migration

[tosei]

I'm sure these "minutemen" yahoos out in Arizona trying to stop illegal immigrants are dissapointed that the pope had to die just in time to draw media attention away from their little display. It's not that their tactics aren't sound; if I were trying to sneak into another country and saw a solid line of redneck pricks waiting at the border, I

Comments

[tosei]

I agree with most of those ideas, especially as far as enforcing our labor laws and cracking down on people who employ illegal immigrants. I also agree with increasing the number of temporary work visas, since many migrant workers aren't interested in staying in the united states but are mostly interested in working temporarily in the US to fund large purchases in mexico or just a generally higher standard of living; that's one of the reasons that I think a blanket amnesty is a terrible idea-you would actually end up giving american citizenship to hundreds of thousands of people who have no intention of staying in america. I want to see those temporary workers coming and (perhaps more importantly) going through official channels as opposed to making the run for the border. Obviously enforcement along the border should be stepped up, but I still think it should coincide with a gradual increase in the quotas for legal immigration. I think that there is no way that we will be able to keep people from crossing the border in large numbers- there are simply too many factors pushing them out of mexico and too many factors pulling them into the US. This brings up the biggest problem, which is that the only real solution is for conditions in mexico to improve to the point where people aren't in a hurry to leave. Unfortunately, no one seems willing or able to improve conditions in mexico from this side of the border (after all, there's a lot of money to be made by keeping the status quo), and the endemic corruption in the mexican government makes it unlikely that change will come from within any time soon.