Immigration Debacle: All-or-nothingism begat nothing [The Anchoress]

http://theanchoressonline.com/ ^ | September 15, 2007 | The Anchoress

[DCPatriot]

Given the responses I got the last time I focused on this issue, I almost hate to bring it up…but here goes.

I think Tony Snow is exactly right when he says here:

“I deeply admire what [Mr. Bush] did on immigration and I think he’s right,” Mr. Snow said. “I think the policies the president outlined generally are the ones that eventually this country is going to adopt.”

Let us hope so, because the alternative “solutions” out there - “let everyone in and register them all Democrat” on the left and “ship them all back to Mexico no matter how long they’ve been here or how productive” - are neither workable nor just.

Snow also says, here,

“the White House was not prepared for the anger of foes of illegal immigration

For crying out loud, that’s a staggering statement when even I - a lowly and not terribly bright housewife - completely understood the mood of the illegal immigration extremists. They were not interested in any sort of “half-measure” by President Bush - they did not want Bush do what Reagan always tried to do, “get 75% of what you want and come back later for the rest.” No, the extremists on this issue, crying, “we’re the base, you better dance with who brung ya,” were relentlessly uncompromising on the matter of illegal immigration and President Bush - and any other politicians who disagreed with them or sought a more workable solution than “ship them back and build high, high walls” had their rhetorical heads smashed repeatedly against the rhetorical curbside.

I still have a few dents, myself.

The illegal immigration hardliners demanded “all or nothing at all,” from President Bush and the GOP leadership. And now, they have nothing, and no political power to do much of anything. Illegal immigrants are still entering the nation mostly unchecked. The useless NIS is no closer to being reformed and retooled into something useful. There are no plans to design as sort of Ellis Island West, to actually process potential citizen immigrants “the way my grandfather came into New York - legally!” as the hardliner crows. Nothing is being done. But hey…at least the folks with the high, strong principals can sleep at night knowing they didn’t compromise!

A long time ago I wrote that the blood of many may well rest on the heads of those who would not get serious about the War on Terror. By the same token, I think it would not be completely unfair to state that the increases and excesses of illegal immigrants - and whatever political fall-out or legislative impotence comes from once more refusing to deal realistically with an issue that has been ignored for decades - will rest on the heads on those who took a hard, uncompromising line; those who managed to drop-kick the first president to try to effect positive change, and further weaken his entire presidency, while still getting nothing done. This issue was not well-played, folks. And just because the only ones still talking about it are the one-noters in internet forums doesn’t mean the issue is put to bed. Far from it. The reckoning - and the issue itself - has simply been kicked down the road for the time being, launched by a tantrum of “conservative anger”, which sent it nowhere good.

In the Wall Street Journal today the editorial writers take a look at how the hardline stance against illegal Mexican immigrants (come on, you never hear about the illegal Irish all over Boston or Long Island) can hurt the GOP and conservatives politically. They’re right to be concerned. When conservative and Republicans find themselves further weakened politically because they’ve managed to give the back of their hand to what every year becomes a more substantial portion of the electorate, who will they blame? They’ll have no right to blame George W. Bush - who tried to deal with the issue - but they may try to. It’s easy to blame Bush for everything, after all. But the truth is, they’ll have no one to blame but themselves.

I have a suspicion, just a little one - it’s anecdotal and nothing I can cite - but a suspicion nonetheless that some of the folks who jumped on the “all or nothing, ship them back, Bush has betrayed the base” bandwagon are beginning to regret the ride…turns out it was just a merry-go-round, after all.

[kabar]

There was no compromise offered. Personally, I don’t like “High High Walls” especially. Walls have their place, but I prefer “Interior Enforcement”.

You need both. "No other First World country has such an extensive land frontier with a Third World country. The significance of the long Mexican-U.S. border is enhanced by the economic differences between the two countries. “The income gap between the United States and Mexico,” Stanford University historian David Kennedy has pointed out, “is the largest between any two contiguous countries in the world.” Contiguity enables Mexican immigrants to remain in intimate contact with their families, friends, and home localities in Mexico as no other immigrants have been able to do."

We need physical control over our border. It is also worth remembering that about 30% to 40% of the illegals are visa overstays, i.e., they came here legally.

[DCPatriot]

You're boring the heck out of me.

This thread isn't about me. I've given you more chances than my ex-wife

You're a troll and a thread disrupter here. Please debate the article or get lost.

[wtc911]

Perhaps you need to be self-employed, an independent contractor...to appreciate it. To be a small business owner who is the very backbone of the country, creating wealth and jobs.

____________________________________________________

There you go again, painting yourself as the heart and soul of America when in reality you are a profiteering law breaker, concerned about nothing but your personal bottom line and willing to sell out our children's future for your own financial gain.

[wtc911]

Bored? Take your illegal coddling, me first act back to your wide-awake playground where you might find a sympathetic ear.

[EDINVA]

” ...they’ve managed to give the back of their hand to what every year becomes a more substantial portion of the electorate, ... “

How do Illegal Aliens become part of the electorate?

[Will88]

“I don’t care what he says....he’s a self-made guy who never finished college. He can surely appreciate the inner strength it takes to leave your country with only the clothes on your back.”

Oh please! Never has anything been so overblown as the great courage it takes to cross our southern border. Never have a bunch of illegals crossed a border so easily and gained so much for so little effort. Most have family or acquaintances already here, legally or illegally, and have a specific place to go and people to help them get established. If some take off across a desert with insufficient water, then that’s just poor planning. Most make it with little problem.

Crossing our southern border’s not exactly the equivalent of taking months to cross the Atlantic in a tiny wooden ship. This courageous illegal nonsense gets old, and they even had Jorge welcoming them with open arms since January of 2001. Some go back and forth as if they’re just crossing a state line between two states.

[Will88]

“Perhaps you need to be self-employed, an independent contractor...to appreciate it. To be a small business owner who is the very backbone of the country, creating wealth and jobs.”

Destroying wealth of many American citizens while passing a big chunk of the cost of illegal employees along to the US taxpayers.

And there are still huge sections of this country where illegals are not yet any part of the local economies. If those who’ve profited from illegal labor later suffer loss, then that’s only just. It’s employers of illegals who’ve created this problem and no one should care if they suffer as the problem is addressed.

If we’d never had employers in the US who stooped to hire the first illegals, and more who followed their example, we wouldn’t have the present enormous problem.

[FastCoyote]

“Let us hope so, because the alternative “solutions” out there - “let everyone in and register them all Democrat” on the left and “ship them all back to Mexico no matter how long they’ve been here or how productive” - are neither workable nor just.”

Ummm, that completely neglects the solution of “close the borders first, start a backflow of illegals, then address citizenship on a limited basis”. It is a blatant lie to say the extremes are the only solutions.

[Snow also says, here, “the White House was not prepared for the anger of foes of illegal immigration]

Well la dee dah, someone had some pencils stuck in their ears if they couldn’t hear the opposition. People who live in communities overrun by illegals (like me) know the elites just don’t get it.

[Surtur]

no matter how long they’ve been here or how productive

The mafia is also very productive when it comes to putting money into circulation, so WTF, let's give them a pass to. In fact, let's do away with the legal system entirely as it slows the entrepreneurial spirit of criminals.

[Wuli]

"get 75% of what you want and come back later for the rest.”

You obviously did not understand the totality of the bills that were proposed. In no way did they contain 20% of the means to successful security requirements or even successful application of what was proposed.

"and any other politicians who disagreed with them or sought a more workable solution than “ship them back and build high, high walls”

As with Bush, McPain and the liberal press, it is an outright lie to suggest than any GOP Senate member or house member opposed to amnesty, or or their best and brightest supporters, ever demanded "ship them back", at any time; though Bush, McPain, the liberal media and apparently you prefer that lie to the truth. And where can you find the truth. Well, its on display in Arizona right now as stronger restrictions on employers heiring illegal workers begins to work - they pack and leave, on their own dime, in their own transportation.

"The illegal immigration hardliners demanded “all or nothing at all,” from President Bush and the GOP leadership."

It was never "all or nothing". There was no "compromise" in the proposed legislation. Amnesty was assured and border security enhancements, where proposed were (a)not enough to ever stem the tide of illegals now, (b) too long in being put in place, (c) insufficient to be effective in the long run, and (d)lacked any of the sensible proposals that would work, such as immediate, forceful and extensive additions of manpower now and remaining until the fancy proposals were actually in place and working - in other words, the compromises were nil; while there was not a single thing missing from what the shamnesty crowd wanted. You have things backwards. The GOP majority against the shamnesty was being given an all or nothing proposal - they get all, we get nothing. You seem to be of the same mind. The right thinking people of the United States are just supposed to surrender.

"There are no plans to design as sort of Ellis Island West, to actually process potential citizen immigrants"

And on what basis is there any requirement for such a facility? After 12 to 20 million illegal immigrants, predominately from Mexico, how many millions more is either fare, just or equitable, to the people of the United States. The shamnesty proposal would have meant a 60 million increase in the U.S. population from new immigration alone, in just ten years? That's equitable??? Who in the hell to??? No country of any size can assimilate 60 million new people in a decade. The immigration from south of the border under the shamnesty bill would have amounted to colonization not immigration.

"A long time ago I wrote that the blood of many may well rest on the heads of those who would not get serious about the War on Terror.......and whatever political fall-out or legislative impotence comes from once more refusing to deal realistically with an issue that has been ignored for decades - will rest on the heads on those who took a hard, uncompromising line;"

LOL, we couldn't agree more, and those who offered zilch to actually and effectively secure the borders will be remembered for their treason, and I guess that means you as well.

[dixiechick2000]

“Like it or not...there was a severe shortage of available, willing, ready and able workers.

The illegal is rebuilding New Orleans...not the native American US anglo or african.”

.

There you go again...doing your best to revise history. The illegals may be rebuilding the Gulf Coast, but it’s not because there weren’t any US citizens willing to do the work, not to mention desperately needing the jobs.

.

“An Alabama employment agency that sent 70 laborers and construction workers to job sites in that state in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina says the men were sent home after just two weeks on the job by employers who told them “the Mexicans had arrived” and were willing to work for less.

Linda Swope, who operates Complete Employment Services Inc. in Mobile, Ala., told The Washington Times last week that the workers — whom she described as U.S. citizens, residents of Alabama and predominantly black — had been “urgently requested” by contractors hired to rebuild and clear devastated areas of the state, but were told to leave three job sites when the foreign workers showed up.

“After Katrina, our company had 70 workers on the job the first day, but the companies decided they didn’t need them anymore because the Mexicans had arrived,” Mrs. Swope said. “I assure you it is not true that Americans don’t want to work.

“We had been told that 270 jobs might be available, and we could have filled every one of them with men from this area, most of whom lost their jobs because of the hurricane,” she said. “When we told the guys they would not be needed, they actually cried … and we cried with them. This is a shame.”

Mrs. Swope said employment agencies throughout Alabama, Louisiana and Mississippi faced similar problems, when thousands of men from Mexico and several Central and South American countries — many in crowded buses and trucks — came into the three states after Katrina, looking for employment and willing to work for less money.”

http://www.tmhbaconbits.net/2006/04/10/illegals-steal-jobs/

That is a c/p from a blog that used the Washington Times article. It’s in the Times’ archives, but I don’t want to register to be able to retrieve it. Here is the search I did in the Times’ archives.

http://nl.newsbank.com/nl-search/we/Archives?p_product=WT&p_theme=wt&p_action=search&p_maxdocs=200&p_text_search-0=arrival%20AND%20of%20AND%20illegal%20AND%20aliens%20AND%20ousts%20AND%20us%20AND%20workers&s_dispstring=arrival%20of%20illegal%20aliens%20ousts%20us%20workers%20AND%20date(09/01/2005%20to%2009/01/2007)&p_field_date-0=YMD_date&p_params_date-0=date:B,E&p_text_date-0=09/01/2005%20to%2009/01/2007)&p_perpage=10&p_sort=YMD_date:D&xcal_useweights=no

.

“You’re a troll and a thread disrupter here.”

.

That seems like the pot calling the kettle black, to me. Thank goodness you are one of very few remaining members of the FROBL.

[bill1952]

>But punishing peaceful, hardworking illegals

LOL! You are proving to be a cast iron kook!

>will destroy the economy and lives along the way.

An outright lie.

>Perhaps you need to be self-employed, an independent contractor...to appreciate it. To be a small business owner who is the very backbone of the country, creating wealth and jobs.

Okay so far...I am an independent contractor.

>Like it or not...there was a severe shortage of available, willing, ready and able workers.

And another outright lie. - My first business was destroyed by illegal businesses with illegal labor making one forth of what I paid.

>The illegal is rebuilding New Orleans...not the native American US anglo or african.

You are a bigoted fool. You actually believe that Americans did not build America?

>I guess $100 @ day isn't enough for some people. /s

That type of sarcasm to my workers would earn you a good slap right in the face.

In sum, you are a dangerous bigot and an elitist fool. - I truly enjoy debunking your outright delusions and lies. Begone!

[dixiechick2000]

">The illegal is rebuilding New Orleans...not the native American US anglo or african."

Read my post just above yours.

"I am an independent contractor.

Good for you!
My husband doesn't hire illegals, either.
He pays dearly for that privilege, and wouldn't have it any other way.

[DCPatriot]

Congratulations!

You haven't accomplished anything in this thread but to show the world how ill-prepared and ill-informed you are.

[dixiechick2000]

"You haven't accomplished anything in this thread but to show the world how ill-prepared and ill-informed you are."

LOL!

Yet another pot/kettle moment for you!

[Grizzled Bear]

What would happen if I hopped the fence at the President’s ranch in Crawford, entered the house, and declared myself an “undocumented adoptee” while demanding all rights and privileges as a member of his family?

To all Secret Service agents lurking here, it’s just a rhetorical question! I’m not gonna do it!

[DCPatriot]

Your personal insults aside....it sounds to me what you're describing above is a free market system at work.

Why should I pay a commission to an "employment agency" giving me the names of 70 potential workers, when I can go over your head and get excellent hard-workers at a lower cost?

Are you always anti-business and anti-wealth?

As a Realtor for 30 years, I compete with discount brokers. No big deal.

[stephenjohnbanker]

“Good for you!
My husband doesn’t hire illegals, either.
He pays dearly for that privilege, and wouldn’t have it any other way.”

B T T T

[dixiechick2000]

There were no personal insults...only obeservations.
However, calling someone a troll is a personal insult, IMO.

Comparing illegal immigrants with a discount broker is just silly.
Not to mention the fact that hiring illegals is a criminal act.

I never have been, nor will I ever be, anti-business or anti-wealth.
I’m will never be for those things at any cost, though.

[DCPatriot]

However, calling someone a troll is a personal insult, IMO.

I was responding to a stalker's lies, insults and attacks. But you knew that, didn't you?

Comparing illegal immigrants with a discount broker is just silly. Not to mention the fact that hiring illegals is a criminal act.

You were presenting as evidence the fact that 70 African-Americans were told they weren't wanted because Mexicans/illegals would work for less.

The employment agency deriving an income from the placement of those 70 terminated workers RAISES THE COST OVER AND ABOVE THE HOURLY WAGE.

IOW, the worker could have gone to the day labor center when the Hispanics got chosen, and he'd be employed right now....not be lied to and told they didn't want him because of a different reason and/or agenda.