Posted on 05/07/2005 2:32:14 PM PDT by NormsRevenge
I'VE had it with the bumper-sticker slogans that pop up in the debate over illegal immigration. You hear them all the time on ratings-driven television shows such as CNN's "Lou Dobbs Tonight" and you see them on signs waved in protests at the U.S.-Mexican border. One of my favorites is: "Deport all illegals."
See, thanks to Americans' insatiable appetite for readily available cheap labor, there are now about 10 million illegal immigrants in this country. And we're supposed to deport them all one by one? How many buses are we talking about?
Simplistic solutions don't add a lot to the discussion. They're like: "Immigration Reform for Dummies."
That's the trap that Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger fell into last week when he explained to a meeting of newspaper publishers how he would go about terminating illegal immigration.
"It's a federal issue," Schwarzenegger said. "And the only thing that I can say and add to this is, really, close the borders. Close the borders in California, and all across Mexico and the United States."
Let's keep it real, Arnold. The United States can't actually close the border. We're talking about something like 2,000 miles between San Ysidro and Brownsville, Texas. How would you "close" that — even if you wanted to?
The governor's spokeswoman immediately tried to do damage control, insisting that what Schwarzenegger meant to say was that the border should be secured not closed. At a news conference the day after his comments, the governor apologized for his choice of words and tried to backtrack. The Austrian immigrant, for whom English is a second language, even played the language card.
"Yesterday was a total screw-up in the words I used," he said. "Because instead of closing, I meant securing. I think maybe my English, I need to go back to school and study a little bit."
First, you gotta give Schwarzenegger his props. He jumped right on this flap. He didn't hedge or spin or say that his remarks were taken out of context. He just admitted that he made a mistake. It's hard to find politicians who do that. Good for him.
Just for fun, let's say we could close the border. It still wouldn't do any good. The United States can deploy an army, build a wall or even — for that matter — dig a moat and fill it with alligators.
Americans could do all of the above. They might even feel as if they've accomplished something. But they'd be kidding themselves. It wouldn't do any good as long as U.S. employers continue to hire illegal immigrants.
And as long as the invitation stands, the immigrants will find a way to get here, eager for — as President Bush likes to say — "jobs that Americans won't do." Faced with having to feed their families, they're not going to be deterred by a wall or border guards. They'll dive into a tunnel — the fortified, industrial-strength kind that drug dealers build to transport drugs but also rent out to immigrant smugglers to transport people — or be smuggled ashore from tramp steamers.
The answer to our illegal immigration woes isn't armies or walls or amnesty or guest workers. It isn't modern-day Minutemen, those lawn-chair vigilantes who defy law enforcement and then claim to be pro-cop. It isn't the insanity of deputizing police officers to enforce federal immigration law. And it isn't the outrageous idea of denying U.S. citizenship to the children of illegal immigrants even when they're born in the United States.
There is only one answer — quit beating our chests and revoke the invitation. Let's direct our enforcement efforts at every restaurant, hotel, construction site, ranch, farm or office complex in America that knowingly hires illegal immigrants in violation of the law. Let's also take a hard look at businesses that play dumb and pretend not to know whom they're hiring. And don't forget the ordinary folks who pull up to the local big-box home-improvement store on Saturday mornings and pull out with a carload of day laborers to help them build a deck or paint a room or plant a garden.
Of course, that doesn't fit on a bumper sticker.
Protect our borders and coastlines from all foreign invaders!
Be Ever Vigilant!
Minutemen Patriots ~ Bump!
Thanks, but as a contractor in San Diego County for the last 23 years I am acutely aware of the ineffectiveness and uselessness of the I-9, especially when the employer wants it to be.
One of the biggest lies going today.
The illegals are taking jobs that Americans WILL do, like construction jobs. They used to be high paying jobs and now, because contractors like to save money as much as anyone else, those wages have dropped because they are hiring illegals for those jobs as well as the sh*t jobs. All employers of all lines of work WILL HIRE THE CHEAPEST labor they can get away with. Who would do any different?
Roger that ~ round up all foreign invaders and sock them with a $5K lean for starters, no matter how long they've been here. ;)
If I'm paying for your idea I'd like to look at the price tag before we go any further.
Let's see-- require local law enforcement agencies to enforce federal law --that still comes out of my taxes. Let's say the guys at the county sheriff's office can't do this in their 'spare time' so they'll have to work evenings and weekends (time and a half overtime). Nationwide, we got about 30 million foreign born (unless you want to say the Census Bureau is wrong and it's closer to 130 million).
Every one of them's got to be reached and arrested if they don't produce valid INS papers. We're talking 40 man hours for each of the 30 million immigrant times $20 = $24 billion. That's $24 billion that I have to pay because we can't have businesses paying fines for the legals. Holy Cash Registers! Now you're raising my taxes by $120 and we haven't even gotten to the illegals yet!
While I would support a tightly sealed border with enforcement, fortunately, your preference cannot amend the Constitution. The plain language of the organic document to which all of our law must pay homage' says unambiguously that every person born in the United States is, by that reason alone, a U.S. citizen. Nothing you can say or do, all of the breast beating or teeth nashing or fervently wishing will change that fact. Moreover, once a person is a natural born citizen (vis-a-vis a naturalized) that status cannot be removed by an ex post facto law or constitutional amendment. A naturalized citizen can lose that status only if there was fraud in the application process and, had the truth be disclosed, the application would have been denied.
And that doesn't count any social costs like making America a babble fish of English and Spanish.
I agree that your jobs solution is a start. But.... when we terminate all the freebies (medical care, schooling, etc) for the illegals, they will go home. When they have to start paying for medical care and schooling they won't be able to afford to stay.
We need to secure the border AND crack down on businesses that hire illegals. Right now there is no appetite to do either, especially the latter. Personally, I think the US could lose about 25% of the fast food restaurants we have right now without blinking an eye. Some folks may even start cooking for themselves and lose a few pounds--wouldn't that be something? Sure, prices would go up in the short term--but the cost of social services would go down as well. The businesses that hire these guys have no trouble passing THOSE costs on to the rest of us (a hidden tax if I ever saw one).
We need to secure the border AND crack down on businesses that hire illegals. Right now there is no appetite to do either, especially the latter. Personally, I think the US could lose about 25% of the fast food restaurants we have right now without blinking an eye. Some folks may even start cooking for themselves and lose a few pounds--wouldn't that be something? Sure, prices would go up in the short term--but the cost of social services would go down as well. The businesses that hire these guys have no trouble passing THOSE costs on to the rest of us (a hidden tax if I ever saw one).
I agree that your jobs solution is a start. But.... when we terminate all the freebies (medical care, schooling, etc) for the illegals, they will go home. When they have to start paying for medical care and schooling they won't be able to afford to stay.
From http://www.theamericanresistance.com/issues/anchor_babies.html:
The 14th Amendment was ratified in 1868 to protect the rights of native-born Black Americans, whose rights were being denied as recently-freed slaves. In 1866, Senator Jacob Howard clearly spelled out the intent of the 14th Amendment by writing:
"Every person born within the limits of the United States, and subject to their jurisdiction, is by virtue of natural law and national law a citizen of the United States. This will not, of course, include persons born in the United States who are foreigners, aliens, who belong to the families of ambassadors or foreign ministers accredited to the Government of the United States, but will include every other class of persons."
Lots of ways! A wall; land mines; expert riflemen every 300 yards, in two hour watches, 24/7/52; motion detectors triggering automatic weapons or lasers; electrified ground grids; volunteers backing up the border patrol...yep, lots of ways.
Lets start with the wall, since that is about 95% of what we need. Let the captured illegals build it to reduce labor costs. And let's start dumping our gangbangers in Mexico instead of in prison. And let's put the employers of illegals to work on the wall as well, then in the general population with the criminals who sneaked in along with their hard working employees.
Lots of ways, yessir! All it takes is the guts to DO IT! < /rant >
Rant over, to continue calmly. Now, institute a real guest worker program, linked to requirements like a clean criminal record, a minimal (at least)command of everyday English and a monthly (or periodic) check-in system to know who is where. And offer the best of the guests (the ones who work all day, take night classes, improve skills, as many immigrants used to do) a fast track shot at citizenship. Send those who misbehave back home.
Where am I going wrong?
Not all of the illegal immigrants are Mexicans. Dumping our illegal immigrant problem on Mexico would not only be wrong, but would cause more problems than it would solve.
We'd be far better off going back to a controlled guest worker program.
That's the idea
The answer to our illegal immigration woes isn't armies or walls or amnesty or guest workers. It isn't modern-day Minutemen, those lawn-chair vigilantes who defy law enforcement and then claim to be pro-cop.
SNIP
The subject is not worthy of discussion. Out!
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