Poll Position: How much time is enough for an illegal immigrant to qualify for legalization?

Lost n time,
Yes you really are lost, the average waiting time for a green card is three years, OK a few extended family immigrants have to wait up to 20 years, but that’s because these categories are oversubscribed due to past illegal alien amnesties. Before the amnesties average wait for an extended family green card was five years, see the data at Immigrant rights foundation.org.

Mary and Dusty, sorry AJC won’t post the other links I put up to answer your questions.

• Link
• Report this comment

@Carol…”When will people look at the fact that those who originally came here would be considered “illegal aliens” today.

Remember, there were people already HERE when they arrived. Did they ask permission to stay?”

The word “illegal” means to do something that is in violation of an existing law. Since there is no evidence that the Native Americans had any type of immigration laws in place when the first Europeans arrived in North America, those Europeans violated no laws by coming here. Thus, they were not illegal aliens.

• Link
• Report this comment

John Bowman@3:05 a.m.

John, try posting only one link per post. If have found that only one link, not two or more per post, is allowed. I would still appreciate seeing your source. Thank you.

• Link
• Report this comment

It’s rather remarkable that the 25 year number cited by Gingrich was made in the month of the 25th year anniversary of the 1986 amnesty that continued for a decade or two after that in the courts. It’s more remarkable that people who call themselves journalists could ignore that juxtaposition.

At what point isn’t it inhumane to expect those in the country illegally to leave as opposed to rewarding that illegality with a legal right to live in this country? What about those who have been here for 20 year, or 15 or 10? Any line will be arbitrary. Those on the wrong side of it will argue, rightly, that the distinction from those on just the other side is without a convincing moral basis. Furthermore whatever line you draw will wither under legal and political pressure. There’s a history of that.

People have to decide if they want immigration limited and illegal immigration controlled. If they don’t care then get rid of the laws that limit people’s ability to immigrate here. But if they do care then they have to accept that enforcing the laws against people illegally in the country is required and reject the notion that doing so is unreasonable or inhumane.

• Link
• Report this comment

Immigration reform would generate $4.5 to $5.4 billion in additional net tax revenue over three years,” the letter says. “The nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office scored the bi-partisan 2007 comprehensive immigration reform bill that was proposed in the Senate as increasing federal revenues by $15 billion over the 2008-2012 period and by $48 billion over the 2008-2017 period.”

Studies from groups across the political spectrum have proven the economic and fiscal benefits of comprehensive immigration reform. By requiring illegal immigrants to register with the government, pay fees and back taxes, and correct their status, we can drastically expand our tax base. A report by the Center for American Progress found that passing comprehensive immigration reform would generate $4.5 to $5.4 billion in additional net tax revenue over three years. The nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office scored the bi-partisan 2007 comprehensive immigration reform bill that was proposed in the Senate as increasing federal revenues by $15 billion over the 2008-2012 period and by $48 billion over the 2008-2017 period.

In addition to expanding our tax base, economists have proven that comprehensive immigration reform would also increase wages for native workers, thereby boosting tax revenues generated by all workers. The CATO Institute found that forcing undocumented immigrants to get right with the law by registering with the government would boost the incomes of U.S. households by $180 billion in 2019, which would also lead to increased government revenues, without increasing tax rates.

Just like our budget deficit, immigration reform is an issue that we cannot afford to ignore. Bipartisan proposals that are tough, fair, and practical have garnered support from across the ideological spectrum in Congress, as well as from President Bush and the current administration. Comprehensive immigration reform would clearly help us reduce our deficit and debt, and would do so without raising tax rates.

US economy largely unaffected by illegal immigration

WASHINGTON — A study released Wednesday concludes that illegal-immigrant workers do not drain jobs or tax dollars and have a neutral impact on the U.S. economy.
Because illegal immigrants occupy a small share of the work force — about 5 percent — and work low-skilled jobs at lower wages than other workers, their overall influence on the economy is trivial, according to the report, sponsored by the Migration Policy Institute, a pro-immigration think tank in Washington.
“The fate of the U.S. economy does not rest on what we do on illegal immigration,” said Gordon H. Hanson, author of the report and economics professor at the University of California-San Diego.
Illegal immigrants contribute a tiny 0.03 percent of the U.S. gross domestic product, with that gain going to employers who save money on cheap labor, the report says, while their cost to the economy is 0.10 percent of GDP, which mainly comes from public education and publicly funded emergency health care.
The net impact at minus 0.07 percent of GDP means that illegal immigrants have an essentially neutral effect on the economy, Hanson said.
The report does not factor in the spending or entrepreneurship that illegal immigrants contribute to the economy, said Marc Rosenblum, senior policy analyst at the Migration Policy Institute.
Where illegal immigrants do have a substantial impact, Hanson added, is in specific labor-intensive and low-skilled industries such as agriculture, construction, hospitality and cleaning services, where the share of native-born workers has dropped precipitously.
Because the U.S. has dramatically raised the education level of its adult population in the last 50 years — going from about 50 percent of all working-age adults without a high school diploma in 1960 to just 8 percent today — the native-born, low-skilled work force has shrunk, while employers continue to require low-skilled workers.
This leaves room for illegal immigrants to take such jobs at a low cost, the report says.
Illegal immigrants now account for 20 percent of working-age adults in the U.S. who don’t have a high school degree.
While the influx of illegal immigrants is one of the factors keeping low-skilled wages stagnant, the biggest losers in the current system are legal low-wage workers, both native and foreign born, who compete with the illegal immigrants, Rosenblum said.
Meanwhile, employers reap higher profits because of lower labor costs and more productive businesses.
The solution to this imbalance, proposed by the Migration Policy Institute, is to provide more visas and legal channels for unskilled workers to enter the U.S.
Today, low-skilled workers must have a green card — effectively requiring them to have close family members in the U.S. — or obtain a temporary work visa.
“We really need to approach migration control comprehensively by both strengthening enforcements and creating legalization mechanisms that will control the unauthorized population and improve the economic outputs that we get from immigration,” Rosenblum said.

• Link
• Report this comment

Why Is Cost of Illegal Immigration Ignored In Debt Ceiling Debate?
By Bob Dane
Published July 18, 2011
| FoxNews.com
Print Email Share
While the debt ceiling debate rages and Congress is busy haggling over who should be taxed and what programs should be slashed, they’ve promised to consider all options except…one.
Lawmakers have chosen to forget that immigration is a discretionary social policy that by definition is designed to be adjusted to serve the nation’s broad national interest, particularly during difficult economic times. This discretionary policy is a powerful economic tool, but only if it is brought out and used.

No comprehensive financial fix can be complete without Congress demanding increased enforcement against illegal immigration and reducing legal immigration to sustainable levels.
Reforming immigration would tighten the labor market, open up jobs for legal U.S. residents, and reduce the overall fiscal strain that immigration imposes on health care, education and other social services.
Doing so is an urgent mandate and a legitimate, justified use of policy.
If not now, then when?
Here are four ways that Congress could get to work… now!
1. Increase Enforcement and Reduce Costs
American taxpayers spend $113 billion annually subsidizing illegal immigration and padding the pockets of businesses addicted to cheap labor. Taxpayers at the state and local levels bear the brunt, providing $84 billion in services annually while the federal government spends $29 billion. The latter figure is – incidentally — almost exactly equal to the interest payment on the total federal debt this past April. Of course, the debt continues to grow uncontrollably because the government must borrow to keep up with, among other things, the growing cost of illegal immigration.

In some states, reducing the fiscal burden of illegal immigration would represent nothing short of an economic miracle:
- California’s budget deficit is now $9.6 billion yet the state spends $21.8 billion subsidizing illegal immigration, more than double their deficit.
- Massachusetts could almost clear their books by ending illegal alien subsidies; the state’s deficit is $2 billion while their annual cost of illegal immigration is $1.86 billion.
- Maryland and New York would enjoy much needed surpluses; those state’s expenditures on illegal immigration actually exceed their deficits!
The savings can’t be realized overnight because much of the expense is mandated by law requiring the education of the children of illegal aliens, many of whom are U.S. born, and for emergency medical treatment. But it is a responsible step in the right direction.
Reducing these costs requires the administration to actually enforce existing immigration laws, complete border fencing, allow states to participate in the enforcement process, and otherwise deny benefits and incentives to illegal aliens.

Read more: http://www.foxnews.com/opinion/2011/07/18/why-is-cost-illegal-immigration-ignored-in-debt-ceiling-debate/#ixzz1gA0ONjfG

• Link
• Report this comment

No time period at all! Jail everyone of these invaders at Sheriff Joes tent city. Give a six month notice for all illegals to self deport or go to jail, easy as that, and dont cost the government any money. If we have to jail these P.O.S. then so be it. Line them up in rows of twenty and let the military march them back across the border from tent city, arizona. free transportation. I love it!!! First thing is to oust obuma, and then we can get to work. Stop anchor babies from receiveing us birth certificates(mexico lotto tickets) and give them a certificate of birth abroad, and when they go home they get a mexico birth certificate. Thats what other countries do. And thats what is right!

• Link
• Report this comment