The Immigration Debate Cries Out for Honesty
What is the immigration debate in need of most?
It depends on whom you ask. Conservatives say it requires more toughness, a willingness to seal the border and round up illegal immigrants. Liberals say it could use more compassion, an understanding that many of those who come to the United States illegally do so for a better life just like earlier waves of immigrants.
They’re both wrong. What the immigration debate needs most isn’t toughness or compassion. It’s honesty. Whether it is to make their camp look better or to make it easier to discredit their opponents, people on both sides of this argument sure do spend a lot of time and energy denying the obvious.
On the right, that means accepting some hard truths: that racism and ethnocentrism are part of this discussion and they have been since the first immigrants arrived in the 18th century; that many of those who rail against illegal immigration also want to limit legal immigration even if they’re reluctant to admit it; that cities and states that complain about the cost of illegal immigration also benefit from it through taxes and a more productive business climate; that illegal immigration is a self-inflicted wound that some cities and states bring upon themselves and some don’t; that illegal immigrants do not usually take jobs away from Americans but rather do jobs that Americans won’t do; and that it is simply not the case that lazy and entitled young Americans in particular would rush out and do the kind of hard and dirty jobs their grandparents did if only employers paid higher wages.
Without taking sides on any of the specifics of illegal immigration, I want to speak up for the importance of permitting legal immigration.
We should not forget that we are a nation of immigrants.
Of more current importance: The continuing immigration of people seeking better lives for themselves brings fresh blood to our country, helps keep our culture young and vital, and is an important part of what prevents us from becoming like Europe.
Sensible immigration “reform” isn’t going to happen with the current congress and current president.
It just isn’t.
The Democrats running the current congress want illegal immigrants given amnesty for their votes. It could be any illegals, from anywhere; they just happen to be mostly Mexican, because Mexico’s our neighbor.
All they have to be is poor and uneducated, so they can be bribed with promises from the welfare state.
The problem is, we can’t afford them, because we can’t afford the welfare state.
The welfare state is a self-consuming monster.
We can’t afford Social Security and Medicare as they are currently structured, and we can’t afford any of the Democrats’ health care plans.
We can’t afford our illegal alien population, period. We can’t afford to educate their children, we can’t afford to treat them at our hospitals, and we can’t afford to maintain X number of them in our prisons.
“We can’t afford it” is the answer to most of our problems — but it ain’t gonna be embraced by this congress and this president.
Honestly, it just doesn’t bother me anymore when someone calls me a racist. That particular accusation has lost it’s power.
As usual, Democrats will be calling everyone who opposes their immigration “reform” racists. That ain’t gonna change.
This is a fact of how Democrats “negotiate”.
Ruben, you are the dishonest one. Tom Tancredo’s proposal is to limit legal immigration to 300,000 per year, not stop it per the very link you cited http://vdare.com/francis/tancredo_moratorium.htm. What were you hoping? That no one would look at the references and merely accept what you say? Maybe people who have never read your articles before would skip the details, but not those of us who are familiar with your writing. What we should do is pick the best and brightest illegals who have proven that they are wealth creators and producers and impose a fine that they must pay over a specified period at which time they can get legal status and apply for citizenship, the latter to apply only to the immediate family, husband, wife and children. The borders need to be secured, and then the rest of the illegals should be kicked out of the country. Illegals in college should not be given amnesty as Gutierrez proposes. By the way, how does one define ‘good moral character’? And who will define it? The “Dream Act” should remain just that…a fantasy.
This author exposes his own hypocrisy, bias and blindness with amazing clarity.
A call for “honesty”, Mr. Rubennette?!
Only a Leftist could pretzel-twist the decades-long illegal immigration/residency/working crisis as an “immigration” debate.
What a dishonest – and inept – attempt to conceal and redirect the core problem.
Nice article, but I still have one major problem with it.
Please stop with the canard that there are “jobs Americans won’t do”. Ever seen an episode of “Dirty Jobs”? There’s been more than a few of them that I don’t think I could ever do, short of being held at gunpoint. Yet there are people out there doing them, day after day.
Americans won’t work for below minimum or without proper safety equipment. Many employers of illegal labor take advantage of the facts that their workers don’t know about normal work standards or are too frightened to ask for decent pay or protective gear. Hitting the employers where it hurts, like Arizona has been trying to do with eVerify, is the only way to get them to knock this revolting practice off.
Reuben: Maybe you haven’t seen your business, that has been built up by years of hard work, severely damaged by illegal immigration, but I have. . .don’t expect me to feel sympathy for a group of people who have taken away my family’s income because they will work for cash only, for a third or more less than what I can do the same work for (I have to pay for insurance and worker’s comp, they don’t.)
You know what else the debate needs? Less knee-jerk equivocation… which is, in its own right, a form of dishonesty.
Ruben, You are a one-trick pony. The vast majority of the time that you write pieces for PJM, they are about Hispanic issues (usually pro-ILLEGAL immigration).
When it comes to “illegal immigration” there are NOT two sides to the issue. You are either here legally or you are an “Illegal”. It really is that simple. We do not need people lecturing good hearted Americans about why our belief in legal immigration REALLY means we are racists. That is a bogus argument. Lets really be honest and discuss the real motives of liberals and their pro illegal immigration argument. Is it because these morons are kind and gentle people who care about the world’s poor like the Mexicans etc. It is simply another mechanism for these control freaks to obtain power. So quit whining. We actually are NOT in favor of “rounding up” illegals. We want all employers to check their status. If they are not legal, NO JOBS. Is that clear enough?
Ruben, just what part of ‘illegal’ don’t you understand?
1. seal the border so no one crosses without papers, no matter how many.
2. return illegals arrested for a felony to Mexico, regardless of origin
3. leave honest, hard working tax paying illegals ALONE.
And Navarette: drop the redneck bashing, will you?
We act as though this is a onetime issue and once we make a decision to possibly legalize
illegal aliens, once we decide what they would need to do to atone for breaking the law, that everything will be settled. That is crazy and it has nothing to do with racism and ethnocentrism.
This is ongoing.
There is a constant flow of people coming into our borders. What should we do, just let everyone who is coming become citizens because they made it here? If we think we have swollen borders now, let’s just make it easy for illegals to become legal and see what happens.
How about we just follow the law.
that cities and states that complain about the cost of illegal immigration also benefit from it through taxes and a more productive business climate; that illegal immigration is a self-inflicted wound that some cities and states bring upon themselves and some don’t; that illegal immigrants do not usually take jobs away from Americans but rather do jobs that Americans won’t do; and that it is simply not the case that lazy and entitled young Americans in particular would rush out and do the kind of hard and dirty jobs their grandparents did if only employers paid higher wages.
Ok, Ruben, let’s talk honestly then. But, those crying for an honest conversation, quite often…don’t want anything of the kind. They usually want their opinion recited back to them, only in a whimpering, guilt-tripped, mewling voice.
First, I did not copy above the old canard…the race card. White, heterosexual, Christian, males…are by now so used to everything that’s wrong being about them…the little boy that cried wolf, that it has lost its impact and really doesn’t advance any argument. Frankly, it has long since passed the point where the reverse is true. “Acceptable” stereotyping and slandering exists in America today, but largely against certain ethinic and religious groups…and one whole region of the country. It’s “acceptable” in the “educated class” circles to slander Christians. Southerners. White males. And…any non-leftist.
It is interesting to watch, how moderates and independents are “lumped in” when it is convenient.
Let’s talk honestly, then…Ruben. Not about the “easy” pickin’s of the former, but about the latter.
Independents and moderates do not hold any of the smear attributes of the “easy slander” of the race card. As a rule, they are compassionate and open…by every statistical or anecdotal measure.
And, the still believe that breaking and entering is a crime. That forming gangs that commit atrocities and break down communities with threats of violence, is a boil that needs to be lanced.
They believe that one party aiding and abetting untrained, uneducated and unskilled folks to break and enter this country for the purposes of creating a permanent underclass…is a cynical and crass way to “buy” voters with taxpayers money. Then they tax only the folks who oppose the scheme in the first place, mostly.
They believe that fair play and decency requires that those who “want a better life here”, ought to carry our flag right side up. They ought to want to be here, rather than just use us as an ATM.
That, if they have “family values”, some of those values ought to be that you don’t cheat, lie, steal, …from your own government.
I hear that Americans would not do the jobs that those who break and enter, take on fake Social Security numbers, and stress our health care and education…as well as law enforcement systems do.
I don’t buy it. There’s no suggestion that farms in Minnesota or North Dakota or Iowa would not survive without a horde of people who sneak into those states. American culture adapted and survived just fine without resorting to breaking commonsense rules about entry into the country.
Legal immigration is a wonderful thing. Our brethren from Spaniard- conquered lands near and far have risen to great heights here. Nobody is suggesting that should stop….or even slow down.
But, if honesty is what one wants, then let’s start at the point of honesty. One party sees a chance to make a vote grab for up to a tenth of our population, via the building of a permanent underclass. That party then uses the illegals…and the illegals use America right back.
Honestly, the only one who loses in that scenario…is the honest taxpayer.
Mr Navarette, you call for honesty in the immigration debate. What’s the first thing you do? I won’t call it a lie, I’m in a generous mood, I’ll just call it a distortion: “Conservatives say it requires more toughness, a willingness to seal the border and round up illegal immigrants.”
“Conservatives” don’t call for rounding up illegal immigrants. I’m sure you could find a couple, who do, but that is not the mainstream conservative position.
So, much for honesty. BTW, I read your articles on immigration for several years, you call for honesty now, does that mean you were being dishonest the rest of the time?
There is so much wrong with this essay, it is hard to know where to begin. Mr. Navarrette makes assertions unsupported by facts, in particular for those “on the right”. In addition, the tone is decidedly preachy, since Mr. Navarrette is actually a progressive attempting to disguise his agenda within a typically banal mantle of moral equivalence.
For an in-depth look at immigration, I would suggest reading Heather MacDonald of the Manhattan Institute. Her conclusions depend on real numbers and logical analysis, and they are almost completely in opposition to those passed off in the essay above.
Avoid closet progressives like Mr. Navarrette, who are unable to rise above their postmodern narratives, and who represent yet another example of why the Old Left Media are steadily losing readership and becoming irrelevant to the national dialogue.
Actually, this conservative DOES call for rounding up illegal immigrants.
Illegal immigrations is illegal. There are no “good moral character” illegals because THEY ARE ALL FELONS by mere fact of being here. I have no issue with legal immigrants from any country, although I do think we need to try for the best and brightest and not the unskilled masses. And being married to a hispanic, charges of racism don’t really fly with me.
And the “jobs americans won’t do” line is just bullcrap. Americans will do any job. If they need a little incentive, well let’s do something about the permanent welfare class. Take away their monthly free money, they’ll be glad to pick cotton like my mom did or pave roads like my dad did summers while in college and law school, for a legal wage.
The bottom line is we DO need to seal our borders to illegals, we DO need to make sure employers pay dearly for hiring the ones already here, and we need to prosecute those who aid and abet them. No jobs, no housing, they’ll leave on their own, no need to round them up. And that is my truthful opinion as a conservative SANCHEZ family member.
OH! I GET IT! If I rob a bank and keep the money and live well for 10 years then I just have to pay a little fine and can be a upstanding citizen from then on out. NOT! We did this once. We had “common sense” immigration reform under Reagan. We are now in a worse position. YOU are the one being dishonest.
Here’s a truth: we limit immigration for a reason and that reason is our infrastructure can only expand at a certain rate to accomodate population growth. When you have the population grow too fast due to illegal immigration, you create problems such as high traffic, overcrowded schools and no money for government social programs.
The high amount of low-skilled labor depresses wages, which the government artificially supports through a minimum wage, encouraging more illegal immigration.
To say illegal immigrants do the jobs “Americans won’t do” betrays an ignorance of Economics 101. The law of Supply and Demand dictates that everyone has their price, and will do any work if the price is high enough.
If the Left were to be honest, then they’d admit what their *real* interest is: creating millions and millions of Democrat insta-votes. (That’s not counting the ones already voting via ACORN and La Raza).
I’ve a modest proposal. Let’s annex Mexico, make it the fifty first state, and get it over with. That should stop all the whining from the left about “racist America”. That should stop all the whining from the conservative California grape growers about no grape pickers. Mexico will finally get a rule of law and real civil rights. Current American social security recipients will have the new workers to support the retired. There would be a new Mexican oil boom, and imagine all those new beachs for condo developments. Cowabunga dude. Let’s do it. Now that’s what I call progressive positive change. Of course, that means congress will have to divvy up some of those seats to make room for those new representitives–and share the power. Oops.
Honestly, Ruben N. are you capable of writing anything except the same crap about your beloved Illegal Aliens and your hatred for US Citizens and their ‘biggotted’ desire for all to obey our Laws. Why does PJ keep publishing this creep?
Kind of a superficial, straw-man, sloganeering analysis.
I think there is a little-stated fairness issue here. Many good folks from other countries want to go to america, but are not able to because they are law abiding and must wait in decades long quota queues. Illegals are jumping the line, so to speak, and cheating others out of a chance to come to america.
We also know businesses use illegals to bypass employment law. The influence of business keeps the republicans and democrats looking the other way on illegal immigration. As anne coulter pointed out, all we need to do to eliminate illegal immigration is to pass a law allowing illegals standing to sue for overtime and other benefits that are mandated by employment law.
The debate needs more honesty, and this author’s contribution didn’t extend much beyond his headline. Certainly the claim that racism is an inherent part of opposing immigration adds nothing new to the debate.
Let’s say we live in an alternate universe where your specious claims of racism on the part of illegal immigration opponents are true. In fact, in this alternate universe they’re all a bunch of sheet-wearing, swastika-tattooed skinheads. Guess what. It doesn’t matter. Their arguments are still valid.
Go look up ‘ad hominem fallacy.’
Here’s some honesty for you:
- Illegals are a burden on society
- Illegals are skewing the free-enterprise system by depressing wages
- Illegals seldom assimilate
- Illegals come here to shirk their responsibility to make things better in their own countries
- Illegals bring crime with them
- Illegals are some of the most violent and bloodthirsty gangsters anywhere
- Illegals cluster together to live, resulting in depressed housing values, high crime, deterioration of moral integrity and a heavy burden on police and public health infrastructure (think “barrio”)
- Illegals generally produce large families full of children they do not bother to teach English, further burdening School systems
- Illegals demand that the rest of us accommodate their refusal to assimilate by having to “press 1 for english”, print public forms in other languages & etc.
- The net economic impact of illegals on the community is always negative!
And the most obvious truth: Ruben Navarrette Jr. is a racist! (Viva La Raza, no?)
Yeah, the more I think about it, the more Mexico as the fifty first state is the way to go. The left can’t complain about neocolonialism anymore–how can you colonize yourself? Conservatives can’t complain about an inadequate labor force of disenfranchised “helots.” Beverly Hill’s liberals can keep their pristine beaches and Alaskan north slope parks while conservative business exploits Mexican oil fields. The left will have a new mission for the next one hundred years bringing real civil rights and the rule of law to Mexico–perhaps legalizing mind altering drugs to pay for it. Congressional liberals will have to tolerate fifty new catholic congressmen from the new state of Mexico not really into gay marriage. Of course, the Black Caucus in congress–where only black skin can be a member–will probably not be happy at the influx of more Mexican congressman. Hell, what do you say, Rubin, we can annex Haiti too? We could use another island in the sun, and will keep the Black Caucus happy.
Yes, Ruben, let’s be honest.
You say “On the right, that means accepting some hard truths: that racism and ethnocentrism are part of this discussion” That sentence includes a link. I assume you think that this is supposed to illustrate your “hard truth”. In fact, your link is to a Time magazine opinion piece. (Note: The opinion label is assumption on my part. The page is not marked as opinion and it is possible that you and Time consider this actual fact-based news.) If anyone didn’t read the Time story here is the complete and overwhelming evidence that opponents of illegal immigration are actually racist:
1. John Gibson on Fox News told white people to have more babies.
2. Democrat Ken Salazar has “no doubt” that racism is part of the issue.
3. An unnamed Democrat says “A lot of the anti-immigration movement is jingoistic at best and racist at worst.”
Well, that certainly proves that we’re all racist. Obviously, John Gibson speaks for everyone opposed to illegal immigration, and Ken Salazar is infallible.
Ruben, if you want to have an honest debate, all you have to do it stop lying.
I had to re-read the opening paragraphs again to be sure this wasn’t satire. I mean this would make a great skit on Saturday Night Live; “welcome to our workshop where we will all come together and discuss immigration like reasonable, logical people. Everyone for amnesty please sit on the left and all you racists please sit on the right. “
Anyway I did want to make a non-racist point about all of this. Living in southern California it is very easy to see how people benefit from reduced market prices on everything from gardening services to dining out – driven by lower labor rates of illegal workers. It is also easy to establish that we pay a very large price through the associated drain on our public resources and health care system. So what is going on here is actually a quite large transfer of wealth from citizens who pay taxes and for their own health care to all those among us who avail themselves of these lower prices on goods and services. However, for the most part, these are the same people and it would be hard to parse the population into winners and losers.
The only real losers are very young people desiring to enter the workplace in some way and the relatively unskilled, unemployed of all ages. They are muscled out because they are not in a position to participate in this law-and-regulation-avoiding economy.
Now let’s do a thought experiment and imagine that all workers in Southern California are legal and in full compliance with all immigration laws, labor laws and taxation regulations. Surely the price of everything will go up but these increases will go primarily to Federal, state and local governments – who will in turn have less drain on their coffers due to fewer participants in entitlement programs. So it seems the real winners in better border and labor law enforcement are government agencies.
So isn’t everything upside down here. The political factions that support amnesty and lax immigration control are Democrats – the supposed champions of the working man and advocates of big government. But these groups are the most hurt by the failure to enforce laws and regulations in immigration, labor and taxation.
“If the Left were to be honest, then they’d admit what their *real* interest is: creating millions and millions of Democrat insta-votes.”
Exactly.
Nothing like turning America into Mexico to turn-off people from wanting to illegally OR legally immigrate here.
America is already going broke. WTF?
Here’s a real truth for the closet racists like this author to ponder: Am I a racist because I’m opposed to the ILLEGAL immigration of large numbers of racists into my country?
That’s right, you heard me, racist illegal immigration into my country of Hispanic people who I find are very often racists against me and my people.
Notice I’m not saying all of them are racists, but I know from my own experience that many, many of them are. Why do people always give minority racists a free pass while gaping and gasping at any racism perceived on their part by the majority of Americans?
Lefties and closet racist lefties like this Reuben character believe that only Whitey can truly be a racist regardless of what all us common people know.
Ruben, you lying sack of s…t, how could you!
The fact of the matter is that many Americans do not wish to live in a multiracial, multicultural country. The people who live in the large urban areas accept that American is multiracial country as a given, because that has been the reality in the Urban areas for a very long time. However, the people who live in the rural areas live in a much more racially and culturally homogeneous environment. This, I think, is one of the great unacknowledged divides in the Modern United States, and how to reconcile these two realities is a challenge.
The Democrats do not seem as thought they wish to limit immigration at this point. It seems that the only was we will see some kind of change of the status quo on the border is if we either have a major security incident that is traced back to the border, or a major economic incident that causes such high unemployment that illegal immigration becomes an untenable position for the Democrats. Other than that, it is hard to imagine a change to the status quo.
Comment #14, #20 and others are wonderful comments.
Ah, Ruben Navarette again calling the Right, Conservatives, Right leaning Independents ‘racists’.
Perhaps you ‘forgot’ that uber liberal Chris Matthews and liberal Senate Majority Leader harry Reid are the recent d ingleberries to make an idiotic comment regarding one’s race (or ‘the One’, whichever moniker you like).
Rube, if it wasn’t for identity politics and the blatant undermining consequences of EEO policy, you wouldn’t be espousing such biased nonsense.
Now you are claiming to be the bipartisan, honest intellectual who wants to champion discussion? That’s a laugh.
I will add there is a sad darwinian aspect to allowing law-breaking illegals to populate one’s country while keeping law-abiding citizens out. Many who would treasure being able to come and live in america are sucessful in their own countries and do not want to give that all up to live the life of an illegal. Those who have nothing to lose on the other hand are more likely to be illegal.
As to the ‘racist’ label. I have a glib and thoughtful response. The glib response is that to the left, a racist is somone who is winning an argument with a liberal.
The more thoughtful response is that conservatives believe in a color-blind government. Many, if not almost all, liberals believe that somone who opposes ‘curative’ reverse racism and advocates a color-blind society is a racist. They won’t admit it if you state it that simply, but that is their reality.
So, by both liberal definitions, I am proudly and unabashedly a racist!
And I will observe that justifying curative racism with historical injustices completely insulates one from claims that racism is not a significant factor in the here and now.
PS. The genius of justifying curative racism based on historical racism rather than today’s reality (thereby insulating curative racism from many attacks) explains why black studies departments which research and teach about historical injustices are such an essential part of the liberal dynamic.
Conservatives believe that liberal policies are ruining this country and only conservative ones can save it. Convince us that, once legalized, currently illegal immigrants will vote 90%-100% for conservative candidates and we might show some interest in their ‘problems’. Until then, buzz off, clown…
I see little condemnation here for the native-born Americans who hire them.
It takes two to tango. Or – no demand, no supply.
Here is the truth you might want to consider. When you use the term “racism” or “ethnocentrism” to skew the argument in your favor you really should be using the word CULTURE. BIG DIFFERENCE RUBEN. Each country is characterized by certain traits. We just saw what happened in Haiti because of their cultural beliefs. If we transported all those people here and sent the same amount of Americans to Haiti, want to bet you would see a world of difference in each country? Want to bet in which direction the difference would go? The problem is Ruben, YOU don’t want to listen to anyone and you keep “interpreting” the arguments of the right to destroy them. It’s just another version of that question “when did you stop beating your wife”. We are in the midst of a cultural crisis in America. The left in order to exploit their power and destroy what they hate has pushed for “muticulturalism” which is just another way of denigrating our own culture. So when people from different cultures arrive they are told to ignore that of the host country, set up their own little enclaves and DEMAND WE CONFORM TO THEM. This is unprecedented in human history. And it grates against the very nature of human beings. If you demanded that all speak English, no more foreign languages and accommodations etc, you might see a different attitude. WE also HAVE TO KEEP OUT PEOPLE FROM CULTURES WHICH ARE BENT ON DESTROYING US!! Or is that “racist” too???? You might want to consider this Ruben: many of us object to people coming here because we WANT THEM TO BE A PART OF OUR FAMILY. And they don’t. IF THIS DESIRE TO EXPAND OUR FAMILY IS NOT A DEFINITION OF INCLUSION AND REGARD THAT WHAT IS????? It is the insistence that they remain on the outside and deride that rankles. We want them to be like all others who have gone before: people who embrace this country, shed their former country, and embrace our culture. When that happens you will see a great deal of opposition fade away.
That’s it Rubin, just think of Mexico as the fifty first state–as a twenty first century continuation of nineteenth century Manifest Destiny, but on higher postindustrial, post racial, progressive basis. Under NAFTA Mexico is already a sort of unofficial territory anyway. After all, before the heyday of consensus “scientific racism” in the 19th century, political and economic disputes happened under the guise of religious disputes and religious wars. For awhile there I thought we were going to have new wars in the name of consensus climate change science. Now that we’ve settled the racial issue and the bogus climate science, we can go back to settling bad economic behavior patterns using religious symbolism again–imperial Islam makes it easy even for the atheist and the deist to hate it–progress through war is the history. And even better, since Islam really stimulated the European Enlightenment, according to President Obama, Islam is really responsible for their colonization by those advanced, backward infidels. Karma, what goes around comes around. Baby boomers are going to need some cheap retirement villas on the Sea of Cortez once the security situation is straightened out.
I have an opposite thought. To make amends for our imperalist past, I suggest we give mexico southern california.
We have an invasion here in America. It is mostly caused by the poor from Mexico. Why should I pay for the poor from Mexico healthcare, or food, or housing, and jail/trial costs?
No Sir! Contain the enemy in Afganistan, bring home a majority of our military, and secure the southern border. No? We secured south Korea’s border with their northern neighbor. Bring those troops home to.
No more aid to countries until America is taken care of first. The housing market crash placed on the America tax payer, can be placed on those countries that held the housing ballons that went belly up in the first place.
The southern border of America can be improved. Providing jobs for Mexico, and America. All illegal aliens out of the country. They are welcome to work on the southern improvement work program. Plus, the younger illegal aliens are welcome into America’s armed forces.
Islam is the religion of the enemy. No more Muslims allowed into this country, and those preaching hate deported.
We are a country of laws, or we are not. Pick one.
Oh no……Ruben is another Jesse HiJackson! Good gosh, can anything happen is the United States that is NOT tied to race????? I think Ruben is the one that needs to face some truths.
I love when this bigot writes articles. It shows just how depraved and dishonest the pro-illegal people are.
Some of you are wrong. I am a conservative and feel that everyone of the illegals should leave the US and anyone who has had a child in the US should have that kid lose its citizenship. We need to get rid of the amendment that give citizenship to every jerk that is dropped. If this were the first time we had to consider this problem then I would be more free about the situation. The way to get rid of them? Jail the employers. I am not racist in this, my opinion would be the same if we were talking about 30 million hot women.
Honestly, I really don’t think a solid line can be well drawn between legal and illegal immigrants. There was a family a couple years ago in a nearby small town that got deported. They thought they were here legally because they’d filled out their paperwork, but after a couple of decades here they discovered that they’d missed a form that hadn’t been handed to them by mistake, and the law wouldn’t let them just remedy the mistake and get on with their citizenship. They spoke English, worked productively, wanted to be citizens, and were pillars of the community, and yet there are plenty of people here on PJM who have nothing but contempt for this family and want to deport their @$$es back to Mexico.
On the other end of the spectrum are some MS-13 gangbangers who come here for the sole purpose of doing evil. I bet at least half the illegal Mexican immigrants want them deported too.
Somewhere in the middle are people who would prefer to earn an honest living but can’t afford to hire an immigration lawyer to walk them through the complicated process of immigrating legally. If we made legal immigration cheaper and easier than hiring a coyote, I’d bet a good deal of them would come over legally. And if they have their own identities, why would they bother stealing yours? If they know they’re not going to be turned over to La Migra for asking for a hard hat or a raise, don’t you think they’d ask?
Ruben Navarrette makes legitimate points about honesty. No doubt immigration reform broken. I can honestly say if I were in an immigrant’s shoes, with little ability to feed my family, I’d be crawling the wall too. I’m sure many of these “illegals” have roofed my home, done repair work, trimmed my trees as they did last spring. Hard workers and talented in their particular field. Friendly folk, for the most part.
But Navarrette is blatantly dishonest if he won’t admit this. Many illegals make absolutely no attempt at assimilation. There is a responsibility in being an American citizen that supersedes bringing your own culture – one must learn to blend within the establishment. Many illegals can’t speak a word of English and make no attempt at learning the language or the established laws. Go to any emergency room with an influx of illegals, and I’ll show you chaos as I’ve experienced – from hiring translators to free health care. But it comes at a cost.
In my town, we’ve had hundreds of illegals take residence in well established lower middle class neighborhoods, only to be quickly followed by blight, filth and excessive violent crime.
So I’m open to suggestion Mr. Navarrette. But if you and I are to have an honest debate, let’s not ignore the problems illegals immigrants south of the border have first caused having nothing to do with racism. Let’s not ignore the Democratic party willing to trade public money for votes. If that admission makes me racist to state the truth, so be it.
The United States has English roots and has every right to preserve its identity. If you call that racism, fine. I have no problem with it.
You would think with a real unemployment rate of 15% – 17% the republicans and democrats would try to do something like, send some of the illegals back to where ever they came from and try to get some citizens back to work and paying tax.
The main problem with democrats is they want all the 17,000,000 illegals on the voting rolls. Just like the 125,000 Haitians that was brought over here in 2004, to vote for Al Gore.
The United States is on the same path as Rome was right before it’s collapse. A free nation cannot keep ignoring the law because it benefits the Democratic party. We can take a look at our Congress and Senate and especially obama who has gone wild doing stupid things that hurt this country. Some of the things obama and this democratic congress has done, we will never, ever, ever, ever be able to recover from.
THE WORD RACIST IS THE #1 SCAM IN THE USA.
In America, if they don’t like you, or want to steal your money but you won’t let them, want to invade your country but you love your country, or they can’t win an argument with you, they call you racist.
That is the number 1 scam in America. I have now realized one thing–the people who use the word racist are basically scam artists. Unable to argue with the fact or logic, they fall back upon the old hackneyed dirty trick of calling their victim “racist.”
So how do we deal with such people?
They should realize that name-calling invites name calling. When patriots start calling the pro-alien people alienists, human-trafficking proponents, libbarbarians, race-baiters, etc., maybe they will stop playing the race scam.
Dear Mr. Navarrette,
I am conservative (adjective, not noun). In fact, I voted for Barry Goldwater for president. I also lived in the Southwest for more than 30 years. I like and respect the Mexican people. Believe me, I haven’t found a decent chili relleno or sopapilla in the 5 years I’ve lived in Florida.
We will not see effective immigration reform in the foreseeable future. The one solution that might gather bi-partisan support – a guest worker program – is adamantly opposed by organized labor. The unions killed the bracero program.
I, like you, think that we would be much better off if we came up with a solution that addresses the problems on the ground. Perhaps I might suggest that the Tea Party movement is part of the solution. They seem to have far fewer button to push and far less dependence on interest group influence than the established parties.
Regards,
Roy Lofquist
Titusville, Florida
“that cities and states that complain about the cost of illegal immigration also benefit from it through taxes”
Oh, really? I live in a rural community and I do not doubt that they are a serious drain on a small town. Every year we treat illegals who have been hurt at work (btw, I work at the hospital here). We’re not talking minor injuries. We’re talking about serious industrial accidents, the life and limb threatening kind that require surgery, hospital stays and if it involves a wound will also need weeks or even months of intravenous antibiotic wound care (that’s what happens when you get hurt working around animals). Since they are illegal they can’t file for workman’s compensation and they don’t have health insurance. Medicare, which provides payment for emergency care for illegals, does not do so when it is a work related illness or injury. The illegal patient doesn’t have that kind of money and so most don’t even try to pay anything for their care. I doubt that the taxes illegals pay comes close to matching the amount our little hospital spends every year on providing their medical care. Year before last our hospital spent over a million dollars in uncompenstated care for illegals and other’s who needed urgent and emergency care. That doesn’t include uncompensated amounts for doctors, radiologists, surgeons, ambulances and other emergency services that are often-times needed. Even if our hospital were not legally required to provide life saving treatment to anyone who needs it, regardless of abilty to pay, we would do it anyway. It’s the right thing to do. But with illegal immigration growing at a fast pace, I wonder how long we can keep it up?
You want honesty,Ruben and I will give you one. From my perspective as a green card holder in the process of applying for citizenship, I have found out some unpleasant truths about US immigration policies and most of them you will personally not like. While it is true that racism and ethnocentrism should be part of the discussion, most of the discussion only focused on the racism and ethnocentrism of white Americans while ignoring the extremely overt racism and ethnocentrism of Hispanic, Asian, Arabic and African groups, some of the worse ones came from south of the US border.
Second, in regards to legal immigration, to compensate for the legalization of illegal immigrants, the United States government slows down the paperwork of people who applied for legal immigration in their home countries and for those who are applying for their green card here in the US or change their immigration status to legal immigrant, they are required to take English tests, pay the application fees and endure the long wait while those who want to change their immigration status are required to return home to their native lands in order the US government process their application form which btw, takes between 3 to 6 years or more depending on the backlog whereas illegal immigrants with full solid political support from lobbyists and politicians have the advantage to wait it out here and if given amnesty, have an easier and financially cheaper path to citizenship than any legal immigrants would ever have and that includes those who are currently serving in the US military.
Third , illegal immigrants especially of Hispanic descent have a much distinct advantage than the vast majority of legal immigrants. If given the opportunity by Lobbying groups like RAZA and ACORN, they have the opportunity to cast votes in elections and many took that opportunity to do just that using fake documentations.
Fourth , illegal immigrations do steal jobs from Americans especially poor Americans and honestly, there are no jobs that Americans would not do whether the job would make an American an apple picker, a garbage sorter, janitor, a short order cook, a maid, a street sweeper and etc,etc considering that even as late as the eighties, many americans were recorded to do these same cannot do jobs. The only reason why Americans cannot do those jobs because they were not given an opportunity to do those jobs.
Fifth, the vast majority of legal immigrants desire assimilation to the American way of life while in contrast, the vast majority of illegal immigrants have no desire to do so even those who were given amnesty and had the fast tracked US citizenship handed down to them for free.
I can play your game Ruben because as I have noticed, the country south of the United States border have a very strict set of immigration laws which even an American or a naturalized Mexican will have to abide. And in case you have not notice, Mexicans are not very tolerant of illegal immigrants especially those who violate their laws and that includes the gringos up north.
Some important questions to ask, with some of my own answers:
- What kinds of immigrants do you want? A: Young, hard-working, law-abiding and willing to integrate. If they can speak English, they will integrate better – give them “points” to make it easier to come.
- What kinds of immigrants will be attracted to an opportunity to work v.s. an opportunity to milk off the government for welfare, benefits etc? A: Honest work will attract the kinds of immigrants you want. Don’t provide any benefits to illegal immigrants, and less of them will come. Provide more jobs legally, and more will come legally. What is more likely to help immigrants integrate, a spanish language public education or a job? Obviously, a job.
- Why are the rules broken? My A: Rules are usually broken if they are meant to be broken, if they are unrealistic to begin with. The kinds of jobs taken by the illegals are often those below the minimum wage. In general the minimum wage forces out those without skills, which often means the youth. Americans without a job are better off living off welfare, but the demand for such workers sometimes still exists. If you abolish the minimum wage, the youth will take those jobs, if you take away that honey, along with the honey of free benefits, the bees won’t come.
- What effect does the consistent and unpunished breaking of the law have on society at large? A: I think the answer is obvious, a corrupting influence that increases crimes and reduces trust in the rule of law.
Also I think that the people who are receiving the welfare and other benefits today are afraid that illegal immigrants will take away more of their free pie. Moochers don’t like new moochers. Heck, nobody likes moochers. The illegal immigrants are often a drain, not a net benefit, because they get more out of hospitals, education system, and don’t pay taxes since their jobs are illegal. And illegal immigrants often engage in other crimes besides working, as the system they exist in encourages them to break the law, and become dependent on criminals. The opposition to that kind of immigration is perfectly rational.
My prescriptions: Make it easier for legal immigrants to immigrate, get a job. Make it harder to come illegally. Don’t provide expensive benefits to immigrants until they are citizens or have worked – this will reduce the opposition to legal immigration. Abolish the minimum wage, or if that is hard, exempt the youth and the recent immigrants. Set realistic laws that can be followed, and then seriously punish those that do not follow.
If you want, allow a one-time group of immigrants to come, if they meet all the criteria (law-abiding, working, young, speak English), and will pay $50k each to help with the deficit.
For someone that was advocating honesty from both sides, your list of issues was decidedly lopsided. While there are certainly some that fit your stereotyped view of conservatives they are a small minority, not the majority. You also barely touched on the issues that illegal immigrant supporters routinely ignore.
We’re a nation of immigrants and for many of us that immigration was not that long ago so we have clear memories or have hear stories from family members that did immigrate. Our families had to work hard, learn English and assimilate to succeed. They did not have special handouts and programs to help them because they were disadvantaged. Many of today’s current legal immigrants have also worked hard and are frustrated by the damage illegals are causing.
We all need to admit that people entering the country illegally are breaking the law, draining resources from our society and causing innumerable problems for legal citizens.
We also need to recognize that there is a need for many types of labor, from low to high skilled that can not always be met locally. We need a system that responds to the needs of the market for labor.
Most importantly, we need to recognize that the current push to make excuses for illegals and insist that we ignore the fact that they are illegal only puts them at risk and creates what is essentially a new slave class. As illegals, they are at the mercy of unscrupulous employers and criminal elements, especially drug traders, that will take advantage of them.
The answer is not to secure more rights for illegals but to ensure that everyone is legal. Mass amnesty will not work since that was already tried and just leads to even more illegal immigration. Making employers accept some responsibility for determining if their employees are legal and operating according to fair labor practice is essential. It may raise prices of some goods, but it will also dramatically decrease the drain that all the counterfeit paperwork causes, protect honest businesses that play by the rules, and promote a more civil, law-abiding society where everyone respects the rule of law instead of making excuses for people that break the rules.
the minimum wage here is honey to those worker bees from down south. last i heard, it was a few years ago, 580 pesos a week, wages at a factory. 50 bucks a week there. the guy who said make them pay 50k? i couldn’t pay 50k. last time i went down to Cabo i wasn’t sure i’d left Orange county in California. another poster said the immigration laws are pretty strict down there for gringos. if an American and a Mexican go to court , the American automatically loses. call them racist all you like, they just deport you quicker. most gringo expats down there speak Spanish because the locals will rip you off quicker than you can say stupid gringo. the law is coming to them down there and there are some who fight it, the law is coming here too.
“On the right, that means accepting some hard truths: that racism and ethnocentrism are part of this discussion and they have been since the first immigrants arrived in the 18th century; that many of those who rail against illegal immigration also want to limit legal immigration even if they’re reluctant to admit it;”
Ruben, I am one of those on the right–the right side of the law–who admits to railing against illegal immigration, and, I also want to limit legal immigration–BIG TIME. I actually would prefer a ten year moratorium on legal immigration.
I have to say that you, Ruben, on the left side of the argument, finally have made the proper admissions: that illegal immigrants are law breakers, that Mexicans need to build their own country instead of sending monies back and forth to the U.S., that illegal immigrants are committing crimes–LIKE DRUG TRAFFICKING BIG TIME!! That those who are attempting to come here legally should be at the head of the line and processed first. Keep on emphasizing those points in your posts here and maybe you’ll start winning some friends among Pajama Media readers.
John from Cinncinnati – the kinds of immigrants you are used to are poor and needy, because that is the kind of immigrant your system encourages. The current system makes it very difficult to immigrate legally, unless you have family here to sponsor you. Basically, the only realistic way is to get a work permit (H1 visa), work and wait many years before applying for a green card. The H1 visa was not meant to be the immigration program, but in practice it is – who can afford waiting a decade for a green card application to be processed without already being in the country and working? The # of H1 visas is capped, so the number of immigrants is similarly capped. In my view, there should be high standards for legal immigration, but no need for a cap.
Who would come and pay 50k? Maybe I would – from up north. (So perhaps my solution is a little self-serving.) If you think your deficit and demographics are a problem, take a look at Europe. If the sh*t hits the fan in Europe, millions of hard-working, well-educated and easily integrated Europeans will want to come as well. They will also be a less monolithic group, and less likely to form self-isolating communities.
Further dishonesty will not help the debate. Navarrette continues the lies that all the jobs that illegals are doing will not be done by an American. Cut off the welfare checks and there will be alot of working by the lazy groups on welfare. In any event how does Navarrette explain the replacement of American workers with legal alien workers like the H-1B and L-1 visas? Americans won’t do computer programing and corporate management? Nonsense!
Ruben is the house fool.
NOTE TO PJM:
*P*L*E*A*S*E*
*S*T*O*P*
*P*A*Y*I*N*G*
*A*N*D*
*P*U*B*L*I*S*H*I*N*G*
*N*A*V*A*R*R*E*T*T*E*
!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Locally, the 2009 stimulus bill seems to be full employment for illegals … How else do you explain the priority of planting trees and grass in the medians of local roads. And what does anybody expect that to do, except employ illegals? It sure isn’t an investment in America’s future.
So you want truth, the Democrats only want the illegals as voters and low skill union workers, they don’t care how they get them.
I still like Mexico as the 51st state, it’s the military / economic thing to do, Ruben. In fact, it is the legal and honest way of doing it instead of the back door NAFTA way that benefits mostly corporate interests on both sides of the border. Annexation gets rid of the border and all those enforcement costs. Grandfather the Mexican military into the US military and the American manpower to police the world is provided for. Mexico is not San Francisco. Plus with 80 million new federal taxpayers, mostly Catholics and conservative, we can float all those democratic FDR New Deal dreams in Washington on a better business basis. Just think of all natural resources in Mexico, the vacation destinations that would open up to Americans, and vice versa since Mexicans would be Americans. Annexation would open up the two countries labor and capital markets to efficient investments and production, it would be the go go years for that business, labor, government partnership brining services and a better life to North America. It’s a win win situation Ruben, but I never see you suggesting it. Gee, maybe Mexico and the Mexicans, or its power elite, would never ratify the annexation? You think?
As the 7 blind men discovered about the elephant, truth is relative.
Forget the “truth”, I just want the “facts ma’m, nothing but the facts”.
Fact #1. The Immigrants in question are here illegally.
All your points are not facts, just conjecture.
Looking at the problem from the POV of the only fact available, the solution is to change the law. That means politics.
How do we change the laws? Who gets screwed with the new laws? Who gets rich from the new laws? Those issues will determine if the new laws create more problems then they solve.
I’m an open border conservative. I think that there is room for at least another 500 million people in the USA. I DON’T want them to be criminals, which is the majority of immigrants we get today.
As the economy tanks this summer, the immigration problem will get moved to the back burner. Waaay in the back burner. Shovel ready jobs won’t help those with technical training. They won’t help those that graduate this summer and have very little hope of finding a job.
That illiterate immigrant will be competing with a Soc. major for that landscaping job. Your pool cleaner might have an MBA, if you can afford to have the pool filled this summer.
the talk show hosts who started the xenophobia and hysteria several years ago didn’t know how the INS law worked: the fact is, it’s nigh on impossible to legally immigrate into the States. now the hysteria has reached such levels you cannot have a normal discussion with otherwise reasonable Republican/Christian types – they are angry and brainwashed. Americans have been shafted by their government and corporations, they have been shafted by the negro Obowmao voters, but they’re not allowed to speak out against them and feel impotent. Only the illegal immigrants are fair game…
This cannot have a good ending…
You are the racista Navarrette. The only reason you support the illegal invaders is that they speak Spanish and come from Mexico or Central America. The fact that Mexico’s corrupt racist regime believes it has the right to export its poor and semi-literate population to the USA means nada to you. The fact that the invaders are more loyal to Mexico than the US means nada to you. The fact that Mexico’s hypocritical regime demands an open border to the north while manning its southern border with police and troops with orders to shoot to kill “undocumented immigrants” who enter Mexico means nothing to you. In short, you are the racista Senor Navarrette. Quisiera comentar? Care to comment Mr. Navarrette?
The most important fact in the illegal immigration issue is that unassimilated immigrants are bad for America. Immigration, both legal and illegal, must be contingent upon assimilation of the new comer into the culture of the United States. If this isn’t accomplished, the culture of our country will change. It has changed negatively to date due to the multicultural approach to immigrant identity. Maintaining an immigrant’s prior culture within our our borders is a destructive influence on the North American capitalist free enterprise heritage experienced from our nation’s founding till the present time.
I’m not saying that an immigrant should not be proud of his prior heritage and maintain it within his home and even his community. But that immigrant must come to the desire and accomplishment of becoming an American. Our nation was articulated as a melting pot where all immigrants become a part of their new country. This is their new home.
If an immigrant doesn’t learn our language and adapt to our customs but retains his prior foreign identity, he is not an American and he will be a damaging influence to the cultural heritage of the United States. Most immigrants have very little experience of the freedoms that exist here and need to be preserved. I wonder how many recent immigrants are out there with the tea party people trying to protect our freedoms. I want America to become more like what we were before, not what we have become today.
Only targeted immigration of people with necessary skills should be allowed to immigrate until all legal immigrants are assimilated. And as for the illegal immigrants within our borders today, they should go back to their home countries and apply for legal immigration to America just like all the other legal immigrants did in the past.
I’m not for hunting down illegal immigrants. That’s not practical and it would be expensive. But if jobs are firmly shut off for illegal immigrants, they will go home on their own.
Thank you for this article. My Cherokee ancestors fled to Texas to escape genocide by Jackson’s army rounding up all who would not leave their ancient homeland and walk to Oklahoma. (read the Trail of Tears) Europeans came, murdered their way through to the Pacific, and now they resent their Christian neighbors who are born south of the border a chance to realize the American dream? The laws you spout off about passed by the US Government grant the children of the immigrants citizenship. And you would send the parents off without their children?
How dare you hypocrites call anyone a racist? Look in the mirror. If the government wanted to enforce immigration, all the legislature has to do is copy German law which makes hiring an illegal immigrant a prison offence on the first count. The fence is a waste of tax dollars; people can just take a boat to the gulf shores.
Thank you for your embittered-but-revealing regurgitation of
Howard Zinn’s “The Pimple’s History of the United States,” emmaliza.
Envy and revenge – with or without (see Author, can’t speak for you) reason – do not make for much of an argument.
The primary purpose of mass immigration is to import voters for the left at a ratio of 2:1
Any conservative who hasn’t realised that yet is a fool.
People who complain about the Mexican national preserving his culture here have to recognize that this is the first time that a large immigrant group comes without a knife at its back or the deprivation of his freedoms and his property in his prior host country. Assimilation into US ideals was easier because most of the early European immigrants were either religious or ethnic minorities, debtors, second-class citizens, oppressed persons, former serfs et al. The was not much of a liberati in what schools were around. The subject had no love for his host country to renounce or subjugate. The even worse thing is that Mexico is not really even piss-poor by world standards, and yet it sends out more people here.
The ideal immigrant today would be a high skilled person who is being hunted down in his country. Though that might eventually apply to Western Europeans, I think they’re starting to get it right in their more restrictive approaches to Islam. Hell, if your a true advocate of Western Ideals you shouldnt give up so soon on Europe.
#71,
…then a good conservative should adjust his message (not his policies) and render the ethnic voting bloc meaniningless. Rove had the right general idea, but he focused his outreach on “paisas” -recent arrivals instead of “coconuts” – assimilated 2nd and higher generation Latinos.
The only laws that have any significant affect on illegal immigration are the laws of supply and demand. As such, the only reforms that are even worth considering are those consistent with this incontrovertible fact and which work with these truly natural laws, and not against them.
What a great forum! Californians passed Prop 187 in 1994 to restrict welfare to people here illegally. The court overturned the people’s preference not to subsidize illegal behavior which then led to the current budget crisis in CA.
All this is symptomatic of a failure of leadership ….which is the declining American citizen birthrate caused by the need for both parents to work to maintain the family. The demographics are emphatic.! Without illegal immigration the social security fund would have run out of money long ago. The cowards in Congress robbed the Social Security piggy bank by spending like drunk pirates. The blind eye on the invasion from the south by both parties betrays this bitter truth.
Read America Alone, by m. Steyn to understand the importance of Demographics.
I can understand illegals and the sons of illegals being pro illegal.The fact is illegals use up more than they give.I live in Southern Calif, Is see this every day.The bigest problem is pro illegal political groups helping illegals get false identificaion to get free services that are for tax payers.I have knwon that illegals also vote with the false identification.We have over 15 million people in the uS illegals that we know nothing about.Over one million gang members illegals selling drus and death.California and other states are going broke because of illegals,As far as racists.America is the least racist country in the world.When was the last time you saw a minority president in Mexico?
I wonder how Navarrette explains the $50 Billion annual remittances sent back to Mexico? How do struggling undocumented workers who can’t afford to feed & shelter or provide health insurance for their families generate that kind of cash flow to the folks back home???
Gee wiz…I sure could save a lot of dinero if someone would just feed, shelter and provide healthcare for my family for a few years.
Por favor…Explicame senor.
What about what is fair to those people from other countries that are waiting to come to America the right way.The way people with fair play and just.The way I came and thet people use to come?Why not talk about people that are starving and being oppressed and killed in other countries?They arev waiting to come to America,I came from a country that use to oppress us and abuse us,I had to wait years to come to America,Some of my people did not make it in time some died before they could come to America.Now you have people so corrupt so greedy to make a few more dollrs,That they could care less about people whos lives are at stake to come to America.The illegal does not care about babies that minght die of starvation killed.The illegal only thinks of his needs.Just because you live closer to America and can sneak in does not make it right,No sir i say illegals dont care for others why should we care for them.WHY????