Hi everyone,

Pardon me if I belabor the subject of illegal immigration. It's just that everywhere I go in Hagerstown and Federick and even in Charles Town, I'm reminded that the problem is mushrooming.

Here's some interesting estimates on how much its costing just the taxpayers of Maryland to keep our borders open:

Excerpt from article"

In addition to depressing wages for entry-level, local workers, illegals cost Maryland taxpayers an estimated $331 million annually -- just to provide them basic services such as education, medical care and incarceration, according to the Federation for American Immigration Reform (FAIR).



Here's the link to the rest of the stats. http://lastreporter.typepad.com/my_weblog/...al_aliens_.html

How are you reminded? Did you see people on the street who looked like they may have been from another country like... I don't know... Mexico or some place really far off like that? Did you have to stand in line with them at Wal-Mart? Did you overhear them speaking in Spanish or God forbid did one of them actually speak to you in Spanish? I drive through those towns all the time. Rarely if ever do I see something that causes me to contemplate the impending immigration "mushroom cloud".


Still, though we may not agree on this particular subject, welcome to the HM Forums.


Btw, do you have any other sources on the subject besides Chet Dembeck?

Idiot it I'm going to have to agree and ask the same question, how does driving through those locations "remind" a person that the immigration problem is mushrooming. The people you see could very well be here legally.

On the other hand, once you take into consideration even the most conservative estimates regarding illegal immigration, one has to think twice about this problem when you pass a construction site that has less than 20% American workers considering the Hispanic population in this country is only about 20%. These are red flags and usually result in more scrutiny by immigration officials.

i think its a proplem, but the way it looks it wont be for long, with open borders there wont be any illegals in the us, every one may have already read this ,bbut here it is, i dont know if it means anything , but i ran across it,,,,,,,,,grassfire.org. read it , let me know.

It seems that anyone that has any issue with illegal immigration gets attacked.

Regardless of if driving through any town reminded the poster or not he raised a valid issue that was the point of his post. Why attack him and not address the issue he raised?

Are his figures valid? Is it an issue that should be talked about? Is it the whole story? Do the people being provided these services contribute through taxes?

Why not discuss the issue and not the way it was posted.?

Where have you been hiding for the past two and a half years Hagerman? We've discussed this issue here in depth, including the tax implications. Lee doesn't want to have a discussion. He/she has started 5 threads all linking to the same obscure blog and then has only posted 2 additional comments to them. It's more like fear mongering than it is a discussion.

Pardon me for not being here for the last 2.5 years and missing the in depth discussion of this subject.

Can you point me to your comments whcih I am sorry to say I maissed.

Sorry, they were mostly threads I started and now they're gone with the wind except for the most recent one. But we can start all over. What are your thoughts on the subject?

Surprisingly, I tend to agree with your comments. I think for a start the fines for employers should start at about $10,000.

i don't think it is reasonable to think of a fence along our southern (and northern) boarder.

Something that is not mentioned about illegal workers and those on H1 visas is not only that they are often paid substandard wages but they are often abused because the employer knows that they are not likely to raise a fuss. I work with many people that are on H1's and know for a fact that many are taken advantage of. Maybe not at Microsoft but in a small company they are.

If lettuce workers have to be paid a prevailing wage and the cost of a head of lettuce goes up to $6 then John Deere will develop a harvester. The only reason one does not exist is because it is cheaper to pay someone a substandard wage then to invest in a 200,000 piece of equipment.

Another sticky issue with illegals is the child of an illegal is a US citizen. I don't believe this is right. Only those people that are here and are under the 'control' of the US should be citizens. If diplomat in the states on office business for their country has a child that child is NOT a US citizen because they are not under the 'control' of the US government.

I am not against immigration. My partner for more than 20 years was born in Spain, raised in Mexico and came to the US at age 13. But I don't think that someone that is here illegally deserves to be treated to any of the benefits that coming here legally affords.

To keep this short i think the first and biggest step in a solution is to remove the incentive for sneaking across the boarder by putting the onus on the employers by BIG fines. Identifying the illegal is the biggest problem in this first step. Social Security does advise employers if they receive payments under s SSN that does not match the name on file. How quickly this takes place I can't say. but I know they have several months to resolve the problem. Why SS doesn't inform INS and have them resolve it I don't know.

I also think that this topic will be the biggest issue in the next election.

Maybe because not only are they receiving money from them (an estimated $6-7 billion per year), they're never going to have to pay them any benefits. That's a pretty sweet deal.





If I was a republican running for office right now I wouldn't talk about anything else.

How can they be paying SS when they're all being paid under the table?