ironporer

Doubt it...bogus SS cards are only about $50, green cards $250 and up depending on quality. Or so I am informed by some hispanic employees.

cindyabs

The last 225 years here, we did not bend over to cater to immigrants, we didn't post signs in English and German, or English and Italian, or English and French etc. Not everyone who came here during that time, came with a grubstake, speaking the language etc, and yet somehow they assimilated. They had to, to survive.

I honestly don't think opening the borders in a free for all would level things out, nor do I think that it would be a guest worker style program as there is in Europe. I think that the folks would stay and sadly because of the numbers (higher birth rate) it would continue to put a strain on the already overtaxed resources here.

tamms_1965

Serious question here..What if they have no form of ID or their ID pic doesn't match their face, registered owner of car no where to be found, illegal plates on car, etc.? If they do not have any proper ID what are the police allowed to do?

Bob

Bring you in I guess...back in blighty you've got 7 days to go to the station with the ID, being innocent till and all that but that's not the case here. You've got to carry your drivers license, so it's no excuse, unlike in the UK.

But not having ID is a seperage issue to being asked your immigration status, which is something the police are not allowed to ask.

meauxna

Book you as a John Doe, or whatever they do if they were booking you, and you didn't have ID.
What Bob said, basically.

Songbird

True however local police are using methods to circumvent that. Briefly, while they can't ask about immigration status they can ( and have been) utilizing state identity laws to effect their own illegal immigration 'control'. Undocumented aliens that find themselves arrested are held pending ICE inquiries and then deported. Those with false papers are being held and prosecuted for identity theft - in some cases serving prison time as it a federal offense and THEN deported.

http://www.digitaljournal.com/article/255890

http://www.upi.com/Top_News/2008/06/...0861213035621/

One of the lesser reported aspects of the immigration debate ( i.e. the impact on the US born children of undocumented aliens) was recently highlighted in this article: http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/lapl...eral-auth.html. Which stated that :
"About 5 million children in the U.S. have an undocumented parent, and two-thirds of those children are U.S. citizens"
IMO regardless of the parents status those US born children have as their BIRTH RIGHT the same rights as other US citizens. Any debate around immigration 'control' MUST recognise those constitutional rights and conduct itself accordingly.

JEM3110

I'm could have sworn that's what they said....I'll ask next time I see them, you've got me wondering, now!

Bob

Thing is, the US government doesn't care, because the child could live with the parents, or go into care...it's a bit of an arseway round of doing things, but nothings going to change, especially if healthcare for all isn't a number one priority, why would anything to do with 'em dodgy foreigners rate any higher, never mind 'em dodgy foreigners who are eligible for visas etc.

Songbird

Sad but true - for a country that is so very much 'family orientated', let alone one that is as constitutionally proud ( if you get what I mean ) this seemingly a massive contradiction

fatbrit

A local example:

http://wheresvirginia.com/

meauxna

Good one.

And it's not just 'the Mexicans'. Here is another no-hoper story. Well, it's going to take a while to solve, at any rate.

Wells woman told she can't come home
Twenty-five years ago, Wells resident Mark Myers married Barbara Burba, a Canadian. The two had met a couple of years earlier when Barbara's family was vacationing at Wells Beach. He was 19 and she was 17 when they met. Love blossomed and Barbara returned to Wells in 1983, married Myers, and settled with him in Maine. Barbara applied for and received a Social Security number. With that and the marriage certificate, the young couple thought they'd done everything necessary to make Barbara a legal resident of the states.

Years later they would find out they were very wrong. Attempting to return to the U.S. on a bus in December 2007, after visiting her parents in Ottawa, Barbara was removed from the bus and prohibited from crossing the border. She has been in Canada ever since, as she and Mark try to sort out from long distance when and whether she can return.
(more)

And the Scottish woman with the pregnancy problem. The hole gets so deep, how can people dig out of it?

They're all just regular children, wives, husbands. What are we supposed to do to solve this problem? "Undocumenteds" are everywhere, and they're not always who you think they are...

Songbird

Exactly. IMO the whole immigration 'debate' needs to be re-focused on PEOPLE. This does not exclude addressing issues of entry ( and how to control that) rather it adds into the equation the situation of undocumented people here TODAY and how best their situations can be handled and resolved in as humane way as possible. At the moment there is no leeway at all given to those people who for whatever circumstance find themselves trapped in the 'undocumented conundrum'. All are treated 'equally' and removed REGARDLESS of circumstance.

meauxna

Unless they apply for asylum.
Warranted or not. And it buys them an EAD and an extended stay.

surly

Deportation doesn't only apply to illegal aliens.

Under President Clinton The 1996 Immigration Act was passed

The 1996 Immigration Acts

In 1996, following the first World Trade Center attack and Oklahoma City bombing, President Clinton signed the Anti-terrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act, which made deportation mandatory for all legal permanent residents sentenced to a year or more for “aggravated felonies,” “moral turpitude” or controlled substances. This act, along with the Illegal Immigration Reform and Immigrant Responsibility Act of 1996, made deportation of legal non-residents much faster and more frequent by considering increasingly minor criminal offenses automatically deportable.

In the past, immigration judges could weigh factors such as an immigrant’s ties to the community, lawful good behavior and tax-paying work history. That judge could also consider the economic or political hardship an immigrant and his family would experience as a result of deportation. But now, the 1996 laws severely restrict judges from waiving deportations, so they are left with no alternative except to order the immigrant’s removal.

http://www.pbs.org/independentlens/s...home/film.html

scrubbedexpat099

That was part of the last Amnesty Deal.

And US born children do have the same rights, now whether that should be the case is very arguable.