Reader comments
Illegal immigration bills to keep an eye on

Yes! Yes! Yes! ALL of these bills should pass this session. It's time to end the invasion of the illegals!

It is so great to see the States taking the necessary steps to curb and eliminate illegal alien priviledges. Good luck to Utah legislators on getting these bills through and cleaning up your State. You are joining your neighbors where bills have been passed and they are working.

Stay with it.

This is the chance for the Utah Legislature to do something meaningful. PLEASE pass ALL of these proposed bills. One other bill, I propose, is to follow the example of the sheriff in Maraposa County, Arizona. Set up a tent city to house illegals. Feed them bologna sandwiches, and the only TV is twenty four hours of G.(ee) W.(hiz)Bush telling us how well off we are. That should change their minds about coming here to better their lives.

Dear Utah,

A message from Virginia. Crack down NOW and ASAP. You do not want to live in the 3rd world cesspool created here by the illegals.

Your quality of life will decline!!! Be WARNED.

Smoke and Mirrors - All the state does is grandstand with this junk - it's silly.

Pass ALL of the proposed bills and then ENFORCE them, not just have them sit idle on paper as a feel good measure. It is time for the states to clean up on illegal immigrants, lord knows the federal government won't do it. We cannot afford to sit idle any longer, the choke hold is only getting tighter.

Writing comments is great but to really accomplish something we all need to call/write/email all of our Legislators and tell them that we support State action on Illegal Immigration. PLEASE DO IT. Our country is being invaded!!!!

Keeping immigrants out of the state or out of America is the most stupid economic decision the government can make. Any economist can tell you that immigration is one of three factors that contributes to economic growth. It is no coincidence that while the border patrol is reducing the inflow of immigrants, the housing market is going down and it will not be long before America is an economic recesion. America is the No. 1 advocate of free trade of products and services, shouldn't we also be the No. 1 advocate of free trade of labor? The only way to stop immigration without paying the economic cost, is to help poor countries grow -through the remitances immigrants send home - otherwise we will never solve this problem.

Um, we're keeping illegals out, the kind that take and don't give. Controlled immigration is a key component of our economic growth models; key word here is controlled. We welcome with open arms legal immigrants, as they contribute to our system and thus should share the benefits. It's the ones who circumvent the system that take advantage that ruin it for everybody.

Utah has one of the lowest unemployment rates in the nation. Let's convince a percentage of the labor force to move out by creating a hostile legal environment and see how well the state economy does.

Which illegals "take and don't give"? They WORK. They don't draw welfare. They pay taxes. The recent surge in illegal immigration is directly tied to NAFTA; policy decisions have created these problems and reform of NAFTA will be instrumental in ending them. This, hand in hand with comprehensive immigration reform. Be warned yourselves! Our economic woes are not caused by illegal immigration - politicians have found themselves a perfect, powerless scapegoat, and the uneducated masses like yourselves have fallen for it. This problem is actually nuanced. Complex. Read up before spouting off. And BTW, the sheriff of Maricopa county set up the tent city to house, not illegal immigrants, but the overflow of from that state's prison system. America's citizenry at its finest.

KD

Yes illegals get welfare for their anchor babies. Check out the Congressional Budget Office report on this. Also the Heritage Foundation report. It is estiamted each illegal AFTER THEIR CONTRIUBITON IS ADDED, is still subsidized to the tune of 24,000 per year.

Illegals are parasites.

no illegal alien(not undoctumented,this term is wrong)has ANY RIGHTS IN THE USA.

ALL ILLEGALS take - take jobs, IDS, space in classrooms etc. They are by diffintion, LAWBREAKERS>
I have nothing against the legal immigrats from any country, but lets get tough with the one that have already shown by their illegal immigratrion that the do not care about our laws. I say make in a felony in UTah to be an illegal.

Well, I read that this issue has brought out the true colors of bigots; remember that so far the illegel situation is being blamed on the mexican border; the terrorists who destroyed the twin towers camed from over the ocean and some were legal; the terroists who bombed the fed. building in Oklahoma, were good'ol american born men.

Can you list terrorism conducted by those you seem to focus as the only illegals in this country being latinos?

How about those illegals from Canada, China, Europe, oh could that be that its easier to blame a group that does show up americans when it comes to working harder and longer for less?!

Please by all means, go and take those jobs away from those illegals; first go out and pick the lettuce, grapes, tomatoes, cucumbers, almonds, oranges, etc. Make sure you demand to start at $14.00 because you have to bend over to pick and work in contaminated crops. Then go and take those back breaking construction jobs, and by all means please go and clean up after me in the hotels that I stay in, I like my toilet boil real clean!

geez, stop your Complaining

If these bills are passed and enforced, it would be a big step towards taking Utah off the sanctuary state list. As long as Utah enables illegal immigration the state is part of the problem. As soon as illegal employment is stopped illegal immigration will stop, and they will self deport, children and all. Problem solved

Bigot? Racist? Not on your life! This is a song and dance used by those who would break our laws.

A racist is one who believes that one group should have rights that another does not have. Well, stop and think! It is the illegal aliens who believe that THEY should be above our laws, while the rest of us follow them.

That, my friends, is racist!

And, to the one who whines about it being a federal issue: Well, it is, but when they won't do the job, WE CAN do it at the state level.

This group of bills this year will go a long way to doing just that.

Illegal immigrants come to this country to work, and that under exploitation conditions. The real criminals are the American citizens and companies that knowingly employ illegal immigrants. Prosecute those and the enticement to illegal immigrants will disappear, as it is being done in Arizona since January. They will have to leave the country, as they cannot support themselves without working. Perhaps when they return to their countries, they will help persuade their governments to protect their country's local jobs and markets from foreign companies which are pushed on them under the guise of "free trade", so that they don't need to leave their countries to live a decent live.

Yes, they come here to work and find a very accomidating welfare system. Statistics show that illegals immigrants do pay taxes. On the average about $10,000 in taxes per year. They also use on the average about $30,000 per year in various welfare programs. Sorry but it won't work out in the long run at this rate. These statistics are from a recent radio show on NPR (national public radio) which is a pretty liberal source generally overly protective of human rights. The winner in the illegal immigration situation is super large companies who let the government pay for employee "benifits".

Hmmm. Check. Check. And check. I just read a story from the ADL about how so-called mainstream anti-immigrant groups increasingly are adopting the tactics and rhetoric of racist groups and moving it into the mainstream. It's almost all here.

The report cites several key tactics used by anti-immigrant groups, including:

Describing immigrants as "third world invaders," who come to America to destroy our heritage, "colonize" the country and attack our "way of life." This charge is used against Hispanics, Asians and other people of color.

Using terminology that describes immigrants as part of "hordes" that "swarm" over the border. This dehumanizing language has become common.
Portraying immigrants as carriers of diseases like leprosy, tuberculosis, Chagas disease (a potentially fatal parasitic disease), dengue fever, polio, malaria.

Depicting immigrants as criminals, murderers, rapists, terrorists, and a danger to children and families.

Propagating conspiracy theories about an alleged secret "reconquista" plot by Mexican immigrants to create a "greater Mexico" by seizing seven states in the American Southwest that once belonged to Mexico.

Keep going, you've only missed a few.