I wonder how many illegal immigrants can afford to go to an emergency room in the first place… My mom almost severed her finger few months back, and she went to the ER to get stitches… cost us $2000 (yes, we’re one of the many who are not insured).

Can’t get blood from a stone. Your mom got billed $2,000 because the hospital recognized your mom had resources to pay.

Your “public assistance” rhetoric is a bit disturbing because it seems to advocate the nullification of the U.S. citizenships given to kids born in United States to illegal immigrants.

Absolutely not. I do support a reinterpretation of the Fourteenth Amendment but citizenship given under lawful circumstances cannot and should not be taken away. I mentioned public assistance to counter your argument that illegally employed workers are cheaper. They are to their employers but not to the community. Dealing with the issue of illegal employment requires an honest and full accounting of costs versus benefits.

We ought to help everyone in need in our community regardless of legal status although I am bothered to see some people take advantage of the system.

private assistance - … I’m not so sure if this justifies crippling the current economy via anti-illegal immigration legislation.

The only sector that would be crippled by a dramatic reduction in illegal employment would be agriculture. Other industries would suffer temporarily as they looked for US workers to replace undocumented ones. That is happening now, bum, for raids and deportations are on the rise. Hormel and Tyson had no trouble finding hardworking Americans when those difficult and dangerous meat-processing jobs paid $25 an hour and had unions to stop unsafe practices like speeding up the line. These workers supported families on their salaries and put money into the community. Cripple the economy, indeed.

I was raised in a working poor family, and we were able to afford life’s necessities back in a time when illegal employment took up a much smaller share of the national economy.

The most favorable pathway, to me, seems like the one proposed by Congress few months back; pathway to legalization with fine, better border security, and guest-worker program.

I was a supporter of the proposed immigrant reform and favor these things, too. Our government has long looked the other way while US employers hired illegal immigrants, who have settled down and formed families in our community. Tossing them back over the border after enjoying the benefits of their cheap labor is dishonorable.

I would certainly advocate nullifying that provision of our Constitution and laws regarding citizenship — it had its historical reasons and was justified more than 100 years ago, but has long since lost any reason for being policy. I would say that it has become very widely abused and is now harmful to United States interests. It should be changed to a mere degree of priority in the process of applying for American citizenship, for any children born to parents who are not citizens.

America should allow plenty of immigrants to do the jobs that need to be filled, but they should be legal immigrants as far as possible, and the flow of illegals (and passport-babies) should be greatly reduced.

Chosun Ilbo (not that Korea’s paper of record reads this humble blog)

I seem to recall a claim made that the General Secretary of the United Nations regularly reads your blog. Why not the Chosun Ilbo editors?

bumfromkorea:

I do not believe that this is what Sonagi advocates (at least I found no instance of her saying so), but let me tell you that this is exactly what I would demand, if I were a US citizen. Instead, I would develop and apply additional criteria for the selection of immigrants and thereby create more extensive possibilities for LEGAL immigration.

With regard to those illegal immigrants who are already in the country a solution must be found in the spirit of mercy and clemency. But why should the USD bestow its valuable citizenship on someone simply because they were born on a particular patch of land (and then maybe grew up in an entirely different country - Mexico, Korea …) ???

I know full well that this is a time-hollowed principle in the US and in the other countries of the Anglosphere, but it can be changed and will be changed in the end - Britain has done so in 1983 and Ireland in 2005, I think even Australia is working towards the change. It can be done - I sincerely hope within the coming decade or so…

I wonder how many illegal immigrants can afford to go to an emergency room in the first place… My mom almost severed her finger few months back, and she went to the ER to get stitches… cost us $2000 (yes, we’re one of the many who are not insured).

Your “public assistance” rhetoric is a bit disturbing because it seems to advocate the nullification of the U.S. citizenships given to kids born in United States to illegal immigrants.

private assistance - … I’m not so sure if this justifies crippling the current economy via anti-illegal immigration legislation.

The most favorable pathway, to me, seems like the one proposed by Congress few months back; pathway to legalization with fine, better border security, and guest-worker program. Just passing “f*ck you illegals” legislation will only hurt the economy and won’t solve the immigration problem - look at Arizona, for example, who just passed the employment verification law. About 30~40% of the clothing shops have closed in the downtown area due to sharp drops in both customers and working power. The figures I’m seeing from Korean business owners (I write English business letters for them) in clothings, food industry, retail, etc. are quite shocking. The average drop in revenue from May to October in 2007 looks to be around 60% ~ 70% for them.

Basically it’s ‘drain on the social program’ vs. ‘chunk of purchasing power/labor’. Former might have negatives, but the latter is a disaster.

Of course, neither side is favorable. Best pathway, once again, is to fine-legalize, border control, and guest-worker.

- waste of valuable and expensive emergency room facilities for non-emergency care; just last week a student of mine here in the US only two weeks was taken by her mother to the emergency room to treat a skin rash. Obviously, this problem is not limited to undocumented residents but to anyone lacking health insurance.

- public assistance: undocumented workers don’t qualify but their US-born children do, and undocumented women who are pregnant or nursing get WIC coupons. Moreover, since many work under the table, their income is not reported. We have kids coming to school every week in new clothes, heading straight to the cafeteria for their free breakfast. Federal law mandates that all children are eligible to apply for free and reduced meals, regardless of legal status.

US citizens and permanent residents work under the table and screw the system, too. Turning a blind eye to illegal employment just adds more to the poverty rolls.

-private assistance: our local food banks feed all in need, no questions asked. Because of rising demand, food pick-ups have been reduced from once a week to twice a month. In my community, there are local dentists and organizations like Lions’ Clubs which provide free dental care and eye care to indigent children regardless of legal status.

You get what you pay for, bum. Either you can have a stable community of families with breadwinners or you can have the poverty and social problems that accompany illegal employment. All research I’ve seen acknowledges clearly that rising illegal employment has reduced real wages for non-college grads.

Canada fills its seasonal employment needs with a guest worker program. Men and women come for several months, work hard with legal protections, and then take their earnings back home. Everybody wins.

@pawi:

Cho was not an ethnic Korean with foreign citizenship. He was a South Korean national with US permanent residency. I’m surprised you’ve forgotten that. Hope you’re not coming down with Alzheimer’s.

Plus, “humane working conditions and .. living wage” would skyrocket the cost of the products of said business, which would be very detrimental. Hence the virtually no resistance in Congress against AgriJob bill…