Once again AFTER the election Deval Patrick wants to give ILLEGAL immigrants a discount on
going to college here in Massachusetts. Lets not forget that these ILLEGAL immigrants have gotten a free education for up to 12 years from the taxpayers, and that’s not enough?
not to mention the years of free food, housing, while they get paid cash for day laboror jobs and free healthcare..
I had not heard of this free food and housing; can you provide more information? (A reference, what percentage of undocumented aliens take advantage of this). Thanks much.
I also don’t think that the use of capital letters for ILLEGAL is entirely appropriate; this is not a crime in the sense that someone is directly harmed, but rather the breaking of a regulation — not unlike an ILLEGAL addition to a house that fails to conform with zoning, or an ILLEGAL noisy muffler or broken taillight, or an ILLEGAL unlicensed cat.
And please do note, we are talking about children, usually arriving when they are not old enough to drink, vote, drive, work, or even be charged with a crime as an adult. This is not bleeding-heart “think of the children”; in a legal sense, when the children come here, they cannot be held responsible, and we do not as a rule enforce hereditary punishments. If we don’t deport these families in the first few years, we’ve screwed up. It is not unlike entrapment.
I would also add, from the POV of national security, that the last thing you want is a class of people who are steeped in US culture from a young age, feeling like they have been deeply wronged by the US as a whole. If we fail to deport them quickly, we’ve screwed up. That’s a mistake that we can “correct” with a little forgiveness, that costs us very little.
David,
I think it is vert appropriate for me to put ILLEGALS in caps.
The liberal MSM tries to paint people against ILLEGALs as anti immigrant
which is the farthest from the truth.
I welcome all immigrants that come to this country by the rules.
My grandparents came here from Lithuania in 1917 to work, not to take advantage of taxpayers.
Obamas aunt has been getting a social security check of 700+/month for years
, even while under a deportation order. Living in a taxpayer subsidized apartment and getting food stamps. are you trying to tell me she is the one and only? I don’t need to do a statistical analysis to figure this one out.
Re: Immigration debate- I would recommend we focus on the misguided policy versus the individuals taking advantage of it. My world view is guided by the principle that people are largely motivated by self interest. So, it’s not a surprise to me people would like to come live in this country and take advantage of all it offers-i.e. safety, job opportunities, subsidized housing, food and yes healthcare.
I am also as outraged as Jim is at the governor’s idea and its timing. Here are a couple realities our governor and elected officials should grasp: A bipartisan commission has just reported we need to reduce the growth of entitlements or face insolvency. Locally, we face additional job losses in public sector as we endeavor to balance the budget. Now is hardly time to provide additional entitlements to a constituency who it may be argued have not paid into the system.
David, I appreciate your desire to see statistical evidence before you are swayed to the suggestion that illegal immigrants are receiving Section 8 and food stamps. I’d settle for an accurate number of the population of illegal residents. Is it 12 million or 20 million? In your desire to seek the “truth” through data analysis I might look at the population of residents who reside in this country under a grant of “asylum” and are collecting some form of aid. My gut tells me the President’s aunt is not the only noncitizen familiar with government handouts and the methods necessary for receiving them.
We should start our immigration reform by instituting the following:
1) Double/triple the fines on employers who flagrantly disregard current laws regarding hiring. I9 forms need to be properly filled out, reviewed annually and auditable.
2) Reinforce our borders.
3) National ID card
Deportation should and will be the order of last resort once we have removed the main incentive to be here – economic.
David,
The crime of being in this country ILLEGALLY is not victimless like having a faulty muffler.
The victims are every taxpayer. Maybe your finacially secure enough not feel it, but i’m not and I struggle to make ends meet.
But that $700+ Obama’s aunt is collecting from Soc Sec means that an American Citizen that has put into the system all there life won’t have it when they need it. Or an American Citizen homeless that could use that taxpayer funded apartment she lives in.
The victims are all around us.
The state of Massachusetts is facing a 2 billion dollar Def next year. Obama isn’t going to bail us out again and the rainy day fund is all but tapped out.
The basic stats (what percentage of the population here is illegal immigrants) is available on line. I don’t know that it is safe to assume that they all receive government aid; I really have no idea, and unless you can point me to where you learned that they do, I don’t think that you do, either.
As far as the emphasis on ILLEGAL, the law is the law. Traffic infractions, not just broken mufflers, true, contribute to car crashes, and those kill tens of thousands of people every year, about 3000 of them pedestrians. That’s an ILLEGAL activity that we not only (almost) all tolerate, we also (almost) all participate in, and it has real live victims.
I don’t think that it is clear-cut that undocumented workers represent a loss to us from a zero-sum equation. I have read, again and again (and now I owe you some links, surely) that they do provide a boost to the overall economy, and that in particular they tend to improve the funding of the social security system because the pay in but don’t (? is this actually true, including all amnesties etc?) collect.
Wikipedia’s somewhat interesting here:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economic_impact_of_illegal_immigrants_in_the_United_States#Wages_and_poverty
David-good article. You say there’s is no evidence “undocumented workers represent a loss to us from zero-sum equation” Here’s a quote from your article -“The Center for Immigration Studies reported in 2004: “Households headed by illegal aliens imposed more than $26.3 billion in costs on the federal government in 2002 and paid only $16 billion in taxes, creating a net fiscal deficit of almost $10.4 billion, or $2,700 per illegal household.”[11] Is CA’s impending insolvency starting to make sense? Large illegal alien population. More going out than coming in… What’s more, the article states that HS dropouts are absolutely harmed by the existence of “illegal” labor. Did you catch the Globe’s front page the other day? Lot’s of dropouts expected to enter the workforce… the only answer is-no amnesty, no handouts just opportunity…
Spencer, please don’t misquote me. “Not clear-cut” is not the same as “no”, and my point is that there is the possibility of increased economic activity resulting in a net benefit, in the same way that free trade among nations generally leads to a net overall economic benefit. There will always be a few losers, but the hand-wavy justification for why this is ok is that (1) more economic activity will generate other opportunities and (2) there is/should be enough of a social safety net (which the rest of us, benefitting from the improved economy, should be happy to fund) to help those who get the short end of the stick, whether from free trade or from “free” (undocumented, illegal) labor movement. That doesn’t change the fact that it is technically illegal (much like running a stop sign), but the point is that it is almost certainly zero sum, where they take, therefore we lose.
Some of the other articles quoted/referenced from the wikipedia page, discuss their contributions to social security, and the possible benefits from economic activity overall. There’s costs. There’s benefits. It’s not clear to me how they net out overall. It’s also not clear to me that the people most likely to be directly affected — low-skilled citizens competing with illegals for jobs — ought to be the ones to shoulder the costs, even if there is a net win for the overall economy.
California’s budget problems are mainly caused by their bizarro limits on raising taxes, and their subinflationary market-distorting property tax cap. Imagine if Prop 2.5 override required a 2/3 vote — they would never pass. Imagine if state income tax increases (necessary to get the money to pick up the costs that localities can no longer cover) required a 2/3 vote in the legislature. And imagine if Prop 2.5, were really a combination of Prop 2.0 (increase limit) and Prop 1.0 (tax rate cap). THAT is California’s budget problem.
ACK. “almost certainly NOT zero sum….”
David-sorry I did not mean to put words in your mouth. Perhaps a little overzealous in making my argument. Not trying to be too smarmy but it is interesting to observe you are now willing to overlook statistics to make your point…I don’t think you can have both ways. “A few losers” you say. The evidence is everywhere that our present immigration & welfare policies have created a dependancy that is not economically sustainable. This does not occur because a few people are taking advantage of a loop hole. A whole way of life has been created for immigrants and citizens alike. By “safety net” you don’t mean the President’s aunt or my middle class neighbor who bragged at a soccer game that she received $500 from FEMA for her soggy basement or my friend who received a million dollar severence and still collected unemployment for 2 years. Your explanation for the CA mess has no merit. There aren’t enough people paying taxes to make up for the people living off the public coffers.
How on earth can my explanation of the California mess have not merit? That’s their tax code; it’s strongly biased to drive down tax rates, and when taxes go down, the government has less money to do government stuff. Meanwhile, they pass a 3-strikes law that loads up their prisons with people who would not normally be there.
And I don’t think I’m overlooking statistics; look at that Wikipedia page, you get dueling statistics, and they’re unclear, because they blend legal and illegal immigrants. One cites a 7.4% wage cut for workers without a high school education, they other says that immigrant workers (both kinds) RAISE wages for the rest of us by 4%. I am not sure what to make of this, except that “those lacking a high school education”, is a minority of all workers, and 7.4% is not chickenfeed, but it’s not 20% either.
And what I conclude from this is, “how the heck are you so sure that this is THE PROBLEM that must be solved?” I don’t get it. Besides which, the rate at which we deport people is up since Obama was elected. This should increase your happiness, right?
And by safety net, I mean things like unemployment, which we’ve got (could be better), and if we had it, universal health care. If people lose their jobs, especially because of economic shifts resulting from trade-related treaties, these are the sort of things we ought to do to ensure that nobody loses much (presumably, we would never sign a treaty that was a net loss for the country as a whole.) The Europeans are better at this than we are.
And understand, I am happy to increase border security and severely ding employers who hire illegally. What I object to, is taking a kid who had no choice in whether to come here or not, who grew up here and soaked up our culture, and then, telling them that they should be punished for this.
Futile effort…we’ll agree to disagree. Bears repeating Re: CA -there aren’t enough people paying taxes to make up for the people living off the public coffers. You are right about one thing-the Europeans are better at this than we are-as Ireland goes, so does Portugal, then Spain and finally CA…
oops…almost forgot Greece…
It’s worth noting that if California merely required a legislative majority to raise taxes, they would have done so long ago, and would be in much better fiscal shape. Similarly, with a mere majority constraint, Massachusetts cities and towns vote overrides often enough; in California, with a 2/3 voter requirement, I don’t know if there has EVER been a Prop 13 override, even though the rate their property taxes can grow is capped even lower than ours.
The ironic thing is that according to the Massachusetts Taxpayers Foundation, admitting Mass high school graduates without regard to immigration status would make money for the state.
Will,
I’m not sure, that may be true. But what about the 12 years of free education, It cost cambridge 24k + per year per student.
I guess we should be glad Obamas Aunt was too old to have kids!
P.S. why is the time off by an hour? I posted this at 11:15pm
I think the time at the server where this website lives is different by an hour.