Fellow conservatives: Does this correctly outline your general opinion on illegal immigration?

Question

Whether you are Scottish, English, Irish, French, Chinese, Korean or Guatemalan we don’t care if you come to America as long as you come here legally, come here to work and don’t come here to break our laws & contribute to civil chaos.

The primary reason for concern over illegal immigration is the concern over Islamic terrorists & national security.

Equally important are the disproportionate crime rates.

Every other issue is secondary although still relevant.

Answer 1

Politically, I agree with you. Intellectually and morally I think that there are SOME people out there who are engaging in legitimate civil disobedience in order to effectuate what they believe is needed change in our current immigration laws.

US News reports this week that there are 630,000 foreign nationals in US jails. Can we ALL agree to start with deporting them?

Answer 2

I am more of a libertarian than a conservative.

I agree entirely with the first paragraph. This is why I think our quotas for legal immigration should be increased. Give more people a chance to come in and work legally, as long as they will follow all the other laws as well and not be collecting benefits.

I don't agree with the second paragraph. I agree those are important issues, and that illegal immigration could lead to higher risks of terrorist attacks, but I think the terrorists are well enough organized that they will figure out ways to get people into the country legally. We need excellent intelligence operations to solve that problem more than anything else.

I don't believe the crime rates actually are disproportionate. If they were disproportionate, I would agree with you. But in terms of violent crime and serious property crime, the border cities and other places very close to the border, where illegal immigrants are most likely to be found, are among the safest in the US - look up the murder rates in San Diego or El Paso or Laredo some time. There are some particularly vicious drug gangs among the illegal immigrants, but they are a tiny fraction of the illegal population.

And I don't know about "every" other issue still being relevant, but I do think that most of them are important.

Answer 3

With all the agreement on the issue, I can't believe how little is being done about the problem. The liberals agree with all of that, except that they recognize that "as long as you come here legally" is a bit of a fantasy--there is no "line" to stand in to get a green card, and the explosion of required government paperwork has made being legal before you even set foot in the US an expensive and difficult process that is impossible for most.

But without getting into what needs to be done to make legal immigration possible (rather than people immigrating and then making themselves legal), and without arguing over amnesty and paths to citizenship I think there is a lot that both sides can agree on, and if we table the tricky points and wait to address them, we could get a lot done.

I think that most people, including liberals and conservatives, would like to see 1) decent border security (both to control immigration, and for the security issues you mentioned), and 2) immigrants convicted of violent (and many other) crimes be deported. No one is arguing against either of those two, so why don't we get that done and have the big raging debate over amnesty when we are that far along with the solution. Neither amnesty nor deportation will work if the border is open to let more people in.

Answer 4

Fair enough! I'd also add that people coming here should NOT be allowed access to welfare programs for a least some period of time - we do not want to import poverty into this country, or encourage people to come here for handouts.

And it's certainly not too much to ask to learn English, and have undivided allegiance to THIS country. Don't claim parts of it belong to your home country.

Really, what would our ancestors of a generation or two ago have said about the situation today? It's a shame.

Answer 5

I don't care who comes here, as long as they do it legally. I live here in FloriDUH and 3/4's of the jail population is illegal aliens. Not to mention that is that they drive around with no license, no insurance, and steal the working mans jobs. I have to work with them, and most of them can't speak english. Then you have the stupid white man who feels sorry for them. News Flash: they don't feel sorry for you, or even want to live here. All they want is a job, so they can save the money, or send it home. They ruin neighborhoods. The neighborhood my father grew up near the nation's capital is overrun with them.
Once Hillary the savior gets in charge, the terrrorists will bring it over here. Then you can tell all the illegals to go fight for this country, or what's left of it.

Answer 6

Yeah, sort of.

It gets to the basic meat of it.

But we also need to work on decreasing the amount of "legal" immigrants as well. We've had much larger groups of people coming here over the past 30 years or so than ever in the history of the U.S.

Answer 7

What part of illegal don't you understand? That's what makes them a criminal. We live in a country of laws. When the leaders reward criminals and punish those that obey the law there is no reason for anyone to obey the law. It's illegal for me not to pay taxes. But if you wont make immigrants obey our laws, why should anyone be expected to obey laws

Answer 8

The primary concern of conservatives over illegal immigrants is losing them as a necessary source of dirt-cheap labor in a poverty-dependent economy. The conservative justification for depriving them of their civil rights based on archaic laws is nothing but ordinary racist xenophobia. How would you feel if native Americans used the same arguments to deprive the European immigrants of their rights? The biggest cause of violence, terrorism and civil chaos is poverty caused by the two per cent who are inheriting most national and global wealth. http://timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/asia/article661055.ece

Answer 9

Yes, legal status is primary as is national security and crime. I agree with what you have said.

Answer 10

My wife is an immigrant. Her family had to sign documents stating they would not go on welfare. They had to have a sponsor who agreed to take care of them if they had housing or $ problems. They would NEVER have thought to require the US to teach them in their native language. They think that is discourteous to your host. They made it a priority to learn the language as soon as they hit the US soil.