Quote:
Other than that, what I've learned is that Canadians think we shouldn't enforce our immigration laws because we'd be missing out on the opportunity to exploit people for cheap services...which is another problem I have with illegal immigration. When people sneak in, some of them end up at the mercy of some real low-life unscrupulous shitbag motherfuckers. Some of the coyotes that bring people across the border scam young girls so that they end up whoring themselves out to "pay" for their trip to the USA. "Hey, buddy, you can either do this job for $3 an hour or I can call INS." "I know this apartment isn't up to code, but fuck you, what you gonna do, call the law?"
It's not about whether to enforce the law or not, but what a reasonable response is. How much money and effort are you willing to spend, and how many civil liberties are you willing to curtail in order to enforce the law? I think it's a debate worth having, but it should be based on facts and clear-headed reason, not unsupported assumptions and fear-mongering.
Boredalt wrote:
You guys must realize by now that firsthand knowledge doesn't mean anything. Those are just anecdotes. Personal experience is trumped by someone living thousands of miles away because of what they read on the internet. If you want to know what it is like to live in Arizona or Texas, don't ask people who live actually live there. By extension, if you want to know what it is like to serve in the military in the Middle East (or to live in El Paso), don't ask Dotzilla. If you want to know something about living in Australia, don't ask Yewluze. Nope. Just search for your answers on the Internet and swallow everything whole.
The plural of anecdote is not data, and physical distance is irrelevant to my ability to read statistics. If I wanted to know what the subjective quality of life was like in Texas, sure I would ask you. If I wanted to know what the 20-year trends in crime rates were, I would check a police database designed to answer that question, since the few crimes an individual is likely to experience during that period would be meaningless to the overall trend. You made some very specific claims about the harm illegal immigrants pose. To summarize:
1) Unavailability or difficulty in accessing health care and social services
2) Local tax increases
3) Loss of jobs and decreased wages
4) Increase in crime and drugs
5) Increased traffic and dangerous drivers
6) Fewer classes in local schools due to requirements for ESL classes
7) Decreased property values
All of these can be demonstrated with statistics, and for the most part can't be adequately examined based on anecdotes. Many places have experienced these things, and illegal immigration is by no means the only possible cause. I posted links earlier to 2 peer-reviewed papers suggesting that on the whole, illegal immigration has a positive beneficial economic impact on the US. Surely if what you believe is true there should be comparable data supporting your point. Even you can't prove causality, I would accept that your point is reasonable if you can show a correlation between the population of illegal immigrants and the specific harms you mention. This is such a hot issue in the US that it's hard to believe nobody has done some actual research on the issue.