mr dave

i'm with CO on this one for the most part.

last time i looked into the illegal immigration issue south of my border the estimates were something like 5 million illegal aliens living in California. that's the population of Toronto. according to Reuters the number is closer to 11 million across the nation, that's about a 1/3 of the entire population of Canada.

this bill strikes me like the legal move equivalent to asking for the Eastern seaboard when all you really want is Delaware. what law is never amended? this is an important first step in curtailing the flow of people ignoring international borders and laws. sending money back to their families in whatever country they abandoned doesn't exactly help much of anything aside for bleeding hearts. whatever economic benefit to paying them less is lost when their wage is spent outside of the US economy.

on the other hand, wouldn't having a bill in place to deal with individuals make it easier to introduce and enact a new bill and law that would in turn limit corporate behavior in regards to illegal immigration?

basically this seems to be one of those issues where this old saying really applies - 'if you're close to 20 and don't believe we can enact the change necessary to create a social utopia you don't have much of a heart, but if you're closer to 30 and you still think social change will lead to a utopia, you don't have much of a brain.'


i also worked as an illegal for a summer a decade ago. doing software development of all things. while i was there i was provided with food, and a nice place to stay, and ALL the money that was in my pocket... when i first showed up. and even though i'm whiter than a cracker i was still told to keep my Canuck mouth shut about certain things in public.

no matter how you slice it this is a hosed up situation. there's no way it can ever be handled without stepping on some toes. as for identification, aren't Green Cards about the size of a credit card and something you could easily just keep in your wallet? not unlike say... a driver's license / photo ID which pretty much every person is *gasp* expected to carry on their person *the oppression!!!!*

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