What will happen to illegals and why we should care

Another great stream of consciousness thread from an immigration discussion board, this time about the topic of what will happen to illegals if the economy tanks. As usual, there is more heat than light....from the board:

The opening comment:

One good thing about the the stock market crash: the illegals will be deported just like they were the last around.

http://www.dallasnews.com/sharedcontent/dws/news/localnews/stories/10...
DIANNE SOLÍS / The Dallas Morning News dso...@dallasnews.com
The stock market tanked, unemployment rose and cries grew forceful against Mexican immigrants.
It was 1930.
In the decade that followed, an estimated 1 million people went to Mexico in a wave of deportations and voluntary repatriations. As many as half of them, it is believed, were U.S. citizens of Mexican ancestry.
[Since most Mexicans don't differentiate between legal and illegal when it comes to being here and working here why should we differentiate between legal and illegal when comes to deporting them?]


Reaction......

So far as I'm concerned, if they ever came here illegally then they and their children are in this land fraudulently and will be removed. They play on a level that everything is about racial-ethnic tribe, and we are foolish to play any other way with them. They are right about that, we should take them up on on it beginning tomorrow. It 1930 all over again, lets give than all the road south


Another....

I'll ask again. Exactly who do you think is going to pick those grapes? Ex-investment bankers?


Another.....

You may think you need them out there in Mexafornia. It's obvious that you don't get around much. A lot of places in this country don't have them, don't need them, and are doing just fine without them. Send them all back. They won't be missed.


Another....

Beep - wrong Very wrong. During the depression and up until WWII migrant labor (read displaced farmers, Okies, etc;) picked the overwhelming amount of grapes, fruit, and produce. After the war and well into the 80's they were picked by braceros and UFW migrant labor. It was only during the 80's and going forward that illegals began picking after imported labor programs were halted. Agriculture in CA and the rest of the West and S/West has always been this way. The myth of HS students and college students doing this in any large numbers is bogus, and nothing more than an urban legend. Try again - both your ignorance and racism are showing.

Another....

And if NECESSARY mechanization will quickly occur, but so long as the cheap Mexican labor was available it wasn't necessary. We will get by. Illegals greatly exaggerate their importance. And if there is some crop that can not be mechanized, and I doubt that that will prove to be the case, we will substitute or do without. It is no big thing to anybody. This country does not need one single f*cking illegal.
By the way, the government's effort to mechanize the harvest in California was halted in the seventies, and has remained halted ever since. It turned out to be rather easy to mechanize the California tomato crop, although most people had thought it could not be done. The social do gooders, then, complained to Carter that the machines were putting people out of work. So all further machine development was stopped. Since then the government has simply made sure that plenty of illegals got across the border.


Another...

Did I say anybody needed illegals per se? You wish to tell me where? What is necessary out West is workers to perform the necessary tasks. Trailer trash such as yourself won't do it. Folks with little education like yourself won't do the work. So who's left? College and high school students? Sure thing. Hey I'm all for guarding the borders - just give agriculture and other seasonal work access to workers. Forget the illegals working in meat packing plants, etc; Send 'em home. What isn't understood about the term illegal? You assumed something that was never said - like a lemming going off a cliff. Next time - look

Another....

California is on the verge of bankruptcy. The state is looking to the government for a $7 billion loan. It was recently announced that illegal aliens cost California $11 billion a year. It almost looks like we deserve being broke, doesn't it....just for sheer stupidity....AAC
Then there's illegal immigration. We have 12-20 million foreigners who have entered our country illegally and we have hundreds of thousands more pouring over the borders each year. Many of these illegals are poorly educated, don't speak English, have no loyalty to or respect for America, commit identity fraud, ignore deportation orders from judges, don't pay taxes, and have children in this country so they can use them to collect welfare and food stamps. In parts of the nation, illegals are also at the root of crime waves, are overcrowding our schools, and are driving up car insurance rates and running hospitals into the ground.
My friends, if we don't have a border and enforce it, eventually, we're not going to have a country. The Roman Empire found that out the hard way and for that matter, so did the Indians when our ancestors arrived here. A lot of people believe that, "it can't happen here," but that's probably what Mexico said right before all the Americans who moved into Texas declared that they were living in an independent state. Unless we do something to slow the growth of illegal immigration, one day parts of this country may suffer the same fate.