What concerns you about illegal immigration? I will be moderating a live town meeting at Ch. 8 on April 24th at 7pm. This topic makes the headlines in waves. I have noticed in my lifetime how it upsets people on both sides of the fence and those like me who see and understand it is a very complicated topic, surrounded by myths, misundertandings, anger and lots of rhetoric.
There is no doubt we are living in a time of crisis. As a nation we may feel insecure about the future. I have always felt our government and business leaders have done little to really tackle the problem of illegal immigration. Therefore, some gain and some suffer but the problem continues to be unresolved. Please fell free to share how you feel about it here and let me share some of the questions people have asked about immigration in the past few weeks that may incite more dialogue. Please feel free to answer if you wish.
1. In a special report by the Texas Comptroller of Public account they concluded
"The absence of the estimated 1.4 undocumented immigrants in Texas in fiscal 2005 would have been a loss to our gorss state product of 17.7 billion. Tey produced 1.58 billion in state revenues which exceeded the 1.16 billion in state services they received. HOWEVER, local govrnemnets bore the burden of $1.44 billion of uncompensated health care costs and local law enforcement costs not paid for by the state."
If in fact immigrants who are here illegaly contribute to our economy why haven't political and business leaders found an effective way to legalize them?
2. Why are the undocumented educated freely and allowed to use medical services if they are here illegally?
3. The social security administration estimates that about 3/4 of illegal workers pay taxes that contribute to the overall solvency of social security and medicare. How is it they can pay taxes if they are here illegally? What happens to the 1/4 who don't pay taxes.
4. If we build a border fence, will that take care of the labor shortage problem? and those who overstay their tourist visas?
5. Do the uncodumented here illegally really help the economy by filling low wage jobs or are they just taking jobs from Americans?
6. Don't these immigrants also revitalize neighborhoods and create jobs by creating new industries within the nation? or are they just a drain on the local economy?
7. How do these immigrants help local businesses? How much money do they save them, since they don't have to pay insurance or social security? How do they help the american consumer keep prices low?
8. Why can't we make English the official language? Are these immigrants invading the nation and changing its culture?
9. Why can't they respect our laws? or wait in line like legal immigrants do?
10. If there are in fact no legal way for these low wage earners who come here illegally to work, is it fair to ask them to wait in line if there is no line?
11. If you could not feed your family, would you enter another country illegally to feed your children?
12. These immigrants came here illegally so they are criminals and many of them break the law with fake ID's, loan fraud, human trafficking, gangs etc.
13. These immigrants are the cause of overcrowded schools, traffic jams, gangs, fatal accidents etc.
14. They don't want to speak English and because of them it is no longer the official language.
15. We should not give them amnesty. They broke the law.
16. We should give them amnesty because we can't deport all 12 million of them.
There are many more comments and questions and you are welcome to share your view and watch our program which will also have a web component and will allow you to share your views and ideas and solutions on the topic.
BY THE WAY NEXT TWO SUNDAYS 3pm AND THURSDAYS 1pm ON LIVING SMART
Green Architecture which can save you money!!! LaVerne Williams
Learn how shame impacts all other emotions and how you can heal it!! Dr. Brene Brown
1 comment:
This being a highly requested topic, I was dissapointed on the opinions not facts. I am tire of listening to the uneducated opinions of such respected people as your guests. I believe that if we were to focus on the facts of the impact of illegal immigration on the city, state and nation, we would be able to stop the negative and prejudice thinking that goes on. The show did little to clarify facts and was opinioned based. The opinions are always the same from human caring people and from the prejudice people on immigration. The politicians interviewed gave the same self-justifing, not-really answering answers. But it gave me great pleasure to hear from Lee High's Principal. He gave me the peace of hope for my hispanic paisanos. Because of caring people like him we will continue to have the opportunity of an education. Education is what will get us the respect and the right to the constitutional & human rights that every other human is entitled to in this our (as much mine-as it is yours) great Nation!
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