Honestly living in new Mexico I'd say it's pretty damn intrusive. Doubly so if you're competing with them for the lowest income job market which I am. Hell I'd take some of the cleaning jobs they have down here if it wasn't for the fact that they don't hire people who can actually demand minimum wage and I wouldn't be able to speak with my coworkers as the majority of them only speak spanish. Hell in area's of town you can't even communicate with people behind the counter in the majority of business's.

It does when people try to single out the United States as some kind of horrible country with no sympathy for others' plights. Anyway, I'm just repeating myself now, so whatever. If you think it's irrelevent, that's fine, but I believe I have now thoroughly explained myself on this point.

It's not that the employer is favoring hispanics over blacks. It's that he's favoring desperate illegal immigrants, who are willing to work for dirt cheap wages (i.e. below minimum wage), over everyone else. It makes sense why an employer would do this, as he wants to maximise his profits, but this is one central reason why illegal immigration is such a problem.

In any case, I think CetteHamsterLa's post illustrates this point far better than I can.

Egad. That is the first problem, finding a group to express it's concern over it does not a second point make. Illegal immigrants have driven the price for menial jobs below where it should be by law. It appears as though the efforts to legalize the illegals would be to address this. If they are legal, and documented, they should receive at least minimum wage. It's not a solution that many are happy with due to it's, passive, nature though. So really, the 'amnesty' proposed would address the issues regarding minimum wage, and the displacement of other working class people *IF* they find a way to make it work and curtail illegal immigration in favour of legal immigration. Then everyone can be happy aside from language issues, but that is something that the country has had in place for a long time. Sure it's effects have been less than pleasant in recent years with the Spanish vs. English communications issues, but if you don't adopt any official language(s), then everyone is going to consider themselves to have a freedom of language choice.

Double Post:
Yes you have. Thanks.

Duo, none of what you said makes any difference at all. In fact, it doesn't have any relevance to this topic at all. Get your mind out of the past, please. We live in a completely different world with completely different requirements and needs than 200+ years ago. The very idea that we should just let them come in because we destroyed the native american population 250-some years ago is preposterous and utterly ridiculous. Although I'm pretty sure congress would like it, considering some of the BS they've gone with in the past.

Night Phoenix summed up what your point is coming across as quite well.

Why? It's an actual example of a group of people who are frustrated over the situation caused by illegal immigration. Is CetteHamsterLa's personal experience with the minimum wage problem also invalidated because he is not a representative of everyone?

Anyway, whatever, if you don't like specific examples, fine. We'll stay on generalities only. We have minimum wage. Illegals will work for less than minimum wage, thereby undermining it. You seem to recognize this point, but have an answer for it, so I'll move on from here.

If all the illegals here now are given amnesty, don't you think that this would send a clear message to others that if they come here illegally, they will, given time, also be given the same reward?

I think that it would, and that's precisely the type of precedent that will encourage illegal immigration on an even greater scale than it is at now, not to mention encourage the use of future such amnesty programs to be put into effect.

Unless everyone in the US becomes bilingual (which would be nice, but let's be realistic, with the current education system, this just isn't feasible), I see the language gap to be a major problem when it comes to national unity.

The majority of illegal immigration to Australia orignates from Central Asia. Clearly a body of water is no problem, nor are other nations, as a buffer for this. And theres plenty of other welfare states in the Americas that would offer a far better free ride than America. If that's what they were after, that's where they'd go.

Mexicans leave Mexico and come to the US because they wan't to be American.

Looks like no one can answer this one.

What other country can millions of Mexicans get into with no kind of scrutiny whatsoever besides the United States?

Your argument fails because it ignores the fact that America's proximity and ease of entry into the country (illegally) is the primary reason why Mexicans come to America instead of someone else.

People almost always take the path of least resistance.

A body of water may not be a perfect barrier, but it makes it harder, especially as the body of water gets bigger. The distances between Australia and Indonesia make attempting to get in by boat more practical than for Mexicans to try to go to Australia illegally to cash in on the freer ride Australia offers over America.

Similarly, the Florida Channel doesn't deter people who really want to get out of Cuba, but the Atlantic and Pacific do inhibit Asians and Africans from trying to get into the U.S. illegally in numbers similar to those of Latin Americans.

Oh so collecting handouts isn't why they're coming to America? Thank you.

Of course sorry. Everyone is trying to come to America.

The free hand outs come in many forms; whether it is the free usage of our health care system, our police, our firemen, state and federally funded welfare programs, etc. It is all coming out of the American tax payer’s pocket and going into the hands of people who shouldn’t be here.

This is a huge problem here in Oregon. We have people coming here illegally and having as many children as they can, all of which are now receiving food stamps, free healthcare, and free schooling among other things. What makes it worse is that even when they do catch people who are illegally here (even on drug trafficking charges) they let them out on bail and give them a court date, HELLLO they aren't going to show up. On top of that Oregon's Governor has taken the idiotic stance that he refuses to let state Agencies check if the people receiving the states services or getting state ID are illegal (or even wanted for that matter) and it is bankrupting the state.

You can say there are no hand outs all you want, that doesn’t stop them from taking revenue from our system that the American public now has to make up for in the form of higher taxes. Sounds a lot like wealth distribution to me.

These examples do matter, and yeah, sucks to be CetteHamserLa. That kind of thing shouldn't happen, and it's the real problem with illegal immigrants working undercutting wages. It is a symptom of the issue, not another issue. This is the reason why I am against illegal immigration to begin with.

Well, that's the problem. And that's also the part that the proposed changes haven't addressed very well IMO. If legal immigration were made a more attractive option, there would no longer be a reason to do it illegally. To deal with the undercutting of wages it'd require a pretty watchful eye on employers, and that's something many don't seem to want (I'm all for going after those who are the ones undercutting wages illegally. It starts with the employers.)

If wages were raised back to where they need to be by law, and legal immigration were a more attractive (easier) option, why would they come illegally? This option however is quite passive, and is therefore immediately dismissed by many people.[/QUOTE]

I'm still not sure why this unity is all that important. I mean, is there a significant downside to having, for lack of a better term, Spanish states, as long as they still hold to the roughly accepted ideals of what it is the be American?

If it were officially a bilingual country, everyone wouldn't need to be bilingual. It'd only be relevant in some areas. And I don't see why improving the education system is beyond consideration either. ESL classes are pretty cheap and quick, and get a person enough language that they are able to get by in English. Shouldn't be too much of a reform to add SSL classes in those areas that would benifit. Sadly education is something that doesn't get nearly enough review and reform in every country I know of.

Making language(s) official would go a long way to even starting on the language issues.

ESL classes are admittedly a good idea but from what I've come to understand the ones in place are pretty ineffectual. Now admittedly I haven't been through the school system here so I'm lacking first hand experience. It's my fiancee that's from here but she's explained some basics of it anyway. Apparently as is they teach the classes with english trying to be pushed on them fo the first three years or so and then just kind of dump them in with everyone else after that regardless of progress. And when they come from a household/neighborhood that speaks entirely spanish that really doesn't cut it.

I mean hell I had that long in spanish when I was going through school and due to having no need to use it anywhere around me I admittedly ignored it and didn't learn a damn thing same thing for them. When you see no need for it and especially when your parents also see no need for it then something's not likely to be much of a priority. Then you add in the whole wealth distribution to school's making it so the area's where large numbers of spanish speakers live have much worse educations overall doubly so in the english department do to them almost universally being the lowest income area's.

I mean probably making sure everyone knows at least the basics of spanish and english from school is ideal but it's a whole other can of worms getting the school system to be even vaguely effective at it. Also think of how half assed it would be gone about in area's that see little need when even the places that desperately need it now have it completely fucked up.

Also that just may be New Mexico's problem with it but i have a hunch that in most area's with a high spanish speaking populations at least some of the same issues pop up.

I've been through the Boston ESL classes 7th and 8th grade, regular ed for high school. I got into a few prestigious colleges with full scholarships ($45,000 a year) and have a few freinds who went through the same system and are going to MIT, Harvard, and Yale.

By the same token, though, most of the people in my ESL classes are now house cleaners and painters.

So the real question there is are they house cleaners and painters who can speak enough english to be understood? If yes then I think we can conclude that Boston has it's shit together in this regard.

Yes, absolutely.

But not necesarily because our ESL classes are great. They came here when they were 12-15. They had it easy picking up the languages. Their parents don't speak a lick.

I will tell you about my mom though. She is a house cleaner, makes good money, actually. She can speak english just fine, but she panics very easily. That is, to say, she can understand everything, order a meal, go to the movies and get the gist of the movie, but she can get nercous and shut down and not understand anything anymore.

She's a fine citizen like that, I think.

The last I heard of the ESL (now known as ELL) program a couple of months ago was it was a complete failure here in Oregon. There was a report that stated a large percent of the students that came out of that program couldn't speak English and were in fact behind those that had full emersion English schooling. I’ll have to look for the news paper that I read it in.

When I was in high school I had classes with several students that had completed their ELL classes and were then put into regular classes. Several were Russian and a good number of others were Mexican. None of them could speak English beyond a few words, they normally only associated with others of their country, and I remember a lot of them just not showing up for class anymore because they didn’t understand what was going on and probably didn’t see a need to continue to waste their time.

On the other hand my fiancé went though the same classes, she now speak fluent English, can read and write at a college level, and is currently attending a University.

Also the age thing isn’t as telling as you might think. There is a janitor who works for a company that cleans the building I work in. This man is in his mid-50s and has been here less than 2 years from Russia. I’ve been here at this company almost a year and a half now. When I started the guy could only make very, very simple conversation and had never had any schooling English before coming here. Now however he understands English about as well as any 5 – 7 year old and is getting better every day. If an old man can do it by working hard, any of these other people can do it as well. What I do see is a lot of people who just don’t want to put forth the effort to try and learn the language.

I don't have that problem in my school, Gumby. Well, it's an Academy, so you can't really get away with not speaking proper English, I guess. But generally in my region, you're pretty much right. I see a vast amount of immigrants not putting forth the necessary effort and initiative to integrate into American society. I think we should make our forms and things so difficult that learning English is a pressing prerequisite. That'll make a great incentive to learn the language. Agreed?

Unity on general principles of language and culture is important in that it tends to overlap into other such ideals such as what it is to be American. Of course, I'm aware that some degrees of division already occur with the existence of culturally based communities (e.g. Chinatown, Little Tokyo, Little Italy, etc.), but these divisions are relatively small as they are contained to regions with cities, rather than taking over entire states. On a state level, I think major differences in ideology are a problem.

Actually, I agree with you here, in the sense that I think establishing English as the official language of the United States would be benefitial to taking a firmer stance in encouraging immigrants to adopt English.

Adopting two official languages, however, would be a problem unless the education system was significantly changed so that Spanish was taught right from kindergarden.

Given that the United States already seems to be relatively open to immigrants, just how open are we supposed to become? I think some people will not ever be satisfied until the United States has opened its borders to all.

I went to public school... It was also the poorest school in the district, which had the highest level of ELL students, had gang issues, drug problems, teachers sleeping with students, and 2100+ student body in a school designed to hold 1500. Our teachers are also paid some of the highest wages in the nation and we get the least for our tax dollars :/

Oh, that's fucked up. My school is really good on diversity. No one generally has problems with another's race or something. Although, I have to admit that we had a drug episode, but that's done and over with because the perp. got pwned... You gotta make your child really smart I guess.

I will say that people who wanna be in this country should be loyal to this country and carry our flag. While I'm not terribly patriotic personally, it's only logical from an immigration standpoint.

I also fully support making English the one and only official language of the country.

So, by making English the official language what do we gain? Do we no longer offer services in other languages, to people who might be trying to integrate into the society, but still aren't fluent enough in English? Are there penalties for speaking any other language in public?

Yes, the majority of people in this country speak English, but a huge minority speak another language as their first language. I, myself, speak more than just English, but it is my mother language. Look at Europe, it's hardly linguistically homogenous, but everyone functions normally. In fact most Europeans speak 2 or 3 languages, as a norm. It's not like Americans are incapable of this, it just seems that we have some disdain for anything foreign and it's related to some distorted sense of patriotism.

I'd say it's more likely lazyness and being used to not having to learn other languages as generally in the U.S. you can go a couple hundred miles in any direction and still be speaking the same language as everyone else. In Europe not so much so it's more it's much more important to their day to day lives to know several languages. I'd say outside of some border states it's completely unnecesary here.

And making it offical would make it much easier to force the issue where as at the moment people can still throw out the old "well it's not the offical language so we don't have to learn it" arguement. It'd if nothing else clear up a lot of the ambiguity about the issue.

So.. what about the large amount of illegal immigrants who use stolen Social Security numbers and other information to steal identities so they can get a job and work? You do need a SS number to get a job, right? Has anyone ever wondered how they get these? They buy them, steal them, borrow them, or use fake ones (which are sometimes real ones of either dead people or living people).

Then if you are one of those unlucky people who have had thier identity stolen alot of companies will not do anything about it. Since it's cheap labor and they are not going to want to get rid of it. It's also apparently pretty hard to clear your name and get rid of huge bills and taxes that get pinned on you when they go unpaid.

Plus, it's hard to know if someone else is using your SS number since Social Security wont tell you and it wont show up on your statement. You only find out when you suddenly get strange bills or get denied something like unemployment because you're already working (usually in a completely different state). A large amount of people have no idea they are sharing thier identity with someone else.

I know the blame can't be put completely on illegal immigrants because the people who have thier identities stolen probably didn't take care of it very well. Also, alot of illegal immigrants do it because they have to if they want to feed thier families or want to make a living. But it can't be denied that it's still a problem with illegal immigrants.

After reading the thread I now understand I've been wrong on many of the opinions I've held on this subject. But this part of the problem is pretty bad, dont you think? I also dont hear it talked about very much when it comes to illegal immigration..

Of the black market surrounding stolen identities, illegal immigrants are probably the least to blame. Do you think there'd be no market for SSNs without them? Come on, be reasonable. It's like saying that GFF's My Stuff is 'still a problem' with pirated goods; while technically true, it's near minute in the big picture.