Should landlords be penalized for renting to illegal immigrants?

No

1 of 10

by Nadine Sellers

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In an increasingly hostile environment, the last thing immigrants and legal residents need is to join the rest of society's alienated numbers. Social science has demonstrated that any human who feels rejected will react in a variety of deviant ways. Most responses to the current political climate are harmful to national strength. Cities do not have the funding and resources to handle the legal implications of mass purging. Fear and hatred do not foster a positive political climate, anywhere.

A nation built on the principle of freedom must collectively secure that ideal. An immigrant is a human, someone's family, someone's friend. This someone must eat and provide for its own. This someone must earn funds to pay for food, housing and clothing; all contribute to the gross national product. This person may be doing the job which ensures health and well-being for those who would not want to labor so long and hard.

Social security is paid by any working individual, but social security will not be cashed in at the end of the illegal immigrant's laboring,these funds will contribute to the boomer's pool. All benefit from this often ignored factor.

The concept of amnesty is an inflated one. No one is getting away with anything here. First of all, the hard workers who have remained employed for so long as 10 years for low wages, have had difficulty saving the sum required for the fines. they have paid taxes, Medicare/Medicaid. And now they must pay enormous fees to obtain convoluted paper validation. It is not a trip to the mall. It is a lengthy, expensive, time consuming and difficult process.

What would replace or refund a valiant society such as ours? Evict thousands of families whose children are born American, separate the family unit we so tout to respect. Would we also give back the Mexican territories which we conquered over these spirited and often gentle natives (not long ago). A mature society has the option to incorporate the existing populace without creating resentment.

The collapse of the food industry, the demise of the service industry, and many a dirty job would bring down the quality and solvency of our cherished institutions.
So many people depend upon immigrant labor, here and abroad; ever since the Sumerians , the Romans, every developed nation has incorporated native slave and external labor into their expansion plans and lived to regret it somehow. And the following generations come to create a backlash of bitterness as they find the discrepancies between wages.

The levels of crime and dangerous activities are not necessarily co-related with the immigrant influx. They are reported with more assiduity. Angst resides in the heart of the local Caucasian boy as well as the Latino teen. The lonely rejected blue eyed pizza guy is as likely to rape his subject as his dark eyed counterpart in this excruciatingly indifferent society. No excuses, no accusations. Just a level field.

Trade agreements must be honored both ways, NAFTA is not a one way road to personal gain. Sending immigrants back to a miserable condition, solely on the grounds of lack of paper is not a healthy option, can't throw the fine ones out with the cleansing solution. However, purging the jails and prisons might offer a breather to tax expenditures. But what would our neighbors do with the spoiled goods? It would take long to assess the release program to ensure public safety on both sides of that wall.

Making more enemies not only in the world at large, but close, too close, would be the unraveling of the national pool. Taking a number of established workers within the towns and cities and tearing their stressed lives asunder would only open the gates of resentment. Do we want to live bitter lives forever? or work our way through compassionate problem solving, one human at a time.

Cities can make laws, small government can implement them, but the cost to the community would be devastating. We are aware of what happened in Europe when the voices were hushed and the sticks were raised against, first one type of different workers, then another darker one. Then neighbor turning neighbor in to the authorities. A whole wave of paranoia swept all states and the images are etched upon our minds. Let's not turn into that kind of neighbor. Or create laws that turn baser instincts into fragile virtues.

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