• This is a political forum that is non-biased/non-partisan and treats every person's position on topics equally. This debate forum is not aligned to any political party. In today's politics, many ideas are split between and even within all the political parties. Often we find ourselves agreeing on one platform but some topics break our mold. We are here to discuss them in a civil political debate. If this is your first visit to our political forums, be sure to check out the RULES. Registering for debate politics is necessary before posting. Register today to participate - it's free!

Are Veterans Benefits and Immigration Reform mutually exclusive?

ttwtt78640 said:
If that action (back in March to "support goals") addressed the VA issue to your satisfaction then I suppose they should be content that is all that needed to be done. Would a 6.5% increase in immigration law enforcement spending to "support goals" be a suitable compromise?
Click to expand...

Again, the two issues are unrelated. Would a 6.5% increase in immigration law enforcement spending put an end to illegal immigration? I seriously doubt it. Would an increase in spending even be necessary? I doubt that, too. Does anyone in Washington want to put an end to illegal immigration? Not likely.
 
EMNofSeattle said:
Illegal immigrants are not a benefit to society in anyway except that they benefit the big corporatists you want people who wont demad labor protection or overtime pay.
Click to expand...

I'd argue that anyone performing a task for compensation is in some way benefitting society. Especially where most illegal immigrants do pay taxes (either through income or purchases) in the expenditure of these wages. Thing is, illegal immigrants are actually just part of society, and if we were to simply make it so they weren't illegal they could be adding even more value, while using less resources.


EMNofSeattle said:
How many asset should we allow into the country anyway 300 million 400 million billion 30 million should we just develop Yellowstone National Park to house them.... Over a third of California's prison population of people in prison for violent felonies consist of those very assets that you think we need to develop
Click to expand...

Hyperbole, the free market would never allow that sort of exaggerated situation to exist.

Besides, the prison system represents another major problem.

We incarcerate more people than any other nation, and it's costing us dearly.
 
EMNofSeattle said:
You ever been to towns with a large population of illegals? There certainly not enjoying a lifestyle that we consider middle class in America in 2014

I can name us up a couple towns like this Fresno, Arvin, Los Banos, and certain neighborhoods in LA feel like you walk into a Third World country. No submiminum wage does not support an acceptable standard of living
Click to expand...
That's a great reason to deport them. The idiot scabs drive down wages while the cost of living is getting more expensive.

We need the military on the border with orders to shoot them on sight. Treat them like hostile invaders.
 
Starbuck said:
I'd argue that anyone performing a task for compensation is in some way benefitting society. Especially where most illegal immigrants do pay taxes (either through income or purchases) in the expenditure of these wages. Thing is, illegal immigrants are actually just part of society, and if we were to simply make it so they weren't illegal they could be adding even more value, while using less resources.




Hyperbole, the free market would never allow that sort of exaggerated situation to exist.

Besides, the prison system represents another major problem.

We incarcerate more people than any other nation, and it's costing us dearly.
Click to expand...

There is no way that illegal immigrants pay more money in taxes than how much it takes to support them especially when their children are on welfare programs attending our public schools and a third of all prison inmates in the biggest state in the country are illegal immigrants. There will be far more benefit to society of all that employment was done by American citizens who are working under the protection of our labor laws including our wages and overtime protections. Legalizing the current wave of illegal immigrants will only serve to increase the market for minimum wage labor while at the same time encouraging another 5 million illegals to go subminimum wage again right behind them. At the time of the last big amnesty in the early 90s we had 4 million illegal immigrants in the country now we have three times that many so yes there will probably be another 30 million illegal immigrants in 20 years unless we begin cracking down on border enforcement and departing the ones here. So when are there too many wires that is it when we have to start developing national parks developing public lands to house them eventually at some point there's too many people offer to few dollars The best solution is to encourage them to improve their own countries.
 
Starbuck said:

I've seen a lot of images, such as the one above, floating around the internet over the past week. When I see this, I wonder if Veterans Benefits and Immigration Reform are completely opposed.

For example, if we allow ten illegal immigrants to gain permanent residency, do ten veterans lose their benefits?
Click to expand...
The notion suggests that we can do only one thing at a time.
 
EMNofSeattle said:
No I actually cleRly stated the illegals need to go......

Here we go with Detroit again, about the only real argument you have, well cities like Seattle and San Francisco in Boston and numerous other cities you think of as liberal cities are doing very well economically. Detroit's problems are kind of like LA his problems they really result from corruption and not from actual application of Liberal policies
Click to expand...

Hey EMNofSeattle,

I sent you a PM.
 
radcen said:
The notion suggests that we can do only one thing at a time.
Click to expand...

Which is what seems absurd to me, I personally don't see them as mutually exclusive. In fact, I think the concept of amnesty would save plenty of federal dollars, that could thereby be used for veterans benefits.
 
EMNofSeattle said:
There is no way that illegal immigrants pay more money in taxes than how much it takes to support them especially when their children are on welfare programs attending our public schools and a third of all prison inmates in the biggest state in the country are illegal immigrants.
Click to expand...

Before jumping down that rabbit hole, I'm wondering if this is purely conjecture or if you have some credible sources to verify that claim?


EMNofSeattle said:
There will be far more benefit to society of all that employment was done by American citizens who are working under the protection of our labor laws including our wages and overtime protections. Legalizing the current wave of illegal immigrants will only serve to increase the market for minimum wage labor while at the same time encouraging another 5 million illegals to go subminimum wage again right behind them. At the time of the last big amnesty in the early 90s we had 4 million illegal immigrants in the country now we have three times that many so yes there will probably be another 30 million illegal immigrants in 20 years
Click to expand...

Honestly, if those numbers are correct, we've only seen a 2% increase in the illegal immigrant population- relative to the overall national population, since 1990.

However, if they were legalized and granted permanent residency there would be a statistically insignificant population of illegal immigrants in the U.S. and those that are here could start actually lobbying to work for jobs paying above minimum wage.


EMNofSeattle said:
unless we begin cracking down on border enforcement and departing the ones here. So when are there too many wires that is it when we have to start developing national parks developing public lands to house them eventually at some point there's too many people offer to few dollars The best solution is to encourage them to improve their own countries.
Click to expand...

Aside from the hyperbole of developing our national parks on account of illegal immigration, do you seriously want to be the one to pay for increased border protection, because I sure don't.
 
I have a question for all those that support granting amnesty for all the illegals.
Once we go ahead and make the current group of people here illegally no longer illegal but make them citizens or some other label than what do we do 10 years from now when we have a whole new group of people here illegally. Do we go ahead and just make them legal as well. Do we continue you this forever, basically just make this an open border country. There is no country in the world that has open borders as far as I know and there is probably a reason for it. No country can support a never ending flow of low skill or no skill workers. Once we let this group of people stay here and as they as some of you are claiming can now demand a higher wage why would companies not want to hire all the folks that come in to the country the day after we grant this current group amnesty.
Also do you honestly think that giving millions of people here illegally amnesty will not give the people contemplating risking crossing the border one more reason to go for it. How will that not accelerate the problem and create an even larger illegal population.
 
Mr. Invisible said:
You say they are supporting themselves, but that ignores the fact that many of these people are working jobs, below minimum wage and are barely surviving, living multiple people to one room. Nearly a third of illegal immigrants live in poverty. (Undocumented Immigrants Aren’t Who You Think They Are | FiveThirtyEight)

So they may be getting by as you say, but in reality they are eking our and existence.
Click to expand...

So if they do so bad and life is so hard, why do they go to the US in the first place?
 
Mr. Invisible said:
So you think that people should literally just eke out an existence? I agree that people shouldn't think that jobs are beneath them, however the problem arises when you can pay people below minimum wage and the minimum wage itself isn't anything anyone can survive off of.
Click to expand...

If the choice is eke out an existence or die, which would you chose?
 
Mason66 said:
If the choice is eke out an existence or die, which would you chose?
Click to expand...

So you are OK with people eking out an existence and thus having to depend on public assistance?

Mason66 said:
So if they do so bad and life is so hard, why do they go to the US in the first place?
Click to expand...

Because at least the US isn't essentially a failed state?
 
Dittohead not! said:
That's easy. Because it's even worse where they're from, that's why.
Click to expand...

I'm not buying that anymore. For most of them there are better places than where they are from a whole lot closer. Where the money they pay coyotes to get here would go a hell of a lot farther.
 
Mr. Invisible said:
So you are OK with people eking out an existence and thus having to depend on public assistance?



Because at least the US isn't essentially a failed state?
Click to expand...

What failed state are you talking about?
 
clownboy said:
I'm not buying that anymore. For most of them there are better places than where they are from a whole lot closer. Where the money they pay coyotes to get here would go a hell of a lot farther.
Click to expand...

Then why would they risk life and property coming to a nation where they're not welcome, don't speak the language, or understand the culture? That makes no sense at all.
 
Starbuck said:

I've seen a lot of images, such as the one above, floating around the internet over the past week. When I see this, I wonder if Veterans Benefits and Immigration Reform are completely opposed.

For example, if we allow ten illegal immigrants to gain permanent residency, do ten veterans lose their benefits?
Click to expand...

Gosh, I don't know. Hey, do we have unemployment in this country at all? How is that unemployment for, say, vets?
 
Starbuck said:
Which is what seems absurd to me, I personally don't see them as mutually exclusive. In fact, I think the concept of amnesty would save plenty of federal dollars, that could thereby be used for veterans benefits.
Click to expand...

....not sure if serious.....
 
cpwill said:
Gosh, I don't know. Hey, do we have unemployment in this country at all? How is that unemployment for, say, vets?
Click to expand...

Depending up on the generation (see war), I'm pretty sure it's actually quite high.

cpwill said:
....not sure if serious.....
Click to expand...

Completely serious, border enforcement and deportation are extremely expensive. So expensive that I hardly see why any actual conservative [see fiscally anyway] is even remotely concerned with increased enforcement, so much as simply streamlining the process for legal immigration.

Ellis Island seems to be a pretty great example of efficient border control.
 
Starbuck said:
Depending up on the generation (see war), I'm pretty sure it's actually quite high.
Click to expand...

And so when we are looking at, for example, the availability of jobs, does having people compete with a greater or a lesser supply of labor increase their chances?

Completely serious, border enforcement and deportation are extremely expensive.
Click to expand...

What? We spend the equivalent of a rounding error of Medicare Fraud on the Border Patrol.

So expensive that I hardly see why any actual conservative [see fiscally anyway] is even remotely concerned with increased enforcement, so much as simply streamlining the process for legal immigration.
Click to expand...

:lol: I'm willing to spend 12 Bn to be able to perform one of the basic security functions of a state. Being able to secure our border is a non-negotiable. It's like having a defensive capability, or a police force. You pay for it.

Incidentally - "streamlining the process for legal immigration" is going to cost money ;).

Ellis Island seems to be a pretty great example of efficient border control.
Click to expand...

Sure. So long as we can convince millions of latin americans to get on easily identified large vessels and transport themselves through a receiving center where we retain the right to send them right back.


....how do you propose we do that.
 
Mr. Invisible said:
You say they are supporting themselves, but that ignores the fact that many of these people are working jobs, below minimum wage and are barely surviving, living multiple people to one room. Nearly a third of illegal immigrants live in poverty. (Undocumented Immigrants Aren’t Who You Think They Are | FiveThirtyEight)

So they may be getting by as you say, but in reality they are eking our and existence.
Click to expand...

I remember when the first "boat people" from Laos and etc. arrived in my (very large) hometown. They lived in projects close to my parents' home, often 20 people in a one-bedroom apartment, and could be seen daily picking up trash with sticks alongside the freeways. And they didn't speak English. A decade later they were restaurant and shop owners and newspaper publishers, and their kids were winning the National Spelling Bee.
 
nota bene said:
I remember when the first "boat people" from Laos and etc. arrived in my (very large) hometown. They lived in projects close to my parents' home, often 20 people in a one-bedroom apartment, and could be seen daily picking up trash with sticks alongside the freeways. And they didn't speak English. A decade later they were restaurant and shop owners and newspaper publishers, and their kids were winning the National Spelling Bee.
Click to expand...

I remember the same thing. Some of them were in my class. And they weren't illegal, which allowed them to avail themselves of the many opportunities in this land of opportunity that are not available to the illegal aliens living here.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top Bottom