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| The United States of America: The Land of Opportunity. Even the Illegal Ones Benefit! |
I personally find Mr. Goodlatte's statements a bit extreme. I doubt illegal immigrants are going to instantly go on killing sprees once they are released. Besides, the National Immigrant Forum revealed that it costs approximately $164 a day to keep an illegal immigrant jailed for being, well you know, illegal. President Obama has already promised in his State of the Union address to help improve immigration policies so that legal and illegal immigrants have a less difficult time entering the United States. The economy is bad enough with JP Morgan and perhaps soon other banks laying off their workers. Wasting money to hold immigrants who probably just want to find work and support their families is not very productive, in my opinion. However, perhaps there are certain trade-offs that I have not identified. Maybe these illegal immigrants will start stealing jobs from normal, legal Americans who also desperately need work. Would that be fair? Compare your views with the views in this graph.
Overall, the budget costs are the most likely reason why so many illegal immigrants are starting to be released. Sheriff Paul Babeu had little love of this policy, calling it a "mass budget pardon" that Obama is using as a "political tactic in this sequester battle." While allowing all illegal immigrants to go free might not be the best policy ever, Obama probably has to make some hard choices and compromises in order to deal with the current economic crisis. Illegal immigrants has some costs, as this video shows.
It's not total chaos though. The New York Times has stated that "Under supervised release, defendants in immigration cases have to adhere to a strict reporting schedule that might include attending appointments at a regional immigration office as well as wearing electronic monitoring bracelets." Still, that doesn't mean every illegal immigrant is being monitored. It's impossible for the federal government to account for every man running around in this country.
So share your thoughts. Is this the best plan for the government to follow under the current circumstances? Is there a better path? And will these illegal immigrants actually lead to serious disorder in the country, as Republicans are worried about?
3 comments:
I think the Republicans are overreacting to the danger threat they believe releasing the illegal immigrants may cause. Many immigrants enter the country illegally in search of a better life and increased job opportunities, for, as Matthew pointed out, America is known worldwide as the "land of opportunity." Therefore, I doubt that very many of such immigrants would illegally enter the United States with the intent of engaging in crime and squandering their opportunities to find a job and make a living. Rather, it is the threat to the working class Americans that Republicans should be more worried about. With limited jobs and an increasing labor force, I would imagine that such working class Americans would not be too fond towards allowing the illegal immigrants to stay and become US citizens. However, I found the graph results surprising, for it seems that almost a supermajority of Americans favor an earned path to citizenship for the illegal immigrants; perhaps they are simply not fond towards allowing more immigrants to cross the border illegally.
While I don’t love the idea of releasing prisoners, illegal immigrants or otherwise, for money saving purposes, I think that doing this won’t significantly change the country’s overall well-being. Illegal immigrants want to have the same chances that US citizens get in terms of work and/or education for their children and if many of these prisoners are parents they would appreciate this opportunity of freedom and would not want to ruin it, even if it is somewhat restrictive. Under current circumstances, letting these prisoners go also means allowing for more people to work and contribute to the economy rather than using up money to keep them detained.
As for other possible ways to address the budget crisis, cutting funding to state prisons might have just led to the closing down of prisons and releasing prisoners anyway. But I wonder; if the budget crisis does get resolved in the near future, what would happen to those prisoners? If they all get imprisoned again, then they were released for the wrong reasons.
The public opinion on illegal immigration has generally shifted toward more support for letting immigrants who are here illegally earn citizenship and I also agree that illegal immigrants should get the chance to become citizens. Even Republicans are leaning more towards naturalizing illegal immigrants, so I believe that releasing illegal immigrant prisoners with supervision could be a start.
In response to Maribelle's comment, I agree that Republicans might be leaning toward further acceptance of illegal immigrants. Of course, this might be a set up for a future election. They might want to take away the Democrat's advantage among immigrants who tend to vote for the Democratic party. If they're going to accept immigrants, it should be for moral not political reasons.
This Washington Times Article focuses on the Republican's need to gain more Hispanic votes.
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