Talk:United States immigration debate

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Articles for deletion This article was nominated for deletion on 29 November 2006. The result of the discussion was no consensus.

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[edit] Merge with HR 4437

  • Merge What connection should this article have to H.R. 4437? Should one be merged into the other? Should both, plus 2006 U.S. immigrant rights protests, be combined into one large article? My feeling is that all text concerning legislation should be combined, especially if and when one of the bills is enacted. The debate and protests should also be merged into one article, since the protests lack much meaning without the substance behind them. An all-encompassing article would be reasonable, since the bills, the debate, and the protests are all closely linked. Why make the reader jump from one article to two others, when a single article can tell the whole story? -Scottwiki 06:41, 7 April 2006 (UTC)
  • No Merge I strongly disagree - why not have articles describing the provisions of specific legislation? (Though after looking at the debate article, I notice there's a lot of redundancy & agree something should be done differently there.) Brennen 06:48, 11 April 2006 (UTC)
  • Merge This article doesn't say anything that the other doesn't already, and should probably be reduced to a redirect to H.R. 4437 --T-rex 14:20, 11 April 2006 (UTC)
  • Merge Too much repeated infomation. Change one or merge or whatever. Luke C 16:46, 11 April 2006 (UTC)
  • Comment Let's change this one! I've added the Bush proposal. There are also several minority proposals (Representative Shirley Jackson Lee's, for example). More importantly, we ought to break down the provisions at issue (Enforcement, Border Wall/Fencing, Criminalization, Amnesty/Path to Citizenship, Temporary Worker are the main ones, I think); who's involved in the debate (immigrants, rights groups, Minutemen, politicians), and provide a quick reference to the scale of protests, with a main-tag to the protests page. Also, I think we can cut some details from each bill and let them live on their own pages. --Carwil 04:21, 13 April 2006 (UTC)
  • No merge no way, leave the hr4437 article alone, do not merge..... it would be like hiding it.... dont do it... right now the article here on wikipedia is shedding too much light on the subject, unbiased light at that. it should not be merged.... hope theres moer people that feel the same way as i do. and too many links to the article will become error links..... —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Eddie Rosado (talk • contribs).
  • No merge I think that the bill should be a stand alone article because people may be looking at it from a purely research point of view and should not have their research biased due to descriptions of the protests or congressional findings. Justin North —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 66.100.0.42 (talk • contribs).
  • no merge There should be no merge. The immigration debate is a policy debate, the HR 4437 article is about a specific piece of proposed legislation. It makes as much sense, to me, to merge Copyright Act of 1976 into United States Copyright law as it does to merge these two articles. - Jersyko·talk 01:54, 3 May 2006 (UTC)
  • no merge: Illegal immigrantion and immigrantion debates have a tendency to be rdicly diffren't subjects.
  • No Merge —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 4.240.18.5 (talk • contribs).

[edit] Stub

Should someone make this a stub? It seems that there should be a lot more information available and perhaps labeling this as a stub would benefit the article as a whole. TheSun 20:29, 20 April 2006 (UTC)

Does this still need to be a stub? What specifically is missing? Aaronwinborn 21:49, 2 May 2006 (UTC)
I honestly don't think that either one of them should be merged together. I think they should be kept seperate simply because the 'debate' and the 'legislation' are two seperate topics, although they do impact each other. Besides in each one is mentioned in the other. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 163.167.212.157 (talk • contribs).
NO MERGE - this article is about a bill, not about the debate. This article is substantial enough that we can leave it alone and link to it internally from the debate page. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Dahveed323 (talk • contribs).
Given that there are parts of the bill's article which cover the debate, those parts should be cut and pasted to here.Psychohistorian 18:00, 10 August 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Bias in the article

The Immigration Debate March 2006

Section only provides on view of the debate. After reading this I wasn't sure that there was a debate as the author led the reader into a position. The author provided thier own interpretation of the events and not a unbiased view. Comments like something is "hard to understand" imply a position.

Please revise this. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 71.57.8.68 (talk • contribs).

Another ignored plea on a talk page. Doesn't anyone else know that asking people to do things on talk pages 99.9% of the time is ignored? Travb (talk) 02:15, 9 July 2006 (UTC)
But it's easier than Being Bold. I agree there's a bias, but don't feel inclined at the moment to provide a comprehensive re-write. The bias is towards xenophobia and culture shock with whitewashed racism. (The immigration debate basically breaks down into white people feeling uncomfortable with increasing numbers of hispanics speaking Spanish (not English) and evolving American culture away from their familiar version thereof. There's also an argument about taxes vs. government services, but that's silly too; just require people to show proof of paid taxes for that year when drawing upon school, welfare, or hospitalization. i.e. "Pay at the pump.") 71.162.255.58 01:24, 16 August 2006 (UTC)
While I'm personally against ever editing other peoples' comments in the discussion page, it should be pointed out that the post right above this one is bigoted, based on ignorance, and promotes a lie (the truth is that most people against illegal aliens will not be against the people doing so if the people doing so follow the law and, also, illegal aliens perpetuate grave human rights violations both in the US and in their home country by illegally immigrating).

Regardless, the fact is that we should be focusing on the article not on using this discussion board as a political pulpit. My intent in that last bit was only to provide a balancing perspective to something which, to be honest, shouldn't even be in the discussion page (though an admin restored it anyway). The fact is that we should be focusing on the article. Please limit the discussion here to the topic of the article.-Psychohistorian 12:55, 31 October 2006 (UTC)

Were you the one who deleted the remark, using user: 72.70.215.139? This comment does appear to be in reference to the article. -Will Beback 20:06, 31 October 2006 (UTC)
Some people here need to work on their reading comprehension skills. I just said that I don't believe in ever editing other peoples' comments in the discussion page and you immediately reply asking if I deleted comments in a discussion page? And while my post above does not discuss the article, I thought I made it clear that my intent was simply to provide a balancing perspective in the discussion page to a biased ignorant political attack which you brought back into the discussion page.-Psychohistorian 11:55, 1 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Merge with 2006 Immigration reform speech

Merge, the speech page is pretty useless. Horses In The Sky talk contributions

I agree. -Will Beback 19:23, 16 May 2006 (UTC)
Note the full coverage of the speech at Illegal immigration to the United States#President Bush's address on reforming immigration law. Wherever it ends up, we should try to have just one place where the speech is covered at length. -Will Beback 20:46, 16 May 2006 (UTC)
Merge, indeed. No point it giving a ten-minute speech a separate page from the whole debate on the subject.--Coemgenus 00:00, 17 May 2006 (UTC)

I changed the reaction to the marches portion. It was heavily biased. Of the 4 major polls in May regarding immigration 3/4 had similar results. The person who contributed to this section chose to only mention the one poll that agreed with their views. Feel free to add more polling results from that time period. --Gretagarbo 15:05, 18 July 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Ward section

Can anyone back up the claim that the HR4437 would make it so that "All children born to illegal immigrants in the United States will become wards of the state.", and possibly add the section in which this is stated? It just seems like the sort of thing which would be a major point of discussion in any debate on the reforms, but this is the only place i have seen any reference to it. I am not accusing that it has been falsified, it just stuck out in reading the article. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 63.153.26.133 (talk • contribs).

I can't find any reference to this in the actual bill. It's also not anywhere on the H.R. 4437 page that I can find. --MZMcBride 02:32, 22 May 2006 (UTC)

THiS ARTICLE CALLS THE COUNTER PROTESTS STUPID. THIS IS BIASED. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 71.160.34.153 (talk • contribs).

Sal Teja said "For something to be free of bias is for it to be perfect. And being that we are all mortals and not perfect, nothing we do or make can be bias free. Thus to complain something is biased is to say that it is in a effect human. And seeing as none of us are perfect, bias is something that we will have to live with." I think that balances it out. and next time dont be a wuss and put your name

             ((-Sawyer A.K.A. Flakpanzer))

[edit] Other content

I was wondering where it would be appropriate to mention the SPP. I understand that this is the President's attempt to erase the borders through executive orders. I believe this is important to the debate, but sadly under-reported. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Curious Observer (talk • contribs).

[edit] terminology

Usage within this article and in Wikipedia generally is inconsistent between undocumented immigrant, illegal immigrant, and illegal alien. A central guideline should be adopted. A proposed one, with different versions recommending "illegal" and "undocumented," is at Wikipedia:Naming conventions (immigration). Kalkin 18:51, 27 June 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Sign your posts

Sign your posts using ~~~~

Thanks Travb (talk) 02:26, 9 July 2006 (UTC)

[edit] New Charts

Do these charts need to be in both articles (illegal immigration to the United States _and_ United States immigration debate)? Couldn't they be in one place and have a link to them? They'd be easier to maintain that way. I'm not a big fan of duplication of data.198.97.67.57 11:59, 14 July 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Reaction portion

I changed the reaction to the marches portion. It was heavily biased. Of the 4 major polls in May regarding immigration 3/4 had similar results. The person who contributed to this section chose to only mention the one poll that agreed with their views. Feel free to add more polling results from that time period. --Gretagarbo 15:07, 18 July 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Merge

I want to stress that the only parts I want to merge from Illegal immmigration in the United States are those parts related to the ongoing debate on the issue - leaving all other content in that article.71.74.209.82 20:57, 4 August 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Edits regarding social services

"Advocates of illegal immigration claim that few such immigrants are eligible for welfare due to the Welfare Reform Act of 1996."

deleted for using weasel words

"In addition, illegal immigrants receive far less in terms of welfare than most citizens of the United States."

unsourced

"However, advocates of reducing immigration like"

unverifiable 71.74.209.82 00:54, 6 August 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Illegal immigration merge

We should develop some rule of thumb to decide which content should go in this article vs. which content should, instead, go in the Illegal immigration in the United States article. There doesn't seem to be any clear domain established for these two articles.Psychohistorian 18:09, 10 August 2006 (UTC)

If you are not clear, discuss. ≈ jossi ≈ t • @ 14:50, 11 August 2006 (UTC)
This is not a good merge - If we were to merge it should be in the other direction. This article was intented to cover the political debate, while the other covers the objective facts. Since there was no consensus for this merge, I'm going to revert back to the pre-merge versions. -Will Beback 18:09, 11 August 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Article size

This article is too long and should be splitted not merged. See Wikipedia:Article size ≈ jossi ≈ t • @ 14:45, 11 August 2006 (UTC)

There is a great deal of redundant data which exists between the two merged articles. Talking about splitting the article because of length before we have removed the redundant data is jumping the gun.--Psychohistorian 14:56, 11 August 2006 (UTC)
The merge tags have been up for a long time and there has been no objection (in fact, you told me "please merge"). Given that and the Wiki policy to be bold in editing, I merged. Now, you've made a request to split the article and you need to follow procedure to split it. I have stated my first objection (of several) to splitting it (we should take out the redundancy first to see what we've got).--Psychohistorian 16:01, 11 August 2006 (UTC)
For the record:
  1. I object to this merge, there is no consensus
  2. I object to selective removal of material that is properly sourced
  3. I object to the unilateral manipulation of these articles by this Psychohistorian.
I will seek the assistance of other editors. ≈ jossi ≈ t • @ 16:18, 11 August 2006 (UTC)
Your own words were "please merge" (they're there for everyone to see in the talk page of Illegal immigration in the United States. Of course, you also stated, when things were getting hot for you regarding your admin abuse, that you were going to take a break from editing this for awhile, which you aren't doing either. So, that doesn't suprise me.

There has been no selective removal of material that is properly source in this merge. I have been very careful to delete only redundant content. As for "unilateral manipulation" I made a point to ask everyone ahead of time and noone objected (again, you told me "please merge"). Asking for objections, not getting any objections, and then proceeding is not "unilateral manipulation". Splitting articles without going through the proper procedure (as you've done) -is- "unilateral manipulation". However, if there are enough people who want to split this article, I'm okay with that. I do ask, however, that we do it in such a way that the scope of each article is well defined so that the two pages don't start looking more and more alike (as they were doing before this merge - there really is a huge amount of redundant data here). --Psychohistorian 16:47, 11 August 2006 (UTC)

I had enough... All these articles are now off my watchlist. What a royal waste of time....≈ jossi ≈ t • @ 17:59, 11 August 2006 (UTC)

[edit] This article is a mess

This article needs serious cleanup:

  • Size exceeds recommended article size
  • Much of the material is unsourced
  • Multiple merge notices
  • Overall structure is messy

I have added the {{cleanup}} tag, and some {{unreferenced}} were appropriate. I have also removed some material that was very obvious original research. ≈ jossi ≈ t • @ 21:14, 16 August 2006 (UTC)

I agree. We need to ground ourselves in verifiable sources and its not here.Psychohistorian 23:19, 16 August 2006 (UTC)
Agreed.

[edit] External and Internal Dimensions of Debate

These sections don't really seem to belong here as they don't focus on the actual debate on the hill. They seem to be more descriptive of the dynamics of illegal immigration in the US. Consequently, I want to move them to the Illegal immigration in the US article. I'd like some feedback on that before I do it. I'll assume no comments mean you agree with me. -Psychohistorian 16:43, 25 September 2006 (UTC)

I'm afraid I strongly disagree. If this were an article on 21st century immigration legislation, the non-Hill stuff would be irrelevant. But since much of the debate on immigration is taking place in the street, or involves the voices of advocacy groups, local and foreign governments, where else is it going to go. That said, maybe we could work towards an actual organization of the article by creating an overarching 'legislative (or governmental) proposals' section that would incorporate Bush's proposal and the bills. --Carwil 17:02, 26 September 2006 (UTC)
I think you misunderstand. My suggestion that the internal and external dimensions of the debate section be removed is not meant to apply to the grassroots section (or advocacy or local or foreign government sections). You seem to be arguing for the grassroots section to remain in this article and I agree with that, but that's not what my suggestion was discussing. -Psychohistorian 18:26, 26 September 2006 (UTC)
Maybe it's me who's not being clear... without "internal" and "external", and the contents beneath them, we're left with a series of legislative documents and the responses to them. But most of the actual debate is about issues: should there be a wall on the border (which isn't listed, but should be), should immigrants be legalized etc. By listing the Issues in the debate in a separate section, we give space for describing the actual debate, rather than merely its separate participants. That said "internal" and external" seems like an arbitrary division (for instance, which category do documented immigrants fall into?, what about undocumented ones?, what about their families in their home countries?, etc.) Which is getting to be a proposal for organizing:
  • Governmental proposals: Bush, HR4377, Chisholm etc.
  • Issues in the debate: individual issues and the arguments involved
  • Participants in the debate: governmental, regional and grassroots groups
Let me know what you think.--Carwil 21:42, 27 September 2006 (UTC)
Individual issues and the arguments involved shouldn't be in this article. Let me explain.. There are other articles for that. I don't even know how many articles on Wikipedia are on the subject of illegal immigration in the US (every time I turn around, I find another one). I'd like for each of the articles to be tightly focused on a particlar aspect. All of these articles need to be organized and linked together with a common template.-Psychohistorian 23:04, 27 September 2006 (UTC)
Taking a quick look at Illegal immigration to the United States and 2006 United States immigration reform protests, there is little substantive overlap in content. In general, Illegal immigration covers present realities of immigration and present laws; immigration debate covers changes to current law, future policy, etc.; within that debate are a number of protests which have been unprecedented in their scale, getting their own article. Now we could put the debate into illegal immigration, but it's way too long already. Thus this article. What probably should go is the "Legislation" section of protests, which is amply discussed here.--Carwil 00:23, 29 September 2006 (UTC)
I disagree. Much of the content in the "internal and external dimensions of the debate" section are describing the present realities of immigration and present laws - which you state is a subject covered in Illegal immigration. -Psychohistorian 11:47, 29 September 2006 (UTC)

I question what right if any you have to even speak about this,youve never done any hard work in your life,let me explain

i live in a small little town in wyoming,(the richest state in the union),here the genuine hard working citizens are thw worst off,while the illegal immigrants and the legal ones with greencards or visas are the most rich,yet i get close looks at them,they have no roughness of the skin to suggest hard work at all,yet they flash around money like they have millions

i was recently working at an apiary for the past month,very,very hard work,and there was also a seemingly valid "mexican-like" person working with us,i was doing the same work he was,yet,i was only being given $6.00 an hour,yet he was being given $9.55 an hour,i dont even have enough money (most of the time) to get myself as small coffee before work,much less get an adequate amount of food to be decently happy every month,yet i notice ever single work day, he goes and gets two 1 liter mountain dews,and often various other items,even while we are working (me and my boss) i have to keep on working hard,while this mexican-like person gets to frequently go and smoke multiple ciggarrettes whenever he wants (which is quite often),so ill let your "immigration rights groups" explain that

also,he only has a "supposed california id" no driver`s liscense,no passport,and seemingly he has no social security card in sight,since we were required t provide our social security numbers for the paychecks,yet i didnt see him provide his ;)

"I question what right if any you have to even speak about this,youve never done any hard work in your life" who is the 'you' in this comment? -Psychohistorian 11:29, 28 September 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Financial Burden

[...] and an attempt at inhibiting human nature

Human nature is not relevant to the sentence or topic (financial burden). Either the original meaning of the statement should be clarified or preferably be moved elsewhere.--ANONYMOUS COWARD0xC0DE 20:31, 8 October 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Organizational experiment

We really, really need to find a way to summarize and compare the bills & political positions expressed here. Maybe a table could help. Here's a sample start. Red=more enforcement/less immigration; Green=the reverse.


Proposal or Speech Guest workers Treatment of Past Illegal Immigrants Path to citizenship Border enforcement funds Border Barrier
Bush proposal Jan 2004 3 year renewable worker visa Temporary worker status Existing green card program additional funds
Save America Comprehensive Immigration Reform Act Through legalization path Family reunification, normalization after 5 year residency, with conditions Expanded naturalization
HR4437 No Criminalized at felony level No additional funds up to 700 miles

--Carwil 03:47, 1 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Aztlan Movement

I'm curious as to why in the directory for issues related to the US Immigration Debate, there is nothing talking about the Aztlán Movement to re-annex the SW United States back to Mexico, or all of North America (depending on which group you talk to, there is a large group supporting the latter, but mainly the former). Is this purposely being censored or are people just not aware of this pillar of the issue? CascadiaTALK|HISTORY 18:34, 17 March 2007 (UTC)

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