The House just passed Sen. John Reid’s HB 1050, which would permit him to shoot illegal aliens. I kid. It would deny in-state tuition rates to the children whose parents illegally immigrated to the U.S. There was no debate or discussion, and it passed 76-23.
They’re just whipping through the bills. For a while there they went through ’em at the rate of one or two each minute. That’s a lot quicker than the Senate Education and Health committee, which took four hours to hear five bills this morning.
Waldo —
Just to clarify: we went through the bills so quickly because we’re on “Third Reading.” We debated them at much greater length yesterday on “Second Reading.”
Thank you for that clarification. I’m teetering on the brink of some things being obvious to me but not at all to readers and me not having any idea at all of what’s going on here. :)
dem imgergants tryin to get dem selves an edumacation? not on my warch!
Well effectivly they are shooting immigrants.
Well effectively they are shooting immigrants.
PS. As a guy who lives in Arlington, i think its awesome that delegate brink reads these blogs.
I guess how one feels about this bill depends on how one feels about illegal immigration. If one thinks illegal immigration is a problem, then this is a good bill.
It’s sufficiently punitive to insure that no illegal immigrant (regardless of age) is able to qualify for in-state tuition, simply by the fact that they’ve established a residence in Virginia. Keep in mind they could’ve worded it so that the schools would have to report any applicants that could not show proof of citizenship (but were residing within the U.S.) to the Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency (I.C.E. the new I.N.S).
And keep in mind the child of an illegal immigrant living illegally in the United states… that child if born in the U.S. (anchor baby) is still a U.S. citizen.
Is the fact that someone born in the US is a citizen a problem? I mean, geez. What’s the cut-off? Since both sides of my family came over before there even was a USA, I think I’m straight.
But what about all my friends who are 2nd, 3rd or even 4th generation? Are we only going to enforce this when it comes to latino’s and arabs or are we gonna pull the citizenship of people from Europe too?
Sorry if I’m jumping on you for something you don’t support, but this idea of making birth in the US not immediatly qualify you for citizenship is just dumb. It’s the same thing they said about the Catholics, the Italians, the Irish, the Scottish, the Eastern Europeans, and the Asians. The sky is falling, the sky is falling. How many times can racists yell that before we realize that they are full of shit? Did I mention it’s stupid?
John wrote:
Actually it sounds more like I jumped on something you don’t support. As for your other comments- You don’t know me at all to be allowed to call me a racist. And if you are going to degenerate into name calling any possiblity for discussion is over right now.
I wrote:
Which was to be read as meaning “their children will be citizens and so will be eligible for the state benefits.” Not as advocating for any change of system. Don’t read more into it then was written.
As to the question where do we draw the line? I’ll toss this out for the sake of discussion:
The United States like most English based countries have a tradition of citizenship attached to the soil on which you were born. Other countries like Switzerland have a tradition of birth by blood. Citizenship granted based first on the citizenship of the parent, also referred to as citizenship by blood (as opposed to soil).
In the past our system has been a loophole that people here illegally have used, to give them a legal “anchor.” And again I’m not really advocating for one system over the other, just offering it up as something else to think about.
(Disclaimer: Having said all that I’m not sure if the part of the law that allowed a illegal parent of a legal “infant” citizen to stay in the U.S. based on that parentage… I don’t know if that loophole has been closed or not. But it might’ve been closed.).
In any event the United States is well over 200 years old. So it’s not the same place it was 200 plus years ago… We no longer have the unlimited natural resources we once did, nor do we have the unlimited room for growth that we did 200 plus years ago.
Don’t we have a responsiblity to first help the poor and working class who are here legally (who took the time to follow the law to come here legally) before we start rewarding those who are here in violation of our laws?
Additionally an illegal immigrant working construction in the state of Virginia isn’t doing a job that a U.S. citizen won’t do. They’re taking well paying jobs away from citizens, and doing so for less money so that the builder can enjoy a larger profit.
My conversations with employers of undocumented workers reveal quite the opposite. Don’t nobody want to pick apples.
TrvlnMn,
Sorry, I should have been clearer with what I was saying. What I meant was that the phrasing (anchor baby specifically) made me think that you supported the elimination of the birthright because it’s the kind of langauge used by its supporters.
I wasn’t calling you a racist (I’m very sorry if it came out that way), instead I was saying that those people who are calling for the elimination of the birthright of citizenship are motived by racism. The arguments are the same used by organizations like the KKK in the past. Over and over, the supporters of these measures state that illegal immigrants are taking our jobs and bringing in gang violence (MS13). That’s the same argument against Irish and Italians when they first came to our shores. Judging a whole class of people based on the color of their skin, or what country they come from is what I would refer to as racism.
You do bring up some good points further in your last post (especially about the limited resources). It’s good brain food. But I still stand my contention that the major motivation behind this cause is racism.
I personally think that the solution to illegal immigration does not lay in our country. Yes we need to secure our borders; although many of the 9/11 hijackers came in through Canada, not Mexico. If we want to limit the amount of people who come to our country, we need to work to eliminate the reason they come – economics. We need to provide more targeted international funding for Latin America to help them build an economy that can support their citizens. Once the reason for them coming is reduced or eliminated the ‘flood’ of immigrants slows (see Italians, Irish, etc). Additionally, the way that visas are handed out is very uneven. European countries recieve many more visas than Latin America. We also need to fix this so more people from Latin American can immigrate legally.
So these children have been residing in the U.S., Virginia for the ones we are concerned with , attended public schools and NOW will not be allowed to enter college.
Smart thinkin’ ! Increase the number of adults on welfare or unemployed. COMMON SENSE people!
Shannon Valentine contacted Liberty University ( Jerry Falwell). And they thought it was wrong to deny children of illegals admission. ( Of course they are thinking bottom line here…their motivation for many things).
Waldo wrote:
That’s exactly what I’d expect an employer of illegal immigrants to say. Unfortunately I cannot accept as truth the word of someone who’s actively hiring illegals, in violation of the law, that they cannot find a citizen to do the same construction job.
Martha wrote:
Since they aren’t citizens they won’t be eligible for welfare. They won’t be unemployed either. As Waldo said, there are builders that will higher them to work in construction, (and many other industries too), since apparently U.S. citizens don’t want many of these jobs.
John wrote:
I wouldn’t necessarily throw money at the problem. A lot of the problems with regards to mexico is that their system is broken. We as government need to urge mexco to make the political and economic reforms their government is badly in need of.
Illegal immigration isn’t a problem where we can always do what “feels good.” Because what feels good isn’t always what’s right. Especially when one considers that we have people here who are citizens, by birth or naturalization, who are here legally- who are no less deserving of help.
The folks I’ve known who’ve hired illegals have been very unhappy about doing so, knowing that they’re violating the law in doing so. It’s a pretty serious risk.
This is particularly problematic in the lobster and crab industries now. There aren’t enough work visas to get people to work the lines processing the catch, and Americans won’t do the work. So these guys have to choose between their catch spoiling or employing illegals. Some of them pick the latter, but not for long — they’re going out of business.
As I said, illegal immigration is not an easy issue to deal with. It’s certianly not something one can make broad sweeping statements about, without being wrong in some areas. Which is why I was sticking with construction as an example, as opposed to the lobster and crab industries you reference.
Of course with the fishing industries (Crabs and lobster included) one runs into the environmental issues like overfishing and even trying to maintain those sorts of jobs as viable alternatives considering the depletion of the supply. I think it was sometime last year (or the year before that) that I read about a study being done where tagged crabs were released and then a bounty paid to the fisherman who turned them in so that their migratory patterns could be tracked in order to enable their repopulation in the Chesapeake bay.
With Construction I know those jobs should be very well paying. However I know that Virginian employers have an addiction to an 8 dollar per hour wage for semi-skilled labor. And the construction people I know don’t really feel bad about hiring illegal.
The solutions in my mind aren’t unreasonable, to me they seem more as simple common sense. If you’re going to implement a guest worker program, then lets flex our muscle and hold Mexico more accountable for making the domestic changes they need to so that their people are able to actually make a living within their own country. Let’s not bow to Mexico every time they try to interject themselves into our domestic affairs. And let’s hold employers who hire illegals accountable, instead of turning a blind eye.
And lets also remember not all illegals are those who come here simply seeking a better life, who’s only crime has been crossing the border. A healthy chunk of these illegals are people with a criminal history in their own country who come here and continue to commit crimes. Most police departments in the border states know this.
If we’d do the smart things then laws like this one, preventing illegal’s from recieving in-state tuition rates wouldn’t be necessary. Unfortunately we don’t and all too often party politics and prior allegances get in the way of any real solutions.
“I wouldn’t necessarily throw money at the problem. A lot of the problems with regards to mexico is that their system is broken. We as government need to urge mexco to make the political and economic reforms their government is badly in need of.”
This is why I specifically said ‘targeted international funding’. We can’t just give money to Mexico (as I don’t think we should just ‘give’ money to any country). Instead we should help Mexico invest in business infrastructure and push towards a more transparent government. I also don’t think the Mexican system is ‘broken’, just sprained. They need change, but not whole sale change. But while we’re doing that, we should also push for the same things here in the US (transparent voting records, increased ability to apply Freedom of Information, more oversight by other branchs of government, etc).
I agree that there is not really a ‘feel good’ solution to the problem, but I think classifying all illegals and even all Latino immigrants as similar (such as denying in state tuition or even acceptance to VA Colleges and Universities or the entire ‘Minutemen’ program) is a step in the wrong direction.
This is a serious issue and one that cannot be solved totally within our borders. Knee-jerk actions won’t work. Neither will only effort within the US. We need a comprehensive effort to effect change throughout the US and the entire world. That why I’m a real big fan of increasing targeted international aid to Latin America, Africa (especially mid and north Africa), the Middle East and Southern Asia (the -stan region). Many argue that we should spend money to solve problems here first, but I believe that our problems, especially in this increasingly interconnected world, are affected by other nations. Increasing aid to North Africa, the Middle East and Asia would go a long way to helping stop terrorism. Aid to Latin America would help limit illegal immigration (in its current incarnation) into the US. I give, because deep down, I’m a selfish bastard :)