The Right Way and the Wrong Way to Debate Immigration
Note the hot buttons. Demographics. Culture. Language. Third world.
So, of course, accusations of racism and xenophobia keep resurfacing in this debate. It’s because, sooner or later, for many, the conversation always turns into a diatribe against group or another. The discussion has never been race-neutral. It’s about keeping out the inferior and undesirable.
Of course, the debate goes from anti-illegal immigrant to anti-immigrant. This isn’t about legality. It’s about concerns that run much deeper. If you’re worried about changes to culture, language, and demographics, you’re going to be as concerned about legal immigrants as the illegal kind.
And, of course, many U.S. Latinos wind up feeling a sense of solidarity with those Latino immigrants who are under attack and turned into scapegoats for all of society’s ills. That’s because they realize that, since the other side is intent on painting with a broad brush, they’re under attack as well.
It’s time to accept the truth. Americans have been griping “there goes the neighborhood” for more than 200 years. The first group of immigrants accused of diminishing our quality of life by altering the demographics, eroding the culture, and threatening the language were the Germans, followed by the Chinese, the Irish, the Italians, the Greeks, the Jews, the Muslims, etc.
Now, it’s Latinos’ turn to be in the cultural crosshairs. It’s ugly. But it’s nothing new.
The concerns back then were best described as outbursts of needless paranoia born of ignorance. And the same is true now.
There are differences between the current Latino immigration wave and those of the past:
1. Sheer numbers in such a short span of time.
2. Historical grievances regarding the American Southwest.
3. We don’t have the jobs machine of the industrial revolution, so illegals are displacing American workers.
4. Assimilation is not demanded, bi-lingual education is costing billions.
5. Close proximity to the home countries also hamper assimilation and create conflicting loyalties.
6. Immigrants of the past did not get government benefits as much as now. Today, low income immigrants consume more in government services than their tax dollars pay for. Schools and hospitals are being overwhelmed and their is little money to offset the costs. The children of illegals are citizens and are eligible for benefits as such.
7. Amnesty leads to more illegal immigration.
8. Latino crime rates are higher, as are out-of-wedlock birth rates. This makes social problems worse.
There are many others, but you get the idea. Of course the author of this article and others like him will see this post as racist. Suffice to say the US is not in the position to meet the demands of illegal aliens at this time, we are already broke.
Earler immigrants had to cross an ocean at some cost to get here,not just cross a unsecured border.The more we reward law breakers the more lawbreakers we will get.
Let’s be honest about understanding the psychology of blaming the USA’s problems on immigrants.
Americans are “not allowed” by political correctness to criticize the ever-lowering standard of life brought to us by those who are promoted on the basis of affirmative action (that is, stupid incompetent unqualified people in positions of decision-making based on skin-colour or gender).
Because USA-ers are not allowed to speak out even a peep against the tyranny of women and negroes, they have focused their anger on a disenfranchised group – the Mexican immigrants.
This is a shame because 99% of them are just honest nice people wanting to have a normal life. It’s not their fault that Mexico has been turned into a terror stronghold and drug gang killing fields.
Ruben , all Americans want is to remain a Sovereign Nation. In order to remain America the Mexicans and Muslims must assimilate.Flying the Mexican flag on protests and placing the American flag below it does not indicate assimulation.Flying air planes into buildings , referring to us as blue eyed devils and infidels isn’t making any points for the welcoming mat. My mom and dad migrated from Italy. They became citizens . They learned the language and embraced America for being America. I am first generation American. La Raza , MechA ,Answer , are all subversive organizations. Try and get Gringo Welfare in Mexico.
American Christian Infidel
Michael Canzano
People who legally immigrate are more likely to assimilate into the culture.
“We should not insist, as we tend to do, that the latest wave of immigrants is inferior to earlier ones or that they’re the equivalent of an invading army.”
Today’s poorly educated immigrants may not be morally inferior to their earlier counterparts—but our national economy has changed dramatically. The jobs of yesterday have mostly disappeared. A strong back and wiliness to work long and hard hours aren’t sufficient to one’s prospects of earning a good income. A functionally to marginally illiterate immigrant will very likely impose major financial costs to the overall community. It may very well take three generations before their family can get its act together.
It is not just the radical right-wingers who perceive the illegal immigrants as “an invading army.” This is the bluntly the goal of the radical left-wing establishment! It has every intention in turning these people into the vanguard of the utopian socialist movement. Democrats in particular want the illegals to become voters—to provide them with sure victories in each and every election cycle.
It’s called ILLEGAL immigration
Not filing taxes is ILLEGAL. Saying you can’t because you don’t have a SS number does not make it legal.
Listing dependents you don’t have so that less is deducted from your check is ILLEGAL. It’s called tax evasion.
Providing false information for a drivers license is ILLEGAL.
Providing false information to obatain a credit card is ILLEGAL
The list goes on.
You are dead wrong. The problem is not the anyone in this country gives a hoot about LEGAL immigration. The problem is, that your countrymen have over abused controlled entry into this country by coming in droves illegally. There are still legal Hispanic’s immigrating to the United States and they are welcome, because their numbers conform with the present rule of law pertaining to the quota in place.Although I won’t argue legal quotas here, the idea is that there is a legal conformity that most Americans feel is just, fair, and necessary. What people resent is the abuse of our porous border with Mexico by mostly illegal Mexicans. America is tired of tolerating those that come with NO real intention of embracing the AMERICAN standard. Which by the way includes learning OUR language, and conforming to OUR laws. We bend over backwards for your countrymen even going to the point of offering FREE classes paid for by AMERICAN TAX PAYERS to teach YOU PEOPLE our language,whether legal or not. I mean geez! at least try!. What people resent is seeing too many illegals from one place, directly south of the border. The legal immigration system is supposed to work in a manner which gives a somewhat fair demographic distribution of all worldly immigrants who are NOT ALL MEXICANS. People are worn out with the overcrowding of our public schools, abuse of our assistance programs, blatant disregard of our legal system of laws. Notably the majority of those who are doing the abusing are Hispanic, be they Mexican, Salvadoran, Guatemalan, etc, you get the point. When you boil it all down most DO come from your homeland and here lies the resentment. What gives the Mexican the idea that he has some sort of special privilege to be illegal in my country, anymore than any other illegal anywhere in the world. They get this idea from the American way of tolerance
Ruben writes:
“And, of course, we can talk about how preserving the rule of law requires that we take seriously the fact that millions are living in the United States illegally and that many of them go on to commit more illegal acts while here.”
Many of them go on to commit illegal acts while here? How about all of them who drive? All of them purchase fake driver licenses and fake auto insurance. Those are felony crimes. For the ordinary American, that kind of behavior ranks down there with spousal abuse. Get real, Ruben.
To assume, as you do, that immigration does not sometimes present fundamental struggles over values is the worst kind of intellectual dishonesty. For example, at this time, we face growing pressure to admit large numbers of Muslims. But all Muslims celebrate polygamy. Polygamy is anathema to Western values, Christianity, and, here’s the real kicker, it has been illegal in all 50 states since their founding. Polygamy in the USA is a felony crime for the male, just like purchasing fake licenses.
Sir, immigration often brings with it fundamental conflicts of values. To attempt to cover up those conflicts is intellectual dishonesty at its worst.
It seems to me that you judge the worthiness of an argument on how offended you are by it instead of the veracity of the statement.In addition, while we should be discussing how our porous border threatens and undermines our economy and our national security, the argument will always be brought back to race. Those on the left will never let it be about anything else.
The biggest difference between immigrants now and from years past is the overwhewlming component of ethnic grievance and tribal entitlement mentality encouraged by leftist progressives. Many come here to work hard and find better lives for their children. But there is a significant component of corrupt and criminal element coming in which we are not allowed to weed out. In the early 1900′s, if you had any communicable disease or criminal background or ideology at odds with the US constitution, you would not be allowed in. Now, if an immigrant is ravaged with parasites or drug-resistant TB, is an MS-13 gangbanger or a stark raving mad jihadist preaching violence against the US, it is easy for you to cross the border and set up shop in a sanctuary city, living off “entitlements”, with left wing lawyers helping you fight the government and race-hustlers demanding that the host culture adapt to you; if not, you are oppressed by a racist nation, which then responds by ever more concessions so you have no reason to ever become a part of the US.
This road leads one place: third world level corruption and violence, bankruptcy and balkanization, where ethnicities fight each other for ever decreasing government largesse, not realizing they are on the same sinking ship.
No one has a right to immigrate here, we decide who comes in based on our needs. A reduction in legal immigration is our decision, makes sense in a long deep recession that may last a decade. Deporting illegals is a good thing, we should do it in massive numbers. Mexico is a sovereign nation that deports illegals. Alert La Raza.
Illegals are not immigrants they are criminals. The only thing that needs to be done when discussing immigration is to leave illegals out of it. It is when dishonest people lump illegals in with honest immigrants and muddy the water that problems arise. We really need to stop anchor babies and enforce the laws that are already on the books.
And there are others beside hispanics that are illegal. This includes white Europeans, black Africans, white Africans, white Australians, Arabs, and Asians.
As for the “screed” about tightening all immigration, it is a great idea. With unemployment so high now is the time you stop adding more people. Once the employment rolls are back up with a stable economy and the illegals are deported then you open immigration back up to higher levels. It’s common sense approach to a problem.
Latinos aren’t in any cross hairs. Illegals are. But when you admit that fact you can’t play the faux racial outrage and victim card.
Navarrette is trying every which way to spin amnesty. I have written to him before and chided him for not talking about the countries from which the Hispanics are leaving. Those countries below our southern border are to blame. They cannot or will not manage for various reasons, mainly economical and educational and political corruption, their own populations. Until South American countries get their acts together the hemorrhaging of their able bodied youth will continue. I personally don’t feel responsible for those populations. They have to pull themselves up by their bootstraps in their own countries. They need put all their energies into reforming their own countries. Navarrette never talks about those countries and what they can do to create jobs for their own workers. Instead he’s always laying guilt trip on U.S. citizens about their lack of understanding and compassion for other countries’ citizens entering this country illegally. For starters he needs to hammer the Mexican government which is rich in natural resources such as oil. It’s also corrupt with drug cartels. It would be a refreshing change to see him write about fomenting revolution in Mexico to end the drug cartel hostage taking of the Mexican governments.
What I find amusing is that everyone who advocates open American borders also has a residence with a front door and a lock on it.
You control who enters your home. Why shouldn’t America have the same right?
Leftists who hate America and cannot win the intelellectual argument for logical border control always resort to name-calling.
“There is none so blind as he who will not see.” Reuben acknowledges and dismisses the legitimate concerns over illegal immigration. I acknowledge and dismiss his attempt to tie opposition to illegal immigration to racism.
I don’t really begrudge the illegals that come here, as I would probably do the same thing if I were in their position. Mexican immigration is “illegal” in the same way that smoking marijuana was illegal at Berkeley circa 1969. The reason people focus on the illegal vs. legal immigration theme is because, thanks in part to race men like this author, it is the only PC way for white people to discuss the problem.
The better questions are not PC:
1. Does this nation’s white European-American majority have a right to institute policies that will ensure its continued majority status, the same right that Jews in Israel, Mexicans in Mexico, Japanese in Japan have?
2. Regarding those who scream NO!!! in response to question #1, who gave them the power to decide?
3. Do we really need more unskilled laborers?
4. Exactly how would our nation improve itself if it were to become more diverse, multi-cultural and multi-racial than it already is? Would it make us more productive? Help improve our schools and other parts of the public sector? Reduce our public debt? Lower our crime rate? Increase our life expectancy? You get the idea.
More group think, Mr Navarrette?
“It’s time to accept the truth. Americans have been griping ‘there goes the neighborhood’ for more than 200 years. The first group of immigrants accused of diminishing our quality of life by altering the demographics, eroding the culture, and threatening the language were the Germans, followed by the Chinese, the Irish, the Italians, the Greeks, the Jews, the Muslims, etc.
Now, it’s Latinos’ turn to be in the cultural crosshairs. It’s ugly. But it’s nothing new.”
The difference being, of course, that the vast majority of the Germans, Chinese, Italians, etc. immigrated legally under the laws of the day. In contrast, the majority of the current wave of “immigration” (read: invasion) is being done illegally, and with the active assistance of both the Mexican and United States governments.
Mr. Navarette speaks of ‘empathy’ needs to be incorporated moreso (how it’s possible I can’t fathom..) regarding illegal aliens.
Mr. Navarette feigning interest in discussing immigration is moot. The same instance when Obama claimed Affirmative Action isn’t being abused or misused. Whhhhaaaaattttt??
‘Empathy’, eh? Take a look at Africa and the hundreds of billions of dollars every year get poured into that cesspool. Empathy..
The language argument always strikes me as particularly peculiar — coming, as I do, from the San Luis Valley, in Colorado, where our erstwhile Senator, Ken Salazar and his family have lived for more than a century, speaking Spanish. Then there’s my brother in law, who grew up speaking French — in Maine.
You are right that demonization of Latino illegal immigrants coarsens the debate. That said, the fundamental demographic and cultural points underlying the “invasion” rhetoric are worthy of debate. Sure these points are the more emotional and conceptual aspects of the debate. By taking the mout of bounds, you are stripping the passion of out of the argument, ultimately making the argument against tolerating high levels of illegal immigration weaker. Are you asking pro-illegal immigration partisans to strip the images of the statue of liberty, Horatio Alger, and the noble immigrant seeking freedom and a better life? That would be fair, but if you did, there would nothing left to their arguments.
Read 1 Navarette post and there’s no need to read another, the guy is an illegal alien apologist and tries to blame the Americans paying the freight and suffering the crime. I agree with Sam Francis’ idea, let us discuss this without the GD PC/diversity crap:
1.Does this nation’s white European-American majority have a right to institute policies that will ensure its continued majority status, the same right that Jews in Israel, Mexicans in Mexico, Japanese in Japan have?
2.Regarding those who scream NO!!! in response to question #1, who gave them the power to decide?
3.Do we really need more unskilled laborers?
4.Exactly how would our nation improve itself if it were to become more diverse, multi-cultural and multi-racial than it already is? Would it make us more productive? Help improve our schools and other parts of the public sector? Reduce our public debt? Lower our crime rate? Increase our life expectancy?
21, Charlie Martin
And my vacation house is on Chincoteague Island, in Accomack County, on the Chesapeake Bay. Surviving memorials of the fact that Algonquian-speakers once dominated the area. Similarly, Spanish used to apply to Colorado…. until 1848. Perhaps you long for the day when names like Denver and Boulder are quaint reminders of a vanished population?
1. Ken Royall: Is 100% correct on all accounts.
The final biggest issue is one of several of his comments and is what turns the tables to the point that Illegal immigration is unacceptable and continued legal immigration from certain regions is unfavorable.
Many Latinos who come to this country have no desire or reason to be loyal to this country. They even state that they are not loyal, that they do not respect our culture. They do not become United States of America citizens, even if they get citizenship, they still remain loyal to their country of origin. This is unacceptable. Until this nation decides that they will encourage and help assimilate and only allow those who have assimilated to our culture to become citizens, I no longer believe in immigration. Every other mass immigration period of our past was accomplished with assimilation and that is why we were the melting pot of the world. Now we are nothing like a melting pot with the multiculturalism that our nation pushes for.
I for one will never, under any circumstance, support amnesty for illegal immigrants. They need to be shipped back to their country of origin, after having their biological identification taken, and be placed on never allowed back into this country again lists. Ancho baby legislation needs to be passed that ensures that only children of legal residents of this country are considered citizens.
Originally new countries like the USA, Canada, Australia, and New Zealand needed immigrants in the same way that they needed foreign investment. Foreign money is needed when there is not enough domestic money available to finance all the wealth building activities that people are engaged in. Immigrants were needed because there wasn’t enough domestic labour to carry out all the wealth building activities that were being financed.
Immigrants were often put to to work in places or on projects that domestic labour would not work on (Chinese railroad workers). Conversely, highly qualified and educated immigrants were needed to provide skills that were in short supply – for example medical doctors in Canada. In Alberta around 1900 AD, Mormon farmers from the US were aggressively recruited as immigrants to support an economic policy change from ranching to farming.
Governments added different ethnic and racial flavours to their immigrant policies for economic (eg cheaper labour from country X) or humanitarian (eg religious persecution in country Y) reasons. Immigrants were often exploited, looked down upon and discriminated against. Early Scottish immigrants in Canada looked down upon later Irish immigrants who in turn looked down upon later Ukrainian immigrants.
In our special way we immigrants dealt with barriers by saying “stuff you” and concentrated on becoming successful in our new countries. We concentrated on where we were going to, not from where we had come.
The basic economic question question should be the foundation of immigration policies today. It is “are immigrants needed for specific wealth building activities because there isn’t enough domestic labour that is available or willing?” This applies at the unskilled low end through to the highly skilled, highly educated upper end. If the answer is “yes”, then go get some immigrants that fit the bill.
My point is that immigration should be an economic matter. The immigrant experience is never comfortable. How could it be? Immigrants who fill a nation’s basic economic need will assimilate and their children will not be hyphenated Americans or Canadians.
Because immigrants are people they come trailing a cloud of racial, cultural and social issues. If immigrants are discussed purely as a social/political/cultural issue then prepare for grief. Only heat is generated when one man’s “bunch of freeloaders” is another political candidate’s “voting bloc”.
Take immigration back to the fundamental economic question. Then treat the selected immigrants fairly.
In reading the comments, several made a key point. Who wants amnesty and higher levels of illegal immigration? Ultimately it’s people who hate America and its unique meritocratic, productive culture. They do not like our Calvinist roots, the productive behaviors borught over by Europeans, individual liberty, and national strength backed up by each individual’s right to own arms. These people want to kill the America that was and still is, and transform it into a country that is like every other: decadent, unsustainable, entrenched along class lines, and under seige. How sophisticated and tolerant.
As a person who grew up in New York City, is the child of immigrants, and has spent most of her life around immigrants…I can fairly say that immigrants are full of s**t! They are self-aggrandizing little turds who think U.S. history begins and ends with Ellis Island and that America could never exist without them. It DID exist without them. It was only the rich and greedy who needed immigrants…to fill their factories with cheap, exploitable labor.
The United States was formed by British settlers. End of story. The immigrants ruined it. You should learn to appreciate that, Mr. Navarrette.
Of course, the debate goes from anti-illegal immigrant to anti-immigrant. This isn’t about legality. It’s about concerns that run much deeper. If you’re worried about changes to culture, language, and demographics, you’re going to be as concerned about legal immigrants as the illegal kind.
Hmmm. Ruben this seems to be a stretch to rationalize away a legitimate concern, with the race card unholstered and ready to fire in any direction, at the slightest provocation.
A people wanting to preserve their language, their culture, ….are racist?
Um…did the indigenous people to our South speak Spanish in the 1400′s? Precisely which language was allowed to co-exist…Mayan? Incan?
Mexico has been a lagging economic self-provider for its people for quite some time. The lure of the dollar has been an attraction, but the resistance to becoming part of anything other than an ATM with more available cash and lower fees per transaction…doesn’t create the warm and fuzzies with the people already here, paying taxes and struggling to feed their own families.
Casting them as white supremacists because they wish to preserve their language… in their native land, is a leftist guilt-trip trick.
And, don’t think for a moment that people are not concerned about the coarsening of the culture when they speak about an array of other matters, wholly unrelated to race. Young people use the term “ghetto” when they speak of acting in a cheap, trashy or coarse manner. They don’t use the term barrio.
Others berate “trailer trash”, they don’t say basura gente.
When you filter every act, word and deed through your own isolated prism, all the colors come out grey.
I presume it’s ok with you when people bash the entire region of the South. The jokes are funnier to you. (Why do we know that the toothbrush was invented in the South? Because anywhere else and would have been named the teeth brush. If you get divorced in the South, are you still brother and sister?)
These would be ok to tell and funny to hear, because the South is full of racists, homophobes, warmongers…right?
Or is it wrong to stereotype a people, just because of where they come from? Even law abiding, tax paying, good and decent people?
Who may want to preserve a language, a culture…because they cherish it?
Nah…it must be that they are just racists…that’s the only fair conclusion.
Warning: Politically incorrect statement ahead.
We need immigrants to pay for Medicare. The reason we need immigrants is because Americans aren’t having enough kids. The most important reason why Americans aren’t having enough kids is legalized abortion. Ban abortion and stop being part of the problem.
#13 phrance: stop calling people criminal.
#29 cfbleachers: Born and raised in Iran I came here not speaking a word of English. everytime I ride the subways here in NYC isee how our local and federal tax dollars are going to waste. for every anouncement in the subway weather written or verbal is followed by Spanish. it is really disheartning. Look i agree with 100% this is an English speaking country and you got to speak English. period. and I am a forigner saying this. i also agree with you as soon as you say something right away the label you raciast, anti immigrants.. and all kind of B…t.
I would recomend that every forigner trying to get a greencard or citizen ship should pass a written as well as oral test of English language. period.
Secure the southern border with the military yesterday! Run patrols, and protect America from anchor babies, duug runners, and the illegal alien drivers.
Send the border Patrol into the US cities to round up illegal aliens. Deport same, and have them pick up the trash on their way out they left.
Start a program to develop the southern border. Both sides of the river. Roads, railways, sewer plants, fresh water plants, schools, and Hospitals.
Issue work permits to aliens who want a job, and young healthy aliens who want to be a part of the military trained.
Put me in charge, give me orders, then get the H### out of the way!
America is my home. I like it the way it is. I like the way it was
much better. I dont want to give it away. I dont care who they
are, I dont care what their qualifications are. I dont want
to give it away.
31. mr:
#13 phrance: stop calling people criminal.
—————————————————————–
Why should I stop calling people who are criminals what they are? Just because you are dishonest doesn’t me I should be too. They are criminals and as such I will call them what they are. Their crimes don’t stop at just illegally entering the nation which is a crime. That’s why it’s called illegal. If they work and don’t pay taxes it is a crime. If they work and pay taxes they are using a stolen SSN. That is a crime.
There is one question never asked? What if 12 million Americans crossed the river into Mexico, when our factories moved to Mexico? Would the Mexican gov. open up their arms, extend a hand and throw out the welcome mat? Would they furnish us with aid, medical care, schooling in English, etc? Get picked up by the police if you go to Mexico, for any madeup reason, and see what it will cost to get out of their jails. The police are as corrupt as their gov.
The only reason the libs. and the dem. party want them here, is for the vote, legal or not.
This adm. that we have now is the most corrupt adm. that the US has ever had in our history.
OBAMA and his CHICAGO THUGS will do any thing to stay in power.
I’m no racist, but cry me a river, I,m tired of footing the bill for every country on the planet.
Why is it if I oppose ILLEGAL immigration and support the deportation of ILLEGAL immigrants somehow that makes me racist. While at the same time I am required to support clearly racist groups such as La Razza (the race) through the granting of tax exempt status.
If immigration across the Mexican border were representative of the population in Mexico, it would be much easier to accept. But the immigrants are people who are impoverished in Mexico or countries beyond, who have no education, who have no culture beyond their village, and who are quite simply desperate.
Millions of people in Mexico are as white as a lily because they are of Spanish descent, not Native American descent. They are not migrating. Why does no one ask why? They are quite happy with their government which supports them on a socialist dole while it provides no opportunities for the lower classes.
So, you see, the border problem is not a USA problem but a Mexico problem. By the standards of the USA, Mexico is a failed nation and we are receiving the fruits of its failure as illegal immigrants. Why should the USA solve Mexico’s problem? We would be a far more responsible citizen of the world if we insisted that Mexico solve its own problem.
Some would argue that Mexican laborers who can build houses are need in the USA. To a certain extent, that is true. If your next house is built without illegal immigrant labor, it will cost $500k. If it is built with illegal immigrant labor, it will cost $450k but citizens will have to pay an extra $100k in taxes to cover the health and education needs of the illegals who pay no taxes. So, the question is: why should you subsidize your builder with taxes while putting out of work your neighbors who are replaced by illegal immigrants?
RE #1/Ken Royall:
[...] There are differences between the current Latino immigration wave and those of the past:
…5. Close proximity to the home countries also hamper assimilation and create conflicting loyalties. [...]
#5, #5, #5 – Ken, this item in my eyes tops everything – why nobody dares to speak for a law that will pre-empt geographical PROXIMITY as a quick path to immigration, and eventual naturalization?
There are people all over the world who want to immigrate or just WORK in the USA – why not set up a mechanism which would provide this opportunity in even and fair way to everyone from, say… Mongolia, Vietnam, Eastern Europe or Indonesia, and not treat things as a Central America INALIENABLE RIGHT, and allow millions of illiterate Central America Indians to settle here?
That would be a fair immigration policy – and as far as fulfilling diversity requirments, that would sure beat the wretched Managua look & feel that this country is increasingly acquiring.
RE #3/ Jhan:
[...] It’s not their fault that Mexico has been turned into a terror stronghold and drug gang killing fields. [...]
But it is not the US’s FAULT that IT HASN’T (so far) turned into a terror stronghold and drug gang killing field, either.
All cultures are equal? My -
RE #6/David Thomson:
[...] It is not just the radical right-wingers who perceive the illegal immigrants as “an invading army.” This is the bluntly the goal of the radical left-wing establishment! It has every intention in turning these people into the vanguard of the utopian socialist movement. Democrats in particular want the illegals to become voters—to provide them with sure victories in each and every election cycle. [...]
Injecting 13 million people – 13 million people! 13 million people! – in the tissue of this country is a deliberate manner to alter the demographic balance of this country, and to put in the driver’s seat the Democrat party. And have the American middle class foot the bill for this monstruosity -
Managua, Tijuana – or Los Angeles –
This is madness, self-destruction -
RE #24/Bohemond RE #21/Charlie Martin:
[...]
And my vacation house is on Chincoteague Island, in Accomack County, on the Chesapeake Bay. [...] Perhaps you long for the day when names like Denver and Boulder are quaint reminders of a vanished population? [...]
… when you are travelling through Andalusia, you are visiting the place of Vandals, in Lombardy, the place og Longobards, in Bulgaria, of Bulgarians, in Normandy, of Normands etc….
…all for long gone -
Have the UN start patrolling our borders !!!!!!
Low paid Illegal Mexicans in the construction industry are fueling a bidding war on construction all over the country, putting local people out of work. The same is true for warehouse service contracts with low wage Illegals pushing Americans off the loading docks. Amnesty? Been there, done that.
1) Place a bounty on illegal aliens and a bigger one on those who hire them, with penalties double the bounty if you get it wrong to prevent abuse.
2) Hire an illegal alien and go to jail.
3) Be an illegal alien twice and you don’t go to jail, you go to a chain gang.
4) Militarize our southern border just the same as the Mexicans do with their borders with Guatemala and Belize.
5) Forbid Mexican nationals from owning real property – just like the Mexicans do to foreigners in Mexico.
6) No welfare, no schools, no bilingual anything and no medical care for illegals, just a bus ride to TJ and a boot in the butt.
7) No citizenship for those born here of parents who weren’t legally in the country, even if it takes a constitutional amendment to do it – just like the Irish did with the 27th Amendment to their constitution in 2004.
From the Mexican Constitution -
“Chapter III
Foreigners
Article 33. Foreigners are those who do not possess the qualifications set forth in Article 30. They are entitled to the guarantees granted by Chapter I, Title I, of the present Constitution; but the Federal Executive shall have the exclusive power to compel any foreigner whose remaining he may deem inexpedient to abandon the national territory immediately and without the necessity of previous legal action.
Foreigners may not in any way participate in the political affairs of the country.”
Straw men, and blather:
“We can talk about how we need to fix U.S. immigration policy because we can’t afford to have a porous border or because every nation has the right to protect its sovereignty. We can talk about the costs that illegal immigrants put on our hospitals, schools, and social programs. We can talk about the threat of overpopulation and concerns that the United States, which is already home to 300 million people, cannot take on another 100 million in the decades to come without coming apart at the seams.”
Precisely who can talk about these things without being called racist? You, maybe? Not me, buddy.
I live in an agricultural community where generations of legal residents used to earn much-needed money planting and picking crops — no more. My local tax dollars are spent at astonishing rates to educate and provide medical care for illegal immigrants who do not contribute to the system, while American-born tradesmen have already been squeezed out of employment in vast numbers by illegals; where ministers and priests berate their flocks for failing to be sensitive enough to people who feel absolutely no compunction to return the favor, choosing militant, divisive accusations and a politics of raw resentment in return; where every branch of the government, from the FDA to the DHR to HUD to state agencies and county commissions funnel housing and food and medical dollars to non-citizens at the expense of the rest of us; where it is common knowledge among illegal and first-generation immigrants that it’s best to pretend you’re not married, even if you are, or to not get married, so the government will pay for your rent and utilities and transportation and child care while you and your “partner” spend his salary on electronics and cars, or send money back home. I go to a doctor’s office where every other woman is paying nothing for her care, unlike me, and dragging multiple kids around behind her, and the only men in sight are gang-banger adolescent “dads” dumbly playing hand-held video games; I go to the hairdresser and she’s losing her lease; her husband already lost his construction job, and they can’t afford needed medical care but don’t know how to access the “free” healthcare illegals get because they actually believe in paying their own way; I go to the gym and it’s going under financially because the county set up free day care nearby, on their dime, stealing all their after-school business in the act of providing misguided “daycare for all,” so they’re paying for the privilege of going out of business, as the county provides no-questions-asked taxpayer-subsidized babysitting and two meals a day to children whose mothers drop them off in nice cars.
When we’re finally sucked dry, who’s going to pay for all this? How many lower-income American families have already been crushed financially by illegals’ selfishness and irresponsibility? I see the toll all over my town, and as joblessness grows, it is getting more dire. I care not a whit about skin color or ethnicity; I worship and eat alongside people of all races; I have great respect for the work ethic displayed by anyone. But I’ve also worked in social services and so I know what I’m talking about, and if anything the plunder and disparity — of and against American citizens — is far worse than most people know. And yet you deign to scold and criticize our (putative) tone? What, precisely makes you feel entitled to police us, while dishonestly putting words in our mouths? I’ve rarely seen such intellectual dishonesty as this piece.
Don51, excellent point.
How legal, elected politicians have the audacity to push for criminals to be legalized is beyond comprehension.
Mr. Navarette, California is ranked 47th, 47th in the country in public education scores. Followed by Nevada, Arizona and finally Mississippi.
I’d gone to California’s public school system in the 80′s. When it ranked in the mid 20′s nationwide academically, respectively.
‘Coincidentally’, California’s public education system has been more than 50% Latino students since 2007.
It’s scraping the bottom of the intellect barrel due to these Latino students having parents who possess, maybe a Mexican elementary education and thus can’t provide proper parenting, financial support for their family, assistance with homework, proper dietary needs, discipline, on and on.
L.A. County, you know the one supposedly ‘leading the way’ for its many illegal alien offenders, forked over more than 500 million dollars in welfare alone to children of illegal aliens for 2009! You must be so proud..
You KNOW THIS too for you live in nearby San Diego County. It’s gutless, PC turds like yourself who are afraid to speak up of theft of education (from Latino students who don’t participate in class all the while arts, music courses being removed from southwest USA schools in droves though ESL courses getting more money, PC rules for college admission, in-state tuition rates for illegals, head start fraud), Government monies (WiC, welfare, food stamps), construction industry going to pot due to greedy company owners hiring unskilled illegals building a shoddy product.
You haven’t a leg to stand on regarding ‘the right’ or ‘wrong way’ in discussing such an epidemic. Your over-the-top take on the matter would bare no fruit..
I really think there are segments of our society that WANTS the illegal immigration.
Not immigration per se, but ILLEGAL immigration.
They want people who have no legal standing, or very tenuous legal standing, to protect thamselves from exploitation.
Take the legal immigration from Mexico. Double it. Triple it. Tenfold, whatever. They don’t want legal immigrants, they want illegals.
The same politically-correct types who berate as racist those who want to control our borders, they are the same people who won’t pay a few dollars more to have their lawn mowed by legal residents of the USA. They like having a slave class.
So, in order to create the greatest perspective of the account of Justice in this matter we should indulge ourselves with a contrast. That is, legal immigrants versus illegal immigrants. Illegal immigrants are wrongfully filling any voids in the populace that legal immigrants inhabit. Now, if this is untrue, and illegals take on menial jobs that legals would actually not do then we are accepting that we are creating a poverty class of citizens. That this group of people will eventually bring great instability to a free society is easily seen. (They have needs as do all people and will require the same allowances as all citizens) – (It cannot be any other way in America.) They must be expelled with regard to Legal Immigration’s universals and standards.
Everything that the Americans on here are posting about the Mexican and Latino ILLEGAL immigrants coming to America is mirrored in Europe. Only there they are Asians and Africans and mainly MUSLIMS who not only want to collect the Social Security benefits that none of them have ever contributed to by paying taxes but they also want to change the very nature of the countries they infiltrate too and establish Shariah Law with all the violent, misogynistic obscenity that that involves. So be thankful Americans at least YOUR illegals are mostly Christians and have a similar morality and civilization to you.
You insult Americans with your commentary. What part of this idea don’t you get: It is OUR COUNTRY. We get to decide who lives here. I read an article the other day simply entitled: If we changed all the people would it still be the same place? The answer is no. You seem to think that culture, language, borders, demographics and all the other hot button issues should be off the table. Why? Because the offend your favorite groups? What you do is further contribute to the fear and loathing by telling America citizens that THEY HAVE TO ACCOMMODATE people who either don’t belong here or have newly arrived. You are demanding Americans give up their rights as citizens, telling them to change their language, the focus of the debate, telling them what is politically correct etc. In other words WE ARE THE ONES BEING PUSHED AROUND. Add to that the politicians we elected to REPRESENT US who fawn, bow, and scrape at the feet of non-Americans and tell us to go to hell, a picture begins to emerge. AMERICANS are being treated like the unwanted, the newly arrived and let’s face it, non white immigrants and the illegals are being treated with kid gloves. We are losing our country and people like you are giving people like me a big reason to push back. Don’t tell me what I can and cannot say and what I should and should not think. When you stop treating citizens as if they don’t belong here and illegals as if they have more rights, then maybe we can come to an understanding. You are an enthnic cheerleader. You champion others like you. WHY SHOULDN’T WE DO THE SAME??? Something tells me you wouldn’t be too concerned if the animus was directed at hordes of Norwegians crossing the border.
OMG! Please don’t call me racist Ruben! Just to avoid that name I’ll say and do anything you want! I won’t protest when millions of your preferred minorities slink silently into my country and close down hospitals, overcrowd the courts and jails, strain social services and schools, mock and berate the gringo, menace other ethnic groups, attack black americans and drive them from their neighborhoods, demand we speak their language, fly their flag in our country. I am so fearful of being called a racist that I will commit suicide before that happens! The name has lost its sting, buddy. It has become abused and quite frankly, I don’t give a rat’s patootie whether or not you think I am a racist. Just keep the third world detritus on their side of the border.
Some of you may remember the comic Pat Paulson who parodied a run for President back in the 60′s. One of his great lines was that “most of the country’s problems stemmed from an un-enlightened immigration policy on the part of the American Indian.
Now some 400 years later we still have a rather unenlightened policy. Not because we don’t have a right as a sovereign nation to do as we want with this issue – but because our policies and enforcement mechanisms are not at all realistic for the situation.
We have a non-securable, 2000-mile border with a country that has a large population with poor economic prospects. Wages that are at and even below our minimums are quite attractive to them.
On our side of the border we have a lot of people who will readily utilize lower cost services from people who (they can be pretty certain) are illegal and buy products and services from firms who use illegal workers. The savings can be very large since firms and proprietorships using US citizens not only pay their workers more but also must pass along a crushing panoply of regulatory costs, fees for government services and worker benefits. So another way to look at the cost of illegal immigrants is that it is like a massive transfer of money from those US citizens who don’t participate in this “cheating” to those who do.
So we do have a problem here but we also have the moral right and obligation to work this out intelligently and without all of the political pressure and self-serving moralizing from people like this author. I am especially insulted by his contention that to take the side he doesn’t like in this debate is to engage in “outbursts of needless paranoia born of ignorance”.
In general I cannot figure out why illegal immigrants and their supporters fight for amnesty and other rights so vociferously, sometimes violently, and with such an air of entitlement. Were the situation reversed, I believe I would probably go meekly about my business while staying out of trouble – hoping the locals might get around to admiring and appreciating my contributions and my style and perhaps one day issuing that invitation that I never officially received.
The other day I walked into Lowe’s where on the door underneath “Enter” was written “Entrada” in equally large letters. If I were to move to any other country in the world, one of the first things I would learn would be the local words for “enter” and “exit” so that I could properly navigate places of business. I wouldn’t expect any political action committees to have been there before me to force or badger businesses into relieving me of this simple and elementary task.
I was going to blast the author of this article for being a closet amnesty supporter, but you all beat me to it. Good job PJM’ers
“They dislike being accused of opposing all immigration when they claim to only oppose the illegal kind.”
“… they claim …” He had already established that he was speaking from the viewpoint of the letter writers. So why say “they claim”? Because, as always, Navarette cannot resist his own dearly held argument that people are lying when they say they are only opposed to illegal immigration. That idea underpins his entire take on thie issue–that racism against Latinos fuels the anti-immigration debate.
“…the unsavory language often used to discuss U.S. immigration policy…” When Navarette writes a column decrying the unsavory, hostile, angry, racist language we regularly hear from some Latino quarters–from La Raza to George Lopez–then maybe he’ll have some more credibility. Doubtful, but he should give it a shot.
#46 Trina & # 53 Mike G eloquently articulate why immigration remains such a volitile topic. Welfare reform didn’t just magically happen in ’94 – it was developed over a decade in states like Wisconsin & Ohio and eventually integrated nationally.
AS an exercise in majestic American Democracy – it was grass roots up not federalism top down – that is – incubated in the states rather than designed in washington or implemented through the courts.
California,to it’s own chagrin, rejected following suit. The difference was illegal immigration and its fallout. The political enviornment there (overtaken by liberals – becoming a one party state after Pete Wilson) cultivated the ulitimate sanctuary.
Many successful Californians have chosen Arizona as a refuge to escape the ravages of the once Golden State’s decline. Like in Nevada, Utah and Colorado, they leave to run a business and make a good living again elsewhere.
American citizens don’t buy that we have an obligation to continue subsidizing failed nations to our south at the expense of our own. We don’t give a rats *&^ that it makes for a difficult state dept posting in Mexico City or Boliva or Brazil.
In less than one term under Janet Napolitano in AZ two industries openly became overwhelmingly over-taken by illegal immigration – Fast Food/Resturant service and Builiding Trades. By the end of the boom this balloned to include a niche in financial services – to of course service the illegals who had established an ipso facto quasi citizenship – including everything from home ownership to bank accounts auto loans and credit cards – privlages never before so easily available at no questions asked.
Not only had these illegals been – as Trenda describes – feeding off a social safety net (welfare) which had been dialed back to bare bones for ALL CITIZENS not illegal – a difuse community generousity that enabled those billions to go south – (Which Mike G aptly identifies as ‘massive transfer of money’) it has fostered the most divisive mistrust between these two camps that I’ve ever encountered in my lifetime.
In every regional market where the credit/housing bubble expanded the most – Florida, Nevada, Arizona & California – illegal immigration is an undeniable MAJOR REASON. Over development was driven in part by the availability of this cheap illegal labor – and the subsequent entrenchment of said illegal community.
In every instance it was facilitated by state and local government. And now we are in a very bad economic place.
Resentment towards illegal immigration and the latino community that supports it is not about irrationality or racism. Its about recognizing how we got where we are and what we need to do to get over it.
To our credit as a country and a people none of the prior unrestrained violence of past episodes in our history has yet occurred. To the contrary -that ugly portion of the story this time around is overwhelmingly evidenced by violence perpetrated by the minority in the immigrant community Ruben.
Anyone with too much time on their hands can watch C-Span and still see some knuckle-headed college profs or Cato Institute Think Stinkers going all fuzzy about how illegals help rather than hurt Americans wages. And how they boost and rescue our pop. growth issue. Or any such clap trap.
But. The American people have already finsihed with this debate. Obama can ensure (now that he’s rolled the dice on Health Care) the utter destruction of his party and himself.
Push for ‘comprehensive immigration reform’ a la Rebuens advice.
Ruben, Professor Victor Davis Hanson’s most recent post on PJM puts more clarity, validity of the myriad of problems with illegal aliens in 2paragraphs than you’ve posted in dozens of articles on PJM!
To put into context, your scribblings are akin to a person writing with their non-writing hand.. with a crayon!
It’s this simple, Ruben. What part of ‘illegal’ do you not understand?
As a LEGAL immigrant (came as a child from a Latin American country) with LEGAL parents, I am proud to say that my parents never took a penny in taxpayer money. My dad worked two jobs, my mother worked in a factory even though she was highly educated back in her birth country. They learned to speak English, love America and instilled that respect and love to us. This was 45 years ago.
I have had arguments with new immigrants (legal and illegal) when they spew their hatred for America and their disdain for this country. I tell them to get the hell out and go back to the craphole they came from. It pisses me off when they dont want to be Americans but are happy to take American taxpayer money. So, Rueben, no, not all Legal immigrants side with the illegals.