Immigration: Is A Consensus Forming?

[Annie]

The way I view border problem: It may be that both of our borders are too porous, yet it seems that Canada and US have done a very good job of identifying and stopping potential terrorists. Then again, Canada is not actively trying to relocate its people.

To the South, a very different story. The Fox government seems to have no compunctions at allowing its criminals, and hard working poor to leave, and possibly using their military to giving them a shove out.

Coupled with the harm of having an enormous illegal class of non-English speaking people here, is the potential of a gateway for terrorist entry. The borders must be regulated, with severe repercussions to individuals and governments that encourage the illegal entries.

The right approach for those already residing in the US I am not sure of. Perhaps for those that have been in a position of steady employment, proven good 'residency' provisions for permanent status should be looked at. For those that have repeated broken driving laws, failed in monitoring children's school attendance, have not learned the language, other options should be on the table.

The idea though, of putting any sort of amnesty in place, without a severe tightening up of the borders is ludicrous. We would be providing an excuse for the river of illegal crossings to turn into a tidal wave.


http://anglosphere.com/weblog/archives/000305.html

March 27, 2006
A New Consensus on Immigration?

It's way too early to say that a new consensus is emerging on immigration, but I am wondering whether the outlines of such might not be coming visible. One of the signs that this may be the case is Glenn Reynolds' new column on the topic. Glenn has tended to be rather relaxed about the issue in the past. However, he had the same reaction to the demonstrations over the past weekend as have many others (such as Mickey Kaus, whose reactions are linked in Glenn's column.) There is a good deal of sympathy with the idea that Mexicans and others should be welcome to come here, as have other immigrants throughout our history, and join the American community. It's quite another for them to demand that they have a right to do so regardless of the wishes of the citizenry, or that they should not have to learn English or adopt the broad framwork of laws and assumptions that make America. It's not even a matter of assumptions of superiority: there's no implied superiority or moral imperative that, for example, favors driving on the right or the left side of the road, but it is vitally important that everybody keep to the same side. (I am waiting for the multiculturalist argument to the contrary.)

If there are outlines of an emerging consensus, I think they are taking the following form:

1. The mass smuggling of people across the southern border, organized and controlled by gangsters, has gotten way out of hand. It needs to be shut down, and a substantially greater amount of resources may need to be devoted to doing so. A security fence across much greater portions of the border is not absurd, and it is unquestionably in our right to construct such.

2. The nature of immigration needs to be based primarily on the needs of the country. A Canadian or Australian system by which applicants are scored on points, and the points heavily related to existing command of English, useful skills, and unlikelihood of becoming a welfare burden, would be a big improvement over the current system. Extended family ties are given way too much weight currently.

3. I understand the conservative aversion to yet another amnesty proposal, however disguised, but I think it is unrealistic to expect a mass deportation of people who have created no offense aside from being out of status. If the rest of the program in the consensus is adopted, a regularization of existing law-abiding immigrants is probably going to be part of it. It will take quite enough political capital and governmental resources merely to deport all the MS-13 gangsters and other criminal elements among the illegal immigrant population, and that is a task that should be accelerated.

4. The "jobs Americans won't take" argument is close to dead. It is pretty clear that the premium to get Americans (or legal immigrants on track to become Americans) to do such jobs isn't all that great; whatever general price rise that accompanies it will probably be offset by reduction in welfare and unemployment expenses for the Americans who go back to work at the slightly higher pay.

5. Immigration will continue, and in relatively high numbers. The people pushing for an "immigration pause" are, I think, highly unrealistic. It will take all the political capital the immigration-reform constituency can muster merely to accomplish the agenda outlined here. We are at a sort of critical tipping point, and I think the first side that persists in maintaining an untenable position will lose. The Mechistas who siezed control of the anti-reform rallies have gone a long way toward losing the issue; only a kamikaze-like focus on severe restriction could balance out those mistakes.

6. Assimilation, assimilation, assimilation. A focus on English languge, American rather than Mexican flags, and a return to an honest and even-sided teaching of American history in the school system and immigration education classes are starts. We must mine the historical record of the great assimilationist effort of 1880-1914 to see what further methods can be adapted to modern conditions. The more we see of Eurabia, the more we understand why assimilation is beneficial and essential. I believe there will actually be a side-effect of a wider understanding of exactly how big the Eurabian mess is, which is a realization that the assimilation of Latin Americans into the community of the USA is a much easier task in comparison (and in fact, the Arab-American communities are much better assimilated than the Eurabians.) Only a big Mechista push could blow this advantage.

We are close to a tipping point. Assimilation is going with the grain of American culture and history, and must be the focal-point of any attempt to address the problem. Securing the borders is a close second. Whatever the position of the major parties, I think the popular demand for reform is so strong that some politician will emerge to ride that horse.
Posted by James C. Bennett at March 27, 2006 06:32 PM

 

[rtwngAvngr]

Oh no. I agree with Paul Krugman. Something IS happening.


New York Times / March 27, 2006
North of the Border
By Paul Krugman

... I'm instinctively, emotionally pro-immigration. But a review of serious, nonpartisan research reveals some uncomfortable facts about the economics of modern immigration, and immigration from Mexico in particular. First, the net benefits to the U.S. economy from immigration, aside from the large gains to the immigrants themselves, are small. Realistic estimates suggest that immigration since 1980 has raised the total income of native-born Americans by no more than a fraction of 1 percent.

Second, while immigration may have raised overall income slightly, many of the worst-off native-born Americans are hurt by immigration - especially immigration from Mexico. Because Mexican immigrants have much less education than the average U.S. worker, they increase the supply of less-skilled labor, driving down the wages of the worst-paid Americans. The most authoritative recent study of this effect, by George Borjas and Lawrence Katz of Harvard, estimates that U.S. high school dropouts would earn as much as 8 percent more if it weren't for Mexican immigration. That's why it's intellectually dishonest to say, as President Bush does, that immigrants do "jobs that Americans will not do." The willingness of Americans to do a job depends on how much that job pays - and the reason some jobs pay too little to attract native-born Americans is competition from poorly paid immigrants.

Finally, modern America is a welfare state, even if our social safety net has more holes in it than it should - and low-skill immigrants threaten to unravel that safety net. Basic decency requires that we provide immigrants, once they're here, with essential health care, education for their children, and more. Unfortunately, low-skill immigrants don't pay enough taxes to cover the cost of the benefits they receive.

Worse yet, immigration penalizes governments that act humanely. Immigrants are a much more serious fiscal problem in California than in Texas, which treats the poor and unlucky harshly, regardless of where they were born... Realistically, we'll need to reduce the inflow of low-skill immigrants. Mainly that means better controls on illegal immigration...

http://www.truthout.org/docs_2006/032706O.shtml

 

[007]

The way I view border problem: It may be that both of our borders are too porous, yet it seems that Canada and US have done a very good job of identifying and stopping potential terrorists. Then again, Canada is not actively trying to relocate its people.

To the South, a very different story. The Fox government seems to have no compunctions at allowing its criminals, and hard working poor to leave, and possibly using their military to giving them a shove out.

Coupled with the harm of having an enormous illegal class of non-English speaking people here, is the potential of a gateway for terrorist entry. The borders must be regulated, with severe repercussions to individuals and governments that encourage the illegal entries.

The right approach for those already residing in the US I am not sure of. Perhaps for those that have been in a position of steady employment, proven good 'residency' provisions for permanent status should be looked at. For those that have repeated broken driving laws, failed in monitoring children's school attendance, have not learned the language, other options should be on the table.

The idea though, of putting any sort of amnesty in place, without a severe tightening up of the borders is ludicrous. We would be providing an excuse for the river of illegal crossings to turn into a tidal wave.


http://anglosphere.com/weblog/archives/000305.html

It's already a tidal wave. It's BEEN a tidal wave.

 

[Annie]

It's already a tidal wave. It's BEEN a tidal wave.

It could get worse, if the proposal goes through. It's assinine.

 

[007]

Human Tidal Wave Spills Over Border

NewsMax ^ | Apr. 08, 2004 | Patrick Mallon


Posted on 04/08/2004 10:06:33 AM PDT by VU4G10


By all reports, the wave of illegal immigration across our nation’s southern border has accelerated threefold since President Bush announced his confusing guest worker proposal in January 2004. Just last week, estimates of unauthorized border crossings range from 10,000 daily, according to Glenn Spencer of American Border Patrol, to a shocking figure raised by Bill O’Reilly during the March 31 broadcast of “The Radio Factor.”

“The Border Patrol now estimates that a million illegals are coming to the U.S. per month. Yes, that's per month,” said the nation’s top talk show host.

This figure is entirely plausible, and in fact, may be on the low side as we are only considering the southern border. The U.S. boundary with Canada is considered even more porous than the frontier with Mexico.

Below the southern border, as NBC News reported on April 5th, the word is out: “if you are arrested, you’ll simply be released.” The jails are full, and 86 percent never show up in court. Even liberal apologist Tom Brokaw admitted during the broadcast that, “Last year over 900,000 people were caught sneaking into the U.S. This year that number is up over 46 percent.”

I do not in any way blame the people who flee poverty and hopelessness, to come to this rich nation. If I were a poor young man with no hope in Mexico, I’d do the same thing: cross illegally. Most of us would do the same. While we’d prefer of course to enter the U.S. legally, that option doesn’t appear to be available.

And why not come here in droves? President Bush has literally invited the entire southern hemisphere to come to America, with a promise of legal status. President Vincente Fox of Mexico, long a pretentious advocate of open borders, has recently forged an arrangement with the governments of El Salvador and Guatemala to permit easier passage of foreign nationals through Mexico onward to the U.S.

In the past, Mexico demonstrated visible hypocrisy in "protecting" their southern border against encroachment by arresting and deporting intruders. This became a source of international embarrassment. Problem solved.

Fox as well, does not want Mexico’s fleeing citizenry to become U.S. citizens, and has clearly stated his position: "We agree with the rejection of amnesty. These workers are not going to become American citizens, nor do they want U.S. citizenship. For that reason, the issue of amnesty is out."

What Fox and Bush won’t discuss is the simple fact readily available to most people with more than a third-grade education: most everyone who comes here illegally from Mexico and other countries stays.

However, this chaotic, dangerous, costly, and duplicitous condition is now reaching critical mass. This isn’t theory, or piggybacking on the growing number of authoritative articles documenting the recent explosion in border crossing, we Californian’s are living the experience every day. We all know the liquor stores or Home Depot’s where hundreds of day workers converge. The numbers have doubled and tripled in the past few months.

On the one hand, President Bush said the new guest-worker program "would bring millions of often-mistreated undocumented workers out of the shadows and into legal status as recognized contributors to the US economy. "

Yet in the same speech he double-stepped: "Granting amnesty encourages the violation of our laws, and perpetuates illegal immigration," Bush said. "America is a welcoming country, but citizenship must not be the automatic reward for violating the laws of America."

As a resident of California for 22 years, I can tell you firsthand that the number of illegal immigrants working strawberry fields in the South Orange County city of Irvine has increased dramatically in the past three months.

In the heart of high-tech Irvine with its impressive office buildings, sometimes antiseptic social sameness, and perfect landscaping, lay hundreds of acres of untouched, highly valuable real estate being used for massive strawberry fields, all requiring human hands to till and reap.

If you are of the disbelieving, come to the intersection of Alton and Muirlands between 7 a.m. and 12:00 p.m. any weekday. Upwards of 400 workers garbed in jeans, jackets, boots and headscarves perform backbreaking work picking and weeding the meticulously organized rows.

The worker’s cars are lined up along side the field. And there’s not many "junkers." Most of the late model vehicles are pretty nice. Last year at this time, the number of migrant laborer’s was a third of this year’s total.

In a February 24, 2004 Christian Science Monitor column ("Border agents feel betrayed by Bush guest-worker plan"), correspondent Eilene Zimmerman said:

"The guest worker proposal would allow undocumented immigrants currently living in the United States to apply for a work permit for up to three years, if they can prove their employer could not find a US citizen willing to take the job. While the proposal is an attempt to reform ailing immigration policies, patrol agents feel the measure will only further undermine their effort at the border."

According to senior patrol agent Thane Gallagher, "I risk my life everyday dealing with people who would just as soon see us dead than submit to an arrest, and now we have the administration saying, 'We're going to legalize them anyway.' "You have no idea what this does to us."

And our indifferent state government wonders why California is broke!

State Sen. Tom McClintock recently submitted a bill that would have ended the policy of in-state college tuition for illegal immigrants. The legislation died in committee.

"This year, approximately 7,500 qualified California residents who would otherwise be attending California universities this year will be turned away and diverted to community colleges for lack of funds. Meanwhile, approximately the same number of illegal immigrants will receive the in-state tuition subsidy of up to $16,476 per year to attend those same universities -- at a cost between $45 million and $65 million."

A recent Orange County Register article described a teacher who has helped hundreds of immigrant mothers, some as young as 15, graduate from high school. Here’s how the explosion in illegal immigrant children having babies is incentivized:

For most social service programs such as welfare and food stamps, if a person is here illegally, they are not eligible at all. But if an illegal immigrant has children born in the U.S., then a literal bounty of taxpayer-funded programs become available. The eligibility and entitlement amount depends upon the recipient family’s income level.

The qualification rules are highly flexible and it is well-understood that most people who apply for benefits will receive something. For instance, the policy at Health and Human Services is not to report an illegal immigrant who comes in for Aid to Dependent Children.

Step into a checkout line at grocery stores such as Vons or Ralphs once a week and you are bound to witness the cashier tabulating qualified items purchased with state-paid food vouchers or coupons from the popular Women Infant Children (WIC) program. These are immigrants who have been deemed "low-income mothers," which is just about everyone who applies.

The number of easy-to-obtain giveaways defies explanation. Illegal immigrants now qualify for low-income housing subsidies. Immigrant children may enroll in public school without questions of their residency. The substantial majority of new immigrant parents pay no state taxes, nor do they have a social security number that would track reportable income. Thus they do not file state or federal tax returns, and California employees who do so, pick up the tab.

Here in Southern California, we have the Los Angeles Times, a once relevant newspaper that now caterwauls in a never-ending language of condescension, while burying the story of one of the planet’s largest migratory movements of people in human history. Those who seek journalistic honesty free from leftist ideology have already cancelled their subscriptions to the self-impressed Times, and consider the paper a lost cause.

Increasing numbers of informed readers are going to the internet and reading newspapers online. After all, not to report on the explosive acceleration of illegal entry into the U.S. through Mexico is to evade the biggest story in national politics.

For instance, News 13 (KOLD-TV, Tucson) reported on March 29th: "Tent cities are in the works to hold illegal immigrants captured near the Arizona-Mexico border. Authorities are catching a skyrocketing number of people; at least 30 percent more in the last five months. On Sunday, March 27th, 3,067 people were apprehended in the Tucson sector alone. The Tucson sector shares 261 miles of border with Mexico and stretches from Yuma County to the New Mexico state line. "

Or, surprisingly, there’s the New York Times on March 29th, describing cattle rancher Bud Strom and his 1,000 acre ranch 95 miles south of Tucson: "The border is so porous that we probably get a thousand people a week coming through the ranch — it's a sieve," said Strom, 72.

In one day on March 27th, two groups of illegal aliens (totaling 126) arrived at the Army’s Ft. Huachuca Military Reservation. One of the Border Patrol Agents was overheard saying, "We're headed for a record year."

On March 30th, the Arizona Daily Star reported that the Border Patrol busted three large groups of illegal entrants that weekend, apprehending 484 people.

The numbers are staggering. Anyone who cannot make the connection between increasing demands to raise taxes to pay for services received by the roughly one million people – per month – who cross our borders seeking the promise of myriad incentives and giveaways, either doesn’t care, or have decided to stay quiet and let the American people subsidize a rich source of cheap labor that can be easily exploited.

Certainly there are two people who qualify: President Bush and challenger John Kerry, who screech at each other over "jobs," while businesses continue to lay off thousands or send their operations to Mexico and China. As the flood of humanity, estimated at 250,000 per week, pours over the borders, chasing hundreds of federal and state-paid incentives – free money – many who come realize that they don’t even have to work.

As Fred Francis stated in the revealing April 5th NBC broadcast, “At this rate, well over a million illegals will slip by this year. Mixed in will be many thousands of OTM’s (non-Mexicans). Almost all looking for work, but some will be bad guys using this enormous hole in the homeland security fence."

If some in the mainstream media are finally reporting the truth, why can’t our leaders?

"A nation can survive its fools, and even the ambitious. But it cannot survive treason from within." -- Marcus Tullius Cicero, Roman Statesman, Philosopher and Orator 106-43 B.C. Patrick Mallon can be reached at [email protected]


http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1113789/posts

 

[Annie]

Pale, multiply what has happened by what may happen. That was the point of my previous post.

 

[5stringJeff]

I think the program outlined in the first post is great, except that I would not grant blanket amnesty to those who made it in illegaly.

 

[Annie]

I think the program outlined in the first post is great, except that I would not grant blanket amnesty to those who made it in illegaly.

Kind of what I was saying too. Here's another take on the mood of the people and stupidity of the Senate:

http://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2006/03/mexican_illegals_vs_american_v.html

March 29, 2006
Mexican Illegals vs. American Voters
By Tony Blankley

It's lucky America has over two centuries of mostly calm experience with self-government. We are going to need to fall back on that invaluable patrimony if the immigration debate continues as it has started this season. The Senate is attempting to legislate into the teeth of the will of the American public. The Senate Judiciary committeemen -- and probably a majority of the Senate -- are convinced that they know that the American people don't know what is best for them.

National polling data could not be more emphatic -- and has been so for decades. A Gallup poll (March 27, 2006) finds 80 percent of the public wants federal government to get tougher on illegal immigration. A Quinnipiac University Poll (March 3, 2006) finds 62 percent oppose making it easier for illegals to become citizens (72 percent in that poll don't even want illegals to be permitted to have driver's licenses).

Time magazine's recent poll (Jan. 24-26, 2006) found 74 percent favor "major penalties" on employers of illegals, and 70 percent believe illegals increase the likelihood of terrorism. Fifty-seven percent would use military force at the Mexican-American border.

NBC/Wall St. Journal's poll (March 10-13, 2006) found 59 percent opposing a guest worker proposal. Seventy-one percent would more likely vote for a congressional candidate who would tighten immigration controls.

An IQ Research poll (Mach 10, 2006) found 92 percent saying that securing the U.S. border should be a top priority of The White House and Congress.

Yet, according to a National Journal survey of Congress, 73 percent of Republican and 77 percent of Democratic congressmen and senators say they would support guest-worker legislation.

I commend to all those presumptuous senators and congressmen the sardonic and wise words of Edmund Burke in his 1792 Letter to Sir Hercules Langrishe: "No man will assert seriously, that when people are of a turbulent spirit, the best way to keep them in order is to furnish them with something substantial to complain of."

The senators should remember that they are American senators, not Roman proconsuls. Nor is the chairman of the Judiciary Committee some latter-day Praetor Maximus.

But if they would be dictators, it would be nice if they could at least be wise (until such time as the people can electorally forcefully project with a violent pedal thrust their regrettable backsides out of town).

It was gut-wrenching (which in my case is a substantial event) to watch the senators prattle on in their idle ignorance concerning the manifold economic benefits that will accrue to the body politic if we can just cram a few million more uneducated illegals into the country. (I guess ignorance loves company.)

Beyond the Senate last week, in a remarkable example of intellectual integrity (in the face of the editorial positions of their newspapers) the chief economic columnists for the New York Times and the Washington Post -- Paul Krugman and Robert Samuelson, respectively -- laid out the sad facts regarding the economics of the matter. Senators, congressmen and Mr. President, please take note.

Regarding the Senate's and the president's guest worker proposals, The Post's Robert Samuelson writes:

"Gosh, they're all bad ideas. ... We'd be importing poverty. This isn't because these immigrants aren't hardworking; many are. Nor is it because they don't assimilate; many do. But they generally don't go home, assimilation is slow and the ranks of the poor are constantly replenished. ... [it] is a conscious policy of creating poverty in the United States while relieving it in Mexico ... "

"The most lunatic notion is that admitting more poor Latino workers would ease the labor market strains of retiring baby boomers ... Far from softening the social problems of an aging society, more poor immigrants might aggravate them by pitting older retirees against younger Hispanics for limited government benefits.

"[Moreover] It's a myth that the U.S. economy 'needs' more poor immigrants. The illegal immigrants already here represent only about 4.9 percent of the labor force." (For all of Mr. Samuelson's supporting statistics, see his Washington Post column of March 22, 2006, from which this is taken.)

Likewise, a few days later, the very liberal and often partisan Paul Krugman of the New York Times courageously wrote:

"Unfortunately, low-skill immigrants don't pay enough taxes to cover the cost of the [government] benefits they receive ... As the Swiss writer Max Frisch wrote about his own country's experience with immigration, 'We wanted a labor force, but human beings came."

Krugman also observed -- citing a leading Harvard study -- "that U.S. high school dropouts would earn as much as 8 percent more if it weren't for Mexican immigration. That's why it's intellectually dishonest to say, as President Bush does, that immigrants 'do jobs that Americans will not do.' The willingness of Americans to do a job depends on how much that job pays -- and the reason some jobs pay too little to attract native-born Americans is competition from poorly paid immigrants."

Thusly do the two leading economic writers for the nation's two leading liberal newspapers summarily debunk the economic underpinning of the president's and the Senate's immigration proposals.

Under such circumstances, advocates of guest worker/amnesty bills will find it frustratingly hard to defend their arrogant plans by their preferred tactic of slandering those who disagree with them as racist, nativist and xenophobic. When the slandered ones include not only the Washington Post and the New York Times, but about 70 percent of the public, it is not only bad manners, but bad politics.

The public demand to protect our borders will triumph sooner or later. And, the more brazen the opposing politicians, the sooner will come the triumph. So legislate on, you proud and foolish senators, and hasten your political demise.

Copyright 2006 Creators Syndicate

 

[dilloduck]

Secure the borders and get ready for the riots. Then tell me that these people plan to assimilate. :rotflmao:

 

[rtwngAvngr]

It was decided a while back that there would be no white majority nation in the new world order. here it is people. White nationalism is bad, right?