Are Illegal Immigrants Also The People?

[mikewof]

Sorry, I get easily confused and need to keep things simple. It seems to me there are just a few possibilities:

• The authors of the Bill of Rights meant different things by "the people" in the texts of the first, second and fourth amendments -> Illegals have 1st and 4th, but not 2nd Amendment protection or something.

• "The people" has the same referent in the 1st, 2nd, and 4th Amendments -> Illegals are covered by all amendments or none.

• There is another, superseding, part of the Constitution of which I am not aware that specifically deprives illegal immigrants of the right to keep and bear arms.

• The 2nd Amendment refers to organized militia -> None of you bozos should be running around with firearms.

Which is it, guys? ...and spare me the shoulds and shouldn'ts. When the Grabbers come after your guns, you refer them to the text and the court ruling and tough titty.

If you cotton to the idea that the founding fathers crafted this great nation from divine inspiration, then one would conclude that references to "the people" would be God's people. Since God has no interest in manmade international borders, it must mean literally "the people".

"The People" didn't include thos unlucky enough to brought here in chains, so the hell knows what anybody means.

Moe is dead nuts money on this one ... power comes in unusual ways, and whatever power they can get, good for them, this country was built by hardasses taking power from those who were unhappy about giving it up. If those immigrants can get power, good for them, that just makes them even more American, and I'm glad I have them on my team, instead of my competitor's team.

 

[mikewof]

Highly doubt it would collapse. I am willing to pay double for vegetables in order for illegals to get the boot.

We might recover, but it would probably collapse in the short term, and be left with a country when goods and services are a lot more expensive.

Up to 25% of the U.S. Construction Industry is made of undocumented workers, another 25% or so in the Hotel and Restaurant industry, and of course, the Agricultural and home service industry, plus the food production industry. If these workers were somehow spirited away from these jobs, and you don't see a collapse, then you are in the same kind of denial system as all those American citizens who illegally hire undocumented immigrants.

So yeah, you're willing to pay double for your veggies? Okay. What about your chicken, and your home construction, and your vacations, and your transportation services and forestry products and service industries?

Again, we critically need those people in our economy, but we don't want to go to the expense of being adults and treating them as human beings. We rely on the two-tiered caste system as a way to make us wealthier, because we would rather pay half price for our veggies (you today) or double price for our veggies (you tomorrow) than pay 120% for our veggies by conducting ourselves as ethical people.

 

[kent_island_sailor]

Our schools have to take them no matter what their immigration status. I think all states are that way.

Sure - why not? I read sob stories about and written by illegals all the time, so they seem to be doing just fine with it.
Some of them truly are sad too, like when a teenager finds out they were smuggled in as an infant are not actually American. I would hate to have to decide that kind case. You can't be human and not want to give the kid a break, but you also know doing so just encourages a thousand more parents to try the same thing.

How did they register for school without documentation?

 

[GRUMPY]

Interesting numbers Mikey. 25% of US construction workers? Cite?

 

[jzk]

Wrong. citizenship confers certain rights and privileges whether you deserve them or not. There's a lot of shitbag 'mericans I would like to boot out and keep a lot of illegal hard working aliens in their place - but unfortunately we are stuck with the shitbags.

I don't know with whom you hang, but I've never met a shitbag "alien" ... there obviously are some of course, but that's not really their defining characteristic is it? Working their assess off to Tejano music and drinking pineapple Jarritos, now that's a defining characteristic, right?
Anyway, criminals lose their Constitutional rights all the time. I have no idea why the felony and sometimes misdemeanors of hiring illegal aliens is so rarely enforced. Maybe you understand that?

I assume it has something to do with the reality that our economy would probably collapse without all those undocumented workers, but governments want to keep certain people happy with the wink nod of not touching the demand, only the supply.

The INS can deport ten thousand undocumented workers and not make a dent. Yet if they did just one perp walk a month of some random Audi-driving suburbanite illegal employer, the market for illegal labor would collapse, and our economy would go with it. Of course, it's always amusing to read the opinions of those who see the brown people as the problem rather than themselves.

Highly doubt it would collapse. I am willing to pay double for vegetables in order for illegals to get the boot.

Why is it good for you to pay more for vegetables? If you pay less, then you have more money to buy other stuff. That creates jobs. Then the immigrants spend the money they got for picking vegetables. That creates jobs. See how that works?

 

[d'ranger]

Interesting numbers Mikey. 25% of US construction workers? Cite?

Ah, the Internet Expert weighs in again. Exactly how do you get any number? For those who aren't here legally may not be willing to verify that. FWIW in my part of the world (the desert of SE Texas) I would put the number much higher based on the very few who speak any English at all. But go ahead and educate us Grumps since I only work in the industry.

 

[GRUMPY]

Have you got alink that gives the 25% of US construction workers are "undocumented" claim any veracity?

 

[Regatta Dog]

We are nearing the tipping point where the folks riding in the cart outnumber those pushing the cart.

This is not the 1% that some would have you believe. We could confiscate all their wealth and redistribute it to the downtrodden and that might prop up some folks for a year or so. Grabbing the net worth of the top 10% might give us snother year of "free" stuff.

How much fun is it going to be when the party is over, and there's no one left to pay for the next Friday night of "free"?

 

[Raz'r]

We are nearing the tipping point where the folks riding in the cart outnumber those pushing the cart.

This is not the 1% that some would have you believe. We could confiscate all their wealth and redistribute it to the downtrodden and that might prop up some folks for a year or so. Grabbing the net worth of the top 10% might give us snother year of "free" stuff.

How much fun is it going to be when the party is over, and there's no one left to pay for the next Friday night of "free"?

You really have no idea of the amount of wealth of the top 1% do you?

 

[Regatta Dog]

We are nearing the tipping point where the folks riding in the cart outnumber those pushing the cart.

This is not the 1% that some would have you believe. We could confiscate all their wealth and redistribute it to the downtrodden and that might prop up some folks for a year or so. Grabbing the net worth of the top 10% might give us snother year of "free" stuff.

How much fun is it going to be when the party is over, and there's no one left to pay for the next Friday night of "free"?

You really have no idea of the amount of wealth of the top 1% do you?

Yes. I do. I have a friend from High School who is in the 1%. Overtax him and he'll just cash out and shut down his manufacturing business.

A couple hundred people will lose good jobs. They'll stop pushing the cart and climb in. Soon enough, the cart will stop moving and the folks in the cart will still be screaming at the folks who used to push it for their own lot in life..

The Soviet Union .....South African Land Reform, etc.

Capitalism is a wonderful thing, but it can not exist without incentive and rewarding risk

 

[Raz'r]

1% wage earners are pikers compared to 1% of wealth holders.

 

[John Drake]

Have you got alink that gives the 25% of US construction workers are "undocumented" claim any veracity?

It's right there on the dashboard of his pick-up truck....just next to The Global Warming Trend Meter.

 

[Chuck D.]

We are nearing the tipping point where the folks riding in the cart outnumber those pushing the cart.

This is not the 1% that some would have you believe. We could confiscate all their wealth and redistribute it to the downtrodden and that might prop up some folks for a year or so. Grabbing the net worth of the top 10% might give us snother year of "free" stuff.

How much fun is it going to be when the party is over, and there's no one left to pay for the next Friday night of "free"?

False dichotomy.

 

[tuk tuk Joe]

We are nearing the tipping point where the folks riding in the cart outnumber those pushing the cart.

This is not the 1% that some would have you believe. We could confiscate all their wealth and redistribute it to the downtrodden and that might prop up some folks for a year or so. Grabbing the net worth of the top 10% might give us snother year of "free" stuff.

How much fun is it going to be when the party is over, and there's no one left to pay for the next Friday night of "free"?

False dichotomy.

Partisan stroke.

 

[kent_island_sailor]

I keep hearing this, yet taxes are low compared to anytime in living memory. By your standard the USA should have been a hellhole of third world deprivation for much of the 20th century

The poor object to being governed badly, while the rich object to being governed at all.
―Gilbert K. Chesterton

We are nearing the tipping point where the folks riding in the cart outnumber those pushing the cart.

This is not the 1% that some would have you believe. We could confiscate all their wealth and redistribute it to the downtrodden and that might prop up some folks for a year or so. Grabbing the net worth of the top 10% might give us snother year of "free" stuff.

How much fun is it going to be when the party is over, and there's no one left to pay for the next Friday night of "free"?

You really have no idea of the amount of wealth of the top 1% do you?

Yes. I do. I have a friend from High School who is in the 1%. Overtax him and he'll just cash out and shut down his manufacturing business.

A couple hundred people will lose good jobs. They'll stop pushing the cart and climb in. Soon enough, the cart will stop moving and the folks in the cart will still be screaming at the folks who used to push it for their own lot in life..

The Soviet Union .....South African Land Reform, etc.

Capitalism is a wonderful thing, but it can not exist without incentive and rewarding risk

 

[Saorsa]

There is that "of the United States" part too.

 

[mikewof]

Interesting numbers Mikey. 25% of US construction workers? Cite?

Ah, the Internet Expert weighs in again. Exactly how do you get any number? For those who aren't here legally may not be willing to verify that. FWIW in my part of the world (the desert of SE Texas) I would put the number much higher based on the very few who speak any English at all. But go ahead and educate us Grumps since I only work in the industry.

What would happen in your side of the industry if all those undocumented workers were instantly removed from the job sites by the INS? I don't know about Texas, but in Colorado, I'm guessing it's higher than 25% for the same reasons you noted. And the reason the INS doesn't do anything is because industry both critically relies on those workers and prefers their undocumented status for some applications.

As for the 25%, I wrote "up to 25%" which our expert Grumpy was apparently too drunk to read. And here's the citation, also that over 50% of our Ag industry is undocumented, https://www.numbersusa.org/pages/jobs-americans-wont-do

A little off topic, I was talking with a construction manager a couple days ago, he said that the construction work in this state has changed a lot since marijuana became legal here. He said his workers used to be drunk a lot, getting them to work quickly wasn't difficult, but keeping up the quality of their work was a challenge.

Now, they've traded being baked for being drunk, and he has real problems with getting them to work quickly, but the quality of their work is now off the scale. He said that he had to kept visiting a stone mason who was doing a ledgestone front on one house, the mason said "si, but mira that lindo stone." He looked at the ledgestone that was hours behind schedule and he said it was the most beautiful stonework he had ever seen, it all fit together like a huge stone puzzle.

So maybe we have a new age of slowly-made, high-quality workmanship in front of us?

 

[John Drake]

You people who keep putting this in the profit before border protection and law enforcement context disgust me. You like to go on as if your position has something to do with humane empathy but always reveals itself to be about money.

 

[mikewof]

You people who keep putting this in the profit before border protection and law enforcement context disgust me. You like to go on as if your position has something to do with humane empathy but always reveals itself to be about money.

You're confused.

The people who put profit before border are the ones who make a living breaking U.S. Law by continuing to hire undocumented workers. Those Americans are the ones with whom you owe your beef, the suppliers of the demand. Spend a little time around a typical Westchester County Club, you'll find the real target of your problem there. But you undoubtedly can't accuse someone while you're busy licking their soles.

 

[Pertinacious Tom]

There is that "of the United States" part too.

"People of the US" and "citizens" are distinct categories.

The Constitutional Rights of Illegal Aliens, Under the First, Second, and Fourth Amendments

In today’s United States v. Portillo-Munoz, a divided Fifth Circuit panel holds that illegal aliens don’t have Second Amendment rights because they’re not part of “the people,” and suggests that they may lack Fourth Amendment rights as well. (The same logic might apply to the First Amendment’s Petition Clause, which also mentions a right of “the people” to peaceably assemble and petition the government for a redress of grievances.) Here’s the core analysis from the majority:...