Posted on 04/26/2006 7:49:00 PM PDT by Axhandle
The immigration rallies across America showed that restrictionists aren't the only ones with strong views. But beyond podium pounding, compelling arguments are also necessary. As the Senate goes back this week to the task of crafting an immigration bill, it is crucial to focus on the right reasons for creating a guest-worker program and legalizing 12 million illegal immigrants.
The case for immigration doesn't have to do as much with the Latino vote or civil rights. It should center instead on America's growth, competitiveness and dynamism.
This month's rallies of thousands of people in many major cities raised the importance of the Latino vote. But 40 percent of Latinos are foreign-born; and since many of them aren't citizens, they can't vote. And those who can vote are likely to care mostly about the same things that other Americans care about. The 2004 National Survey of Latinos, conducted by the Pew Hispanic Center and the Kaiser Family Foundation, found that the top issues for Latino voters included education, the economy and health care--similar to many other Americans.
Just as important is that Latinos have a variety of views, backgrounds and opinions. When it comes to illegal migrants, for instance, Latinos show significant differences. Another Pew Hispanic Survey found that although there's an overall positive perception about immigrants, different generations have different perceptions about undocumented workers. More foreign-born Latinos than American-born ones believe that illegal immigrants should be allowed to become citizens.
So rallies might give the impression that Latinos have a loud, unique and common voice. The group, however, is too broad and diverse to speak of common views or trends that will coherently translate into votes.
Then there are those who view immigration, and legalizing undocumented workers, as a matter of civil rights. In the immigrant-rights rally in Alabama, Rev. Lawton Higgs--a United Methodist minister and activist--reportedly said, “We've got to get back in touch with the civil rights movement, because that's what this is about.” Similarly, when talking at one of the rallies, Democratic Sen. Edward Kennedy linked the immigration fight to the civil rights movement.
The problem, however, is that, say, equal protection rights--from the 14th Amendment--have a constitutional origin. Illegal immigrants, as human beings, are certainly entitled to human rights. But illegal residents are not technically within the jurisdiction of the American political community and are thus not entitled to the protection of certain rights that are, by constitutional design, directed to people within the jurisdiction.
To come under the purview of constitutional rights, illegal immigrants would first have to become recognized members of the political community. So the questions are whether and why they should be able to become members; not whether they have the same political rights as other members.
Moreover, those reverting to the '60s' civil rights movement are looking to the past, not the future--which is where immigration belongs.
According to forecasts based on data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics, the domestic labor force must expand over the next few years for the United States to maintain at least 3 percent annual growth in its GDP. Since not enough people are being born to sustain this expansion, there's then a demographic challenge. The natural candidates to fill the gap are immigrants.
Additionally, guest workers and immigrants are good for the economy. With a low 4.7 percent unemployment rate, current workers, including illegal migrants, have been clearly absorbed by the labor market. And guest workers who work for lower wages keep costs down, passing the benefit to consumers.
Immigration isn't all blissful: unlike commodities, newcomers bring cultures and hence potential complications, which is partly why assimilation and accommodation are essential. On the whole, however, immigrants bring many benefits.
Although restrictions are necessary and punishment is needed for those who've broken the law, the case for welcoming new guest workers and regularizing the status of illegal immigrants is compelling. It has to do with growth and competitiveness.
The debate on immigration reform shouldn't be about ethnic identity, voting blocs or entitlements. We'd be far better off by turning to hard work, opportunity and prosperity. That's what immigration has brought to America, and that's what it can still contribute by setting the sights on the future.
Apparently what's good for the economy is all that matters and the American people be damned. It's not OK to get cheap medicine in Canada but it's OK to screw Americans by importing cheap labor and all the social burdens they bring with them.
Yeah, who cares about freedom and sovereignty.
Even by their own economic standards their analysis fails, because they fail to take a serious look at the effects this will have on our politics, and particularly government taxing and spending.
The cost of the illegals outweighs any benefits whatsoever.
What fertilizer logic from so called experts.
How much you want to bet that when all these cost suppressing illegals become legal citizens that Jose here will be one of the first ones to call for unionization, and consequently higher wages, because it's their "civil right"?
Won't it be ironic that the newly legal and newly unionized Mexicans will then be looking down their noses at their incoming illegal brethren who will now be doing the jobs that the newly legal now won't do?
The article is right. It's absolutely true that immigration makes our economy more dynamic.
I'm glad you posted it despite clearly disagreeing with it. It would be nice to gain a balanced view of this issue. All I see here is "Throw 'em out". All I see in the pro-illegal sites is "We own this land." Neither view is, in my opinion, particularly constructive.
I moved to sleepy Pittsburgh from dynamic LA and I have to say I prefer dynamic LA by a long shot. This place is outright depressing because there are so few young people and most workers I've seen are, frankly, lazy.
I think a lot of the difference is that there are few illegals in Pittsburgh. The people here deserve a kick, and that's exactly what illegals would give them.
After having lived in a place with lots of illegals and one with almost none, I can say that I'd rather live in a place with them than without them.
If you don't want them to overwhelm our hospitals, change the law so they're automatically deported whenever they ask for free medical care. I'd support that.
But I don't see the hatred of illegals I see in many places on FR as being constructive for our country.
D
Ping
Ted K is linking the illegals to the plight of blacks? Has he lost his mind? Blacks were slaves, not illegals. The illegals are taking many jobs from poorer blacks, too.
98,000 children of illegal immigrants recieving almost $300 million in welfare in LA county alone.
I live 1/2 block from a Houston middle-school.
Probably 1% (of the parents of the kids I see) pay property taxes which fund H.I.S.D.
Children of the parents who do not pay property taxes are free-loaders.
How did we get to the place where only property owners pay school taxes?
Yeah, but LA is dynamic.
Wow! Just think if we could get them Chi-com slave labor folks as guest workers! We'll be in consumer heaven!
Even a few million of the Chinese who work 10-12 hour shifts for pennies, sleep in company housing, and get one day a week off -- wow! Bring 'em over -- now!
Maybe that's why our ruling class was soooooooooo nice to Hu.
No, but in all fairness it is not about dynamism, warm and fuzzy "nation of Immigrants" rhetoric, or jobs Americans won't do, either. It is about cheap labor and nothing else.
I don't know...would I give up my tranquil yet growing town where speeding is usually the harshest crime committed or go back to the Nolensville Rd. (Nashville) apartment house where grating music is played loudly 24/7, graffiti hits every flat surface and my car (when it found a space) was defaced regularly?
And if I chalked up the murder down the hall, the anchor kid being killed and ditched in the nearby park or the pregnant woman who was hit by a van only to have the guys come back and put a few slugs into her lest they "get in trouble"?
NO.
I like what Rush has to say on the subject. If illegal Mexicans are good for the economy, then why does Mexicao have such a lousy one?
The pro business wing of the GOP and their flunkies such as Kudlow, see the US not as a society, not as a culture, but just an economy. Quite sad, and this wing of the GOP I hope will leane a valuable lesson in the enxt few years.
There. Fixed it.
You must be quite isolated or have a high paying job. I grew up in California, and I saw how illegal immigration trashed community after community, and turned California into a place where there are only rich or poor, with limited upward mobility. As for people getting a "kick", let me just say that your attitude is the same slaveowners had of the free states with people being lazy.
I also ask you to ask anyone who grew up in working class cities in Southren California, such as Resdea, Van Nuys, Lakewood, Pamona, Santa Ana, Whittier and dozens of others what they think of illegal immigration, and how they saw their cities trashed by illegal immigration. Did these people deserve a "kick"?
Go ahead and live your life being blind to how this invasion of illegals trashed life in California for everyone but the upper classes.
So, is allowing a pregnant woman to enter illegally, have a free delivery, and then immediately sign this "American" up for welfare "constructive" for America?
You know everyone on both side of this issue have admitted that the number is somewhere around 30 million, after all the add-on's and yet the American Enterprise Institute lends their name to this lie. Go figure.
We're not as enlightened as you, we just want them to uphold the laws already being broken, not create more for them to ignore.
BTW, if there is any real teeth in the sanctions for the employment of illegals in whatever border bill passes, then there won't be any need to "round up" illegals...they won't be able to get a job and they'll leave the way they came.
And for those of you who have waited years and spent thousands of dollars to come to the USA legally -- *SUCKERS*
We need to let these people in so they will vote Democrat....no one else is.
The pro business side of the GOP, those who call themselves "conservatives" have enough money to keep all those unpleasant things away from them. They just do not care about fellow citizens. These "people" will just love it when enough of the "undocumented citizens" get their documents, and shift the politics of the nation far to the left, and TAX THE HELL out of the open border lobbyists.
Well do you need any donations to help you move back to your dynamic La. Isn't that the place where if you smash someone's head with a brick, the brick isn't a deadly weapon?? Yes sir a real dynamic place...
That sounds just like gang behavior, which predates illegals by decades.
What really bothers me about this is that I think illegals are being blamed for problems that already existed in our country when they came.
I don't know about Nashville, so I'm not qualified to comment on it, but South Central LA, for example, was an area where disruptive blacks did a lot of damage. Now disruptive illegals are copying from the blacks and doing the same kind of damage.
Seems to me this is our fault, for letting this kind of culture get out of control in the first place. And the solution is not to eliminate illegals, it's to enforce laws against gangs - which already exist.
Instead of throwing out a whole population of people, many of who are perfectly peaceful and decent, why not identify those who are actually bad, and use our laws to throw them out?
*
The reason Mexicans do so poorly in their own country is that their government is corrupt and holds them back. This should attract our sympathy instead of our derision. I love the ideal of America as a place where people can go to be free and prosperous and stand on their own two feet.
D
LA is a cesspool, with lousy schools and poorly educated students. Have you read the California STAR reports? It's abysmal. Our "workforce of the future" can't read or write.
Hospitals are closing because they have to provide medical care to the illegals.
Etc etc.
Now that is a racist statement if I ever head one. Are you with the clan?
My reading of posts here indicate that the "hatred" is directed more at our politicians here and the corrupt, criminal ruling class in Mexicorruption than at the lowly ILLEGAL immigrant.
(BTW, I capitalize ILLEGAL because ever since the 1980s when many of us started paying attention our detractors refused us the courtesy of acknowledging that our criticism was NOT directed at immigrants. I've sponsored immigrants!)
The current problems created by ILLEGAL immigrants, document fraud, ID theft, SS fraud -- you name it, have all been known by Washington since the days of California's Prop 187. We passed 187 by 60 percent only to see lying, corrupt California political pukes refuse to appeal the lowest court's decision and bow to Mexico.
I recently posted the following as an example of another! reason I am disgusted with the lying SOB politicians of both parties. To wit,
The problem and its solution have been absolutely known for a decade -- the explosion of ILLEGALS started in 1993 -- gee, I wonder why. No shiny new laws needed -- just a tinker or two. Listen to the SSA IG.
On February 16, 2006 the Honorable Patrick P. O'Carroll, Jr. Inspector General of the Social Security Administration tells Congress a thing or two. Yes he appears to be Honorable -- perhaps one of a very, very few in the three branches of the federal government!
Item one: "In 1998, less than 3 years after the formation of our [IG] office, SSA’s first confirmed Inspector General testified before Congress and identified the eight greatest challenges facing SSA. After identifying solvency as the first issue, he stated that 'Second is the problem of erroneous wage reports held in SSA’s Suspense Account'."
[That'd be the Earnings Suspense File (ESF) that we're finally! starting to see mentioned in the press. Elsewhere Mr. O'Carroll stated that the ESF problem started to get out of hand in 1993. My emphasis.]
Item 2: "More than 4 years later, in 2002, SSA’s second confirmed Inspector General appeared before Congress and testified that the ESF remained one of the great challenges facing SSA."
Item 3: "Now, 4 more years have passed, and I stand before you as SSA’s third confirmed Inspector General. More recommendations have been made to SSA. . . the ESF remains one of SSA’s greatest challenges, and the most significant impediments to resolving that challenge are unchanged: the lack of a meaningful program of sanctions against the most egregious employers, and legal obstacles that prevent SSA from sharing meaningful data with immigration authorities and employers." [My emphasis.]
Item 4: "The information is at our fingertips. . . but no action is taken against them [the most egregious employers with respect to wage reporting irregularities] by IRS, and no action can be taken against them by our office or by SSA. We can identify the employers with the most unauthorized non-citizens on their payrolls, but we cannot [legally] tell the employers who the unauthorized employees are. We know the scope of the unauthorized non-citizen issue is significant, but SSA cannot share adequate information with DHS to provide truly useful information." [My emphasis]
Also, Mr. O'Carroll appealed to Congress (AGAIN!) for help with the Nonwork Alien, or NWALIEN File. This is more critical because it involves foreigners who get temporary permission to work (with a SSN) but overstay -- or worse, pass the SSN on to someone else when they leave. Some foreigners (non immigrants) can get nonwork SSN but work anyway -- for TY 2003 SSA credited earnings under 555,227 individual nonwork SSNs. But these SSNs are "even more disturbing, [because of] improper employment in sensitive and critical industries." [My emphasis]
SSA talks to Homeland Security in this case but there is no real way to fix the problem given the lack of will in the Administration and elsewhere (my words).
The Administration, et al. simply do NOT want to do anything but change from calling them ILLEGAL undocumented workers to calling them "guest workers" -- and, I bet, give them the keys to the SS "lock box." (My words)
I do not trust the lying SOBs of either party! The only purpose of new laws is to delete the old laws that the lying SOBs refuse to enforce.
Well, golly, I don't know if you were around in the good ole days here when the old time OBL was still intact here, but in those days it was quite the thing for them to ask anyone who brought up the hospital thing how frequently each of us visited the Emergency Room. One of the now-banned posters used to further insinuate that some of us were concerned because it meant having to go further to get your stomach pumped (i.e. having drank too much).
That, of course, raises some interesting logic to examine. If we aren't going to care about having Emergency Care available quickly and efficiently because we don't need it that often, then it only stands to reason that we should close up the Fire Department as well. I mean, honestly, when was the last time you called the Fire Department? What, are you some sort of pyromaniac?
For whatever reason, that seems to have vanished. I thought you and the other observers might like a blast from the past, though.
You know I think its not about the vote or the cost of labor. I think it's about fulfilling commitments to the Globalists, (CFR,NWO<3rd Way,....) the people who really control our presidents and elite politicians(PUBOCRATS).
Here is an EXCERPT, from a site that does a good job of explaining some of it.
Globalization: The Final Demise of National Security
"Despite the fact that 76 percent of Americans opposed the giveaway of the Panama Canal, the U.S. Senate narrowly ratified the Carter-Torrijos Treaty on April 18, 1978, which promised complete turnover of the Canal on December 31, 1999."
Kind of like what they are planning to do with the immigration issue.
Here is another site that discusses the CFR and our government.
C.F.R. HAS NO AFFILIATION WITH THE US GOV'T.
EXCERPT;
How can CFR have NO affiliation with the U.S. Government when almost every Secretary of State since WWII, Secretary of Defense, CIA Directors, National Security Advisers, and Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff is or has been members of CFR? How can CFR have NO affiliation with the U.S. Government when in fact at least 12 CFR gangsters are currently serving as Senators? How can CFR have NO affiliation with the U.S. Government when in fact a CFR gangster is currently serving as the Vice President of the United States? How can CFR have NO affiliation with the U.S. Government when in fact at least two CFR gangsters are currently sitting on the bench of the Supreme Court?
:)Easy Does It:)
yeah, and i have to wonder that while the president is yelling at all of us for being wasteful oil addicted pig hogs why he hasn't put 2 and 2 together and realized that if we got rid of the 12 million illegals and their gas guzzling vehicles maybe the prices of gas would drop!
I said "disruptive blacks."
That does not mean that most, or all, blacks are disruptive, just that some are.
There are disruptive blacks, whites, mexicans and even purple aliens.
I don't consider that to be a racist statement because the gangs were in fact founded by blacks, who were certainly disruptive.
Hope that helps.
D
Tut..tut..doing the acrobatics around that taboo "race" again. Isn't it pathetic. You just cannot speak your mind about race relations. I wonder how many posts on FR are coded to obscure their race message?
Well, your guess happens to be accurate. I lived in what I think of as an upper middle class neighborhood - Woodland Hills, south of the boulevard, in the hills. It's a lovely place and I certainly recommend the area. Too bad prices have spiraled out of sight. I doubt that I could afford to live there if I returned to LA and got a job with the same salary I had.
You can fairly say, then, that I have not met illegals outside of knowing they were probably employed by the company I worked for. They were very hard workers and did a great job, especially under the factory foreman who was also hispanic. He was a great guy and I was very pleased to work with him on a number of projects.
I'm not convinced that illegals have materially changed things, but that might be because I moved to the Valley after the big changes occured. In my eyes, Van Nuys, Reseda, etc, were always downscale and not particularly nice places to live.
I don't think you would be so negative about my attitude towards Pittsburgh workers if you actually saw them, and I'll just leave it at that. You don't have to be a slavedriver to want value for your money.
I don't know if the people you mention deserve a kick or not since I don't know them. I am limited to say the least in my knowledge of blue collar workers other than illegals.
The business I worked for while in LA did manufacturing and employed about 150 people, half in the factory and half in sales and administration. I think most of the workers were illegals.
I don't think we would have been competitive if we had employed Americans in the factory jobs. We probably would have had to outsource manufacturing entirely if that were the case.
It is my belief - I have no proof - that the company I worked for, and from which I pulled a salary sufficient for met to live in a tiny entry-level house in Woodland Hills - survived because it used illegal aliens as its primary workforce.
At the same time, the company employed salespeople, administrators and so on, all of who were paid well and had fairly upscale lives. So illegals enabled a lot of perfectly legal Americans to have good, American-level jobs.
I think it's important to understand those benefits, which exist everywhere there are illegals. They are not just parasites that use up our services. They work, and work hard, and their work creates jobs, just like the article says.
I think that's good for America.
I don't mind hearing the anti-illegal case, but it's dreadfully imbalanced and that always makes me feel suspicious of it.
D
"And the solution is not to eliminate illegals, it's to enforce laws"
In other words, please ignore this class of law breakers, because, uhmmm, errr ... oh, look! Somebody's breaking the law over there, let's go after them instead.
Well, isn't that special.
Of course, response time is not an important factor in emergency medicine-and doesn't mean the difference between life and death for some people. Sarc on/
At the risk of sounding nasty towards the former critics, just wait till it's THEIR gravely ill family member in the ambulance and the nearest ER is now 30 miles away.
That's a serious lack of empathy, both for the patients and the people who were providing medical care until they were driven out of business by deadbeats.
Looks like Jose hit his head when he fell off the turnip truck. He's delusional if he thinks the Mexican American Political Association isn't planning ahead to the 2006 elections. By 2008, they intend to have "their own candidates!" THAT sure sounds like they aim to have political pull to me.
American Enterprise Institute = Where America is just a cash cow up for sale to the highest bidder.
Thanks for hammering that point, Sir William. I think Sabertooth was first to point three years ago that the SSI and the IRS has enough data between them to root out the vast majority of illegal aliens and those who most frequently hire them.
DavidDennis, note that I purposely avoided mentioning race and ethnicity in my post - yet your response reflects that you think I'm not referring to anyone other than Latino/Hispanics.
I'm talking about primitive behavior that comes from an imported tribalism that the United States' Indians have long put on the backburner for their own advancement as a people. I cannot believe that the illegals now here used to practice boorish behavior without fear of repercussions in their home countries. I cite arrogance fostered by the percieved surrenduring gestures that the official establishment gives them.
The illegals only let me walk away from confronting their 4:00 AM parties because they were shocked some little caucasion just had enough of their B.S. and dared to call them on it. They made my car surrender but I never did.
The Freeper "hatred" that you speak of is more directed at our lying politicians and the grasping "cheap labor" crowd -- not the millions forced out of third world, corrupt-government-created cesspools; yes, we do "hate" the few criminals among them. I see that you do understand that.
As the SSA IG told the Congress (above), the problem has always been and is still solvable but the government / business will has not been there and is still missing.
Instead lying SOB politicians say we can't enforce existing laws so we need new laws and things like high-tech SSN cards that go PING!. Grasping businessmen, et al. scream "Bigots!" instead of saying, "We don't give a damn about the law."
Lying SOB politicians and grasping businessmen micturate on our heritage as a Nation of Laws. Now they encourage mob rule -- just like the cesspools of most of the ILLEGAL immigrants' home countries.
Something new: If American blue-collar workers are as bad as you suggest then how do so many foreign companies move here and do so well? And, how is your attitude any less "hatred" than those Freepers who do "hate" ILLEGAL immigrants?
There are enough rock-solid stupid FROBLs left to compose a pretty decent list of the World Wide Web's Dumbest Statements On Immigration.
This thread is evidence of that.
Mainstream media referred to them in English as "zoot suiters." The Zoot-Suit Riots that had Los Angeles as their setting in June 1943 were so labeled because the press identified the confrontation as being between Mexican-American zoot suiters on the one hand, and United States servicemen and civilians on the other. Scholars speculate on the origins of pachuquismo (zoot suiterism).
Some find connections between the pachucos and Spanish gypsies, between pachucos and the lower-class mixed-blood soldiers and civilians that settled the Borderlands during the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, and between the pachucos and the poor and oppressed common folks that filled the ranks of armies such as those of Pancho (Francisco) Villaqv during the Mexican Revolutionqv of 1910.
http://www.tsha.utexas.edu/handbook/online/articles/PP/pqp1.html
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