legal & illegal immigration good or bad or both?

Question

I work construction,18 yrs ago getting $16.00 an hour, checked recently their now paying $12.00an hr.Something wrong here,Mexicans are good workers, but they really do hurt the wages here in the USA.they do take jobs americans want, they just brought down the wages so far nobody wants them.

legal and illegal both bring the wages down and still send their $$ back to mexico.

Answer 1

The problem isn't the people, it is the vast numbers of them. When it was 2.3 million, we gave a one time amnesty. We like them.

The problem is the services funded by our middle class, like education and health care, are already failing in our border states and states where illegals concentrate, because they were never meant to handle the many millions more of non-English speaking people who flooded in in the last twenty years.

The other problem is that their vast numbers drives down the 'living wage' that used to be a given twenty years ago.

I think our government should pressure theirs to put in universal education and at least our sort of minimal emergency health care in Mexico, if they want to seek any sort of North American Union approach, as they seem to be trying to do. Otherwise we will end up with all the poor of Mexico, and we can't afford them. Our own society will begin to reflect theirs in terms of class divisions and uneducated masses.

I am glad you framed the question as you do. Most of these people are nice people. It is just that our life boat is too small. I feel badly for them but we have gone further than we should have in letting them come here, already. Just look at the quality of our education, totally apart from the gangs and crime.

Answer 2

Immigration aside, although I do not support illegal immigration. Let's be realistic for a moment. In today's global economy, do you honestly believe that overly generous wages for skilled and semi-skilled labor will continue? Let's look at the American auto worker and his UAW package. Now there's an endangered species if ever there was one. Just this last week, GM offered a buyout of 35000 UAW jobs it could no longer support. High wages and inept management have destroyed the American auto industry. In it's present form, it is doubtful that it will ever regain the power and might it once had.

It just might be less destructive and less harmful for the US to bring it's wages back in line, than it would be to lose those jobs to China. Granted, China can't steal all of our work, but between them and the immigrants, they can if we don't wake up in this country and start figuring out ways to regain the upper hand.

Whatever happened to yankee ingenuity? I think it got washed away from those tears of self pity. What ever happened to picking yourself up by your boot straps and if need be, take that $12 per hour job? Hell, if it's the only one available, I'd take it. It's amazing how far $12 will go if we're not pissing it away on some stupid Hollywood movie, or sports club, or gas guzzling SUV.

We might be in a phase of re-tooling if we're to survive. Maybe we need to study the great generation and the sacrifices they made, to make this country strong. How badly do you think your as s would have been kicked in 1946 or 7, if you came home with a car made in Japan, or shoes made in China?

How often do you look at a label, to see where a product is made before you buy it? Well, my dear American, maybe it's time you started doing that and just maybe we can start re-gaining some of those lost jobs, if we buy American, first!

Answer 3

You can't group legal and illegal immigration together.

Immigration is something this country needs and it's up to our Government to decide what is the "right" amount of legal immigration to allow in order to keep the economy in order and to keep this country competitive on a global scale.

Illegal immigration is bad because there is no control over anything. Nobody knows how many people are here and wages get depressed beyond free market levels because employers get an oversupply of labor illegally.

With illegal labor getting such low wages they also can't afford to pay for other necessities such as health care and car insurance just to name a couple and they can't take care of themselves. As a result not only are your wages unfairly reduced but then your tax dollars also go to subsidize what the illegals can't pay for themselves. This insanity has to stop.

Answer 4

Illegal immigration is bad. Don't believe anyone when they say we can't deport them (12 million) all. We can if we take 1000 buses, with 56 seats, running 7 days a week. It would take 214 days. Legal immigration is OK provided that we don't favor unskilled/uneducated/unsuitable third world people who only become a drag on taxpayers. This country was Euro-centric and I believe we need to keep it that way when considering percentages of legal immigrants coming in.

Answer 5

Whether Congress wants to hear it or not, their tacit importation of under-the-table labor has hurt the people that work in the trades professionally, and it's time for more people in more states to get vocal on enforcement of standing labor laws in regards to the employment of persons in the United States illegally. Congress is fighting through its' own ethics problems, though, the problems they have also relate to under-the-table 'business', they have to clean their own House(and Senate) before they can really help the rest of the country, so it's up to individual citizens to take the issue up through their City Councils and make sure that the state labor boards are on top of the problem, and that local businesses are working together to end the unlawful practices that have been tolerated for too long.
Change begins at home, whether it's fuel prices or employment issues...

Answer 6

Lower wages reduce expense and allow products to be delivered to the consumer cheaper. That is good. Keep in mind that computer programmers who made $150K two years ago are scrambling for work since their jobs got shifted to China and India. It's all part of the capitalist system. Sorry to hear that it is taking money out of your pocket.

Illegal immigration is bad because they typically don't pay taxes for the infrastructure that they use. ( Health care, schools, etc.)

Answer 7

Illegal Immigration is a crime committed against the citizens of any country. The problem is not just the economic ramifications affecting prices and wages; it is the creation of a lower class of workers who have no status in the society. I can easily imagine several terrible consequences to our current situation.
1)These people are very much like the slaves of the centuries preceding our Civil War. They are cheap labor for which their employers need accept no responsibility for their long term welfare. The Labor laws, tax laws and civil rights laws just do not necessarily apply. These people aren’t really here, so they cannot be protected by the laws that govern the rest of us. I believe that the large companies who support this advance of cheaper labor are the villains who were slave owners in the past. Remember, there was nearly a hundred years of illegal slave trade before it finally ended. Many of the evils of bringing illegal slaves into America two hundred years ago are happening again on our southern border.
2)The power of legal immigration into this country is that of melding with our society and gaining all the rights and privileges of citizenship. Legal immigrants can become Americans. As such, they pay taxes, get educated or trained, participate in the society, and make a positive contribution to our nation as a whole. We are a nation of legal immigrants! Illegal immigrants – especially if they fail to learn our common language – are creating a new kind of poverty that will be very hard to deal with. They are creating a subculture of lower class unskilled labors. For them to truly become Americans, they will have to adopt our culture and our social structure.
3)The most important thing here is the language. We should not offer Spanish alternatives to business opportunities in this country. It encourages the maintenance of a lower class of people we cannot even communicate with effectively. Our country was founded in English. All of our historical documents laws and public debates are in English. To encourage people to avoid learning our language is to assure that they will never be equal to legitimate citizens. I will boycott any business that forces me to choose to use my own native language in my own country. We need to make English the official language of the country.
4)If people come into this country secretly and without any documentation, we cannot know who they are. How many of them are escaping criminals getting away from the authorities in their own countries? How many are foreign terrorists who intend to do us harm? How many bring infectious diseases with them? Illegal immigration is a matter of national security. It puts us all at risk. Not securing our borders is absolutely irresponsible. Our military should be in charge of securing our borders.

Answer 8

My mother is from Sweden,father from Germany, were immigrants here. I was born here.Legal immigration good for the U.S. It will help the country ,illegal immigration hurts.They eat up tax money from the residents of the U.S. gives to the goverment.Illegals don't pay back to us , they send it back home instead. This coutry was born on legal immigration
GOD BLESSS THE U.S.A.

Answer 9

agree with you on tht eddie. however, us Americans should know the difference between "quality" work and caca work. i recently had my house renovated, i hired an American owned construction company and sub-contractors. sure hiring mexicans you think will save you money because they charge so cheap, but because of poor quality you end up paying more for repair for their poor job. not to mention, they have no license and insurance to cover anything they destroy. so message to all Americans, hire only American owned companies and workers...you'll be glad you did.

Answer 10

Legal immigration = Good
Illegal immigration = very bad