Real Message of The Bush Amnesty

The American Conservative ^ | 1/12/2004 | PAT BUCHANAN

[WOSG]

Ah, so basically we should give in to the blackmail of not doing what is right and what is within our rights because some will behave violently. Kind of like giving in to a lynch mob.

Still, I think your argument is all wet. Our local latino columnist here in Austin notes that many MEXICAN IMMIGRANTS are the biggest complainers about illegals - they *know* that illegal immigration is affecting *their* wages and dont like the competition. I dont think most Mexicans would mind at all if we enforced our laws. As for V. Fox, he's trying to export his unemployment with these illegal aliens, as long as we keep other business ties going, he wont have cause to complain.

[liberallarry]

Ah, so basically we should give in to the blackmail of not doing what is right and what is within our rights because some will behave violently. Kind of like giving in to a lynch mob

Come on WOSG...don't be lazy, read all the posts - my #138 for example.

many MEXICAN IMMIGRANTS are the biggest complainers about illegals...I dont think most Mexicans would mind at all if we enforced our laws

Of course opinion is not unanimous. It never is. That's the reason one considers a worst case scenario...or would you prefer to be caught flat-footed and unprepared?

In this situation the worst case is rather likely because Mexican illegals in this country and Mexicans in Mexico have come to think of unlimited immigration as their right, because they already feel entirely humiliated by Yankee dominance, and because their country is in terrible trouble and would fall apart if illegal immigration were stopped.

[WOSG]

Sorry, all your assertions are contrary to factual evidence.
V. Fox has asserted the opposite of what you claim wrt to what Mexicans "want".

Your doomsday scenarios of us actually daring to simply enforce reasonable laws are like the Buchananite rants about immigration itself. Chaos will reign just because some people dont get 100% of what they want? Not in the real world. The world wont end, and life will just be fine if we enforce the immigration law as we should have done all along. Nice try at muddying the (Rio Grande) water, but it convinces nobody.

[liberallarry]

Sorry, all your assertions are contrary to factual evidence.

INMIGRACION: Buen inicio para reforma
INMIGRACION: Mano de obra barata y desechable

Keep your head in the sand. Maybe it's your best position.

[liberallarry]

Sorry, all your assertions are contrary to factual evidence.

INMIGRACION: Buen inicio para reforma
INMIGRACION: Mano de obra barata y desechable

Keep your head in the sand. Maybe it's your best position.

[WOSG]

Big WHOOP. So La Raza extremists demand the unreasonable and are not satisfied until the concept of citizenship is ERASED and are unhappy even with this huge pander to immigrants and Mexico ... We

"Por eso el Consejo Nacional de La Raza, una organización mexicoamericana que lucha por la defensa de los trabajadores latinos en Estados Unidos, calificó ese mismo día la propuesta de Bush como una “promesa vacía” y describió el “timing” del anuncio como una “estrategia de año electoral después de dos años de silencio” sobre las condiciones de explotación que padecen los indocumentados."

You'll need to help me with my Spanish - where in these links did the extremists who want open borders amensty and no enforcement of law suggest violence against USA to achieve the obliteration of our borders? And if they did threated violence, why are YOU intimidated from doing the right thing by it?

As for 'head in the sand' it is better description of those who pretend there is no downside to non-enforcement or that non-enforcement of immigration is somehow "safer" than alternatives. ... Here is the truth - THE VIOLENCE AND LAWLESSNESS IS HAPPENING NOW as a result of our non-enforcement of law:

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1056310/posts

• In Los Angeles, 95 percent of all outstanding warrants for homicide (which total 1,200 to 1,500) target illegal aliens. Up to two-thirds of all fugitive felony warrants (17,000) are for illegal aliens.

• A confidential California Department of Justice study reported in 1995 that 60 percent of the 20,000-strong 18th Street Gang in southern California is illegal; police officers say the proportion is actually much greater. The bloody gang collaborates with the Mexican Mafia, the dominant force in California prisons, on complex drug-distribution schemes, extortion, and drive-by assassinations, and commits an assault or robbery every day in L.A. County. The gang has grown dramatically over the last two decades by recruiting recently arrived youngsters, most of them illegal, from Central America and Mexico.

[liberallarry]

Loosely but accurately

"This is the advice of La Raza, a Mexican-American organization which fights in defense of latin workers of the United States, which this day characterizes Bush's proposal as an 'empty promise' and describes the 'timing' as an electoral year strategy since in the previous two years there was nothing but silence on the conditions of exploitation suffered by the undocumented."

It's not whether you or I believe La Raza is "extremist".
It's how Mexicans and Mexican-Americans feel about them.
El Diario is mainstream in their community.

And you're again missing the point when you cite statistics proving a connection between illegals and crime.
And you're being silly if you think La Raza has to call for violence whenever they oppose government policies.
And you're pointing to a strawman when you characterize me as "intimidated".

I've been trying to guage the possible outcomes of a serious attempt at deportation of illegals and border control.
I contend there's a great deal of opposition to such policies in the Mexican and Mexican-American communities.
As evidence I cited articles in the principal mainstream paper in Mexican-American Los Angeles which clearly show a deep split in viewpoints.
Unless you believe - and can show - that El Diario is printing unrepresentative, provacative garbage I stand by my positions.

[WOSG]

I *know* what *that* paragraph said .. I posted it. same old , same old ... It is not relevent if a Mexican journal doesnt like or does like a Bush proposal. (And, yes, anyone is an extemist if they coddle lawbreakers )

I am asking for any support for your extreme comments about violence ensuing if the US enforces immigration law. Where are the threats? And what would they really mean?

No evidence. None. Zippo. You're talking out of your hat.

OTOH, I've posted actual statistics of the thousands of outstanding arrest warrants not served because thanks to dumb 'sanctuary policies' the local police have lost wholesale control of the illegal communities and cant control crime there.

All due to our unwillingness to enforce the immigration law as we should.

That's nuts. It's dumb. Two simple law enforcement changes would save American lives: 1. The CLEAR Act, to undo the damage of the lack of law enforcement of immigration law by local law enforcement. 2. Streamline the deportation of criminal aliens. If you need to know more, read Michell Malkin's "Invasion" on how the system is broken.

"I've been trying to guage the possible outcomes of a serious attempt at deportation of illegals and border control."

And doing quite a poor job at your guesstimations.

Seriously, I think your just into obfuscation and sophistry, or you wouldnt be laying down so many red herrings.

You first set up the false dichotomy - it's "do nothing" or "deport 10 million" ... gee, nothing in between, like "let's at least deport every single criminal alien we run across without our dumb 'catch and release' method of non-deportation; let's at least set up documentation verification, so documentation fraud isnt so rampant and easy; lets at least fine employers when we find them hiring against 1986 law; etc." ... and from the false dichotomy you leap to the non-sequitor: a parade of violent horribles happens due to instant deportation of millions, an event physically impossible to pull off anyway, but which in any estimation based on reason would not lead to any such negative outcome.

No evidence for your claim, just the bare supposition. "ooh, its bad .. boogeyman will come". That's fearmongering and yes, its fair to say you are 'intimidated' or think American policy should be intimidated by it (when it shouldnt of course).

You have yet to present a single shred of evidence that enforcing the laws we have on the books would be bad for the law abiding American citizens. Yet you persist in making the hollow case.

Pretzel logic no straight-thinking person could abide ...
no *wonder* you call yourself "liberal" still!!

So - Go back to Square One:

America would be better off if we enforce our Federal laws on immigration so that immigration law-breaking is less --- Right?

If we cant agree on this common-sense premise, debate is pointless.

[liberallarry]

I thought you asked for help in translation. What did you want me to translate?

Ah, I see. To show that violence might ensue as a I result of effectual enforcement of deportation laws and border enforcement you want me to present specific threats. I thought it enough to show great opposition in the relevant communities, opposition which has historically quite often led to violence...but apparently not. Tell me then what you would consider adequate? If I found such threats from radical or extremist groups would that qualify? Whose threats would you consider credible? Tell me before I start looking. It'll save a lot of trouble.

Your criticism of my dichotomy is fair...as far as it goes.

Deportation of criminal aliens could be accomplished with "relatively" little opposition.

Documentation verification and employer fines are another matter. If successful they would lead to mass deportations and/or a serious loss of revenue to Mexico. Perhaps not immediately but as soon as they became effective and with ever-increasing severity. You can't have it both ways you know; either they'll be effective and have real consequences or they won't be.

Did you read the details of Operation Wetback in the links I posted? The government claimed to have physically deported 80 or 100,000 people and scared another three-quarters of a million into returning to Mexico. So don't tell me mass deportations are impossible. It's happened before in many places.

I think your claim that I set up a false dichotomy is incorrect. I was responding to what I perceived to be the demands of posters to rid us of illegals and seal the border. If you read my posts carefully you'll see that I felt the Administration offered an alternative which can hardly be characterized as "doing nothing". You'll also note that I said, repeatedly, that I would support them in their effort...and support them if they decided to go for deportation and militarization. All I wanted was an honest assessment of the real costs, including, specifically, a worst-case scenario.

That applies to anything you might propose as well.

[liberallarry]

So I'm using scare tactics and posing an unreasonable dichotomy am I? I went to my Google search posted earlier. I found this almost immediately

"So what to do about the 7 million, now 8.4 million illegal aliens? FrontPageMagazine columnist Steve Brown recently called for a new drive to deport aliens through workplace immigration enforcement on a scale of the Eisenhower administration’s Operation Wetback in 1954."

Time For Operation Wetback II

Do your homework.

[liberallarry]

Here's an elaboration of your proposal

Ending Illegal Immigration: Make It Unprofitable

and here's a specific threat of violence

Tierra,Libertad, y Justicia

[WOSG]

Larry,


I think this source undercuts your point. It makes the point that the real failure has been our failure to enforce the laws, as we did successfully in the past, deporting people without any ill effects:

"In the good old days under the Immigration and Nationality Act of 1952, with a deportation system relying on Special Inquiry Officers for hearings, the federal government was able actually to deport, voluntarily return or scare off possibly over 1 million illegal aliens from Mexico over about a year during Operation Wetback. ...
But law enforcement under the 1952 Immigration Act has given way to illegal alien “rights.” What was once a streamlined deportation system is now a federal litigation bureaucracy called the Executive Office for Immigration Review – the EOIR – spawned in 1983.

Instead of men with guns detaining and deporting people who have no legal right to be in the country, the EOIR of the new millennium offers a revolving door for detention, a deportation abyss and permanent amnesty for illegal aliens and criminal alien residents. The EOIR is not set up to actually deport illegal aliens, as I have been pointing out since 9/11.
...

It’s time for a second Operation Wetback. The first step: reform deportation procedures. And that requires getting the idea through the thick skulls of the American elite."

I think I mentioned to you Michelle Malkin's "Invasion", which had the same proposals and same critiques of EOIR. EOIR is actually *preventing* deportations rather than executing on them.

But we are far afield from the earlier discussion. I made a number of Tancredo proposals to actually enforce immigration law and end the loopholes in documentation verification, border security and immigration law, and asked:

"Which of thse provisions will cause Mexico to attack us?"

You said: "All of them if they successfully curtail immigration and/or result in mass deportations."

I think this last link dramatically DISPROVES your fear. We managed to deport 1 million Mexicans in the 1950s. No war.
No cities burned down.

Now I think, as you do, that there are always pros and cons to any proposals/policies. And I know that even making 400% improvements in our currently horribly lax enforcement wont get rid of 8 million illegal aliens. But it's a start and it is the right direction.

So I suggest you reconsider your comment on these proposals - they take us in the correct direction on immigration policy, and IMHO combined with a guest worker program can dramatically improve our immigration policy:

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1056288/posts?page=113#113

[Consort]

Let's see if I can make Buchanan's day:

Yo, Pat:
It looks more likely that a coalition of immigrants, other minorities and bleeding heart Liberals which, when taken together, could add up to a majority, might actually deport anglos instead of the other way around. They will be aided by the Democrat Party, other Leftist Parties, and disgruntled Conservatives who want to fragment the Right into the Republican, Libertarian, Constitution, and other assorted Parties.

[liberallarry]

I posted the link to show there are people - many and quite a few who are influential - who are proposing mass deportations.

The possible effects are disputed but a worst-case scenario which I proposed certainly cannot be ruled out and is not unlikely. Today's world is very different from that of the '50s - the numbers involved are much, much larger, illegals are widely dispersed and not concentrated in a few agricultural jobs and areas, and their mentality has changed as well as ours.

In my previous post I ruled out crass opportunism on the part of government - always willing to believe that it was considering "the national interest" over the long term.

I've reconsidered

After reading the Handbook of Texas link I posted earlier I was appalled by the naked greed displayed by growers, their utter unconcern for anything except profits, and government's willing complicity (much of the time).

I asked myself - and I now ask you - the following question.

When farmers lost all that cheap labor as a result of Operation Wetback, how did they replace it? Who picked the crops in 1955 and later after 1 million plus Mexicans were deported?

[WOSG]

I thought you asked for help in translation. What did you want me to translate? I thought you were posting links that threatened violence if folks were deported. It turns out its merely opposition to anything that curtails illegal immigration. Well, people have opinions, and not surprisingly the Mexican govt wants to export its unemployment here, the Mexican people like the renumeration from relatives in the USA, and others want a free ride and/or free hand at opportunities. Gee, why am I not surprised?

IMHO, their opposition is not relevant because they, La Raza (a racist organization IMHO), do not have America's interest in mind. Indeed, the Mecha-Aztlan types explicitly want to destroy our borders and sovereignty in the Southwest. Why listen to them? Should you dig up threats they might make? It would be interesting but hardly convincing ... enemies of America might make threats against us if we try to enforce our laws. SO WHAT. "Whose threats would you consider credible?" I cant say up front. Heck, we get violent rhetoric from Howard Dean!! THE REAL THREAT IS FROM OUR OWN ELITES and interest groups like La Raza that are willing to destroy our future for their own selfish interests. That is not right. But the threat is not the threat of violence if we enforce the law, its the threat of subverting the law itself so our future is threatened.

So you are still hanging out there with unsupported claims about the awful consequences of mass deportation. I am wholly unconvinced by your claims and threats (if such exist) from Mecha-ista extremists wouldnt change my mind. Let's move on.

Documentation verification and employer fines are another matter. If successful they would lead to mass deportations and/or a serious loss of revenue to Mexico. Perhaps not immediately but as soon as they became effective and with ever-increasing severity. You can't have it both ways you know; either they'll be effective and have real consequences or they won't be.

Yes, they will work if we administer them to succeed. Jobs will dry up and illegals will get the message. That is a good thing, not a bad thing.

Deportation of criminal aliens could be accomplished with "relatively" little opposition.

Right. That is an important place to start. Abolish EOIR and end the amnesties to criminal aliens.

I think your claim that I set up a false dichotomy is incorrect. Let me explain: the false dichotomy is between instant mass deportation versus ineffective/non-existent immigration law enforcement. There are ways to turn up the heat gradually, or to enforce the law that would change behavior over time. we are so far from having even a basic amount of enforcement, it should be called en-farce-ment.

What if we simply improved law enforcement and border security so the 700,000 new arrivals per year number dropped to 100,000? That is a significant sea change in our future without necessarily sending 10 million folks packing.

IMHO the Bush plan is not relevent to this since it is just another visa category and not even addressing enforcement. Without addressing immigration law enforcement, the Bush plan is ineffective and superfluous.

OTOH, the Bush guest worker plan is a great 'escape valve' to solve any such objections you have to enforcing the law wrt to any "backlash". That is, Mexico cant object to us enforcing the law if there are available to them a guest worker program. Similarly, the cheap labor employers cant object to employer sanctions if they have a *legal* access to such a labor pool. IMHO, we dont know that such an escape valve is necessary without first trying the enforcement.

See my other comments (this thread) on the 'carrot + stick' approach to solving illegal immigration.

Understand that we can tackle this problem step-by-step to handle the overhang of decades of mistaken policies: We need to undo the 1965 immigration law and fix legal immigration, the lack of enforcement of 1986 legal sanctions, welfare and other mistaken inducements to illegal immigration, lack of local law enforcement involvement, and our broken deportation process. All areas need to be addressed. the tancredo plan addresses all points. Bush plan looks at 1 out of 5 only.

We need to do more.

[liberallarry]

In case you don't see where I'm going with my question

I suspect that Operation Wetback was a complete sham.
I think the million or so Mexicans were deported so as to cheat them out of wages and other benefits they negociated...and to scare the new ones who were immediately admitted to take their place into not trying to improve their lot.
If true it's as ugly as it gets.

[liberallarry]

The Bush plan attempts to expand the pool of cheap labor while making sure it stays cheap. That's what the Mexicans object to - and that's what you and I object to.

[WOSG]

Sham? Um no... the growers and the cheap labor lobby didnt want operation wetback. Dont be shocked by economic selfishiness. the Texas Federation of Labor and the GI Forum and Americans concerned about wage/job dilution and lawbreaking did want operation wetback. It did work, and it was no sham. But operation wetback was a success in terms of illegal immigration, not designed to do any favors to growers (who wanted illegals) or workers. The braceros program took up the slack in terms of demand for farm labor.
Wish I could share a link on this and how it tied in with the Bracero program, but lost it, but your link had some of that info. Basically it shows that by 1960s, illegal immigration was low, only 20,000 apprehended in 1964. Once the braceros program ended, illegal immigration took off again -- 277,377 in 1970. The braceros program seeded future demand for labor which became demand for illegal immigration. ...

Note also that the question "where to get labor from if you dont have a supply of cheap labor?" is answered with - mechanization. Econ 101 will tell you that farmers in the US have mechanized to substitute for labor, but if cheap labor is available, they do less of that productivity-enhancing mechanization. So the cheap labor influx can have a negative impact on our productivity and other statistics.

As for the Bush proposal, yes, the cheap labor folks will like that, but its a better deal for employers and employees both than being in the shadows of the law. It can be viewed as a win/win for them (even if it is a loss for other Americans wanting those jobs).

As I said, though, the bush proposal is irrelevent (or even will make illegal immigration worse) unless immigration law is enforced. If not, both employers and willing illegals will continue to subvert the law, have the indirect consequence of harming the wage rates of other low-wage workers, both American citizen and legal immigrants.

[liberallarry]

Nice post.

Gotta think about it awhile and do some research before I respond. That won't happen until tomorrw.

Meanwhile, I have no problem at all with incrementally turning up the heat by gradually increasing enforcement of existing laws beginning with deportation of criminals.

[liberallarry]

I've changed my mind a bit.

I now think the risk of civil war in our cities is quite low. Mexicans do not have a record of political violence in this country...and I've found no evidence in their newspapers that that's changing.

OTOH, I still maintain that American interests and lives IN Mexico would be in very serious danger should we begin mass deportations or seriously cut the monies which illegals repatriate.