Posted on 01/13/2004 8:28:16 AM PST by mikeb704
Last week President Bush proposed a new guest worker program. It wasn’t surprising that the Left quickly declared the Bush plan a disaster. The president of National Council of La Raza (The Race, for you gringos) declared that Hispanic Americans were "extremely disappointed." I thought that Senate Democrat leader Tom Daschle had copyrighted the extremely disappointed expression by now, but apparently he hasn’t.
The White House may not have expected the widely negative reaction of some of those on the Right. It should have.
Rewarding those who are here illegally goes against the grain. People who announce their intention to come to America these days are, necessarily, greeted with considerable scrutiny including fingerprinting and photographs. Those who’ve snuck in, the President suggests, should be given what amounts to amnesty.
I tire of the terms undocumented workers and undocumented immigrants. These folks are illegal aliens and should be described as such. Giving them a pass will only encourage more illegal aliens to break the law.
We’re often reminded that this is a nation of immigrants. That we’re become a great country because of the contributions made by individuals who’ve come here from foreign shores.
That’s true in many respects. What’s different now, however, is assimilation appears to have broken down. Foreigners coming here in earlier times adapted to American ways. They accepted our language and customs. They embraced our culture and values. It’s not like that any more.
Go to a bank’s ATM and the first question on the screen is whether you want to conduct your transaction in English or Spanish. Call your cable company, or just about any other business that answers with a recorded message, and the voice will tell you to press one to continue in English or dos if you prefer Spanish.
What we’re witnessing is the Balkanization of the United States. We see enclaves of foreigners, particularly in larger cities. These closed societies keep the people in a cultural isolation that impedes their integration into America.
There are an estimated 8 to 10 million illegals, most of them from Mexico, in this country. In general, business is happy to have them here. They will work for low wages in disagreeable jobs that, it is claimed, Americans, even ones on welfare, refuse to do.
These illegal immigrants pay taxes, the story goes, and contribute to the country’s overall economic vitality. If it weren’t for them, salaries for many menial jobs would skyrocket and the additional costs passed on to consumers.
On the other side, there’s a question if the illegal immigrants’ tax contributions, if they’re not part of the underground economy, cover the cost of their being here. A few years ago, the National Research Council calculated that the average immigrant with less than a high school education (two-thirds of Mexican immigrants fall into this category) creates a lifetime taxpayer burden of $89,000. It’s been estimated that, just in Los Angeles County, health care for illegal aliens costs taxpayers $340 million a year.
I wonder about the assertion that no Americans, even those on welfare, will undertake those tedious, unskilled jobs. If that’s actually true, it must be because welfare is a better alternative. Yet we don’t hear any politicians clamoring that welfare benefits are too high.
A major consideration must be what to do with the millions of illegal aliens already here. Even if the government really wanted to expel all of them, it’s an unrealistic task. More aggressively identifying illegal aliens, and quickly deporting them, would help. So would tightening up our porous borders.
One thing that could be done is to hold employers who hire illegal aliens accountable for breaking the law. Fine them, heavily. If they keep breaking the law, send them to prison.
Something needs to be done about immigration, especially illegal immigration. There clearly are no easy answers. But Mr. Bush’s proposals are a disappointment.
Their timing makes it look as though he’s pandering to Hispanic voters for this year’s election. In politics, it’s the appearance rather than the reality that more often than not matters.
This age of terrorism is a time we should be making it tougher to enter and stay in our country. And there’s no time that it’s appropriate to give special treatment to people who are here illegally.
A new guest worker program isn’t what’s needed. Enforcing the laws already on the books is. And even then, it’s only part of the answer.
Your handle speaks volumes. Are you a patriot by chance?
What's not included in these arguments are self-employed illegals, who operate all sorts of cash service businesses, do not pay taxes of any kind, and are seldom caught or fined in spite of the labyrinth of state and local licensing regulations that legal businesses or self-employed must contend with.
It's not surprising that the administration rushes to include the unreported job creation of small business in their employment calculations, but there is little speculation about the impact of self-employed illegals who undercut American workers. Ah well, as the new mantra goes, these are now jobs that "Americans don't want."
Few politicians have the guts to even come close to espousing that idea. Supposedly, welfare reform knocked all the deadbeats off the rolls.
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