[ncountylee]

Tony Snow seems to have embraced the dark side. I'm surprised.

[Rick_Michael]

The immigration mess is a matter of order or chaos. It's not that we won't need large amounts of immigrants at times, due to the rate most Americans produce, but it's the fact there's no control on it...at all.

Frankly, I would rather have Americans popping out an extra child, and immigration only on highly educated individuals. Though under our current realities, we need to seal our border and make some method out of the madness.

[seastay]

"Princeton University sociologist Douglas S. Massey reports that 62 percent of illegal immigrants pay income taxes (via withholding) and 66 percent contribute to Social Security."

isn't the only way to obtain a social security card is to be born in the US , hasn't that been a law for over 15 years now? so does this article also mean that 66 % of illegal immigrants are using the stolen identities of US citizens? Or are all 66% using a tax id number?

And what of the 44% some 5 to 10 million, who owe back taxes?

[Attention Surplus Disorder]

"10 percent send kids to public schools."

That statement is 100% EL TORO POO-POO. No pun intended, this doesn't pass the sniff test.

[11th_VA]

Wow - even Tony drank the kool-aid ...

[Sam Gamgee]

Talking about illegal immigration skirting the ILLEGAL part of the debate is like talking about homosexuality by discussing Opera. These defenders are either on liberal flavored kool-aid or have an agenda.

[seastay]

Just waiting for the punch line "Immigrants built this country."


Actually, Americans built this country. Immigration averaged only 235,000 persons per year prior to the disastrous 1965 Immigration Act. That's only 47 million immigrants over the course of our nation's history.

Compared to our current population of nearly 300 million, that's not much. And then, if we add all the people who have lived before in the United States, we are approaching a billion total Americans who live now or who have lived in this country—all of them, or at least most of them, busy "building" it.

47 million immigrants compared to a billion citizens, is only 4.5% of immigrants available out of the total history of this county to help build it. Maybe thats not why its in his punch line...

[Conservative Firster]

This reads like a open borders talking points memo. Tony must have been set straight by his boss Rupert Murdoch who is an open borders libertarian.

Tony Snow is the host of The Tony Snow Show on Fox News Radio.

More on Rupert Murdoch/News Corp/News America Holdings PAC here.

---

On May 02, 2004, Norquist wrote a dishonest article for FoxNews.com attacking Matt Hayes of Friends of Immigration Law Enforcement after FoxNews.com ran a piece by Matt detailing the negative impact on working Americans of the immigration policies pushed by Rep. Chris Cannon of Utah.

By the sheerest of coincidences, in the last election cycle, Chris Cannon's campaign paid Janus Merritt Strategies, the firm Grover Norquist started with David Safavian, Cannon's chief of staff in 2001, $5,960 for "Campaign Consulting & Fundraising Exp." Also during the 2004 cycle, Cannon's campaign paid $5,614 for fundraising expenses to Williams Mullen, the influence-peddling company that was in the process of buying Norquist's influence-peddling company.

Matt had a crushing response to Norquist ready to submit (crushing responses to immigration extremists, forced as they are to rely on dishonesty in order to be convincing, are very easy to write), when he got word that word had come from higher up not to print any more articles by him that mentioned Chris Cannon.

I don't know what it is about me and corporations, but, as it turns out, News Corp, the foreign corporation that owns Fox News, has a political action committee, too. Just like Viacom! News Corp's vehicle for pooling its employees' political views is called News America Holdings.

In the 2004 cycle, News America Holdings gave $5,000 to Cannon for Congress. Undoubtedly, the money this particular foreign multinational gave to this particular American legislator was given out of love for democracy, and a desire to see higher quality political advertising. I know you are as confident as I am that there was no relation whatsoever between the investment the corporation had in Chris Cannon and the multimedia megacorporation using its power to squelch our rebuttal, but allow Norquist to publish lies (which Cannon, of course, distributed throughout his district, maybe using the money News America Holdings had given him, and possibly throwing the election--we were on a roll just then).

---

Give Thanks for Immigrants BY RUPERT MURDOCH

---

Politically speaking, a guest-worker plan is no easy thing. But as President Bush realizes, we'll never fix the problem of illegal immigration simply by throwing up walls and trying to make all of us police them. We've tried that for a decade or so now, and it's been a flop. What we need to do first is to make it easier for those who seek honest work to do so without having to disobey our laws. Fundamentally that means recognizing that an economy as powerful as ours is always going to have a demand for more workers.

Such a policy would benefit us all:

• It would help those who want nothing more than to work legally move out of the shadows.

• It would help our security forces stop wasting resources now spent on hunting down Mexican waitresses and start devoting them to tracking the terrorists who really threaten us.

• It would help the economy by providing America with the labor and talent it needs.

Given the tremendous pressures on President Bush and the considerable opposition from within his own ranks, the politically expedient thing for him to do would be to drop it. But he hasn't, and I for one am encouraged by his refusal to give in.

---

[Attention Surplus Disorder]

"Princeton University sociologist Douglas S. Massey reports that 62 percent of illegal immigrants pay income taxes (via withholding) and 66 percent contribute to Social Security."

Since we don't know know how may illegal immigrants there are....can you guess the second half of my question?

Hint: Unless there is a known number in total (as in the case of a math teacher asking a test/exercise question) How can anyone say 62 percent of an unknown quantity between 12 and 30 million....IS something....DOES something...DOESN'T DO something.

What if I said 62 percent of the coins in that big jar on my desk are nickels. You could believe me or you could disbelieve me. But if I didn't know and had not counted the total no of coins in the jar, I'd be LYING. And if you knew I had not counted the coins, you could justficably say I was LYING. Period. We do not know the number of illegals, and the numbers cover a giant range. It's impossible to say whether 62% of "them" do anything.

This is just flat out rubbish. Nonsense. BS and spin.

[Lancey Howard]

While the population includes an eye-popping number of crooks, drug-dealers and would-be welfare sponges, it also provides a helpful prop for sustaining American economic growth and cultural dynamism.

So kick them all out, build a huge electrified fence, and let the good ones back in with work visas. It ain't rocket surgery.

[Fruit of the Spirit]

Would someone please tell Tony that it's not "illegal immigrants", it's illegal ALIENS.

[backhoe]

... in my opinion, we are already in WWIV ( WWIII being the Cold War ) and there are two, somewhat interlocking elements to it:

Islam, a Religion of Peace®? ( links, blogs, quips, quotes, aggravating pictures ) is located here- click the Pic, and scroll backwards:

"Thunder on the Border," click the picture:

[leprechaun9]

Tony, here's a little suggestion for you: TAKE DOWN THE BORDERS!

If the few (~10 to 20 miilion depending on who you believe) illegal immigrants are so beneficial to our country, imagine the contributions of ~100-150 million more!

We could:
1. Abolish the Immigration Service.
2. Pay more for medical treatments (and probably book them much further in advance.
3. Residents of the United States would become the best educated people on earth. Judging from the number of foreign born students who populate the Academic Achievement Awards.
4. The prices for our fresh produce would drop dramatically as the competition between those willing workers (who only will take those jobs that no Americans want) would probably eliminate the cost of labor.
5. Companies would not have to bribe (pay) the pimps of the election industry (Members of Congress) to legislate amnesty and benefits for those who are law breakers from other countries.
6. The U.S. Government would save money by not having to extradite anyone.
7. This also would be a boom for the flag making industry (no doubt overseas) as many flags of other nations would replace the outdated Stars and Stripes!
8. The pimps of the election industry, in the Congress and the Main Stream Media could focus their efforts on other aspects of the politics of FEAR, DIVISION, and HATRED!

[stopem]

Here's a thought for the mexican-flag-wavers, go ahead and show those politicians that they can't treat you this way go on back to your country, or if you decide to stay (after all that is your decision to make isn't it?) than tell those terrible American business people that you DEMAND $20.00 an hour for cleaning those toilets, cutting that grass, digging holes. You won't accept $3.00 an hour anymore, go ahead that'll show them!!!!

[blueminnesota]

I think we should have amnesty for all crimes. We should disband the courts and police forces, after all, people are going to commit crimes anyway. And I'm sure they have good reasons for committing them.

Then criminals can finally "come out of the shadows" and yadda yadda...

Do I need a sarcasm tag?

[samcgwire]

Good grief, et tu, Tony?

[Clemenza]

Skeptics counter that immigrants have clogged our hospitals, which is true -- but primarily in places that offer lavish benefits to illegal immigrants.

On this point, Tony is correct. Texas and Florida don't have a GENEROUS welfare state like Calipornia, and therefore don't have the problems the latter state has despite both having large legal and illegal immigrant populations.

Much as the Calipornians like to blame illegals for all of the states problems, they fail to address the fact that Anglo voters created a generous welfare state from the 1930s (through "ballot initiatives") through the 1970s. So much for Calipornia once being a "conservative" state!