Illegal alien invader...saves child's life

You fail at analogies.

But would you say that if he was a murderer and you were his doctor?

Punishing immigrants isn't going to do shit. Have to punish those who employ them.

Her first!

You seem to be endorsing the concept of the US being Mexico's welfare system and safety net. With all due respect, that is not the United States job and is the responsibility of the Mexican government. We have a set of rules that are established and in place which need to be followed in order to move to this country.

Who is talking about punishing immigrants? Speaking for myself, I am talking about enforcing the law and punishing those who are violating the laws of the US by being in this country. Part of that does include punishing companies that are employing those who are here illegally.

No, it's quite fabulous. Both involve bestowing upon someone something ridiculously disproportionate to what they've achieved.

He did something nice. Give him a Kudos bar. He can eat it on the bus back to Mexico.

I think this story is mixed up. The government wanted to keep him. But he got away and made it back to his spaceship:

Thank you!

I am disgusted, beyond all belief, that anyone could think I would just "let" my mother be homeless. That is the most arrogant and thoughtless supposition anyone has ever made about me.

There are "a few" extenuating circumstances.

1. She is schizophrenic. This means she has very strong paranoias and bizarre delusions. These delusions include the belief that a military satellite is tracking her and hits her with this "beam" designed to inflict her with some kind of gene-splicing experiment.

2. She is under the delusion that my brothers and I have been "cloned" and are under the influence of this military satellite.

She trusts no one. On top of that, she is afraid to stay in one place for too long because of this satellite she thinks is chasing her. My brothers and I had her in public housing for a short time, but she became convinced that there was a "scanning beam" reading her thoughts and spoiling the food in her fridge. She left and went back to sleeping in her car, where she felt safe.

I drive twice a week 80 miles to where she stays to try and help her however I can, make sure she has gas in her car and can stay warm.

My brothers and I are currently on ATTEMPT NUMBER 5 to have her committed.

Mental health laws in TN where she stays are pretty bad. To give you an idea, the last commitment attempt went something like this...

My brothers and I go to the courthouse, pay 50 bucks and sign a statement saying we believe our mother is a danger to herself. This is at 930 am. We give the sheriff her location and a stack of crazy paranoid letters she has written to us and a handful of local/state officials.

At about 3 oclock in the fucking morning, the cops get around to picking her up. They arrest her and cart her to the hospital in the middle of the night where she waits for a mental health worker to evaluate her. He does so, and acknowledges that she is obviously ill. However, since she has not threatened to kill herself or anyone else, he is unwilling to have her committed.

Never mind that she can barely feed herself. Never mind that she is totally irrational and sick and very scared and helpless. Those assholes wouldn't do anything for her. They were sure, however, when they discharged her from the hospital to present her with an $1800 bill for her visit. So yeah, Tamar... maybe there is no excuse for a mentally ill person to be homeless, but a lot of them are, and shit like this is why.

This is the most difficult and heartbreaking experience I have ever had to deal with in my life... My brothers and I are doing everything we can to try and help my mom. I worry about her constantly.

What did you expect, blurting out "my mother is homeless," then taking off for the night without explaining yourself? You set yourself up for that.

That said, you have my sympathy.



Have you considered just lying and saying she threatened to kill you? Of course she'll deny it, but I assume they expect people to deny it anyway.

Well, we certainly have American citizens that we can't even care for that are falling through the cracks, and there are people trying to convince us that we should be providing a haven for illegal immigrants on top of that.

Shed the delusion of the latter and I'm all for taking up the issue of remedying the former. The former is arguably the United States' responsibility. The latter is decidedly not.

Force me to choose both or neither, and I pick neither.

The sad thing is marathon, is that it isn't that we can't care for some Americans, we just don't. The immigration system is as hopelessly broken as I know the mental health system to be.

I am a compassionate person, and while I realize America can't save the world, it is so infuriatingly stupid that we can't seem to pass some kind of guest worker program and implement some decent border security.

People like this guy would have no reason to make a dangerous walk across the desert. They could come in safely, for long enough to work and earn money for their family.

I have every bit of compassion for people that are desperate enough to risk their lives to come here. There is no reason the immigration system couldn't be fixed if the political will existed. Likewise, the mental health system could be fixed if the political will existed. There is no reason taking care of Americans would have to exclude a fair and workable immigration system.

Nope, there is not. Making sure illegals can't access social services would insure that they'll always work for a bit and go back home, as well as free up funds to take care of the mentally ill.

It's a win win!

Yes...that's what I was getting at.

But caring for Americans and caring for everyone in America aren't the same thing.

Illegal immigration needs to be controlled before any national health care system is even discussed.

Would it? A lot of them come here and never use social services. They stay for a long, long time.

I agree on the principle that the stay would have to be limited, and I don't think most of these people would need access to social services. The best way to do that is a guest worker program that allows for safe entry for a limited period of time, combined with some kind of border security that isn't a joke.

Well then it won't hurt to keep them from the social net will it?

While we're at it let's curb it for Mericans too.

I disagree! TennCare was like a wetback magnet.

Tenncare was an unholy creation of Satan. A scourge.

Maybe I didn't clarify. What I meant was that just restricting social services to illegal immigrants isn't enough. In most places they aren't technically entitled to them anyway.

Unless we have some way of documenting and controlling the flow of people into this country, just telling illegals that they can't have food stamps won't do a damn bit of good.

The idea that we do not have enough immigrant labor coming to this country and need to institute a guest-worker program is unsupported. We admit close to one million legal immigrants a year. In the meantime, our cities are full of able bodied people who do not work.

When people say the immigration system is "broken" -- implying that there are not enough people to do needed work -- they are really just saying that they want no border enforcement or limits to immigration at all.

To people who promote guest worker programs (i.e., cheap imported labor that drives down wages for U.S. citizens), I say: Cut off all the welfare, unemployment, subsidized housing, etc., for people who could work if they had to, then talk to me about a supposed labor shortage.

Those who support "comprehensive immigration reform" that includes a path to citizenship for the 12-20 million illegals living in this country need to understand that we were sold this turkey back in the '80s when 2-3 million illegals were given a path to citizenship and strong border enforcement was promised by Reagan and Congress. The illegals got to stay, but we never got the border enforcement. And we won't this time around either.