I was a bit sorry, if not entirely surprised, to learn that 2/3rds of Americans oppose liberalized immigration laws, worrying that we have too many people and that having more people in the country depresses wages.
The more annoying part of this, to me, is that kneejerkers will tend to blame "racism."
The truth is most Americans are probably under the mistaken notion that we're overcrowded (which we certainly are not--barely 5% of this country is covered with human development). They're probably also under the mistaken notion that having more people hurts the economy, when in fact the exact opposite has been shown time and time again to be the truth.
Thus the constant challenge for those who favor liberalizing immigration laws: we wind up having to take sides annoying, shrieking, kneejerk reactionaries who accuse immigration opponents of racism. I deplore being on the same side as those folks. America is quite possibly the least racist country in the world, truth to be known, and racism is not the all-pervasive bogeyman-that-explains-everything that people make it out to be. Indeed, racism often isn't even much of a barrier even when it does exist; I've known racists who work side by side with people they hate, and all it amounts to is dirty looks, not denial of opportunity.
America is not, fundamentally, a racist country, despite fervent belief (reaching almost pathological proportions) some people have that it's everywhere. But, more importantly, opposition to immigration is not fundamentally racist in nature, and it's a vicious cheap shot to immigration proponents to say that it is.
What people really need to know that immigrants do not depress wages. Not in the long run, anyway. An enormous influx of new workers will tend to do that in the short term, especially in unskilled and semi-skilled labor jobs. In the 1970s, we saw an explosion of women entering the workforce, and this caused real individual incomes among workers to go down a little, since the supply of workers was so much higher all of a sudden. But within a few years, real incomes began rising again, and no surprise there. Because the thing that most people don't understand is a certain fundamental economic truth:
As a rule, people are assetts, not liabilities.
Oh, people can be liabilities, if they are deathly ill, or if you allow them to immediately get on your welfare system. That has been a serious problem in our southwestern states, one that too many kneejerk leftists refuse to acknowledge: illegal immigrants by the tens of thousands getting on the welfare system, often with the help of well-meaning churches. This really is a burden, does make those folks a liability, and it's deplorable that reactionary leftists are so in denial about that that they shriek "lies! racism!" whenever it's brought up.
But it's not lies, it's not racism. It's a real problem, one that current laws still haven't addressed adequately.
That aside, people who actually come to this country looking for work, who do work, are not a draw on our resources. They add to our economy, enormously. Over the last 50 years this country has experienced record immigration, and, except for a period in the 1970s where several things at once knocked our economy for a loop, we've done nothing but grow more prosperous as a nation as a result.
And yes, I said as a result. Because in a free system, one ruled by democratic government and respecting the fundamentally good nature of private enterprise, more people means more being produced, more economic development, more opportunities to specialize, more goods and services, and more convenience for everyone.
We should also face the fundamental truth that there is no possible way to stop Mexicans from crossing our border. Nearly a century of disastrous patronage-socialism has left Mexico desperately impoverished, and those people can make ten times here what they can at home. The border with them is also enormous. We would have to spend tens of billions in tax money every year to stop them.
Stop them from what? Looking for opportunities to work.
As a result of our current immigration laws, all we wind up with is hundreds of thousands of people living under the radar screens, always hoping to avoid getting caught. When all they want to do is what?
Work.
In the meantime, a whole black market world exists to help these folks sneak in and stay with forged documents. A network that's also useful to terrorists. Terrorists who can sneak in with all those illegals.
Make it easier and legal for them to get here, and almost all those illegals will try to be legal. The number sneaking across the border will be massively reduced, and the Border Patrol's ability to watch those borders will thereby be enhanced. And the ability for terrorists to sneak in through the southern border will be substantially diminished.
In the meantime, legitimate people who just want to work will be a net asset to us. Yes, they may cause a slight depression in wages in unskilled manual labor jobs. But in the long run, all having them here will do is increase economic opportunity for all of us.
The logic most people use makes so much sense: more people means lower wages. The problem is that it's the exact opposite of the truth.
It's frustrating that I can't get more people to believe that, even though it's quite true.
More ILLEGALS means lower wages. Illegals will work for less than minimum wage, there is no cost for health care, unemployment insurance, workmens comp, social security, etc. Employers make out like fat rats (which is pretty much what they are).
Legal immigrants and american citizens, meanwhile, have fewer jobs available, and thus less bargaining power when it comes to wages.
Meanwhile, we have allowed this situation to come to pass with bad immigration law and lousy enforcement. I believe that we have an obligation to the illegals who are living here and raising families to regularize their status. That doesn't necessarily mean making them citizens, it DOES mean giving them the opportunity to be here legally.
And, stronger enforcement of border controls should accompany Bushs initiative.
Two hands, one mouth.
We already have incredibly strong border enforcement, is the funny part.
But you aren't saying anything else we're in disagreement over. Guest worker programs that are cheap and easy to obtain will cause fewer people to come in illegally. That's the whole point: if most of them are legitimately on the books, fewer will be here illegitimately and much easier to track--and the traffic pouring over the borders illegally will be greatly reduced, making it easier for the Border Patrol to do its job properly.
I have relatives with strong backgrounds in BP, and while they have their own political opinions, they'll astonish you when they tell you just how sophisticated and powerful the intusion detection systems are, and just how effective they are at rounding people up. Problem is there are just so damned many people coming over they can't keep up. We'd have to spend billions more, or just build a huge damned wall.
Better idea is to choke off the flow. Which is exactly what the current liberalization proposal would achieve.
You had better be concerned about a whole slew of other issues surrounding unchecked migration from Third World environments to urbanized environments.
Just to mention a few that are far more serious than the entry level labor gripe:
Disease vectoring by people and the animals and plants that they bring with them.
Refusal to assimilate into the existing culture, preferring to establish cultural enclaves of illiteracy and gang warfare.
Practicing customs, traditions, and rituals that violate domestic family law, civil rights law, and pose public health hazards.
Providing cover for invaders who have far more
pernicious goals than simply competing for a job.
Engaging in birthrates that cannot be supported by family income, thus casting that responsibility onto the broader community.
All of these concerns and many more could be addressed by sane public policies like inspection and quarantining, compulsory literacy in a universal language, regulating boundaries between countries where there is a gross disparity in asepsis, animal/plant/human health, literacy, and the standard of living.
They won't be addressed, however, because we have a defacto cultural revolution going on that reminds one of the idiocies associated with the one in Red China. The anarchistic loons and the control freaks have united in an unlikely alliance to produce either a totalitarian police state or a balkanized free-for-all. It will be interesting to see what the result will be.
I could go on and on; but as you say the indoctrinated cannot allow the light of reality into their minds without it being refracted through their ideological lenses. So, why bother?
Get used to it; the wheels are coming off the Great Society. The fat cow is about to be slaughtered, dismembered, and divided up by those who don't have a clue where cows come from and how they get fat.
All of what you just described are what we face now, Pat. Regulating it and getting it under control is the answer, since border enforcement is a useless enterprise--as anyone who's in that business can frankly tell you.
Experience shows us, however, that when incomes go up, birth rates go down. Furthermore, immigrant families in earlier eras with 10-12 kids were not uncommon, and somehow society adapted. You just have to get used to a lower standard of living when you have so many kids. So what? These are people who are used to much lower standards of living being single in those countries than being married with a half-dozen kids here, even on a low-wage job.
Public health policies already exist and don't need that much strengthening.
Ending bilingual education in the schools is, of course, a good idea. But compulsory study of English for adults? Strikes me as utterly unnecessary.
Cultural assimilation? While there is a nascent latino separatist movement that has to be watched, I'm not inclined to believe it's a crisis.
More people means greater economic prosperity; if anything, the Great Society could be further sustained for even longer with more immigration. So long as we avoid the trap of bringing people in and immediately putting them on the welfare teat--which, of course, a guest worker program would not allow for.
There is no racism in me and that comes from being around it myself, and turning towards a journey to a should I say, just letting go of so many once held ideals and or thoughts, dreams and illusions I had as a person, an individual Woman.
I have no doubt where you are in all sincerity coming from, and do know you once lived here in the southwest.
Last time I took a stand on this I was asked if I thought we should shoot people coming across the border or build a huge wall. I ignored those questions because I am not the great OZ. I disagree with you on this Dean as far as our border patrol and what they have done for our country. So we will just agree to disagree. We must come into this country in my opinion the proper way through our country's laws.
Homeland Security was just established after 911 and the men and women that enlisted in that program came from such tremendous government backgrounds such as the, FBI, The Secret Service and other branches. These men and women were hungry to keep our country safe and Immigration and Natralization did a tremendous shakeup and shakedown like nothing ever, ever in history!
You bet I know all about this because Katherine a commenter here on your site has a son that is a blonde blue eyed kid in Iraq that speaks out and I like to tell her about a kid of mine, well... aah...just...one of them anyway that I am proud of that is defending us within our borders, the other is doing something quite different that I am bursting with pride ten fold over! I have loved this song from the day this Great Man Resting In Gods Arms With His Woman. I played it over & over & may you hear it Loud & Well!!!
I am hearing a song in my head with a really neat sound of a border sound in it you may want to go listen to and we will just have to disagree and I will...STAND ALONE!
Love is a burning thing and it makes a firey ring
bound by wild desire.
I FELL INTO A BURNING RING OF FIRE
I WENT DOWN,DOWN,DOWN,AND THE FLAMES WENT HIGHER
AND IT BURNS BURNS BURNS
THE RING OF FIRE
THE RING OF FIRE
DO YOU HEAR THE MARIACHIS STROLLING IN THE BACKGROUND YET?
The taste of love is sweet when hearts like ours meet.
O fell for you like a child oh, but the the fire went wild...
By the way, I am sincerely proud of my Beautiful Daughters Too! They gave birth and that is the Greatest Most Fantastic Most Special Awesome...Oh for Goodness Sakes, They Are Why I came here.
"More ILLEGALS means lower wages. Illegals will work for less than minimum wage, there is no cost for health care, unemployment insurance, workmens comp, social security, etc. Employers make out like fat rats (which is pretty much what they are). "
Level the playing field. Stop making our employers provide health care, unemployment insurance, social security, etc. Let them pay all of us in cash, and we'll take care of ourselves.
"But you aren't saying anything else we're in disagreement over. Guest worker programs that are cheap and easy to obtain will cause fewer people to come in illegally. That's the whole point: if most of them are legitimately on the books, fewer will be here illegitimately and much easier to track--and the traffic pouring over the borders illegally will be greatly reduced, making it easier for the Border Patrol to do its job properly."
I dislike guest worker programs that require a specific employer's sponsorship to avoid deportation. Newcomers ought to be free to switch employers just like the rest of us; otherwise, we artificially strengthen the employer's hand in bargaining with the newcomer.
The single most important reform I can think of is to stop giving welfare benefits to non-citizens. A sink-or-swim policy will eliminate most social costs of immigration in the short run, and selectively attract immigrants willing and able to be self-sufficient over the long run. That's the policy we had a century ago, and it brought us some damn fine newcomers, despite contemporary hysteria about how our country was being ruined.
Ken:
I'm not sure U.S. employers have to provide healthcare. Pretty sure they don't.
Just good luck getting good employees if you don't provide benefits.
It's weird seeing Republicans complaining that cheap labor only benefits The Rich.
Dean,
It's not at all obvious that more legal immigrants equals less illegals. Mathematically, this is only true if the pool of people considering illegal immigration is not much larger than the number of legal immigrants you want to let in. This condition may hold (I sure wouldn't know), but you haven't provided any evidence.
The Native Americans just called. They want to see OUR immigration documents. Let's just say that if I were an able-bodied third world head of household and desperately wanted to improve my families' standard of living, I'd be running (not walking) for the nearest entry point for the U.S.A. If I was breaking immigration laws, so be it. Nearly all of the illegal immigrants entering this country come here to work. Isn't this how our country was founded by hard working immigrants?
Call me crazy, but I actually agree with Bush's proposal even though he knows it probably won't pass. He still scores some political points. Hopefully he's being sincere in suggesting this policy.
Dean,
I lived on the border (Brownsville,Tx) until I left to attend university in 1967. My father was a U.S.D.A. Plant Quarantine Inspector attached to A.P.H.I.S.(Animal & Plant Health Inspection Service). Most of our family friends were U.S. Immigration, U.S. Customs, U.S. Border Patrol, and U.S. Public Health employees. My experiential knowledge tells me that you are ill-informed and/or extremely naive.
This country's prosperity and ultimate safety is not just a function of supply and demand. Since the Reform Era (Progressive Era) at the turn of the 19th Century, administrative law and government have been saving the lives of our citizenry and our economy. Agencies like the ones mentioned above have worked with the private sector of American business to prevent pestilence, disease, and the compromise of our national security.
Unfortunately the education system in this country is sophmoric and panders to the lowest common denominator. As a result, most of its graduates think that this country's economic success and vitality is a matter of luck or the legacy of the robber barons. Little do they know about what really happened behind the scenes for most of the 20th Century. Behind the scenes were thousands of dedicated public servants protecting the water supply, the food supply, the integrity of roads and bridges, and finally, our borders. All of them would tell you that if the borders are not secure, then the rest of it is just "pissing in the wind."
I am sick and tired of the arguments I hear from those like yourself about the long term trends of immigration. Perhaps you would be more persuaded by studying the history of African nations in the 20th Century. With the exception of South Africa and Rhodesia, almost all of the African nations were decimated by those issues that I warned you about. Certainly, Africa did not have the financial and academic resources that we have at our disposal. However, let me warn you right now that if you are relying on our superior technology to bail us out at the last minute, you are going to be miserably disappointed.
Pandemics and epidemics are scary things. Ecomomic depressions are scary things. Having your economic backbone broken is a scary thing. And, contrary to popular belief, our economic backbone is not high technology or the infoworld; IT IS OUR CAPACITY TO GUARANTEE TO OUR CITIZENS A CONSTANT, SAFE AND DEPENDABLE FLOW OF THE STAPLES OF LIVING.
No, I am not a graduate of Texas A&M; I am a graduate of the University of Texas and I live in Austin, TX, Moscow-on-the-Colorado. This makes me pretty adept at analyzing political sophistry.
What made and preserved this nation over a stretch of about 200 yrs. was a dedication to applying pragmatism to questions of philosophy, law, and public policy. Sometimes pragmatism did not win the day, thank God, because sometimes pragmatism is unfeeling and brutal.
The two things that the founders of The Republic agreed upon as being necessary to its continued success were public virtue and public knowledge. I believe they were prescient and I believe we are degrading both of these requirements. Not only are we disregarding the track record of social nihilism in Western Europe, but we are being transformed into a collective of ignoramuses- that is people who are ignorant and who prefer to remain so. That is a suicide cocktail.
Drink up.
P.S. The U.S. Border Patrol Academy was relocated from Los Fresnos, TX to an island off the coast of Georgia by the executive order of James Earl Carter in 1978. Afterward, that same president decided to cut that government agency in half. No doubt it was all part of the grand scheme of building a more uniform global ecomomy.
I live in Texas, and my mother-in-law was born in Mexico, so I guess it should surprise noone that I am very interested in the immigration proposal.
Texas has adopted a very different attitude toward Mexican immigrants than has California. I would argue that Texans' attitudes on this issue are much more liberal than California attitudes. But that difference probably has something to do with the level of social services provided to the general population. Perversely, the liberal attitudes of Californians about government social programs has resulted in a much higher general animosity toward Mexican immigrants because of the added cost of those same social services for illegal immigrants.
Here are my ideas.
1) General amnesty is a very BAD idea.
2) Path to citizenship is a BAD idea.
3) Pulling our head out of the sand, and recognizing the value migrant workers bring to our society is GOOD.
4) This concept of temporary worker permits should be limited to Western Hemisphere immigrants. This will help avoid racism arguments by other illegal immigrants who come from parts of the world that are hostile to our nation.
5) The requirement to try to hire Americans first should be dropped - but only as part of a Western Hemisphere Free Trade agreement which allows American workers to get the same type of temporary worker permits in other Western Hemisphere nations.
6) With the slow fade into irrelevance of the European continent, we should accelerate and strengthen our Western Hemisphere alliances, and vigorously promote free market democracy as a Western Hemisphere standard.
7) It should be our stated national goal to see the economies of the entire Western Hemisphere, not just the USA, be the standard for the world.
8) General instruction in schools should still be English only, but Americans should be encouraged to learn Spanish, and schools should adopt a policy of preference for the Spanish language as the first foreign language to be studied, with Portugese (Brazil) as the second preference.
9) The Government should begin and sustain a propagana campaign in other Western Hemisphere nations that emphasizes our preference for Western Hemisphere nations above all others. They should encourage individual states and cities to advertise and adopt "sister" cities as well.
10) We should encourage other Western Hemisphere nations to educate their own populations in the English language to communication becomes easier.
In my mind, the President's proposal is not enough. A clear rationale must be presented. And that rational should be Western Hemisphere hegemony. It is past time for the entire "new world" to take their place at the top of heap.
Without this commitment to our New World companions, Latin nations will simply see this proposal as an attempt to get cheap labor - a way of taking advantage of them. What this proposal needs is an historic vision and purpose beyond simple recognition of the economic reality of migrant workers.
Barring the willingness of all Western Hemispere nations to go along immediately, we should agressively pursue this course of action with Mexico first. And temporary worker permits should be restricted to Mexican workers only.
Those nations in the Western Hemisphere whose workers wish to partake in the temporary worker permit program must first convince their own governments to commit to free market democracy and take part in the Hemispheric Free Trade agreement. This is a carrot that should be perpetually available to all Western Hemisphere nations under the right conditions.
Finally, this proposal would have the secondary benefit of demonstrating the declining status of Eurocentric foreign policy. The elite State Department positions must eventually be Sao Paulo, Buenes Aires, and Mexico City, along with Sydney and London. Paris, Moscow, Rome, Brussels, and Berlin can take third tier status behind the Asian continental countries. Africa, truly the fourth world, continues to lag behind.
The proposal is as good as we have seen especially in light of what happened to us. If it gets passed there will be a pretty content party of people I do care so much about. It is sincerely a few seedy people south of here we are so concerned about that give passage. Not our pilgrims or immigrants, depending on how far back in history you want to go back.
You pick the time in history. The birth of our Nation? Who discovered America? Do we go back to the fight of the Alamo? Well, history books all over the United States are being rewritten aren't they? The people that landed on the Mayflower and it just goes on and on and back and back and it is endless until somebody says, ENOUGH!
I do believe this is why our laws were established and if we go back to our borders in history and try to look at them as adults and rationally, we will come to the conclusion that our Border Patrol History and Immigration and Natralization was truly a pretty good system and we have tried. Yes indeed there is a coruption here and mistake along the way. To fail is human.
I wonder where John Wayne might be about now. That would be pretty good to see him and Johnny Cash together. Let me see.
Well a good Western Movie has to have John Wayne!
We have to have, I mean there is no Bout a Doubt It! Johnny Cash in that Black and June, yep, yep...I am getting so excited I might pee in my pants!
The music playing is...
Can you hear the Horns playing? And then the Accordions?
Love is a burning thing and it makes a firey ring bound by wild desire
I FELL INTO A BURNING RING OF FIRE
I WENT DOWN, DOWN, DOWN
AND THE FLAMES WENT HIGHER
AND IT BURNS, BURNS, BURNS
THE RING OF FIRE, THE RING OF FIRE
The taste of love is sweet when hearts
like ours meet
I fell for you like a child
oh, but the fire went wild
I FELL INTO A BURNING RING OF FIRE! I can just see the old Duke out in the Old West coming into the saloon and that music is playing so loud that the Duke himself being swept up by the thunderous sounds of the mariachis!
Now the Duke has an Agenda...
Janelle,
Truly, your posts are unintelligible. WHAT are you trying to say? I don't get it.
Pat, my stepdad is the (now-retired) assistant director of the INS enforcemenet division in Texas. My brother (until his very recent promotion to special agent with DHS) was Border Patrol, and spent most of his career there in Brownsville. I was born in El Paso, where I spent a good deal of my life, a city which was then something like 40% Hispanic and is now something like 60% Hispanic.
I am a graduate of no university whatsoever.
I happen to agree with you that public infrastructure is key. And yes, I am quite aware of the racial and ethnic tensions and the plagues that have been the bane of African nations.
I also note, however, that these governments were, by and large, either thug-regimes or socialist/Marxist in orientation, both of which are dysfunctional ways to run a nation.
I also repeat to you, once more, that these people are pouring across the border in a barely-controlled fashion. Pragmatism here isn't brutality, it's reality. They're coming, one way or the other. We either bring them in and get them legal, or they stay here illegally. Or we spend tens of billions more building a gigantic wall and having the equivalent of the entire 101st Airborne constantly patrolling our southern border, or we find some way to accomodate the problem.
Experience should show us, if it shows us anything, that if we have an economic system that puts people to work--not robber barons, but the highly functional publicly-traded corporations and small businesses that now dominate our economy--will be one that can generate what is necessary to pay the taxes to pay for the public infrastructure that is (yes, IS) necessary.
I simply don't agree that this is an unmanageable problem, and believe that in the long run, having more people is a good investment, not the other way around.
Once again, however, we need to make sure we're making it easy for people to cross the border, work during the day, and then go back home to Mexico at night. And easier for them to find apartments or whatever here, if that's what they prefer.
What we need to do is reduce the pressure causing people to flow across the border. That's really the most effective solution, and I think people are in denial about that.
I note, again, that another necessary step is to deny immigrants access to our welfare system until they have been in the country and working for a minimum number of years (3-4 seems adequate). This is an ongoing problem right now, since folks will sneak across the border, get a few documents that make them residents, they don't even have to prove citizenship, and they can get food stamps, rent subsidy, and more.
This is not right, at all. And people who claim that it's not happening simply do not know what they are talking about.
Refusing to allow bilingual education in the schools should be all that's necessary for language regularization though, Pat. The kids wind up learning perfectly good English--and their parents get by just fine.
We need IDEOLOGICAL profiling. Let no one into our country who does not believe in our Constitution and way of life. No more 9/11's. I've said it before and I'm going to keep saying it: Pim Fortuyn warned us. We are in a War for the survival of Western civilization and freedom.
Tim,
The Native Americans just called. They want to see OUR immigration documents.
Did they show immigration documents to the people they slaughtered when they came here? They may be "native" compared to Europeans, but they are NOT the "First Americans", by a long shot.
Nor, for that matter, were they peaceful, loving people, living in tune with the environment. They hunted many species to extinction on these continents long before the white man appeared.
Dean,
"What we need to do is reduce the pressure causing people to flow across the border. That's really the most effective solution...."
I agree totally, but I think there are more implications here than you mention. Immigration across the U.S./Mexican border is significantly analogous to diffusion across a membrane. There are two major ways to regulate this diffusion process: change the membrane (by more restrictive border patrol, for instance), and change the environment.
The problem is that the source of the pressure is the differential in quality of life across the border (standard of living, personal freedoms, etc.). Sure, the more effective long-term solution to this issue involves changing the environment, rather than the membrane, but that means either lowering the quality of life on this side of the border (obviously bad) or raising the quality of life on the other side of the border (not entirely under our control). How would you propose to address this issue?
As a matter of principle, I don't like amnesty, because it directly rewards disrespect for the law. Pragmatically, I don't like "final" amnesty proposals, because they haven't been final and that undercuts both the efficacy and the moral standing of the policy debate.
I think the Guest Worker proposal is a much needed recognition of economic realities. But I agree the amnesty and "Path to Citizenship" proposals are utterly wrong. They reward bad behaviour.
We need to distinguish between those who wish to become American citizens and are willing to renounce their allegiance to their homelands, and those who only wish to work here for a while, then go home.
Any Dual citizenship proposal must be quickly and dramatically trounced. This is the agenda of transnational progressives, and their goal is the destruction of national borders, and national sovreignty.
We are NOT citizens of the world. No such citizenship exists. We are Americans. And others who wish to become Americans should make their wishes known and be apprised of the requirements.
I think our liberal immigration policy is a great strength of our society. It demonstrates our values, and reflects well on all of us. But citizenship should be valuable, and it should cost something. It must require loyalty. Assimilation must be the goal. Multiculturalism is simply racist to the core, and those who push such ideas are racists.
But valuing other cultures and respecting other cultures is a good thing. And Guest Workers should be just that - Guests. Our nation is analogous to a family. We have a liberal adoption policy. And we treat our guests well. But guests are not family members.
Any parent who did not prefer their own child over some child that wandered in off the streets would be considered a bad parent. And any citizen who does not give preference to other citizens is a bad citizen. But it is perfectly proper and fitting to treat guests well. And this proposal by Bush is a step in the right direction.
Check out S. Korea in the late 90's.
In the midst of an economic down turn, they sent home a half million guest workers to make jobs available for citizens. They could'nt get the citizens to take those jobs because most of the jobs were 3D jobs (dirty dangerous or demeaning).
Relative to populations, that is probably about the ratio of illegals in the US.
The difference is those in S. Korea were legal visa holders.
I don't know what the best solution for the US is, but what we are doing now surely isn't working.
I think this is a wonderful time for an important debate. I just hope the debate centers around realities rather than idealogies.
Ed
"Once again, however, we need to make sure we're making it easy for people to cross the border, work during the day, and then go back home to Mexico at night. And easier for them to find apartments or whatever here, if that's what they prefer.
What we need to do is reduce the pressure causing people to flow across the border. That's really the most effective solution, and I think people are in denial about that."
Perhaps, you might write an open letter to Vicente Fox explaining the irrational fears of
overpopulation in his own country.
In any event, OPEN BORDERS is NOT the ANSWER. And IT is the bottom line, the cause of the problems and the place for the solution of the unchecked population drain on services on local governments by illegals. That is where the rubber meets the road. The policies will not mean anything unless the BORDER question is answered. The second thing that needs to happen is that the local law enforcement chiefs of police etc...need the authority and the power to enact the "real" provisions of the current law.
The illegals are simply not a two hour drive from the southern border,they are are all over this nation.
We need to revive the McCarran-Walter Act.
I know Dad!
That aside, people who actually come to this country looking for work, who do work, are not a draw on our resources.
What if they end up taking far more than they give back?
Here's just one of the many good points made in the Foreign Affairs article here: ...political leaders have often belatedly discovered that admitting temporary low-wage workers unnaturally sustains industries with low productivity and wages, such as garment manufacturing, labor-intensive agriculture, and domestic services. In consequence, the economy's overall productivity and growth suffer...
And, see this report: "Based on estimates developed by the National Academy of Sciences for immigrants by age and education at arrival, the lifetime fiscal impact (taxes paid minus services used) for the average adult Mexican immigrant is a negative $55,200... This reduction in wages for the unskilled has likely reduced prices for consumers by only an estimated .08 to .2 percent in the 1990s. The impact is so small because unskilled labor accounts for only a tiny fraction of total economic output."
We should also face the fundamental truth that there is no possible way to stop Mexicans from crossing our border.
Some will always get through. However, what if we actually enforced the laws we have on the books. Supposedly, the Bush/Fox Amnesty will include increased enforcement. Uh, why don't we try that first?
A small segment of the immigrants from Mexico come to commit crimes, and some come to get on welfare. However, most come to work and would use welfare if they can't find work.
So, we cut out the welfare and the work, and most of them will not come, and many of those who are here already will go home.
If we make a habit of putting the employers of illegal aliens in federal prison, the job market for illegal aliens will dry up quite rapidly.
Make it easier and legal for them to get here, and almost all those illegals will try to be legal.
Until you start cracking down on employers in a big way, employers will always find a way to game the system. Some of the current illegal aliens may end up working legally, but even more illegal aliens will come in to replace them in the jobs they used to hold. And, many more illegal aliens will come here in expectation of the next amnesty. One amnesty will lead to another and another...
I'd also strongly suggest taking a look at Correcting the Record About President Bush's Immigration Proposal. It contains some of the things Bush, Ridge, and Rove aren't telling you.
As for enforcement, we could certainly use more people and higher tech on the border.
However, the main problem is the lack of enforcement away from the border. Consider, as just one small data point, this: "In San Diego County, only one owner, whose company hired workers for major hotels, has been prosecuted since 2000, and he was given probation. No business has been fined."
Yet more for your reading list: Job Creation in Mexico's Economy Is a Better Solution to the Migration Problem.
Shouldn't "liberals" care about other countries? I mean, we've got 10% of Mexico's population right here in the U.S. That's not a good thing for Mexico, now is it? Remittances are hardly a growth industry.
If those people were at home, the elites of Mexico would be under great pressure to reform their society. That would be good for both the Mexican people and us.
1) Low-paying jobs that could go overseas or could stay here. That's a bad thing?
2) "Why don't we try that first?" This is sort of like Democrats who have spent the last 35 years saying, "Why don't we try increasing funding on education first, before making any radical changes?"
No offense, but duh. We spend tons on this, our systems get more and more effective all the time, and still we can barely slow down what's happening. We've been "enforcing the laws already on the books" for decades, and the problem has only worsened.
"Hey Rocky, watch me pull a rabbit out of my hat!"
"Again? But that trick never works!"
"This time for sure!"
Yeah whatever. How long do you want to continue increasing funding, improving training, getting better equipment before you realize that it's like bailing water with a fork?
And how many more billions do you want to spend, anyway? Are those billions that could be spent in more productive ways, do ya think?
"Texas has adopted a very different attitude toward Mexican immigrants than has California. I would argue that Texans' attitudes on this issue are much more liberal than California attitudes. But that difference probably has something to do with the level of social services provided to the general population. Perversely, the liberal attitudes of Californians about government social programs has resulted in a much higher general animosity toward Mexican immigrants because of the added cost of those same social services for illegal immigrants" (Scott Harris)
Yes, Texas has different views than California. According to State Senator Tom McClintock, California taxpayers are spending four billion dollars per year for services provided to "illegals". That's $ 4,000,000,000.
And there is a BORDER issue, that MUST be addressed. Open Borders is not the answer.
The entire "immigration subject" needs a clear and lengthy public debate on all issues concerned before the enactment of needed policy change.
Dean,
I want you to tell me what incentives are there for the haciendados of Mexico to allow the growth of a middleclass.
At this moment all they have to do with issues of poverty, overpopulation, illiteracy, pollution, malnutrition, disease, and political foment is to simply slake it off to the United States. We are being used as a giant ink blotter and you know it.
There is no pressure on the ruling class of Mexico to allow socio/economic opportunity.
I would close the border tomorrow and begin the assimilation of all Mexican nationals who are here already, as you suggest. However, from that point forward, up goes the barbwire. No one would be allowed to send currency to Mexico by mail. If you are a Mexican national who has entered this country illegally, you may not return home for any reason for 5 years. I would not allow any business which has moved its plants or equipment to Mexico to do business in this country.
We do not have a labor shortage in this country. It is unacceptable to foist off the "demeaning" jobs onto desperate people who are fleeing a fascist regime in Mexico which exists solely for the pleasure of a few dozen creole families. George Bush needs to stop posturing about democracy and free market capitalism in the Middle East while he is helping prop up a feudal society across the Rio Grande.
Dean, if you won't consider the practical dangers of allowing this state of affairs to continue, then please consider the immorality and hypocrisy of allowing someone like Vicente Fox to lecture us on human rights and compassion. Mexico needs a political revolution and we are helping sustain the status quo. I'll meet Mr. Fox at one of his national prisons with television cameras anytime he wants. Then I will play the tape for you over and over again until you see what I see.
Dean, how about it?
"No offense, but duh. We spend tons on this, our systems get more and more effective all the time, and still we can barely slow down what's happening. We've been "enforcing the laws already on the books" for decades, and the problem has only worsened."
You're quite wrong. First, our border security could be enhanced with things like drones, high-tech sensors, etc. etc.
However, the main problem is enforcement in the interior. Once an illegal gets past the border, they're pretty much home free.
Other than Tyson (acquitted) and Wal*Mart, when's the last time you heard about a business being raided?
Our workplace enforcement is practically non-existent.
Like I said above, start putting executives in federal prison and this whole thing will straighten out in no time.
In line with Pat Brown's comment, here's an article on the effect of remittances on one Mexican village.
Also, before he became their foreign minister, Jorge Castaneda had a few interesting things to say about Mexico's ruling class in his columns.
Article about workplace enforcement:
Immigration officials often attribute the marked decline in workplace enforcement to a new focus on national security, saying that agents who once raided restaurant kitchens and construction sites have been reassigned to airports and nuclear plants.
But, in fact, the decline began four years before Sept. 11, 2001, as the frenetic economy drew foreign nationals into bottom-rung jobs Americans wouldn't take, and as federal immigration policy-makers focused on deporting criminals and fortifying the U.S.-Mexico border.
On some occasions when agents did swoop in, lawmakers howled to protect important business constituencies...
Bush/Ridge/Rove/Fox promise that this time, after this one last final amnesty, they will finally enforce the laws. No, really.
Except, even if they mean it (which I doubt), the same howls will be heard from the same people, and the same lack of enforcement will ensue. We'll still have illegal aliens. In fact, we'll have even more as millions move to the U.S. in expectation of the next amnesty (otherwise known as the one last final amnesty).
Sorry, let's try that again:
Article about workplace enforcement:
Bush/Ridge/Rove/Fox promise that this time, after this one last final amnesty, they will finally enforce the laws. No, really.
Except, even if they mean it (which I doubt), the same howls will be heard from the same people, and the same lack of enforcement will ensue. We'll still have illegal aliens. In fact, we'll have even more as millions move to the U.S. in expectation of the next amnesty (otherwise known as the one last final amnesty).
I don't have the answers or even know all the issues and nuances. But I am pro-immigration. I believe it will keep this country young after many, many others (weasels, are you listening?) are creaky and collapsing under the weight of their elderly, and thus keep us competitive and vital. Having lived in SoCal for over 30 yrs. I know what a problem illegal immigration is, but I also know whatever number of them we have (8 - 12 million, I keep reading), we won't deport them for many business, political and moral reasons. If we won't, and I don't believe we should, the only right thing to do is bring them into the system and eventually make them full-fledged participants in our society -- with rights AND responsibilities that go along with that. I'm not saying amnesty, but something has to happen. In CA, the economy is dependent on people everyone professes to be fed up with supporting with tax dollars and services. I suspect for fiscal and political reasons employers' feet are not held to the fire. Having a huge problem and refusing to fix or end it is absurd, and one of the reasons I was happy to leave CA (not that NY is any prize, believe me...I'm a woman without a state now, really) was that it had become simply absurd and surreal to live there. They refuse to deal in any realistic way with the huge numbers of people they now depend on.
Bring those people into the system, let them better themselves, join the real job market, own homes, use something better than Medicaid for their kids. I understand not wanting to reward illegal behavior, but this is reality: they're here.
Tighten the borders because security is all-important, but don't stop immigrants from coming. This is a country of immigrants and it makes us strong. Not to mention, in general the best people immigrate to the U.S., leaving the drones behind. (Another reason why THEY HATE US.) Let's keep the best coming here and strengthening the U.S.
First, let's dispense with the platitudes and misleading statements, like:
"But I am pro-immigration."
"This is a country of immigrants and it makes us strong."
"I also know whatever number of them we have (8 - 12 million, I keep reading), we won't deport them for many business, political and moral reasons."
From a national security perspective, it should be painfully obvious that having 12 million citizens of other countries in our own country is a bad thing. The fact that we couldn't deport all of them if we had to is even worse. No one else seems to be bothered by that apparently, so I guess it's not a danger or something...
However, thankfully, we don't have to deport them all. No cattle cars needed. Just make illegal immigration a very unprofitable activity for all concerned. Just enforce the laws we have on the books and that we should have been enforcing all along.
"I'm not saying amnesty"
You aren't Tom Ridge in disguise, are you? ;) He also doesn't want amnesty, or to reward illegal behavior. He just thinks "something" has to be done.
"In CA, the economy is dependent on people everyone professes to be fed up"
Some companies are indeed dependent on illegal labor. Some companies like dumping toxic waste. Let's stop both activities. Sure, some companies might go out of business. The economy might have a slight burp. However, new techniques will be invented, new companies will be born.
And, we won't need serf labor anymore.
Lonewacko, you mouth some pretty vacuous platitudes yourself. I didn't say I was against enforcing the laws. I just don't see it happening. That's the difference between being a dreamer and being a realist, and you, dear sir, are a supercilious dreamer. You did not begin to address what to do with the illegals here NOW.
Enforce the laws, punish the employers, and make the illegal immigrant industry unprofitable, and voila, they'll all go home? If I had the time and wherewithal I am sure I could dig up about 50K laws on the books we pay lipservice to and don't truly enforce. I feel fairly certain it is due to both political and fiscal considerations. We have to look at the problem realistically as it exists. This system has been in place a long time and is miserably broken and immoral. It is IMMORAL to base our economy on work from illegals. I'm not fond of Mexico or W's sucking up to Fox, but blaming them, while correct, is useless; we cannot dictate their economy and culture (what would France say?). None of the solutions is easy, but some are more doable than others, I am certain. Fine, let's have a national dialog. It's interesting and telling that many against the immigration policy being proposed are knee-jerk liberal naysayers and many of us defending and applauding it are -- oh, gasp! -- evil, racist, xenophobic conservatives. Funny, too, how you drag out the typical liberal bugaboos (like Tom Ridge). So predictable. Also, I am pro-immigration. I am in a continual battle with a Buchanan-loving friend over the issue and sealing the borders is not realistic. Although, if and when we are attacked again, I think the demand for enforced security will become much more powerful. And while necessary, I think it will be ineffective, and we will again lose yet more of what makes us America and what makes us unique.
Yeah, I gotta say to Lone Wacko: My brother was Border Patrol until only a couple of years ago. All these things you talk about wanting them to do or have, they are already doing, or already have. These guys have sensors that can spot an armadillo crossing the border a mile from their current position. It still isn't stopping the flow of people.
So I ask you again, Lonewacko: HOW MANY BILLIONS DO YOU WANT TO SPEND ON THIS?
And, IS THERE A BETTER WAY TO SPEND THOSE BILLIONS?
Have you even thought about what you're asking of businesses in America? And not just 3-piece suited executives at Fortune 500 companies either. But also the owner of your local 7-11 or Circle K, the owner of your local muffler shop, small business owners with five employees.
You are asking for all Americans to be required to prove citizenship and a "right to hold a job," and you are threatening to punish me as an employer if I blow it and hire someone I shouldn't have.
You're telling ME, as a small business owner with THREE employees, that if I screw up, I AM GOING TO JAIL FOR HIRING THE WRONG PERSON.
It is nowhere near as easy as you are making out.
Pat Brown: I have no respect for the way the Mexican government has run its affairs. They're doing better today than they were 20 years ago, but that is not saying much.
But I'm not hearing you answer my real question. Okay, you want the barbed wire fence and you want to be harsh on people who cross the border illegally.
So what?
What are you going to do to the owner of your local 7-11, your local Mexican food restaurant, the local garage owner, who hires the illegal?
Are you going to make the entirety of the United States a police state in which you must provide papers upon demand to prove that you are allowed to work? Are you going to put me--the small business owner with 10 employees--in jail if I hire the wrong person?
This is not a flip question. MOST PEOPLE WORK FOR SMALL BUSINESSES LIKE THAT, and not major corporations.
What you are proposing, amongst other things, is that all Americans be required to carry papers proving that they are actually Americans, or at least paperwork to prove that they are allowed to hold a job. And to enforce it, you are going to have to start putting people in jail for failing to check and verify the appropriate paperwork.
And the people you'll be putting in jail for those violations will not, as a rule, be executives making 7-figure salaries. The violators will most often be the people who own a gas station, or a restaurant.
In fact, I suggest that at worst, you'll be raiding people's homes, since a ton of illegals work as personal maids, gardeners, etc. for private households.
Are you going to raid my house if I have a maid who comes in 3 times a week, and it turns out that she's illegal?
I'm not being hyperbolic. I am being pragmatic. To do what you want to do, what will you turn America into?
And to re-iterate something I keep trying to say, that I think Pat Brown and Lone Wacko and others aren't getting:
I continually argue from the position of pragmatism.
THESE PEOPLE ARE HERE NOW, AND THEY ARE NOT GOING AWAY. We spend tens of billions of dollars already in efforts to try to keep them out, and it's like bailing water with a fork.
How many billions more must we spend before you are satisfied? And is there any better way to spend those billions? Possibly?
My suggestion to you is that a liberalized guest worker program--one which denies people access to social services until they've been taxpayers for at least 3 years (or 5 years, or pick your number), one which allows them to either work and go home on a daily basis, or stay here and get an apartment--is far more pragmatic, far more realistic, and far less intrusive upon the everyday American citizen, than any other option.
Yes the Mexican government is dysfunctional. Less so than it used to be, but that isn't saying much. What of it?
I ask you again: what are the negative sequalae of saying, "Okay, you're here. We aren't happy about it, but you're here. So if you're going to be here, then you are not entitled to social services until you've proven that you have contributed to our economy in a significant way in the last three years, you have not been a thief or a thug, and you have tried to play by the rules, hold a job, and be a contributor rather than a draw on our resources."
I'm sorry, but I continue to fail to see why that is not a better option than the current state of affairs, in which we piss away billions on mostly-futile enforcement efforts, and are now so desperate that we're talking about putting the owner of your local oil-change shop into jail for accidentally hiring an illegal.
Where am I wrong here?
Dean,
What do you propose the policy be to the illegals already receiving the billion dollar benefits which you suggest only be given after three-five years of 'liberalized' guest worker permits ?
Where are you wrong here ? It's very easy. You write about that of which you have very little real understanding.
"I just don't see [actually enforcing our laws] happening."
It was happening. We used to conduct raids. We no longer conduct raids.
"Enforce the laws, punish the employers, and make the illegal immigrant industry unprofitable, and voila, they'll all go home?"
That's pretty much it, along with withholding welfare from illegals.
"All these things you talk about wanting them to do or have, they are already doing, or already have."
They don't have everything. See, for instance, "Customs, Border Patrol may upgrade protection with aerial drones" from 6/03.
"THESE PEOPLE ARE HERE NOW, AND THEY ARE NOT GOING AWAY."
What you're saying sounds an awful lot like an invasion. One of the major reasons they're here now is because we let our guard down. We stopped doing enforcement in the interior, plus we passed all these "humanitarian" laws that make it easier to live here as an illegal alien.
If you don't do anything now, the problem will just get worse and worse. Ten years from now, people will be saying "these people are here now" about a whole new crop of millions of illegal aliens.
That's a crucial point: if we keep saying "these people are here now, they won't go home" they will not only never go home, but millions and millions more will come.
Let's consider this example: former MEChA member and current CA state senator Gil Cedillo wants to give driver's licenses to illegal aliens. He says it's for "public safety," but let's leave his Big Lie aside for the moment.
One of his justifications is that "these people are here now, they're going to drive anyway, we might as well give them licenses" or similar.
So, let's say we pass Gil's bill. What happens then? Millions of illegal aliens will be able to get real CA driver's licenses. That leads to a few things:
1. It will be much more difficult to tell them from legal residents and citizens.
2. They'll never leave. Why would they? There's no downside to being an illegal alien. They might as well be legal.
3. They'll tell their friends, and their friends will come to CA to get their DLs and live just like a legal resident/citizen.
In other words, giving them DLs will serve as a strong incentive to stay here and for others to come here.
On the other hand, let's say we don't pass Gil's bill. It will be more difficult to be an illegal alien here. It will serve as a disincentive to come here. It will make people think twice.
By adopting the posture that "they're here already, and they won't go home," we'll provide incentive after incentive for illegal aliens to come here.
As for enforcing our laws against harboring, transporting, or employing illegal aliens, small business owners would not be the initial target. Going after someone who employs one or three illegals doesn't have a good return.
We concentrate on agribusiness, sweatshops, janitor companies, etc. etc. Then we move to small business owners if that doesn't work.
Some people will still want to use crack even if it means they have to do it in prison. Employing illegal aliens is also an addiction, but it's not anywhere as bad as a crack addiction.
Very few employers want to end up in prison because they hired people they probably didn't even need in the first place.
Small business owners will be pretty much powerless when faced with the power of the feds. Executives will have a much better chance against the feds: they have more money and thus more of a voice in Washington. On the other hand, they have no natural constituency, so few "liberals" will raise much of a ruckus.
Dean,
What I am suggesting is not to be "harsh" on the illegals. Harsh is one of those innocuous little words one hears when one tries to get somebody off their rusty dusty or out of bed in the morning. What I am trying to suggest is that we do the difficult things to preserve our culture, our economy, our security, and our public health and safety.
What we are doing now is going to "Californiaize" the entire country. Immigration is going to continue well past the available job market demand. We are going to have
pandemics of pathogens we have not seen since the turn of the 20th Century. Our best and brightest are going to get fed up with this stealth foreign aid for Central America-the land of the feudal lord. They will quit competing and may even consider emigrating to other countries that are less self-destructive.
Face the facts. We are not living at the end of the 19th Century. We must put pressure on all countries to clean up their act with regard to the rights of their citizens, their education, and their opportunity. If we do not hold the line, then this country will ultimately be just another feudal state and will begin to look more and more like the Mexico of today.
Let me ask you some "harsh" questions. Why are you being so harsh on those wanting admittance to this country from Africa, Southeast Asia, India, the islands of the Pacific, etc..? Why do you deny them the equal protection of our laws? Why do you seem to believe that it's OK to ask American labor to pay into an entitlement system to support those who say they can't find work when obviously there is plenty of work? Oh yes, I forgot; there is plenty of work, but it's demeaning kind of work. You know, the kind of work only Mexicans will do. Tell me that isn't racist.
Here's another little "harsh" suggestion for public policy- You don't work; You don't eat. Boy, I bet that caused you to snear.
I don't know about you; but when I was going to school at UT and for a few years thereafter, I had a bunch of those demeaning jobs-cleaning toilets, sheetrocking, roofing, lawn maintenance, etc.. And you know what; it took the arrogance out of my hide.
Someone is going to have to start posturing for personal responsibility, accountability, thrift, diligence (hard work), and honesty in our public schools and in our propaganda arts or this country is going down. Watch closely what happens in California; it is the canary in the mine. As it goes, so goes the rest of the country; because the rest of the country is mimicking its public policy.
Oh yes, and about all of those jobs that are backbreaking stoop labor in the fields; consider the Great Depression and what people in this country had to do and did do to survive. I am sick and tired of urban America telling me that I have to import foreign labor to fill positions while they are sitting at home waiting for their unemployment compensation. I don't mind helping people out when they are truly in need. I'll just be damned, however, if I help any more folks who are simply in want.
Now when we address this gross injustice, then and only then will I advocate a defacto open border. In the meantime, I advocate putting pressure on those who say they can't find work and on those who run the corrupt economy of Mexico.
If we do the hard things now and quickly, there is chance that we can remediate the sloth and indolence, the corruption and greed, the ignorance, the unhealthful promiscuity, and the mind numbing self-indulgence of this society. All of the aforementioned problems are the result of too much liesure time and too little responsibility. We are fat and lazy and we are squandering our inheritance. Just like the Roman Patricians who began importing slave labor from their conquered territories to work on the latifundia, we are sewing the same seed of our own decline.
Now, if all of this sounds to nationalistic for you, I suggest that you dust off some of your textbooks and read about the problems associated with economies of scale. Until someone proves otherwise, I don't believe our species has the smarts right now to run the planet out of one office. A country at a time, yes maybe. You know a country where everybody can understand eachother when they are trying to communicate that the child is drowning in the swimming pool or how many anchovies they want on their pizza.
Salute
I hope that the subject of illegal immigration is revisited on Dean's World. IMO there is a real need for a greater understanding of all aspects of this subject, some points of which have been mentioned during this string.
I have only two points.
1. There really is little to no legal local authority that address's illegal immigration, primarily because the RESPONSIBILITY for immigration rests with the FEDERAL government.
That needs to be understood. Local law enforcement officers know that, and that's why they are hampered. They cannot speak out because they have their jobs to protect.
2. Any arguments raised, and points debated must be predicated on "real" facts and not on "theories".
Let our education begin and continue.