Comments on A Day Without ILLEGAL Immigration

Steve King is an ABSOLUTE MORON, as are a big chunk of his constiuents. (I was born and raised in his district, so I can say that)

He keeps threatening to run for Senate against Harkin, and I wish he would - the rest of the non-retarded population of Iowa would clean his clock. But his district would undoubtedly elect someone as bad or worse. They're not only stupid, they take pride in their stupidity and provincialism.

"Our hospital emergency rooms would not be flooded with everything from gunshot wounds, to anchor babies, to imported diseases to hangnails": HANGNAILS? This man is clearly an idiot.

HANGNAILS!!!!!!!!!!

Our stores would be completely empty of produce, at any price. Construction would come to a halt across most of the country. Most of the restaurants in America would close. Just a couple of things that he must not have had enough room to mention.

One other thing (sorry, but I DESPISE Steve King): My dad died in a hospital in Council Bluffs (which is in King's District). Over the course of the four or five days Dad was in critical care, I passed through the emergency room probably 20 times. It was flooded all right, but it wasn't with illegals - it was tweaked-out white trash and drunks.

That town - that entire district - has some serious issues with poverty and substance abuse. It's much worse than it was when I was growing up, and the problem is with citizens, not illegals.

He doesn't give his source for that data. I guess I don't wonder why...

I live in an area that is one of the highest producers of produce for the entire United States and we pay about $2 per lb for tomatoes. With state-mandated minimum wage set to raise to $8 per hour after the new year, without illegals, produce would quadruple in cost and rot in the fields because, frankly, no one wants those jobs. Hunched over ten hours a day in a field with no shade isn't exactly an enjoyable job.

Sorry to show my ignorance here, but what the fuck is an "Anchor Baby?" All I can imagine is Sweat Pea from the Popeye comics, and he's adorable, what would Steve King have against that?

So, how can I get some protection from other Americans?

"Anchor Baby" refers to children born to illegal parents in the U.S.. The baby "anchors" the family because it is unlikely the parent(s) will be deported since they must care for their baby who is a U.S. citizen - unless the government were to put the baby in foster care, which they don't want to do.

King's district is where they filmed a lot of Alexander Paynes' "Election" (across the river from Omaha)...the average citizen over there IS a dead ringer for Laura Dern's huffing, derelict dead beat would be white-trash mom...

They say Nazi comparisons are always overblown, but...

I think he accidentally moved a decimal point on his calculations there. The price of tomatoes would go up from $2.00 a pound to $8.00 a pound. A can of green beans would cost you $5.00. The cost of having your house roofed or resided would triple. Good luck finding someone to cut your grass for under $50.

The man's a total imbecile. Veiled appeals to racism are still racism. Dude, if you really wanted to do something about illegal immigration, then you'd ensure those undesirable jobs paid a living wage; then there'd be competition for them, rather than guaranteed employment for anyone who hops the border.

My husband used to work for a siding company. A number of the siders had originally come into the country as illegals, but had worked hard, done the right thing, and either gotten green cards or become citizens. Those guys worked their asses off, they stayed out of trouble, their kids were going to school here and becoming Americans - I'm sorry, I just do not see a whole lot of difference between that and my own grandparents coming here from Galway at the end of the 19th century. Well, except for the staying out of trouble part - none of my forebears were very good at that.

He's wrong about cutting off the supply of smuggled drugs too. We'd still have the underpaid uniforms tasked with patrolling the borders to wave contraband on through in exchange for a relatively small I-didn't-see-anything fee. If the price is right there's always a way to get things across the border.

Also born and raised in IA-5. On my most recent trip home, my dad asked what I thought about his suggestion of putting "all those Mexicans" on a raft in the middle of the ocean and letting those who could swim to shore stay in the US. This is who King represents.

@Geni #13: I mostly agree with you, but did your grandparents not follow protocol by waiting in line, and getting papers to come into this country legally?

Snowdeuce, My Mom's side of the family came here pretty much on the sly: As I understand it, Great Great Great Grandfather (or something like that) agreed to fight in the civil war (on the Union side) in the place of some rich guy who paid his way over. I don't think there was much paperwork involved.

The other side of the family has been here forever - long before there was any paperwork involved. Protestant oppressors from way back, although we bowed to the papal influence a few generations back.

Don't kid yourself that there was much "protocol" until the 1870's or thereabouts - and then only to keep out the groups they wanted to keep out. Cheap labor always had a welcome mat out for them.

The meth part specifically is utter bullshit. I know, because my white friends in high school used to cook the stuff for some, um, local distributers, we'll call them, and all of them were white and native born too.

And I really, really, really wanna see the source for his numbers. Even if they're correct, they point to some incredibly law abiding people, considering there are supposed to be 12 million in this country.

Talk about anchor baby. King is no more of a descendent of anchor babies.
America belongs to no one but to our ancestors who toiled to make this country what it is. We can not prevent others from coming to toil to enhance the country. Immigration laws are man made policy aimed at favouring elite group who supposedly are not decendants of anchor babies. Maybe these laws should have been applied hundreds of years ago. Its amazing, he now thinks the bees that ones fed us with honey now stink.

Snowdeuce, that's actually a pretty interesting question, because I know at the time my grandparents came here from Galway, there was a lot of anti-Irish prejudice. I know they lied about a lot of things to be allowed to immigrate. In fact, they lied about so much that the story has never been completely straightened out. I'm not even sure, for example, what the original surnames were, because all the Irish ones were Anglicized - not by officials here, but by my own forebears seeking to seem less Irish.