and that argument is not without foundation. If our government puts into place an effective method of verifying legal work authorization (highlight 'effective) IMO then the flow of illegal entry that causes real infrastructure inequity should end. By inequity, I mean people not contributing tax dollars to the society from which they are benefitting.

I cannot, however, subscribe to arguments for limiting real legal immigration until someone can show me where the two gumball jars start to break open. That may, indeed, be a question better left to a Higher Power than any of us here.

Yes...but as you add more people you must add more infrastructure. That costs money. More people may add more tax revenue, but they also use more services and need more infrastructure. You're not gaining anything. Your just magnifying the scale without actually getting ahead. You're just adding more people (which you then have to accomodate or fail to accomodate). And we are doing it on a huge scale by importing them through mass immigration, not through internal sources.

More people add more congestion, more sprawl, more pollution, use more resources, create more impact on the environment, etc., etc. The carrying capacity of the USA is not limitless. There are consequences. These are issues we create and exacerbate unnecessarily through mass immigration. In other words...doubling our population in 80 years primarily through self induced mass immigration makes existing problems worst and creates more problems that otherwise would not be there.

Of course it is great for the corporations that sell more toothpaste, cars, gasoline, beer, etc. and it grows the economy, but it is growing their economy...not mine or most American citizen's economy. Sure...more people are working to increase production, but we imported them and now we need to produce more to accomodate them. There was no labor shortage until their presence created it. The immigrants themselves and the corporations are the big winners. Everybody else is the loser because we have to endure the consequences listed in paragraph 2. Consequences we never volunteered for and are imposed on us.

As far as humanitarian issues, compassion, empathy, etc. I'm not a cold hard ####### and your points are well taken. By the grace of God go I. However, I do not believe mass immigration into the USA would even alleviate by a tiny fraction the world suffering or even reduce the magnitude of it. It won't even slow it down. Is it our obligation to save the world through mass immigration into the USA? We cannot possibly accomodate the entire world...so who would you save and who would you condemn? Is giving someone else a better life at the expense of our own a solution? Misery loves company?

I still do not see any compelling reason to add another 120 million people to our population in the next 43 years through continued mass immigration policies. As I said earlier...I'm not against immigration or immigrants, however it needs to be drastically reduced to more sane and sustainable levels. It certainly does not need to be increased. I do not believe continued mass immigration into the USA is necessary or desirable. It does not benefit most Americans while imposing present and future consequences upon us and our descendants. Why go there?

Read The Worst Hard Time: The Untold Story of Those Who Survived the Great American Dust Bowl by Timothy Egan to find out how foolish and blind eyed the US government has been.

Here is some more food for thought. I heard the links mentioned on CNN and found them insightful (especially the arguments against the 10 immigration myths/cliches) :

http://projectusa.org/popup/wealth_compare..._4_senators.php

http://projectusa.org/arguments/index.php

Now I think we could begin to fathom... even from the anti-immigrant logic that more people is more harmful in the plethora of ways you describe here (and surprisingly, ecologically, to my partial agreement on more points than none), how valuable it is to hit the complex issue that is immigration, either illegal or legal- to this country. Simply put, now does an isolationist logic think its way through to begin to see the honest and humanitarian interest vested in using the leadership, blessings, and resources of the US economy and political system in order to improve our fellow nations?

The answer, surprisingly, can be yes if we place people in power that would create changes to how we do business overseas so as not to divert individual economies into a mass flow towards our borders as it currently stands, as they'd concomitantly address the issue of penalizing domestic capitalism for fomenting the maintenance of illegal workers via lower-than-standard (and legal) employment conditions.

Once we get past our apathetic atitude towards our fellow nations, our labeled points of views that are counterproductive, and our limited oversimplification of a ver complicated issue that has many parties to both blame and responsibilize within our borders as well as beyond, then things will change in the realm of public opinion that at times can trigger political changes if the public sentiment beats some of the counterproductive and more ignorant circles that tend to fund lobbyists and interest groups that fund campaigns.

From the ecological perspective I tend to see it as a more global issue: the more Americans (legal and illegal) overconsuming natural resources, the more suffering spreads around the globe, and the worse it will be for all billions involved in the enterprise known as breathing our planet's air. Be it densely populated nations that consume much less than we do with only a third of their population density.

[Nessa 23]

what a success

[rebeccajo 14]

Peejay:

Thanks for the links.

As I mentioned earlier, I always look into the source of information. I followed the paper trail on yours. Interesting links, in order are:

ProjectUSA website 'About us' page:

http://projectusa.org/main/about.php

What ProjectUSA spends their money on:

http://projectusa.org/projects/index.php

ProjectUSA Top Ten Arguments:

http://www.projectusa.org/arguments/printer_arguments.html

The AILA (American Immigration Lawyers of America) April 8, 2004 Washington Update as linked from the website of Carl Shusterman, a prominent immigration attorney. Of particular interest is the Subcommittee Hearing report on pages 3 and 4.

http://www.shusterman.com/pdf/advocacy40804.pdf

The 'biography' of John Tanton:

http://rightweb.irc-online.org/profile/1360

[HAL 9000 96]

:thumbs:

[peejay 327]

Peejay:

Thanks for the links.

As I mentioned earlier, I always look into the source of information. I followed the paper trail on yours. Interesting links, in order are:

ProjectUSA website 'About us' page:

http://projectusa.org/main/about.php

What ProjectUSA spends their money on:

http://projectusa.org/projects/index.php

ProjectUSA Top Ten Arguments:

http://www.projectusa.org/arguments/printer_arguments.html

The AILA (American Immigration Lawyers of America) April 8, 2004 Washington Update as linked from the website of Carl Shusterman, a prominent immigration attorney. Of particular interest is the Subcommittee Hearing report on pages 3 and 4.

http://www.shusterman.com/pdf/advocacy40804.pdf

The 'biography' of John Tanton:

http://rightweb.irc-online.org/profile/1360

What is your point? I'm well aware of John Tanton, Roy Beck, Federation for American Immigration Reform, Center for Immigration Studies, NumbersUSA, and the AILA. I'm also an avid fan of Lou Dobbs. I agree with the Top Ten Arguements from ProjectUSA. So what?

I'm still waiting for you (or anyone else) to explain to me why we would need to add another 120+ million people to the US population in the next 43 years by staying the course on current mass immigration policy (legal and illegal)? We added 100 million from 1970 to 2007. I posted the 1996 graphs on page 2 in this thread showing the trends. Although I do not know the methodology used to calculate how much is attributed to the red and how much is attributed to the green in the Roy Beck graph...the total number of 303 million in 2007 is accurate for the projections made in 1996. We can't control the green, but should control the red. Unfortunately the other graph on page 2 of the thread shows not only the increase in legal immigration, but the contribution of illegal immigration to the number in recent years. Who knew that idiot Bush would embrace and enable illegal immigration as he did?

As I said earlier...why go there? Explain it to me. I see nothing that benefits the vast majority of America in mass immigration. There is a huge downside to it. I'm not anti-immigrant, but anti-over immigration. The numbers are way too high and the criteria for entry into the USA is anarchistic. A huge overhaul of the whole bloody mess is way past due. We are running a 21st Century country with 19th Century practices.

[rebeccajo 14]

Peejay...

If the flow of illegal immigration is stopped, your number during the next 43 years won't reach 120+ million.

So I'm not going to 'go there' with you regarding that number.

You may know who Tanton and Beck are. You may know what FAIR is.

Readers to this thread now have that information as well.

Let them form their own perceptions from that.

Edited January 8, 2008 by rebeccajo

[no name 1]

You assume we don't do our own research before forming opinions....