Well I'm back people. I took a week off from blogging because I got hammered here at work. It turns out that the Romania branch of my company wants to have their own website. Joy.

Anyway I wanted to offer my thoughts on the immigration reform issue and protests that happend over the weekend. Saturday there were millions of people marching in opposition to immigration reform legislation that would make being an illegal alien a felony. Currently there are two bills that are going to be considered in congress. One that Bill Frist is proposing, he wants to bring it to the Senate floor for a vote without putting it through commitee. Frist's is a bare bones bill that deals mainly with enforcement of border security. While the one coming from the Judiciary commitee is more comprehensive. Here are my thoughts in no particular order.

-I thought it was funny that a bunch of illegals were protesting being treated like criminals. They are really eager to live here, don't they know that we have laws or did they not get that memo?

-My first reaction is to deport them all. They broke the law and they shoiuld be punished. But then I thought about it, I can't really blame them for wanting to live here, this is the greatest country on earth. I think I would probably jump a fence or two to come live here too. And when I think about it if we were talking about Cuban refugees I would be all excited that they made it here and would have the opportunities available in this country. So I guess I shouldn't make this personal to each individual Mexican who wants to live here, after all I probably would do the same thing.

-What really bothers me about the immigration problem is burden it puts on other people. This country was built on the principle of bearing the consequences of your own actions; be they good or bad. Now don't get me wrong Mexicans are some of the best workers anywhere. But when they are illegal, regardless of how hard they work, they put burdens on other people. Most aliens don't pay taxes yet their children go to public schools. 27% of innmates of state run prisons were illegal aliens, that's right prisons that your taxes pay for. Which brings up another problem, when an illegal commits a crime and has no social security number or no way to keep track of a criminal record it leads to trouble in prosecution and just bogs down the court system. Mooching is also not an American value, however Mexico's economy is basically held up by money sent home from illegals living in the USA.

-Little tip to Mexican protestors. If you are demanding the right to live in a certain country when you are there illegally, it's generally a bad idea to go around waving the flag of your old country. This seems hostile and will not help your cause. If you want to be American fine. Want to be a Mexican in America fine. But if you act like you want to turn LA in to Mexico City then it's not fine and you will get deported.

-Automagic immunity is a very bad idea. It's an insult to Americans and to Mexicans who have immigrated legally. We should not reward illegal behavior. Americans and legal immigrints should have the first shots at jobs, schools, health care etc. They are valuable members of society and deserve those opportunities(notice I said opportunities not free rides).

-I think the security risk as far as the war on terror and the Mexican border goes is exaturated. Remember the 9/11 hijackers were all here legally. And the 9th hijacker Moussaoui is a French citizen. I think we have a bigger security problem of not being able to track people coming in to this country illegally or legally.

-I'm in favor of a measure that makes it simpler to immigrate legally, a measure that doesn't ease up on the criteria but expidites the process and cuts a lot of the red tape. Along with that there needs to be a requirement that employers in this country check that the people they hire are here legally. Make employers check the social security numbers of the people they hire against the national database and ensure they aren't hiring illegals. Also if an illegal commits a crime he is fingerprinted in to a national database and then deported. We should not be handling Mexico's criminals.

-Regardless of what bills or reforms get passed we have got to be harder on the Mexican government. They play nice nice with us to our face and yet do basically nothing to help enforce the border. In fact there have been stories of Federalies helping people get across the border illegally. Mexico's economy benefits greatly from being friends with the USA and yet they stab us in the back by letting illegals come over the border and hurt our economy. They shouldn't be allowed to have their cake and eat it too.

Well that's basically what I think about the whole situation. I am not happy with the plan that has come out of the Judicary Commitee. It basically gives up and says that we can't enforce our own laws. And if passed it will most definetly lead to more illegals pouring over the border in hopes of claiming immunity. What a mess.

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