perfidy

If I’m already here, paying no taxes

So stores will waive sales tax for you if you're an illegal immigrant? Cool! Time for me to become Hector Dominguez from Costa Rica!

And sales taxes, by themselves, equalize things entirely of course. The tax point remains valid. As to the insurance side of things, I don't think they're charging for that at the registers, and the doubling of my car insurance rates since I moved to TX is directly related to the illegals who don't insure. Honestly, Phil, it's a real problem, with real costs.

The fatal flaw in all of this is its utter toothlessness. Even if we were to end up with laws that said "do things the right way or we'll deport you, and ban your return", so what? We haven't been able to, and don't seem likely in the future to be able to control our borders. A small dent, at best.

The two year visa, while an otherwise great idea, suffers from the same enforcement problem.

And no, the answer isn't just to open the borders and let happen what may, notwithstanding the absurd protests by Mexicans who want our laws changed to suit their needs.

How John McCain destroyed his campaign and gives every Republican opponent an issue to bludgeon him with relentlessly until he is a bloody stain on the road.

Bragging about any bill named "McCain-Kennedy" won't get you very far in the Republican primaries.

One thing I haven't been able to understand on this issue is this:

It is impossible for law enforcement to round up x-million illegals, turn them over to ICE, and deport them, right? There are too many of them, and too few officers of every involved agency to deal with them?

But, those millions *can* be dealt with *solely* by ICE as they queue up to pay their fines and visa fees, and submit new identity, education, and health documents, and track who has renewed their new visa how many times? Oh, and take them at their good word that they have indeed been out of the country for the time required?

Riiiiiiiiiiiiiiiight.

With one exception, every immigration officer it has been my misfortune to deal with has been a miserable prick, hard pressed to process even a routine volume of apps (although to be fair, when you're only working about 18 days a month, it's hard to get things done).

So now those people are going to be flooded with several million new apps to deal with, plus new rules to implement in processing them?

No way.

If someone could tell me with conviction that this- be it a real fine, or arrest, or deportation, or something- is what you are in for if you live fraudulently in the country after this date, I would be much more amenable to this bill.

But without any kind of...ending, we're just going to have a few million more illegals here in the coming years, along with the ones who were already here and didn't fall for this bill.

Ever get the feeling you've been ripped off? [/lydon]

Geek,

Get out the good ole' 1040 EZ. Fill it out for someone who makes shit. They would still pay NO INCOME TAXES.

N,
I hadn't thought of that. Even though it has less to do with dodging the system than simply earning below whatever that threshold is for getting the Full Monty refund. But still, not paying.

Possibly wouldn't pay for health care either, although I'm not up on the rules for Medicaid.

OK, new rule for everybody: pay or get out.

I expect you would be following this story with some interest- have you seen any teeth in this bill?

As "legals", they'd pay no income taxes, though they would pay FICA and sales taxes. And they'd be "part of the system", rather than "in the shadows", so that's a plus, I guess.

They'd be huge net-consumers of services paid for by the rest of us, which is, of course, part of the American Way. Sure, we'd lose money as a society on most every one of the 12-30 million such immigrants in the first wave, but we'd make it up on volume.

Or">http://www2.nationalreview.com/dest/2007/05/21/lowskillimmigranttestimo… would we? Perhaps only after the first $2.5 trillion we flushed. That's trillion, with a "T".

I’m not sure that immigrants’ use of social services should necessarily be taken as something to weigh the overall good or bad of the compromise (or any immigration policy). Integrating any population, whether native or immigrant, requires programs and policies, and ultimately, spending. (Geek, you remember Peasants into Frenchment, don’t you--BTW, Eugen Weber died over the weekend).

However, I think that they value produced by new immigrants for American businesses tends vastly outweigh the social services that are consumed, particulary given that we live in a country that is not particularly generous in funding said services. France and Germany, two nations that fund full health care for citizens and residents, do not carry even as much of a burden as is predicted to come with this compromise (even though their populations are ‘darkening’wink.

Actually, federal income taxes and federal social services are themselves becoming less relevant. State and local taxes, from income and property, contribute more to the social services that most people consume. Moreover, state and local agencies provide those services. Given these shifts, illegal immigrants are already contributing because they cannot avoid either (rent contributing to the landlords’ property taxes). Any from federal to state agencies will deepen this trend. I doubt that the costs will add up that quickly.

On another point, Geek, you wonder if the compromise will make a “dent” in the illegal population. Yes, it can. Consider that most immigrants who come tend to be rather conservative, would rather not have an uncertain residency, and would rather avoid confrontations with immigration authorities, there is plenty incentive for them regularize their relationship with the government, be it as citizens or residents. The costs of being illegal can be quite high.

N,
Yes it- this proposed bill- *can* make a dent, but I just don't see it unless there is a plain downside to NOT obeying. Certainly, people would rather avoid tangling with the authorities- hey, that's all of us, right?-, but the howevermany-million illegals here now are living with that concern.

I mean, they've lived this long in the shadow of The Man; why pay thousands of dollars and have to leave, then wait for years, to come back and get the same job they already have? If it were me- well, I'm not sure I would do it. I just don't know if being able to live "openly", which they basically do already anyway, would be worth the costs. Unless, unless, there was language in there about what happens if you don't take this opportunity, which if it IS in there I haven't read about it. Btw what are the costs of being an illegal you were thinking of?

And you know, aside from the numbers any of us can cite about the burden or advantage of the population in question, I just want everyone who wants to be here, every immigrant, to have to have as much difficulty as I did with Lady Lethal. I want each of them to have to parse the relevant statutes themselves when they have questions, and not have an army of ACLU lawyers to file everything for them pro bono. I want all comers to run afoul of the IRS when they file a return with the wrong ID number, because IRS and INS don't tlak to each other. I want each of them to have to suffer to scratch together enough $$ to cover applications and other fees every time the relevant agency says "boo". And miss work to get it done. And several times, because the fucktards who run my regional office of The Agency Formerly Known as INS are so deeply, fundamentally challenged that they probably have to hire private contractors to help them put their fucking pants on in the morning because the button fly is beyond them.

So that's two rules now I want, governing immigration policy:

-Everybody pays
-Every immigrant gets the fuckaround by ICE

If those went into effect tomorrow, I'd be closing in on contented.

Lady Lethal and you have several advantage over illegal immigrants. First, it is unlikely that, because you are married and have a family, that anything will happen that will change her residency/immigration status. Indeed, because you married, the government was forced to consider her application for citizenship more seriously than almost all others. Second, the bureaucratic nonesense that you encounter is nothing compared to the treatment received by arrested illegal immigrants. Having no relationship to the government, bureaucratic agencies have little compulsion to observe human rights. If Lady Lethal, G-d forbid, were arrested for a felony, she would not encounter extreme deprivation to resources or contact with people on the outside. They could not even count on seeing family or an attorney when in jail--Lady Lethal would be able to do both. "[T]he fuckaround by ICE" would comparatively be paradise.

You make "living in the shadows" sound ideal when it is not. It is a state of constant anxiety, constant insecurity, and constant vulnerability. Having residency or citizenship would mean improved, guaranteed wages, access to police and courts, the ability to travel back home without a dangerous journey, being able to walk in public in front of the police, ... . There is nothing particularly profitable about being in the US illicitly, certainly when compared to being here legally.

N,
We're talking past each other on one point.

My contention is that illegals have, in fact, very little to fear from the gubmint. The cops don't have the authority to even ask about immigration status. Hell, if you ask somebody for ID before he votes, you're violating his human rights these days.

And reconsider the numbers. How can *millions*, perhaps a dozen million, perhaps more, work and live in a country where there is anything to fear from immigration agents? If there was a serious effort to impede the flow of illegal immigrants or capture and deport the ones here, how could there be so many of them?

I think it is easy for people to believe that the American government is omnipotent and omniscient, especially for those from corners of the world accustomed to living in fear from their local secret police. But in reality, the feds are incompetent at most things they do.

But now we're focused on a very small segment of the illegal population- that segment that gets arrested. I don't want to talk about them, because it surely is a small segment and we are in agreement that being arrested is awful.

What I'm focused on is not how people are treated after they're arrested, but how they're treated as applicants for a "z" visa or whatever they're going to call this (and related) programs. Because unless it's at least as hard for illegals to go through it as it is for people who were on the up-and-up from the start, it's not right.

But even more importantly, we are in agreement on the desired end-state: "residency or citizenship", with the guarantees and access that either brings, for people who want it. I think where we differ is on getting there from here.