Posted on 05/23/2006 8:25:20 AM PDT by Gordongekko909
The immigration bill before Congress has some of the most serious consequences for the future of this country. Yet it is not being discussed seriously by most politicians or most of the media. Instead, it is being discussed in a series of glib talking points that insult our intelligence.
Some of the most momentous consequences -- a major increase in the number of immigrants admitted legally -- are not even being discussed at all by those who wrote the Senate bill, though Senator Jeff Sessions has uncovered those provisions in the bill and brought them out into the light of day.
How many times have we heard that illegal aliens are taking "jobs that Americans won't do"? Just what specifically are those jobs?
Even in occupations where illegals are concentrated, such as agriculture, cleaning, construction, and food preparation, the great majority of the work is still being done by people who are not illegal aliens.
The highest concentration of illegals is in agriculture, where they are 24 percent of the people employed. That means three-quarters of the people are not illegal aliens. But when will the glib phrase-mongers stop telling us that the illegals are simply taking "jobs that Americans won't do"?
Another insult to our intelligence is that amnesty is not amnesty if you call it something else. The fact that illegals will have to fulfill certain requirements to become American citizens is supposed to mean that this is not amnesty.
But let's do what the spinmeisters hope we will never do -- stop and think. Amnesty is overlooking ("forgetting," as in amnesia) the violation of the law committed by those who have crossed our borders illegally.
The fact that there are requirements for getting American citizenship is a separate issue entirely. Illegal aliens who do not choose to seek American citizenship are under no more jeopardy than before. They have de facto amnesty.
Yet another insult to our intelligence is saying that, since we cannot find and deport 12 million people, the only choice left is to find some way to make them legal.
There is probably no category of law-breakers -- from counterfeiters to burglars or from jay-walkers to murderers -- who can all be found and arrested. But no one suggests that we must therefore make what they have done legal.
Such an argument would suggest that there is nothing in between 100 percent effective law enforcement and zero percent effective law enforcement.
The reverse twist on this argument is that suddenly taking 12 million people out of the labor force would disrupt the economy. No one has ever said -- or probably even dreamed -- that we could suddenly find all 12 million illegal immigrants at once and send them all home immediately. This is another straw man argument.
The real question is what we do with whatever illegal aliens we do find. Right now, there are various communities around the country where local officials have a policy of forbidding the police from reporting illegal immigrants to federal authorities.
Why are people who are so gung ho for punishing employers so utterly silent about needing to punish government officials who openly and deliberately violate federal laws?
Employers, after all, are not in the business of law enforcement.
If some guy who runs a hardware store or a dry cleaning business hires someone who shows some forged documents, why should the employer be fined for not being able to tell the difference, when government officials who can tell the difference are not doing anything -- or are even actively obstructing federal laws?
Putting unarmed national guardsmen on the border is another cosmetic move, a placebo instead of real medicine. The excuse is that it is not possible to train more than 1,500 border patrol agents a year. Meanwhile, we have trained well over 200,000 Iraqi security forces while guerilla warfare raged around them.
You can put a million people on the border and it will mean nothing if those who are caught are simply turned loose and sent back to try again tomorrow -- or perhaps later the same day.
Bush and his country club republican buddies think we're stupid. And I guess he's right, because there are people still talking about how we have to keep republicans in office after the massive screwing we true conservatives have gotten over the years the republicans have been in charge of looting and squandering.
Basically what the congresscritters are saying is,"Pay no attention to the man behind the curtain, Dorothy".They have their agenda and the public be damned.Its VOTES, VOTES, VOTES!
Bordering? Very punny but there's nothing borderline about the fraud being perpetrated by this Senate.
BUMP
Sowell is usually so right on. Sad to see his reasoning fail here. If 24% of agriculture jobs are done by illegals, who presumably are paid lower wages than Americans, I would expect Sowell to make some argument about the folly of minimum wage and the *relative* unwillingness of Americans to do the work for the wages offered. That would have been consistent with most of his prior economic analysis.
I find it odd that you have to hunt hard to find any everyday leftist liberal progressives in favor of this.
The pols have some agenda, other than pleasing their voters.
I can't help but think that if we worked on removing some of these incentives, the illegals who are here for the free goodies would go back to where they came from.
Dr. Sowell on immigration ping!
With regard to public schooling, the USSC has ruled that states may not deny it to children of illegals.
The VA dept theft of Social Security numbers suggests that someone is thinking all the illegals coming are going to need some some SS#s as the Senate is set to legalize identity theft.
As usual, a REAL conservative like Sowell is right on the mark.
"How many times have we heard that illegal aliens are taking "jobs that Americans won't do"? Just what specifically are those jobs?"
Jobs slave labor employers want to fill at minimal wage, with no benefits and no chance of ever getting a promotion, in short, jobs that no body except someone coming from a barrio in South America would accept.
After all, they can't ship EVERYTHING to Red China and India.
Is THIS the standard we ant to set for American employees in the future?
I doubt it.
BTTT
This is why I support a fence so much. Kicking people back across the border won't make a difference without one; they'll just try again later. 12 million illegals, honestly, is not that big a deal. That open door that more keep coming through? That's a problem.
I'm going to answer a rhetorical question with the obvious answer. It's because government is empowered by plundering form the hardworking and squandering on the politically well connected (the mouthy lazy poor, the unions, and the corporations). Government isn't ever going to do anything that diminishes it's power - not ever. If you actually ask proof of citizenship, then there might be a lesser need for government with fewer freebies being provided, and we just can't have that!
The sad thing is, its not really the big corporations that utilize illegal labor (I know, Tyson did but...). Its usually independent building contractors, mom and pop restaurants and "family" farmers.
Sowell is right here. Take your analysis a few steps beyond where you stopped.
That we need to eliminate minimum wage? Sure. But it won't happen. Would we be stronger economically if we could dramatically cut down the number of illegals? Not if we didn't eliminate the minimum wage and various other social benefits that create disincentives for taking low paying work.
Is it an "insult" to decide to offer foreign worker status to a large portion of the illegals currently here (because that would sanction law breaking)? No more than it was to end Prohibition back in the 30s when millions of Americans became lawbreakers.
Is Sowell right about having stronger border enforcement? Yes, to a point. But he maybe ought to go back and re-read his own book, Knowledge and Decisions.
A good summation of what we're seeing out of the Senate and this White House vis a vis immigration.
I don't want to hear about "comprehensive immigration reform". The whole notion is a sleight of hand, a way of dressing something up that you would never accept, and selling it to you with a pink bow on it.
Secure the border. Do that, and enforce current law, and the problem will resolve itself. Fail to secure the border, and nothing will work. Fail to secure the border, and the whole "comprehensive" immigration bill is exposed as a con game, and we are the patsy.
We don't need any new law to secure the border. They are selling us on the idea that to secure the border we need this huge new complex of laws, and thats a lie. It could be done today, if there is a will to do it, the volunteers already showed that it can be done.
If they can't, or won't, secure the border, why should we trust them with immigration reform? If they can't, or won't, secure the border, why should we trust them in office at all?
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