Reader comments
Immigration bills brewing

WHen this is debated we are going to hear lots and lots of comments about how all of these proposals "won't work" so we should just sit back and do nothing.

If they won't work then why are the same groups advocating for open borders and amnesty - La Raza ("The Race"), the ACLU, the Chamber of Commerce - fighting them tooth and nail?

Truth is, they know they'll work. They've been proven to work.

But if that's not enough, how about we just try them? Give it 2-3 years, and then let's compare results.

Glad to see it! The Oklahoma law should be used as an example for all states.

Go Bill Hickman! Run for governor, you will win on this issue alone. Illegals must leave the country and show some respect for American laws and culture.

Now is the time for this debate. Even Dem candidates for President are being held accountable for their comments (like New York driving permits). Perhaps now we will begin an honest evaluation of the problem rather than cower at the accusation of racism. According to a November report by the Center for Immigration Studies, Utah has had an 81% increase in the immigrant population in the last seven years. Addressing the illegal segment of the population will go a long way in the fight against discrimination, and aid assimilation of the foreign-born into our population.

This great country has always been able to find a solution to the immigration problem since the 1800's. There were undesirable italians, polish, irish immigrants and so on, but through some relaxation of the laws there was always a solution to their problem. Nowadays, the INS is backlogged with too many applications for residency and despite charging disparatory fees they are shortstaffed to speed up the process. Last night, at the spanish republican debate none of the candidates came forward with a proposal to solve this giant problem. It seems they were too afraid to alienate the voters.
A bill was killed this year and a solution is not within sight. We hear whipping bills at the local level, but what goes around come around. Some cities are begging for workers to come back. Let these people have access to some kind of temporary legal status so they can go on with their lives. Just as the pioneers of this state and country were given an opportunity to stay, these people who managed to have good records also should be given a chance to fix their papers.

This measure should be passed as an order of common sense. We are a generous people but with a national debt AND obligation (read: future pork spending) totaling over $60 trillion, it is time to say uncle on more hand-outs.

And this will affect the largest generator of illegal immigration, which comes from visa overstays. Last I heard, that was about 60% of all illegal aliens.

Now, how to fix the visa. I have long thought that since Washington DC does not want to fix the visa, Utah should. That is clearly a Federal role but since they won't....

At some point the enforcement crowd has to get serious about fixing the visa problem. So far they have yelled NO at the top of their collective lungs. What about fixing the other half of this problem?

This is so silly. I have worked this issue for years now and can hold my own in any debate.

1-We need workers here in Utah.
2-You can't hold an employer accountable if he or she doesn't have the tools to verify the status of a person prior to hiring.
3-Arrests of aggravated felons foreign-nationals has significantly increased.
4-We aren't going to kick out every single illegal in the country.
5-Not every illegal can be bunched under the same umbrella. What about the child that's brought here by his parents and hasn't done anything wrong? Is he the same as an illegal thief?

I hope they pass it. I will also enjoy watching the ensuing crash of the Utah economy. Prices will sky rocket and the cheapest citizens on the face of the planet will finally be slammed into the real world. Grow up, this issue is about money not national security. Everyone wants change until it requires them to change. Watch your food and services prices triple. And don't think your lazy spoiled kids will fill the employmee base void. You have already ruined that notion by creating a generation of entitlement. Good Luck Utah, you need it.

IM, what's silly is you've been working this issue "for years", yet even I can answer these questions.

1-Without illegals we would still have workers in Utah. The market finds a way. We did fine before illegals, we will be fine after them.
2-Employers make new employees fill out a W-4 which requires a SSN. The problem is employers who don't WANT to make a legal hire. That's easily fixed with better enforcement.
3-True.
4-We don't need to. Take away the jobs and illegals will remove themselves.
5-How about this? Every child brought or born here to illegal immigrants would be deported with his/her parents, but have a waiver that allows him/her to immigrate legally when he/she turns 18.

I beleive any normal average american would be up to solving this problem , however we must remember that this great nation was built upon foreigners and immigrants.. We should not simply assume that all illegal aliens are commiting crimes, we have many illegal aliens that are hardworking people and paying their due taxes, therefore we should treat criminals as criminals for whatever crime they commit, being an illegal immigrant or not, but not classify all the illegal immigrants under the same catagory, because they have not been able to obtain their permanant residency. We should look for ways to stop additional illegal entries by secureing our borders, and find a common agreement to provide residencies for those illegal that have been in the country for a specific number of years, in which can provide proof of tax payments or deductions and with a clean criminal record. This should not be a difficult task as most of these people are already here in the country anyways..
We should not envolve our local law enforcement in border enforcement, the police is here to protect and to serve and not to play the role of immigration.

1. employ local legal help at a respectable wage.2. employers do have the tools to work with( S.S. number) 3. arrests need to cover more than aggravated felons. ( illegal aliens ). 4 if no jobs are available they will self deport. 5 why should the tax payer pick up the tab for illegal kids it is not the tax payers fault.

Blah Blah Blah...let's just keep treating the symptoms of immigration, but never talk about the cause. People don't walk across deserts and wade through rivers with infants and pregnant wives because they want an X-Box 360. They do this because their living conditions are so desperate that they feel there is no other option. All this talk of deportation and employment enforcement is nothing more than a re-visit to prohibition.

It's a fundamental law..."nature abhors a vacuum." If you make it harder to get here, they'll work harder to get here. If you make it impossible to find legitimate work, they will find illegitimate work. Until we address the fundamental disparity in quality of life between America and other countries, all these laws are going to accomplish is increasing crime, drugs, and violence. As if our current prison system isn't over-crowded enough.

Learn to love your hispanic brothers. They really don't want to be here any more than you want them to be here.
Don't generate any bad karma for yourselves by harboring any hidden racist agendas.

Well-said, Nate. I also think people are afraid of losing their own culture, as the numbers of immigrants and the children they give birth to, increase exponentially. People are afraid of the U.S. turning into another Mexico.

OK Nate, how do you plan to do that? How do you plan to turn Mexico's economy into the U.S.'s? Or is it that you plan to turn the U.S.'s economy into Mexico's? I'll let you guess which one would be easier to accomplish.

It's easy to sit here on a message board in Utah and talk about making the world this quality of life utopia, but it's quite another to make it happen. Until I hear your plan, I'm going to assume you're just talking to hear yourself talk. Everything you've suggested is just pie in the sky.

The more realistic solution is to make it so hard for illegals to get work that they can't afford to stay here.

Not so silly says:

We did fine before illegals, we will be fine after them.

Yeah, you'll do fine when they all leave. But good luck in seeing the economy implode for the 10 or 20 years it would take to recover. Take out all the undocumented workers from the hospitality, construction and landscaping businesses. Do it all in one fell swoop. And watch as all the business that rely on the businesses that hire the undocumented fold up.

Nate's right. People don't cross deserts and wade rivers just for a few extra dollars to buy crap. They make that difficult and dangerous journey because the conditions they're escaping from are so desparate.

And Bill Hickman wants to turn the Statue of Liberty into a jack-booted Gestapo man.

Yeah Nate, that's the solution: Make the U.S. into a worse-off country than Mexico so all the illegals leave. *rolls eyes*

Nate, maybe it's not for an Xbox. Maybe it's for a tricked-out truck, or a Caddy with chrome rims and a custom paint job. Are trying to say they're here to just to put food on the table? I saw quite a few Spanish speaking shoppers checking out flat screen TV's last night.

It has been shown that crime rates are higher with illegal aliens. In the recent drug crackdown near Pioneer Park, the majority caught dealing were undocumented Hispanics. That's a fact. It's also true that most do not have a H.S. education.

I agree that it's too bad we can't parce out the best of these immigrants and give them a chance at citizenship. But if it's a package deal, and we need to take them with the illiterate, gang members and other criminals, I say NO THANKS!

The only thing McCain can do is to send our forces to other countries, but lacks all will to stop the illegal immigration into our country. He would not ever give us our rights to not be invaded, he simply says to the illegals "here kitty kitty.

Most Americans support legal immigration, but not illegal. The bill should provide for hefty fines for employing illegals as those that are employing them now are feeding from the public troft(stealing) while the public pays the costs of medicaid, education, and prisons. Who says things are cheaper when you account for the cost of supporting all the government services to the illegals.