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New York Times columnist David Brooks penned what may turn out to the most interesting pro-immigration argument by a moderate conservative. He says that he supports Hispanic immigration for four reasons.
"My first argument is that the exclusionists are wrong when they say the current wave of immigration is tearing our social fabric...My second argument is that the immigrants themselves are like a booster shot of traditional morality injected into the body politic. Immigrants work hard...My third argument is that good values lead to success, and that immigrants' long-term contributions more than compensate for the short-term strains they cause...My fourth argument is that government should be at least as virtuous as the immigrants themselves."
I have quoted his column in full:
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Everybody says the Republicans are split on immigration. The law-and-order types want to close the border. The free-market types want plentiful labor. But today I want to talk to the social conservatives, because it's you folks who are really going to swing this debate.
I'd like to get you to believe what Senator Sam Brownback of Kansas believes: that a balanced immigration bill is consistent with conservative values. I'd like to try to persuade the evangelical leaders in the tall grass to stop hiding on this issue.
My first argument is that the exclusionists are wrong when they say the current wave of immigration is tearing our social fabric. The facts show that the recent rise in immigration hasn't been accompanied by social breakdown, but by social repair. As immigration has surged, violent crime has fallen by 57 percent. Teen pregnancies and abortion rates have declined by a third. Teenagers are having fewer sexual partners and losing their virginity later. Teen suicide rates have dropped. The divorce rate for young people is on the way down.
Over the past decade we've seen the beginnings of a moral revival, and some of the most important work has been done by Catholic and evangelical immigrant churches, by faith-based organizations like the Rev. Luis Cortés's Nueva Esperanza, by Hispanic mothers and fathers monitoring their kids. The anti-immigration crowd says this country is under assault. But if that's so, we're under assault by people who love their children.
My second argument is that the immigrants themselves are like a booster shot of traditional morality injected into the body politic. Immigrants work hard. They build community groups. They have traditional ideas about family structure, and they work heroically to make them a reality.
This is evident in everything from divorce rates (which are low, given immigrants' socioeconomic status) to their fertility rates (which are high) and even the way they shop.
Hispanics and Hispanic immigrants have less money than average Americans, but they spend what they have on their families, usually in wholesome ways. According to Simmons Research, Hispanics are 57 percent more likely than average Americans to have purchased children's furniture in the past year. Mexican-Americans spend 93 percent more on children's music.
According to the government's Consumer Expenditure Survey, Hispanics spend more on gifts, on average, than other Americans. They're more likely to support their parents financially. They're more likely to have big family dinners at home.
This isn't alien behavior. It's admirable behavior, the antidote to the excessive individualism that social conservatives decry.
My third argument is that good values lead to success, and that immigrants' long-term contributions more than compensate for the short-term strains they cause. There's no use denying the strains immigration imposes on schools, hospitals and wage levels in some markets (but economists are sharply divided on this).
So over the long haul, today's immigrants succeed. By the second generation, most immigrant families are middle class and paying taxes that more than make up for the costs of the first generation. By the third generation, 90 percent speak English fluently and 50 percent marry non-Latinos.
My fourth argument is that government should be at least as virtuous as the immigrants themselves. Right now (as under Bill Frist's legislation), government pushes immigrants into a chaotic underground world. The Judiciary Committee's bill, which Senator Brownback supports, would tighten the borders, but it would also reward virtue. Immigrants who worked hard, paid fines, paid their taxes, stayed out of trouble and waited their turn would have a chance to become citizens. This isn't government enabling vice; it's government at its best, encouraging middle-class morality.
Social conservatives, let me ask you to consider one final thing. Women who have recently arrived from Mexico have bigger, healthier babies than more affluent non-Hispanic white natives. That's because strong family and social networks support these pregnant women, reminding them what to eat and do. But the longer they stay, and the more assimilated they become, the more bad habits they acquire and the more problems their subsequent babies have.
Please ask yourself this: As we contemplate America's moral fiber, do the real threats come from immigrants, or are some people merely blaming them for sins that are already here
Kathianne said:What is getting me teed off is the argument being made, mostly by neo-cons and the WSJ, that wanting the illegal immigrant problem seriously addressed is somehow driven by xenophobic isolationists that want to stop immigration.
It a specious argument.
NATO I know very few people who do not think that immigration is what has kept the US at the pinnacle of innovation and productivity, not too mention an ever changing lexicon and restaurant choice!NATO AIR said:There are and have always been a sizeable minority in this country that feels that way Kathianne. Lou Dobbs is one of them, Pat Buchannan another.
What's happening is wrong. The system is broke, our culture is flawed, our leadership weak and we have dangerous idealogies spreading among Mexican immigrants, precisely because we're too scared to praise this nation and promote patriotism.
But I believe Brooks is dead-on with his arguments, and its just another reason I support Brownback more than anyone else. I'm seeing this right now, typing to you from the computer of a 2nd generation immigrant family from Cuba while IMing with the 2nd generation daughter of a mexican migrant worker who got knocked up by a drunk trucker 20 years ago and never looked back for the kid he abandoned. Yet her mom was a hard worker and raised her right, and suceeded, IN SPITE of the broken immigration system and the temptation to not learn English and just vegetate with the other Mexicans.
Most of these people are good, hard-working, very faithful people. There are bad ones, and they should be deported. And there are crazy ones (with this insane mexican supernation bullshit) who should be deported too.
Kathianne said:What is getting me teed off is the argument being made, mostly by neo-cons and the WSJ, that wanting the illegal immigrant problem seriously addressed is somehow driven by xenophobic isolationists that want to stop immigration.
It a specious argument.
NATO AIR said:There are and have always been a sizeable minority in this country that feels that way Kathianne. Lou Dobbs is one of them, Pat Buchannan another.
What's happening is wrong. The system is broke, our culture is flawed, our leadership weak and we have dangerous idealogies spreading among Mexican immigrants, precisely because we're too scared to praise this nation and promote patriotism.
But I believe Brooks is dead-on with his arguments, and its just another reason I support Brownback more than anyone else. I'm seeing this right now, typing to you from the computer of a 2nd generation immigrant family from Cuba while IMing with the 2nd generation daughter of a mexican migrant worker who got knocked up by a drunk trucker 20 years ago and never looked back for the kid he abandoned. Yet her mom was a hard worker and raised her right, and suceeded, IN SPITE of the broken immigration system and the temptation to not learn English and just vegetate with the other Mexicans.
Most of these people are good, hard-working, very faithful people. There are bad ones, and they should be deported. And there are crazy ones (with this insane mexican supernation bullshit) who should be deported too.
Senate plan calls for guest workers
A Senate committee's bipartisan bill would permit illegal immigrants to apply for citizenship without first returning home.
Eagle staff and news services
WASHINGTON - The Senate Judiciary Committee on Monday approved a comprehensive immigration bill that would create a foreign guest-worker program and put millions of illegal immigrants on track toward permanent residency and U.S. citizenship.
With a bipartisan coalition -- including Kansas Sen. Sam Brownback -- in control, the committee also voted to permit religious and other organizations to help illegal immigrants without fear of facing criminal penalties.
The Republican-controlled committee voted 12-6 to advance legislation that embraces key elements of a bipartisan bill crafted by Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., and Sen. Edward Kennedy, D-Mass.
"Considering all of the hurdles and all of the pitfalls it's a good result," said Sen. Arlen Specter, R-Pa., the committee chairman. He joined Brownback, two other Republicans and eight Democrats in supporting the measure. Other GOP members supporting the bill were Lindsey Graham of South Carolina and Mike DeWine of Ohio.
Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist had vowed to introduce his own border-security-only legislation if the committee failed to produce a bill Monday. After the vote, Specter said Frist had promised to schedule the panel's bill instead of his own for a two-week floor debate.
Details of the bill
The bill would double the Border Patrol and authorizes a "virtual wall" of unmanned vehicles, cameras and sensors to monitor the U.S.-Mexico border.
As with the Reagan deal, this is something that can be bye-bye if it ever does get up and running. Once again, amnesty, then return to 'normal.'
It also allows more visas for nurses and agriculture workers, and shelters humanitarian organizations from prosecution if they provide assistance to illegal residents, even not in emergencies.
The most controversial provision would permit illegal immigrants currently in the country to apply for citizenship without first having to return home, a process that would take at least six years. They would have to pay a fine, learn English, study American civics, demonstrate they had paid their taxes and take their place behind other applicants for citizenship, aides to Kennedy said.Again, repeat of 80's. Reward those who broke laws, while kicking in the teeth those who've tried to follow the process of lotteries, etc.
Brownback's proposal
Brownback offered his own immigration reform proposal during Monday's hearing.
What Specter dubbed the "Brownback accommodation" didn't make it to a vote, as senators complained they hadn't had time to examine the recently hatched plan. After 40 minutes of debate, Brownback let it drop. But he held out the possibility of reviving it on the Senate floor.
Brownback said he supported the McCain-Kennedy plan because immigration policy "needs a comprehensive bill" that addresses worker status as well as border security.
"We can have people believe in and have a system of laws that will work, and deal with our aspirations as a society" to be inclusive, he said. "We've struck that balance today."
But Brownback added that he expects difficult debate ahead, and that the bill the committee passed will have problems making it past Senate opponents and through the House of Representatives.
Brownback's plan, which Specter encouraged the committee to consider as a compromise, differed from Kennedy's plan in that it doubled the possible length of the temporary-worker visa -- from six years to 12 -- while outlining a more restrictive visa renewal and green card application process.
The idea was to offer current illegal workers the possibility of eventually obtaining a green card -- which the majority of the committee supports -- without offering an easy path to citizenship, a central objection of amnesty opponents.
Brownback said his plan would remain in the mix as senators take up immigration legislation later this week.
"It was a bridge too far, too quick," he said, "but with a couple weeks on the Senate floor I think we've got a better chance."
Challenges ahead
Should the committee-approved bill make it out of the Senate close to its present form, it still faces the major challenge of being reconciled with significantly more-restrictive legislation passed by the House in December.
The House bill contains no guest-worker provision and focuses strictly on border and internal enforcement. It would require the construction of a 700-mile-long fence along the U.S.-Mexican border and also that the names of immigrants ordered to be deported, or who overstayed visas, be entered into the National Crime Information Center database.
Rep. Tom Tancredo, the Colorado Republican who is leading a faction of House enforcement hawks, denounced the Judiciary Committee's action.
"If the Senate follows the Judiciary Committee's lead, the prospects of getting a reform bill to the president's desk this year are slim, to say the least," he said. "No plan with amnesty and a massive increase in foreign workers will pass the House."
But advocates of the Senate's approach contend that if President Bush weighs in strongly, the House may back down. There was no immediate reaction from the White House.
The Judiciary Committee met as several thousand immigrants and activists rallied at the foot of the Capitol. They brandished signs proclaiming "We are America" and "We are all immigrants."
NATO AIR said:There are and have always been a sizeable minority in this country that feels that way Kathianne. Lou Dobbs is one of them, Pat Buchannan another.
What's happening is wrong. The system is broke, our culture is flawed, our leadership weak and we have dangerous idealogies spreading among Mexican immigrants, precisely because we're too scared to praise this nation and promote patriotism.
But I believe Brooks is dead-on with his arguments, and its just another reason I support Brownback more than anyone else. I'm seeing this right now, typing to you from the computer of a 2nd generation immigrant family from Cuba while IMing with the 2nd generation daughter of a mexican migrant worker who got knocked up by a drunk trucker 20 years ago and never looked back for the kid he abandoned. Yet her mom was a hard worker and raised her right, and suceeded, IN SPITE of the broken immigration system and the temptation to not learn English and just vegetate with the other Mexicans.
Most of these people are good, hard-working, very faithful people. There are bad ones, and they should be deported. And there are crazy ones (with this insane mexican supernation bullshit) who should be deported too.
