A Mexican Border Wall.. what are your thoughts?

Discussion in 'Free Speech Alley' started by locoguano, May 26, 2006.

  1. red55

    red55 curmudgeon Staff Member

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    Oh, no?

    You just made a broad sweeping statement, which you didn't back up with facts. You simply challenged us to go prove you wrong. If you have some point to make about education, then make it, back it up with some evidence, and let us draw some conclusions for you to consider.

    I've been advocating legal foreigh workers and immigrants all along, did you forget?

    Look, in a commodities market, everything sells at the prevailing rate. If US producers raise prices over that they can not sell product! and they will go out of business. What way to pick it cheaper? Tell us.

    Technology is being used everywhere it can be. Harvesting grain is almost totally automated. But picking fruit is different, a decision has to be made on every fruit as to ripeness and they must be handled gently. Machines cannot do that. You talk about invention. What invention? Do you know of some technology that will replace fruit pickers? You can get rich if you do! Some awfully smart and well-funded researchers work on it every day. But farmers will go out of business if they wait on pipe dreams.

    Now you are raving, JS, give me a break. SHow me where I mentioned NAFTA! Now you are trying to say that I advocate NAFTA. Well I never did and you are making it up. I have been talking about immigration.

    And they are working at MacDonalds and Wal-Mart where there are plenty of jobs for them. But they are just not interested in picking fruit or being hotel maids. Too much like pickin' cotton or servin' massa and most can do better. The agricultural laborer segment are largely foreigners, both legal and illegal. I just want them all to be legal.

    Not far, how far are you removed from reality? Let's can the cheap shots and get back to the debate.

    Well, cite some of them and maybe you will influence my position. Broad sweeping statement, you know. :yelwink2:

    You seem to be focused on "high-tech". What I'm saying is that Americans are educated and skilled and not available for agricultural and domestic labor because we have the lowest unemployement in many years in this country. Not all jobs are high tech, but they do require literate people with marketable skills and ambition. Skilled Americans all have jobs already, JS.

    If we force the Mexicans to go through legal channels to get the work we can have our cake and eat it too. Secure borders and affordable, competitive agricultural labor.
     
  2. saltyone

    saltyone So Mote It Be

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    You were saying.....


    http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,198029,00.html

    half way down, video section, under "don't ask, don't tell"
     
  3. red55

    red55 curmudgeon Staff Member

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    I was saying what the video said . . . that Bill Clinton signed into federal law a provision which requires that federal housing be available only to legal residents and citizens. It is an interesting case though.

    Clearly this Massachusetts court ruling is at odds with federal law and Massachustetts legislators are working to eliminate this loophole,thank goodness.

    So, if your point is that some illegals can find a way to evade the laws and get public housing, I must agree. But I stand by my point that there are laws to prevent this and abuse isn't very widespread.

    Perhaps in addition to holding employers accountable for hiring illegals, we must also hold government employees accountable for following proper procedures. In this case a judge made a ruling on based on housing discrimination that eliminated questioning someone about immigration status. It should have been overtuned by higher courts as conflicting with the law.

    In Massachusetts, most hispanics are Puerto Ricans who are US citizens, not illegal Mexicans and some judge thought it was improper that they were being asked to prove citizenship just because they were Spanish speaking. I can understand protecting citizens, but not at the exense of breaking an public housing law to do it.

    Good link.
     
  4. Deceks7

    Deceks7 Founding Member

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    We need to hold the illegal aliens accountable for their own actions by providing public housing at places like USP Pollack for 90 days before deportation. Then they might understand that they are breaking the law.

    So many politicians want to be seen as compassionate, at least until the first terrorist attack comes across either border. Then everyone will pretend that they were always hardliners.
     
  5. TigerKid05

    TigerKid05 Say Whaa!?!?

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    We don’t need a wall; we need a fence, two actually that work together in a system.

    12 foot high fences with razor wire and welded steel mesh covering both sides. Another fence of the same kind will be 10 behind it and run parallel to the first. In the middle, no mans land, cover the ground with rows of steel razor wire. If they make it over that, then they won’t make it much farther.

    Then we'd have to watch for the tunnels. Some kind of smart land minds should do the trick.
    :thumb:
     
  6. red55

    red55 curmudgeon Staff Member

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    I have a better idea. Make them work for a year on a road gang swinging a blade for zero pay, three basic meals, and a cot in an un-airconditioned barracks in a prison camp. Cool-hand Luis.

    Even better, make then pick fruit for a year for US farmers, for zero pay, three basic meals, and a cot in an un-airconditioned barracks in a work farm camp.

    Then deport them and make them ineligible for any future legal work permit. A policy like this would discourage illegal entry and send the workers to the US consuls to apply for legal work permits.

    Putting them in a US Correctional facility like Hunt or Dixon with air conditioned dorms, television, good chow in clean cafeterias, gyms, sports teams, hobby rooms, a library, and medical care . . . would be a step up for many of these illegals fleeing poverty.

    Of course, Mexico would retaliate and any Americans found gulity of non-violent crimes in Mexico (speeding perhaps) could find themselves on a Mexican work farm for a year.
     
  7. Bengal Buddy

    Bengal Buddy Founding Member

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    You would never get support from such a scheme. Not from the politicians and not from the people. Most of the people coming across the border illegally are not criminals. They are just people trying to improve their lives. They have to be stopped of course, but by-and-large they are hard-working, decent people. Whatever means we use to stop illegal immigration has to take that fact into account. The end does not justify the means. I just don't think a fence would work. Fences can be cut. A 50-foot above-ground wall with a 20-foot underground extension and with a rounded top would work. Also there should be motion detectors on the U.S. side of the wall. That would solve the illegal immigration problem in an effective and humane way.
     
  8. Bengal Buddy

    Bengal Buddy Founding Member

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    We have a moat. It is called the Rio Grande.
     
  9. Bengal Buddy

    Bengal Buddy Founding Member

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    I am not suggesting that we don't need the Border Patrol. No system we can devise will be impervious. But such a wall as I have described will cut illegal immigration down to a manageable trickle.
     
  10. Bengal Buddy

    Bengal Buddy Founding Member

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    Up until 1875 there were no immigration laws and the United States had an open door policy. These two facts made them legal immigrants in any sense you want to use.
     

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