"So, how do you address illegal immigration SERIOUSLY without being called names? I don't think it's possible, and I don't think you're being fair to Mr. Tancredo.'
Simple. You simply don't make it a "Mexico" only thing. The rheotoric that some of the more rabid illegal immigration advocates use is reminincient of the era when their was legalized discrimination against Blacks. The history books kind of ignore at the same time Hispanics or first generation Mexican Americans were being discriminated in identical ways. So when you here a Tancredo or whomever show up on TV saying "we should just send them all back to Mexico," those people are hearing things that were said back a generation or two ago to people that were rightfully born here and or came here legally.
I am just as law and order on illegal immigration issues as most here are and reject the amenesty non sense. The best track the anti illegal immigration folks should have taken was the national security angle and should have kept the killing of our culture (Ie the whiteness of America) out of the argument. They could have accomplshed that goal by focusing on the security angle. And plus they did it to coincide with an election year which to Hispanics that might be a GOP type voter, just saw it as pandering to the tradtional white base of the party, which the border fence being signed by President in October is proof of that.
Really the whole issue could have been signed, sealed, and resolved a few days after 9/11 and it would have had wide support accross the board. It really could have, but the GOP and Bush punted.
I think there should be minor changes in the rhetoric of some of our spokesman, perhaps including Tancredo, along the lines you suggest. It's conceivable that these would be of major help to us politically, but I'm not sure. I'm more concerned about Republican elected officials not doing or saying enough about the problem, less worried about a few who might say the wrong thing now and then.
The fact that there are 12 to 20 million illegal aliens already here and 500,000 to 1 million entering illegally annually will not change regardless of who is elected in TX-23. If Reps have to pander to Hispanics to win elections, we are doomed anyway as a party. The Dems already have the majority of the Hispanic vote and they are making it easier for illegals to vote by blocking such things as voter ID and by offering them a path to citizenship. What should the position of the GOP be on illegal immigration? Should the 12 to 20 million illegals already here be offered a path to citizenship? Do you think we should get control of our borders, including building physical barriers as appropriate?
No one is making Mexico the only thing, but that is where most of the illegals are coming from, including those transiting Mexico from Central America. Using the official census figures from 1990 and 2000:
The dramatic growth in the nation’s immigrant population has been accompanied by a significant decline in diversity. In 1990, immigrants from the top sending country — Mexico — accounted for 22 percent of the total foreign born. By 2000, Mexican immigrants accounted for 30 percent of the total.
In fact, Mexico alone accounted for 43 percent of the growth in the foreign-born population between 1990 and 2000.
• Immigrants from Spanish-speaking Latin America accounted for more than 60 percent of the growth in the foreign-born population nationally in the 1990s.
Nationally, Mexican immigrants increased their share of the foreign-born population from 22 percent of the total in 1990 to 30 percent by 2000. This continues a long-term trend: In 1980 Mexico, already the leading sending country, accounted for 16 percent of the foreign-born population. The trend of declining diversity goes back even farther; in 1970 the top sending country was Italy, and it represented only 10 percent of the foreign born. At the state level, Mexico was the largest sending country in 18 states in 1990; by 2000 it was the top sending country in 30 states.
During the 1990s, an average of more than 1.3 million immigrants — legal and illegal — settled in the United States each year. Between January 2000 and March 2002, 3.3 million additional immigrants have arrived. In less than 50 years, the U.S. Census Bureau projects that immigration will cause the population of the United States to increase from its present 300 million to more than 400 million.
The foreign-born population of the United States is currently 33.1 million, equal to 11.5 percent of the U.S. population. Of this total, the Census Bureau estimates 8-9 million are illegal immigrants. Other estimates indicate a considerably higher number of illegal immigrants.
The present level of immigration is significantly higher than the average historical level of immigration. This flow may be attributed, in part, to the extraordinary broadening of U.S. immigration policy in 1965. Since 1970, more than 30 million legal and illegal immigrants have settled in the U.S., representing more than one-third of all people ever to come to America's shores.
At the peak of the Great Wave of immigration in 1910, the number of immigrants living in the U.S. was less than half of what it is today, though the percentage of the population was slightly higher. The annual arrival of 1.5 million legal and illegal immigrants, coupled with 750,000 annual births to immigrant women, is the determinate factor— or three-fourths— of all U.S. population growth.