Can an American please answer a question?

[Chiteng]

It seems that illegal immigration is becoming more of a hot button topic this year than it has in the past (what with elections and all). Consequently, a lot of politicians, both local and federal, have been making noise about what they want to do to deal with the issue.

This raises an issue of logic in my mind. Immigration seems like a federal issue, period. After all, we are talking about the laws that determine who may or may not enter the country, not individual states. If states are allowed to make their own immigration laws, does that not potentially infringe on every Americans right to free movement throughout the country? I don't think I would like the idea of having to carry my passport every time I decided to take a roadtrip to the next state over (if I lived in the US, that is).

Anyway, it seems illogical for anyone to insist that immigration laws be decided locally. Defending and defining the country's border is a federal matter, by definition, isn't it?

The President of the USA is actively trying to get illegals INTO the USA. His motives dont matter. What makes people angry is that he refuses to bear the COSTS of his promotion. Illegals being in the country COST MONEY. ALOT of money.

Obama is not paying those costs. He is FORCING the States to foot the bills.

California is a perfect example. The state is Bankrupt and it is impossible legislate a solution. Anyone who tries is crucified. The only answer being offered is to raise the taxes. That isnt an answer.

In addition we have roughly sixteen million unemployed in the country. Obama is still issuing visa and green cards. He doesnt give a damn about the unemployed CITIZENS.
Only 4% of the illegals work in agriculture. So what do you think the rest are doing?
See any high school students working at Macs?

The resentment is caused by the illegals themselves. Every time a drunk illegal kills a high school student, it rises. Everytime an indigent citizen seems an illegal mother w four kids in the market buying hundreds of dollars of food, with food stamps
it grates. Illegals also defraud the IRS by claiming earned credit on income tax.

It will only get worse. We need a president that will enforce the law. Not try and thwart it. We need to close the borders and KEEP them closed.
Deported illegals need to STAY deported

 

[downtown]

Everytime an indigent citizen seems an illegal mother w four kids in the market buying hundreds of dollars of food, with food stamps
it grates.

How would that citizen in the grocery store know the mother was an illegal? Just cause she's brown?

 

[Chiteng]

How would that citizen in the grocery store know the mother was an illegal? Just cause she's brown?

The resentment is against ALL illegals. Not simply brown ones.

 

[JollyRoger]

How would you know ANYONE is illegal in a grocery store?

 

[IdiotsOpposite]

Don't you know? TRUE Americans radiate patriotism out of every orifice. That's how you tell.

 

[JollyRoger]

Well yeah, some considerer Santorum patriotic.

 

[Lord of Elves]

The resentment is against ALL illegals. Not simply brown ones.

Just yesterday they deported some five-hundred illegal French immigrants where I live.

 

[Cutlass]

Are you sure about that? It seems that the second attempt, he forgot the Bible down the hall, but thought that it was not important to find one? Did the flubbed one count? Or did the second one? If the flubbed one counted why do it over again? I am not going to hold him to the office based on the Bible, but seems that he may be the first Pres to avoid using one.

Obama has probably "prayed" in a mosque as often as he has in a church.

Can you show that Obama has even been in a mosque more than a couple times in his life?

 

[G-Max]

No they couldn't. ALL interstate affairs are subject to federal government oversight. Utah could never decide that they hate Californians and close their common border.

Try actually reading the Constitution sometime. Utah CAN decide that. And then the rest of us would make fun of them for not realizing that they share no border with California.

 

[timtofly]

Can you show that Obama has even been in a mosque more than a couple times in his life?

That is not what I said, but I will bite. It is what people do in a mosque, cathedral, or your run of the mill protestantism, that I am referring to.

 

[Core Imposter]

How would that citizen in the grocery store know the mother was an illegal? Just cause she's brown?

Might be the stack of food stamp cards she has to choose from to pay for the groceries?

 

[G-Max]

Might be the stack of food stamp cards she has to choose from to pay for the groceries?

Not everyone on food stamps is here illegally. Some people on food stamps came legally, and others were even born here.

 

[downtown]

Might be the stack of food stamp cards she has to choose from to pay for the groceries?

Which would distinguish her from a legal low-income resident....how exactly? If anything, that would make her less likely to be an illegal, since she would also have to fabricate paperwork.

 

[Lord of Elves]

Might be the stack of food stamp cards she has to choose from to pay for the groceries?

There are no poor Americans?

 

[sophie]

Property taxes are passed along to the renter, and local property taxes are the dominant revenue stream for schools. A district could be bankrupted if property values were so low that they couldn't raise enough to educate each student, but thats a problem with all poor communities, regardless of paperwork status. The only way your scenario would happen is if a district used a local income tax instead of a property one...and that's pretty rare.

EDIT: ex-post with JR. The constitution and the courts have been pretty clear that immigration is the domain of the feds.

This kind of procedure IS really bad in specifically California though, as prop 13 limits the amount of property tax which can be levied from the state to no more than 1% of the property's total value. Which is ludicrous, and has really hurt our education system.

 

[Antilogic]

Are you sure about that? It seems that the second attempt, he forgot the Bible down the hall, but thought that it was not important to find one? Did the flubbed one count? Or did the second one? If the flubbed one counted why do it over again? I am not going to hold him to the office based on the Bible, but seems that he may be the first Pres to avoid using one.

Obama has probably "prayed" in a mosque as often as he has in a church.

I have so far resisted commenting in this thread, but now I feel the need to issue some corrections:

1. John Quincy Adams was sworn into office on a law book, not a Bible.

2. Neither of the oaths of office count as the start of his term. The 20th Amendment to the Constitution says the prior President's term ends (and the President-Elect's begins) on noon of inauguration day. The oath is theatre and unnecessary.

 

[Berzerker]

california aint screwed up because politicians cant grab more $$$ from property "owners"

I am not going to hold him to the office based on the Bible, but seems that he may be the first Pres to avoid using one.

if thats true, wouldn't that make him the 1st prez to actually follow Jesus' teachings?

Jesus condemned oath taking, and praying in public and churches - open displays of piety didn't impress him. Let your yes be yes and your no be no...

 

[Flying Pig]

The oath is theatre and unnecessary.

Mechanically unnecessary, perhaps, but very necessary from a symbolic point of view, making sure that the President (bearing in mind that the first President had just replaced a King as Head of State) is emphatically placed as the servant of the people rather than as a potential tyrant.

 

[rugbyLEAGUEfan]

As if I would trust you to know what a Christian is. How about someone who follows Christ's teachings? If you don't follow Christ's teachings then you are not a follower of Christ. Is that a simple enough definition?

Well don't you really mean "follow Christ's teachings and throw in a whole lot of stuff about gays, abortion, Muslims etc that he never mentioned and in fact sound suspiciously like the antithesis of what he was on about"

 

[wilycoyote]

Try actually reading the Constitution sometime. Utah CAN decide that. And then the rest of us would make fun of them for not realizing that they share no border with California.

Those religious nuts in Utah wouldn't realize that they don't share such a boarder, as I expertly implied!

However, the Commerce Clause give the federal government all the power they need to stop any state from doing such a thing. It gives the Congress the power to regulate interstate commerce (among other things) and obviously closed borders would constitute an act affecting interstate commerce.

Please, instead of saying "try reading...", provide your evidence. Still, you are CLEARLY mistaken in this case.