Aztlan
Michelle notes that a lot of the Mexicans rallying this weekend against enforcing our immigration laws are racists radical separatists. Just look at some of those pictures!
Man nothing pisses me off more as a child of immigrants than people who come here without following the rules, and then piss all over our country. And they call us the racists? Ha!
Posted by Rosemary on
03.27.2006
R.I.P. Steven Malcolm Anderson
Minion
of the Week
I also admit I haven't followed this debate closely until now.
That said, here's my question: Other than crossing the border illegally, is there an epidemic of lawlessness by Hispanic aliens that I'm not aware of?
As for the Aztlan group, they're a fringe group that doesn't deserve a whole lot of attention, unless of course, you consider Israel giving back Gaza as a precedent that could stand up in an International court.
Having those kind of numbers was NOT the result of any fringe group's agit-prop. There were hundreds of thousands watching it from their couch cheering them on too I'm sure.
I'm really not too bothered by having only to show a gas bill to vote in Chicago. In that town it's nice to know the person voting is actually alive.
I have to give Bush credit on this one. At least he's been proposing a thoughtful plan that tries to balance fairness to both citizens and non-citizens with due repect for the rule of law and economic reality. His party is going to eat him alive on this with its typical simplistic reactionary, xenophobic pandering to red-neck America.
He's going to have to find his big 64 box of crayolas and look up the word "veto" before this is over.
The only reason there are jobs Americans won't take that pay too little, is because the wage is kept artifically low by illegal immigrants. Businesses have to keep prices down to compete only because their competition is also using illegal immigrants.
Mark,
Bush's plan isn't thoughful, it is another amnesty in disguise (we already had 8 since 1985 under various similar plans). It is fair only to immigrants, not citizens.
RESPECT FOR THE LAW!! That is the most outragous statement I have heard today. Respect for the law would be upholding the laws that the immigrants broken. Laws that have been ignored for decades.
What do you propose?
The following is a very fair evaluation of the issue that is very much more complex than many of us imagine.
Immigration and Red Herrings
No matter what we legislate, or don't for that matter, is going to have some negative consequences. We can only hope that our electe officials have brains enough to think all the way around the issue and come up with a solution that causes the least amount of damage to the greatest number of people, and not just the privileged few.
If you subscribe to Trickle Down economics, then the guest passes and amnesty should look very good to you because it will keep the cost of U.S. made goods down.
Unfortunately, you can't have cheap goods AND high wages. They are mutually exclusive. More, when our governement provides incentives in the form of tax credits for outsourcing labor, then you can understand why we don't do much manufacturing in this country any more. It's cause and effect, and everything is related. You change one thing and it sets off a chain reaction of changes elsewhere.
Manufacturing operations have been closing at an alarming rate: GM and Ford have recently laid off thousands of workers, and many of those plant closings are in right-to-work states where unions aren't a factor.
Most manufacturing is contracted out to foreign companies because everything--labor, overhead--is cheaper in places like Mexico, China, India, the Phillipines, and Taiwan; even with freight charges it's still cheaper to manufacture offshore than it is in the States. It's all about the money, Pam, and one way or another, depriving businesses (large and small) of cheap labor will ultimately hurt us all.
It will cause inflation and raise the price of everything you buy. Your dollar will buy less and your quality of life will be severely impacted.
This, by the way, was the whole point of Trickle Down economics: create a helathy (profitable) environment for businesses, and everyone benefits.
If you now take away their cheap source of labor, they don't suffer, YOU do.
Don't believe it? You mentioned nursing. Do you like medical expenses now? Do you have any idea how much they would go up without cheap foreign labor? Do you know what that would do to insurance premiums? Hospitals are businesses, Pam, not charities. Poor attention in hospitals is not due to incompetent employees, but due to hospitals not having ENOUGH employees. It's all the result of the priority shift from quality care to greater profitability.
enemy intelligenceconservative blogs.;^P
MI is a right to work state and we don't have a GM or Ford plant that is not union.
The arguement has been that we need the illegals to do the work that American's will not do..I was not aware that we could not get Americans to do nursing, constuction and truck driving. I am not sure of the hospitals you are going to, but I know that those in my area are staffed from the bottom to the top with legal citizens that do a very good job. In fact they offer programs for people to fulfill community service requirements as well as elderly people that want to work and be a vital member of a team...so there are ways to keep the cost down without bringing illegals into this...
Wait til you get a load of the cost of food once the "illegals" are sent back to Mexico.
In a related discussion, where were you when the migrant workers wanted to unionize?
When Nancy Pelosi welcomes a union into her vineyard operations, let's talk unions.
ara will the price of the finished good exceed the price we are currently paying in social program costs? No it won't.
Look, I'm no policy wonk -- I'll leave that to Rose because she's got an IQ of 263 and is much smarter than I am.
I just know that when I go shopping and roll my shopping cart down the produce aisle, $12 for a head of romaine lettuce will be too much to pay, IMHO.
If you reduce the supply of cheap labor, prices go up.
The End.
When you consider that a company's greatest expenditure is on exployees, what with salaries and benefits--and benefits are approx. 30% of the salaries, you begin to understand why hiring people who aren't entitled to benefits makes a lot of sense. Even if you paid them the same minimum wage as legal workers, it still costs the company 30% less.
Here's what's already happened in many companies: in order to save money, companies do their best to hire only the full time employees that are absolutely necessary. Then they hire a lot of permanent part time employees and give them only as many hours as they can before they'd have to pay full benefits; The employees aren't entitled to overtime, insurance, paid vacations, maternity leave, sick pay, stock options, retirement plans....But they still have to pay tax and social security.
My point is that it is not because illegals are taking the jobs and driving down the wage, it's that employers are driving down the wage so that it's only illegals who can afford to work those jobs. Low wage earning citizens end up working at cash only jobs and businesses where they can avoid having to pay the 18-21% in taxes and social security.
Our American "business first" corporatist philosophy has fostered this problem, and we taxpayers, as usual, are going to pay the price. Interestingly, I heard on C-Span this morning that no matter what we do, whether it's amnesty or any guest worker program, you're talking about a 32 million person increase in population over the next 5 years; the INS will grow 3-4X its current size just to process the paperwork alone; the IRS will have to grow, the GAO will have to expand; but entitlements will continue to grow at their current rate. It would be way too costly to try to deport 11 million illegal aliens, but the cost of legislating their stay will be even worse.
If security issues are really what's fueling this, I seem to recall that all the people involved in 9/11 were in the country legally, so tightening the borders only makes a difference if we had a system that could accurately, reliably and consistently detect terrorists and prevent their legal entry. Inasmuch as gov't agents were able to bring materiel into the country to make a dirty bomb, I'd say the whole immigration issue is far from what we should really be spending our time and energy on right now.
So now you have a problem where the illegals don't want to work for the farmers for such low pay..should we advocate slavery?
should we advocate slavery?
Of course not, Pam. That's a straw man.
Instead, I think we should ease up on border restrictions.
Listen to this guy, quoted in the article you linked to above:I'm not a farmer. I don't know beans about farming. But I'm smart enough to listen to one when he is talking about his life's business.
Where are you going with this? Wouldn't you expect the legal migrants to be doing that as well? It's perfectly normal that people no matter who they are or where they come from (legal citizens or not) to want to better themselves. Are you blaming them for being human and wanting the same things we all want?
I'll be clear: the fact is, this whole issue has been dealt with before and it's all a bunch of hooey. Every 15 or 20 years it raises its head again and the same old arguments are made, and the same old arguments are debunked. History shows that immigrant labor is responsible for almost all of the swift economic progress this country has achieved since its inception. It isn't any more of a problem today than it ever was. It isn't responsible for gains or losses in the economy or in any real sense, in unemployment or wages among low wage earners.
I happen to have lived in Miami in the late 50's and throughout the early 70's. During that time there was a huge influx of Cuban refugees. Although they were political refugees and therefore "legal" the same freakin' hue and cry went up. Spanish became a compulsory course in the South Florida elementary school curriculum; people were concerned about their jobs and unemployment. The issue dominated the airwaves and the newspapers. It was pathetic.
Today, South Florida is thriving, and a lot of the credit has to go to the industriousness of all those Cuban refugees. Florida assimilated them. They took the lowest jobs--the women were maids, the men gardeners and laborers. And they educated themselves, learned the language, moved up. They managed to maintain their own culture while at the same time learned to blend into the culture of South Florida. In the short term, some folks who weren't prepared to work as hard, or didn't have as much at stake might have suffered a bit, but in the long term, South Florida was at least as good or better for their having come.
What is the quote: "Those who don't know (or is it 'understand') history are destined to repeat it?
My point is, why suffer? Why not accept the lesson that history has to teach us and deal with the real problems our country faces. Illegal aliens is not one of the real problems.
Kasey- Although they were political refugees and therefore "legal" Key word..legal.
Why should it matter whether they were "legal" or not? The arguments against them then were the same ones you're using against illegal aliens now. Refugees, aliens--a large infusion of foreigners has the same effect on the economy, unemployment and wages--no matter what you call them.
Pam:
That farmer in California wants border restrictions looser so that he can continue to have a supply of labor willing to take the entry level jobs. What happens after -- well, that's what Kasey is talking about.
They took the lowest jobs--the women were maids, the men gardeners and laborers. And they educated themselves, learned the language, moved up.
I think Kasey makes a good point.
And let me tell you, the most opposed then were the most threatened, same as now. And the exact same arguments they used then, they're using now:
crime rate, tax burden, rise in unemployment, lower wages, "this is an English speaking country."
Those who are blind to our country's social and economic history make these arguments or are swayed by them.
I'd also like you to look into the history of the laws you so righteously want to uphold and find out why they were passed and who they were trying to keep out. Here's a hint, WWII. Who were fleeing from the Nazis? You do know that there was anti-semitism in this country, too, don't you? And of course you understand the politics at the time that forced the establishment of the State of Israel. Israel exists because no other country wanted to take any more Jews.
Those same laws should have prevented the US from taking in the Cuban refugees--thousands of them. Who among us would say today that they shouldn't have been allowed in?
You fail to appreciate how many good citizens came here as illegals, raised themselves up, raised families and are taxpayers: doctors, lawyers, business owners, as well as maids and gardeners. We got a taste of it when 500,000 people came out to protest the new laws. All Michele Malkin could make out of that was the fraction of them that were voicing for Aztlan when the majority were voicing for the promise of freedom and America.
That, my friend is a fine example of the politics of hate, and THAT is truly unpatriotic.
I read Kasey's example..it was a fine example of legal citizens doing work.
No Kasey, the 1951 Conventions on Refugees and the 1967 Protocol assured these people the right to come to this country. The Cubans that came in were legal. This country should have taken in Jews during World War II.
1. Build a bigger/better wall.
2. Business as usual.
3. Guest worker program.
From what I'm getting is that Pam's primary objection is the idea of status. Legal v. Illegal.
The economic arguments seem specious since the problems created, and dealt with, are with the effects of an influx of immigrants -- regardless of status -- and the desire for a cheap labor source.
Security is red meat but not a realistically addressed issue without border strip searches, background checks and real time verification of documentation. Quadruple the amount of spending Sensenbrenner proposed, and then take that figure and triple it to cover port security, and I might begin to believe there's a serious effort at addressing security concerns.
Think of the economic hit that bottleneck would create, not to mention the pissed off travelors and the inevitable clusterfuck the bureacracy would make it into.
The terrorists cannot win by blowing us up. they win by terrorizing into rash, thoughtless, expensive reactions. They win if we continue to bankrupt ourselves. We're already spending way too much on foreign misadventures. Does it make sense to destroy our commerce as well?
So the security argument doesn't fly any more than the economic one. We're left with the legality stigma. We are NOT going to round up all the illegals and deport them. The easiest way to do that is during harvest season, but there's been a long-standing tacit argreement between farmers and INS that $12.00 lettuce is too high a price to pay for conducting raids at that time, when they'd be most effective but also leave produce rotting in the field.
We are NOT going to shut down travel and commerce and make all the innocent people crossing the borders legally suffer the indignity and delay full border security requires. We are NOT going after business owners by enforcing the laws already on the books for hiring illegals. (Only 4 prosecutions were initiated against businesses that hired illegals last year.)
Status. Not playing by the rules. That's what's really bothering you, right?
"Amnesty" was the response of the patron saint of the GOP, His Royal Ronald Reaganess. He, like Bush, was a former governor of a State dramatically effected by the influx of immigrants from Latin America.
Identify them, put them on the books, let them work hard, contribute, and as long as they behave (for eleven freaking years) they can get the right to vote. They aren't going anywhere even if we make them felons, and make felons out of their entire family (legal or not) who harbor them, who don't turn them in, or make felons out of their bosses and their priests. They'll still be here and will burrow further underground if we make them fellons.
Sensenbrenner can build his wall. But for those already here we shouldn't make them criminals and force them to remain hidden. Give them some incentive to come out into the light, stand up and be counted and not remain ripe victims for exploitation. We can either try to track them down and get a few in an expensive game of hide-n-seek, or yell "ALL YE, ALL YE, COME HOME FREE."
Bush has proposed (along with McCain and ::gasp:: Kennedy) a new and innovative twist on amnesty. Are you just against it because it looks far too French?
Or is it the principle that we shouldn't change the law to reflect what the administration has already decided to do despite laws already on the books?
Rule of Law?!? If that's your feelings on this Pam, then you better rethink your position on changing FISA to allow the NSA to do what the administration has already been doing despite not only the law but also the Fourth Amendment.
And before you go off half-cocked, remember there is no Constitutional "right" to enter this nation, there is no Constitutional "right" to ever allow a foreign national to change their citizenship, but there is a right to be free from unreasonable government intrusion if you are already here.
5) Well, what about an Amnesty for illegals? Didn't we have one of those before? Back in 1986, during the Reagan administration, illegal aliens who were already here were allowed to become American citizens. Basically, it was supposed to be a one time amnesty for illegals and in return, security measures would be beefed up to take care of the illegal immigrant problem once and for all.
However, in practice what happened was that once the illegal immigrants were made citizens, the enforcement provisions weren't treated seriously, and even more illegal aliens poured across the border hoping to get in on the next amnesty.
Today? We're talking about essentially the same sort of proposal in the Senate. Allowing illegal aliens to become citizens in return for security measures, in practice, may or may not actually ever be put into place.
6) If illegals weren't allowed to become citizens, what would be the problem with allowing illegal aliens who are already here to stay as guest workers? There are at least three major problems with allowing illegal aliens to stay here as guest workers.
Number one, many Americans don't realize this, but there are countless millions of foreigners waiting patiently to enter the United States the right way. To allow the illegals who are already here to stay rewards lawbreakers and makes the people who respected our laws look like chumps.
Number two, when you reward illegal behavior and treat people who obey the law like chumps, you can expect more lawbreaking. In other words, if we allow the illegals who are already here to stay here, we can expect another massive onslaught of illegals to enter our country because we'll have shown them that breaking our laws pays.
Number three, if we give the illegal aliens who are already here free passes that allow them to continue working and create a guest worker program, there's a very real danger that what we'll end up with is a guest worker program AND massive numbers of illegals pouring into the country. As was mentioned earlier in this FAQ, the politicians in Washington have a heavy incentive to keep the flow of illegals going and they've lied before about crack downs on illegal immigration. So, you can't simply take the Federal government's word for it when they say they're going to toughen up security in return for a guest worker program. Americans will only be able to believe it when it happens.
To allow the illegals who are already here to stay rewards lawbreakers and makes the people who respected our laws look like chumps.
You're relying on anecdotal evidence to make a weak point. For example, perhaps Rosemary (whose family immigrated legally) feels like a chump; but I immigrated too -- and I don't feel that way at all.
when you reward illegal behavior and treat people who obey the law like chumps, you can expect more lawbreaking.
Seems that way, doesn't it? And/But the fact is, no matter what we do, they just keep on coming over the border. Do you really think more of the same (beefing up the borders) will really work this time? More fences? Taller fences? More, taller, electrified fences? More border guards? I know -- this time we'll get more, taller, electrified border guards!
Is that going to do it, Pam?
what we'll end up with is a guest worker program AND massive numbers of illegals pouring into the country.
Could be. But let's stand back and look at it in a dispassionate way for a moment. History shows fences won't stop them. Criminal penalties won't stop them. Deportment won't stop them.
Maybe, just maybe, we ought to pay closer attention to the economics of it. For example, the economic incentive exists for them to come here, the economic incentive exists for businesses and individuals to hire them once they get here. And (despite my original question, which remains unanswered) the incentive exists for them to be law-abiding individuals, so that they are not discovered and sent back.
Maybe, just maybe, we ought to seriously consider changing the laws that are criminalizing what, in fact, seems to be a mutually advantageous arrangement.
What do you think, Pam?
Regardless of how you feel ara, you are here and you are a legal citizen...there are many people that are waiting patiently all around the world to come here legally, just as your family did and just as Rosemary's family did.
Regardless of how you feel ara, you are here and you are a legal citizen...there are many people that are waiting patiently all around the world to come here legally, just as your family did and just as Rosemary's family did.
So What. The folks waiting are only "chumps" if their plan is to wait in line for the privilege of picking tomatoes.
Oooh! Where do I sign up?
I think Bush's overall strategic vision works wonders for the immigration "issue." (It's only a "problem" for xenophobes and the anally retentive.)
Bush is making this nation so resoundingly hated internationally and economically unattractive domestically that eventually, nobody will want to pick our tomatoes.
Now you are degrading the work you say we need them for?
Since ara is so fond of polls, I guess you are lumping the majority as xenophobes
I point that out to ask you to consider that the result is the same, whether they were legal or not. I guarantee you that the fact that the Cuban refugees were legal aliens made them no more wanted and no less of a burden to the communities that took them in.
It doesn't matter whether the aliens come here because we feel a moral obligation to let them in or because our government continues to give preferential treatment to businesses and therefore chooses to look the other way. The result is still the same, that the burden of their support in the short term goes to the taxpayers.
As for the relevance of the Jews and Nazism, there isn't any except to say that perhaps the laws should be reevaluated. The same laws that kept the Jews out managed also to keep the Haitians out, and those same laws, you are arguing, should be enforced to keep the Mexicans out.
Any legislation on any issue at all is going to be unfair to someone, Pam. And any legislation will be a cause for some kind of effect. Let's stop being so myopic and look at all the sides and all the probabilities and possibilities. Only when we put all of it into a proper historical perpective can we understand what the real likely consequences will be.
The burning question is not what to do with new immigration, but what to do with the 11-12 million illegals already here. Because deporting them all would be too costly, it's not even a consideration. Even if you don't give them amnesty you'll still end up giving them amnesty down the line because we haven't the resources to find them all and track them. And we never did, even if it hadn't been expedient to turn a blind eye.
I am only half-joking when I say the way to solve the problem is to make it legal.
That said, I'll ask the question AGAIN (3rd time at least) with the hope that someone will answer it:
"Other than crossing the border illegally, is there an epidemic of lawlessness by Hispanic aliens that I'm not aware of?"
And if someone has already answered it, my apologies. But could you please answer it again? Needle, haystack, etc.
It's degrading work. It still needs to be done, preferably not by criminals and preferably at a non-exploitive, fair albeit low rate of compensation.
Yes I am. The majority, of my State at least, are homophobes as well. Just because most of the people are assholes doesn't make being an asshole
rightcorrect. Once again the tyrrany of the mob steamrolling over the powerless.Hell, the majority of Americans disapprove of Bush and a strong plurality hate the guy. He'd be toast in a parliamentary system.
As my immigrant Austrian step-father used to say -- the one who fought with the Germans in WWII and eventually became a US citizen -- "You have no point."
Bwah!
Pam:
Good article here on how to dry up the demand for illegals.
I am not sure what it is that you are looking for in your answer. You might try researching Governor Richardson..he has plenty to say on the subject.
Thanks.
You nailed him exactly! Think, "Zat Klrrazee Austrian, Aaunuld."
Same accent as Der Gropenator.
Got it.
Sounds like Congress, INS and LAPD need to sit down and talk turkey.
Those are all that are on the table in Washington, but the best solution, "sticking it to the man," isn't.
If you really punish employers for hiring undocumented workers, an economic wall goes up. You don't have to build Sensenbrenner's wall if there are no jobs without a green card. You don't have to round up anyone. They'll go back home if they can't get a job here. We have a migrant worker program already that can accomodate temporary labor shortages. All Bush's program does is once again subsidize corporate greed.
We should not, can not, subsidize sweat shops just so Wall Street can show a profit. As long as we allow thousands of employers to exploit millions of illegal immigrants with substandard wages, no unemployment insurance or workers' comp., let alone taxes, we are no better than the slave masters who put children to work making shoes and shirts for 10 cents a day then export them to Wallmart.
If Vincente Fox cannot count on exporting his problems and getting the income sent home from his ex-patriots, he'll have to grow his own economy. If he does that, starts to build his own middle class, NAFTA might actually work the way it was intended.
The clincher for me was finding out that Mexico's second largest source of income after oil was the illegal workers here sending $17 Billion south to their families left behind. As long as he doesn't have to deal with his poor and can continue sending them north, he will never fix Mexico's economy. As long as we exploit them, the problem will never go away.
So Pam, you're right, illegal is illegal, period. What is missing in your argument is who we should be going after. Rounding up millions of people and shipping them home is impossible. Announcing that we really mean it when we say you can't hire undocumented workers -- and making examples of the scoff-laws -- will bring the rest in line.
This way the competition for cheap labor gets a new higher but level playing field, and the American workforce won't be diluted. Unions flourish, unemployment drops, tax revenue increases, and current record corporate profits will succumb to market forces to even out price increases -- just like it's supposed to even under a trickle-down theory.