Originally Posted by everwiser
The politicians in this country have a firm grasp of the immigrant (mainly illegal immigrants) problems in the U.S. What they don't have is a firm grasp of is how their "constituents" feel about it. It comes down to money and power with the Republicans worrying about the former and the Democrats worrying about the latter.
In the case of the Republicans, they support business and trade. Companies that employ illegal immigrants boost their company profits by paying their workers less. These businesses, in turn, donate more money to the Republican party to keep the enforcement of immigration laws lax. Just look at where the majority of the Republican party's donations come from.
In the case of the Democrats, they want the larger socialist base to continue their positions of power and/or to gain more of it. Most of the illegal (and even legal) immigrants come from predominately socialist countries, and tend to support increasing socialist-based programs. In the U.S., most states and even the Federal government dictate that you have to take care of people when they go to the hospital or apply for Welfare or other government assistance. There are a lot of immigrants that make use of these services (at taxpayer expense of course). If they have the right to vote (certain states allow this) or get the right to vote, they tend to vote for Democrats because the Dems want to increase social spending. Of course they want to raise taxes as well but since the immigrant used pay 50 to 60% in taxes, and now they only have to pay 20% (or less)...They've already increased their standard of living and decreased their tax load; another 5 or 10% in taxes doesn't bother them. Immigrants provide a larger voter base for the Democrats so they don't want to enforce immigration law either.
Where the politicians are out of touch is how the average natural-born or naturalized U.S. citizen feels about it. We're fed up with our tax money being used to support immigrants and we're also tired of a lot of our jobs going to immigrants (mainly the illegal ones). However, until the everyday people of this country start voting the incumbent politicians (either party, doesn't matter) out of office, nothing will change.