The Immigration Protests

Originally Posted by gukarma

What you people don't understand is that legal immigration is fucking impossible to manage. There are caps of like 30,000 people per year, and the waiting time is approximately 15 or so years.

That's fucking ridiculous. What's the point of following a law an unjust law? When it comes to making the decision: "should I go to the United States illegally, or starve?"

In the face of starvation laws are of little importance.

Furthermore, these people are not breaking laws of the United States of America right NOW. If they are employed, their employers are. They may have broken American laws in the past by illegally trespassing the borders, but that is not relevant.

That is one of the most blatently false statements that I have heard/read in a while. My family is from Burkina Faso, and we immigrated to the US legally (as permanent residents with green cards) in 2000. This year we applied for citizenship. The waiting line is not 15 years as you seem to state with authority. We applied for and recieved our citizenship within the year. To state that illegal immigration is justified because of the backlog in the system is not only factually wrong, it breaks every legal tradition that the US has been following since its inception, namely the rule of law. You don't have the right to break any law on the books just because you don't agree with it. You follow it because it is the law. Period. Illegal immigrants broke the law, plain and simple, and should not be rewarded for their crime. I can't speak for other legal immigrants, but it makes me extremely angry to see these illegals walking around as if they're entitled to citizenship. Citizenship is a privelege, not a right, and for those who have not earned that right (by breaking the law to enter the country) to claim that they should be granted it is just absurd.

/rant

Jam it back in, in the dark.

Originally Posted by gukarma

I am not talking about citizenship (for which the most common way to apply takes 7 years, a sponsor, and a couple of tests of proficiency of both the language and american history). I am talking about LEAVING your country in the most common of ways to enter the US - through and i485. There is a cap (of either 33,000 or 55,000 if you are a special worker) per year for that, and the current waiting time in line is beyond a decade.

Also, the point is that there is no sense in following a ridiculous law. If you did, kudos to you. Some people prefer justice, though.

Are you then advocating that every citizen have the right to obey or disobey the law as they see fit? If I think that justice involves me killing you, should the government turn a blind eye? If you kill my brother, should I have the right to kill you in retaliation? A system of vigilante justice would never work. That's why we have the rule of law in America.

Originally Posted by gukarma

It is not relevant in a sense that criminalizes them, like night phoenix puts it. Do you want to make illegal immigrants felons?

Yes I do. They broke a law. They are criminals. They should not have the same rights, priveleges, and access to social services that legal immigrants like me have.

The fact that I immigrated to the US before becoming a citizen disproves your point. My point is that from my personal experience, there isn't a prohibitive barrier to coming to this country legally. It's the fact that Mexico is both a poor country and a neighbor to the US that allows Mexican citizens to feel that they have the right to enter the country for their own benefit whilst undocumented. This debate is not an anti-immigrant one; it's an anti illegal immigration movement. People seem to lose that perspective in the heat of the debate.

There's nowhere I can't reach.

Originally Posted by Igod82

Well God where u might not have had a problem because u could afford immigration, Do u think if people could easily do it and it was affordable they would risk their lives and pay a cyote thousands of dollars to do it - If it was so easy as u claim.

I guess that that's where a guest worker program fits in this debate. I'm not against people coming to this country to work, I'm against them doing it undocumented. It is a huge security risk to have a population of 10-12 million people that the government has absolutely no clue about. Many of them might actually be hard-working people trying to better their lives (albeit illegally) but what about the rest? We need a system of keeping tabs on them that doesn't involve giving them citizenship at any point, since they're criminals and we don't really want to be making citizens out of people with criminal records. That starts with a more secure border first, and then a guest worker program.

This thing is sticky, and I don't like it. I don't appreciate it.

Originally Posted by gukarma

Yes, that makes a lot of sense. However, this is what I have been arguing for since the beggining, and your airs were much more antagonistic a few posts ago. Change your mind?

I haven't changed my mind. I still think that those who came to this country illegally should be thrown out, no matter how long they've been here. However, for those still outside the country waiting to get in in order to work, a guest worker program would make the most sense.

I am a dolphin, do you want me on your body?

Originally Posted by Igod82

I dont not however believe that people here already should be made felons, they should be regestered and allowed to work.

So they should be rewarded with legal status because they were successfully able to break the law and evade capture? The number of analogies to this senseless argument are too numerous to even begin to mention.

How ya doing, buddy?

Originally Posted by gukarma

Even though I live around Boston there's sort of an anti-immigrant sentiment that goes around.

Is the sentiment anti-immigrant or anti-illegal immigrant, because there's a world of difference between the two. Any responsible citizen should be anti-illegal immigration.

How ya doing, buddy?

Originally Posted by gukarma

This is why, dumb fuck.

Have you read Crime and Punishment?

I have read Crime and Punishment, but I fail to see how it applies to this discussion. Please enlighten me.

FELIPE NO