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Thousands Again Protest Immigration Bill
By PETER PRENGAMAN, Associated Press Writer 47 minutes ago
Tens of thousands of immigrant rights advocates from across Southern California marched Saturday in protest of federal legislation that would build more walls along the U.S.-Mexico border and make helping illegal immigrants a crime.
The march followed rallies on Friday that drew throngs of protesters to major cities around the nation.
On Saturday, demonstrators streamed into downtown Los Angeles for what was expected to be one of the city's largest pro-immigrant rallies. The crowd was estimated at more than 100,000, said police Sgt. Lee Sands.
Many of the marchers wore white shirts to symbolize peace and also waved U.S. flags. Some also carried the flags of Mexico and other countries, and even wore them as capes.
Elger Aloy, 26, of Riverside, a premed student, pushed a stroller with his 8-month-old son at Saturday's Los Angeles march.
"I think it's just inhumane. ... Everybody deserves the right to a better life," Aloy said of the legislation.
The House of Representatives has passed legislation that would make it a felony to be in the U.S. illegally, impose new penalties on employers who hire illegal immigrants and erect fences along one-third of the U.S.-Mexican border. The Senate is to begin debating the proposals on Tuesday.
President Bush on Saturday called for legislation that does not force America to choose between being a welcoming society and a lawful one.
"America is a nation of immigrants, and we're also a nation of laws," Bush said in his weekly radio address about the emotional immigration issue that has driven a wedge into his party.
Bush sides with business leaders who want legislation to let some immigrants stay in the country and work for a set period of time. Others, including Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist, say national security concerns should drive immigration reform.
On Friday, thousands of people joined in rallies in cities including Los Angeles, Phoenix and Atlanta, staging school walkouts, marches and work stoppages. The Los Angeles demonstration led to fights between black and Hispanic students at one high school, but the protests were largely peaceful, authorities said.
More than 2,700 students from at least eight Los Angeles high schools and middle schools poured out of classrooms to join the protest.
Police in Phoenix said 20,000 demonstrators marched on Friday to the office of Sen. Jon Kyl (news, bio, voting record), R-Ariz., co-sponsor of a bill that would step up enforcement along the U.S.-Mexico border and create a temporary guest-worker program that would require illegals to leave after five years. The turnout clogged major thoroughfares in what officials said was one of the largest protests in the city's history.
Activists said tens of thousands of workers did not show up at their jobs Friday in Georgia after calls for a work stoppage to protest a bill passed on Thursday by the state House. That bill, which has yet to gain Georgia Senate approval, would deny state services to adults living in the U.S. illegally and impose a 5 percent surcharge on wire transfers from illegal immigrants.
BUSH'S OPEN-BORDERS PLATITUDES
By Michelle Malkin · March 25, 2006 04:33 PM
losangeles.jpg
Illegal aliens and their advocates marching in L.A. today
As pro-illegal immigration forces organize mass protests in favor of "Mexico! Mexico!" and against stricter border security, President Bush is pushing his guest-worker/amnesty plan hard this weekend. His radio address today was filled with open borders-friendly platitudes (audio and transcript of the address, you'll notice, are available in Spanish at the White House website). Here are two:
"America is a nation of immigrants, and we're also a nation of laws."
"...As we debate the immigration issue, we must remember there are hard-working individuals, doing jobs that Americans will not do, who are contributing to the economic vitality of our country."
We are not a "nation of immigrants." This is both a factual error and a warm-and-fuzzy non sequitur. Eighty-five percent of the residents currently in the United States were born here. Sure, we are almost all descendants of immigrants. But we are not a "nation of immigrants."
(Isnt it funny, by the way, how the politically correct multiculturalists who claim we are a nation of immigrants are sooo insensitive toward Native American Indians, Native Alaskans, Native Hawaiians, and descendants of black slaves who did not immigrate here in any common sense of the word?)
Even if we were a nation of immigrants, it does not explain why we should be against sensible immigration control.
And if the open borders advocates would actually read American history instead of revising it, they would see that the founding fathers were emphatically insistent on protecting the country against indiscriminate mass immigration.
· George Washington, in a letter to John Adams, stated that immigrants should be absorbed into American life so that "by an intermixture with our people, they, or their descendants, get assimilated to our customs, measures, laws: in a word soon become one people."
· In a 1790 speech to Congress on the naturalization of immigrants, James Madison stated that America should welcome the immigrant who could assimilate, but exclude the immigrant who could not readily "incorporate himself into our society."
· Alexander Hamilton wrote in 1802: The safety of a republic depends essentially on the energy of a common national sentiment; on a uniformity of principles and habits; on the exemption of the citizens from foreign bias, and prejudice; and on that love of country which will almost invariably be found to be closely connected with birth, education, and family.
· Hamilton further warned that "The United States have already felt the evils of incorporating a large number of foreigners into their national mass; by promoting in different classes different predilections in favor of particular foreign nations, and antipathies against others, it has served very much to divide the community and to distract our councils. It has been often likely to compromise the interests of our own country in favor of another. The permanent effect of such a policy will be, that in times of great public danger there will be always a numerous body of men, of whom there may be just grounds of distrust; the suspicion alone will weaken the strength of the nation, but their force may be actually employed in assisting an invader.
· The survival of the American republic, Hamilton maintained, depends upon "the preservation of a national spirit and a national character. "To admit foreigners indiscriminately to the rights of citizens, the moment they foot in our country would be nothing less than to admit the Grecian horse into the citadel of our liberty and sovereignty.
We are not a nation of immigrants. We are first and foremost a nation of laws. The U.S. Constitution does not say that the paramount duty of government is to Celebrate Diversity or to embrace multiculturalism or to give every willing worker in the world a job. The Premable to the U.S. Constitution says the Constitution was established to provide for the common defense, promote the general welfare, and secure the blessings of liberty.
As our founding fathers recognized, fulfilling these fundamental duties is impossible without an orderly immigration and entrance system that discriminates in favor of those willing, as George Washington put it, to get assimilated to our customs, measures, [and] laws.
As for President Bush's claims about illegal immigrants doing the "jobs Americans won't do" and boosting the country'e "economic vitality," it seems the White House has still not read Robert Samuelson's definitive rejoinder.
Guest workers would mainly legalize today's vast inflows of illegal immigrants, with the same consequence: 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. Since 1980 the number of Hispanics with incomes below the government's poverty line (about $19,300 in 2004 for a family of four) has risen 162 percent. Over the same period, the number of non-Hispanic whites in poverty rose 3 percent and the number of blacks, 9.5 percent. What we have now -- and would with guest workers -- is a conscious policy of creating poverty in the United States while relieving it in Mexico. By and large, this is a bad bargain for the United States. It stresses local schools, hospitals and housing; it feeds social tensions (witness the Minutemen). To be sure, some Americans get cheap housecleaning or landscaping services. But if more mowed their own lawns or did their own laundry, it wouldn't be a tragedy.
The most lunatic notion is that admitting more poor Latino workers would ease the labor market strains of retiring baby boomers. The two aren't close substitutes for each other. Among immigrant Mexican and Central American workers in 2004, only 7 percent had a college degree and nearly 60 percent lacked a high school diploma, according to the Congressional Budget Office. Among native-born U.S. workers, 32 percent had a college degree and only 6 percent did not have a high school diploma. 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.
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, the Pew Hispanic Center reports. In no major occupation are they a majority. They're 36 percent of insulation workers, 28 percent of drywall installers and 20 percent of cooks. They're drawn here by wage differences, not labor "shortages." In 2004, the median hourly wage in Mexico was $1.86, compared with $9 for Mexicans working in the United States, said Rakesh Kochhar of Pew. With high labor turnover in the jobs they take, most new illegal immigrants can get work by accepting wages slightly below prevailing levels.
Hardly anyone thinks that most illegal immigrants will leave. But what would happen if new illegal immigration stopped and wasn't replaced by guest workers? Well, some employers would raise wages to attract U.S. workers. Facing greater labor costs, some industries would -- like the tomato growers in the 1960s -- find ways to minimize those costs. As to the rest, what's wrong with higher wages for the poorest workers? From 1994 to 2004, the wages of high school dropouts rose only 2.3 percent (after inflation) compared with 11.9 percent for college graduates.
President Bush says his guest worker program would "match willing foreign workers with willing American employers, when no Americans can be found to fill the jobs." But at some higher wage, there would be willing Americans. The number of native high school dropouts with jobs declined by 1.3 million from 2000 to 2005, estimates Steven Camarota of the Center for Immigration Studies, which favors less immigration. Some lost jobs to immigrants. Unemployment remains high for some groups (9.3 percent for African Americans, 12.7 percent for white teenagers).
Business organizations understandably support guest worker programs. They like cheap labor and ignore the social consequences. What's more perplexing is why liberals, staunch opponents of poverty and inequality, support a program that worsens poverty and inequality. Poor immigrant workers hurt the wages of unskilled Americans. The only question is how much. Studies suggest a range "from negligible to an earnings reduction of almost 10 percent," according to the CBO.
It's said that having guest workers is better than having poor illegal immigrants. With legal status, they'd have rights and protections. They'd have more peace of mind and face less exploitation by employers. This would be convincing if its premise were incontestable: that we can't control our southern border. But that's unproved. We've never tried a policy of real barriers and strict enforcement against companies that hire illegal immigrants. Until that's shown to be ineffective, we shouldn't adopt guest worker programs that don't solve serious social problems -- but add to them.
Is the White House capable of responding to these realities without accusing its critics of xenophobia, racism, and immigrant-bashing?
Based on past experience, I highly doubt it.
***
Programming note: I'll be on Fox News's Big Story tonight debating immigration policy. Approx. 10pm EST.
true, everyone does deserve the right to better life. but theres a right way and a wrong way. thats like saying everyone deserves a million dollars, heres a gun theres a bank, git r done"I think it's just inhumane. ... Everybody deserves the right to a better life," Aloy said of the legislation.
SweetBoy said:the extreme measures we are hearing about. Keep in mind that many pollsters believe that the small Democratic Hispanic majority, i.e., the large minority, helped push GWB over the top in 2004. Certainly McCain believes it and possibly Rove. The middle ground here is possibly the most politically smart route to take. This is not just about California and Texas.
dilloduck said:Nope--It's a power struggle between politicians who both want illegals here for different reasons. Legal Americans are getting the shaft with no help in sight.
SweetBoy said:Yes, it is a struggle, but just keep in mind that it took a lot of doing on Bush's part to sway this community, which by all rights should be clearly and unequivocally in the liberal Democratic camp. By tradition, liberals sway minorities, especially the new and the poor. This issue may cause regression, depending upon how it is handled.
Look at it this way. We have the cheapest and best food in the world. Immigrants contribute to that. I wish I could remember the source, but this is not the first time that there has been an antiimmigrant movement centered in the southwest. They have come and gone. In the best of times, immigrants from Mexico, in particular, were welcome because they were needed. They crossed legally at formal border crossings, worked the season, then returned to their families in Mexico. When the antiimmigration fervor increased, they began crossing illegally, but because of the difficulties of border crossing, they would stay instead of returning to Mexico and their families. The guest worker concept is really a return to those best of times, because it will enable immigrant workers to return home without fear that they will have to cross a dangerous desert to return to make money in the fields and factories where they are needed.
History is just repeating itself. There may be new issues today that I am ignorant about, but McCain has got it right this time and his moderation is sorely needed.
Immigration March Draws 500,000 in L.A.
By PETER PRENGAMAN, Associated Press Writer 9 minutes ago
Immigration rights advocates more than 500,000 strong marched in downtown Los Angeles, demanding that Congress abandon attempts to make illegal immigration a felony and to build more walls along the border.
The massive demonstration, by far the biggest of several around the nation in recent days, came as President Bush prodded Republican congressional leaders to give some illegal immigrants a chance to work legally in the U.S. under certain conditions.
Wearing white shirts to symbolize peace, marchers chanted "Mexico!" "USA!" and "Si se puede," an old Mexican-American civil rights shout that means "Yes, we can." They waved the flags of the U.S., Mexico and other countries, and some wore them as capes.
Saturday's march was among the largest for any cause in recent U.S. history. Police came up with the crowd estimate using aerial photographs and other techniques, police Cmdr. Louis Gray Jr. said.
Other demonstrations drew 50,000 people in Denver and several thousand in Sacramento and Charlotte, N.C.
Many protesters said lawmakers were unfairly targeting immigrants who provide a major labor pool for America's economy.
"Enough is enough of the xenophobic movement," said Norman Martinez, 63, who immigrated from Honduras as a child and marched in Los Angeles. "They are picking on the weakest link in society, which has built this country."
The U.S. House of Representatives has passed legislation that would make it a felony to be in the U.S. illegally, impose new penalties on employers who hire illegal immigrants, require churches to check the legal status of people they help, and erect fences along one-third of the U.S.-Mexican border.
Elger Aloy, 26, of Riverside, a premed student, pushed a stroller with his 8-month-old son at Saturday's Los Angeles march and called the legislation "inhumane."
"Everybody deserves the right to a better life," he said.
The Senate is to begin debating the proposals on Tuesday.
President Bush on Saturday called for legislation that does not force America to choose between being a welcoming society and a lawful one.
"America is a nation of immigrants, and we're also a nation of laws," Bush said in his weekly radio address, discussing an issue that had driven a wedge into his own party.
Bush sides with business leaders who want legislation to let some of the estimated 12 million undocumented immigrants stay in the country and work for a set period of time. Others, including Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist, say national security concerns should drive immigration reform.
"They say we are criminals. We are not criminals," said Salvador Hernandez, 43, of Los Angeles, a resident alien who came to the United States illegally from El Salvador 14 years ago and worked as truck driver, painter and day laborer.
Francisco Flores, 27, a wood flooring installer from Santa Clarita who is a former illegal immigrant, said, "We want to work legally, so we can pay our taxes and support the country, our country."
In Denver, police said more than 50,000 people gathered downtown at Civic Center Park next to the Capitol to urge the state Senate to reject a resolution supporting a ballot issue that would deny many government services to illegal immigrants in Colorado.
Elsa Rodriguez, 30, a trained pilot who came to Colorado in 1999 from Mexico to look for work, said she just wants to be considered equal.
"We're like the ancestors who started this country, they came from other countries without documents, too," the Arvada resident. "They call us lazy and dirty, but we just want to come to work. If you see, we have families, too."
Between 5,000 and 7,000 people gathered Saturday in Charlotte, carrying signs with slogans such as "Am I Not a Human Being?" In Sacramento, more than 4,000 people protested immigration legislation at an annual march honoring the late farm labor leader Cesar Chavez.
About 200 people protested outside a town hall-style meeting held by Rep. James Sensenbrenner, R-Wis., a leading sponsor of the House bill. He defended the legislation, saying he's trying to stop people from exploiting illegal immigrants for cheap labor, drug trafficking and prostitution.
"Those who do that are 21st-century slave masters, just like the 19th-century slave masters that we fought a civil war to get rid of," Sensenbrenner said at the meeting. "Unless we do something about illegal immigration, we're consigning illegal immigrants to be a permanent underclass, and I don't think that's moral."
Since Thursday tens of thousands of people have joined in rallies in cities including Milwaukee, Los Angeles, Phoenix and Atlanta, and staged school walkouts, marches and work stoppages.
The demonstrations are expected to culminate April 10 in a "National Day of Action" organized by labor, immigration, civil rights and religious groups.
Kathianne said:Hey mister, you got some links to this 'history' you are talking about?
SweetBoy said:Yes, it is a struggle, but just keep in mind that it took a lot of doing on Bush's part to sway this community, which by all rights should be clearly and unequivocally in the liberal Democratic camp. By tradition, liberals sway minorities, especially the new and the poor. This issue may cause regression, depending upon how it is handled.
Look at it this way. We have the cheapest and best food in the world. Immigrants contribute to that. I wish I could remember the source, but this is not the first time that there has been an antiimmigrant movement centered in the southwest. They have come and gone. In the best of times, immigrants from Mexico, in particular, were welcome because they were needed. They crossed legally at formal border crossings, worked the season, then returned to their families in Mexico. When the antiimmigration fervor increased, they began crossing illegally, but because of the difficulties of border crossing, they would stay instead of returning to Mexico and their families. The guest worker concept is really a return to those best of times, because it will enable immigrant workers to return home without fear that they will have to cross a dangerous desert to return to make money in the fields and factories where they are needed.
History is just repeating itself. There may be new issues today that I am ignorant about, but McCain has got it right this time and his moderation is sorely needed.
Mariner said:and I don't think either liberals or conservatives have good answers at the moment. As Michelle Malkin points out, business-Republicans favor illegal workers or legalized guest workers, because they can pay them less, but this may lower wages for unskilled Americans. The problem with trying to keep illegal immigrants out is that it's just too much work. We have huge borders and can't police them all. Building a 700 mile long wall, as the House Republicans propose, is silly, and will certainly backfire in terms of election politics for Republicans hoping for increased Hispanic support.
One thing I'm absolutely against is efforts to get hospitals, for example, to serve as INS officers by asking for people's immigration status. Simple human decency compels us to provide medical care and education for people in need.
Maybe the real long-term answer is doing what we can to assist Mexico in improving its per capita income. Surprising that NAFTA hasn't been more effective in, for example, moving factories to Mexico. I guess China underbids everyone when it comes to cheap labor, even with the additional transportation costs involved.
Mariner.
BATMAN said:Does anyone think these H.S. students are really "concerned" about this or just looking for a cause to rally around and be in the "in" crowd?
theim said:
Skipping school to block freeways and flying the U.S. flag upside down under the Mexican flag ... Those anti-anti-immigrant student protesters in L.A. know how to win over a majority of ordinary voters! ... P.S: Michelle Malkin also notes a poster that was everywhere at the big demo on Saturday, reading [emphasis in original]
If you think I'm "illegal" because I'm a Mexican learn the true history because I'm in my Homeland.
Fool that I am, I originally found this poster heartening: The protesters were saying we shouldn't assume all Mexicans are illegal--they're Americans like everyone else and consider the U.S. their homeland! But of course that's not what it means at all. ... 11:50 P.M. link
March 29, 2006
Illegals To Americans: We Hate America
It's hard to imagine that the schoolchildren who engaged in a pro-illegal immigration rally yesterday helped their cause much, except to harden the polarization already felt on both sides of the issue. While our politicians in Washington talked about how the illegals came to the US to enjoy the American dream, their actions speak much more towards the reconquista that, as Michelle Malkin has written, lies at the heart of the triumphalism that they now espouse. The Los Angeles area school districts allowed 22,000 students to protest border security and the enforcement of immigration law Monday, and it produced moments like this one:
upsidedown004.jpg
That is a Mexican flag over an upside-down American flag on the flagpole behind the students that raised them. Note the display of unbridled patriotism of these American students -- for Mexico.
Of course, the schools themselves see it differently. They say that the Mexican flag doesn't demonstrate disloyalty to the US, but rather allows the students to show "unity":
But UC Irvine professor Frank Bean said the flag doesn't signify loyalty to Mexico but rather loyalty to one another.No, Professor Bean, by flying American flags upside-down under the American flag, they're showing a loyalty to Mexico that overrides their loyalty to the US. And then they have the temerity to demand that we allow them to live here without following our laws governing entry into the US as well as continue to provide government services to them. In the meantime, people who come here legally and wish to stay wind up having to go home and reapply for permanent residency. Joe Gandelman has a guest poster from Britain who cannot avoid leaving the US after coming here legally and showing nothing but loyalty to his new home.
"They are saying, 'We are together in fighting against these people who are trying to make felons out of us,' " said Bean, co-director of UC Irvine's Center for Research on Immigration, Population and Public Policy.
The rallies in Southern California only ripped the lid off of a well-known dynamic in the culture that mixes native guilt with radical illegal-immigrant activism to fuel the La Raza dream of Aztlan, the reconquest of the the Southwest and its return to Mexico or existence as a separate nation. This radical notion has been around since 1969 and plays a part in the fringe politics of the Southwest. However, the increasing sense of entitlement for illegals in the area has led this impulse out of the shadows and into the forefront of the amnesty movement by enabling people to argue that the illegals are returning to their own land and that the US lacks the sovereignty to declare otherwise.
If the illegals and their support groups think this will win over the American people, they are very much mistaken. If they think they can intimidate Congress into action with these demonstrations ... that may be another thing entirely, I'm afraid.
Posted by Captain Ed at March 29, 2006 06:38 AM
March 29, 2006
The 'Immigration Backlash'
By Debra Saunders
Of course America needs immigrants. This is a country founded by immigrants and made richer by the imprint of newcomers in search of a land that rewards their hard work and determination to make a better life for their families.
The problem is that no country -- certainly, no country with a social safety net -- can afford to accommodate everyone who wants in. (Or as Rep. Dana Rohrabacher, R-Calif., put it, "We cannot be the HMO to the world.") That's why there are immigration policies that limit the number of people who can immigrate here legally.
The lack of an open-door policy has spawned this week's victim class, illegal or "undocumented" immigrants, who have flouted American law and apparently believe they should not have to pay the consequences of that choice. Hence Sunday's huge demonstration in Los Angeles, where activists carried signs that called for "Amnistia, Full Rights for All Immigrants."
The Los Angeles Times duly reported, "Some Republicans fear that pushing too hard against illegal immigrants could backfire nationally, as with Proposition 187 (the 1994 ballot measure that sought to deny benefits for illegal immigrants that) helped spur record numbers of California Latinos to become U.S. citizens and register to vote. Those voters subsequently helped Democrats regain political control in the state."
Call that the Backlash Myth. In fact, Prop. 187 passed with 59 percent of the vote, and GOP Gov. Pete Wilson, who championed the measure, was re-elected in 1994. In 2003, when Democratic Gov. Gray Davis signed a bill that would allow illegal immigrants to get driver's licenses, he so enraged voters that he sealed his political demise. After Davis was recalled from office, the heavily Democratic California Legislature repealed the bill.
That's your backlash.
Don't blame racism. While some in the media may think all Latinos vote alike, the Los Angeles Times poll found that 38 percent of Latino voters in California strongly opposed giving driver's licenses to illegal immigrants.
If there is a backlash, it probably will be against the demonstrators. Even before students began blocking the Los Angeles streets to protest legislation in Congress to toughen penalties for illegal immigrants and smugglers, Mark Krikorian of the Center for Immigration Studies told me over the telephone, "I hope they keep doing it. It just makes it less and less likely the Senate's going to pass any amnesty."
A bill passed by the House would make it a felony for illegal immigrants to stay in the United States. Jeff Lungren of the House Judiciary Committee explained that, while it is a crime to cross the border illegally, staying here after sneaking in or after your visa expires has been only a civil offense. The House wanted to make it an actual crime.
When members of Congress complained that a felony was too harsh, House Judiciary Committee Chairman James Sensenbrenner put forward an amendment in December to reduce the proposed penalty to a misdemeanor.
This shows what a setup the felony issue was: Only eight Dems voted to reduce the penalty, and the amendment failed by a 257-164 vote. U.S. Rep. Zoe Lofgren, D-Calif., announced that she opposed the misdemeanor amendment because: "In one stroke, it would subject the entire undocumented population, estimated by some to be 11 million people, to criminal liability." So the Dems stuck with the felony language.
Rohrabacher stresses that 90 percent of illegal immigrants -- if not more -- are "wonderful human beings." He notes that no one expects the government to deport all 11 million or 12 million illegal immigrants in America.
The answer is for Washington to toughen enforcement, penalize employers who hired undocumented workers and make border crossing more costly. Then fewer people will move illegally to America.
Instead, on Monday, the Senate Judiciary Committee passed a bill with a guest-worker program that would allow illegal immigrants to apply for citizenship. Big mistake. If Washington passes an immigration bill that grants citizenship to illegal immigrants and includes a phony temporary guest-worker program -- phony, because there is no way the government can or would remove workers after six years, as one scheme promises -- then the deception will be official. The message Washington will send will resound louder than ever: Forget immigration laws. Legal, illegal, no dif.
