Immigration

• border enforcement, deportations, enforcement of federal immigration law, tracking expired visas are federal jurisdiction (not city, state, county)?

• made human trafficking a felony
• made human smuggling a felony
• prohibited employers who knowingly violate immigrtion law from receiving state contracts
• made identity theft a felony
• increased security on state-issued id
• increased penalty for forging state-issued id
• requires law enforcement to report inmates they have probable cause to believe are in the country illegally to the INS
• passed bipartisan resolution to Congress calling for better enforcement of existing law, including security the borders

• Most immigrants who come to the United States do so legally?
• Legal Permanent Residents must generally wait 5 years to become U.S. Citizens?
• Legal Immigration requires a visa (with timely departure upon expiration), refugee or asylee status, or marriage to a U.S. Citizen?
• Our immigrants come from every country in the world?

• There are an estimated 10 - 12 million illegal immigrants in the US?
  
• Illegal immigration typically results from overstaying a visa, an illegal border crossing or from human trafficking?
• No one knows for sure how many undocumented immigrants are in the U.S.?
• The waitlist / backlog for family member visas can take 5 - 7 years?
• Detecting the presence of undocumented workers requires the cooperation of employers?
• The two primary motivations stem from family reunification and employment?
• Illegal immigrants are not eligible for welfare assistance (Medicaid, A.N.D, SSI, TANIF, Children's Health Plan, WIC)?
  

• Enforcement of existing Immigration Code
• Funding to I.N.S. & Border Patrol Agents
• Computer, Software, Database Limitations to Follow-Up
• Widely Disparate Economies Create a Siphon Effect
• Unworkable Wait-Lists Create Incentives to Side-Step Process
• No meaningful system to keep families in tact
  
• Some Employers Knowingly Hire an Undocumented Work Force
• Some Employers Inadvertently Hire Undocumented Workers (But Don't have the resources for better verification)
• Some undocumented workers are the victims of human or sexual trafficking schemes
• Exploitation of Anyone is Wrong and Lowers the Standards for Our Own Work Force
• Forge-ability of identification or Official Documents
• Consumer Prices are Artificially Low to the Extent Subsidized By a Cheaper, Undocumented Work Force
  

• Mario Andretti (Italy)
• Albert Einstein (Germany)
• Arnold Schwarzenegger (Austria)
• Martina Navratilova (Czech Republic)
• Sammy Sosa (Dominican Republic)
• Isabelle Allende (Chile)
• Frank McCourt (Ireland)
• Liz Claiborne (Belgium)
• Madeline Albright (Czech Republic)
• Henry Kissinger (Germany)
• Elie Wiesel (Romania)
• Mikhail Baryshnikov (Russia)
• Placido Domingo (Spain)
• Michael J. Fox (Canada)
• Gloria Estefan (Cuba)
• Iman (Somalia)
• Zubin Mehta (India)
• Ricardo Montalban (Mexico)
• Itzhak Perlman (Israel)
• Sidney Poitier (Bahamas)
• Eddie Van Halen (The Netherlands)
• Midori (Japan)
• Bob Hope (England)
• Bela Lugosi (Hungary)

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