What will kill the GOP is this kind of attitude and the knee-jerk reaction against the need to develop a comprehensive immigration policy. The latest census data, published in the NYTimes Wednesday, shows starkly that the % of Hispanics and other minorities rises with each younger age group. In the youngest age group, they are a majority. Only the over 65s have a majority white population. Right Now!! Whining about the immigration plan doesn’t change the demography. If you really want to see the death knell of the Republican party, ignore the need to expand the tent to include these minority groups. I am ashamed of this ridiculous response. I admire and support Bush on this because he is behaving as an adult, not some spoiled adolescent stamping his foot.
What will kill France, the Netherlands, is this kind of attitude and the knee-jerk reaction against the need to develop a comprehensive immigration policy. The latest census data, shows starkly that the % of Muslims and other minorities rises with each younger age group. In the youngest age group, they are a majority. Only the over 65s have a majority Christian/Secular population. Right Now!! Whining about the immigration plan doesn’t change the demography. If you really want to see the death knell of the Republican/Elitist/Financial/Country Club party, ignore the need to expand the tent to include these minority groups. I am ashamed of this ridiculous response. I admire and support Chirac on this because he is behaving as an adult, not some spoiled adolescent stamping his foot.
As Laura Ingraham said this morning, the illegal alien activists already hate Bush, and he’s the one pushing for this.
These "minorities" will NEVER vote either Republican or conservative in any significant number. They come here from socialist countries to escape socialism, and the first thing they do is vote to establish socialism here.
The solution is NOT to bring in more of the same sort. What we SHOULD be allowing to enter our country are folks who have educations and job skills---not more "leaf-blower drivers".
You include the very illegal aliens affected by this bill in your percentages, to try and paint a picture of inevitability? Who else uses the illusion of inevitability to force their unwanted societal changes upon a people? Socialists, that’s who.
You, Sir/Maam, are simply and completely wrong!!!
Illegal immigrants kill 13 people every day by driving drunk, and additionally murder 12 people every day. None of this so-called "reform" is going to fix that.
The only real fix will be to shut off access to what is attracting these people. Severely fine businesses that hire illegals, and end access by illegals to welfare, healthcare, Social Security, and education. They will go home on their own if they have no reason to stay here.
What the amnesty bill will accomplish is adding 15 million Democrat voters...and, as the gift that keeps on giving, millions and millions more Democrats will gain citizenship as the relatives of the former illegals arrive like clockwork.
Holy smokes, you really want to provide amnesty to people who flagrantly break the law? What kind of message are you sending to the people who apply through legal channels to gain entry and citizenship to our great country? You are calling them chumps and idiots. You are telling them and the rest of the world that it pays to flaunt U.S. laws.
So what other rights and privileges do you propose to give to illegal aliens? I really am curious. California already provides legal services, health care and in-State tuition to illegals. These services are not provided to other U.S. citizens not residents in California. This is unbelievable. You want to expand this to the national level?
So in your mind law breaking illegal aliens should receive preferential treatment above and beyond what many other law abiding taxpaying U.S. citizens currently receive. All your illegal aliens who are awarded amnesty will also get “Affirmative Action” rewards and benefits when it comes to employment, promotions, college and university acceptance etc. in State, local and Federal government programs. They will be put ahead of the line of most Americans when it comes to rights and privileges. And you approve of this? I cannot believe this!
You are dead wrong.
We already have laws in effect - it’s called legal immigration......and we have to control the borders. THAT is a realistic plan......the illegals can be deported one after another once the borders are controlled. NO other country in the world lets it’s borders go like this, we cannot survive if we do not stop it.
Who’s whining?
The comprehensive policy is as follows:
Reinforce the border with a fence.
Hammer companies that higher illegal works
Make them apply for work visas.
Without jobs, they’ll go home, or they’ll apply for work visas.
Either way, this is a comprehensive policy. What’s more, its self enforcing. Businesses either toe the line or pay a fine, or worse.
Well I do understand your point. And I do think it would be smart for Republicans to attract the hispanics, especially the catholic pro-lifer types. But the demography you mentioned was acheived due to the last great comprehensive immigration policy. It did not work and did not help the Republicans then either. Why repeat the mistake?
The borders have to be secured first. It is not fair to people who have been trying to apply legally to allow cheaters to stay. Not only that, it is not good to allow unlimited indiscriminate immigration. Just study what happened to the Native American Indians,to understand what happens with unlimited immigration.LOL. Look at what has happened in Europe with the Muslims there.
I am not sure what the answer is but this is not it.
What we do need is to get that melting pot thing going, and keep immigration down enough to allow assimilation, and by the way English should not be a second language it should spoken by all citizens of the USA as soon as possible.
I would rather close the borders now, enforce the current laws, and take the time to really study this carefully, and debate it thouroughly not just push it through.
“I admire and support Bush on this because he is behaving as an adult, not some spoiled adolescent stamping his foot.”
You admire the President’s policy to ignore law breakers? You want a big tent that embraces LAW BREAKERS (ILLEGAL aliens)?
The law breakers can stay out of my tent.
I thought I was the only one around here who wasn’t too shook up about this bill.
I think you’re on the wrong website. This isn’t Democratic Underground, KOS, OR Moveon.org
Today's immigrants are not the idyllic immigrants of turn of the 20th century, who came here and pulled themselves up by their bootstraps.
Besides, if these illegals become U.S. citizens, they're not going to vote Republican anyway.
Why do you think the demography is changing? Because we have not secured our borders and failed legal immigration policies. We are the cause of this change.
Prior to 1965, the US was taking around 178,000 legal immigrants annually. In 1965, Congress replaced the national origins system with a preference system designed to unite immigrant families and attract skilled immigrants to the United States. With these changes and some subsequent ones, the result was that most of our legal immigrants now come from Asia and Latin America, and not Europe. Chain migration designed to unite families has also brought in aged parents, children, uncles, etc., many of whom are not contributing to our society and in fact, require more social services. Even with quotas in certain immigration categories, we are now legalizing the status of over one million people annually and millions more are waiting in lines overseas for their turn to come in. Chain migration has also changed the "mix" of immigrants, making it less diverse.
Mexico accounts for 31 percent of all immigrants, with 10.8 million immigrants living in United States, more than the number of immigrants from any other region of the world. Immigrants from Mexico, Central and South America, and the Caribbean account for the majority of immigrants, with 54 percent of the foreign-born coming from these areas. Of those who arrived 2000 to 2005, 58 percent are from Latin America. This lack of diversity has hindered assimilation and could well result in the Balkanization of the country by language and culture.
We need a rational, sensible immigration policy for many reasons, some of them economic and some of them cultural, i.e., the ability to assimilate these massive numbers into our society. Since 1970, the population of the US has increased by 100 million; since 1990; by 53 million; and since 2000 by 20 million or the equivalent of our six largest cities.
The Bureau of the Census projects that we will have 364 million by 2030 [we will add 63 million people in the next 23 years or the equivalent of the current population of the UK] and over 400 million by 2050 with one-quarter of the population being Hispanic. 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. We now have 36 million foreign born residents or the highest number ever recorded -- two and a half times the 13.5 million during the peak of the last great immigration wave in 1910. Between January 2000 and March 2005, 7.9 million new immigrants (legal and illegal) settled in the country, making it the highest five-year period of immigration in American history.
These additional people will require infrastructure [roads, water, electricity, gasoline, etc.], and impact our schools, hospitals, social welfare systems, penal system, etc. Couple these increases with an aging US population faced with entitlement programs about to go belly-up in 10 years and you have some serious public policy issues that could threaten the future of this country.
If the current Senate immigration bill passes, we will triple legal immigration [3 million a year] for a decade, which will impact significantly upon the population projections above.
Tthe illegal immigration problem is easier to correct than the issues surrounding legal immigration. To me, the greater problem is legal immigration and our existing laws that contain the seeds of our own destruction. America is the world's lifeboat, the best hope of Man, but there are limits to the numbers we can bring onboard without swamping us. We already take in more legal immigrants than probably the rest of the world combined. We need, as a country, a public policy debate on this issue--a debate not marked by demagoguery and name calling.