On Tue, 18 Dec 2018 22:55:39 -0500, Frank Krygowski
wrote:

On 12/18/2018 8:34 PM, John B. Slocomb wrote:
On Tue, 18 Dec 2018 10:18:27 -0800 (PST), Frank Krygowski wrote:

Much Deleted


Well, I think this issue is extremely complex. Some salient points:

First, the U.S. is a nation of immigrants. During most of its history
it needed to actively import people to make use of the huge amount
of virgin land, to do farm work, to build railroads, to keep the
factories running. That's how and why my grandparents came here.

Yes, that is certainly true. BUT your ancestors didn't believe that
they could come to the "New World" and go immediately into government
funded housing, get essentially free medical case and even receive
money "for not working"?

I don't think that's what's usually happening.
https://immigrationforum.org/article...blic-benefits/

As Will Rogers said, "all I know is what I read in the newspaper"
See: https://tinyurl.com/y93g28cf

It's still true that lots of businesses - agriculture and everything
else, from lawn care to manufacturing - want cheap labor. There must
be thousands of businesses owned by people all across the political
spectrum who depend on people with questionable papers who are
willing to work for less.

At one time Mexican workers has some sort of "green card" that allowed
them to enter the U.S. and work as seasonal workers.

AFAIK, that's still the system. I've worked with PhD professors here on
Green Cards. They were (and maybe still are) legal permanent residents,
permitted to work here.

But nearly half of illegals are people who entered the country legally
(for example, with student visas) and when their time was up, simply
chose to stay and remain under the radar. Those people are rather
difficult to find. And the biggest wall on earth won't change how they
got here.


My wife's younger brother's son did his Masters in the U.S. and wanted
to immigrate. No dice says the Immigrations. He married a Thai girl
that was also attending school in the U.S. and after a civil ceremony
in the U.S. he brought his bride home to Thailand where they had the
full monte. I was talking to him while they were here he told me that
he and his wife plan to have a baby, born in the states, before their
student visa expires, which will allow he and his wife to get a visa
to stay and take care of this new citizen. Which they did.

But he is a "good guy" and using family money he opened a business in
the U.S. and both he and his wife were studying U.S. history and
government with the intent of applying for citizenship as soon as
possible.

My point is that these two foreigners knew, and planned, exactly what
to do and who to talk to and what to say, to stay in the U.S. And I
would suggest that most immigrants, whether legal or illegal probably
also know.

Last year we had a local guy like that who was caught. His case was
complex and I don't recall all the details - he came here legally,
married a U.S. citizen, later got divorced, tried for years (decades?)
to get the right to stay, was supposedly on that path with help from our
congressman, thought he was on his way to his day in court but instead
was suddenly seized by ICE. He was a very well respected businessman and
a real asset to the community, but he's gone.

And I think for most of those people, it's not a question of "no work
so no food" policies chasing them home. They work and work hard.
I read a couple articles last year about tomatoes rotting in fields
because the people who used to pick them were now too afraid to work.
The farm owner said he couldn't get "regular Americans" to do the
work. They wouldn't put up with the job for more than one day.

As above, when I lived in California, there was some sort of hurrah
about seasonal workers and although they had some sort of papers to
legally enter the U.S. to work in the harvests this practice was
halted and the newspaper said that USians who were on relief would
harvest the crops. Again, according to the newspaper, on the first day
there was a pretty good turn out, on the second day about half as many
showed up and by the third practically nobody came. The Paper pointed
out that the difference in income between working and being on relief
was something like $2 a day more to pick lettuce, or whatever.... In
the hot sun? All day?


There's also the bit about asylum. I once helped a foreign guy get
asylum, albeit unwittingly. (He asked me to write him a letter
inviting him to visit. When he landed, he applied for and received
asylum.) Because of its history, the US has laws allowing people to
seek asylum. I suppose some might want to go back in time and stop
those laws from being written. But odds are they were logical when
written, and are probably fairly logical now.

I do believe that the U.S. carries "asylum" to a rather ridiculous
extreme. Some years ago there was a furor here in the news paper about
a fellow who fled Thailand for the U.S. seeking asylum... for
insulting the king.

Now, insulting the king has been against the law in Thailand from the
earliest days that Thailand existed and the law is spelled out in
sufficient detail that one, likely, can't transgress the law
unknowingly.

So here is an individual who knowing violated an age old law in
Thailand and is granted asylum in the U.S.?

I don't know much about U.S. asylum laws. The guy I helped was fleeing
communism, and I really didn't have a lot of contact with him after he
landed and applied for asylum.

But in his case, he didn't go on welfare. He got jobs painting trucks
and doing roofing, IIRC. Then he got a decent job due to his EE degree.
He did well enough and rose high enough that he represented his
international communications company in London for many years. He and
his wife now own a ranch in Colorado where he's retired from
engineering. Hardly a public housing case.

My Hungarian friend had several years of trials and tribulations in
Europe before he finally was able to get with an international oil
company that allowed him to move to the U.S.

The big influx from Central America certainly contains many people
who are literally fleeing for their lives. From what I've read, some
of that is precipitated by past U.S. policies in Central America.
And I'll note that one relative of mine works for an agency that
supports refugees in some ways. There are horrible stories to hear.

Yes, as long as you only hear one side of the story.

You're probably right. I ought to get in touch with the gang-raping
soldiers and see what those women did to deserve it...

Also, I think there's little comparison between U.S. and Thailand.
This is a huge country with an enormous economy and lots of
prosperity. There's a long, long land border with Mexico, a much
poorer country. That means there's a lot of motivation to sneak
across that border and serious difficulty preventing the crossings.

"a long, long land border"? Thailand has 4,863 km (3,021 miles) of
land boundaries with 4 countries, of which the three with the longest
borders have significantly lower standards of living and where people
are almost literally standing in line to get to the land with the
golden pagodas.

The U.S., in contrast has 1,954 miles bordering a country with a
significantly lower standard of living :-)

What's the income disparity on the two sides of that border? Between the
U.S. and Mexico, it's roughly four to one. And for a lot of the
Guatemalans, it's more a matter of life and death.



Which is not to say Trump's wall would really work. It would stop
those walking across, probably a small percentage. Until, perhaps,
the ladder was invented.

Just from reading the newspaper there seem to have been tunnels dug,
airplanes and even boats, to allow drug runners and of course illegal
workers to cross the border.


Overall, it's a complicated problem. America is filled with know-
nothings who think every problem is easy. But this problem would
be tricky even if millions of people didn't make millions of dollars
by hiring illegal immigrants. Those people - many of whom are well
connected politically - will stand in the way of any fierce
enforcement against firms that employ these people.

And it's not even necessarily big firms. When you need your grass
cut and you check the bulletin board at the grocery store, you
call around for the best price. You don't say "Oh, and let me see
your citizenship papers." Hell, it recently came out that Trump has
had (and probably still has) illegal immigrants working for him.

- Frank Krygowski

Rather like the highway speed laws. You got 'em but you don't obey
'em.

Over the years I have lived for a number of years in Singapore where
laws are rigidly enforced ...

I've read about a lot of that enforcement. But there's no way that's
going to be accepted here in America. Whether it's good or bad, it's fact.


In the military I found that it isn't the law that people most object
to it is anything different.

I was in a squadron that was the best in everything, venereal
diseases, AWOL rate, court martial, etc. Then one day a new Colonel
was assigned with, obviously, orders to sort that bunch out.

The following Monday notices appeared on all bulletin board listing
all possible offences and the punishment. More then 5 minutes late to
work - 7 days in the brig, etc.

You never heard so much weeping and complaining, but you know, in a
month or so it became normal to get to work on time and nobody seemed
to remember what life was like back in the bad old days.

I do think that those who hire illegal immigrants should somehow be
stopped. But as usual, it's not as easy as it sounds.

cheers,

John B.