[CLUE-Talk] Rep Tancredo's Anti-Immigration Stance

[G. Richard Raab]

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On Sunday 26 October 2003 06:30 pm, Jeff Cann wrote:
> On Sunday 26 October 2003 10:04 am, Rita Gibson wrote:
> > Boy, I hate to get into political discussion on this list, but I can't
> > hardly resist piping up on this.
> >
> > I support much of what Tancredo stands for on immigration. I am for
> > further limiting legal immigration,
>
> How can you argue this, based on the fact that all of us (I'm assuming no
> one has native american ancestry) are immigrants or descendants of
> immigrants?
>
> > The numbers of people who are granted permanent legal status are
> > staggering, IMHO. Based on the below numbers, I believe we grant legal
> > immigrant status to more than enough people.
>
> IMHO, this argument is subjective.  1 Million people out of 280 Million
> Americans is not significant - that's 1 immigrant for every 280 people in
> the U.S.
>
> If there were 30 Million immigrants last year, then perhaps it would be a
> significant burden.
>
> > The students who don't speak english, legal and illegal, require
> > additional resources from a system that is already stretched to the
> > limit.
>
> I think this is an educational funding priority problem, not an immigrant
> volume problem.  Don't forget that according to the Denver Post, the Denver
> area is the 4th most popular place for Mexicans to immigrate; so we must
> deal with this issue in a more constructive way than:  'there's more than
> enough immigrants'.

I wish people would get past the emotional aspect of this as well as the total 
FUD stuff.

The emotional is trying to point out that most of us are immigrants. Well, 
most of us were. What of it? If you were in a liferaft that became 100% full, 
would you take on more people so that none lived? I would hope not. 

Now, the real question should be one of simple numbers. Rita has the right 
idea, just the wrong figures. That is the problem with the likes of tancredo. 
He is constantly running garbage numbers and not speaking about real numbers, 
just the FUD that he wishes to show. 


1) Can we take in more and not hurt our country? the answer is yes. In fact, 
it is useful to have more coming in for a bigger genetic pool and for 
diversity.

2) What is the cost of these illegals living here? yes, they cost some, but 
they do not use much of the resources here. Sadly, they are afraid of the 
system. But they do take some out of here. That includes school, and hospital 
ER systems.


3) What do they contribute? And what is the Contribution - the costs? This is 
what tancredo et.all allways ignore. OMB have done numerous studies and 
always it turns out that illegals contribute FAR more to the system than they 
take out. The study seems to be done in every presidential admin and every 
single time, it comes out that illegals contribute more.

 (Think about Booze. The taxes on them more than cover the health costs, the 
lost lives, and lost labour. Interestingly enough, cigarettes taxes do not 
cover their costs, but if all smoking stopped, we would be in far worse 
shape.)


	Why does they contribute more than they cost?  Because they work the jobs 
that others do not wish to work. They work hard (sometimes 60-80 hours / week  
for years on end). And they are taxed almost always, at 0 exemption. But they 
do not file tax returns. Why? Because who is scarier than police, FBI, and 
immigration put together? Who has absolute power to do what they see fit? 
Well if you answered the candy man, you are wrong. It is our wonderful IRS 
(of course, these days, it may actually be DOJ who has the most and scariest 
powers). These ppl do not want to get nailed. So they overpay and far 
underuse.

	Tancredo's arguments are absolutely worthless. He himself used illegals and 
supposedly knew it (he disavowed so during a paper article). I will never 
understand why politicians act the way they do.

	For example, it has been a long known open secret that Owens has been 
cheating on his wife. That is the real reason why the divorce. Of course, so 
was Romer. Yet, during Clinton's deal, Romer spoke out somewhat and Owen's 
did in a big way. I get tired of the hypocrisy of so many politicians. 


- -- 
cheers
g.r.r.
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