Just a question, NOT a debate about immigration?

Question

I am asking a question, that I am actually curious about, I don't want anyone calling me stupid or preaching to me about anything, I want a serious answer to a serious question, and please no sarcastic undertones.
If we made it legal for anyone to come here and let them work and pay taxes, that would help the economy, and nobody would be doing anything illegal. Just give them a background check to make sure they are who they are and reasons they want to come here. What is the problem with that?

Most of the immigrants that want to come here can't afford to legally, they are already willing to work here and pay taxes and that will bring more money to this country.

Answer 1

Most people who arrive in the USA illegal do so because they are to lazy to either fill in forms or wait 15 days to be process. It costs less to become a legal Immigrate $320 to file the correct form compared to the average cost of $2500 to get to the USA illegally.

Since people are willing to pay more to get to America illegally simply because they didn't want to fill in the paper work or wait a few days why would they fill in the paper work and wait a few days for a background check.

Would it benefit the country, you would have a lot more people going for the same low end job. There would either have to be a big surge in employment and companies or the unemployment rate would sky rocket.

Most of the available work would be in big cities and people would migrate there causing shanty towns to be set up on the outskirts, there wouldn't be enough housing. America would look like a third world country but still have Hollywood telling everyone how good it was to come.

With the high unemployment people would turn to crime, I'm guessing social systems would either be shut down or be stretch so far that they wouldn't work due to numbers. The amount of burglaries, muggings, theft’s, etc would increase and cities would become extremely dangerous.

The education system would ground to a halt with state schools closing, due to lack of funding, or having 50 - 60 pupils per teacher. People with money would send there children to private schools whilst everyone else would suffer.

Taxes would increase to try and cope with the strain in every department.

Company bosses would get richer but everyone else would suffer.

Edit ----

Michael - please look into H2A and H2B visas as you keep say there are no visa for farm workers.

Stephanie L - I'm not sure what you friend is doing wrong but if you were to look into it you would find I was correct. H2A and H2B visa do only take a maximum of a month to process and cost $320. Please look on www.uscis.gov and you should find all the information you require.

Maybe you friend should try applying for these visas, they only last 6 years but will give you the right to apply legally from a permanent resident status.

12 years is a long time and even someone who has been deported must only wait 10 years on a first offence.

Answer 2

The problem with that is:

1. Wages decrease in an over inflated economy thus pushing millions of people into poverty.

2. Americans will have to accept a lower pay in order to keep their jobs.

3. This decrease in labor costs doesn't always mean the savings will be passed on to the consumer. That has already been proven in the meatpacking industry, imports from China, etc where the corporation or company saved in labor costs and just increased their profits for themselves and did not pass those savings on to the consumer.

Apples are another great example. An orchard 20 miles from where I live did not use guest workers this past year because they were dicating price that was equal to hiring anyone for the job. They had to pay more then the farm down the street yet both apples cost the same in the grocery store. It was only the farmer who took the hit and the other farmer made more money. The consumer did not save and did not even know which apple was picked by the guest worker and which one was picked by the American who made more money.

Another example is the construction segment. My neighbor is a developer of commercial buildings. He saved millions by hiring immigrants, legal and illegal and forced out many American construction workers. The building costs the customer less but that is where it ended. The services offered to the general public inside that building stayed the same. Immigration whether legal or illegal is a win win for corporations. Not for the consumer.

If you want the country to earn more in taxes, we will sure need it to cover the costs of massive poverty that will hit our country very hard in the short term. Along with poverty comes heatlh care, welfare, crime and more tax dollars to deal with all of it. The domino effect will be devistating for the already dying middle class.

Answer 3

Your idea does not allow for vesting in the country. The infrastructure cannot support an unlimited number of individuals coming to this country to work. Think about all the poop that would have to be processed. Where would we go with it all? The rivers, lakes and streams can only handle so much. And how about Atlanta's draught? Imagine 10.1 million legal works who are citizens demanding water. They would be, along with education in their own language, traffic signs, courts, grocery stores, television, currency, taxes, etc. etc. When we first allowed aliens into this country to work legally, it was just for work. Now... they want their own nation, languages and laws, politians, police, prisons, etc.... And what do we do with the bad legal alien workers, deport them? We can't deport the illegal bad alien workers, how would we handle the bad legal ones?

You have a good thought provoking question that raises numerous concerns that would have to be addressed and inforced.

Going to have to say, "Ya! NO!" To many unsolved issues with your proposal.

Answer 4

We already have this type of immigration law that attempts to check the back ground of potential immigrants. The process is typically too slow like anything else the government touches. We also have a right and a duty to limit those entering based on the needs of the country.
All nations have laws that favor skilled workers.
It is is just plain stupid to allow every warm body into the country. We already have nearly 20,000,000 of those already.

Answer 5

The problem to that as that as we all know not all the illegal immigrants are honest hard workers people, some are really criminals who come here to hide in the anonymity or using other identity but their real one. Finding out who is really who is a really hard and expensive work. I am not against giving the hard workers and good people the chance to stay and share the American Dream but I am afraid that in doing so there would be some bad ones who could get this gift without deserving it. It is not that easy to say lets just give them papers and that's it but in reality giving it to the right people will require a lot of money. I just hope there is something that can be done that will help all this people who are honest and really deserve to be in this country.

Answer 6

School costs $10,000 per child per year just in local taxes above federal, etc. Poor people can't pay that. We subsidize our poor (not just in school) which is why they want to come, but is why we have limits and why their better life is at our expense.

If legalized under current rules, they could all bring family. That would make it even worse. Look at the 'broken system' resulting from the legalization of family backlog after the 1986 amnesty. I saw a hispanic activist organization report that 1/3 of current illegals are family of those legalized in 1986. They were saying family should be allowed in too, but that is not what I take from it.

Answer 7

Everybody in the world wants to come here - what do you think this country would be like with a billion people living here. Roads and bridges are already crumbling. By 2040 we will be out of food and water - and that is at the present rate of growth.

Who do you want to create millions of jobs and how will they pay for production that is not needed?

Answer 8

There comes a point when you have more people than jobs. Also, the immigration problem we are having is from Mexico, not anywhere else. These mexicans just walk right across the border with disregard for our laws while others throughout the world struggle to come here.

Answer 9

Your question is a valid one, however the answer isn't a simple one.

If the Gov did do it the way you suggest (which is how it worked up until the mid 50's), we would have to also make sure that health of the immigrants was good, not to mention that they had transferable skills that would make them an asset to our society, vs a drain.

What happens then to the person, who is deemed "undesirable" for whatever reason and he is not granted access to this country? He would try to sneak in anyway, plus several million just like him, and

Boom, right back where we started.

Answer 10

We are a country with a finite amount of land mass and a fixed amount of resources.

Unregulated immigration would ( and is) very quickly drain our non-renewable resources and increase the cost maintaining a viable infrastructure (highways, schools, police departments).

You can only put so many people in one place before they start to destroy it- if you look at our metropolitan areas in this country you can see exactly what I mean.