Do you think illegal immigrants should be able to use welfare/public assistance?

Sgt Thomas Proctor - Amen Brother !!

Sgt Thomas Proctor - I agree with you but there never should be jobs that Americans won't do and there would not be if it weren't for the ease of collecting welfare.

I agree, if a person has no skills and is only qualified to sweep floors and pick vegetables, then he should do that until he has enough initiative to better himself. Getting welfare benefits in this country is too easy. I know for a fact that illegals get food stamps and other benefits. I have a friend whose wife works in the social services office and she told him that one week the only people that came into the office were Hispanics.

MSgt Harold LaCoy - If there are Americans ON welfare...and they WON'T take a job that an illegal does, or did....they should get no welfare. They can work or not...either way....the free ride is over!

CPT Phil Bronner - I've tried to put myself in a child's situation and then into their situation when they became an adult and how it can happen in some situations. My father's early life as an example. At 5 years old with my uncle who was 3 accompanied my Grandfather and his pregnant girlfriend from Germany, through Ellis Island in 1912. On what documents we could find is that Grandfather entered with his wife but that didn't make sense because we also found that Grandmother never left Chemnitz, Germany and there was another older brother Erik that never left Germany. A son was born to my Grandfather and his "wife", Helmut, a few months after they arrived in the U.S. and they all lived in Dover, NJ. Dad spoke very little about his father...nothing good, during Dad's life but what he did tell me was shocking. It turns out that Grandfather had a girlfriend in Germany and she had become pregnant. He asked Grandmother for a divorce which back then was very frowned upon and an embarrassment. She refused, so Grandfather kidnapped the two little children and with his pregnant girlfriend and a phony marriage certificate sailed to New York. In return for the divorce, Grandmother would get the children back. So she agreed to the divorce in exchange for getting her two sons back. After Grandfather got the divorce, he married his girlfriend. They all stayed in Dover until WWI was over and then one day in 1919, when Dad and his brother Otto came home from school they found the door locked and no one home. They sat on the steps outside until dark and a neighbor saw them and took them home and fed them dinner. They didn't know if their family were alive or dead. No one ever came back. Neither Dad nor his brother knew where they had lived in Germany, nor where to contact their mother. They were abandoned children. Instead of becoming wards of the State, the neighbor took them in. When Dad was 14 he quit school to go to work to help support the family working in a sweat shop hosiery mill. Not a U.S. citizen but allowed to stay in the U.S. because he could back then under sponsorship. Shortening this story a bit...he and Otto were almost deported in the late 30's because they did find out that Grandfather was a member of the Nazi party in Germany, and a Sturmbahnfueher SS (Major), Helmut was an officer in the Wehrmacht, as was Erik. It was because J. Edgar Hoover intervened to stop it from an earlier association. Dad was too old to enter the military and was allowed to work for Chrysler building tanks and Otto was allowed to enlist in the Coast Guard. Dad and Otto were allowed to be U.S. citizens in 1952. I was born a U.S. citizen in the U.S., my mother was a U.S. citizen, natural born and I was also a dual citizen with Dad having been a German citizen still at the time of my birth. Yes, my father was quite old for a family and I'm one of 9. I was born in 1951. As, I said before, my father rarely said anything about his father and my mother wouldn't allow it. I know of no contact with the German family when I was growing up. We were always very poor. It wasn't until a French woman, married to an AF Technical Sergeant that I knew while I was recovering from wounds at Tachikawa (sic) Japan told me that she read about a SS Major of the same name that had been the Deputy Commandant of Bergen-Belsen camp in Germany during the war and asked if I was any relation? His name was Johann Goerner. My Grandfather's name. I didn't find any information about that and I forgot about it until I came home years later and was visiting a school friend of mine at Ft. Dix, NJ who was in the Army. His mother-in-law was visiting also and when she saw my name on my uniform, she told me her story of being sent to that camp, her mother, father, sister and brother being killed there and the officer of the same name and did I have any photos? I went home in Northern NJ and asked Mom if she had any photos and I was shocked that she did. Only one. In her cedar chest. It was of Helmut's wedding just before the war. His wife was the only one in white, Helmut in uniform (a German Hauptmann) and there he was in his black uniform with the red swastika armband. I took that photo back to Ft. Dix to show to Rick's mother-in-law and wasn't prepared for the reaction. We had to take her to the hospital. She was crying and yelling, shaking when she saw the photo. She lived through the death camp and met and married a U.S. soldier after the war. Rick met and married their daughter. Rick was a childhood friend since kindergarten. Now interested, I found out that Johann Goerner, hid from capture until 1947. He was sentenced to life imprisonment. His imprisonment was commuted and he was released in 1955 but died shortly after of a stroke. It wasn't until 1984, when I was with the 2nd Signal Brigade in Mannheim, Germany that we had an Officer's dining in formal event with our German sister Brigade, that the German Brigade Commander came up to me and remarked that his first Commander, a Hauptmann (Captain) was of my same name at the end of WWII and did I have any relations in Germany back then. I told him I did but didn't know where they had lived or served. He told me his Commander was Helmut Goerner and I'd like to fall over. He told me that he was still alive and lived in Mannheim. He gave me the address and it was before I left Germany but I did find the house. Behind the little old lady that answered the door, was standing a little old man that looked like my father. It was my uncle. I had to PCS the next week but I told my older sister and gave her the address and she got to visit him before he died. Can you imagine the life of my father all those years having been abandoned, not knowing if his father or mother were dead or alive? Having come from a very wealthy German family and lived with nothing? After the war, no one had anything. Following in my father's footsteps. I'm 68 now and we have a 14 year old and a 3 year old.

CW3 Walter Goerner - Foreign nationals in this country in violation of the law are, as defined IN our Immigration Law, "Illegal Aliens". You can bet from the earliest age, these children were schooled in how to act, what to say, etc. to protect their "illegal" status. The "program" is in violation of the law. Either we're a nation of laws...and the laws are to be obeyed, or not. You can't have it both ways, or it puts YOU in a position (or in the case of DACA, obama) of violating not only the immigration law, but the Constitution. If the law NEEDS to be changed, then we have a process for that, not to create a "policy" that violates the law based on presidential decree and a federal judiciary who violates their Constitutional limitations, and are creating "law" in their "opinions" out of whole cloth.
The Constitution, and our statutory laws are printed in black and white. There is no wiggle room. As a police officer, I never considered a drug dealer as an "undocumented pharmacist", or a rapist as an "undocumented sexual partner". A foreign national in this country in violation of our immigration laws has committed a crime, and, if you wish, as an adult is knowingly and willfully violating the law. Can't get much more cut and dried than that. With an estimated 22-30 million illegal aliens here, I think we've had enough of being taken for suckers.

Sorry, only way to path to citizenship is to exit OUR country, then enter legally. Otherwise those who entered legally are seriously harmed. Not fair to jump to the front of the line.

Lt Col John (Jack) Christensen
Not quite. There should only be a path to citizenship that is legal. Exit the USA and enter legally, then path to citizenship opens up.

Maj John Bell - I agree with you completely, our first obligation is the preservation of life, regardless of who the person is, legal or not.

After treatment their home country should be billed for the services rendered.

CPO Bill Penrod - I have been there, while working as a construction consultant for E.I DuPont I had to go to a doctor. Before seeing the doctor I had to pay the fee up front. The U.S and it's emigration laws is a big joke with the Mexicans. They were always joking with me about feeling sick and slipping into the U.S. to see the doctor. They referred to their hospitals as slaughter houses.

Sgt Thomas Proctor - You know they'd never pay the bill...LOL....cut their foreign aid accordingly....

CCMSgt Ed Bonfrancesco III - Irnoy of SSD! Family Court judge handed over 1/3 of the spousal support I should have been allotted after 23 yrs of marriage, he stated I could supplement the income (he approved poverty level $1,200.00 a month in a high demographic where I once owned beach homes) JUDGE stated get SSD you are mentally disabled.....Turns out I’ve been denied SSD and now reside in a van, Santa Cruz Ca.. THIS is all a scandal THANK you for sharing your wounds. Irony we are speaking of citizens not illegals!

No debate, not up for dispute, Illegal Immigrants, do not deserve any assistance that a citizen has to jump through hoops to obtain or draw what they paid into.
Gather them all up and ship them to their home country, no excuses/No exceptions, no matter the circumstances.
Enforce the laws on the books, can't enforce them get a new job cause your voted out. Obama, Trump, Hillary, Republican, Democrat, Americans are and have allowed it.....

Come in the Right/Legal way.
Or Stay the Heck Out

Who did you have in mind? I'm just curious.

Why shouldn't citizens receive their due entitlements? After all, we pay for them. They aren't "handouts", as some less knowledgeable people seem to believe. The primary purpose of the tax system, state and federal, is to prevent economic hardship and prevent poverty. However, the powers that be turns us against each other and shames us for using those benefits because they want them for themselves. YOU AND I are a bigger strain on the economy than illegals. Truthfully, our active duty military is too big and it's not used for its intended purpose either.

That's only because piss poor leadership has made it so. Countless, legal citizens of this country go overlooked just so we don't seem 'too mean' to outsiders.

PO1 How come that doesn't surprise me. I was there in better days when I shipped out. Probably most large cities are getting that way. In NYC they can urinate in public now arrow ding to what I read. It's a shame just how fast our nation is declining. What I fear is that it will go so far then people will do something about it but it will be close.

MSgt John McGowan - one might conclude that much of America and local government officials are becoming lawless. Thank you for your command service Bob

As accurate as your remarks are, the system is flawed. If you don't want people entering the country illegally, why in god's name do we have "watering points" where they cross? Why is there even an issue of issuing drivers licenses or anything else to undocumented immigrants? What's the point of spending millions on a stupid wall that can be defeated by a ladder, meanwhile millions more are doled out to people who should not be here? Not to mention little consequence for businesses that HIRE illegals? It's a STUPID SYSTEM that needs to be fixed first and foremost.

I don't know, when it comes to prison inmates I can cut them some slack on the grounds that society, OUR society may have failed them, and quite frankly I would like to see more tax dollars to go rehabilitation services for our prisons, if for no other reason then it might make the difference in someones life of that ex con being a good neighbor or a reoffender. But now that that is said...

Illegals are not part of our society, they choose to come here against our established rules and personally I think they should do 20 years in jail smashing rocks before being deported.

Yay, Bowe Bergdahl! Sarcasm.

PO1 Chris V. - I was trying to build suspense. How did I do?

PO1 Chris V. - giddy with anticipation right?!? I could barely contain myself as I was typing my reply.

That exchange was like a Laurel and Hardy skit.............. but I like it.

SGM, may I respectfully not fully concur? Put an "illegal" in jai (if your governor will let you) and you will pay more than the cost to house and feed every homeless veteran. I do have mixed feelings (help me) about our incarcerated. . Didn't they make choices?

Not only no, but hell, no.

PO1 James Friedman
While I do not disagree with the additional emphasis you applied, I am happy to keep my comments succinct in this case. Trying to clean up my language after retiring.

seriously, most of the house and senate need a rope and a tree.

PFC Bradley Campbell -
I think what we really need is the people who voted them into office to give them a chance to return to their homes and give them couple centuries to think about what they were doing and supposed to have been doing?

Agree, but legally, when you are a LPR, unless you do something pretty bad, you are treated as a born citizen with few exceptions.

Having a child here does not make that child a citizen. That's not found in the 14th amendment, and has been nothing more than a POLICY.... IF foreigners here LEGALLY (such as ambassadors, etc.) have children here...they aren't "US citizens." Illegal children, by extension of their illegal parents are STILL subject to the jurisdiction of their parent's country.

CPT Phil Bronner Excellent Article here validating your position. However judicial activism on the part of the SCOTUS, trumps facts and actual wording and debates regarding the enactment of the 14th amendment.

https://www.heritage.org/immigration/commentary/birthright-citizenship-fundamental-misunderstanding-the-14th-amendment

During the debate prior to its passage..the argument was SPECIFICALLY MADE that the 14th does NOT provide for "birthright citizenship" except for those "emancipated from slavery" after the "Civil War/War Between the States/War of the Rebellion/War of Northern Aggression" (depending on your knowledge of the war, and Lincoln's violations of the Constitution!)