[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?

[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.