Tom Tancredo's Wall [turn(S) the United States into the world's largest gated community.]

Wall Street Journal ^ | 12/29/05 | Review & Outlook

[harpu]

"We have a supply and a demand problem. The supply problem is coming across the border. We are in this bill doing something very specific about that with the inclusion of the amendment, with the passage of the amendment, to build some barrier along at least 700 miles of our southern border. I hope we continue with that, by the way, along the entire border, to the extent it is feasible, and the northern border we could start next." -- Rep. Tom Tancredo (R., Colo.)

So there you have it. Tom Tancredo has done everyone a favor by stating plainly the immigration rejectionists' end-game -- turn the United States into the world's largest gated community. The House took a step in that direction this month by passing another immigration "reform" bill heavy with border control and business harassment and light on anything that will work in the real world.

For the past two decades, border enforcement has been the main focus of immigration policy; by any measure, the results are pitiful. According to the Migration Policy Institute, "The number of unauthorized migrants in the United States has risen to almost 11 million from about four million over the past 20 years, despite a 519% increase in funding and a 221% increase in staffing for border patrol programs."

Given that record, it's hard to see the House Republican bill as much more than preening about illegal immigration. The legislation is aimed at placating a small but vocal constituency that wants the borders somehow sealed, come what may to the economy, American traditions of liberty or the Republican Party's relationship with the increasingly important Latino vote.

-big giant snip-

...At some point, the president of the United States will have to get behind the Statue of Liberty or Tom Tancredo's wall.

[chronic_loser]

As for business owners, it is still a crime to employee these people knowingly.

I agree, and it should be.

Therefore many turn a blind eye to make a buck. What would you do if the IRS called you up and told you that one of your employees is using fake id papers? That is what they should at least be doing.

I know of one electrician who ran into this. He had employed a helper. The IRS told him the social was no good, and that he faced a 5000 fine per day for every future day he employed the guy. Problem solved. The original problem was not that he was "greedy" because he payed the guy standard prevailing wages for good SKILLED construction helpers (11 dollars an hour). The illegal wanted to work. He worked hard, he would work late, he was sober, and was meticulously honest, and he had legit looking papers.

I am sure there are shoddy and sleazy people out there who employ illegals. Those kind of exploitative people will always exist, and their businesses are at the bottom of the chain. If you contract them, you are likely to get shoddy work that reflects the character of the employer. HOWEVER Many American businessowners simply want someone who is motivated, honest, hardworking, and bright, and they will search whereever they can find that person. I hear wails of protest on FR that these people exist in droves among the American citizenry. My personal experience in running my dad's construction company in the 70s belies this (I have posted on this before). It was so bad that I walked away from the company, rather than take it over. Further, anecdotal experience (and it is admittedly anecdotal, all this stuff by definition has to be) from other businessowners is similar. Small business owners are the backbone of America. We create 80% of the new jobs in the country. Most of us are honest, do NOT run a "two tier" program of "slave wages" (Mexicans are paid the same as any other worker, if they work) and simply want to offer good quality product. We are NOT tyrannical bastards (well, I am not tyrannical, anyway), and most of us work longer hours for less money per hour than our best paid employees. Often, we take little if any "vacations" and we run around in 10 year old vehicles, wondering why someone would drop 80 thousand dollars for a Mercedes. THOSE are the people who are employing all the illegals here, not some Jeff Skilling or Bernie Ebbers clones. We tend to love our employees if they are there a while, and sometimes do things like set up college funds with pre-paid tuition for their kids as an end of year bonus (I know of one person who did that).

Because of that, I resent the living hell (I guess it shows, huh?) out of the "core" of carping, mewling cabal of freepers on these threads. They have shown themselves willing to "shade" the truth by selectively quoting statistics, willingly ignoring published studies that defy their shibboleths (hispanics are not assimilating) willing who constantly not only assume but accuse (with NO basis) that anyone who is not "report and deport and lock it down" is a cheat, a swindler, a "quisling" (my personal favorite), a "beaner," a commie, a socialist, etc. Part of it is just the internet, I know, and you have dyspeptic loons in any thread in any forum. Part of it, though, is what I see as an offense at the core of what I believe to be great about America, and an offense against future good citizens by a hateful shriveled band of disgusting xenophobes. I have always despised hypocritical self righteous rants, whether from the right or the left, and don't mind at all the caterwauling when I stick my finger in their eye.

Tancredo should be calling for investigations of the IRS and Social Security Administration for corruption and money laundering.

ON THAT we are in 100% agreement.

[chronic_loser]

You know, I could care less whom your clients are.

Yeah, only till you find out I am not "profiting" from illegal loans. Till then, you slobber like Pavlov's dog. Afterwards, you suddenly lose interest. Hypocrite.

[chronic_loser]

I am in favor of ending birthright citizenship. I think the law has been exploited and was never intended to cover the babies of illegal aliens.

Agreed. I don't think the 14th was ever meant to be applied in that manner. This is one we NEED activity from the Congress on, with the certainty that the USSC will have to rule on it. That would be a good fix to a bad problem.

[chronic_loser]

Just for sake of discussion let's say the U.S. Taxpayers spend $7,000 per child of an illegal alien per year for education.

Local education is funded by state taxes (although the leviathan fed has determined to stick their noses into this issue, as well as everything else, down to steroid use in baseball). Very little comes from the fed. State taxes, otoh, are collected by a variety of means, from consumption, to property, to income, or a combination. Wrong issue here, wrong thread.

[Dan Evans]

No. That is not "amnesty."

You want them to pay a fine and then offer them citizenship. It's selling citizenship to criminals. It's selling out our country.

You still haven't addressed the long-term issue of how these new voters are going to change the political landscape of the country. If you truly are a conservative, you would be worried about that.

Or don't you want to think about that?

[kittymyrib]

Good old blue-nosed country clubbers from the WSJ, who all live in real gated communities, have absolutely no clue how the peasants across the US are affected by their cheap-labor religion. Just wait until the voters in next year's election and in '08 express themselves by witholding votes from the big-business Republicans. The WSJ will really be moaning then. Illegal immigration will start losing its charm when lawbreaking businesses get hit with massive fines and jail time for their executives.

[chronic_loser]

You still haven't addressed the long-term issue of how these new voters are going to change the political landscape of the country. If you truly are a conservative, you would be worried about that.

Or don't you want to think about that?

Or maybe you don't read the posts to you that address that? I know it must get busy for you, what with throwing out all those charges you are so sure of re: who I am, who I employ, and what my motives are. However, please do try. If you need, I will go back and show you where I have addressed that argument, in a post directly to you.

[Dan Evans]

I actually believe that significant numbers of naturalized Hispanics will vote conservative.

"Significant numbers"? What's that? Thirty percent? That's not good enough. Some of the ones who came here legally may vote conservative but not the illegals. We are talking about the 10 or 20 million who have been living in the underground economy for years.

In California they voted 3-1 for Bustamante when they had a choice to choose the middle-of-the-road-RINO, Arnold Schwarzenegger. That's not conservative. Bustamente once belonged to an organization that wants to take over the Southwest and make it an Hispanic state. What's conservative about that? California was where Ronald Reagan was governor. Now it is being ruined by socialist politics. That's not conservative.

Don't compare illegals with the Hispanics who came here legally from Cuba.

[PhilipFreneau]

>>>At some point, the president of the United States will have to get behind the Statue of Liberty or Tom Tancredo's wall.<<<

If these clowns are wondering why so many are cancelling their subscriptions, they need to look no further than this anti-American article.

[azhenfud]

Section 5 of the Fourteenth gives a Congress with balls and brains the power to regulate the application of the Amendment.

[Dan Evans]

The other point you should address is how illegals are affecting local politics in Southwestern states. We are seeing "sanctuary cities", local mayors and state officials who obstruct the ability of law enforcement to arrest illegals. We are seeing these corrupt politicians helping illegals to vote. It will reach a point where enforcing the borders will be impossible.

But you don't care that because illegals are all Republicans aren't they?

[azhenfud]

"Very little comes from the fed. State taxes, otoh, are collected by a variety of means, from consumption, to property, to income, or a combination."

Doesn't matter which robber takes the loot, the victim's still out. US taxpayers foot the bills for illegal aliens and their felon aides. IMO, those who'd sell American citizenship for a profit are as pathetic as someone who'd p!$$ on the grave of a Veteran who died for this nation.

[chronic_loser]

Section 5 of the Fourteenth gives a Congress with balls and brains the power to regulate the application of the Amendment

I agree. I also think it will be tested in the courts. I do believe it is high time Congress addressed issues it is Congressionally mandated to do, rather than figure out some other end run around the 10th for some pet project.

[azhenfud]

It's possible if a Congress applied its brain, it could effectively argue the Constitution gives it - not the USSC - the power to effect citizenship. But would it not take a majority vote to override USSC interference - the balls?

[Sterco]

I like it when chronic_loser whines. It means we are winning.

[chronic_loser]

I hope you don't mind if I address your two points in reverse order: IMO, those who'd sell American citizenship for a profit are as pathetic as someone who'd p!$$ on the grave of a Veteran who died for this nation.

Thanks for the gratuitous swipe. Can you guess which anatomical impossibility I am now inviting you to perform on yourself?

As for your first point:

Doesn't matter which robber takes the loot, the victim's still out. US taxpayers foot the bills for illegal aliens and their felon aides.

I am not quite sure what your point is, other than you think the net loss to taxpayers exceeds the net "gain." I am quite sincere here when I ask for studies that many have cited but never linked (in my presence) that document these charges. I would like to look at them myself, especially after looking at the darling of the anti immigrant studies (the recent Borjas study). As I have posted before, this one really did not demonstrate what many claimed it did. I would like to examine any studies showing the "cost" to taxpayers.
Further, spending on programs HAS to be linked to the revenue base designed to fund those programs, even if we pile on more programs than the revenue base can support (i.e. run a deficit). Education for, lets be generous and say the children in a population of 20 million illegals, and say that the ratio of children to parents is 5:2, would put the children (lets again be ridiculously generous and say ALL these kids are school age, and ALL of them remain in school thru HS) population at 5x +2x = 20 M, so x = 2 and 6/7, so the number of children equals about 14.5 million. I know these assumptions are ridiculously high, just like my assumptions of the moneys paid into the FEDERAL treasury are ridiculously low, but it helps to cheat in a way that is most disadvantageous to my argument. That way no one can accuse me of playing games with numbers. Plus, we are doing this on the fly. Anyway, you have 14.5 mil illegal schoolkids in our model. If each of them requires 7 thousand dollars (actually, cost in NC is 3.5 thou), we have a cost of about 100 billion, assuming everything we have assumed, and assuming all of them are in state schools. Now, it is not correct to assume this whopping number is a FEDERAL education budget item. To accurately address this question, you have to say: "what are the state by state budgets, what are the percentages of those budgets devoted to education, what are the sources of revenue for each state budget, what are the numbers of illegals in the state, and what percentage of state revenue can reasonably be thought to come from illegals?"

For states with no income tax, the answers are different than states with no sales taxes on food. Some states get revenue from property in higher proportion, and some states tax investment income disproportionately. The answer to this question of "who foots the bill?" is not a simple one, nor is it a case where it is clear that taxpayers are hemorrhaging money to pay for illegals. It all depends on the state, and what kind of burdens the state is willing to take on. california is a very poor example to point to for ANY state dealing with ANY fiscal problems, not only restricted to education.

Again, any linked studies would be appreciated and received gratefully.

[chronic_loser]

I like it when chronic_loser whines. It means we are winning.

or it means the echoes in here are reverberating.

Happy new year.

[stocksthatgoup]

Good Fences...........

[chronic_loser]

I like it when chronic_loser whines. It means we are winning.

I just saw that the mod removed a post. I have been caffeining and don't even know if 172 was one of mine. Just wanted to go on record though, that I NEVER complain to a mod about your posts, no matter what I am accused of. If it was my post, I figure someone complained. if it was one of you guys, you can count on the fact that it wasn't me.