Immigration Officers "reassigned on emergency basis" to deal with southern border

[Krikit 1,165]

Moving from AOS Process to General Immigration-Related Discussion.

[Jawaree 718]

ICE thake care of that IO adjudicates tee system

is already clooged I hope it does no affect others

the Embassies of these countries should step in

and help if not cit their visa quotas

[Krikit 1,165]

Post advocating violence has been removed. Any further such posts will result in administrative action being taken.

[Darnell 8,479]

Houston News Blurb mention CBP movement of personnel , not USCIS

and

there's an inspection today at the holding facility in San Antonio.

[OnMyWayID 1,489]

Don't people find it ironic that farmers (among other employers) in many states were asking DHS for authorization for higher and higher numbers of foreign workers at the same time as the President and Congress debated lengthening unemployment benefit qualification periods?

So farmers were looking for workers, there were a large number of unemployed Americans and legal residents, and yet Congress needed to consider whether unemployment benefits lasting up to 99 weeks in many states (that's almost 23 months or two years). Even unemployed Americans and legal residents didn't want to do these types of jobs and we wonder why there is a job market for illegals to fill.

No.. Not Ironic. A job for an illegal immigrant is not a job that was there waiting to be paid by someone receiving unemployment. Force those paying illegal immigrants to pay at least a minimum wage and do it legally and someone who has the legal right to work will apply. If nobody wants the job then they will have to raise wages to a point they do get people to apply. That's how you have a system that provides living wages as opposed to an extra tier where there are people living in huts making a dollar per hour so that the rest of us can get a box of cornflakes for 3.29 instead of 3.72..

Saying "no American wants this job" is not correct, saying "No American wants this job at 1.00 per hour" is correct and they shouldn't. The solution is not to get cheap labor, its to force the wages up and pass along the added costs to the consumer.

[2ndMessiah 184]

Here is an idea. Only an idea,and I am sure it will be picked apart.

Invite, arrange, bully, negotiate with those countries(with high illegal immigration numbers) to setup their own processing/Holding centers in the USA to process and repatriate their own citizens.Be responsible for the feeding, housing, care of their own. There will be oversight by US immigration to make sure people are returned. If the countries need resources(Building materials, laborers, Water, Sanitation etc) to build these holding centers they can buy them from the US. The US could sell food/clothing as well.

This is putting the capitalist/ Market economy to good use. A very American thing to do.

These cannot be the same as embassies, but remain on US territory.

[OnMyWayID 1,489]

Here is an idea. Only an idea,and I am sure it will be picked apart....

The three countries with the most immigrants coming over the border do have reps here that arrived a few weeks back to work on a solution.. Also around 300 million dollars was freed up and is being used in those three countries for anti-gang activities and also on advertising.. The advertising is being used to counter the rumors that smugglers have been spreading. The rumors being told by drug and people smugglers: Special treatment for women and children, a number of entry permits being given away everyday, and a general amnesty that will happen for anyone in the country.

That last one may end up being true as we all know..

to your point: I think it would be difficult to (in essence) send a bill to these countries for the costs incurred for returning their people until we pass laws so that we are not giving them a reason to come here.. Mainly by giving stiff stiff stiff penalties for those that hire illegals. Until we do that one simple thing I don't take anything the country does on immigration seriously.

Edited June 23, 2014 by OnMyWayID

[NYC10065 24]

No.. Not Ironic. A job for an illegal immigrant is not a job that was there waiting to be paid by someone receiving unemployment. Force those paying illegal immigrants to pay at least a minimum wage and do it legally and someone who has the legal right to work will apply. If nobody wants the job then they will have to raise wages to a point they do get people to apply. That's how you have a system that provides living wages as opposed to an extra tier where there are people living in huts making a dollar per hour so that the rest of us can get a box of cornflakes for 3.29 instead of 3.72..

Saying "no American wants this job" is not correct, saying "No American wants this job at 1.00 per hour" is correct and they shouldn't. The solution is not to get cheap labor, its to force the wages up and pass along the added costs to the consumer.

While what you claim may indeed be true for illegal workers, it isn't true to the guest worker program in the agricultural sector.

The H-2A visa program for temporary agricultural workers specifically calls for wages to be the same for foreign guest workers as they would be for American workers. So the notion that "no American wants this job at 1.00 per hour" isn't rooted in reality since in order for the agricultural sector to legally employ foreign temporary agricultural workers, they first have to offer those jobs to Americans and pay the prevailing wage rate which are generally based on the state or federal minimum wage depending on whichever of the two is higher. Only when no Americans are willing to do the job can they import foreign workers.

If the debate then flows to whether the state/federal statutory minimum wage is enough for the type of work being done, then that is a different issue altogether but what is clear is that when a farmer advertises work at the prevailing, legal rate of pay, and no American wants to do the job, then the issue becomes a labor market which has a clear demand for low skilled, low wage foreign workers.

While it would be nice to think that unemployed Americans would flock to menial, back breaking agricultural jobs for between $7.25 (federal minimum wage) and $9.32 (highest state minimum wage -- Washington State) per hour, the fact of the matter is that they won't.

Why else would Congress have to pass extensions to unemployment benefits to 99 weeks while the agricultural sector continued to request workers under the H-2A visa program? There would have been literally tens of thousands of unemployed American workers who did not want to work for $7.25-$9.32/hr doing agricultural work for a single legal temporary foreign agricultural worker to have been hired.

In any case, I take your point that illegal workers would not fall under minimum wage statutes but the program I cited was a legal program used by the agriculture sector which addresses the very concern you raised.

If anything, what is clear by what you have raised is the urgent need for immigration reform to regularize the status of the 11 million illegals already in the U.S. so that they are no longer able to undermine the wages of American workers. If those illegals were taken out from under the shadows and given some type of legal status, they would be subject to minimum wage statutes and do exactly what you are advocating.

P.S. Let me be clear that I am not advocating allowing illegals to jump the queue ahead of legal immigrants/applicants as they regularize. I think what has been proposed may not even be enough but there has to be a way to regularize 11 million people. Perhaps it means a combination of paying a significant fine, a "one-strike, you're out" condition which excludes anyone with a felony conviction from the program, a longer wait towards permanent residency and citizenship (so, something like:

1) immediate "regularization" for an illegal after they pay a large fine, pay back taxes and prove that they have no convictions into a type of "work authorization", then,

2) 5 years under the "regularized status" before they can apply for permanent residence during which time they cannot have been convicted of any crime and they have had to file income tax returns every single year, then,

2) 7 or 8 years as a permanent resident (vs 5 for those who entered legally) before they can apply for citizenship with the processing fee at least double or triple that paid by someone who entered legally

In other words -- no free ride, treat someone who entered illegally to a far different standard than someone who entered legally, impose a substantial fine and increased processing fees but at the same time provide the 11 million illegals already in the country with a tough but voluntary path towards regularization. Those who refuse to accept this tough but voluntary path are deemed to have volunteered to be deported and they're placed on a fast track process to get them out.

Edited June 23, 2014 by NYC10065

[thedude6752000 360]

1) immediate "regularization" for an illegal after they pay a large fine, pay back taxes and prove that they have no convictions into a type of "work authorization", then,

2) 5 years under the "regularized status" before they can apply for permanent residence during which time they cannot have been convicted of any crime and they have had to file income tax returns every single year, then,

2) 7 or 8 years as a permanent resident (vs 5 for those who entered legally) before they can apply for citizenship with the processing fee at least double or triple that paid by someone who entered legally

There are at least 10 million such people in the US right now. All of this tiresome bureaucracy will be done at the USCIS, and from what we know of them they're going to take the opportunity to beat K-1 and CR-1 applicants silly with wait times. People will be waiting 3 and 4 years for a spouse visa. I don't care how much they pay, it's not fair to let them live here while law-abiding citizens (id est the people for whom this government is run, not foreigners who broke our laws) like me suffer for years without their spouses and children. There is no amount of money you could pay me to make the pain I suffer every day go away. How would you deal with this?

Edited June 24, 2014 by thedude6752000

[Boiler 46,311]

Obama has ruled out mass deportations.

[NYC10065 24]

There are at least 10 million such people in the US right now. All of this tiresome bureaucracy will be done at the USCIS, and from what we know of them they're going to take the opportunity to beat K-1 and CR-1 applicants silly with wait times. People will be waiting 3 and 4 years for a spouse visa. I don't care how much they pay, it's not fair to let them live here while law-abiding citizens (id est the people for whom this government is run, not foreigners who broke our laws) like me suffer for years without their spouses and children. There is no amount of money you could pay me to make the pain I suffer every day go away. How would you deal with this?

I am totally with you but even if you decide to just deport these 11 million people, they will still have to get processed -- they are no two ways about it. And if you decide that deportation is the only option, you will need to mobilize what would likely be the largest law enforcement mission in history to find, catch and detain these people. I can guarantee you that Mitt Romney's position of "self-deportation" will never, ever happen.

The only way really is some form of regularization. I take your point entirely that resources used to process legal immigrations should not be diverted to process illegals. Furthermore, current wait times for legal immigration processing is hardly acceptable as it is but part of "fixing" the "broken" immigration system surely has to mean fixing the long waits legal immigrants have to suffer to get their loved ones to join them.

[Boiler 46,311]

How do you deal with all those people who will come in to do those jobs now available that Americans do not want to do?

[thedude6752000 360]

I am totally with you but even if you decide to just deport these 11 million people, they will still have to get processed -- they are no two ways about it. And if you decide that deportation is the only option, you will need to mobilize what would likely be the largest law enforcement mission in history to find, catch and detain these people. I can guarantee you that Mitt Romney's position of "self-deportation" will never, ever happen.

The only way really is some form of regularization. I take your point entirely that resources used to process legal immigrations should not be diverted to process illegals. Furthermore, current wait times for legal immigration processing is hardly acceptable as it is but part of "fixing" the "broken" immigration system surely has to mean fixing the long waits legal immigrants have to suffer to get their loved ones to join them.

1) ICE handles deportations, so deportations have 100% nothing to do with legal immigration processing times. This is one of the reason INS, which did handle both, was broken out into ICE and USCIS.

2)If the only way is "some form of regularization" how are we going to make sure this does not hurt legal immigrants? The Senate bill did not contain 1 word about US citizen family visas (it only took the cap off of LPR family visas, in effect taking away the 1 advantage USC's have in this system) and narry a word about ridiculous USCIS wait times or any way to resolve them. 1st step is to admit that there is a problem, ask any alcoholic.

3) "Self-deportation" could be achieved by implementing E-Verify, which we know works and is currently being held hostage to amnesty (and will be part of any final immigration deal anyway) and enforcing the hell out of it with spectacular fines (I would think in the neighborhood of 1-200,000 would suffice) for those who break labor and immigration laws in their hiring practices. It would become so hard to find work that the illegals would leave. We know that in bad economic times the flow across the border is negative, so this is 100% guaranteed to work. Why not take this path?

How do you deal with all those people who will come in to do those jobs now available that Americans do not want to do?

E-Verify coupled with a $100,000 fine and possible jail time for every violation. People will get so serious about documentation it will make your head spin.