Posted on 01/22/2002 9:20:32 PM PST by traditionalist
A story in the Jan. 10 Los Angeles Times ("Wave of U.S. immigration likely to survive Sept. 11") observes: "The most significant development in the national immigrant debate is what hasn't happened: No lawmaker of influence has moved to reverse the country's generous immigration policy, which for more than three decades has facilitated the largest sustained wave of immigration in U.S. history."
That policy is getting even more generous. And Republicans, of all people, are now playing Jolly Old St. Nick to huddled masses (legal and illegal), despite mounting evidence that immigration is poison for the party.
In the 2000 election, Al Gore carried five of the seven states with the largest numbers of foreign born. He lost the sixth, Florida, by a hair, due to the anomaly of the Cuban-American vote. Bush took all 10 of the states with the lowest immigrant populations.
Their senses dulled by a multicultural binge, Republicans can't connect the dots. Because the GOP is still minimally identified with American values, it cannot successfully compete for the affection of immigrant voters, who are more interested in handouts than tax cuts.
But, heedless of this reality, in his 2003 budget (to be submitted to Congress in February) Bush reportedly will call for restoring food stamps to 363,000 legal immigrants -- a benefit non-citizens lost in the 1996 welfare reform.
It's estimated the change will cost $2.1 billion over the next decade. But then, food-stamp use expands in a recession. Plus, more benefits will encourage more immigration. So the price tag is open-ended.
Do we really want to encourage immigrants to come here and go on the dole? Whatever happened to the concept of not giving visas to those who might become a public charge?
Because they are poorer and less educated, the foreign-born are already above-average consumers of government services. Currently, 21 percent of immigrant households use at least one major welfare program, compared to 15 percent of native-born families.
Earlier this month, Secretary of State Colin Powell met with his Mexican counterpart to see about getting another amnesty for illegal aliens (excuse me, "undocumented workers") back on track. Prior to Sept. 11, Bush was pushing for legal status for 3.5 million of these lawbreakers.
Illegal immigrants are already coming at an annual rate of half a million. Just as the 1986 amnesty (which "adjusted the status" of 2.7 million) helped generate the following waves of illegals, another amnesty would add fuel to the fire that rages on our borders.
More than any other factor, immigration is transforming America.
Between 1990 and 2000, while the nation grew by 13 percent, our foreign-born population increased over 50 percent. Steve Camarota of the Center for Immigration Studies estimates that immigrants and their children born here accounted for two-thirds of all population growth in the 1990s.
Unlike immigrants of the past, all too often the new immigrants aren't assimilating. Rep. Tom Tancredo, R-Colo., says: "There are too many coming in too quickly. And with multiculturalism and bilingualism in the schools, it's not a melting-pot mentality. It's a Bosnia mentality."
Still, Bush and his political strategist Karl Rove continue to pursue the illusive Hispanic vote, mesmerized by the fact that the president took 35 percent of that vote in 2000, compared to the 21 percent Dole got in 1996. They forget that Reagan received an even higher percentage in both of his campaigns, without pandering.
Whil losing two-thirds of Hispanics, the president won just 54 percent of the non-minority vote. He won't expand that base with food stamps for legal immigrants and amnesties for illegals.
The Times story quotes Doris Meissner, Clinton's commissioner of the Immigration and Nationalization Service, who cliams current immigration policy "reflects a sort of wise and grown-up attitude on the part of Americans."
Besides reflecting liberal condescension, Meissner's evaluation is dead wrong. Americans never voted for a generous immigration policy. In poll after poll, the public demands stringent controls. But due to the Republican default, voters have no choice here. On immigration, the GOP is duh.
Of all people to pop up and refute that...Classic.
Thanks for the laugh.
Once a baby is born in the US, the family then can qualify for all kinds of welfare benefits and food stamps.
Come back with your story four-ish years from.
Yes, what we say on this forum will drive them all to the left.
The laugh was truly mine.
And this is so obvious to those that are still coherent.
IF ANY OF YOU ARE READING, OBEY THE LAW. DO WHAT THE PEOPLE WANT. I'M TIRED OF CORRUPTION, AND YOU ARE HELPING DESTROY AMERICA. STOP IT.
Nope.
but I know many very well who are as against illegal immigration and amnesty as anyone else.
As do I.
On the above issues, they stand with the Democrat Party, with whom they vote for in overwhelming numbers...
You'd think Bush would be trying to build a coalition with native hispanics, whites, and blacks to restore law and order with the whole immigration system instead of pandering to illegal aliens.
The way I see it, it's not so much about trying to win the hispanic vote as it is his Wall St. philosophy that the free market should mean unfettered access to labor, all over the world. He has stated this many times by saying an employer with a need for an employee should be accommodated.
The problem with this thinking, shared by Bob Bartley, Paul Gigot and other libertarians, which at the moment is winning the argument BTW, is that it does not take into account the cultural and monetary consequences of allowing such massive poor third world immigration into the country.
Yes, the meatpacking industry has its minimum wage worker, but the taxpayer has to pay for their children's education, all of their health care, incarceration if any break the law and on and on. The policy from a long-term standpoint is suicidal because eventually there WILL be financial collapse, especially if there's a major recession. It's happening in California right now.
One solution would be for companies to return to offering livable wages to these so-called jobs "no one wants to do", and force welfare recipients off the rolls and into the job force. More mechanization of farms could also dramatically reduce the need for the menial labor that is driving illegals here. That just turns into a steppingstone for many of them, as they move on to other jobs only to be replaced by more illegals.
You don't need a Doctorate degree or be a lawyer to figure this out, so why can't the Einsteins in Washington get it? Greed and money. People have to organize and remove them from office, no matter their party.
Plus a lot of it is a very high tax burden on employees and employers. An illegal can easily accept a job for $6 an hour because they won't be paying Social Security taxes, FICA and all the many others. They won't have insurance premiums to worry about because they are given free health care at the clinics and county hospitals.
If an American worker agreed to work for $6 an hour, all cash with no taxes taken out, there would be very heavy consequences for the employer and employee.
I agree. This group of free-trade libertarians have a single minded focus on the business side of economics...whatever allows a business to sell their product cheaper and drive wages lower, even if it involves illegal immigration. They NEVER talk about or consider the staggering social costs to taxpayers of immigrant welfare and subsidies or how the rising population of 3rd world immigrants is displacing the dominant American culture. Nor does this group ever talk about how immigrants are inducing more socialism in America by influencing both parties with their votes to move to the left. It is all about the “fast-buck profit” right here, right now and to hell with everybody else including America. And ironically, though these libertarians like to talk a conservative free markets game, their very support of uncontrolled immigration works mightily against their own ideologies of greater capitalism. I saw this years ago. Why they and Bush don’t see it is mystifying.
This is why I consider these folks true liberals. However conservative they may try to sound the upshot of their immigration and trade policies (which carries great weight in the beltway) results in expanding socialism, higher taxes, the debasing of the American Culture and the destruction of Middle Class America.
As a final note, I used to be a big fan of Bob Bartley but over the years his purist one-world views on trade and immigration in the Review & Outlook column of the WSJ became too much for me to accept. In fact he did an op-ed piece in the WSJ about the virtues of a borderless America about 1 week before 9/11. Needless to say he and the WSJ haven’t revisited that topic lately.
Same here. I too used to enjoy reading the Wall St. Journal editorial page for its well thought out, conservative opinions. But they have become so one-sided on the immigration debate it is impossible to stomach them any longer.
Paul Gigot especially is intolerant of anyone who disagrees with the open-border mantra, and will even go as far as play the liberal game of hurling the "race" card at anyone who dares oppose it. He did this last year against FAIR and Numbers USA while they fought against the re-election of Spencer Abraham.
Anything short of the status-quo, which is mass-immigration, virtual open borders is unacceptable to them. That is unreasonable in politics, where compromise is what makes the system work. As it is, their position is on the fringe. The last time I saw the polls, 80% of the population want immigration controlled.
You have Gigot well pegged. I never did like Paul Gigot. I always found him to be duplicitous. Often he would write a tough conservative piece in his old WSJ op-ed column but when he got on a talk show he'd come off more like a liberal. I don't read the WSJ editorial column anymore precisely because of him. And yes, he is quick to pull the race card because IMO he doesn’t have the intelligence to effectively argue his fringe views on immigration and trade against smarter people with the facts on their side. It goes without saying that those who need to call people racists (and all the other favorites names like xenophobic, Nativist, anti-immigrant) have lost the debate and are left with trying to silence the better informed opposition with cheap political correctness.
Very false and you know it. So I guess it's just a color thing for you.
Ditto....
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