www.byzcath.org Forums General Discussions Town Hall Religious groups rally for immigrants

Certainly it does. That was clear with �all necessary force (including lethal force) to stop me.� You really must consider that �shooting on sight� is a use of lethal force.

Dear Deacon Lance,

Thank you for this great story in the New York Times.

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/04/05/b...c4641dc383&ei=5090&partner=kmarx

QUESTION:

Why did the featured undocumented alien pay social insurance and medicaid taxes last year ?

ANSWER:

Because he was using a false social insurance number which is felony which brings me back to my earlier statement which was that "everyone in D.C. knows that these people are criminal (undocumented) aliens".

From an income point of view, a person paying $2,000 year in social security and $450 for medicaid is earning very little BUT probably an average amount for someone with no skills or education. From an economics point of view, a person who pays $2,000 a year for social security and $450 per year for medicaid, will not be able to sustain a retirement. This immigrant will be using my retirement and medicaid fund to support themselves in their old age.

UNLESS

They return to their native lands to retire.

The US Government wants people from all over the world, and from various economic strata to come to this country to work as GUEST WORKERS - this is the main bill before the House of Representatives.

They can come and keep all their earnings (ie; no payments to USA social security or medicaid) and return to their native lands in 2 to 4 years where they can help enrich their native land - not impoverish ours because of the negative fiscal liability they will encure. In other words, if you permanently admit these people into our country, they will never put into the economy what they take out over their lifetimes and will have to borrow from our net earnings just to survive. It sounds harsh, but we live in a 21st century economy that is very different than the one your grandparents came from in Slovakia .

Most of our generation has not known disease (as in the big epidemics), war, famine, and dire poverty. But because of different econcomic forces, we are the first generation of Americans not to have surpassed our parents standard of living (at least most of us). If we continue on this road of absolute insanity our children will probably not even enjoy our standard of living.


IF

PS: I would never advocate shooting people at the border

Jean Francois,

You missed the point. The SSA knows the numbers are false and that is why the funds are in a suspended file. Illegal immigrants that contribute to Social Security will not get one cent of it back from Social Security or Medicare. Please note Medicaid is medical assistance administered through the Dept. of Welfare.

This is why politicians are slow to act. Farms and businesses get cheap labor. Social Security gets people paying into it that can never collect.

Fr. Deacon Lance

This must be qualified better. If they remain here illegally and do not properly pay taxes but consume services, then yes, technically they are taking more then they are receiving. But, to be fair, most are hardworking. Their contributions in labor hours & effort cannot be casually dismissed. If they come here and remain here legally, pay taxes and observe all laws (etc.) then they will most definitely contribute financially as well.

To build upon Father Deacon Lance�s post, allowing people to work in this country illegally exploits them unjustly (with regard to taxes and social security). In a just guest worker program I would overwhelming support the ability of guest workers to voluntarily pay into a 401-K type of personal savings account (something along the lines of the proposed personal accounts that will hopefully someday be part of social security reform).

Dear Administrator: The use of lethal force after other, non-lethal methods have been tried and exhausted is NOT "shoot on sight". The shoot on sight" suggestion is abhorrent.

Dear Deacon Lance,

From my understanding of the situation, once the federal government becomes aware of the fact that ss#'s are being used illegaly, then and only then do they freeze this money. In other words, the person was committing a felony, and once the government became aware of this they froze the person's account. It can take months for the government to become aware of irregulaties. Maybe it's not fair, but the person was breaking the law and there is a rule that you can't profit from a crime (hence why you can't write books about the perfect crime). Would I return the money collected to these illegals ? Yes, on condition they leave the country.

IF

Jean Francois,

It takes about two months for the SSA to figure out a Social Security number is false or someone else's and that is without anybody telling them.

Fr. Deacon Lance

The first methods are non-lethal and include things like barriers and fences. Once those entering the country illegally get past the barriers the border patrol may use physical force to catch and detain illegal aliens for prosecution or return (the preferred method as I stated earlier). Or the border patrol may justly �shoot on sight� as they cross the border, since the first methods had failed (not preferred but perfectly moral). There is nothing abhorrent about protecting our borders with lethal force.

What is abhorrent is the possibility of having large numbers of Americans murdered by terrorists who cross our borders illegally carrying either dirty bombs or the knowledge to create dirty bombs (or some other form of weapon of mass destruction).

I still am shocked that you find "Shoot on sight" without imminent danger but only hypothetical danger, as moral.

Dear Deacon Lance,

I believe that you are stating that the government withholds SS and Medicaid from seasonal workers with the knowledge that there is a 0% chance that they are using valid SS numbers. If you are correct, I would agree that this is very unjust and I'm confident this issue will be addressed by new proposed bill for Guest Workers. However, I think these workers make up only a fraction of the total undocumented foreigners living in the United States.

Just so you don't think I'm a capitalist pig, I actively work on guest worker program for foreign students. The USA-Ukraine Org. is one of the handfull of private institution in the USA which is legally permitted to sponsor students for a 6 month period of employment. As an officer of the organization, I can qualify and recomment students from Ukraine (Zakarpatska Oblast included ) for a J1 student visa. Our hope is that these students will be able to earn some money and go back home to help themselves finish school and build a better civil society.

I.F.

To the person who requested that I clarify this statement, YES - we can sponsor any Ukrainian student to work for any USA employer for a 6 month period (12 months per year).

I.F.

The danger is not hypothetical. It�s very real. Each time someone attempts to cross the border illegally both our border guards and the residents close to the border are in imminent danger. Coyotes and drug smugglers do not hesitate to use violence against border security. Foreign nationals crossing illegally routinely break into local homes to rob food and water. The danger of loss of life to Americans is very, very real.

Border security officials must approach each encounter with someone crossing the border as if that person was an imminent threat to their very lives. If they feel that the only way to protect the border and their lives is to shoot on sight I strongly support that. There is nothing immoral about using a shoot on sight policy to protect Americans from the imminent danger caused by those crossing illegally. I am very shocked at your lack of concern for both governmental officials and the American citizens who live near the border. Take a drive along one of the roads that parallels the border (I spent several hours one evening last year watching people come across illegally near Douglas, Arizona) and you�ll see that the threat to border guards and to ordinary Americans is very imminent indeed.

As I have now stated several times, it would not be necessary to shoot on sight. Call out the National Guard, announce a �shoot on sight� policy, and then fire warning shots. Attempts to cross the border will drop by 90% almost immediately.

Well, you have enormously de-escalated from the hypothetical danger of the importing of WMD's. Now we are talking about home invasion and violence in confrontations. There is no question that there is justification to use force to defend oneself or property, and that in certain situations even lethal force would be justified. But a "shoot on sight" license to defend the border is grotesque evil.

As this thead has little or nothing to do with things Byzantine is there any point in this staying here and not being continued elsewhere. From the tone of some of the postings that elsewhere might be on some non religious site.

XB
BB

No, I haven�t de-escalated from anything and I stand by all my comments. The danger from WMDs is just as real as home invasion and violence (though the latter occur on an almost daily basis). America has the right to defend her borders, even using a �shoot on sight� policy.

Since it is clear that you are now more interested in being disagreeable then simply disagreeing over an issue, I think it is best to end this discussion.