Claire Guthrie Gastanaga is one of the leaders in Virginia on immigration issues. She is a reasoned, thoughtful, informed, moderate voice on a subject that arouses tremendous passions. That's why I care what Gastanaga has to say. Here, she courageously, and pretty much singlehandedly, takes on the "acidic rhetoric" and "vitriol" of the immigrant bashers of the Virginia blogosphere:
Whatever your intent, it is your very unwillingness to assign any validity to the rational concern about the predictable effects of your one-sided rhetoric, shared by many immigrants who are your neighbors, that invites many who listen to you speak or read your writings to doubt the sincerity of your mantra that you are simply "about the rule of law" and that your aren't "anti-immigrant" ?"some of your best friends are immigrants."Like it or not, you are just as responsible for the effect of your words as for your intent. No one cares whether someone who yells "fire" in a theater as a joke was "intending" to cause a panic or not, and for good reason. They hold you accountable for the predictable effect of doing so.
Exactly. Look, I have no problem with a health debate on this subject. But using fear, demagoguery, and selective moral "outrage" to advance one's cause is morally wrong. Bashing people and making them live in fear just because they follow the inexorable economic logic that our country's "leaders" set in place is morally wrong. Inciting citizens on an incendiary subject and potentially putting peoples' lives in danger, simply to advance a political agenda, is morally wrong. Claiming that your agenda is benign, when in fact it is specifically designed to divide pit people against each other, is morally wrong. Failing to "welcome the stranger" in your land, as Jesus instructed, is morally wrong. (And please note that last point does NOT mean we shouldn't secure our borders, set sound immigration policy, enforce laws against corporations that hire and exploit illegal immigrants, provide a path to earned legal citizenship, etc., etc.)
Anyway, I'm glad there are informed, reasonable, compassionate people out there like Claire Guthrie Gastanaga taking on the immigrant bashers. She could use some help.
Now it's "The illegal aliens are coming!" Soon the Republicans will run out of groups to hate, and have to turn on white male pick-up truck drivers with Confederate bumper stickers.
The Party of Lincoln. The Party of Hate. A sad historical transformation.
And how much do those 'illegals' pay in taxes a year? You do realize the most undocumented workers pay taxes? Sure, they're using a fake social security number to do it, but they pay taxes into the system like everyone else. So, they really aren't costing your locality 2.5 million, you have to subtract what they pay into the system from the costs and then you'll know the true benefit or cost of undocumented workers. Note: everytime local govts and even the federal govt do this, it always comes out the same, undocumented workers pay more into the system then they take.
"If we did not have to socialize these illegals existance where might we be better suited to spend that revenue, health services, education maybe pre-k, or god forbid on transportation"
You do realize that the way to fix this problem is to legalize them, give them social secutiry numbers and have them pay taxes?
"It seems to me there are some that would turn the illegal alien issue into simply yet another social program to be funded by tax revenues and to me thats the least moral and fair thing of all."
This is almost non-sense, another social program? By having them pay back taxes and fines?
What I did find googling around was this :
Among it's point are
- Although they create a net drain on the federal government, the average illegal household pays more than $4,200 a year in federal taxes, for a total of nearly $16 billion.
-However, they impose annual costs of more than $26.3 billion, or about $6,950 per illegal household.
-Employers do not see the costs associated with less-educated immigrant workers because the costs are spread out among all taxpayers.
I did search for dissenting opinions on this but found little hard research. If anyone can find something, let me know. Please find a study that looks at illegal rather than legal immigration, though. Again, the question is are illegals a net tax drain?
It certainly doesn't negate your point that legalization may help. I doubt however that there's going to be enough political support for it until the Feds secure the border, curb employer sponsored guest worker programs, impose employer sanctions and outline a plan for a simplfied, middle of the road immigration program. There was too much pork for certain industries in that last bill and not enough serious reform.
From their mission stated on their website:
"The Center is animated by a pro-immigrant, low-immigration vision which seeks fewer immigrants..."
Moreover, if you look closely, you'll find that the CIS is GUESSING at who is or is not an illegal immigrant for the purposes of the study. They've used Census Data statistics, and fyi, the Census does not ask if someone is illegal. So CIS has "guessed" by using "characteristics common to illegals" whatever that means.
In addition, they are using reported info from the Census to determine how much is paid in taxes. Most undocumented workers don't answer that question particularly accurately given that they are using someone elses social security number.
Taxes paid by illegal immigrants is a HUGE WINDFALL for, at the moment, the Social Security Administration. But that money is being held in limbo by SSA. Why do you think SSA doesnt' inform people when they find out someone has been using their SS# to work illegally?
Because Agriculture, Restaurants and Construction dont want it.
The estimated 9 Billion in illegal alien payroll taxes is less than 1 percent of the approximately 2.6 trillion paid in Federal taxes paid every year. With studies showing lower wages from illegal aliens, it's not clear there's a net benefit here in terms of Federal taxes and federal benefits and fair wages being paid to workers. It sure looks like a subsidy to certain industries. With long term real wage declines in these industries, it's not clear it's a good investment.
If the CIS is so slanted, please cite another source. Regardless of their objectives, their scholarship seems pretty sound. I'm certainly open reading the research of any serious person on these issues. We should make decisions on sound analysis, not both sides playing the race card.
They've used Census Data statistics, and fyi, the Census does not ask if someone is illegal. So CIS has "guessed" by using "characteristics common to illegals" whatever that means.
Any good study will of this sort will detail its methology, which since you ask is here : http://www.cis.org/a...
There are serious repercussions of Federal policy, winners and losers. Assessing these remains important.
The only part of the legislation that was killed that actually dealt with illegal immigrants was the "path to citizenship."
The rest of it-- the strict regulations for family immigration, the refusal of the GOP to increase the flow of legal workers etc-- were all amendments that directly effect LEGAL IMMIGRANTS in this country.
Get a clue. The GOP has declared war on immigrants and they're using the "it's really about illegal immigrants" talking point to dupe people like you into supporting ANTI-IMMIGRANT legislation that targetes ALL IMMIGRANTS (not just the undocumented immigrants).
As soon as racist republicans start on the anti Immigrant railroad, and
Immigrants are threatened, they overwhelingly turn to the democratic party.
This is not a crisis, its an oppourtunity