Talk:Illegal immigrant

message: I think 'illegal alien' should be restored rather than redirected to 'illegal immigrant'.  Illegal alien is the term applied in the US Code, and is more correct than illegal immigrant (i.e., if a person does not intend to establish residency) in some cases.
'Those who support humane immigration policy'?  Come on.  I support strict immigration, but my plan is humane.  I think 'liberal' or 'open-borders' would be a more correct term.  Somebody obviously has re-written this to a pro-illegal view.
:Now an anonymous user finds that 'liberal' isn't acceptable - the only term he'll allow is 'open-borders'. Seeing as how POV issues are coming up in the editing of this article, it would be helpful if editors discuss and sign their edits with a 'user name'. Willmcw 02:31, 24 Nov 2004 (UTC)
thread_title: Definitions

message: This article needs to be expanded to include illegal immigrants in other countires or moved to Illegal immigration in the United States --nixie 00:28, 13 Dec 2004 (UTC)
replies: text: --nixie 01:21, 13 Dec 2004 (UTC)
replies: text: As I read it, almost the entire article is about illegal immigration in general, and only the legal & economic section is US focused. The problem is that almost all of the examples in the article are from the U.S. I'll try to break out the purely U.S. issues into a subsection. Maybe you and others can provide more international content.  -Willmcw 01:34, 13 Dec 2004 (UTC)
thread_title: US focussed

message: The first paragraph of that section has become a long discussion of U.S. immigration policy, beyond what is called for in an article on illegal immigration. I think that some of the editors may not have been aware that there is already an article (or two) that covers the general history of U.S. immigration. Because of that I'm going to cut some interesting material out, and hopefully find a way to integrate it into the main U.S. immigration article. -Willmcw 01:41, 28 Dec 2004 (UTC)
thread_title: Illegal immigration to the United States

message: I just stumbled across this article, and was surprised by the amount of POV. Ive attempted to do some clean up, but the following passages have been removed as they seem to me to be overly POV and I couldnt find a way to integrate them:
"While the rules of the UN's refugee convention make these people exempt from the regular migration law, the US keeps these families in prison camps until their status can be proven; this policy was started under Ronald Reagan in an attempt to convince Guatemalan refugees of the CIAs illegal war in that country to seek asylum elsewhere. " - if correct should be in a US imigration article.
"In the United States, the majority of illegal immigrants from outside of Latin America entered legally on tourist or work visas." - Not particularly usefull as an example, especially without refrences.
"No matter the cause, there are many immigrant deaths along the United States Border every year." - redundent given the next sentance giving figures
"The Snakeheads gang of China has been smuggling labor into Pacific Rim nations for over a century, making Chinatowns frequent centers of illegal immigrants."- refrences?
"The use of forged documents to gain access to these privileges is not uncommon." - where is it "not uncommon"? refrences?
"When a nation such as the US or Canada experiences this phenomena they try to increase professional migration into their country, while a nation like Cuba instead restricts professional migration out of their country. The policies of the US, Canada and Cuba, have all statistically been largely successful. However, restrictions on human migration are not loved by their victims, and it is considered better for these potentially disgrunteled persons to be outside one's borders than inside." - extreamly POV, and the final sentance is an unencyclopedic opinion.
"
Restricting immigration to the United States has often been driven by nativism, which essentially a type of racism, but is sometimes driven by economic fears of union busting and other labor concerns. In the U.S. the first laws requiring passports for American citizens and creating a quota for immigrants were passed around the turn of the 20th century, in response to increased Irish, Italian and Jewish immigration. A few years earlier the Chinese Exclusion Act had restricted Chinese immigration. The quota for Jews was 5,000 a year in the 1930s and 1940s, and the waiting list for these immigration spots grew enormously when Hitler came to power in Germany. In response to the outcry following popular knowledge of the Holocaust, the newly-established U.N. held an international conference on refugees, where it was decided that refugees should be exempted from immigration laws. In the 1960s the US removed most nation-specific quotas in the immigration law, while retaining an overall quota, this changed the composition of the immigrants from mostly Western European, to a variety including many Asians. But in the 1990s the U.S. government again tightened restrictions on immigration. It is alledged that Ex post facto residency restrictions led to the imprisonment and deportation of over one million legal immigrants between 1997 and 2004. This has caused concern among some civil liberties advocates. These people are not given a right to legal counsel as they are not accused of criminal action and are being detained administratively.  In response to these concerns, dogs are no longer used on the inmates, and lawyers have been allowed to visit detainees in prisons in New Jersey and Virginia.
In the United States, the Immigration Reform and Control Act of 1986 (IRCA) made the hiring of an individual without documents an offense for the first time.  Enforcement has been lax, but major businesses have occasionally been found to use illegal workers. Tyson Foods was accused of actively importing illegal labor for its chicken packing plants, and Wal-Mart was accused of using undocumented janitorial workers, though it claimed they were hired by a subcontractor without company knowledge. Philippe Kahn, who wanted to stay in the United States, created the successful computer software company Borland International without proper legal status. During his 2003 campaign for California governor, it was revealed that Arnold Schwarzenegger had violated his visa by working without a permit in the 1970s. The employment by prominent individuals of persons without work permits has been a recurring issue in politics ever since the practice was banned in the 1990s. Michael Huffington, Linda Chavez, Tom Tancredo are among those accused of hiring illegal aliens, the resulting scandals sometimes being dubbed "Nannygate". 
A controversial alternative to fake IDs and other illegal practices is the Matricula Consular ID being used in the US, which is issued by Mexican consulates.  In the US, the 14th Amendment requires that citizenship be granted to all children born in the country.  Thus, if a child is born in the US, his or her family are allowed to stay, as the child is a citizen and cannot be deported.  Opponents of immigration refer to children of families with mixed immigration status as anchor babies." - Ive tried to sumerise this section where it relates to the general issuses, as otherwise the US stuff seems to dominate the rest of the article. The US specific issuses raised should go to Immigration to the United States (or possibly even Illegal immigration to the United States.
Iain 14:19, 1 Feb 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: You didn't give any explanation for deleting the entire U.S. section. I've re-instated it. Can you explain what is the matter with it? Perhaps less drastic surgery can help. Cheers, -Willmcw 19:21, 1 Feb 2005 (UTC)

text: Please do not casually redistribute the material from the United States section into the rest ofthe article. The last major edit round involved collecting them together, to prevent them from overwhelming everything esle. And I disagree that it should all go to the U.S. immigration article. It's already huge and this is appropriate material here. We can add more material to reference the employment ban and explain the matricular consular. Most of the other edits that you describe I don't have a problem with, in fact, I think they will cut out some dubious material.  Thanks. -Willmcw 11:25, 2 Feb 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: cleaning up