Why don't they just enter the country legally, then there would be no problems?
Why don't they just enter the country legally, then there would be no problems?
uhm, it's more fun that way?
Long process?
Lots of red tape?
Requires money?
They don't meet qualifications?
I'm sure there are more reasons.
For a cracked article this one actually gives a lot of insight into the process. So you want to be an American?
"All the problems we face in the United States today can be traced to an unenlightened immigration policy on the part of the American Indian."
-Pat Paulsen
"All the problems we face in the United States today can be traced to an unenlightened immigration policy on the part of the American Indian."
-Pat Paulsen
hahaha, win!
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Why don't they? Usually because they can't. We put a quota on the amount of people we'll give visas to as the United States. It isn't a very large number of visas either and depending on where your coming from it could be very easy or difficult to get.
Some currently illegal immigrants do enter legally and simply stay past the expiration of their visa that allows them to work here. College graduates who came over on now expired student visas and haven't left for example.
So all the illegal immigrants are here because they are forced to be here.
Sounds like you guys are saying there is no personal choice.
It's the systems fault, correct?
There is actually something of a deeper philosophical, or maybe economic, aspect here. In some sense we are involved in what amounts to 'The Second' Globalization. We had the first version between the onset of the Industrial Revolution and ending with World War One. In a great many ways that Globalization mirrors the one we are currently involved in. It saw unprecedented amounts of goods being moved world wide and on a great many matrices lines up with the current Globalization at least in a relative way. Some of the things we do today are huge compared to say what was being done in the 1950s but the things they started to do at the turn of the century where equally huge compared to what was being done prior to industrialization.
More concretely what I'm saying here is that if you look at something like percentage of British GDP in foreign investment you'll find some number, say 15% (pulled that out of my ass), If you went back to 1905 you'd actually find roughly the same number, foreign investment represented about the same percentage of GDP at the turn of the century, during the height of the first Globalization as it does today. Percentage of goods being exported will do the same thing. There are certainly exceptions, China, for example, is much more involved today then was true at the turn of the century but broadly speaking for much of the world the numbers more or less line up.
One of the interesting areas where these matrices do not, however, line up is in labour mobility. In fact they are not even close - labour mobility in around the turn of the century in any part of the world with expanding production was pretty much an order of magnitude higher then under current model.
This is particularly interesting in that we very much think of our societies as at least some what free market capitalist but in this aspect we simply are not following free market capitalism. In a free market labour is mobile - it can follow work or change locations in order to jump on opportunities elseware.
Now we fiddle with our free market capitalism in all sorts of areas and none of that necessarily really undermines the system but here we really are not in any sense 'fiddling' we've fundamentally taken an axe to one of the, maybe three, major support pillars of the philosophy of Free Market Capitalism and knocked it down.
We end up with goods that can travel anywhere and money/investment that can do likewise but labour cannot.
I'm not really taking a stance on whether this is good or bad but its definitely food for thought - especially if you consider yourself a free market capitalist.
Great Stuff
You should read Polonyi, who says that land, labor, and money can never be considered true commodities, but since Adam Smith, we've looked at all economies from the perspective of the market when certain economies don't have the same level of mobility and thus shouldn't be treated as such. Anyway, interesting turn the discussion's taking. I like it when people look at the systems that influence individuals' actions or restrict and define what can and can't be done instead of interpreting everything as a personal choice completely independent from a macrocosmic view.
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For a cracked article this one actually gives a lot of insight into the process. So you want to be an American?
My wife is a Naturalized Citizen. The funny thing--the article is 100% spot on.
I think that before we can be critical of the people who come here illegally we need to take a serious look at why it is so difficult to legally become a citizen.
It's not like having an insanely complex system is keeping people out, just not in the books.
For a cracked article this one actually gives a lot of insight into the process. So you want to be an American?My wife is a Naturalized Citizen. The funny thing--the article is 100% spot on.
The really funny thing - and by funny I mean terrible - is that all of that is the optimistic approach.
Becoming a citizen can take more then a decade in many cases.
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I think that before we can be critical of the people who come here illegally we need to take a serious look at why it is so difficult to legally become a citizen.
It's not like having an insanely complex system is keeping people out, just not in the books.
No, we don't. If they can't get in they can't get in. They want to jump a fence they can, but then they came in illegally, and thus are illegal immigrants.
Their country is harsh/terrible/etc? Not America's problem, sorry. As I've said before, we've tried to make changes in other countries before with disastrous results and people hate us for it.
Their plight is not an excuse to break the law of the country they are seeking asylum from.
I think that before we can be critical of the people who come here illegally we need to take a serious look at why it is so difficult to legally become a citizen.
It's not like having an insanely complex system is keeping people out, just not in the books.
No, we don't. If they can't get in they can't get in. They want to jump a fence they can, but then they came in illegally, and thus are illegal immigrants.
Their country is harsh/terrible/etc? Not America's problem, sorry. As I've said before, we've tried to make changes in other countries before with disastrous results and people hate us for it.
Their plight is not an excuse to break the law of the country they are seeking asylum from.
If someone wants to join out country, pay taxes, and earn all the other rights that we have, just by being born here, they should be able to without thousands of dollars and years of time.
So rather than make it easier for people to legally join us we make it near impossible. You don't think these people would prefer to be here legally? That they enjoy living under the constant threat of being torn from their friends and family?
If the system was simplified then all of the fines, fees, licenses, and other stuff that need to be paid could be cut down considerably. Not to mention speed up. Having a long arduous method of naturalization does not prevent illegal immigrants it prevents legals immigrants.
Their plight is not an excuse to break the law of the country they are seeking asylum from.I'll disagree a little here. If the law makes doing something legally impossible, then the law is the problem. The law once stated that alcohol was illegal. Once everyone saw how many problems a law like that caused it got changed.
However, even if the law gets changed we still wouldn't be letting in as many people as want to come here.
There is a very good reason we don't allow as many people here that just want to up and come here.
Some could be criminals in their former nation, or they may not have the job skills to be a productive citizen and therefor are a burden on their new counrty.We no longer need cheap muscle or uneducated farm workers or massive amounts of untrained labor. Our country needs more educated proffesionals like doctors,scientists and engineers not ditch diggers, crop pickers and lanscappers. I am in no way minumizing those or any other labor proffesion but we have a glut of that feild already adding more is silly and iresponsable.
The main thing I find funny about this is that there are some people who will never be satsified on either side, and that these are the people we hear the most from on this topic.
Are you calling me lukewarm, FHDM? :p
Great StuffYou should read Polonyi, who says that land, labor, and money can never be considered true commodities, but since Adam Smith, we've looked at all economies from the perspective of the market when certain economies don't have the same level of mobility and thus shouldn't be treated as such. Anyway, interesting turn the discussion's taking. I like it when people look at the systems that influence individuals' actions or restrict and define what can and can't be done instead of interpreting everything as a personal choice completely independent from a macrocosmic view.
Thanks for the kind words but you'll need to be more specific on which Polonyi your talking about - I put the name in Google but there is no clear 'this is the Polonyi' result.
Did you win yet?