Posted on 01/23/2004 4:37:58 PM PST by Beck_isright
Critics of President Bush's immigration reform proposal have been so quick to label it an amnesty plan in sheep's clothing that they have missed the subtle brilliance of his approach to a very complex problem. Let's look at some of the complex issues of illegal immigration and evaluate the President's proposal in relation to them.
Contrary to what many pundits seem concerned with, the main problem with illegal immigration in the United States is not its influence on the job market but its relationship to organized crime. In an article for the City-Journal's Winter 2004 edition entitled "The Illegal-Alien Crime Wave," Heather Mac Donald provides an in-depth and disturbing look at this relationship:
"95 percent of all outstanding warrants for homicide in L.A., which total 1,200 to 1,500, target illegal aliens and 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."
"The leadership of the Columbia Lil' Cycos gang, which uses murder and racketeering to control the drug market around L.A.'s MacArthur Park, was about 60 percent illegal in 2002, says former assistant U.S. attorney Luis Li. Francisco Martinez, a Mexican Mafia member and an illegal alien, controlled the gang from prison, while serving time for felonious reentry following deportation."
As if that weren't bad enough, in an article carried by the Salt Lake Tribune on December 18th, David Kelly gives us a chilling view of a new development in Arizona crime:
"Moving with the cunning and cruelty of modern-day pirates, gangs of kidnappers are swooping down on Arizona highways, attacking smugglers transporting undocumented immigrants and stealing their human cargo. The kidnappers stash the immigrants in hundreds of drop houses scattered around the city, using violence and threats to extort money from their relatives."
"Now smugglers are fighting back, shooting it out with kidnappers on sidewalks and freeways in broad daylight. A gunbattle last month between kidnappers and smugglers on Interstate 10 at the height of rush hour left four dead. Four others were killed this month in the desert near Phoenix; authorities blamed the deaths on violence between the two groups."
"Kidnappers let smugglers take all the risks of getting immigrants into the country, then rob them once they get here. When they can't intercept smugglers on the road, they snatch migrants from houses where they are known to be hiding. The new wave of violence has made this the deadliest year in Phoenix history with 247 homicides, edging out the previous high of 245 in 2001. Police say 60 percent of the city's crime is related to smuggling and kidnapping."
As these articles demonstrate, a significant portion of crime in our big cities is perpetuated by illegal immigrants. But, as you can also see from David Kelly's article, the victims of these crimes are often also illegal immigrants. This creates a disastrous situation because victims of these and other crimes will not report them for fear of being deported. Vast numbers of illegal immigrants suffer severe abuse, extortion, and virtual slavery at the hands of organized crime and cannot report it for fear of deportation. So the crimes go unreported and the criminals unstopped.
To counteract this problem, many local city governments have adopted "sanctuary policies." These city policies prohibit employees of local government, including law enforcement officers, from inquiring after the immigration status of anyone. Often, even if a police officer knows that a particular individual has entered the country illegally (a misdemeanor) or has previously been deported and has returned illegally (a felony) he or she is forbidden by city statute from arresting that person. Police officers are even forbidden from reporting known illegal immigrants to the federal authorities.
While these policies are supposedly adopted to protect the illegal immigrants who are victims of crime and encourage them to report crimes without the fear of deportation, they have the secondary effect of protecting criminals who are illegal immigrants as well. Even if the police know of an individual with connections to organized crime and a past criminal record, and they know that he is in the country illegally, they are forbidden from using his illegal status to arrest him and deport him. In fact, a police officer can face disciplinary action for arresting someone based upon their immigration status or for reporting them to the INS. Many crimes that might have been prevented by deporting known illegal immigrants are left undeterred because the police cannot use their illegal status to deport them until they have already been booked for a different felony.
Such policies blatantly undermine federal immigration law. Heather Mac Donald explains in her City-Journal article:
"Former mayor Rudolph Giuliani sued all the way up to the Supreme Court to defend the city's sanctuary policy against a 1996 federal law decreeing that cities could not prohibit their employees from cooperating with the INS. Oh yeah? said Giuliani; just watch me. The INS, he claimed, with what turned out to be grotesque irony, only aims to "terrorize people." Though he lost in court, he remained defiant to the end. On September 5, 2001, his handpicked charter-revision committee ruled that New York could still require that its employees keep immigration information confidential to preserve trust between immigrants and government. Six days later, several visa-overstayers participated in the most devastating attack on the city and the country in history."
After September 11th there was outrage over the failure of Federal agencies to prevent the tragedy. And yet the possible contribution of mayor Giuliani's New York City sanctuary policy to September 11th has not been discussed by the mainstream media. While it may be appropriate to inquire into the failures of the federal government in the September 11th attacks, shouldn't there be an equal amount of outrage and demand for investigation into the role of city sanctuary policies? And yet over two years later the majority of the population of the United States isn't even aware that such policies exist.
Despite federal law and September 11th, this outrageous situation is still very common. Sanctuary policies are in effect in at least eighteen cities, including New York, Chicago, San Diego, Los Angeles, Austin, Houston, Minneapolis, Baltimore, and Seattle and in two states, Alaska and Oregon.
Since 1998, the city of St. Paul Minnesota has had a police policy that prohibits officers from "independently undertaking to approach, interview, interrogate or arrest any suspected illegal alien" when the main issue is immigration status violation. And, amazingly, this very month, the St. Paul city council is considering adopting an additional measure known as the "INS/City Separation Ordinance."
Why have the sanctuary laws of our nation's largest cities been so ignored by the mainstream media? You would think that even if they were completely neglected in the aftermath of September 11th, they would at least be addressed in relation to President Bush's proposed changes to immigration. The relationship between illegal immigration, sanctuary policies, and organized crime should be a major issue. Yet the mainstream media is still largely silent on the matter. Instead, they spend hours of airtime, newsprint, and bandwidth discussing how Bush's proposal will affect jobs, and whether it will encourage more illegal immigration. I suspect the media's silence is largely due to political correctness. To discuss any relationship between illegal immigration and crime would be labeled "racist" by the media language police faster than you can say "Francisco Martinez."
There is another group that also deserves a portion of the blame pie. The readiness of U.S. businesses to break the law by employing undocumented workers for the sake of avoiding taxes and paying lower wages is deplorable. If U.S. businesses would uniformly refuse to hire illegal immigrants it would help discourage illegal immigration by taking away some of their motivation. The situation is exacerbated by current immigration policies. Because foreign workers can only work in the United States for a very limited duration, companies that hire foreigners and obey the law must hire new workers on a very frequent basis. That makes it more difficult for them to compete with companies that are willing to break the law and hire illegal immigrants and thereby avoid the extra expense of frequently hiring and training new employees, not to mention taxation, worker's compensation, insurance and minimum wages.
The greatest danger to our nation is, in part, the result of widespread lawbreaking by businesses and law nullification by city governments. Conservatives seem ready to condemn the illegal immigrants who come seeking work and often advocate the harshest punishments for them (i.e. shooting them at the border) while at the same time barely hand-slapping the lawbreaking businesses and ignoring city sanctuary policies designed to undermine federal immigration law. This hypocrisy contributes to the unfortunate impression that conservatives are racists.
Under these circumstances, it is simply impossible for the Federal Government to enforce immigration laws. Even if the cities and businesses were cooperating, there is no way the federal government could muster the manpower and the funds necessary to identify, capture, and deport the vast numbers of illegal immigrants and then keep them out.
The immigration system is clearly broken and casting the blame on the Federal government alone is a huge oversimplification and misdirection of energy. Critics of the failure of the U.S. to enforce its immigration laws should direct their ire toward local governments that are endangering our nation with their ill-conceived and illegal sanctuary law.
How does President Bush's proposal relate to this immigration headache?
Rather than develop a detailed, specific plan for immigration reform, Bush wisely proposed principles upon which reform must be based if it is to be successful:
1. "America must control its borders...America is acting on a basic belief: Our borders should be open to legal travel and honest trade; our borders should be shut and barred tight to criminals, to drug traders, drug traffickers and to criminals and to terrorists."
2. "New immigration laws should serve the economic needs of our country. If an American employer is offering a job that American citizens are not willing to take, we ought to welcome into our country a person who will fill that job."
3. "We should not give unfair rewards to illegal immigrants in the citizenship process or disadvantage those who came here lawfully or hope to do so."
4. "New laws should provide incentives for temporary foreign workers to return permanently to their home countries after their period of work in the United States has expired."
By focusing on principles rather than specific plans, Bush provides a much more realistic and flexible approach to reform. The principles remain constant while the specific implementation may change according to how well it adheres to those principles.
The first principle and primary concern is about controlling the borders. Currently, city and state sanctuary policies completely thwart any attempt to apply this principle. The cities justify their sanctuary laws as a necessary measure to allow illegal immigrants who are victims of crimes to report them without fear of deportation. By allowing undocumented workers to receive a legal, temporary worker status, Bush's proposal takes away that necessity and leaves city sanctuary policies without justification. Under Bush's plan anybody who has an honest employment would have temporary worker status. All remaining illegal immigrants, lacking honest employment, could be assumed to be criminals and police officers could demand immigration documentation from anyone and arrest and deport anyone based solely on their immigration status.
In his proposal, President Bush explained:
"Our homeland will be more secure when we can better account for those who enter our country."
"Instead of the current situation, in which millions of people are unknown, unknown to the law, law enforcement will face fewer problems with undocumented workers, and will be better able to focus on the true threats to our nation from criminals and terrorists."
"And when temporary workers can travel legally and freely, there will be more efficient management of our borders and more effective enforcement against those who pose a true threat to our country."
By eliminating the excuse for sanctuary policies, Bush's principle-based plan would then allow local law enforcement to freely cooperate with federal authorities to control our national borders. The Bush proposal makes it possible for federal immigration authorities to focus their limited resources on those who pose the greatest threat to our domestic security: organized criminals. Contrary to the characterization it has received, Bush's proposal allows for more strict enforcement of immigration law and greater control over our national borders by facilitating the repeal of city sanctuary laws.
A related benefit of Bush's proposal is that without city sanctuary policies, law enforcement officers who apprehend illegal immigrants would be able to more easily identify businesses that break the law. Any organization or company that continued to employ undocumented immigrants rather than temporary workers would be suspected of involvement in organized crime or of supporting terrorism and could be investigated and dismantled.
The implementation of Bush's immigration proposal could eliminate a significant amount of crime in our large cities. It could be a significant blow to crime organizations, drug and weapons trafficking, and organizations that covertly support terror. It could help us control our borders to keep criminals and terrorists out.
Bush's proposal is not a scheme to appeal to Hispanic voters. It is a well informed, strategic move calculated to undermine the forces that are currently preventing our immigration laws from being enforced and endangering our nation. Bush's proposal is a brilliant move in a complex chess game. We should support him and encourage our representatives to support his proposal.
I know all that. There's a problem and Bush put forth this proposal to correct the situation. It's up to Congress to take action and make such things as INS brass, and local jurisdictions ignoring the law a crime. Congress needs to fix the situation and arrange the law, so that controls can be implemented.
It is sad that you do not seem to know your Bible, on the face of it, the entire premise of your argument is false. God does indeed recognize nations and borders. He in fact is the one who established all of the nations on the face of the Earth:
"From these the coastlands of the nations were separated into their lands, every one according to his language, according to their families, into their nations." (Gen. 10:5 cf 10:20, 10:31...)
“For I will drive out nations before you and enlarge your borders, and no man shall covet your land when you go up three times a year to appear before the LORD your God." (Ex. 34:24)
“When the LORD your God brings you into the land where you are entering to possess it, and clears away many nations before you, the Hittites and the Girgashites and the Amorites and the Canaanites and the Perizzites and the Hivites and the Jebusites, seven nations greater and stronger than you,
and when the LORD your God delivers them before you and you defeat them, then you shall utterly destroy them. You shall make no covenant with them and show no favor to them.
“Furthermore, you shall not intermarry with them; you shall not give your daughters to their sons, nor shall you take their daughters for your sons.
“For they will turn your sons away from following Me to serve other gods; then the anger of the LORD will be kindled against you and He will quickly destroy you.
“But thus you shall do to them: you shall tear down their altars, and smash their sacred pillars, and hew down their Asherim, and burn their graven images with fire.
“For you are a holy people to the LORD your God; the LORD your God has chosen you to be a people for His own possession out of all the peoples who are on the face of the earth." (Deut 7:1-6)
“He makes the nations great, then destroys them; He enlarges the nations, then leads them away." (Job 12:23)
Sorry to burst your bubble but it sounds like God was and is concerned about secure borders for a whole host of reasons, to me.
There are also numerous instances where His people were admonished to defend themselves against invaders from other nations which had gathered for the express purpose of entering the land to conquer it, destroying Israel and replace them as the "new owners" of the land. Surprisingly, it was ONLY when the nations of the Northern and Southern Kingdoms fell into national sin and turned away from the true and living God that God allowed them to be conquered and dispossessed from the land He had given them by the Assyrians and the Babylonians.
A simple word study of the terms "nation" and "nations" using an exhaustive concordance of the Bible will show that your premise is false.
This concept of secure borders was not just an Old Testament notion, even in the days of the Lord Jesus and the Apostle Paul; believing gentiles who were part of Caesar’s army (which was actively involved in subduing their conquered lands and SECURING the borders of Rome) were not counseled to give up their jobs in spite of the fact they were involved with securing the borders of Rome, rather Jesus admonished them in the following manner:
Some soldiers were questioning him, saying, “And what about us, what shall we do?” And he said to them, “Do not take money from anyone by force, or accuse anyone falsely, and be content with your wages.” (While Jesus addressed several centurions i.e. commanders of 100 men, the only admonition Jesus ever gave to soldiers in general in the Roman army is found here in Luke 3:14, and Jesus said nothing about the supposed injustice of maintaining the borders of Rome, which WAS a police state!)
In the account of the apostle Peter's address to Cornelius, a centurion and his friends and relatives in Caesarea (found in Acts 10), Peter does not say, as a good and loving Christian, Cornelius should no longer enforce Roman law by keeping the province of Casearea subjugated and it's borders secure.
As for the apostle Paul, he also had numerous contacts with centurions and soldiers of Rome throughout his ministry and not once does he ever say they should no longer enforce Roman law by keeping their borders secure.
In closing, based upon the Word of God, your argument does not hold water.
Some refuse to enforce them for the same reasons I gave above. Decent hard working folks that deserve the opportunity to be here would be caught up in it. It's a zero tolerance position they're faced with. Others are just commie types that want to flood the place with greatful morons. There's an opportunity here to trump the commie types and do the right thing for those born with no opportunity.
I gave you God's word and you cite Moses, who gave you those words out of the hardness of your own heart. Luke 16:20 "At his gate was laid a beggar named Lazarus" You have the command that you shall not steal, so using tax money for charitable purposes is wrong, but opportunity is not yours either, so you should not take it. You should not close the gate.
"Jesus said nothing about the supposed injustice of maintaining the borders of Rome"
Thou shalt not steal.
Exactly. This is something that is virtually impossible to achieve now, because Mexico doesn't want them back and is not cooperating. Go back to a bracero program (hated by the Dems and destroyed under Johnson, after which illegal immigration surged) and you have both a carrot and a stick. The carrot: Mexico gets to keep its income stream from guest workers. The stick: we reduce the number of guest workers if they do not cooperate in taking back their criminals and keeping them at home in their own jails.
Right now, the situation is so bad we can't even identify the creeps in order to send them back.
I think the guest worker program is a great idea. It needs more definition and discussion. But taking the Dem approach (which is "NO," because what the Dems really want is amnesty, in which illegals will be able to automatically become citizens and vote for them) is short sighted and is only going to make the problem worse.
I guess, In your world, having the illegal register won't help prevent that?
Possibly --- Bush's proposals were very vague -- he never mentioned what he'd do about the nonworking illegals --- the welfare moochers, the criminals, the youth gangs. Will he deport those who committed felony document fraud with their stolen Social Security numbers? Will he deport those taking some kind of welfare handout? Do those standing in parking lots begging for a day job get the blue card? Or does that job have to be a steady one with employers willing to provide their illegal some benefits like health insurance?
A lot of us went through the 80's amnesty which turned out to be enormous fraud --- the illegal never had to prove they lived and worked here, so you saw almost 3 million people come over the border who had never worked here and they got their amnesty.
That's for sure --- it is crazy to think someone would change from a PRI party voter to a Republican just because they broke US law and came across the Rio Grande.
With over a third living off welfare --- it's hard to respect their work ethic. Also when you look at Mexico itself, there isn't much evidence of that work ethic doing much good. Some do work hard --- many don't --- but often that work ethic they have is kind of backward --- you can tell a Mexican to plow your field, he'll grab a shovel and get to work, you tell an American to plow your field, he'll ask where is the tractor. That doesn't mean the American doesn't have a work ethic --- he just wants to do a job efficiently.
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