Should Illegal Immigrants have the same rights as U.S. citizens?

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Blatherscythe

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Oct 14, 2009
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Bluntknife said:
They are entitled to Human rights but other than that no.

Also that ship of Tamils that landed in British Columbia can fuck right off as well.
If were on the same page here, those people knew all the loopholes and knew the right things to say, so they get a nice place to live and more money per month of government hand out money than an old persons pension plan.
 

Spencer Petersen

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Letting people vote without citizenship is a dangerous game, see the "Bleeding Kansas" event for proof of that. But rights such as protection under the law should be universal for anyone living in a US territory. I'm thinking we need to split some rights up as Citizen Rights and Territorial Rights, where citizen apply to those with citizenship, and applies to stuff like land ownership, voting and governing rights, while territorial applies to everyone living in a US territory, like health-care (if it becomes universal), police protection and education.
 

Firetaffer

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May 9, 2010
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Citizenship has always been stupid, at least I think that. Give them the exact same thing everyone else has.
 

YouCallMeNighthawk

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In England it would seem that they have more rights that=n British citizens getting whatever they wanted and all they have to do is discard there passport so that we don't know where they are from which means than can stay permanently.
 

Jazzyjazz2323

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No they shouldn't my great grandfather came to America from Denmark right after world war 1 and worked his ever living ass to build what is now a multi-million dollar business,he studied his ass off to learn english and 13 other languages that helped him with his business.He came over here on some cramped ass fucking boat which he was on for months just to start a better life.Do i believe illegal immigrants most who dont speak our language deserve american rights?Rights my great grandfather worked for and strived for.Hell no i view all illegal immigrants as scum and before someone calls me a racist one of my best friends came from el salvador his parents barely knowing english yet they learned and came here legally and themselves believe illegals tarnish there name.
 

Misterian

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I personally think one way to deal with illegal immagrants is to bring them back to their country of origin, might help teach them to next time try to immigrate legally.

And as far as I'm concerned, if you can't immigrate to a country legally, don't immigrate at all.
 

Atticus89

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"All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside. No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws." -14th Amendment, Section 1

This amendment, one of the three Reconstruction Amendments ratified after the Civil War, clearly defines what it means to be a legal citizen of the United States: someone who is born or naturalized. However, take a look at the bold. That right there is my argument for not only illegal immigrants but anyone within the borders or a territory of the United States. You shouldn't have to be an American citizen to obtain basic rights.

That said, illegal immigrants are still breaking the law.
 

Vryyk

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Sep 27, 2010
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Dags90 said:
Well I mean, it's not like this sort of thing would lead to gross injustices like water boarding of innocent people.

OH WAIT.
This isn't an attempt at justification by any means, but it makes me happy that these are the social injustices of our day. Our rulers are no longer allowed to hunt us civvies on horseback or stick us in iron maidens. Fewer massacres of protesters. That kind of thing. I don't think we'll get a "perfect society" soon (if ever) but we can at least be as decent to each other as possible, right?
 

Arsen

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Atticus89 said:
"All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside. No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws." -14th Amendment, Section 1

This amendment, one of the three Reconstruction Amendments ratified after the Civil War, clearly defines what it means to be a legal citizen of the United States: someone who is born or naturalized. However, take a look at the bold. That right there is my argument for not only illegal immigrants but anyone within the borders or a territory of the United States. You shouldn't have to be an American citizen to obtain basic rights.

That said, illegal immigrants are still breaking the law.
The problem is that they are using it as a loophole. This should be changed, revised, ratified, etc...whatever can be done to eliminate this problem. Historically it was created for the sake of allowing the children of slaves to be accepted as citizens right off the boat, but doing it outside of the normal consideration and mentality of a US citizen, whose parents are from here legally, should be taken into a higher consideration.
 

WOPR

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scorptatious said:
I'd like to hear what people here on the Escapist think about this issue.

Personally, I don't think they should. If you aren't going to make the effort to register yourself as a U.S. citizen, than you shouldn't even be in America. It isn't fair to actual U.S. citizens who were either born in America, or are immigrants who followed the rules and procedures to become U.S. citizens.

For those who support rights for illegals, I want to you to give logical reasons to why they should have the same rights. Because at the moment, I don't see why they should.
For someone against illegal immigration you sure seem to feel the whites immigrating here had a right.

(I'm native American from a strand near Canada, mixed with European immigrants, now generations later I'm born in California :/)
 

Atticus89

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Arsen said:
Atticus89 said:
"All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside. No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws." -14th Amendment, Section 1

This amendment, one of the three Reconstruction Amendments ratified after the Civil War, clearly defines what it means to be a legal citizen of the United States: someone who is born or naturalized. However, take a look at the bold. That right there is my argument for not only illegal immigrants but anyone within the borders or a territory of the United States. You shouldn't have to be an American citizen to obtain basic rights.

That said, illegal immigrants are still breaking the law.
The problem is that they are using it as a loophole. This should be changed, revised, ratified, etc...whatever can be done to eliminate this problem. Historically it was created for the sake of allowing the children of slaves to be accepted as citizens right off the boat, but doing it outside of the normal consideration and mentality of a US citizen, whose parents are from here legally, should be taken into a higher consideration.
It's all a matter of interpretation really, especially when it involves the United States Constitution.
 

scorptatious

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May 14, 2009
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WOPR said:
scorptatious said:
I'd like to hear what people here on the Escapist think about this issue.

Personally, I don't think they should. If you aren't going to make the effort to register yourself as a U.S. citizen, than you shouldn't even be in America. It isn't fair to actual U.S. citizens who were either born in America, or are immigrants who followed the rules and procedures to become U.S. citizens.

For those who support rights for illegals, I want to you to give logical reasons to why they should have the same rights. Because at the moment, I don't see why they should.
For someone against illegal immigration you sure seem to feel the whites immigrating here had a right.

(I'm native American from a strand near Canada, mixed with European immigrants, now generations later I'm born in California :/)
Touch'e Mr.WOPR. Touch'e.
 

theultimateend

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scorptatious said:
I'd like to hear what people here on the Escapist think about this issue.

Personally, I don't think they should. If you aren't going to make the effort to register yourself as a U.S. citizen, than you shouldn't even be in America. It isn't fair to actual U.S. citizens who were either born in America, or are immigrants who followed the rules and procedures to become U.S. citizens.

For those who support rights for illegals, I want to you to give logical reasons to why they should have the same rights. Because at the moment, I don't see why they should.
The fallacy of borders does little more than tip the scales towards global oblivion over time.

We are to the point where we know that this is it, this is our one world, instead of being a bunch of nationalistic pricks we should try to unify the globe in some manner of harmony.

At least till we colonize another planet, then one or the other can fall apart if they really want to, at least then the human species isn't doomed for certain by narcissism.

fleacythesheep said:
Of course not, they are breaking a law.
I assume you are trolling?

Mainly because this would be a pretty short sighted and brutal POV given...most of written human history where laws were used to subjugate entire people's to use them for terrible ends.

Law is hardly something that should be held on a pedestal, it should be examined critically and changed often.
 

BeAuMaN

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Since I'm bored...

First off, to answer the basic surface question, they're illegal. The law should be enforced as written, and they should be deported immediately (Or maybe stop them from getting past our borders in the first place, but I digress). The question becomes much simpler when you actually enforce your laws. And as stated before, best not to confuse "rights" with "entitlements".

However, if we're talking about immigration and border POLICY, then immigration needs to be simplified. Not shortened in length, but merely use a straight-forward system. The main requirements that need to be expected of immigrants are...

1.) That they're moderately healthy. Essentially, we don't want immigrants bringing in any very nasty diseases, or life-threatening illnesses. This protects the general well-being of those dwelling in the United States, as well as prevents a situation where doctors will have to make a decision to treat immigrants or not with said illnesses, thus putting us into a situation where we have to force doctors to make decisions to treat said immigrants or not ( and further increase the costs of our medical infrastructure).

2.) That they have some manner of their own wealth, or someone within the United States, whether they be some sort of Non-Profit, Corporate, or Family sponsor, that's willing to support them until they get on their own feet. The oh-so-many entitlements in this country that we have are threatened with our current economic situation and debt, and we needn't have the systems in place burdened even more by people that weren't born here or haven't proven their allegiance. The reason a sponsor is needed is simply due to the inefficiency of our entitlement programs to check identification. I assure you that if you roll in the dirt a bit and put on some scruffy clothes smelling of dried urine, you can walk into your local Welfare department without any ID, claim you're homeless, and walk out with $250 of EBT for the month (or at least in California). I happen to have met people that do this, and use the EBT at crooked liquor stores to get booze for a party.

3.) That they have some ability with the English Language, or that their sponsor does, and if they're not proficient, they should be directed to where they can go to improve their capability with the English Language. They should then demonstrate competency on a final citizenship exam. We can argue all day about if English should or should not be the national language of the United States or not, but the fact of the matter is, English is the major trade language used, and we don't need immigrants to be in a lesser position than they already are, since they need to be able to do business in a mostly-English-speaking environment, and further be less susceptible to being scammed. Since this is primarily a video game site, we can take a bit of inspiration from Japan's immigration policy in this regard.

4.) That they should be educated on the essential history of our country, especially our major rights and laws, over the course of their naturalization, and should be tested on it. If immigrants become more knowledgeable about our history and rights than those that are born here and take it for granted, than so be it. Our country has an amazing history and pioneered an amazing way of living, and immigrants should be knowledgeable of this.

There could be various factors to shorten the time it takes for naturalization for exemplary candidates, but it should be around 7 years, so that enough time is given by the proper authorities to vet immigrants as necessary, and as resources permit them to.

We could probably cut the current system down to, oh, say a single hundred page bill. Or less, really, but Congress does favor its thick bills. Did I leave out anything?

Moving to the other part...

...we could improve the security on our borders at the same time. The Great Wall of Mexico (or equivalent measures) wouldn't be such a bad idea, if you also went and paired it with immigration reform. I don't believe that most people think that it's a bad thing to have secure borders, and those that do are most likely just bogged down with partisan politics.

We could do both. We just simply we need to apply enough pressure on Congress to fix the problem rather than make it another partisan battleground. But that might be wishful thinking...

Welp, boredom cured. Have fun arguing on tae interwebz.
 

CrazyMedic

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scorptatious said:
Neptunus Hirt said:
Which rights, in particular, are you talking about here?

You'll have to be more specific if you want to generate any real discussion, here.
Basically rights you have as a U.S. citizen. Like voting, attending college, holding a job. That kind of stuff.
I think that they should have every right to come here, do you know the main reason california economy is doing so bad is because all the illegals got deported and americans are too lazy to do the jobs and the fruit just rots on the tree, if don't want them to have unemployment ok but we need illegals. our country was founded and it is support by the immigrants.
 

iblis666

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Sep 8, 2008
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Hafrael said:
scorptatious said:
I'd like to hear what people here on the Escapist think about this issue.

Personally, I don't think they should. If you aren't going to make the effort to register yourself as a U.S. citizen, than you shouldn't even be in America. It isn't fair to actual U.S. citizens who were either born in America, or are immigrants who followed the rules and procedures to become U.S. citizens.

For those who support rights for illegals, I want to you to give logical reasons to why they should have the same rights. Because at the moment, I don't see why they should.
Did you make the effort to become a US citizen?

Joking aside, I believe that illegal immigrants should not have the same rights as full citizens. And they don't.
yeah they have way more rights