[Zmirak]

Please check out my new article on immigration at Front Page. John Zmirak www.badcatholics.com

[tarepeter]

Listening to Paul Harvey yesterday--he reported 66,000 plus have been detained at our borders this year. All are given some sort of citation "to appear" for a later immigration hearing date. He reported that to date---exactly ZERO have made that appearance. I would suppose all are too busy gainfully employed robbing banks, carjacking, clogging emergency rooms and working other odd jobs Americans will not do.

[A. Pole]

"[...]
The dominant factions among the Republican Party – by which I mean the large-dollar donors – see in the helpless economic refugees who risk their lives to enter America nothing more than strong backs and busy hands. Agricultural interests have come to rely on illegal immigrants to harvest our vegetables and fruit. Computer giants such as Microsoft avoid paying competitive wages to American software programmers by abusing guest worker programs such as the H1-B Visa – buying political cover by hiring lobbyists such as Grover Norquist to push for ever-laxer immigration policies in Congress. The "Temporary Worker Program" revived by President Bush would codify and legitimize such practices – granting anyone anywhere the right to come to the U.S., provided an American company could offer wages too low to attract an American citizen.

"These are jobs no American would take," the cheap-labor addicts complain. To which the right response is, "Not at that wage." If business leaders believe in the free market, then they know that a limitless supply of a commodity (such as labor) lowers the price, while scarcity raises it. By forcing U.S. workers to contend against the entire population of the Third World for those jobs not already outsourced to China, these policies have caused wages to fall precipitously. Candidate Bush campaigned as a "compassionate conservative."

[...]

It’s refreshing to visit Starbucks for a coffee – knowing that the company provides health care and 401k plans for its part-time workers. Why? Because its founder, Howard Schultz, has a conscience; he was inspired to found his company by reading Small Is Beautiful, penned by the Catholic social philosopher E.F. Schumacher. Similar sentiments can be found in the work of free-market stalwarts Adam Smith and Wilhelm Röpke, who knew that a free society and free economy depend on social stability and the hope of upward mobility for one’s children. Conversely, revolutionary socialists from Marx to Lenin dreamt that "capitalists" would seek out newer ways to squeeze and exploit the working class, thereby goading it to disaffection and disloyalty. "The worse it gets, the better it is," Marxists have always said. "Capitalists will sell us the rope with which we’ll hang them."
[...]

Bump!

[Travis McGee]

It's all smoke and mirrors, until we see an effective modern (and cheap!) multiple fence system built.

The present USBP could do their job if they had a modern fence system to guard, instead of needing to chase illegals around tens of thousands of square miles of wide open border lands.

Such a fence could be built in under one year, and would cost less than what we spend to educate, medicate and incarcerate millions of illegal aliens.

[jackbenimble]

Excellent article! I agree with almost everything. My only complaint is that you gave President Bush far too much credit when you said:

The President believes – and I agree – that illegal immigration threatens our communities and our national security.

He said it but his actions over the past five years and his proposals for the future offer little reason for us to believe that he actually means it. Almost every action regarding enforcement and security which he cited and disingenuously took credit for, was shoved down his throat by Congress.

[Kenny Bunk]

Grover and the Guys over to the RNC, have convinced themselves that Latinos are the "Republicans of the Future."

"Hell, they have lots of vowels in their names, and are Catholics with big families, just like them Italians, ain't they ... and now those folks are Republicans ... ain't they?"
Using this falsely stereotypical and utterly inept line of thought, Karl Rove has figured this out, but not all by himself. Here's how Roveian logic works:

God is Love. Love is Blind. Ray Charles is Blind.
ergo Ray Charles is God?"

The fact that more Mexicans have shown up in 5 years than Italians in 100 years (andPolesandSwedesandRussian Jewsandeverybodyelsecombined) doesn't seem to compute. The fact that earlier immigrants were LEGAL doesn't seem to compute either. But what really doesn't compute is that the Democrats are not waiting for Mexicans to become legal, they are motor-voting them now. The Mexicans who can register legally, vote early and vote often ...for Democrats 70-30.

The real Republican reasoning behind all of this may be the feared imminent "collapse" of Social Security and other government safety nets. The Republicans plan on having the Mexicans and other Latinos' multitudinous offspring "save" the SS system. It's euro-thought at its worst. There they think the Muslims will save them. Bad logic, bad math. Uncontrolled illegal immigration from the Third World doesn't make money. It costs money. Ask Schwarznegger.