Joe taxpayer pay going in and going out – no savings there.

The prison issue is semantics. The increase in non-citizen populations is greater but appears to be statistically a low steady rise. We are still talking about the same % of bad apples (citizen and non-citizen alike).

The only way to fix the problem is through enforcement and no one in Congress (or the Admins for the last 20 years)has the balls to pony up the dough to make it happen.

“Overall, 6.6% of State and Federal inmates at midyear 2003 were not U.S. citizens. The noncitizen prisoner population increased between 1998 and 1999, and since then has remained nearly stable, changing about 2% between midyear 1999 and midyear 2003. At midyear 2003, 34,456 Federal inmates were noncitizens, representing over 20% of all prisoners in Federal custody. California (18,559), Texas (8,702), New York (8,370), Florida (4,739), and Arizona (3,670) held almost 80% of all noncitizens confined in State prison. Noncitizen prisoners accounted for over 10% of the prison populations of California, New York, Arizona, and Nevada.”

Now unless the DOJ is lying the facts are that the prison population is disproportionately non-citizens.

You seem to buy the “cheap labor” canard. II labor is only cheap for employers. You can argue that it helps them keep prices down, but for the rest of us the costs of II exceed the savings. II is an externality.

“Externalities are important in economics because they may lead to economic inefficiency. Because the producers of externalities do not have an incentive to take into account the effect of their actions on others, the outcome will be inefficient.”

On your first link, I did refer to 90% of the II – that leaves close to 1 million undesirables in my book. Granted, 10% of US citizens arent in prison – its less than 1% (at a cool 2 million not including the 100k II). But according to the prison statistics II are less than 1% of their total populationas well:

http://usgovinfo.about.com/cs/censusstatistic/a/aaprisonpop.htm

Statistics confusion aside – its still a shitload of people we dont need to feed.

On the second link, harder working shouldnt be confused with income and taxpayer potential. This gets to the heart of the conservative corporate whores and the liberal whiners. II do the grunt work behind the scenes. They are the best workers in my industry (hazmat), they do the cleaning, cooking and what I find personally upsetting the child rearing (Im guilty of this as well although my 2 nannies had legal status) – and aside from hazmat work they are paid the least. In essence they represent the underclass at best and a cheap labor resource at worst (liberal whiners say slave labor).

I agree with your “true” ad hominem statement because II is a market convenience. They are largely ignored except during election campaign season because they provide what we want at below cost.

Deportation of all. Although desirable – probably messy and unrealistic. The first consideration I would make is to state if you are illegal you will be deported when found. Secondly, I support the idea of temporary visas but I would limit them to 1 year and make them renewable – forcing II to register every year and keeping tabs on them (a whole new “parole officer” program – make Barbie Boxer proud!). As part of the registration they get probed, poked, prodded, DNA tested, fingerprinted, etc. – price for crossing the border amigo. They can then register for legal residence and eventual naturalization on a first come first serve basis (with all the legal immigrant comrades overseas). During this process I would allow some of the sob stories to influence the process (i.e., II parents bring their minor age children across the border 20 years ago – now 28 looking for legal status – he deserves a break; his parents on the other hand knew what they were doing can sit in limbo). As part of this package I would make damn sure each one of them had ID cards, SS# and paid taxes. I would require them to record every single employer they work for and audit each one of them. I would then make crystal f’in clear that any deviation from these requirements means ZZZZZip – off to the russian front…

As far as prisoners go, I would love to deport but they will end up in our streets a week later. We need to come up with a program where we can get reimbursed from their country of origin (or hold back aid since we dish so goddam much of it out). Then again maybe we can garnish II wages to pay for the prisoners.

For instance, you say II are harder working and better acting than US citizens. Nice sentiment, but the second half of your theory is demonstrably false: http://www.fairus.org/site/PageServer?pagename=iic_immigrationissuecenters0b9c

What drives me crazy is the irrational nonsense coming from the pro II side. Beyond the true ad hominems (eg. anti IIs are xenophobe racists) they claim II pay their way and that this country would come to a standstill without them. This may be the conventional wisdom because it has been repeated loudly and often enough, but that doesn’t make it true. Undocumented unskilled workers do not pay a significant amount in taxes – because their pay is low and off the books. Duh. And their burden on the education, healthcare, and legal systems far exceed what little they do pay in taxes. This is a fact that contradicts their claims to the contrary, it is not ad hominem.

http://usgovinfo.about.com/od/immigrationnaturalizatio/a/caillegals.htm

If we deported all 11 million II tomorrow economically I expect it would at worst be a move sideways – some parts of the economy would benefit others would be hurt. At best it could be a big improvement. The pro II side obfuscates (by purposefully confusing legal and illegal immigration) and demogogues (with race baiting and class warfare) specifically to derail rational discussion, because they know they have no rational basis for an argument.

This is about ILLEGAL immigration. There is nothing xenophobic about it. Give us your tired and poor, but get in line.

Despite the obvious knocks on illegals (i.e., free ride ad hominem) – >90% of illegals are harder working and better acting than most US citizens.

But despite the sob stories people want to fall prey to – theyre ILLEGAL. They entered the country ILLEGALLY, they benefit from this ILLEGAL enterprise and they leave the wanna-be LEGAL immigrants waiting on line.

Any reference to MLK – keep in mind he was a US citizen not an ILLEGAL alien.

Come to this country LEGALLY and we can debate whether you deserve health care, schools, etc. and guess what – you will win the debate because most Americans though they fail to admit it are suckers at heart for rags to riches stories.

On the Vermont knock – they have their own illegal problem – all 2,500 of them:

http://www.fairus.org/site/PageServer?pagename=research_research8927

And yes, illegals cant vote either but they have lobbyists. But thats for another blog.

There is ongoing debate over what to do next. Why? WTF is the debate. Time for the feds to pony up and do their job. And if the feds dont, I support states and locals taking the ball.

Yet another reason to bring up the federal id card issue (c’mon state driver’s licensing can qualify with very little additional effort) and even temporary work visas. And begin hammering businesses that hire illegals.

Yes, the beauracracy increase will be significant, the costs will be significant, the inconveniences at the border will be greater (really, how many americans actually leave the lower 48) but, how can this not be a priority?

You just did this blog because you know Im a hothead on this issue…