Should Illegal Immigrants get Welfare

[Minoosh]

Apparently medicaid is being used by hospitals to pay for illegals medical care

You are right - there was that qualifier "beyond emergency services."

 

[Giordano]

Apparently medicaid is being used by hospitals to pay for illegals medical care

http://kaiserhealthnews.org/news/medicaid-illegal-immigrant-emergency-care/

Let them die in the streets! Seems far to me.

By the way- you win.

 

[Elf Grinder 3000]

You are right - there was that qualifier "beyond emergency services."

According to the article it cost 2 Billion a year

I guess you won't have a problem with closing the loophole then

 

[Minoosh]

Obama is refusing the execute the law

Which law?

 

[mgidm86]

I think the idea logger has about making it too expensive for employers to hire illegals is a great start.

Some people here are asking about the average guy on the street who isn't carrying his ID. My answer to that is that we don't need to look for people on the street. By targeting illegal workers and the people who hire them, we will slowly lower the desire for people to attempt to come here illegally.

Just because we can't find every illegal doesn't mean we shouldn't go after them at all. Most of these people must be working somewhere and that is where you look. Remove the incentive from employers to hire them, and for illegals to come here thinking they can easily find work.

Actually finding these people through their work may require some changes in how people are hired, perhaps requiring more documentation when people are hired. That is a problem that can be worked out if we as a nation decide it is important enough to do so.

 

[Minoosh]

According to the article it cost 2 Billion a year

I guess you won't have a problem with closing the loophole then

What loophole?

 

[Minoosh]

Just because we can't find every illegal doesn't mean we shouldn't go after them at all.

We do go after them.

Actually finding these people through their work may require some changes in how people are hired, perhaps requiring more documentation when people are hired. That is a problem that can be worked out if we as a nation decide it is important enough to do so.

Documentation is required.

 

[Minoosh]

Let them die in the streets! Seems far to me.

By the way- you win.

At least we get a new U.S. citizen out of the deal. We need more young people working here legally.

 

[logger]

I think the idea logger has about making it too expensive for employers to hire illegals is a great start.

Some people here are asking about the average guy on the street who isn't carrying his ID. My answer to that is that we don't need to look for people on the street. By targeting illegal workers and the people who hire them, we will slowly lower the desire for people to attempt to come here illegally.

Just because we can't find every illegal doesn't mean we shouldn't go after them at all. Most of these people must be working somewhere and that is where you look. Remove the incentive from employers to hire them, and for illegals to come here thinking they can easily find work.

Actually finding these people through their work may require some changes in how people are hired, perhaps requiring more documentation when people are hired. That is a problem that can be worked out if we as a nation decide it is important enough to do so.

Excellent points, and quite reasonable. Giordano, are you reading this?

 

[Giordano]

I think the idea logger has about making it too expensive for employers to hire illegals is a great start.

Some people here are asking about the average guy on the street who isn't carrying his ID. My answer to that is that we don't need to look for people on the street. By targeting illegal workers and the people who hire them, we will slowly lower the desire for people to attempt to come here illegally.

Just because we can't find every illegal doesn't mean we shouldn't go after them at all. Most of these people must be working somewhere and that is where you look. Remove the incentive from employers to hire them, and for illegals to come here thinking they can easily find work.

Actually finding these people through their work may require some changes in how people are hired, perhaps requiring more documentation when people are hired. That is a problem that can be worked out if we as a nation decide it is important enough to do so.

There is some practicality in this, but I do have some questions. What kind of documentation do you think we would need, given that employers theoretically need a social security number alread?. I presume these ss#s are made up. Will we need some more forgery resistant universal ID for all of us in the future to prove we are here legally? But at least we would only need it when hired. That is better.

What about the farmers, restaurants, and home owners that hire illegal immigrants off the books right now? Wouldn't we still need police raids on workplaces to find these people given they are unofficial?

 

[Giordano]

Excellent points, and quite reasonable. Giordano, are you reading this?

Yes, this is just the type of proposal that can be discussed, improved, and lead to a practical compromise and solution. It is a breadth of fresh air compared to some posts.

 

[Tony Stark]

To know nothings that think President Obama is a lawless tyrant because of his actions on immigration: You don't know what the hell you are talking about (real shocker there).

A principal feature oft he removal system is the broad discretion exercised by immigration officials. Federal officials, as an initial matter, must decide whether it makes sense to pursue removal at all. If removal proceedings commence, aliens may seek asylum and other discretionary relief allowing them to remain in the country or at least to leave without formal removal.

Discretion in the enforcement of immigration law embraces immediate human concerns. Unauthorized workers trying to support their families, for example, likely pose less danger than alien smugglers or aliens who commit a serious crime. The equities of an individual case may turn on many factors, including whether the alien has children born in the United States, long ties to the community...

http://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/11pdf/11-182b5e1.pdf

Note that Kennedy is a Reagan appointee.


As for work permits:

1274a.12 Classes of aliens authorized to accept employment.

(10) An alien granted withholding of deportation or removal for the period of time in that status, as evidenced by an employment authorization document issued by the Service;

http://www.uscis.gov/iframe/ilink/docView/SLB/HTML/SLB/8cfr.html

 

[thaiboxerken]

Get rid of the EITC

Enact a 9%/9%/9% flat tax on income/sales/corporate

Cut spending by 50%

Close the borders

Deport illegals but not before we fine them

Watch liberals weep

Why not just kill undocumented immigrants with a bullet to the head? It's a more humane way to kill them.

 

[Myron Proudfoot]

Why not just kill undocumented immigrants with a bullet to the head? It's a more humane way to kill them.

geeeeze, don't give them any ideas!!!!!!

 

[thaiboxerken]

geeeeze, don't give them any ideas!!!!!!

I'm sure it's what they really want but know they can't say.
It's just like Voter ID or Abortion clinic requirements. They know that their goals are too disgusting for the general public to accept, so they say that the goals are something else.

 

[Modified]

What about the farmers, restaurants, and home owners that hire illegal immigrants off the books right now? Wouldn't we still need police raids on workplaces to find these people given they are unofficial?

If criminal penalties are high enough, very few restaurants and home owners will hire them. Farmers would be a tougher sell, but penalties based on the number of illegal workers would help with that.

 

[Joecool]

How many of us would go to some foreign country with our family and have no means to support yourself and may or may not speak the language?

But because the US offers easily accessible welfare benefits, many people do just that. While they might eventually find work, I don't really see the point of the government offering handouts to people who find their way to the US illegally.

 

[uke2se]

How many of us would go to some foreign country with our family and have no means to support yourself and may or may not speak the language?

Good question. Why do you think people do it?

 

[Giordano]

If criminal penalties are high enough, very few restaurants and home owners will hire them. Farmers would be a tougher sell, but penalties based on the number of illegal workers would help with that.

Agreed. If having illegal immigrants not hired is your goal, then having high criminal penalties to restaurants and home owners violating the law will help a lot. But, as I see it, one must also have the ability to detect these offenses very high for them to have an effect, so there has to be an effective way (raids, relying on customers and neighbors reporting suspicions, etc.) that the "bad" employers run a high risk of getting caught (the higher legal penalty is unlikely to have much of an effect if you can't catch me doing it).

Yes, it would work if you can catch enough people so that even the "uncaught" view it as a real threat. But remember that the legal penalty and the chances of being caught have to be so high that it counters any economic savings that the employer might see from hiring illegals. At least as far as I can tell in California, there are not a lot of legal immigrants and citizens who would replace the illegals as kitchen staff or migrant workers on farms unless the wages offered by employer were much, much higher than now. Not that I am against increasing farm wages; just noting that a lot of farm produce will cost a lot more if you do this.

 

[Giordano]

How many of us would go to some foreign country with our family and have no means to support yourself and may or may not speak the language?

But because the US offers easily accessible welfare benefits, many people do just that. While they might eventually find work, I don't really see the point of the government offering handouts to people who find their way to the US illegally.

Why do you think my grandparents (all 4 of them, separately) did it before there were government welfare benefits? I kind of think it was very brave of them, especially since they couldn't speak the language, started families once they got here, had relatively low level skills and no job offer in advance. They explained to me that there were no opportunities in the "old countries" and that they wanted better chances for their own children.

Of course they were lucky, in that when they came they could arrive legally despite their limited skills. I don't think they could come legally now. There were also times back then when the USA was not taking an given ethnicity (the "window" all depended on how "Nativists" viewed Germans, Irish, Eastern Europeans, Italians, etc. at any given time). My grandparents (and I) were fortunate that the Eastern European window was partly open at the time they came; a lot of their siblings and cousins who stayed in Europe were later killed in the Holocaust.