If you were not able to find work in your own country to provide enough money for your family to live on?

Would you illegally cross the border to find work in a neighboring country where low paying jobs were plentiful and where the natives were not willing to work the long hours required at the low wages paid. I would like answers from people from the United States please. This is a situation where I am asking you to put yourself in the other person's shoes.

If you were not able to find work in your own country to provide enough money for your family to live on?
I am a US citizen but if I was a Mexican citizen living in Mexico, one of the wealthiest countries in the world per capita. I would shame my government into giving rights, especially property rights, to all the oppressed people in my country (approximately 80% of the population). I would do this by trying to get the world media on the side of justice by exposing the prejudice and corruption of the elite and the government in my country.





I would also appeal to the rationality of US taxpayers by publishing facts that prove that hiring illegal aliens is costing them $50 billion more than US businesses save. Many American citizens would take these jobs if they knew where these jobs were. Additional enticement for this American underclass could be job sharing to reduce the hours, plus free online college or high school courses. Many schools already have these online courses in place so the additional cost would be minimal.





I would then appeal for Americans to invest in thousands of private schools in Mexico. This would cost a fraction of the $30 billion with little ROI it now costs to educate the children of illegal immigrants. No children of the Mexican elite would be allowed in these schools.





I would also provide facts showing how legalizing drugs in the US would significantly reduce crime and illegal immigration by greatly reducing the power and influence of the drug cartels and therefore the corruption in the Mexican government..





So no, I would not illegally cross the border. I would work toward these above goals while making a meager living selling on the street the crops I grew on my small plot of rented land.





If I encountered censorship or any other significant resistance from the government, big business, or drug cartels, I would work toward implementing the extremely overdue next Mexican revolution.





I would want to help my people. I can best do that in Mexico versus the US.





Even if I was illiterate, like most illegal immigrants, and couldn't write, I would not want to break the laws of the US and live in fear of being arrested and deported. I would also realize in advance that after a few years in the US, although I'm making more money, my family and I are still very poor by US standards and poverty is relative. Instead of a second class citizen in Mexico, I am a 4th class nobody in the US. My depression would not be lifted.





Why do I emphasize Mexico and exclude other countries? 60% of US illegal aliens are from one country, Mexico. 70% if you exclude illegal aliens who initially were legally entitled to be in the US
Reply:I would, if that was the only option I could come up with. And I would be fully aware the entire time that I risked being arrested and deported at any moment, and if I got caught - well, that was the price I'd accepted.
Reply:Yes, I would.But you know alot of people are going to answer falsely.If it really truly came down to it you and I both know they would too.
Reply:Heck yes I would cross.





I've known several illegals in my time, and every single one was more hardworking than most people I've met that are citizens.





People don't seem to understand how much of our economy [especially food such as veggies, fruits, and meat packing] depends on them.





I also hate all the rumors going around about them freeloading. Like I said, it's a big thing where I live, and every one I've met has to pay taxes just like the rest of us, and in most cases have to pay more.





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People also don't seem to understand the average yearly income in Mexico is $14,560. The economy down there is crap right now. Open your eyes, people.





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It takes a very long time to become a citizen. If your family was starving, would you wait years?
Reply:Why stop there? If you're willing to engage in theft and crime, why not carry on with the logic?





If you were not able to find work to provide enough money for your family to live on.. would you be willing to sell drugs to school kids? I mean, you're just trying to better your life, so it must be OK right?





If you were not able to find work to provide enough money for your family to live on.. would you be willing to mug little old ladies? Again, if you're just trying to make your life better, why does it matter who else you hurt?





When you try to validate one act of theft and crime, you need to fully apply your logic across the board. And the answer is no.. there is NEVER a valid excuse to engage in crime.
Reply:I would just move to a border town and scam money from the tourist's. That being said it's not that the jobs are low paying with long hours that keeps me from doing them (I drive a truck for a living, when you want to talk about long hours and low pay let me know), it's that the job conditions are unsafe because the WTO (World Trade Organization) and Clinton (By signing NAFTA and CAFTA) have made it so that if a company wants to be competitive they have break the rules.





As for no jobs in Mexico, there are many jobs there, thanks to NAFTA and CAFTA it's where most U.S. companies are relocating.





Oh, and try going to Mexico illegally and see how quickly you get to see the inside of a Mexican prison.
Reply:My grandpa is an immigrant and his family came over to the United States for a better life, but they all did it legally. He is one of the most outraged people I know when it comes to illegal immigration. He thanks it is very inconsiderate and wrong for people to come into a country illegally because they could be bringing foreign diseases and illness into the country (that is what most of the screening was about when he came over). It is not that hard to come into the United States legally.
Reply:i would


legally or not


these people all say yes but legally


bull....they would do it... all of them would they wouldn't let anyone tell them not too they would break the laws as many do to feed their family and have a better future


they should thank god that they don't have to go through that situation....but then again it would be nice so they won't talk so much non-sense...
Reply:i agree with gonzalez and no i wouldnt i would try and make it work.. take up two and three jobs if i had too
Reply:i am not from the states but the answer to your question is as we have an innate (genetic in built) ability to survive and usually one does tend to do that first...if the chance of survival in a country that you say could be achieve than yes people would do it....especially when entering the country permanently or as long as it takes to do work is hard to come by.
Reply:I would not live like a fugitive and I would also consider how to feed a family before I had one. I think therein lies the problem. Why should we feel bad for people who not only break the law but have no forethought.
Reply:Why cant their Governments take care of the people? Why ship them here? By the way, we are not welcome to migrate to other countries. They have laws against it.
Reply:This answer is so honest that it's the true story of my life. I haven't made enough money to have kids yet (in my early 40's), so I haven't had kids yet.





Also, I see the US going in the wrong direction (a government turning laws against its own citizens) and feel I have an obligation to correct that.





To review:


1) If you can't afford a family, don't have a family.


2) If you aren't your own government, become so.





Thank you.














qwerty
Reply:No I wouldnt. I have worked the undesirable jobs and the undesirable hours. You do what you have to do, but within the law.





Also it would be irresponsible and negligent of me to keep having kids if I coudl not support them. It would also be irresponsible and negligent of my family to break the law, KNOWing that if I get arrested they will not have anything to eat for awhile.
Reply:No I would not and the whole jobs Americans wont do rhetoric is BS,there is no job an American wont do.
Reply:No. I would legally immigrate to Panama which is now a country that is reasonable to live in, and booming.
Reply:This crap about "jobs americans won't take" is just that--crap. Before this influx of invaders, these very jobs--miraculously it seems--GOT DONE. How is that? They got done by Americans.





Do we not have empathy? Yes we do. However personal accountability simply says we must pay the price for the acts we choose.





All who come here legally are welcome. All who break our laws, who leach off us, who take advantage of us are not.





And rather than sponge off us, please take responsibility for fixing the social woes in the place where you live before transporting new and unwelcome, unwanted and unwarranted social woes upon others.