Do you think that The United States should close their doors to imigration?

Question

Or, should only citizens of approved countries be allowed to apply for entrance. Do you think we'd be better off?

Tulipan6, your answer really doesn't make sense. Canada doesn't have problems with American imigrants, nor does the USA have problems with Canadian imigrants, with the exception of the odd fat French Canadian Male on the beach in Fort Lauderdale wearing a speedo. To expect a country to let you in just because you were deprived of something in tour own country is just dumb. If there are that many American leaving there country for Canada, what are their reasons? What have they been deprived of in the USA, that they can get in Canada?

Tulipan6, your answer really doesn't make sense. Canada doesn't have problems with American imigrants, nor does the USA have problems with Canadian imigrants, with the exception of the odd fat French Canadian Male on the beach in Fort Lauderdale wearing a speedo. To expect a country to let you in just because you were deprived of something in your own country is just dumb. If there are that many American leaving there country for Canada, what are their reasons? What have they been deprived of in the USA, that they can get in Canada?

Answer 1

Yes.I think you should have to show how you are going to support yourself before being allowed in.I also think new immigrants shouldn't be allowed to get on Welfare until they have paid into the system for at least 10 years.

Answer 2

I think we have to enforce the limits we do have, defend our borders and get that much delayed visa exit tracking system into place, and then we can take stock. My feeling is that we need to undo the 1965 family basis for immigration amendments. What happens now is that each person who comes in is like an immigration pyramid game. With very few additional requirements, relatives get in, then their relatives get in, etc. We should instead say 'you and your dependents/nuclear family' get in, then others have no particular rights without applying separately. That is how it was done before 1965 and it puts decision making in our hands as to whom we need, rather than into the decisions of foreigners whether they want to come. The numbers were also much lower then, and that is when the US became a predominantly middle class country, allowing the "American Dream" of upward mobility to exist.

Mass immigration of poor people, legal or not, jeopardize all of that.

Answer 3

Absolutely, shut the doors. And I'm not just talking about Mexico or Cuba. I don't want any more freaking people in my country! This included nobles from England and great cooks from France. It isn't a racial thing, it's a basic math thing. We are competing for resources (land, gas, food, jobs, schools, college admission, tax revenue). Why add to the problem? There are enough domestic problems in this country that need to be addressed without throwing in more people that need to be wet-nursed by the system. If more people were focused on the em-betterment of their own countries, there would be less problems. Unfortunately, that's just the tip of the iceberg.

Terrorism! I think we can all agree that it's a real problem. Assuming that this is an intellectually honest forum, I'm going to go ahead and skip the politically correct banter and point out that the common denominator of terrorism these days is Islam. Deerborne Michigan is chalk full of Islamic Immigrants; many of whom have no desire to assimilate and many of whom support Hezbollah and other terrorist organizations. One would have to try pretty hard to find a better reason that that.

Answer 4

There is nothing wrong with immigration, as long as it is done legally. After all, we are a nation of immigrants. Jingoism may fuel a lot of "close the border" sentiment; however, there are very good practical reasons for it.

Politically, our nation's sovereignty is threatened by the lack of a southern border.

Economically, illegal immigrants do provide necessary cheap labor (even though companies should be paying them minimum wages). They do not pay taxes, yet they sap social welfare funds.

Security is, however, my biggest issue with open borders. Americans are a stupid bunch of sheeple (wiki it if you don't know the meaning), willing to accept domestic warrentless surveillance, militarized police forces, and laws like the Military Commissions Act, which allow the Pentagon to declare (using criteria they determine) even citizens who have never left the country as enemy combatants (those are the guys at Gitmo) and try them with military courts. This is, of course, all to stay safe from the big bad terrorists, yet our *** is hanging out in the wind with a large, unsecured border. The only thing the Administration has done was authorize the construction of a fence to cover roughly one third of the border and deploy national guard troops, without weapons or authorization to detain, to other sections.

As far as immigration is concerned, every immigrant should be legal and treated as every other citizen, to include paying taxes, getting minimum wage, etc. The ones who are already here should be given a grace period to apply and then be deported after. Amnesty just rewards them for doing the wrong thing. We did it once in the seventies, and what do you know!? - it didn't fix anything.

Answer 5

I feel very strongly that a 5 to 10 year moratorium on all immigration would be very effective.That would give this nation time to devote all its energies towards solving the problem of illegal aliens.We could then secure our borders and begin the deportation of all illegals. After that is finished we need to reevaluate our entire immigration system.Stop allowing millions of poor ,un and under educated people to come and bring all their relatives.
If not then this nation will continue to be flooded with people that are one job loss away from welfare.We must raise the bar if we intend to stay a first world nation.
I know that sounds harsh but it is the truth.
We could counter that with increased aid to 3rd world country's.Help them to help their own poor .

Answer 6

No i dont think we should close the door on new immigrants BUT I do think we need to revamp the immigration process. Since we have neighbors north and south who wish to come into our country to work we need to have some form of legal way for them to do that. bush's guest worker program may work for the time being. People who are already here, who have jobs, who speak english,who have not been convicted of a crime and/or have children who are American citizens should be able to apply for quasi-citizenship while working on the requirements for citizenship. No one should be able to stay in the states for more than 2 years under quasi citizenship unless they are processing for citizenship. We should have a set number of allowed citizenship seeking immigrants and a set number of allowed non-citizenship seeking workers.

Closing our doors to immigrants completely is not feasible but limiting thier numbers is a good possibility.

I think when we mess with the basics we hurt ourselves. We have always been proud of the accomplishments of immigrants in our country and will miss much if we limit immigration too much. It isnt in our best interest as a country.

Answer 7

Oh yes, immigration should be shut down temporarily, so that the US can fix the broken system, and clean house. All illegals, foreign-born immigrants who have been living in the US for four years and are not fluent in Enlgish, foreign-born immigrants who have been convicted of a crime in the US, and foreign-born Sunni-Islam muslims have got to go, and need to be deported to their countries of origin (or Antartica for all I care).

Answer 8

We should put a "Closed, will re-open in 2012" sign on the Statue of Liberty.

We need about 5 years at least to get this illegal problem under control.

Answer 9

Do you think Canada should close their doors to immigration so too many Americans won't overfill its country? Always look at the other side. How would you feel if you were looking for a permanent residency in a country you put trust into and wanted to live there because your own country deprived you of the great things offered in the country you wanted to live in? Did you know that many Americans are now immigrants who are moving to Canada? They thought the same way you did, that U.S. should close doors to immigration. Give a chance to the immigrants, you don't even know what hassle they go through to get here! Think twice about it!

Answer 10

Not shut down immigration, just Completely secure our borders. This would need to include some measures that would make it impossible for foreigners to get any type of welfare without being a legal citizen.