This was posted in the comments section. It's classic:
As a native Californian and excellent customer of the Internal Revenue Service, I am blogging to ask for your assistance. I have contacted the Department of Homeland Security in an effort to determine the process for becoming an illegal alien and they referred me to your blog.
My primary reason for wishing to change my status from U.S. Citizen to illegal alien stems from the bill which was recently passed from committee to the full Senate and for which your readers are supporting. If my understanding of this bill's provisions is accurate, as an illegal alien who has been in the United States for five years, all I need to do to become a citizen is to pay a $2,000 fine and income taxes for three of the last five years.
I know a good deal when I see one and I am anxious to get the process started before everyone figures it out. Simply put, those of us who have been here legally have had to pay taxes every year so I'm excited about the prospect of avoiding two years of taxes in return for paying a $2,000 fine. Is there any way that I can apply to be illegal retroactively? This would yield an excellent result for me and my family because we paid heavy taxes in 2004 and 2005.
Additionally, as an illegal alien I could begin using the Scripps emergency room as my primary health care provider. Once I have stopped paying premiums for medical insurance, my accountant figures I could save almost $10,000 a year.
Another benefit in gaining illegal status would be that my daughter would receive preferential treatment relative to her law school applications, as well as "in-state" tuition rates for many colleges throughout the United States for my son.
Lastly, I understand that illegal status would relieve me of the burden of renewing my driver's license and making those burdensome car insurance premiums. This is very important to me given that I still have college age children driving my car.
If you would provide me with an outline of the process to become illegal (retroactively if possible) and copies of the necessary forms, I would be most appreciative. Thank you all for your assistance.
LA Times: Immigration bill's key compromise under siege
Contact Senator Feinstein and staff via John&Ken show
Overpopulation
Mexico has a huge population time bomb and the USA is their safety valve.
ReplyDeleteSome people are racist in this nation. This is part of the culture I speak out against. I do not embrace it and I do not believe it should be tolerated. I do not agree that this type “diversity” of cultural values is good for human kind. I also don’t believe that “cultural” differences are inherently good or productive. We as a nation should adopt the best values and drop the bad values and cultural behaviors. This requires that we make judgments.
Many of the people speaking in that video are hideously and deeply racists. Some of the Aztlan leaders are prepared to go to WAR with you. You are an occupier. An evil occupier. Prepare to leave because your skin color is not dark enough. I don’t want that type of cultural value spreading. Do you?
Many open borders people are completely aloof regarding Aztlan. Aztlan proponents plan on taking over desert southwest. Go ask them, but don’t expect to be welcomed if your skin is too light.
Many open borders people don’t understand the shear mass of people that are here now (native born AND immigrant). They don’t realize the mass of people that are going to come. Too many that assimilation is becoming less likely. There are many entire cities in the LA region where assimilation has ended because the population is dominated by recent immigrants. Entire Cities. For you feminists, sexism has returned in those cities. Macho. What happens when California flies the Aztlan flag? These people admit that they this is an INVASION. This is what THEY admit!
Say good by to the local environment because the shear mass of people will be overwhelming and don’t think that the new dominant culture of California will embrace environmental causes. Don’t think just assume that for a second.
A 'Hispanic Homeland' could be written off as the work of extremists were it not for wide-spread support by Mexicans. A June 2002 Zogby poll of Mexicans found that a substantial majority of Mexican citizens believe that southwestern America is rightfully the territory of Mexico and that Mexicans do not need the permission of the U.S. to enter. The poll found that 58 percent of Mexicans agree with the statement, "The territory of the United States' southwest rightfully belongs to Mexico." Zogby said 28 percent disagreed, while another 14 percent said they weren't sure.
ReplyDeleteAfter the treaty of Gadalupe-Hildalgo the Mexicans who were here in Alta California stayed for the most part. They were not kicked out. Those people continued to build california into what it is today. They were not left out.
This is my land. Why should I work like a dogg south of the ficticous border, when I can become a citizen of the US and have all you gringos pay for me to retire on your welfare system?
ReplyDeleteMe rather sit in my front porch,play my guitar, and collecting govenemnt checks than work in the fields for minimum wage.
Well Ok, this changes everything, I mean should we keep fighting for those sidewalks in Leucadia, or not?
ReplyDeleteYou might get the sidewalks in time but give up on everything else because the burden of the invasion will be too much by then.
ReplyDeleteBefore someone says, if we make them legal they will pay income taxes. That makes sense for all the high paid immigrants but low paid immigrants will get the earned income tax credit. They get reverse taxes. The government would pay them 4 working. This is a good program but it cannot be supported for so many people. It will break the nation and then no one will be prosperous.
see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Earned_income_tax_credit
Government money is not endless as everyone in Leucadia already knows. All this stuff is connected as many people are starting to realize.
Like Rodney Dangerfield, I'm fed up with getting no respect!
ReplyDeleteAs a lock-and-load centrist, liberal, politically independent environmentalist and environmental scientist, I am sick and tired of all the credit for fighting SB 1348 going to "conservative Republicans!"
First of all there is absolutely nothing "moderate" about this bill, and people like McCain certainly are reasonably characterized as "extremist" or "whacko", but they are hardly deserving the label of "moderate Republican." Unless you want that to be a synonym for "mendacious and deceptive."
I know some of you may never speak to me again, but the idea that we must have massive DECREASES in immigration in order to guarantee a decent social, econonomic, and, especially, environmental future for our grandchildren, is a LIBERAL idea! At least it was long ago. Now all of a sudden it's only supported by "conservative Republicans?" Give me a break.
Sometimes I think, "I never crossed the ideological boundary, the boundary crossed me!"
I know of no scholar, scientist or anyone else who has thought deeply about the matter, who thinks even our present U.S. population of a bit more than 300 million is environemtally and economically sustainable. And yet the dominating, mindless elements of the U.S. Congress have been pushing for the U.S. to increase its population growth rate from about 1%/year to 2%/year.
Even if the U.S. population were to remain at its present level, we will continue downhill, environmentally speaking. The "dead zones" in marine environments off our major cities and rivers will continue expanding, the concentrations of pollutants in our lakes, rivers and coastal water will continue to increase, one fishery after another will crash, the concentrations of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere will continue to increase, the valleys in poor counties to which we ship our trainloads of solid wastes will continue to fill (and leak), the water tables over thousands of square miles will continue to drop...
And that, to repeat, is if we stablize the U.S. population tomorrow....
This is not a battle between liberal vs conservative principles.
It is a battle among open borders extremists in both parties in the Congress, a small number of people both in Congress and on the outside who are resisting them in the spirit of 1776, and a flaccid, uninterested, uninformed electorate, including especially the professional classes.
Starting to realize? What? I guess we have to recognize that the average American is an Idiot like half our Council- Right?
ReplyDeleteRemind me again, why do we need to make illegal people in this country legal?
We already have a process. I don’t care where you’re from, get in line with the rest of the world population.
I got an idea. If you want to be an American and California, than paid you’re pro rata share of your debt in advance.
American debt-each citizen's share of this debt is $29,241.31.
http://www.brillig.com/debt_clock/
Lets make everyone wanting to be an American fork up $30,000. How many takers will we have?
Otherwise the countries debt is sinking this country and future generation’s quality of life.
If Encinitas had a charter, we could have SAVE up to $10 million dollars on our library and probably $20 million on our regional park, and $2 million on each of the 3 firestations.
ReplyDeleteITS TIME TO ADOPT A CHARTER!
Charter cities, for example, can avoid paying prevailing wages --
http://www.nctimes.com/articles/2007/06/06/news/coastal/10_54_266_5_07.txtessentially union wages -- on projects that don't involve state or federal funds. And, while cities that operate under the state's general laws are required to go through a competitive bidding process for public works projects over $5,000, cities with their own charters are not.
Of the 478 cities in California, 109 have charters, including San Marcos, Del Mar and Chula Vista.
In all the reportage on the illegal immigration issue, the role of the Mexican government is rarely mentioned. The United States is regularly accused of racism, violation of human rights, discrimination, disrespect of international law, and inhumanity. There is nary a word about Mexico, even though these charges more accurately apply to Mexico in the way it handles its immigrant problem on the Guatemala border. When I was in Chiapas a year ago very near the Guatemala border, I spoke with many Mexicans. It was curious to hear how the comments mirrored what we hear in the US. The Guatemalans sneak into the country illegally, they depress wages, and they do the work the Mexicans won’t do. This work is mainly picking coffee beans in the many plantations. But this is risky for the Guatemalans, as they are treated very badly and are shaken down by the Mexican police. I have spoken with Guatemalans in the US. They talk about the horrors of making their way through Mexico to the US and the intense discrimination they face. They try to speak Spanish with a Mexican accent to hide their identity. But they are even more desperate than the Mexicans, fleeing the brutality of the suppression of the indigenous population in their own country.
ReplyDeleteThe Mexican constitution gives the federal government broad powers over immigration and border security. The president has the right to expel any foreigner as “undesirable” at any time. This happened to various Europeans and some Americans who went to Chiapas in support of the Zapatista movement and Subcomandante Marcos. The Mexican government simply accepts no agitating, meddling outsiders. Contrast that with the tolerance of the US.
In the border areas I am accustomed to Mexicans asking me if there is work for them in the US. I am now asked this wherever I go in Mexico. About four years ago I was visiting the Mayan ruins in the lowland jungles of Chiapas. I was on the banks of the Usumacinta River hiring a boat to take me down the river to the ruins of Yaxchilán. Across the river is Guatemala. One can’t go much further south in Mexico. I was asked where I was from. California was my answer. The four men immediately wanted to know if there was work for them there. This startled me. I sadly said no. I realized then that a deep pessimism pervades Mexico from the north to the south. Mexicans are so discouraged that they only perceive a better future en el Norte. They have concluded that Mexico offers no opportunity, and they are voting with their feet. This is Mexico’s great tragedy and great shame. A country rich in natural and human resources can only export its people as part of an official government policy. It was President Vicente Fox who has been most shameless in encouraging this. President Felipe Calderón seems to be continuing the same policy. And why not? Remittances from the US are now Mexico’s second largest earner of foreign currency. Only oil earns more.
I believe it is foolish for the US to accept this Mexican policy. It freezes the situation in Mexico and prevents the needed reforms. It allows the corruption of the upper class to continue. It preserves their arrogant, privileged position, but at a terrible cost. For many years I turned a blind eye to illegal immigration from Mexico. The numbers were relatively small, and I always thought that the money sent back to Mexico by the workers was the best form of foreign aid we could provide. The big foreign aid projects fail, as the money never gets down to the poorest where it is needed the most. It disappears in bureaucracies, in corruption, and in grandiose projects that didn’t help the poor. But the money sent by the illegal immigrant to their families can make a tremendous difference. It can build a house, buy a pump for irrigation or a tractor for cultivation, and provide a hope for the future.
I recently heard on a broadcast out of Mexico City that 11% of Mexico’s population is now in the United States. This trend is unsustainable. It is not good for either country. The Senate proposal of a second amnesty and a guest worker program without enforcement of immigration law and increase in border security will only guarantee that things will get worse. A way must be found to bring this flood under control. This means that the jalón (big pull) of jobs in the US and the empujón (big push) of hopelessness in Mexico must be dealt with. There has to be a realistic and honest assessment of the huge problem that both the United States and Mexico face. I think this means that enforcement of immigration law and increase in border security must come first, and then amnesty and a guest program can be considered.
Why is amnesty needed?
ReplyDeleteIf your illegal, go submit your papers and waite your turn.
Is it that simple? How about if you hire illegals go to jail? The ecke's would get life sentences.
ReplyDeleteMany illegals were recruited from their hometowns and invited to come north. AMERICANS traveled to their hometown to ask them to come across the border. when the immigrants get here the system welcomes them. It has been that way for decades. This country has been sending these immigrants MIXED MESSAGES. Keep that in mind.
We should send those people back, but in a human way. If their employers want them back they can bring them back through the system AND pay for all the associated costs of using exploited peoples. Make the employers pay for the emergency rooms and social services. Employers aren't going to like that, they don't even want to pay them a standard wage which is why we are going to get a whole new flood of illegals if the current population is given legal status. Once you get legal status you can't be exploited. Just go to el centro. There is high unemployment in the children of immigrants. Not a good thing for society or the national economy.
Why do illegals need to be made US citizens before the people who are trying to become citizens legally?
ReplyDeleteDoesn't make sense. It would be rewarding illegal behavior.
Mexico is not a poor country and Mexicans are not poor. They have money and they spend it freely and foolishly.
ReplyDeleteThe last comment oes not make sense. If a person spends money foolishly then they would no longer have money.
ReplyDeleteA fool and his money are soon parted.
Difficult challenge.
ReplyDeleteI don't like Bilbray or any politician who gets elected on the race issue.
We don't need more walls, though.
Try to look at a much larger picture. There are no brown, red, black or white people, there are only people. Everyone currently on the planet has an opportunity to make a positive contribution, not everyone will.
ReplyDeleteWhat we presently know to be the United States may change in the future to something even better than it is now. Freedom is our most valuable asset, and one worth dying for as many have. But, your real fear, if you stop long enough to examine it, is that your affluence may someday be watered down a bit. You're present game is being threatened here, and that's what you don't want to share, not with an inferior brown man for sure.
So, take a deep breath, grow up.
Poster at 4:18 pm needs a refresher course in arithmetic. The population of the world is over 6 billion. Of those probably 1 or 2 billion want to come to the US. I want you to give one penny to each of these newcomers. That will only cost you $10 million. Still not interested in protecting your affluence?
ReplyDeleteOr how about giving a dime to each one of the estimated 20 million illegal immigrants in the US now? That will only cost you $1 million. Still feeling generous?
It is silly to discus the illegal immigration problem without considering the huge numbers involved and the financial impact those numbers will have. When my grandparents came to this country all they got was a legal entry, not a single penny. Now we have very generous government programs that dole out billions of dollars to newcomers. If you think with your heart, you better also start thinking with your pocketbook. Or you are the fool.
So take a deep breath and reconsider.
Your response is exactly as expected. The point of view expressed reflects a fear of loosing our elite affluent status. I'm not afraid to share what I have with others, even to the point that it lessens my standard of living. In this current state of affairs, very few on this planet control most of the resources to the detriment of many others. And too many of those lucky few would rather die than share.
ReplyDeleteI realize there will always be inequity in this world, but I also recognize that nothing is forever either.
Why not consider that newcomers may bring us positive things. Don't concentrate on these people being a burden on the system forever. Generally the illegals who are here now are the individuals who are the most driven, the ones with the gumption to find a better way for their families. Often this means leaving their families behind for long periods. If the economy here seriously tanked and there were few good paying jobs, would you be willing to leave your country and family to find a better life far from home?
I'm only saying that here we are so incredibly wasteful and have so much. And yet we are so unwilling to make it happen for anyone else.
Before I break out in a round of Kumbayah, I want you to know that I sometimes feel as you do and I guess it's pretty natural to protect what we percieve as ours. But, that's the problem, we really don't own anything, we're just using it for a few short 100 years, maybe it's better if we shared it.
Your response is exactly as expected, a holier than thou attitude. Nobody is stopping you from sharing your affluence with the poor of the world. Just do it.
ReplyDeleteI spent two years as a volunteer in a dirt-poor, third-world country. I was the only white person where I worked. I learned their language and shared their living standard.
I have spent half of the last 15 years living in Latin America. I speak fluent Spanish and interact with the culture easily. I have been generous with my time and money, much more than you, I suspect. It's an easy trip south to Tijuana. Stop the talk and start the action. Open your home to an illegal alien family and feed them. Nobody is stopping you, only yourself.
I say again, take a deep breath and reconsider.
anon 418. It makes me sad that not everyone believes as you do. "Try to look at a much larger picture. There are no brown, red, black or white people, there are only people"
ReplyDeleteWhat you don’t seem to understand is that there is a growth in racist beliefs in the immigrant community. Followers of the Aztlan movement see brown, red, black, and white. You have a very Pollyanna perspective if you don't recognize this. It is people like you who should be more concerned.
Mexico is very rich in natural resources. It should be an affluent nation and IT IS a rich nation, just not for everyone. There is a very wealthy upper class in mexico.
Why not let everyone in? Like a billion people now and 3-4 billion more during the next generation. Here is one reason why not. That many people will crush this nation. Not enough energy. Not enough water. Not enough sustainable farmland. So how many people do we let in a year. Come up with a number, but don’t say everyone because that means your head is in the sand or you are not being honest with yourself.
The vast number of immigrants moving north should not be given so much credit for striving for a better life. Immigration north turns out to be the easy way out. Seeking reform at home is much harder and potentially dangerous. They are not fighting for their freedom and social justice they are fleeing from the fight. Of course, some people have stayed to fight and some went a little overboard with the Zapatista movement.
The zapatistas risked their lives to improve the lives of their community.
If you truly want to help these people get involved in reform of the Mexican government instead of enabling the Mexican government to persist. If immigration stopped there would be a political revolution within 5 years. This scares the crap out of the Mexican elite and they speak about this openly and have come to a general consensus about this over the last decade.
Why do you think these new immigrants will demand a less corrupt government here in alta California than they did in central mexico?
Anon 151, If you want to help people then crack open your checkbook and start sending aid to Mexico and Guatemala. If you are not willing to do that because you are too selfish then start a movement to have the federal government of the USA start sending an enormous aid package south of the boarder. If it is about a hand up, isn't it more humane to help people in their own homes where their social networks are unbroken. But we shouldn’t be ridiculous. The USA is teetering on economic Armageddon. The feds can’t afford it. We can’t afford to support a continuous influx of immigrants either.
I don’t think you have any idea of the numbers of immigrants who will be coming here in the next 20 years?
People on this blog should know better than anyone that this country does not have an endless supply of money or resources. People want to help others. This is wonderful, but it is assumed that we can absorb the UNPRECEDENTED level of immigration socially, economically, environmentally, and politically.
Why do any of you assume this?
Some illegal aliens are good folk who want to earn some coin for their families.
ReplyDeleteBut Californians and Americans be warned, the Azatlan and La Raza movements are very close to communism. Don't be naive about these movements. They are real, popular and dangerous to democracy.
Ok, I'm Pollyanna.
ReplyDeleteHow big of a worldview are you willing to take. Hey, we're Leucadians, let's take a cosmicview.
I understand, there are radical ideals and zealots in every country, religion and race. History has shown that no social, cultural, economic or racial ideals are forever, they all have there day then die out because they are not responsive or pertainent. I believe we are becoming better, more refined and enlightened as humans, but slowly and by spurts and setbacks.
Democracy is an ideal that is refined and progressive. It is enobling and worthy, the best system yet considering our collective progress.
This is the ideal most intelligent humans strive for. I truly believe that if other systems overwhelm democracy, they will be short lived. I have huge faith that we will endure as love of freedom is universal. It really doesn't matter what color you may be, or what path to God you choose, we all want the same things in this life.
By the way, I'm not holier than thou. I readily admit to having far fewer acomplishments with regard to service to my brother. I sincerely respect your efforts.
ReplyDeleteStill call me pollyanna.
Illegal imigration may only be the tip of the iceburg. Scientists have predicted large population shifts as a result of climate change over short periods of time. These shifts will often include violent conflict and resistance.
ReplyDeleteOne familiar shift predicted is a movement from Central America and Mexico to the more hospitable parts of North America.
"This is the ideal most intelligent humans strive for. I truly believe that if other systems overwhelm democrac"
ReplyDeleteSorry but democracy is not necessarily the end result of an evolution of society. Blogger, you are extremely naive and uniformed. Look at all the totality of african, central american, south american nations just to begin with.
Bush used the same sort of thinking with Iraq. Just get rid of Sadaam and democracy will erupt spontaneously.