Our Founding Fathers rebelled against "Taxation Without Representation"; so now,

[Viva_Daddy]

as I understand it, the so-called "Immigrant Reform Bill" will do just that to new immigrants.

They will be taxed and will have to pay fines during their LONG 13 year wait for full citizenship. During that time they don't have access to public funding or healthcare [cuz immigrants never go bankrupt or suffer financial emergencies and they never get sick and can't spread germs, right?] Isn't that Taxation Without Representation?

Surely we can do better than this. Most of the population are immigrants and the descendents of immigrants. It doesn't really matter how they got here (legal or illegal), they're here and they are human beings deserving of at least some human dignity (not to mention healthcare).

I'm not sure the currently proposed "immigration reform bill" deserves support from either Democrats OR Republicans.

[brewens]

1. We're being taxed without representation again. So far as out Representatives and Senators ignore

what the people really want. A lot of our tax dollars go right into the pockets of the 1% and they have the lobbyists and own the Congressmen to keep it that way.

I'd like to see some research on that. Look at someone heavily invested in oil, pharmaceuticals and defense contractors. How much of their wealth comes directly from us? The government buys a lot of gas, drugs and weapons. Subtract what they actually pay in taxes from that income and tell me who it is that doesn't pay any taxes! They come out ahead.

That can't come as a surprise. You don't buy a system and end up with the short end of the stick.

[Igel]

2. We're all descendants of immigrants.

Just some arrived a lot earlier than others.

As for taxation without representation, a lot of people are taxed and not represented. My mother's my ward. She pays taxes. Her right to vote has been rescinded by court order. (Not that she'd vote anyway.)

The key is that the immigrants aren't citizens. I've been a kind of immigrant in a country or two. Had I gotten paid in those countries, I'd have been taxed in those countries. (Moreover, unlike how it works with most countries, I'd also have been fully taxed in the US. That's silly.)

Note that the colonials who were protesting against Britain were British citizens being taxed on British soil without British representation. A minor detail, but one's crucial to the argument.

I've also overstayed my visa in a country or two. Usually not by much. Had I been caught, however, I most certainly would have been fined and deported post haste. It didn't matter how I got there--legally or illegally. I was in that country in violation of their immigration laws and could have been punished for it.

American exceptionalism knows no bounds.