1) Your thoughts on immigrants as a whole
I love immigrants and the cultures they bring. Pretty much all of us descended from immigrants, so it's silly to dislike them.
2) Your thoughts on language such as "illegal immigrants" now being considered like the F-word or N-word.
Absurd.
5) Do you think immigrants are good for the economy?
Immigrants in general? I guess a net positive, since they often come here to take advantage of the economic opportunities, but it's hard to distinguish them from citizens in this regard.
Illegal immigrants? Hard to say, since I don't keep detailed statistics on the economic activity of completely undocumented people. If I had to guess, I'd say a small net positive. They do a lot of work and spend money here, but they also avail themselves of benefits and send money outside the borders.
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Originally Posted by Reincarnate
I think many problems would be solved by simply overhauling the system and making it easier for immigrants to come here legally.
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A hundred times this. The process is ridiculously long and expensive I very much think that these factors are a barrier to legal immigration and, thus, a contributor to the illegal immigration problem.
I'm bemused as to why politicians aren't crawling all over each other to be the first to suggest making legal immigration easier. Sure, illegal immigration is a problem, and illegal immigrants need to be dealt with, but it seems that all the discussion is about how harshly they need to be dealt with and how they need to be prevented from entering.
I do not believe for an instant that illegal immigrants should have immediate access to citizenship. Legal residency is certainly on the table, but citizenship should only be available to them if they "get in line" and go through the legal process at the very least (and I personally believe they should, in some way, undo the steps that brought them here illegally by returning to their country of origin before coming back -- ideally they would begin the process in their home country after doing so, but I can appreciate the difficulty of doing that in some countries, so I wouldn't argue with starting the process here).
--Guido