stevekolt said:
My big stumbling block aside from the illegal status itself, is the lack of desire to assimilate as our parents and grand-parents did. This "press 1 for English" nonsense has got to stop If I ever decided to emigrate to another country, I would learn the language they speak, and not expect others to comform to my desires. Why is this so difficult to understand by so many? Why is there any question as to whether English should be our "official" language? And to have a Senate leader call this a racist idea is truly beyond the pale...
steve,
When it comes to business, you meet the customers on their terms. If you want to blow off a large number of potential clientel, try your english only strategy. I live in Miami and at least 70% of the population here speaks spanish. I meet my customers on their level. Spanish is a second official language here. This decision was made based upon the percentage of spanish speakers that are here... and HERE LEGALLY.
While I don't believe that government officials should be hired because they are bi-lingual, that fact of the matter is that many are hired just based on the population distribution.
If you want to blame society's ills on a certain group, there are plenty of groups to lay the blame on. Look back upon what happened after hurricane Katrina. There was plenty of looking, rape, and murder going on afterwards. What about the cities where the Katrina refugees were evacuated to? I'm sure they saw a spike in their crime rates. What percentage of those people are illegal? What percentage of those people were on welfare? Those people do have rights however, and they cost tax payers plenty of money. If the estimates are tight about the number of illegals in the US, 11 million is just a drop in the bucket. Sure, there may be a greater concentration closer to the border but overall, they make up less than .25% of the entier population.
I'm not saying that all illegal workers are good hard working people. I just want to clarify that not all of them are criminals.
MeekAndMild said:
That is a subset of the "Tragedy of the Commons", and the only way to stop it is to enforce laws against the hiring, with jail time and heavy fines. Well not the only way, but the only legal way.
Now here is a guy that makes sense. If there are no jobs available because enforcement is so strict, then the motivating factor for crossing the border is eliminated. I am also for securing the border, but not shooting people like animals. There has to be a better way, and that way is allow illegal workers a way to work legally, and then return to their countries.