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Post by graybeard on Apr 4, 2006 8:24:45 GMT -6
I was tempted to put this in the non-economic section, but it really is about economics of the war on our Middle Class.
Controlling Illegal Aliens . . . Rev.3
Like the solid majority of Americans and legal immigrants, I am anguished by our illegal alien situation and porous borders. Until now, we have not faced what to do with those already here. It's a huge problem, and the logistics of deporting 20 million would be overwhelming, and costly. Instead, we need to reduce their economic advantages, and reduce their cost to us.
First, gain full control of our ports and borders, doing whatever it takes. That will stop the illegal entry of terrorists, contraband and humans.
Issue Alien ID cards and Alien Tax numbers to all illegal aliens and put them on criminal probation. Require them to log in with the ID card at any bank ATM at least weekly. Issue a similar card to all visitors, to keep them from overstaying, like the 3 million here today.
With a real ID, illegal aliens could demand competitive pay and working conditions, which would help all of us. Levy a hefty Alien Tax on them, matched by employers. Share the Alien Tax revenues with state and local governments, to give them incentive to help. We could deport the illegals on our own timetable, as their behavior and economic conditions warrant.
Deport any registered adult alien without proven annual earnings of at least $10,000. That would control unemployment and stop the underground cash economy they have today.
Base legal immigration rates on unemployment rates.
Jail and deport any unregistered alien caught after the deadline. With a good ID system, employers would have no excuse.
Does this smack of a national ID card? Well, yeah, but a Nevada rancher was arrested for refusing to show his driver's license to a deputy, and it was upheld by the Supreme Court, so we Americans already have a national ID in practice. We are also tracked by our credit cards.
Change the law so children born in the US of illegal aliens are NOT entitled to citizenship. Make the illegals' path to citizenship twice as hard as for legal immigrants.
Require identification of source of all money sent out of the U.S.
Deport all alien prisoners, even if we have to pay their native countries to house them: you know - outsourcing. That will reduce our prison population by 30%. If their native countries won't take them, we pay a third country to house and guard them. The lowest bidder will save us money and provide further disincentive to alien criminal acts.
Finance it all with Alien Tax revenues: average $1,000 x 15 million = $15 Billion per year, plus $15 Billion employer matching.
That's how you control and benefit from 20 million illegal aliens. -----------
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Post by lc on Apr 4, 2006 9:05:18 GMT -6
Grey Beard, It's a tough issue. The only part of the whole debate that I have 100% concensus with is that it is definitely hurting American's wages to effectively outsource labor within our borders.
The rest of it is less clear. I suspect that nobody in DC has the political will to do anything real about the problem because of the effect it would have on 40 million latinos supporting or opposing either party as a result. But they will want to pretend to do something about it for the same reasons.
I also strongly believe that American's need to be the ones penalized for using illegal labor. Progressive penalties as well.
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Post by unlawflcombatnt on Apr 4, 2006 19:23:31 GMT -6
The biggest problem created by uncontrolled illegal immigration is wage suppression. According to economics professor George Borjas, immigration reduces the average annual earnings of U.S.-born men by an estimated $1,700, or roughly 4%. (See Yahoo News story: Illegal Workers Have Mixed Impact.) If that reduction is applied to the roughly 143 million employed Americans, that reduces aggregate annual worker income by $243 billion, or $0.243 trillion. That's roughly 2% of our $12 trillion GDP. That's a loss in consumer spending of $243 billion (less taxes). Given that our entire GDP growth in 2005 was $384 billion, this is a significant amount. Considering that consumer spending is approximately 70% of GDP, that makes the "growth" in consumer spending around $269 billion. Again, the loss of that $243 billion is no small amount. And it is also $243 billion less money that could have been taxed, costing the Federal government anywhere between $38-59 billion per year. (Increasing the taxable income of a single taxpayer making $35,000/year by $1700 increases Federal income tax by $413. Increasing taxable income of a married taxpayer filing making $35,000/year by $1700 increases Federal income tax by $267. Multiplying these numbers by 143 million amounts to $59 billion and $38 billion, respectively. Thus the income tax revenue lost is somewhere in between.) Right-wingers will argue that this wage suppression is offset by business profits, and that these profits fuel investment. But investment capital is OVER-abundant at present. Increasing this excess even further will not result in more capital investment. It will result in higher CEO salaries, further overinvestment in the stock market, and further investment in foreign production facilities, the latter of which puts even further downward pressure on American wages. Furthermore, business profits don't fuel consumer spending. And consumer spending is the engine that drives our economy, not investment. Without consumer spending, there are no returns on investment. And if no returns are anticipated on investment, no investment takes place. The immigration-fueled reduction in wages does NOT help our economy. It hurts it. It reduces aggregate consumer income and the consumer spending it finances. The reduction in consumer spending reduces consumer production demand, further reducing demand for the labor to provide that production. The reduction in labor demand drives down employment and wages. The resultant labor demand reduction further reduces aggregate consumer income and further reduces consumer purchasing power. As consumer buying power declines, so do investment opportunities, since those opportunities are created by consumer demand for production. Thus the increased profits resulting from reduction in labor costs create even more excess capital, while reducing investment opportunities still further. Does anyone really think that wage suppression is "good" for the economy? Doesn't someone have to purchase the goods produced for business to profit? Won't reducing consumer income also reduce consumer goods purchasing? Won't a decline in consumer goods purchasing reduce business revenues and reduce potential profits? Once again, is immigration-fueled reduction in worker/consumer income really "good" for the economy?
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Post by unlawflcombatnt on Apr 13, 2006 14:49:43 GMT -6
Below are charts showing the increase in the total working age population in the U.S. (top) and the total increases in the (alleged) participating labor force size. The working age population has increased over 14 million since January 2001. The "participating" labor force has increased over 6 million during the same time period. The number of those employed, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, has increased slightly over 2 million in that time. (See BLS Employment at data.bls.gov/PDQ/servlet/SurveyOutputServlet?data_tool=latest_numbers&series_id=CES0000000001)Do we really need more workers to further increase the surplus of labor? Is that going to help the American worker, or will it help Corporate America drive wages down even further? Below is a copy of the chart showing the size of the total working age population in the U.S. The link to the above is at [url=http://data.bls.gov/PDQ/servlet/SurveyOutputServlet?data_tool=latest_numbers&series_id=LNS10000000 ]LaborForceTotal[/url] Below is a copy of the chart showing the size of the "participating" labor force in the U.S. The link to the above is at ParticipatingLaborForceOnce again, does it look like we have a "shortage" of workers? Do we actually need to add more workers to the current pool of 227 million working age Americans? Only 134 million of these are employed, according to BLS payroll employment numbers. This doesn't look like a shortage to me. And it doesn't look like there'll be one in the near future. Not in the next decade, or any time in the foreseeable future.
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Post by lc on Apr 13, 2006 21:46:31 GMT -6
So to recap Since 2001
Labor force has grown by 4.8% (143M to 150M) since 2001
Employment is up 1.5% (132M to 134M) since 2001
Working age group has increased 9.4% (213M to 227M) since 2001 ~~~~~~~~~ So the governments own numbers show an unemployment rate of 11% ( 7.7% in 2001) comparing the employment totals to the governments own workforce numbers.
And if you contrasted the working age group to the employment figures the rate of unemployment has increased from 38% to 39% since 2001.
Our actual rate of employment, based on the governments own figures, is only 60%.
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Post by unlawflcombatnt on Apr 14, 2006 2:03:23 GMT -6
LC,
Good summary on those numbers. But don't confuse the Bush administration with facts. They really hate that. It interferes with their reality creation.
Their numbers never quite add up. Our work force has grown far more than the number of employed Americans. But I guess we're not including all those new jobs created on Ebay. There must be millions that we don't know about. At least that's what Dick "Quick-Draw" McCheney would say.
The biggest manipulation in these numbers is the number of workers who are considered "participating" vs. those that are not participating in the labor force. The number of those not "participating" is currently 77 million. This number increased only 3.5 million during Clinton's last 5 years. In contrast, that number has increased 7 million under Bush.
These are non-employed workers who are subtracted from the total labor force, as well as from the total number of those officially unemployed. In other words, if you added the extra 3.5 million more that dropped out under Bush than did under Clinton, it would increase the number of those unemployed by 3.5 million. So instead of 9 million unemployed workers, we'd have 12.5 million. This would greatly increase the official unemployment rate to around 7%, instead of the manipulated 4.7% they're currently espousing.
In addition to being inept and greedy, this administration is the most dishonest one to ever occupy the White House.
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Post by lc on Apr 14, 2006 8:18:27 GMT -6
Unlawful, I urge you to do the math. The governments own figures show an 11% unemployment rate today, if you added 3.5 million to the work force that number would be 12.8%.
The disparity between the governments 4.7 (non-seasonally adjusted is 5.1% figure and 11% or 12.8% is a remarkable understatement of reality.
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Post by unlawflcombatnt on Apr 14, 2006 16:42:18 GMT -6
LC,
I may have overstated the number of those officially considered unemployed. Apparently, the BLS puts that number at around 7 million.
The problem I get into with the math is that the number of those who are payroll-employed (~135 million), the participating labor force size (~150 million), and the number reported as unemployed (~7 million) don't quite add up. If only 7 million were unemployed, then the total number employed should be 143 million. The administration would claim that this is because another 8 million are not showing up on payrolls.
In fact, this 143 million number of total employed is listed at the BLS. But this 143 million comes from the "household study," not the payroll study which includes far more people and actual hard data. Furthermore, the unemployment number also comes from the less accurate household survey. (This "survey" is based on 60,000 households, and how they answer questions on a questionnaire. In contrast, the payroll employment study uses data from over 400,000 businesses and employers. The latter uses hard data, as opposed to subjective answers on a questionnaire.)
So calculating the numbers from the household survey results in a higher employment number, though it is based on a much smaller sample, and is subject to tremendous variation.
The biggest variable, however, is determining how many of the 227 million working age Americans who are not working have actually "dropped out" of the labor force, and therefore are not counted as officially unemployed. If 3.5 million more people are classified as having "dropped out" of the work force (or are no longer "participating,") then it reduces the total number considered unemployed by that same amount.
So the administration could easily reclassify 3.5 million unemployed workers as having "dropped out," which would reduce the total number classified as unemployed by exactly the same amount. And it would reduce the unemployment rate accordingly.
Since 3.5 million more workers have "dropped out" under Bush than did during Clinton's last 5 years, I think they should be reclassified as truly unemployed, and added back to the total number unemployed. That would increase the reported number of unemployed workers from 7 million to 10.5 million. And that would increase the unemployment rate from 4.7% to 6.8%. this latter number is arrived at by dividing 10.5 million by 153.5 million (153 million + 3.5 million.)
Once again, this calculation requires the assumption that there are another 8 million employed workers who do not show up in the payroll employment numbers. And, once again, I think that's quite a leap.
So using household survey numbers, and adding back the 3.5 million excess of workers who've dropped out under Bush, the unemployment rate would be 6.8%.
And I think this is still an understatement of the actual unemployment rate.
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Post by graybeard on Apr 15, 2006 10:37:03 GMT -6
We have too many illegal aliens already:
1. Their 15 to 35% unemployment rate is depressing wages for everyone, including you and me. Could you use the extra $150 a month that is estimated they are costing you?
2. They are five to ten times as likely to be imprisoned for felonies as US citizens. (3% of US population; 30% prison population.)
3. Broken borders means more disease, contraband and terrorism is entering our nation unchecked.
4. There are two billion people earning less than $2 a day. That's seven for every American. If you don't mind illegal aliens sneaking across our borders, why don't you take your share into your house? GB
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Post by unlawflcombatnt on Apr 15, 2006 14:28:24 GMT -6
Graybeard, You'll get no argument from me on this. Our labor force cannot continue growing at the current rate. The biggest source of that growth is illegal immigration. This growth is driving down the wages of everyone's wages, not just low income earners. It drives down aggregate total labor income, leaving less money for consumers to spend. Less spending means less production demand, and less demand for labor to provide that production. Less labor demand means less employment, as well as lower wages. We need to start prosecuting employers for illegal hiring. Unfortunately, the Sensenbrenner bill conveniently delays employer prosecution for 6 years. Here is an excerpt from the Sensenbrenner immigration bill, H.R. 4437 from the Thomas government directory. " SUMMARY AS OF: 12/6/2005--Introduced." " Provides for: (1) voluntary employer verification utilizing such system two years after enactment of this Act for previously hired individuals; (2) mandatory employer verification three years after enactment of this Act by federal, state, and local governments, and the military for employees not verified under such system working at federal, state or local government buildings, military bases, nuclear energy sites, weapons sites, airports, or critical infrastructure sites; and (3) mandatory employer verification six years after enactment of this Act for all employees not previously verified under such system.
Makes employer participation in the basic pilot program mandatory two years after enactment of this Act.
Authorizes the Board of Immigration Appeals to reverse an immigration judge's removal decision without remand." Below are some links to this information. H.R. 4437 Main Page CRS SummaryTo me it looks like it will be 6 years before employers will be held accountable. That's my interpretation, at least. This is the basis for their false claim that "employers will be held accountable." They know full well that this aspect will be modified or eliminated before 6 years have passed. They're hoping no one will notice this 6-year grace period. I hope this bill does not pass. It will do nothing to reduce illegal immigration. Worse still, its passage will prevent the passage of any effective bill that might be written in the future. It would be much more effective to "criminalize" the illegal employers, rather than the illegal immigrants themselves. Of course, employer prosecution would actually eliminate illegal immigration. But that's not the real goal of this bill. The real goal is to appease the voters, by passing a sham bill that will do nothing to reduce the flow of cheap labor. Its real goal is to protect Corporate America from prosecution for hiring illegal workers, by legislating a 6-year grace period for such prosecution. Its passage will prevent passage of any bills would go after employers more aggressively. It's typical of a bill sponsored by Corporate America's "cheap labor lobby." Heaven forbid we should hold businesses and Corporate America legally liable for anything, especially for a problem they created themselves by their unbridled greed. It's also worth noting who some of the supporters are of open borders: George "nucular" Bush, Wall Street, Larry "I-lost-my-straitjacket" Kudlow, and numerous other supply-side mythologists.
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Post by lc on Apr 15, 2006 19:18:12 GMT -6
Politically motivated.
Nobody wants to tackle any real solution for fear of blowback.
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Post by unlawflcombatnt on Apr 18, 2006 16:08:44 GMT -6
Politically motivated. Nobody wants to tackle any real solution for fear of blowback. That's for sure. It's easy to understand the Republican motivation. They want a phony bill that appears to actually do something to appease their non-Corporate base. But they want a bill that really does nothing, to satisfy their greedy cheap-labor motivated Corporate supporters. It's less clear what motivates the Democratic Party elite (i.e., those in office.) It's probably similar, though they've also thrown in a supposed concern for the wellbeing of the illegal immigrants as well. I suspect they're also very concerned about what their big money donors want, as well as trying to portray this as a race discrimination issue, to attract support from minority factions. It appears, however, that a majority of voters of both parties want illegal immigration reduced, and oppose a guest worker program. But the Democratic elite continue to try to convince their rank-and-file, who oppose guest workers and "earned amnesty," that they are in the minority. They are not, but everything possible is being done to convince them otherwise. And the elite are bending over backwards to convince the rest of us who oppose open borders that we are "racists," or that we are "xenophobic." Hopefully they'll fail at such attempts to distort the argument, as well as fail at convincing Democrats that those opposing open borders they are in the minority. They most certainly are not. By the way, "earned legalization" = "earned amnesty."
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Post by graybeard on Apr 18, 2006 21:22:27 GMT -6
I would like to add another possible definition to your "earned amnesty", Unlawful:
All non-citizens in the US are aliens, not immigrants. Immigration implies intention to stay permanently, not proven fact. Agree? GB
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Post by unlawflcombatnt on Apr 19, 2006 2:38:59 GMT -6
Graybeard,
Yes, I think the term "immigrant" implies an intent to stay, unlike the term "alien." In fact, I think "alien" implies an unlawful presence.
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sandy
New Member
Posts: 8
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Post by sandy on Apr 19, 2006 7:23:41 GMT -6
Do we list the numbers of unemployed, or the numbers who are taking unemployment insurance? Most of the people who are unemployed have used up their benefits and are probably working but not claiming their income to the government. I had my home on the market 3 years ago and had many people want it and who could come up with a downpaymet. I asked the realtor to find out why they had no credit basis to request a loan and she gold me that more of them are here illegally. I have carried many loan papers but only for those people who had a good strong credit rating.
America is filled with domestic help in their homes, and simply pay them in cash.
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Post by graybeard on Apr 19, 2006 15:38:26 GMT -6
Graybeard, Yes, I think the term "immigrant" implies an intent to stay, unlike the term "alien." In fact, I think "alien" implies an unlawful presence. Since the majority of aliens in the US are here illegally, it's easy to associate illegal with alien. Alien (law) From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia In law, an alien is a person who is not a citizen of the land where he or she is found. If an alien resides in the country, as opposed to being just a visitor, he or she may be called a "resident alien". Otherwise they are called the "nonresident alien". The term illegal alien describes foreign nationals who have entered the country illegally. Enemy alien From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia In law during wartime, an enemy alien is a citizen of a country which is in a state of war with the land in which he or she is located. Enemy aliens are often subject to internment. We may not be an war with any nation, but there are estimated to be at least 200,000 illegal aliens from countries that hate us. GB
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Post by unlawflcombatnt on Apr 19, 2006 19:52:08 GMT -6
The real issue is to determine how many of the 84 million non-working Americans of working age are considered to be part of the (participating) labor force, and how many are not considered to be in the (participating) labor force. Currently the number of working age Americans considered to be "not in the labor force" is 77 million. That leaves the number of those considered unemployed at 7 million. Reclassifying any of the 84 million non-workers adds or subtracts from the total unemployment number.
Again, the big variable is determining how many of these non-working Americans are actually participating in the labor force, and should therefore be considered "unemployed." Changing the classification 3.5 million of those workers from "not-in-the-labor-force" to "unemployed" increases the number of people used in the unemployment calculation, without actually changing the number of those with and without jobs. If 3.5 million "not-in-labor-force" workers are reclassified as "unemployed," the unemployment number goes from 7 million to 10.5 million, and the unemployment rate increases from 4.7% to 6.8%.
The number of those considered "not-in-the-labor-force" has increased at twice the rate under Bush as it did during Clinton's last 5 years. Thus the unemployment rate under Bush has been artificially lowered under Bush due to this statistical chicanery. Under Bush 7 million people have dropped out of the "participating" labor force, vs. 3.5 million during Clinton's last 5 years. If this number had remained at the rate under Bush that it was under Clinton, today's unemployment rate would be 6.8%, not 4.7%. The calculation would be changed from 7 million divided by 150 million = 4.7%, to 10.5 million divided by 153.5 million = 6.8%.
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sandy
New Member
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Post by sandy on Jun 2, 2006 4:05:04 GMT -6
Immigration and Naturalization is a real problem for all of us. Our laws were honed to developing an I & N Agency fair to everyone who wanted to migrate to America. The plan was to keep nations from unloading their criminals into America as England did to Australia. To keep our country diverse, a quota system was developed keeping the percentages of foreign nations on an even level. It worked! the problem was that our government, as usual, got lazy and our I & N Agency gave up keeping track of who was here and who was on the list to come here.
Some of the rules for this immigration were strict and necessary. The most important thing needed was a health certificate for communicable diseases. Anyone getting that far in the process had to have documents that they had no criminal records. The list goes on but these two requirements were soon ignored due to lazy clerks in the government. Of course learning the language and agreeing with keeping their kids in some kind of school were also ignored.
As for a cheap labor force, I remember all the boys in our city of Santa Monica had a chance to sign up for agricultural work and would be picked up by buses and taken to the farms all up and down the state of California. They would be gone for 8 weeks and came home with money in their pockets, tanned and healthy. These guys also has a valuable start for their resumes and it often gave them the incentive to stay in school due to the hard work. WW2 may have grabbed these guys and when they came home had other plans for their lives. The work ethic was imbedded in their brains and everyone gained. I remember, feeling left behind when our guys left for half the summer.
Society changes and in California we had the Bracero Program that bused the workers in from Mexico for temporary work during the planting and harvesting seasons. They were bused home again when their work was over.
I discovered that starting in the 1990s many of these undocumented workers were able to get driver's licenses and voter registration forms. Our registrars in the California counties were inundated with new registrations and simply processed them and the non-citizens voted in every damn election from that period of time. INS never did keep track of the new citizens and nobody knew who or what was driving, working or voting.
Sloppy government has allowed this to continue and certainly allowed 911 to happen without blinking an eye.
I keep hoping for somebody to take the responsibility and stand up to this mess and we all talk about any political party demanding a closed border on the north and south could walk away with the House, Senate and White House.
Is there such a man? Do we even breed men in America these days? All I see are a bunch of politically correct cowards scared to death of standing up for America. Well, that is exactly what will take this country down. Nobody stood up to OBL in 1993 and nobody even knows the truth about 911.
I just figure it's over. We have no more free country and we will end up some third world, third rate bunch of lazy uneducated people.
This thread may be the most important subject in America. I have the list of who voted for Amnesty in the Senate and I will vote accordingly.
Thank you for opening it up. If anyone wants it, I will post the list of the coward Senators who voted May 25th.
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Post by graybeard on Jun 2, 2006 7:53:07 GMT -6
Thanks, Sandy. I don't even have to look to know how our Calif Senators voted. CNN's "Lou Dobbs Tonight" has a segment on "Broken Borders." It's run almost daily for the last three years at least. He also runs a segment, "War on the Middle Class." Lou has been on CNN from the beginning 26 years ago. He's reportedly a Repub, but you wouldn't know it from his program. I record Lou Dobbs on the DVR, and watch it at my convenience. It's about the only news program worthy of the name.
There is no other issue so important to Americans, and so ignored by Washington.
Where will corporates find customers, after our Middle Class is beaten into poverty?
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Post by Susan Ratliff on Jun 4, 2006 1:07:44 GMT -6
Check out this article. Scroll down to "the plan" which will take you to a task force report titled, The North American Community. This might explain why there's no real enforcement of the border. I'd love to hear your take on this report.
I got here through the reform party and am not adept at doing this yet so I may not be doing this properly. Sorry, I'll figure it out but what I have been seeing is exactly what I have been thinking and telling my friends about.
I also have been feeling like things were not right with what is being "pushed" about the economy and have been thinking that we had some kind of Enron accounting going on. So the discussions on the economy have been enlightening.
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Post by Susan Ratliff on Jun 4, 2006 1:14:45 GMT -6
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Post by unlawflcombatnt on Jun 19, 2006 14:40:46 GMT -6
Susan,
Thanks for your contribution and the link to the article. It was very interesting.
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Post by unlawflcombatnt on Jun 19, 2006 14:46:32 GMT -6
I wanted to ask posters in this category if they could move and/or repost their topics in this section to the new " Immigration" category I created. It will make these posts much easier to find for guests and new users. (And for yours truly, as well.) The link for the Immigration category is: unlawflcombatnt.proboards84.com/index.cgi?board=immigrationThanks, unlawflcombatnt
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