• Howdy! Welcome to our community of more than 130.000 members devoted to web hosting. This is a great place to get special offers from web hosts and post your own requests or ads. To start posting sign up here. Cheers! /Peo, FreeWebSpace.net
managed wordpress hosting

Is being an illegal alien in the United States a crime or a civil violation?

deanhills

Active Member
What do you think? If someone should be in the United States illegally without a visa, or has a lapsed visa, is that a crime or a civil violation?

Looks as though the issue has become a very politicized one, but then the law seems to be pretty clear that it is a crime. If you are an illegal immigrant you can be sent to jail, except illegal immigrants never get sent to jail, they get to be detained and then shipped back to their country. However quite a large number of those find their way back into the country.

The Republicans want to make it a crime and the Democrats want it to be a civil violation. In the meanwhile how fair is it that United States citizens who get to harbor illegal aliens would be committing a crime and be charged with a crime, however the illegal alien gets to be detained and deported?
:)
 
Well since the title of the person is "illegal" immigrant, it should be a crime and immediate deportation.
 
What do you think? If someone should be in the United States illegally without a visa, or has a lapsed visa, is that a crime or a civil violation?

Looks as though the issue has become a very politicized one, but then the law seems to be pretty clear that it is a crime. If you are an illegal immigrant you can be sent to jail, except illegal immigrants never get sent to jail, they get to be detained and then shipped back to their country. However quite a large number of those find their way back into the country.

The Republicans want to make it a crime and the Democrats want it to be a civil violation. In the meanwhile how fair is it that United States citizens who get to harbor illegal aliens would be committing a crime and be charged with a crime, however the illegal alien gets to be detained and deported?
:)

Okay, first bold text above, it is a crime. You entered a country without permission. Getting a Visa/Greencard is with permission. Or, if you can, getting naturalized is with permission. Living here without either of those two is a crime. How? Well, without those, you aren't required to pay taxes, get insurance, pay any fees, or even register for anything. Hence why most of your illegal immigrants now are richer than most Americans.

Second bold area, getting sent back to their country. Why do we do this instead of sending them to jail? It is not our job to hold a citizen born native in another country in our jail or justice system. We send them back to be deal with by the proper authorities. Its similar to being MIA/A-wall in the US Military, if you are missing or runaway, you are usually brought back and given to the proper authorities to be deal with. Not just anyone can tell you that you are going to jail.

All we can do for the time being, and I don't see this changing any time soon, is hold the illegal immigrants, and then deport them.
 
Okay, first bold text above, it is a crime. You entered a country without permission. Getting a Visa/Greencard is with permission. Or, if you can, getting naturalized is with permission. Living here without either of those two is a crime. How? Well, without those, you aren't required to pay taxes, get insurance, pay any fees, or even register for anything. Hence why most of your illegal immigrants now are richer than most Americans.
Whoa whoa whoa

I live in an area of Atlanta with a very high population of illegal immigrants (relative, and also a 23% poverty rate on the 2000 census) and I can say for sure they sure as hell aren't richer than most Americans. One I knew was a guy who was an auto mechanic in his late 20s. He made 20-something thousand a year. His wife worked full time as well cleaning houses. They had a daughter who was born here. He's since moved to one of the safe harbor states where these kinds of things are sparsely or flat out not enforced. Also, illegal immigrants still pay sales and excise taxes because, like everyone else, they eat, smoke, drink, and buy things. Sure, they can't pay FICA, but they also don't draw from social security (at least not in any case I've heard of. Maybe there was some weird loophole someone exploited in the past). The local socialized healthcare (Grady) doesn't check immigration status.

The vast majority live in slum apartments where the landlords don't take care of the property. Many of them are victims of local gangs but don't report any crimes, including break-ins and even rape, for fear of being deported. I've even known a few who joined gangs for protection from OTHER gangs because of this exact reason.

Don't believe the ----ing lies of neoconservatives. This isn't some crap I saw in an apologetic liberal documentary either; this is what I grew up around.
 
Last edited:
@ Ben. But is it fair that if they are caught without papers (almost always only through another crime they committed as no one would dare ask anyone for their papers straight up) that they just get deported, whereas American citizens who are "harbouring" them get to be sent to jail?

Strictly speaking the immigration law is not being implemented at all. Policies are in place everywhere where the police cannot ask a person for their immigration papers as that could be construed as racist. So technically they can only do that if another crime has been committed. So perhaps the immigration law needs to be changed?

Furthermore, there are negative consequences with regard to illegal alliens who are criminals. Even bad criminals get deported instead of incarcerated, and of course find their way back into the country and the community, so strictly speaking the practise of deportation is an "out" for them and a headache for the police and the communities that the criminals seem to be terrorizing. A place like Los Angeles for example has this kind of problem.
 
It's all a bit relative.

If they are wishing to be a part off and contribute = good people we should all welcome in any community.

If they are wishing to be rich and feed on the community = in a sack and thrown back over any border or maybe in water if it's not connected.

If they are transported - see point 1, but most will be used by point 2 people.

Short version.
 
Good point Decker. I just think the US Immigration policy is chaotic. Like the law saying one thing and those implementing the law doing something different because of State policies that are in force that are highly politicized and in contradiction with the law. Maybe that says that the immigration law should be amended. But then of course that would be impossible as this has become a very touchy political issue for Dems and Republicans. Must be a nightmare for the LAPD though as there is an instruction that they are not to implement the immigration law, they only get involved with immigration law when someone is in the system for having committed a crime. And then they have to hand the guy over to immigration officials for deporting the person.
 
What's the easiest solution to the whole problem? Punish those who knowingly hire illegals. Employers hire them because these people will work for $3 per hour, which means for $ left in the employer's pocket at the end of the day AND they don't have to mess around with paying in taxes. By punishing those who hire illegals, they'll be forced to hire actual citizens to do the jobs that nobody else wants to do, and pay actual wages that are minimum wage or above. All the time I hear people say, "What's the big deal? They're just doing the jobs that nobody else wants to do." Well, maybe they're not that jobs that YOU want to do, but there needs to be plenty of work availabe in the unskilled labor market that would be perfect for: teens, HS dropouts, felons, those with only a GED, etc. By dishing out all of the unskilled jobs to illegals, that leaves more and more people, like the ones that I described above, unable to find jobs because they aren't qualified for higher end work. As a result, that makes even more of a burden on us (tax payers) by placing such people on government assistance programs like: welfare, food stamps, unemployment insurance, etc.

Anybody caught here who is not supposed to be here should be deported back. End of story. There's really nothing else that can be done. Don't send them to jail or waste more taxpayer money by keeping them in the criminal justice system. It may be a waste of resources to constantly keep deporting these people back, but what else can you do? You can't just shoot them. The government of the offending country needs to become a little more proactive and punish these people upon their extradition. If they refuse to cooperate, sanction them. In addition, that whole nonsence about some woman climbing the fence, squatting on the other side and pushing out an American citizen is a load of crap, send their anchor babies back too. But on that note, please tell me why it would be so difficult to just come here legally? The answer is, it's not. It's just time consuming and they just don't want to go through the process.
 
Last edited:
Or if the source country is not responding to the deportations, then what they need to do is start dropping the deported into the demilitarized zones at the borders.

They are then free to run to whichever country they choose. However should they choose to run back to the US, the border patrols have permission to shoot at them. That way if they happen to get shot, it is because they were trying to illegally re-enter the country and not because they were simply caught within our borders. A few runs of this and they might get the hint that perhaps they should give up on it, or perhaps go through the procedures to come over legally. Would be a bit safer than trying to run past a number of armed guards.

Those who hire illegals are punished for it when caught. But much like the punishments thieves get, the punishment is far smaller than the profits possible from the crime, so it only creates repeat offenders that have no incentive to stop. What they should more likely do is suspend the DBA certificate and any LLC or incorporation of companies that hire illegals. That would hit them where it counts- if you hire illegals you are automatically and immediately put out of business.

And yeah, they really do need to change the rulings so that babies born here are not US Citizens unless one or both parents are. That would get rid of half the incentive for illegals, since a lot of them come here just to have their kids so their kids can be Americans.
 
this topic is way to volatile for me to really get involved. the only thing i will say is that i am for anyone moving here, not matter what country, as long as they go through the proper channels and do it legally. that is just my outlook. other than that, i will not get into all my beliefs on the matter or any political discussion on it either.
 
Back
Top