TeamsterGrrrl

Obviously you weren't paying attention during Civics class... Cities do not issue driver's licenses and ID cards to the public. neither do cities usurp the work of federal agencies like ICE. As for checking for legal residence on traffic stops, that takes officers away from more serious crime solving. And if a database check shows an actual want by ICE (ICE has know idea who just wandered across the border that they haven't caught yet), then we have to transport, process, and jail them at our cost,for however long it takes ICE to have a bus nearby to pick them up. And if ICE doesn't take them, the arrestee can turn around and sue us. As far as fining local businesses for violating federal laws, we have no authority to do that. And again, for these practical reasons, most every city is a de-facto "sanctuary city". You expect us to enforce federal misdemeanor law when the federal government gives us no resources to do so? County I'm in today has a population of around 5000 and maybe a dozen deputies and town cops in the whole county, which means at night there's maybe only an officer or two on duty. When the bars close at 1 am and the drunks start going in the ditch and there's a fight too, you expect them to drop everything to arrest, process, and transport over 100 miles someone whose only crime is crossing the border without reporting to Customs?

Trump's much vaunted infrastructure building initiative is funded by tax credits to private toll road, etc. operators. What country has lots of wealthy investors with billions of $$$ looking for an investment? China!

2,400 trucks that could have been built in America, were it not for our failed half century old embargo.

Those cities are just proclaiming what every city is doing... Leaving immigration enforcement to the feds. Heck, if our council decided to enforce immigration laws, where would we even start?

Yes, we're on the same team- That's why we respect the federal governments role and don't try to usurp ICE's duties.

Y'll forgot that immigration is governed by federal law, which means the federal government has responsibility for enforcing it. City, county, and state attorneys do not prosecute federal cases, the U.S. Attorneys do. Same with enforcement, ICE is the federal law enforcement unit that handles immigration. As for my fellow council members and mayor ordering that our police enforce immigration laws, like most small towns we have no police force and delegate that responsibility to our county sheriff. He has more important things to do that chase down undocumented immigrants for ICE. So you might want to study up a bit on the separation of power between the federal and lower levels of government before you suggest we locals usurp the fed's responsibility.

HG, first off you have no facts to back up your assertions. As a council member, there is no legal requirement that I zero tolerance enforce every law on the books... Heck, if we kick every "illegal" immigrant out of town, we'll have to make folks scrap their old tractors and trucks too! Never mind the practical aspects of enforcement- It's easy to keep track of tractors and old cars and trucks and whether or not they're operable, but we have no way to determine the legality of anyone's residence in this town. If we went door to door and demanded that every resident produce proof of citizenship or be arrested, we'd arrest half the town, and that half would be mostly old folks who were born right in this county but in many cases don't even have drivers licenses! That assumes they'd come to the door, and if the don't no judge would sign warrants to check everyone for residency status. And all this to enforce a federal law of which violation is a mere misdemeanor? Sorry, we've got streets to maintain, an aging water system to rebuild, etc....

So you're advocating imprisoning city officials who are violating no law? That'll accomplish even less than rounding up undocumented immigrants! As a rule, Rounding up and jailing undocumented immigrants for ICE is a losing proposition- You spend thousands of dollars of police time hunting them down and making arrests, then they tie up your jail for days and weeks while you wait for ICE to pick them up. Meanwhile, your jail is full and you have to turn loose dangerous criminals due to lack of space. As a city council member, it makes no financial sense for us to hunt down undocumented immigrants- They increase our census count and bring in more state aid and rent or buy housing that would otherwise be abandoned. If we call our county sheriff to come pick them up, he'll probably just process and release them due to lack of jail space, then he'll start billing us for every similar call. Immigrants, legal or otherwise, are saving our small towns out here... As long as they don't make trouble, they're welcome to stay.

No, but I was worried the thread might head that way. Agree with you on Bernie, I supported him at the caucuses.

HG, you have to remember that Kevin is collecting news from the other 95% of the world, where Trump is viewed as a clown who is about to be given the nuclear codes.

Billy T, there's no way to verify that $170/day rate, and it sounds like propaganda from Big Ag. Truth is, in this century big growers in Florida have been convicted of enslaving farm workers. To give you an idea of what these Big Ag factory farms are doing, we have a couple near 10,000 cow dairies near me that almost exclusively employ noncitizen immigrants under one of the visa programs. The "farm" is basically a company town, with a million square foot "barn" and manure lagoons right next to a cheaply built apartment building that houses the workers. The workers are notable in the census data for the townships these factory farms are located in, with 30-40 farm workers they kinda stick out in a township with a population of only a couple hundred. Those census stats show a similar number of renters as there are workers at the "farms", and they're paying almost $1000 a month in rent- That's double the market rate for rent in nearby towns. These workers are brought here under a program that requires that they be skilled workers with 4 year college degrees, yet the census tells us that there are far fewer people with college degrees in the township than there are workers at the "farms"... Clearly there is fraud afoot here. The income data from the census shows a much smaller number of $170 a day workers than the "farms" employ. So sounds like that $170 a day might be a gross figure for a 16 hour day, and before the labor contractor's cut and other deductions are made.

'41 Chevy, that's the earlier version of the NAS current report. And right from the report, here's the conclusion: "Overall U.S. Economy Gains From Immigration,But It's Costly to Some States and Localities".

41 Chevy, still got your facts wrong. Your cite is not from an authoritative bipartisan source, and the cite within the article is from 1997 and is too dated to be relevant now.

538 did a good analysis and agrees, there are way less than Trump's "tow or three million" criminal undocumented immigrants in the country.

The election is over, and nobody's mind is going to be changed by further debate. And if you really want to remind the coming generations how great america and it's best truck were, help preserve the memory of mack at it's best!

I had the switch and rheostat on the shift knob, and it was real easy to use... What the heck, your right hand is there anyways. After a while I got practiced enough that I could do clutchless upshifts, just quick switch the unit off then back on.

BS. Steel is down because of aluminum, plastics, and recycling. Metallurgical coal volume went down with steel, and thermal coal is being replaced with cheap fracked natural gas. Less demand for steel and coal= less mining. Better fuel economy means less drilling. It's convenient for republicans to blame the government, but it's really the republicans much vaunted marketplace that is taking down basic metals and conventional fuels.

41 Chevy, this is the study you're talking about. It shows an overall net benefit from immigration, not the massive costs you allege. And here in the land of Jount Council 32 of the IBT, we learned back in the 80s that immigrants strengthen the labor movement, not weaken it!

Yup, and plenty of born in the USA citizens get in trouble and cost us a lot of money too.

No, 'twas Obama said something like that, and he was partly right. Unpaid parking is actually a major drag on some city's budgets, while even undocumented immigrants pay taxes and patronize the local businesses. Also, immigrants tend to be young adults who pay a lot in taxes and use little government services. On the state level, it's the young and the old who are most dependent on government for services. On the federal level, the biggest budget item is the military.

Before this thread devolves into another conspiracy thread about jews, keep in mind that one of the most beloved (after Mack) auto makers on this site has a jewish CEO. Damn good one, too.

Makes as much sense as "zero tolerance" parking enforcement!

Good point, Mack Pro- Because we didn't reign in costs in Obamacare, the $$$ that used to be spent on buying new cars and homes is going to the drug companies, new hospitals, and rich specialists instead.

I like the way the GM and Chrysler bankruptcies were handled a lot better than the way the Hostess bankruptcy was handled- Almost every job saved versus almost every job lost at Hostess.

I figured out long ago that Trump changes his mind too many times to be trusted... Why is it taking his supporters so long to figure that out?