My best friend and I have known each other for almost 20 years. One of the things I value most about our friendship is our mutual gift: if I don’t understand something, I just have to wait for him to explain it to me. At least half the time, I’ll answer him, and find myself listening to myself and learning the answer as I’m explaining it.
He’s a semi-regular reader of Wizbang, and occasional commenter. Recently, though, when we were talking, he noted that one of my hot-button topics is illegal aliens. He asked me why I gave it so much attention.
I’d often wondered that myself, and when he asked me, I had to answer. And it came down to two points.
The first one is quite simple. The United States has an extremely liberal immigration policy — quite possibly the most liberal in the world. We admit over a million people a year. And while the process is not easy, it has to be one of the easiest in the world.
Every year a million people who have followed all the rules enter the United States legally, welcomed with open arms.
And every year countless more come here illegally, or under false pretenses, or stay longer than they agreed to.
These people, for whatever reason, hold themselves as above those rules. They consider their own circumstances as more important than others, and they don’t need to bother with following the procedures that everyone else has to.
They’re line-cutters. They’re cheats. I don’t like people who do that in daily life; those that do that are spitting in the faces of all those who are following the laws and coming here legally and properly, and on their behalf I am angered.
The other reason is based purely on Constitutional principle.
One of the standard defenses for illegal immigration is that the aliens are performing the work Americans don’t want to do, that our economy needs the cheap, unskilled labor they provide to keep going. They warn that if every single illegal alien were to disappear tomorrow, our entire way of life would be severely affected — especially in areas like agriculture, construction, and cleaning services.
That argument always bothered me, and for the longest time I didn’t understand why. But the instant my friend asked me about it, it became crystal clear:
The economic argument is nothing new. In fact, it’s very, very old. So old, that we’ve alreadye debated and settled it almost 150 years ago — and the pro-cheap-labor side lost.
You might recall reading about it, It was called the Civil War.
Yeah, it’s a bit of a stretch. For one, there were other issues besides slavery involved in the war. For another, indentured servitude might be a better comparison to illegal alien labor than actual slavery. But the essence remains the same — the notion is that a cheap source of labor is being exploited and used through fear of the power of law. It was wrong then, and it’s wrong today.
In my dream world, I’d like to see the restrictions and red tape on immigration reduced to a more manageable system. But that would have to be coupled with an assault on illegal immigration. Streamlined deportation processes. Severe penalties for those who exploit illegal aliens. And, perhaps, even a change to the rules of citizenship, so children born here of illegal aliens have the citizenship of their parent’s homeland, not the United States, ending the exploitation of children as “anchor babies.”
We have a lot of good laws on the books about illegal aliens. But we need to start enforcing them. Laws that are unenforced merely cheapen respect for all other laws, and that’s a nice start towards anarchy.
Illegal aliens? You cad, I think you mean “undocumented”! 😉
As a PHYSICIAN, I am ethically obligated to render appropriate care to anyone who preents to me as a patient. As ILLEGALS, they perceive no obligation to pay for my time, skill, effort, and liability.
As a PARENT, I have to send our children to an expensive & distant private school, because the local public school has been overrun (85%) by ill-disciplined Hispanic youth, many of whom haven’t bothered to learn English.
As a HOMEOWNER, I was the victim of a major burglary this summer. MS-13 gang members on parole for other felony convictons were sent in by a subcontractor to drywall for one day; later, they returned and voilated our security. My firearms have been turning up in felonies up to 2000 miles away.
As a CITIZEN, last month I wept as two neighbor children (whose parents were on a tour of duty in the Middle East) were mowed down in a School Zone crosswalk by an un-documented, un-insured illegal. Of course, the illegal was licensed by NC-DMV, whose director (Wayne Hurder) asserted in an e-mail to regional chief examiners: “the fact that a person is in the US without the permission of the Department of Homeland Security (formerly INS) is irrelevant as far as North Carolina DMV is concerned.”
Illegal immigration has rightfully become the #1 hot-button issue in this Red State. George Bush and the Republicans have been derelect in their duty to secure us within our borders. Maybe he’s laying the groundwork for the candidacy of his nephew George P. Bush, whose mother Columba Garnica Gallo hails from Guanajuato.
I was flattered.. am flattered.. I feel like the teacher who said to albert “Got any bright ideas einstein” and look what happened
Dude, this is an apples to oranges comparison and not a very strong one at that.
I don’t get it. Conservatives seem to understand the benefits of free trade. They seem to understand how the laws of supply and demand apply to capital, goods, and services, yet they seem cognitively unable to apply supply and demand to labor. And Jay, that’s exactly the task before you. To effectively rebut the “economic argument,” you are going to have to show how labor is exempt from the laws of supply and demand. Good Luck.
The fact that the US may have more liberal laws than other countries does not mean that American immigration laws are “liberal.” They are still based on a quota system that is predicated on a socialist/mercantilist fixed-pie view of economics that has long been discarded by modern economics.
It’s as if some leftists of old, in an attempt to eliminate highway deaths, managed to successfully get the legal speed limit dropped to 15mph and now today all of the conservatives are screaming about all of the “speeders.”
And Dr. Kerlin, with defenders of the welfare state like you, who needs Democrats?
:peter
Kevin K.: I second your comments regarding the Republicans and immigration. As a California resident (born and raised), I’ve seen the state deteriorate toward fourth world status – that is a former first world state that, due to immigration and economics, is split into a vast population of recent and illegal immigrants that are predominately of lower economic echelons, and who by their presence, are forcing cultural changes on the the other population segment lower, middle, and upper economic echelons of the natural and naturalized legal citizens of the state.
California will spend about $2B *just* in state/county/city jails (not including any federal costs) to house illegal immigrants that have committed felonies in the state. And that is just the tip of the iceberg.
Also, their crime of illegally entering our country is only the beginning. Bear in mind that not all of the illegals actually work and contribute to the economy, many leech off of tax payers (ala the aforementioned ‘anchor babies’) and obtain free services from the government at many levels. Our schools are suffering tremendously, and the teachers unions that control our state will allow nothing to be done about it because they perversely see it as some sort of job security. The fact is that if we actually controlled our borders and stopped 90% plus of illegal immigration, our schools would lose many students – and this would be a good thing to the vast majority of citizens. The same number of teachers could teach smaller classes and not have to deal with non-English speakers to the degree they do now. Transient students would decrease, and classrooms and entire schools would stabilize and the learning environments improve dramatically.
Billions of dollars of what illegals earn is actually sent back to Mexico as well and does not get fed back into the US economy. Mexico’s second largest revenue source behind oil is money sent back fromm the US by Mexican citizens.
Businesses that choose to do the right thing and not hire illegals are penalized by the fact that their competitors who do hire illegals pay less than prevailing wages for labor giving them an unfair advantage over the business demonstrating integrity. Businesses that knowingly hire illegals should be very, very severely penalized. It has to hurt to hire illegals.
Also, I honestly resent the undue influence that illegal immigration is having on my American culture. Here in California, we are being ‘hispanisized’ at an increasing rate. The fact is that illegal immigration is driving this unwanted, unwarranted change in our culture. And that is wrong.
What is wrong with us? Why do we tolerate this usurpation of our sovereignity? Economics? We are a capitalist economy and the beauty of that is that if all illegals disappeared overnight, supply and demand would adjust and we’d continue on – far, far better off than we are now.
The German’s have their guilt to drive their immigration policy, which is pretty damn liberal, and a sore point across their country. We have pride in our historical dependence upon immigration for our country’s growth. Anyone see any other deadly sins involved here?
But we sometimes forget our county’s original founders were colonists, not immigrants.
The illegal immigrants in our present country could be viewed as “colonists” of a different kind, and even might be considered a kind of threat to US citizens that our forebears presented to the original inhabitants of this land. Not by a takeover dependent upon force of violence (gang violence notwithstanding), but by a more insiduous and gradual erosion of culture and economics while the political base grows…
Ironic, huh?
Peter J: The illegal immigration problem in America is not an issue of labor economics primarily, it is an issue of national sovereignity. Unless you believe that free trade demands removal of all borders and unrestricted (and possibly government/business subsidized?) travel between nations, then the ‘free trade’ argument fails.
Free trade can function quite well without illegal immigration, and many – myself included – believe free trade would work far better and be of more benefit to the peoples of every nation without illegal immigration.
As a Californian who worked in the orchards and fields of the Central Valley as a teenager, right along side of legal and illegal hispanic immigrants, I fully believe we should have a very well controlled guest worker program. I have nothing against Mexicans and made many very good friends in my days of farm labor. But we must have absolute control of our borders, otherwise we have no borders, and without borders we will soon have no nation.
epador, good observation. It is precisely the cultural and related economic and governance changes that are being driven by illegal immigration that are a direct threat to the US as a nation of people living under the rule of law.
These changes are being driven illegally and violate our constitution, and our rights to self determination as Americans.
I think your observation of illegal immigrants as colonists is not unreasonable.
I wrote a lenghty response to Jay
Here is my take on birthright citizenship-
Our politicians therefore pay lip service to immigration reform or worse. Make it tougher on legal immigration or propose unconstitutional measures like ending birthright citizenship. This is a bad idea, the 14th ammendment grants citizenship to those born in the US. If we allow this ammendment to circumvented by law we are creating the danger of its misuse to punish certain groups who are out of political favor.
And don’t give me the BS reason that those who wrote the 14th ammendment didn’t mean birthright citizenship to go to illegals. They didn’t want Indians, Chinese and other cultures allowed to be citizens either. You want to follow that example?
Plus the simple fact that some making this 14th ammendment argument are those same in uproar over Kelo. You want one part of the constitution read literally and another interperted. Who’s being consistent here? I’ve read bloggers who think it should be applied even to legal immigrants.
Oh and by the way. How do you plan on enforcing this? A social security card isn’t proof of citizenship. Passports to be shown? Birth certificates? How? Who will the burden of proof be on the parents or the state? John and Paula Smith don’t have bc or passports, so you’re going to make them pay the $400(or so. The ammount goes goes up on a regular basis) to get citizenship for their child? If you don’t think this can be seriously screwed up, I consider you read this. This is a bureaucratic jungle you’re going to create besides it being unconstitutional at the moment.
The only way to change birthright is by ammending the 14th ammendment.
Mr. Jackson: I agree with F15C. I think that immigration labor is essentially free of supply and demand simply because of the sloppy way the government handles it. In my mind if supply and demand truly was in effect then if there were no jobs to be had (lack of demand) aliens would have no interest in coming here in the first place (lack of supply). But Dr. Kerlin states why this does not happen and it is simply due to the additional perks our country offers independent of the job itself. The government’s lack of enthusiasm for enforcing the existing immigration laws allows resourceful and perhaps even unemployed aliens to quietly ease themselves into our already overburdened entitlement programs (public education, healthcare, etc). We know our entitlement system is overburdened and yet our government seems perfectly willing to ignore the greater strain more illegals will place on it. There may be others but that reason alone is enough for them to come here whether or not jobs are available. So, I think it is more than reasonable to have more control over this situation.
The argument that we need immigration to counter declining birthrates is vapid nonsense. We have everything we need in this country to counter such declines: horny men, and horny women.
The problem is that horny men and women who are of reproductive age are, in this day and age, the most heavily taxed people on the planet. This makes getting by, especially with children who are always in need of mainenance, an expensive proposition. They pay all the taxes and get next to nothing from the government in return. So long as tax policy rewards non-producers, who are generally of non-reproductive age (or welfare cases), over producers, this will always be a problem.
We pay old people to sit at home and do nothing. I can’t tell you how many able-bodied men and women I know who are retired. We pay lazy people to sit at home and breed. These are exactly the wrong kind of people you want to breed (I’m not saying you should stop them, just that you shouldn’t encourage them by giving them OTHER PEOPLE’S MONEY.)
F15C!
It’s an issue of national sovereignty IN YOUR HEAD, or perhaps on paper somewhere. Here, in the ACTUAL PHYSICAL WORLD, it is an issue of economics, period. Just like a 15mph speed limit isn’t consistent with the way that people use automobiles, our immigration system (if you can call it that) isn’t consistent with the economic REALITY in North America. Thus just like no one would obey a 15mph speed limit, our immigration laws aren’t being obeyed.
First, this is a strawman. Second…it’s also wrong! Do you think that the US economy would benefit if we erected restricted borders at our state lines? If so, please explain how that would work. If not, please explain how the laws of supply and demand are different on the CA-Mexico border than they are at the CA-OR border.
Yours/
peter.
To further argue my point, what countries have the world’s highest birthrates? The ones that don’t have huge welfare states. People there see children as an asset, not a liability (which is PRECISELY how we see it in Western countries). Furthermore, the LOWEST birthrates are in those European nations with mammoth welfare states.
Besides that, it is the welfare state that makes immigration so attractive to immigrants (legal or illegal) and so costly to citizens.
“I don’t get it. Conservatives seem to understand the benefits of free trade. They seem to understand how the laws of supply and demand apply to capital, goods, and services, yet they seem cognitively unable to apply supply and demand to labor. And Jay, that’s exactly the task before you. To effectively rebut the “economic argument,” you are going to have to show how labor is exempt from the laws of supply and demand. Good Luck.” – Peter Jackson
Peter, your argument’s weakness is that it doesn’t consider non-economic costs. If your next door neighbor decided he wanted to use his land to have a trash incinerating plant that might be perfectly OK – except that he’s dumping dirty air into your airspace, as well. No doubt if that happened you would sue.
By that same token, there are costs – huge costs – to illegal immigration that can’t be expressed in economic terms. The need for new prisons, roads, schools, water supplies and the like. The extra 30 minutes you’ll spend sitting in traffic to get to work (in California, home to 10 million immigrants, people spend LOTS of time stuck in traffic). The guy in the free market utopia you posit who employs these aliens doesn’t have to compensate you for that. YOU pay those extra taxes, not him. YOU lose those hours of your life, not him. Furthermore, what about all the assets that are owned by the citizens in trust – national parks, school systems, transportation networks, the military – tens of trillions of dollars worth. We and our ancestors have paid for those, but the immigrant who comes here today gets ownership in them at no cost.
I have always thought of myself as a conservative Republican, but the tendency of today’s Republican Party to elevate economic issues above all else is a characteristic of fascism, not conservatism.
Peter,
Even Milton Friedman understands that you can’t have BOTH massive immigration and a welfare state. If the chief guru of free market economics understands that, so should you.
Like it or not, we DO have a welfare state. Even if we eliminated every characteristic of what most people consider to be a welfare state, WE WOULD STILL have a welfare state.
DavidD!
This sounds to me like an argument against the welfare state. I apologize, but I have very little patience when it comes to arguments like Dr. Kerlin’s. It’s like building a house out of manure and then getting indignant when the flies show up.
And is it really the government’s “lack of enthusiasm” for enforcement that’s at fault here? We’re very enthusiastic about enforcing drug laws, but look: Drugs. Are. Everywhere. We can’t even keep drugs out of our prisons.
If the government ever successfully eliminates the People’s right to own guns, will the criminals still have guns due to a lack of government enthusiasm?
If Hillary gets elected and we wind up with HillaryCare, will the months-long waiting lists and perpetually explosive health care costs be due to a lack of government enthusiasm?
Rather, David, I humbly suggest to you that there may be certain things that government just can’t do, especially in certain ways. You know, just like there are things that all of us can’t do. This is the reason we’re called conservatives you know: because we believe in conserving the social rules and institutions that are most effective, like the rule of law and free markets.
Yours/
peter.
Illegal aliens are not only cheaters and line-cutters, but they are felons.
Here’s the law that exists now and has for a while now, just disregarded by so many.
It’s the disregard that offends so many of us, particularly when the felons (illegal aliens) become so obstinate and angry about “their” “rights” despite their felony/ies and many even laugh about the very idea of laws, immigration requirements and particularly, citizenship.
About mentioning illegal aliens/felons, Jay Tea, I’m very glad that you and a few other of us bloggers have because without that, the issue would still be being laughed at and ignored by our legislatiors. Among voters, too, unfortunately, the very subject has been suppressed and criticised as to those of us mentioning the issues involved/related, so, persistence is beginning to have a reward. And more and more people are beginning to stop being intimidated about discussing the subject.
I’ve always found your ongoing mention of felons/illegal aliens to be a very good thing. And, I thank you for doing so.
I think it never hurts to express these points over and over again, either, and that is: illegal immigration and illegal aliens in our country are not immigrants. They are felons.
Legal immigration involves an application process and people who follow legal means to seek citizenship in our country, and/or to gain legal residency and/or work privilege here. You apply, you substantiate, you meet qualifications, you wait your turn and abide by the behaviors requested of you and which you swear to abide by.
Illegal aliens, felons, are engaging in criminal behavior and arrive in the country and then remain here by dishonest, illegal means. They need to go home because their behavior indicates bad character and should be among the very last ever bestowed with citizenship.
Lastly, no special rights for people from Mexico. The United States Constitution applies to the United States and if the people of Mexico want a similar form of government and document, then create those for themselves. The United States is not Mexico and just because some people have ancestors from Spain does not bestow them with privileges no one else has, no special rights and privileges just because you have DNA from ancestors from Spain.
Alan!
Dr. Friedman is absolutely correct. You sort of answer your own question here, don’t you?
And like it or not, as long as we do have a welfare state, we will have the problem of others around the world seeking to take advantage of it, regardless of how far we go in Sovietizing our borders.
Yours/
peter.
Peter,
The difference is that I can hide enough cocaine in a teeny-tiny pouch to keep me happy for weeks. It’s. A. Bit. Harder. To. Hide. A. Whole. Human. Body.
Especially if he’s flipping hamburgers at McDonald’s and she’s cleaning rooms at the Marriott.
And besides, the inability to enforce all the laws all of the time ISN’T an argument against any laws at all.
Peter wrote- And like it or not, as long as we do have a welfare state, we will have the problem of others around the world seeking to take advantage of it, regardless of how far we go in Sovietizing our borders.
Sovietizing our borders? That would only be if we prevent or shot people trying to escape.
Thanks, Bill, for pointing out the foolishness — and falsehoods implied — in many of those Leftist terms.
Peter,
So what’s your argument? That WE CAN’T secure our borders? Or that WE SHOULDN’T?
Because we’ve made no effort to even try. Isn’t it odd that the folks who say that “we can’t” oppose ANY effort to even try?
They don’t want us to kick the kids of illegals out of schools. They want us to let illegal kids attend public colleges, and at in-state rates. They want us to give them driver’s licenses and car registrations. They want us to let them open bank accounts and take out mortgages. They want us to treat them at hospitals w/o questioning why they’re here. They want us to give their children born here automatic citizenship (which is NOT required by the 14th A.) They DON’T want to allow local law enforcement officers to enforce immigration laws. And on, and on, and on.
They claim that we can’t, but then make damned sure that we actually can’t.
-S-!
And…So what?
Call them heretics and apostates. Call them anythiing you want. Exactly what does it change in the actual physical world? Exactly nothing, including the fact that the vast majority of illegal Mexican migrants aren’t dangerous criminals, but rather poor, humble, hard-working people simply looking for honest work.
You did hit on the problem though, -S-:
You’re offended. That’s it. You have an idea in your head that you don’t like. It has nothing to do with the actual physical world.
Yours/
peter.
I think that immigration labor is essentially free of supply and demand simply because of the sloppy way the government handles it.
The government can no more “free” something from the laws of supply and demand any more than it can “free” something from the law of gravity.
Government can either choose to accept economic truths and thus respect the free market, or it can pretend they don’t exist and proceed to cause everyone a lot of trouble. But economic reality never changes.
Even Milton Friedman understands that you can’t have BOTH massive immigration and a welfare state. If the chief guru of free market economics understands that, so should you.
This is mostly true. I agree with Mr. Jackson’s strong defense of the free market. Labor is as much of a market factor as anything else, subject as much to the laws of supply and demand (i.e., the price system) as wheat, steel, cars, oil, etc. I’m as much a believer in the free market as anyone you will find.
The problem with open immigration (which I wholeheartedly support) is that it immediately reveals the fundamental flaws of the welfare state. Starting with the school system, picking up the roadway subsidies, and finishing off with housing and food subsidies, we have a system of welfare that will draw people here. If/when we socialize the medical industry, it will grow exponentially.
(But Alan, Milton Friedman is not the chief guru of free market economics. Think more in terms of Ludwig von Mises.)
Peter,
On second thought I think you’re absolutely right about everything. Let the free market reign! Let as many people come here as want to come here! 50 million? 100 million? 500 million? 1 billion? Sure!
I don’t mind at all anymore, and neither should you unless you’re a leftist racist hompophobic nativist with your eyes too close.
So the story has been told that when President Jimmuh Carter was visiting the Premier of China, he told him that he should allow his people to leave. “Sure,” responded the Premier, “how many do you want?” Jimmuh said nothing further.
Alan (on your side of these issues)…”they” are getting the message now that WE are being firm and consistent and expressive about these problems.
For instance, I read not too long ago that banks in Wisconsin stopped providing home loans to illegal aliens (felons) because it proved bad for business after so many of us legal people expressed outrage about that. Now for the other banks in our other states…
I heard LaRaza spokesperson just the other day on television, opining about why she likes illegal aliens being provided with in-state tuition rates, that, in her words, “it levels the playing field.”
I was wondering just what the “field” she thinks is being levelled actually is. Illegal aliens are not citizens, they aren’t even here with student VISAs, they’re in the country by illegal means. They aren’t even ON “the field,” they have not even presented so much as a qualification that enables them to receive ANYthing from American taxpayers, much less healthcare, housing, food, an education and so much more.
LaRaza represents people from, mostly all, Mexico who presume to conclude that whatever is in the U.S. belongs to them. That what U.S. citizens and residents have and participate in should be theirs just because Americans possess, build and/or have access to “it.”
How this sort of crazed sense of inordinate right to possess American goods and services and even residency by so many is criminal. Truly, it’s a criminal perspective learned and instructed in a culture that does not seem to comprehend how to do for themselves, so, they set out to take from America, and then feel self righteous about it, if you consider the very organization of LaRaza.
If Mexico wants the benefits and privileges of the U.S. Constitution, why haven’t they written one of their own and then prospered from that? Only Mexico can answer that question but so far, few from there seem to even care, much less ask why.
There never has been written a better example of a Straw Man argument. What a crock!
Also, you seem inherently desire to selectively follow the Amendment drafters’ intent; to wit, the children born to foreign diplomats residing here are not granted birthright citizenship. They are, by law, citizens of the countries that their parents are “under the jurisdiction thereof.” Congress carved out this distinction based on its authority to “to enforce, by appropriate legislation” granted in section V of the Amendment. Congress has the absolute right to do write the “Anchor Baby” loophole out of existence, and it should.
Phinn,
The problem with free market economics is that it has to be two way. Sure, maybe it’s OK to throw open the borders to any and all comers, but where can I go in return? China? India? Zimbabwe? Very few nations would show reciprocity. I doubt China would let me become a “citizen” for what little that may be worth.
The other mistake is to reduce everything to simple economics. Economics is important, but it’s not everything. Social ties matter more. That’s why we DO have public education. That’s why people DON’T steal from their neighbors. That’s why so many brave young men and women DO bother to join the ranks of the military, or the police dept, or the fire dept.
The fact is that a leftist sees the values of these social obligations in terms of pure economics. “Take X dollars from person A and give it to person B.”
I’m sure there is a nation somewhere that has abandoned any pretense of the value of social ties and community, where every transaction is economic in nature. I’m equally sure that very few people, yourself included, would want to bother to live there.
You have to go more deeply than “free marketeer” vs. socialist. Because staunch free marketeers and ardent socialists have more in common than they’d like to admit. Most importantly, they both see money at the root of everything.
No, Peter, YOU have no idea. YOU are opining from the comfort of wherever with the “snips” and tales and such, presuming to dress others with liberal terminology that is inaccurate and inflammatory.
You have no idea what I, as an individual, have done and am doing about illegal immigration. Not that you’ve asked, since your “snips” and tales deal with rhetorical and presumptuous imaginings.
What’s YOUR plan? And, without individual opinions about anything, nothing would ever happen, much less change afterward. It’s our individual opinions that accomplish and set goals and then realize them. They at least fuel the process of accomplishments.
I’m not “outraged,” if that helps temper your imagings a tad. On the other hand, I don’t find felonies nor those who commit them very admirable. It doesn’t mean I’m ruining my health about them, either.
The comment, earlier, that suggested to you, others, that just because things were difficult did not mean that we should not try to do (whatever), when applied to laws, is exactly the problem with our current mess of borders: as long as people give up and say it can’t be done — border’s too big, border’s too difficult, people are upset, border’s not controllable, blah, blah — nothing happens.
It’s like coming upon a car wreck. There are people standing around looking at it. People driving past, slowing down, looking at it, shaking their heads, “wreck, impossible, probably bad, can’t do much about it now…” and then driving on.
One person stops their car, runs to the wreck, starts to rescue, aid, directs other traffic away to prevent further harms, and presto, someone says, “I’ve got a phone, I can call for help” and so they do, another person sees two people helping, they jump forward and offer to perform emergency aid, another person arrives and…
It’s all a case of enough individuals working together on problems but nothing ever happens until someone takes the first step. And it’s usually because they’re concerned about the problems that they do.
Same thing with illegal immigration. The issue has been suppressed and denigrated for a while now and people are just fed up with it and want it brought to a close. We also don’t want American goods, services and residential assistances going to people who have violated our immigration requirements. It’s as simple as that and it’s changing because a lot of people are concerned and vocalizing their displeasure about it.
My encouragement to speak out about the issue was for Jay Tea, as to this area where you are opining.
Peter: ideas “in (my) head” most certainly DO have everything to do with the physical world.
Or, it’s your opinion that the human mind exists in complete nothingness and accomplishes nothing with all thought possible? Because, otherwise, your comments there make far less sense than lead shoes.
I think WAY too much attention is paid to the issue of “legal” versus “illegal.”
Too many immigrants have the same negative effects, whether they’re legal or not. So those who keep complaining about “illegal” immigration will find themselves snubbed when Congress, at the behest of its greedy paymasters, simply makes them legal.
The problem isn’t “immigrants,” it’s immigration.
The question is: “How much immigration is in the best interests of the American people?”
And puleeeaze drop all the nonsense about this being “a nation of immigrants.” It’s not. It’s “a nation of people.” We have a right to decide what’s in our best interest without being called nativists or racists or socialists.
The 14th Amendment is very likely to be redone, revamped, thrown out, revised, whatever it takes to remove the clause that grants automatic citizenship to children of illegal aliens born on U.S. soil.
As is also very likely to be the sanctions provided to Cubans who can manage to set foot on U.S. soil, rather than be caught at sea (and thereby either incarcerated, sent home or sent to some other country other than the U.S.).
And it’s because these are both rights/privileges written of late that most of us see could not and did not possess awareness of just what abuses would result.
The 14th did not include even an awareness of millions of people crossing over borders just to give birth (at U.S. taxpayer expense at that) inorder to gain citizenship for their child and U.S. taxpayer paid housing, food and educations and more for themselves by way of that.
And, many from Cuba now gain access to the U.S. by way of walking over the border from Mexico, after sailing to Mexico for that reason.
What’s occuring now and has been for a while now is that people from anywhere and everywhere have abused every possible weakness in our immigration process and the documents that were written as to immigration from even fifty years ago are no longer realistic.
We’ll never have a good immigration policy nor process until and unless we wrangle closed the illegal problem. Anticipating free market resolution to the problem won’t work as long as free marketeers participate in felonious acts, as many have as to aididng and abetting the existing illegal immigration problem.
Note that that law I linked to earlier also applies to those who aid and abet illegal aliens and specifically as to those who employ them, traffic in them, encourage and assist them…but the free market has failed in this regard by insisting on a borderless nation. Some among free marketeers profit from very cheap and illegal labor but it’s the American taxpayer who is continuously ripped off by those marketeers, who pays for their profitability by way of having to fund all the other detrimentals that are created by that marketeering.
I don’t support expanding, top heavy government. But, as it is now, if the illegal alien “model” of free marketeering via cheap labor is to be followed, there is little to stop anyone from taking anyone else’s property if and when there’s a profit involved and it “helps them feed their family.” Like your neighbor’s car? House? Think they’ll help you feed your family, live a better life? Take them.
That’s the message that ongoing illegal immigration and employment of illegal aliens expresses, and it denigrates ethics, morality and laws. It’s a damage overall to our very society, to all that most of hold dear as Americans.
Alan, yes, it IS a question of legal immigration versus illegal immigration.
Legal immigrants follow procedures, learn the mutual language of the land (English), are applied for or are applying to citizenship, and intend a permanent lifetime commitment to the country, pay taxes, do what’s expected of them, legally, and so much more.
Illegal immigrants do none to little of those things. Most of them do not intend a life as Americans but a life of expediency…given that most go back to particulary Mexico from whence most arrive at the drop of a hat, or “for the holidays” and such. They do not have nor intend any allegiance to the U.S., so in that realm, why bother to respect the laws, citizenship?
The answer is they don’t. They are here “to work” but their usery does not stop at that, to state the obvious.
The differences are too long for my patience to type out on Wizbang but your general opinion that there’s no difference between legal versus illegal immigration is entirely inaccurate.
Alan!
My argument is that we can’t secure our borders the way we’ve been trying—and failing—to do it, so we shouldn’t keep trying the way we’ve been trying—and failing—to do it.
We need to ditch the arbitrary quotas (and I mean that literally, the numbers we try to enforce were snatched from someone’s BUTT) and charge admission.
How much? Find out how much the cayotes charge now and charge half of that for a two year permit. Add another $25 for a driver’s license. Fingerprint them, put their picture on a card and POW, they’re now legal, paying taxes, in the SYSTEM, and can be tracked and/or accounted for when necessary. This, citizens, is called ORDER. And it’s what we don’t have now. We don’t have order on our borders, and THAT’S the problem. With order we will suddenly find ourselves with the ability to let in the desirables and keep out the undesirables. Our border patrol will be able to snag border jumpers because they will no longer be in mixed in with a crowd of ten thousand other border jumpers. WITH ORDER COMES SECURITY. No order, no security.
And as for the supply and demand part: when enough workers are allowed in to satisfy demand, the wages they come for will fall. Then they’ll be calling their cousins in Oaxaca and telling them not to bother coming north. Americans on the other hand will become richer as we are able to take the money saved and spend it on addtional goods and services or investments.
Yours/
peter.
I think WAY too much attention is paid to the issue of “legal” versus “illegal.”
Well, no. Legal immigrants at least display a willingness to live by the rules — something we have a perfectly reasonable right to expect of anyone that we’re going to welcome into our society.
Blurring the distinction between “legal” and “illegal” immigration is a preferred tactic among those who want open borders, because that way they can pretend those of us who don’t believe in open borders are all just a bunch of racists.
-S-
Dude, if you can’t make the distinction between
A. the world as it is, and
B. your thoughts about the world
as being two separate, independent things, then I certainly can’t help you.
Sorry/
peter.
Peter J: “It’s an issue of national sovereignty IN YOUR HEAD, or perhaps on paper somewhere. Here, in the ACTUAL PHYSICAL WORLD, it is an issue of economics, period.
Do you think that the US economy would benefit if we erected restricted borders at our state lines? If so, please explain how that would work.”
Peter, here in California, illegal immigration is most definitely having a significant detrimental effect on American culture. There is no question about that. Even liberals who favor illegal immigration admit that, they just see it as a good thing.
This is not about whether Mexicans and other immigrants are nice and hard working and swell people. Many, if not most of them are. No one here is arguing otherwise – so that makes your bringing it up a what? Strawman.
Anyway explain to us how illegal immigration is is having absolutely no effect on our sovereign rights as Americans, period. I’d be highly interested. Please address schools, healthcare, law enforcement, housing, and of course, culture.
Also, you write about a 15mph speed limit, then about closing state borders (what the heck is the ‘logic’ behind that one – remember I spoke about economies existing not in a vacuum, but within systems of governance of which I address national sovereignity, ie. the US), and you accuse me of creating a strawman? Come on, you have to do better than that.
And for the record, clearly and obviously no one in their right mind would suggest closing state borders. Now you explain why borders between the states of the United States are no different – in your mind – than those borders between the US and Mexico and the US and Canada.
Peter. Relax a second. You write that those of us disagreeing with you seem to you to not have a grasp on the ‘real world’, and that illegal immigration is just a problem that ‘exists in our heads’. Yet, you’ve shown little or nothing in the way of proof that the problem is non-existant.
Show me for instance, why the fact that California taxpayers will pay about $1B (Billion) in 2005 just to house illegal immigrant felons in state jails. (NOTE: I erred before stating that the $1B includes city and county jails – it does not include the costs of housing illegals in those facilities even though California tax payers – again – foot the bill.
You also state: “My argument is that we can’t secure our borders the way we’ve been trying—and failing—to do it, so we shouldn’t keep trying the way we’ve been trying—and failing—to do it.”
You miss the point: We are not *really* trying to secure our borders. If we *really* tried, we’d succeed. Controlling borders is not rocket science. Hell, Mexico controls its borders much better than we do…
We are more than physically capable, as a society, of controlling our borders – but we are effectively choosing not to due to political influences from certain business and social/racial-liberal special interests.
Wow, a lot of discussion in the time it takes to do some housecleaning. And we seem to be drifting far afield here…
The legal vs illegal aspect, and the allusions to substances of abuse laws, bring to mind hallucinogenic images of comparisons of alcohol and tobacco problems/costs in this country vs illegal drug use, woooo dude and dudettes, please talk me down before I lose contact with the real world and loose more fiery straw man rhetoric on this thread! Burning straw men running naked in the threads! Ahhh, its too late. Slobber, slobber, drool drool.
[slap in the face]
Thanks, I needed that.
OK, so JT starts off about two points: Illegal folks being cheats and -S- reminding us these cheaters are actually Federal Felons. Not much to argue about there, despite the volume of words attempting to address that point, little of the thread challenges that notion viably. Just a lot of libertarian pipe dreams or hand wringing, etc. about whether we ought to be enforcing the laws, or having laws we aren’t enforcing. See the Aldous Huxley inspired (by the way a legal immigrant to US) nightmare above.
JT’s point #2: That our nation has a fairly well established history of battling (the Civil War did not end the battle against economic servitude be it slavery or indenturment, much as we may have ended a “war” in Iraq but continue to battle “insurgents” better termed thugs and zealots) against aspects of our economy and society that subjugate personal freedoms of our citizens. Illegal non-citizens represent a significant subjugation of citizens rights and properties, as well as often subjugating their own “inalienable rights” in the process. Thus we are obligated to address this problem. More effectively that we have.
Arguements against seem weak and seem to have degraded to personal attacks.
I bet Native Americans are snickering at us.
‘Course if there had been both effective immigration and National Defense policies, budgets and enforcement agencies before Coumbus and Henry Hudson toodled by this side of the Atlantic, this whole discussion wouldn’t be happening.
Peter: I stopped reading at “Dude.”
I assume everything else you’ve written is as immature and thoughtless as you’ve already written, so, there’s no point in trying to wade through it.
epador: great, as usual (^^).
AT this stage of anthropology and archeology, it looks like Northern Europeans were in the Americas long before anyone else. Columbus was just fully and well funded — but much, much later.
~;-D
http://www.findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m1511/is_2_20/ai_53631758/print
http://www.livescience.com/history/051212_american_settlers.html
http://www.centerfirstamericans.com/
http://www.teamatlantis.com/yucatan_test/research_iberia.html
http://www.explorenorth.com/library/history/bl-billjones2a.htm
http://www.livescience.com/history/050525_america_settlers.html
But, even that informaton disturbs discussions as to the issues facing our country today, in our present.
Although the (proven inaccurate as to some in Mexico’s) populations issues seems to be motivating a lot among illegal aliens to disregard the laws of the United States.
Peter J: Have you thought that if the whole world holds a different view from yours in the worlds as it is vs your thoughts about the world, you may be operating on defficient information or thought processes?
As a Hispanic, I can vouch that illegal immigration is both a National Sovereignity issue and an economics issue. It is further a class warfare issue. Let me remind you all that economic agression, in this case in the form of illegal immigration advocated by foreign govenrments and mandataries is a form of aattack upon our sovereignity and makes both matters inextricably entangled.
While there is a strong demand, by business owners, for cheap, plentiful and pliant labor, most of the illegal aliens that arrive here have already proven by their unlawful entry, by the use of fraudulent documentation to obtain jobs which they are not entitled to access, that they are not the kind of folks we’d consider as permanent additions to our society. We already have more than enough home-grown rotten apples. Historically, the period of history in which the U.S.’s standard of living was at its best (1945 – 1965), we had strong unions, protective tariffs and restrictive immigration laws. Since then, the average worker has had to endure the entry of millions of additional workers due to the increased number of women in the workplace and now the frequent injections of legal and illegal immigrant labor. These have conspired to wither any wage increases for non-supervisory workers.
While I would not recommend closing the borders, we should use the militias to provide surveilance and warning on illegal immigration and smuggling activities along our southern border. We shouldcouple this with stern interior enforcement on employers and those who provide illegal aliens with housing and other services. Fines can be levied and assets can be seized from employers, landlords and illegal aliens. These proceeds may be then used to finance the ongoing efforts. Those who are here blatantly illegally can be repatriated to their countries immediately and in the same fiscal situation as when they left them. This should prove to be a strong deterrent as the whole idea of returning them with nothing but the clothes on their backs should create enough of a concern that most will liquidate assets and return to their countries rather than risk losing everything. Banks should be compelled to require valid and legal I.D. for cash transfer. Non-government organizations that aid illegal immigration, even by failing to report them, should risk losing their tax-exempt status.
The denial of birth-right citizenship to children of illegal aliens is key in eliminating access to many tax-payer-funded services and programs. Further, the adoption of English as the Official National Language will go a long way towards making things more difficult for those here illegally. THe problem with immigration enforcement is that it realy hasn’t been tried and illegal aleins are criminals and felons due to their own decision to break our laws which are not unlike the immigration laws in their own countries.
Carlos Rodgriguez:
It’s refreshing to read that someone admits to the colonization and imperial ‘invasion’ element (“National Sovereignity”) that motivates much of today’s illegal immigration, at least from Mexico.
About the unions, I think you have a very important point there. However, with unions being tied intrinsically in the experiences of many to marxist-socialism, there’s little wonder why many Americans oppose their process.
However, they did for a brief period of time help to implement and maintain an American middle class that’s been on the decline as possible ever since, and mostly from disparaties in employment and most of that by negative influence from illegal immigration, all things considered.
The idea that “Americans” “won’t do” “work” is at issue here, since no one I know will and would refuse work when an income was necessary, and it always is for everyone.
Illegal immigration has robbed the country of a lot of honor in work, in the idea of work. It’s the same with the concept and value of citizenship: why value it, what’s the point, so to speak, when/if those who don’t value it, disregard it, can live so much ‘better’ with so fewer responsibilities. I certainly don’t feel that way, just saying, I do conclude that the value of citizenship and country has been immensely devalued by illegal immigration.
And businesses in the U.S. who defend illegal immigration — our U. S. Chamber of Commerce, specifically, nationally and locally — are responsible.
You are so right about doing away with the 14th Amendment privilege of citizenship for those born on American soil. At this point, most of the country agrees with you (I certainly do, as I wrote earlier here); the only people who don’t agree are illegal aliens.
Hey, it’s our country, we get to decide. It’s not a country of, for or about illegal aliens.
There are going to be dips and problems in American business while this issue is concluded (illegal immigration). Agriculture, service industries, they’re going to have employment numbers dips, yes, but the objective and end result is so much more important than their shortterm problems.
.the question isn’t one of legal vs illegal immigrants. it is as one commenter said about immigration levels and furthermore the type of immigrants being allowed in. Mexico has a very effective policy against illegal immigration in to Mexico ( unless they are transients en route to the US). the US doesn’t have a shortage of poor people or criminals. we can on the other hand use more scientists, engineers, mathematicians and wealthy people. as the President of Mexico said crudely, illegals do the work Americans of certain ethnic and racial backgrounds won’t do. the simple solution is to adopt Mexican methods of controlling illegal immigration coupled with further welfare reform. Mexico will never reform and advance as long as it’s elites can “export” their “problems” by avoiding real reform. in the long term we do ourselves and the Mexican people no favor by allowing the present status to remain as is.
The problem with free market economics is that it has to be two way. … Very few nations would show reciprocity.
Why? That makes no sense.
Economics is important, but it’s not everything. Social ties matter more. That’s why we DO have public education. That’s why people DON’T steal from their neighbors. That’s why so many brave young men and women DO bother to join the ranks of the military, or the police dept, or the fire dept.
It’s a common misconception that economics is only about money. The free market economists whose writings I most closely follow were very careful to point out that there is no real distinction between economic matters and all other matters of liberty. Economic analysis may only concern the observable world of action and behavior, but it is about a lot more than money.
All economics is based on the value that we assign to things — some of which are goods and services that can be bought and sold on the market, and some of which are not. It was the great achievement of the free market economists that showed that all value is subjective. The personal value that people derive from service in the fire department or military is just as much a matter of economics as the buying and selling of wheat or gasoline or medical services.
The fact is that a leftist sees the values of these social obligations in terms of pure economics. “Take X dollars from person A and give it to person B.”
No, they do not base these policies on “social obligations.” Maybe they do as a matter of propaganda, but in truth, they are actually based on the desire to increase the power of the person who’s in charge of transferring the money (i.e., themselves).
You have to go more deeply than “free marketeer” vs. socialist.
Not in matters of politics. Government is nothing more than organized force. That’s the sum total of its existence and function. The extent to which it is proper and appropriate for government agents to use force is what politics is all about.
The only axis on which issues of the use of force turn is the one between liberty and control. I come down on the side of liberty, except in very specific circumstances (all of which involve the prevention or remedy of an objective, discrete form of actual harm, such as violence, fraud, etc.). Socialists (of all stripes) come down on the side of control.
In matters of personal life, yes, there is quite a lot in the world other than issues of the use of force. But they are not appropriate matters for government. Government is not the same thing as “society.”
staunch free marketeers and ardent socialists have more in common than they’d like to admit. Most importantly, they both see money at the root of everything.
Again, economics is not only about money, even though the part that concerns the government is, mostly.
Besides, the economic aspects of immigration law is what this is really all about. It’s primarily a form of economic protectionism (for competing workers). Plus, its lax enforcement is basically a form of subsidy to those who employ illegals as cheap labor. If many businesses had to pay the government-mandated wages (and follow other employment requirements), then they’d fold.
Take agricultrure, for example. The selective enforcement of immigration law as to seasonal farm, ranch and orchard hires is basically a government-subsidy to protect those employers from foreign competition. That’s a special subsidy that other types of employers do not get.
F1C5!
If I may, allow me to suggest that what’s really happening is a detrimental effect on California culture—California’s welfare state culture to be exact.
Please don’t think that I’m trying to make light of your predicament, because I’m really not. I’m sure the situation in California is quite destablizing. But here in Texas where we have an even longer border with Mexico than you do, we are in no such predicament. This is because we don’t have a welfare state, or at least certainly not of the same order of magnitude as California. As a result, what we get are migrant workers while you get dole-seekers, or at least to the extent that they exist. Sure, it’s putting some pressure on our schools and other infrastructure, but we don’t have socialized medicine here so that’s not a factor, and the fact that Texas is growing like gangbusters even without the migrants means that we hardly notice any additional burden.
Excuse me, but I brought it up in response to -S- repeatedly referring to migrants as “felons,” clearly an attempt to insinuate that somehow these people are generally dangerous criminals. We all know that that’s bullshit, so maybe I shouldn’t have dignified it with a response.
Who said it was “having absolutely no effect”? Not me. But you tell me, how would that effect be any different if all of these people were coming from, say, Mississippi? More people=larger tax base=more resources for services and infrastructure. As far as Mexicans go, if they were able to work legally then more of them would be be paying taxes instead of receiving cash under the table. To that extent, much of the problem is simply self-inflicted.
To the extent you’re asking me how to make California’s welfare state “work,” well, if I knew that they’d give me the Nobel Prize. But if California would throttle back their welfare state, then all of the dole-seekers would only remain in California for as long as it took them to cross the state on their way to Canada =8^]
The strawman fallacy is when one first ignores the argument being offered and substitutes a similar sounding yet different and more easily defeatable argument in it’s stead—and then proceeds to argue against the substitute argument.
What I was offering with the 15mph speed limit is called an analogy. That’s where one makes ADDITIONAL arguments using different terms or less emotional or controversial situations and uses the comparison with the original argument to further illustrate one’s point.
My analogy with state borders was an attempt to get you to compare your own opinion regarding immigration with a hypothetical barrier between US states because from an economic perspective, there is no difference. Capital flows simply don’t make any such distinctions; they either flow or they don’t, and as you state here, we both agree that between US states, it’s better for all when they flow.
Yours/
peter.
“This is a bad idea, the 14th ammendment grants citizenship to those born in the US.”
That is false Bill. Read the damn thing before you write about it. Children of Foreign Diplomats are not citizens even if they are born on American Soil. Being born on American is not the only standard for citizenship according to the Constitution. Please read it again.
And for Cato-Institute Looneytarians here’s an article by a real libertarian about the question of open borders.
Read Here: http://www.mises.org/journals/jls/13_2/13_2_8.pdf