The more people live in ideology – defining themselves exclusively as liberal, conservative, anarchist, libertarian, marxist, Freudian, whatever – the less they seem to be living in reality. They see the world through their belief systems and rarely anything else. Of course each of those systems may once have had some value, indeed still have to one degree or another, but the more one is a true believer in any of them, the more the granularity of fact-based reality fades away.
The extreme example of this is someone like Ahmadinejad, when it starts to be delusional and becomes dangerous. But considerably more minor examples are all round us. When I heard Andrew Sullivan had written a book about reconnecting with “true conservatism,” I knew this was a book in which I had no interest. That its author is one who equated Christian fundamentalism with Islamofascism is highly-related and an another example of my point that the more you wallow in ideology the further you get from fact.
This of course relates to the immigration issue. Here are a few of the facts I observe. Bear with me if they seem obvious.
1. As a citizen of California, I see that my economy runs, to a significant extent, on illegal immigration, largely from Mexico, as a cheap labor force. This is also true of other parts of our country to varying degrees.
2. Mexico has always been incapable of governing itself in a rational way and taking care of its people. There is no expectation that it will in the future. So there will be continued pressure on Mexicans (and others in similar situations) to come here.
3. Many, probably most, illegal aliens are decent people who want to work hard and live normal lives.
4. Some illegal aliens are criminals.
5. Our borders are porous.
6. There are a significant number of people in the world who want to overthrow our civilization and replace it with Islamist ideology. Some of these people want harm us physically.
7. The rule of law is a necessity for a functioning democratic society.
8. Immigration is necessary to the economic health of our society.
9. Immigration is good for our national character.
Do you agree with these? Can you add more? Let’s stay with reality and then build some conclusions together. Who knows how they will track with the attempts of our Congress?
I agree with almost all of this, with one minor caveat.
The CA economy is only partially dependent on cheap immigrant labor. It is important to remember that CA is not like the rest of the US. Most areas of the country have a fairly small illegal immigrant population, and many states still have virtually no illegal alien residents. You can’t extrapolate the CA experience to the rest of the country, we really do have a lot more illegals here than most other places do. Heck, there far fewer illegals in the SF Bay Area than in Los Angeles.
There are some businesses that really are dependent. For example, if you have a small clothing factory in LA’s Garment District, or a machine shop, you truly are dependent on cheap immigrant labor. If you had to pay native-born American workers $19.00 per hour, you’d go out of business because your Chinese competitors would eat you alive. But since you have illegals willing to do the job for $9.00/hour, this enables you to stay in business.
But a lot of the businesses that employ illegals really aren’t necessary. For example, the valet parking guys at my office are all illegals. Oiur building doesn’t really NEED to offer valet parking. Our office is in a nice part of town, so it is a nice feature. But it’s a luxury, not a necessity. Our clients wouldn’t go elsewhere if they had to park their own cars. Similarly, all landscapers are illegals. But most people can mow their own lawns and trim their own hedges. Ditto for the day laborers outside of Home Depot — before the day laborers came along, people would just get their friends and neighbors to help them.
Millions of illegals are employed in tasks like these. But these tasks really don’t have much value to our economy. They are optional, modern-day bellhops and washroom attendants.
For this reason, the illegals are obviously a huge drain on our economy. If someone earns $30,000 per year working on a loading dock at a factory, and pays $9,000 in state and federal taxes (including FICA, sales tax, etc.), that person is a drain on our econonmy when he has three children who each cost $10,000 per year to educate. And if he becomes sick or injured and has to go to the public hospital, he costs even more.
So I think we need to be very careful about saying that we are “dependent” on cheap immigrant labor. IMO we lose money on it. The activists all want you to believe that our economy would “collapse” without them, or that they are a net economic benefit, but I think this is clearly untrue.
Personally, I respect and admire the illegals and would like to help them. I don’t mind paying taxes to educate their kids, etc. I just want there to be a limit to this because our resources are limited. I think the illegal population in SoCal is far too big already, and the massive influx has markedly decreased the quality of life here. I don’t mind giving amnesty to anyone who is already here but I don’t want to see anyone else come over; we need time to assimilate the new arrivals and integrate them into our economy and society, if they keep coming this will be much, much harder.
Back in December, a certain meat packing plant had to replace a large part of its workforce, because the illegals had been swept up. They didn’t have any trouble finding applicants. The important jobs will be filled, perhaps not as cheaply, but filled none the less. And if the “Elites” can’t find servants, tough.
Decades ago, illegals weren’t a problem because there were too few of them to create problems. Now they are a big set of problems. We’ve tried the amnesty route before, that’s part of how we got into this fix, amnesty and promises (never kept) of improved enforcement. Not again. The biggest key point of fixing the problem is ensuring that illegals can’t find work here, that eliminates the incentive to come, and enough of them will then go home to make the rest of the problems manageable.
We need to change our immigration laws all right, but not in the way Kennedy wants. In fact we need to undo his 1965 Immigration Reform Act.
And, of course, there’s the fact that the “Immigration Reform Bill” spits in the face of legal immigrants
It is commendable that the Senate finally seems to have reached a consensus on a bipartisan proposal for immigration reform. But it is disheartening to see that illegal immigrants would be given a path to citizenship, while people who have gone through the impossible to stay here legally are not being offered a naturalization program.
I have lived here for almost nine years. Four on a student visa that I duly renewed every year, one on Optional Practical Training permit, two more years doing my M.B.A. on yet another student visa and now on a H-1B working visa, for which my company shelled out more than $1,500 in government fees and much more in attorney fees.
In addition to paying all visa-related fees, I have dutifully paid government, state and local taxes (even on a portion of my university scholarship), as well as Social Security and Medicare while working. Am I not as entitled as an illegal immigrant to a green card, senators?
I would add one fact to your nine:
10. Immigration has a greater chance of success if the immigrants are expected to assimilate into American society as quickly as feasible, beginning with learning English.
Count me as less outraged than others about illegal immigration. I get it that our border should be more secure for, uh, security reasons. I get it that, at some level, illegal immigration is unfair to those who are willing to wait for the legal process.
But given the declining fertility rates among native-born Americans, I think the numbers of immigrants coming into the US now actually invigorates our society, boosts the economy, and improves the working/non-working ratio that is the heart of the looming entitlements crisis.
“Amnesty” is a loaded word. What I’d like to see is for our illegal immigrant population to agree to be “Americanized.” If that’s not something they want, then they can leave. But I suspect most of them would eagerly embrace it.
Re the point about “assimilation” from Vail Beach–the problem of assimilating large numbers of immigrants, regardless of their origin, has been made much more difficult by the hostility to American society that prevails among the academic and entertainment classes.
It is very difficult to motivate people to join your team if the most vocal members of said team are always talking about how awful it is.
I think the debate so far has missed (or glossed over) a couple of important points:
HOW do we send people back where they came from? These people probably don’t have papers or passports. Is Mexico going to take back millions of people with no documentation? What about other central American states? I don’t see it. Even if they did want them back, they can’t possibly absorb millions of people in a hurry (look at the trouble the US had absorbing 200,000 refugees after Katrina). Those people would end up in stinking refugee camps and the blame would all fall on the US, not Mexico.
WHO will replace them? Those “jobs that Americans won’t do” are, in fact, semi-skilled jobs. How good are YOU at tape and floating drywall? Layed much brick lately? Trust yourself to put a new roof on your own house? Not only have Americans moved on to more lucrative jobs, they’ve traded in the kind of skills you need in those jobs for office and computer skills. They could retrain, but it’s a non-trivial prospect.
More here:
http://roborant.info/main.do?entry=1343
Really, can’t we move past ideology and talk about the practical problems involved in deporting 14 million people?
1. As a citizen of California, I see that my economy runs, to a significant extent, on illegal immigration, largely from Mexico, as a cheap labor force. This is also true of other parts of our country to varying degrees.
That’s just another myth spread by ideologues and ethnic activists. I don’t know how many times the myth about the economy being dependent on illegals has to be disproved before people will stop mouthing these cliches. It’s as if they think Wall Street shills like Larry Kudlow are more accomplished than George Borjas.
Check the immigration sections at Parapundit.com site for refutation after refutation of this open borders propaganda.
2. Mexico has always been incapable of governing itself in a rational way and taking care of its people. There is no expectation that it will in the future. So there will be continued pressure on Mexicans (and others in similar situations) to come here.
The Arab countries are no different. Does that mean successful Israel should give in and allow for mass Arab immigration?
3. Many, probably most, illegal aliens are decent people who want to work hard and live normal lives.
So are the working class Americans who’ll be forced to compete with illegals. But who cares about them?
Besides human beings are not mere economic units. They have interests that go well beyond materialism.
4. Some illegal aliens are criminals.
Disproportionately so as the jails in CA show.
5. Our borders are porous.
They weren’t always porous. Under previous presidents, such as Eisenhower, with smaller border patrols the US was able to control illegal immigration and it had little trouble deporting the invaders. That America had the will to do something about it. Present day America is already so Balkanised it can’t muster the will to defend itself.
6. There are a significant number of people in the world who want to overthrow our civilization and replace it with Islamist ideology. Some of these people want harm us physically.
Latino (mostly Mexican) organisations are highly ethnocentric. Their arguments about America being a “nation of immigrants” are disingenuous. It’s all about ethnic power to them. The demonstrations last year showed what contempt they have for what they see as weakling Americans.
(Incidentally, according to a 2002 ADL report 44% of foreign-born Hispanics hold “hardcore” anti-Semitic views. Not that it’s changed the ADL’s pro-open borders agenda.)
“Hispanic deluge bad news for Jews”
http://tinyurl.com/35j6u3
7. The rule of law is a necessity for a functioning democratic society.
Few Latin Americans care about such things. If they did their societies would not be so corrupt. Latino insistence that their “rights” are more important than US laws is just the latest example.
8. Immigration is necessary to the economic health of our society.
I didn’t realise the USA was such a failure.
9. Immigration is good for our national character.
Immigration dilutes national character unless it is so gradual that the immigrants are forced to fully integrate into the majority culture. That is not happening at present due to the scale of the migration of Mexicans and the multicultural domination of the media, academia, and even Corporate America.
“Not only have Americans moved on to more lucrative jobs, they’ve traded in the kind of skills you need in those jobs for office and computer skills”…it is not correct to assume that “office and computer skills” necessarily pay more than, say, construction work. There are plenty of people using computers in low-level customer service jobs who make less than they would be making in many construction trades. It is not safe to assume that working with words and bits is always better than working with things.
Also, there are plenty of people doing things like fast-food work.
Sarkozy has rejected the idea of legalising those who invaded France. Now there’s a nation with a will to survive! Vive la France!
Rob, we don’t have to deport them, take away the incentive of jobs (by making sure the employers do more than nominally glancing at forged documents), and they’ll go back home voluntarily.
Coisty, #9 Yes, there is a limit to how many immigrants we can assimilate, the fact that the Mexican illegals aren’t assimilating is another problem I have with them. American Thinker has an essay on the subject.
As for the amnesty issue, I’m opposed, I’ll let Senator Charles Grassley say why: (emphasis mine)
I support legal immigration. I support reforms to our visa process to strengthen national security. I support more legal channels for those wanting to work in the United States, and I recognize that some regions and sectors of our economy need more workers. But, I do not believe amnesty or even indirect amnesty is the answer. I voted for amnesty in 1986, and learned that rewarding illegality only promotes illegality. The legalization component of the 1986 law was for the estimated 3 million illegal immigrants who were in the United States at that time, and it was supposed to fix the problem once and for all. Instead, today we have an estimated 12 million people in the United States illegally. So I won’t repeat the mistake of 1986 by voting for amnesty this year.
Joe Schmoe…”If someone earns $30,000 per year working on a loading dock at a factory, and pays $9,000 in state and federal taxes (including FICA, sales tax, etc.), that person is a drain on our econonmy when he has three children who each cost $10,000 per year to educate.” This applies also to native-born Americans, of course (as long as taxes are actually being paid in both cases)
However, I think there is a methodology issue. The actual drain or benefit to the economy is a function of how well the children do and how *they* contribute to the economy. Proper cost accounting, I believe, would allocate the cost of educating the children against their future economic value, not that of their parents.
Investments, by their very nature, can only be recovered over time.
I would like to reduce illegal immigration. On the other hand I care nothing on how many people are allowed to legally immigrate to America. I just want to have a process that says who.
The more people live in ideology – defining themselves exclusively as liberal, conservative, anarchist, libertarian, marxist, Freudian, whatever – the less they seem to be living in reality.
So, by this reasoning, Glenn Reynolds isn’t “living in reality”? Seems to me, Mr. Simon, that eschewing the labels is actually every bit as narrow-minded as embracing them.
If one is truly broad-minded, tho, one won’t be critical of narrow-mindedness.
Why we need better border security. This isn’t really an immigration issue, although as side effect of having secure borders will be less illegal entry of any kind.
Roger –
You are a creature of your Hollywood class: rich, clueless, and out of touch just as much as say, Bill Maher.
1. As a citizen of California, I see that my economy runs, to a significant extent, on illegal immigration, largely from Mexico, as a cheap labor force. This is also true of other parts of our country to varying degrees.
No. You see the exploitation (free ride) of cheap labor for nannies, gardeners, servants, and restaurant workers on the backs of middle class taxpayers (who compete for housing and school space and hospital space and the like) and who also pay the bulk of taxes for public services they are crowded out of.
Meanwhile clueless rich Hollywood celebrities get gardeners and maids for cheap.
Pay people more (as in Japan) and almost any job will be filled. Usually with labor-enhancing capital investment. Which is a far smarter bet than cheap labor. China’s slave labor will always be cheaper.
2. Mexico has always been incapable of governing itself in a rational way and taking care of its people. There is no expectation that it will in the future. So there will be continued pressure on Mexicans (and others in similar situations) to come here.
The conclusion to this is we must admit all 100 million Mexicans. This is a non-starter. Or alternatively simply annex Mexico as a failed culture and state. This is also a non-starter.
Mexico will only fix itself when it can no longer export it’s problems away. This means enforcing the border, not accepting it’s poverty exports, and requiring Mexico to confront it’s corruption, violence, and oligarchical structure (hey no WONDER Hollywood loves Mexico so much).
3. Many, probably most, illegal aliens are decent people who want to work hard and live normal lives.
Many, if not all, illegal aliens are dirt poor who will become tremendous drains on the taxpayers, and will produce children who will be violent, dangerous criminals who will create gang-infested neighborhoods, swelling prison populations, and constant threats to ordinary people so that public life resembles that of Guatemala City. Or, they will become murders themselves like the one who murdered actress/director Adrienne Shelley.
[Lest one think this is "racist" you need only check the DOJ statistics on children of immigrants. By almost every measure they do far worse than their parents and native-born Anglos in rates of imprisonment, illegitamacy, gang activity, serious crimes, etc. Children of illegals remain dirt-poor and generally criminal for generations. PC platitudes and multi-culti nonsense of wishing really hard will not change this unfortunate fact.]
4. Some illegal aliens are criminals.
All Illegal aliens are criminals by definition. It is a violation of the law to be here. The only question is how dangerous will they become, how little the law has on them (they can always flee free from prosecution back to Mexico) and how dangerous their kids will become (short answer: most of them will be very dangerous indeed).
5. Our borders are porous.
Which is a national security threat of long standing duration. However, it is fixable with will. MEXICO has strict controls over it’s southern border and ruthlessly pursues illegal immigrants to it’s country. We can muster at least as much resources as corrupt, failed MEXICO.
6. There are a significant number of people in the world who want to overthrow our civilization and replace it with Islamist ideology. Some of these people want harm us physically.
So hey, let’s let them all in so rich and clueless Hollywood celebrities can save a buck or two on maid service.
7. The rule of law is a necessity for a functioning democratic society.
Law? We don’t need no stinking law. Special rules for illegals: no back taxes. Let’s have La Raza write amnesty laws. Oh wait …
8. Immigration is necessary to the economic health of our society.
Why? So we can have lots of poor people to economically cleanse troublesome blacks out of LA? Compliant maids for Jennifer Anniston? Cheap dishwashers for swanky Malibu restaurants? Japan gets along just fine without immigrants.
9. Immigration is good for our national character.
No, it’s bad. Unless you like the racism, sexism, anti-education, cruelty to animals, machismo, anti-Semitism, general corruption, violence and cruelty that characterize the average Mexican (not to mention dirt poverty and illiteracy and superstitious idiocy) there is no reason to import them by the millions unless you want that behavior here.
Want anti-Semitism by the bushel? Import Mexicans who are among the most anti-Semitic people on earth besides Arabs. Want violence and corruption and “screw the next guy before he screws you” behavior? Import the people who more than anything else epitomize that attitude.
I have no surprises that you want lots of poor people Roger to be your servants. You’re from Hollywood. Of course you have no clue how ordinary people live their lives. How could you? And of course you’re hostile to the interests of ordinary people. How could you not be, being who you are?
The rest of us know quite well when we are being screwed however, and who is doing it.
Rob:
“How do you deport 14 million people” is a straw man; enforcement of our immigration laws does not require deporting everyone here illegally.
It took 21 years to get where we are; the notion that enforcement is a failure unless all 14 million are deported immediately (or that anyone is arguing for that). Systematically stepping up enforcement and deportations and maintaining it for a period of time will drive the number of illegals down over time.
Roger:
Noting that the Mexican government is a disaster and is likely to remain so falls in the “fact we deal with” category (which is where I see you putting it, by the way). When “pro-amnesty” types turn it into “We invited them here,” though, I have a REAL problem with it.
Question for you – Can you conceive of a way where we could prevent illegals from sending money back home to Mexico? Seems to me (if it can be done, that is) that doing so would do more to drain the swamp than just about anything we can do with a fence, etc.
Jim Rockford, you made a lot of assumption about where I stood on those talking points. That may say more about you than it does about me. ACtually, I agree with you to some extent about many of them.
On the major important question of what California (and America) gets from illegal alien labor – one word has been oddly missing so far… agriculture.
I certainly agree that rich Hollywood screenwriters … as I may have been in another life … don’t deserve any commiseration for the loss of their cheap Latino gardeners. But the cost of food on our plates is another issue – vastly wider – issue.
In all, I am surprised/amused at some people’s conclusions about my opinion on those talking points. I deliberately didn’t specify because a. I don’t always have one and b. I was interested in stimulating serious discussion.
MORE: The point made above that it would be good for Mexico (ultimately) if we seriously restricted immigration is a good one. At least it makes sense to me. And I love Mexico (as a visitor – wouldn’t want to live there).
–machine shop, you truly are dependent on cheap immigrant labor.–
Don’t think they’re not making a good buck at the machine shop and choose not to take the health insurance package.
–machine shop, you truly are dependent on cheap immigrant labor.–
Don’t think they’re not making a good buck at the machine shop and choose not to take the health insurance package.
Mark this day down on the calendar, I agree w/Coisty.
Amazing all the faith that certain conservatives — the same ones that don’t believe the federal government has the ability to deliver the mail properly or pay the hospital bills of poor Americans – place on the same government to seal some 6,000 miles of border on both sides of the US from people willing to work for $5 an hour. PLUS deport what BD assures us is just a “portion” of the 14 million illegals currently here. How many would that be? 1%? Where would you take those 140,000 individuals? Would they get a hearing first? Where would you house them before the hearing, and where would take them if the judge rules against them?
Also, I’ve never heard of the “Hispanic antisemitism” line that I’ve noticed on several ‘neocon’ blogs today. It stirkes me as strange. Do they become antisemitic after they come to America, or before? There are very few Jews in Central America, and they have no ties to the Arab world or Islam. I’m sure there are a few illegal immigrants from Mexico who belong to the same church as Mel Gibson’s dad, or have had the misfortune of being a maid at Michael Eisner’s house. But nothing statistically significant.
On a lighter note, and to Jim Rockford in particular… Para bailar la bamba. Para bailar la bamba, se necesita una poca de gracia. Una poca de gracia pa mi pa ti. Arriba y arriba. Y arriba y arriba, por ti sere, por ti sere.
Markus, I agree with the earlier part of your post, but regarding jihadism and Latin America, I am surprised at your ignorance – to begin with there is the massive destruction of the Jewish Community in Buenos Aires in the Nineties by Hezbollah, the extremely well known and highly dangerous center of jihadism established in the tri-border area of Brazil, Paraguay and Argentina, the growing tight relationship between Hugo Chavez and the Iranian mullahs (whose anti-Semitism is approaching Hitler’s , at least in rhetoric), etc., etc. Ten minutes on Google would get you a river of links you couldn’t finish in a day. Since you like to quote Spanish, think of it this way… Tiene que apprender, hombre.
Roger, South America is a whole different can of worms. I think we have very few immigrants coming from there. I will read up on the “jihadi training grounds” though.
BD, maybe we could open people’s mail when they send letters to Central America, in order to make sure they aren’t sending money back home?
Markus, South America is not a whole different can of worms. It is very close to Central America, particularly Venezuela where the stew of jihadism and anti-Semitism is being stirred very heavily right now. The relationship of that and our porous Southern border should give all of us concern. I don’t know what the solution is, but when you make vague assertions about the non-existence of Central American anti-Semitism, I can only laugh. On the Jihad side (not that it is unrelated),what would you suppose the path might be from the Tri-Border area into the US? Through Central America perhaps? I don’t think you even need Google for that.
Roger-
Read Victor Davis Hanson’s book, Mexifornia, before going any farther. And Peter Brimelow’s Alien Nation.
if we seal the border from stem to stern virtually every problem, real or imagined, will take care of itself. you either trust the free market or you don’t. the “invisible hand” will adjust to the new supply/demand ratio caused by the absence of cheap uneducated labor. yes it will take a year or so but afterwards the market will even be more efficient. currently there is a lot of excess caused by the unending stream of illegals walking across the border.
all this talk about jobs americans won’t do, the damage that the economy will suffer, etc, etc are all strawmen and hobgoblins trotted out to get people to vote for things they don’t need. they are spouted by folks that don’t understand how capitalism allocates capital.
just seal the border with real double wide fencing not with electronic “smile you are on candid camera” faux enforcement.
“I am surprised at your ignorance”
With all due respect, Roger, if you are surprised at markus’ ignorance you just haven’t been paying attention. markus here leaps at the chance to blame antisemitism on the Joooos: “Do they become antisemitic after they come to America, or before?” “the misfortune of being a maid at Michael Eisner’s house” What a vile, disgusting little toad he is.
I am of half Hispanic descent and sadly I can vouch for the casual antisemitism that permeates Latin society, most of whose members (like most Arabs) have never even met a Jew. I was in Buenos Aires in 1994 when the Iranians blew up the Jewish community center. I heard the blast. In the days after, I also heard several expressions of anti-Jewish sentiment. Sadly common.
A few other observations for whatever they are worth, just based on my own experience and travels -
It is very true that the average Hispanic immigrant values hard work. It is less true that the average Hispanic immigrant values education. As we compete with China and India, it would seem that we need more education among our new arrivals rather than less.
It should be sobering that all of Latin America has yet to produce a truly stable, honest, democratic, industrial society in the half millennium since the Spanish conquest. There is also a deep fatalism about this condition. I once had a conversation with a Latin American professor about the rapid growth of East Asia in contrast to the slow and uneven growth in Latin America. “Ah, but they are all Chinese.” In 2004, I took a consulting job in northern Mexico. I had a cab driver in Chihuahua laugh and tell me that “soon we will make your country as bad as this one.”
That societal failure and the resigned acceptance of it is a warning to us, should we choose to hear.
I’m in favor of controlled immigration, but jeez, we’ve got huge borders; there’ll be a lot of slipping through.
I have a sort of “compassionate conservative” idea that I think is practical. Beef up the border guards a bit (no way we can afford a 100% secure border that’s 3,000 miles long).
Then devise a VERY conditional amnesty, depending on some sort of “assimilation resume”, consisting of evidence of being a good citizen: taxes paid, volunteer efforts, blood donations, English lessons, neighborhood crime watch participation, or any number of things that make up a valued member of society. I was born among wetbacks, and most of them were fine people. I’d hate to choke off their chances completely. (though I know some others are the best argument for concealed-carry licenses).
Asking what the hardliners who refuse to consider comprehensive reform itnend to do with the millions of people here is not a strawman. It is a question, and one they should answer.
If people are going to balk at legalizing these people in anyway and they are going to keep saying we have to enforce the laws, then what do they intend to do…just ignore all these people they themselves have called criminals? If they do isn’t that a form of amnesty in and of itself? Doesn’t it render a good eal of their argument moot?
I have been voting for Republicans for some time but some of the rhetoric and just paranoid accusations I have been hearing from hardliners on this issue is making me rethink that. In fact the person keeping me in the Republican camp is Pelosi {shudder}
They say just secure the borders and the people will stop coming. Well our borders are very long, it would take years and God only knows how much concrete to build physical barriers around them. Half the illegals here did not even get in that way anyway and I think people are ovelooking the fact that this is not a simple cureall for this long standing problem.
They say that if we just make these people disappear Americans will do all this work. Well two things, one this is a tight labor market, and so far there is no indication that Americans have any intentions of doing all this work. And the idea that if you just pay them enough totally ignores certain basic economic facts. Some of the same people on the right who are against the minimum wage have no problem at all telling other people what to pay the help when it works for them. The market decides the wage in many cases and that labor might just not be worth $20 an hour. I have never seen Americans standing in lines to work the fields and most people would not work in meat packing plants no matter what you paid them. The truth is it is more likely these jobs will either become automated or move south of the border than it is they will ever be done by Americans.
They say just enforce the laws…well that is what they said about Prohibition too. There is not one shred of evidence that these people will just self deport, if you shut down American businesses. It is just an opinion.
And despite what people like Coisty say this country is about more than throwing people out. Our will to survive is about more than racial purity.
We have a legislative process here and while people not always like the way it turns out, it is how we do things. When I hear someone cackle with glee and say this bill is dead I feel the same way I did when Harry Reid smirked and said the Patriot Act was dead.
In the recent debate over the Iraqi War funding the Democrats lost in the end because they did not have the votes to do what the left wanted them to do. No amount of phone calls would change that fact. If more Ned Lamonts had won that election it might be different.
By the same token we have to deal with the reality that the Democrats won the midterms. If someone like Kennedy does not sign onto a bill it will not come up for a vote. And if there is not some regularization of people included in the bill there is no reason to believe the Democrats would ever let it brought up for a vote. The thing to do is to negotiate for triggers that can not be ignored so that the border security is the first priority. That is fair.
So all the rhetoric, paranoid and otherwise completely ignores the reality of who is running Congress. And while people can cite polls all they want, the truth is they don’t have the support in Congress to get everything they want anymore than the nutroots did. Polls do not run the country, elections do. That should be obvious to the citizens of a Republic. Whatever those polls may say, there are not enough Tancredos elected to office to get them what they want, the way they want it.
Our political system is based on compromise. Realistic compromise. We can not function politically without it. Some people think that the survival of our country depends on the race of our majority or what kinds of names we have, but the most important part of our nation and what makes us Americans is our ability find away even in difficult and contentious circumstances to come to an understanding. Like it or not. And to assume that everyone who disagrees with you is a bad person or a traitor who has no rights is not what America is about, just the opposite.
Roger, your list of assumptions about immigration would be much more accurate if you added the vital phrase “legal” to every immigration reference. My wife, stepsons, and daughter-in-law are all legal immigrants. As LarryD pointed out, this current bill makes all legal immigrants look like a bunch of chumps for obeying the law. Instead, they could’ve just came here illegally and waited for politicians to give them free stuff.
Legal immigrants bring a lot of vitality to our country and ecomony. They’re some of the hardest working people I’ve ever met because they don’t take things for granted like so many native born Americans do, nor do most of them have a sense of entitlement.
Illegal immigrants broke the law by coming here, then they continued breaking the law by working under the table (paying few taxes), often on a stolen identity. Many of them are likely good, hard working people but they are breaking the law. As you pointed out, the rule of law is essential.
I’m for an expansion of legal immigration and for restrictions on illegal immigration. It’s as simple as that.
It should be sobering that all of Latin America has yet to produce a truly stable, honest, democratic, industrial society in the half millennium since the Spanish conquest.
My wife, a Filipina, said something to me years ago that was startling but seems to be accurate. She said, “I don’t know of a single country that used to be a Spanish colony that amounted to much of anything.” Her assertion is that the results of Spanish colonization were permanently corrupted societies. I don’t know if that’s true, but off hand, I don’t know of any exceptions, either.
If we can’t manage to come together about who, when and how many people to let in, how in havens name can we even pretend to be serious about preventing another 9/11?
Our security alone should give impetus to reform this joke of a government institution.
I got an idea. Whatever we eventually agree on,
why not make it like the Bush Tax Cuts? Every so often immigration laws will have to be renewed. If the borders are not made safer like they are promising and the laws keep not getting enforced – we start from scratch and we keep at it until we get it right. Like taxes, this is important enough to be revisited again and again.
Someone mentioned that there are factories in LA that can survive paying $9/hr to immigrants but not $20/hr to native-born Americans. Which raises the issue: why are these factories in the US instead of in Mexico?
For the most part, the immigrant workers are probably in LA mainly for the job opportunities and would be happier if they could do the same jobs in their home country. Moreover, wages would be much lower due to the lower cost of living in Mexico. And most locations in Mexico are only 2-4 days away from LA and other US markets by truck and/or rail…contrasted to the 30 days or more to ship products from China.
Although there is substantial manufacturing in Mexico today, the “giant sucking sound” about which Ross Perot was concerned has mainly been from the East rather than the South. Yet there are very substantial logistical benefits in being close enough to the market to use land rather than water transport (as Wal-Mart may be realizing given their current inventory issues.)
The conclusion seems clear: people must find it substantially more difficult to start and run a business in Mexico than in China.
5. Our borders are porous. It is unbelievable to me that the country that once built the Alcan Highway in eight and a half months, The Trans-Alaska Pipeline in 26 months, and Boulder Dam in 4 years can’t – if it wants – build a reasonably secure fence on the border in much less than a decade. A fence with gates, to be sure, but a secure fence all the same. Of course it can be done.
7. The rule of law is a necessity for a functioning democratic society. We don’t yet know the final form of any bill. But the widespread feeling that illegals can break the law with impunity while the rest of us may not only serves to exacerbate the attitude that our rulers are too distant from us and that our citizenship has little value. Kind of like it is south of the border…
We can’t feel this way and fight the jihadis at the same time.
Double whammy, Larry, don’t forget the froggies.
which explains Canada, they should just cut Quebec loose.
Anglo-Saxon market capitalism – say it loud, say it proud.
It works.
–…”If someone earns $30,000 per year working on a loading dock at a factory, and pays $9,000 in state and federal taxes –
Please paying $30K pay fed taxes????
I thought W changed that.
Photoncourier:
You are broadly correct. Google “maquiladoras China” and look through the hits. I don’t think that this was foreseen by NAFTA’s planners. In any case, the partial industrialization of northern Mexico is not nearly enough to keep people home.
skook–”It is unbelievable to me that the country that once built the Alcan Highway in eight and a half months, The Trans-Alaska Pipeline in 26 months, and Boulder Dam in 4 years can’t – if it wants – build a reasonably secure fence on the border in much less than a decade.”
It’s not only the fence. I worry that we as a society are losing the ability to get things done quickly. See my post Like Swimming in Glue.
I want to nip one of the latest sound bites in the bud: There may or may not be, “Jobs that Americans won’t do,” but a bunch of applicants for jobs formerly done by immigrants is largely irrelevant. What I hear from people that employ (legal) immigrants in this area is that Americans will apply for the jobs all day long. It’s simply that when they get hired, they won’t work–that’s assuming that they bother to show up and aren’t on drugs.
I heard the same thing from someone yesterday–someone I have strong reason to believe. This person was taking a hard line on immigration, but was bemoaning the fact that it was considered a success in HR if you found an applicant that got past the drug test. I know for a fact that the pay and benefits are very generous from this particular company.
Terrye, the dems didn’t lose the war funding, I read they’re going to take it out of State’s hide and tie their hands in Iraq.
Mebbe we should start cutting our own lawns again?
As to working in the fields, mechanization will take care of most of it. Of course, when the Japanese demand that every apple picked must not have human hands touch it (unless it’s changed, the apples are covered in paper before being hand-picked) there’ll be some exceptions. As I wrote about the wine growers, France uses mechanization to pick the grapes, our guys don’t WANT to.
As to not protecting our borders? China built a wall and didn’t have today’s technology and materials to do it.
Berlin had a wall, (I think built in 2 weeks) and there was a fence (albeit barbed wire) between and East and West – at least the part I saw.
They may be “making” $5/hr – but they manage to send back over $20 billion last year just to Mexico. Wasn’t the total remittance around $40 billion??? And if they’re making $5 cash, it’s worth more than me earning $5. Anyone read about the guy who lived on $5 week?
How about the guy who took $14K in cash to the IRS hoping it’ll stand him in good stead?
We’re getting lazy, folks.
Photoncourier:
There is also the technological and skills gap between the public sector and the private. If Safeway knows how many packages of frozen lima beans are in each of its stores across the continent at any given time, why can’t we tell who is coming in and going out over the borders at any given time? If Amazon.com can get me a book in two days, why can’t I get disaster supplies in two days? The gap reinforces the lack of confidence in public institutions to do their jobs, which explains a great part of the frustration with any scheme by government to control illegal immigration. It is because they can’t. They don’t know how.
We need to come up with a politically palatable immigration vocabulary
We don’t call quotas discrimination
So …. if there are just “too many” lawbreakers, we should give up all attempts to enforce the law?
“What you do with them?”
You increase the resources devoted to enforcement, charge those caught with violating our laws, give them their hearing and deport those found guilty of violating our immigration laws.
“How quickly do you do it?”
As quickly as the logistical limits of the legal system will permit.
And your answer is “If you can’t catch & deport them all in a month (or two months, or a year, etc.) you shouldn’t do it at all?”
I wonder if the IRS feels that way about its tax audits …. I don’t know why, but I doubt it.
I agree with your list, Roger.
Just a word about border fencing. For those who don’t realize it, building a double pedestrian barrier the entire length of the border, as many people want, is going to be terribly difficult in Texas. Landowners are not going to sit still for being walled off from their land, and from their water rights. People need access to the river. This is in addition to the problems posed by terrain, and environmental and ecotourism issues.
Not that it can’t be done–but it probably won’t be.
If you think of a serious wound as a metaphor for uncontrolled illegal immigration, consider the following advice taught to us by the military.
First Rule: STOP THE BLEEDING! – The equivalent of prohibiting unlawful border crossings by whatever means necessary.
Without this, everything is just a waste of time.
I got the perfect plan.
Let’s have an illegal version of American Idol – call it Illegal Idol. America will have two hours to phone in who stays and who goes.
Oh wait… illegals have phones, ss cards, credit cards, frequent border miles. I think they even vote in some states. Florida 2000 all over again.
It no use people. Unless Al Gore declare illegals to cause global warming, we are doomed
Wow! I can’t remember when I’ve seen passions running so high, viz. the heat from Jim Rockford and Terrye (whose comments I have enjoyed and learned from in the past).
Jim #8:
Actually Japan is not doing just fine without immigration. Their birth rate is below 1.3, far below the replacement rate of 2.1
Here is a link to a BBC article from August, 2006:
http://tinyurl.com/yq5w5t
Immigration is keeping our birthrate above replacement rate.
Thank you Roger, for initiating this discussion.
Let the path to citizenship run thru Iraq or Afghanistan. Talk about a surge.
Terrye,
Not only do I refuse to consider “legalizing” criminals, but I refuse to settle for anything less than punishing said criminals.
As has been alluded to here and in the previous thread, getting rid of the illegals that are already here is not difficult. First, we need to make it a felony to be in the country illegally. Then, make it very expensive to send money to Mexico, a nice 70% tax on money transfers would be a good start. Next, make it a felony to hire illegals and attach a penalty tax (say 20%) levied against the employer’s income for a duration (say 1-year per illegal.) And, though not necessary, a suspension of all federal disbursements to states which allow municipalities to set up so-called “sanctuaries.”
The illegals will be gone in a matter of months if not weeks.
And, anyone that says we won’t be able to effectively seal the southern border is a liar or just really stupid. All it take is the will. The American people have the will and it is our obligation to demand that our politicians do it.
“1. As a citizen of California, I see that my economy runs, to a significant extent, on illegal immigration, largely from Mexico, as a cheap labor force. This is also true of other parts of our country to varying degrees.”
No. The economy has and did run without illegal immigration. Illegal immigration is tolerated because it depresses wages and profits certain businesses. In America, for example, meat processing has been changed from a middle class to minimum wage job. When illegals have been routed the plants hire Americans at a few dollars more an hour and run just fine.
Canada has a merit based system, privileging certain skilled occupations. Canada does not have the wage depression and growing poverty that America has.
8. Immigration is necessary to the economic health of our society.
Nations without significant immigration at all “run” quite well too. America has substantial, legal, immigration. Health is a relative term. The health of American middle classes, their lifestyle and earning power, decreased since 1965′s immigration act. Before that it was increasing. Health as a function of upper class wealth, yes, America is healthier.
9. Immigration is good for our national character.
Amorphous. America had good national character in times of near zero immigration.
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/18817421/
NOW it’s getting interesting and a much better bill, via Cap’t Ed:
Coleman’s amendment ending sanctuary cities and Cornyn:
John Cornyn has proposed an even more critical amendment, one that appears to have Democrats a bit flummoxed:
U.S. Sen. John Cornyn, the top Republican on the Judiciary Committee
And also via Cap’t Ed:
Initial public reaction to the immigration proposal being debated in the Senate is decidedly negative.
A Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey conducted Monday and Tuesday night shows that just 26% of American voters favor passage of the legislation. Forty-eight percent (48%) are opposed while 26% are not sure. The bi-partisan agreement among influential Senators and the White House has been met with bi-partisan opposition among the public. The measure is opposed by 47% of Republicans, 51% of Democrats, and 46% of those not affiliated with either major party.
The next part of the report shows that Congress as a whole may have missed the pulse of the nation. Instead of focusing on normalization, they could improve their standing immensely — in both parties — by addressing border security as a primary and separate initiative:
The enforcement side of the debate is clearly where the public passion lies on the issue. Seventy-two percent (72%) of voters say it is Very Important for
“UPDATE: The news is not all bad for comprehensive reform. From the Rasmussen summary:”
I don’t see this poll question,
“Do you support a long process, etc. etc., but which could avoided by anybody by applying for a “Z Visa” guaranteeing them unlimited residency in the USA?”
Terrye
A corollary to point #1, “We get the illegal immigrant population we ask for”. One can lament the over-extension of services this all causes but these people come for jobs. This is demand driven. No jobs, no immigrants. There are jobs because we all like the lower prices associated with lower labor costs. One can pay for the services or one can pay more till these become “Jobs Americans Will Do”. If there is a problem in all this one only need look in the mirror to see who is at the bottom of it.
As another corollary, “Our security problems from the open border come from our own greed and willingness to sell ourselves out for cheap services”.
And …
Lets not waste time arguing over how dependant we are or aren’t on immigrant labor. When John Smith looks out the window at his overgrown lawn he has to decide whether to have Mike down the street or Jose from over in the barrio cut it. He will 99 times out of a 100 base that decision purely on cost. And that cost analysis will not include how much Jose and his family cost him every time they go to the emergency room. Jose will get the job because he will do it for half the price. Until the pain of what the real costs are in terms of taxes and cultural changes Mike he will not approach this in any other way.
We could also eliminate much of the terror threat in the world by refusing to buy Middle East oil and opting for domestic liquefied coal instead. But at $3.00 per gallon for foreign gas vs. $5.00 for coal product I know what people will choose. This in spite of the fact that the overall costs of security far outweigh savings at the pump.
Greed, stupidity, or resignation, it’s not a pretty picture and it has no simple fixes.
And …
Lets not waste time arguing over how dependant we are or aren’t on immigrant labor. When John Smith looks out the window at his overgrown lawn he has to decide whether to have Mike down the street or Jose from over in the barrio cut it. He will 99 times out of a 100 base that decision purely on cost. And that cost analysis will not include how much Jose and his family cost him every time they go to the emergency room. Jose will get the job because he will do it for half the price. Until the pain of what the real costs are in terms of taxes and cultural changes Mr. Smith will not approach this in any other way.
We could also eliminate much of the terror threat in the world by refusing to buy Middle East oil and opting for domestic liquefied coal instead. But at $3.00 per gallon for foreign gas vs. $5.00 for coal product I know what people will choose. This in spite of the fact that the overall costs of security far outweigh savings at the pump.
Greed, ignorence, or resignation, it’s not a pretty picture and it has no simple fixes.
Well, well, well, via Rantburg from WND – take w/salt, but I question the timing:
A powerful think tank chaired by former Sen. Sam Nunn and guided by trustees including Richard Armitage, Zbigniew Brzezinski, Harold Brown, William Cohen and Henry Kissinger, is in the final stages of preparing a report to the White House and U.S. Congress on the benefits of integrating the U.S., Mexico and Canada into one political, economic and security bloc.
The final report, published in English, Spanish and French, is scheduled for submission to all three governments by Sept. 30, according to the Center for Strategic & International Studies.
http://wnd.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=55830
Re: items 8 & 9 -
The arguments for immigration and diversity are NOT served by 95% of that immigration being from a single culture and undereducated.
That 95% comes through Mexico is an of geography and economics – not intentional policy. I’m all for immigration, in a limited and controllable fashion. It should be “fair” to all aspiring immigrants, not just Central / South Americans.
It all starts with a secure and controlled border and an acknowledgement and submission to the rule of law.
(As an aside – the current law under consideration is an abomination. And note that even with the so-called “point” system it likely will cover not just the est 12 million – but more like an additional 18 million attached – totalling currently 10% of our population.)
Stan
Roger:
I’d like to end the debate.
Let me simply state that the importation of tens of millions of illegals without the ability to read or speak English, without an education and without job skills is a disaster.
Assimilation of this magnitude of illegals means the end of every government entitlement and public service program currently in place.
Nothing in the current Comprehensive Immigration Reform Bill will change that.