On immigration (Good Read)

http://www.rockymountainnews.com/ ^ | October 4, 2003 | Richard D. Lamm

[getget]

On immigration

Should illegal aliens have driver's licenses, amnesty, welfare, and the right to move their families to the U.S.? Illegal aliens are, as is often pointed out, "good, hard-working people who just want the American dream." But is that the end of the argument? The trouble with that level of analysis is that there are billions of "good, hard-working people" and their dependents in the world who would love to come here, and obviously we can't take them all. We are also a nation of laws, with our own unemployed and underemployed, and our nation needs to come to some enforceable consensus on what our policy should be on people entering the country illegally.

Polls show that more than 70 percent of Americans object to illegal immigration, and we run a serious risk of a backlash against all immigrants if we don't reach some consensus on this issue. Polls also show that there is no issue in America where there is a bigger gap between public opinion and opinions of the media and other "elites."

Reasoned dialogue is rare and issues of immense importance to America's future are not being discussed or even debated.

Public policy requires us to be wise enough to appreciate cumulative effects. We already have approximately 10 percent of all Mexico living in the U.S. either legally or illegally. We owe it to the future to have a candid debate on the demographic impact of a mass migration of this magnitude. Consider:

1. We are a nation built on law. It almost sounds old-fashioned in contemporary America to ask that people obey the law. But when we start deciding which laws to obey and which to ignore, we start down a dangerous path. There are millions of potential immigrants patiently waiting in their home countries to immigrate here, playing by our rules. Illegal immigrants "jump the line."

2. As every house needs a door, every country needs a border. By turning a blind eye toward illegal immigration, we are encouraging countless numbers of these people to attempt to sneak into America. I spent a night with the Border Patrol in California, and was amazed to find people from India, Bangladesh, Iran, Egypt, Africa and China among the people detained.

3. Illegal immigration hurts America's poor. Illegal immigrants compete for the jobs our own poor need to start to move up the economic ladder. A study by The Center for Immigration Studies finds: "Mexican immigration is overwhelmingly unskilled, and it is hard to find an economic argument for unskilled immigration, because it tends to reduce wages for (U.S.) workers." The study goes on: "Because the American economy offers very limited opportunities for workers with little education, continued unskilled immigration can't help but to significantly increase the size of the poor and uninsured populations, as well as the number of people on welfare."

4. We are told that illegal immigration is "cheap labor," but it is not "cheap labor," it is subsidized labor. The National Academy of Sciences has found that there is a significant fiscal drain on U.S. taxpayers for each adult immigrant without a high school education. Illegal immigration is something that benefits a few employers, but the rest of us subsidize that labor through the school system, the health-care system, the courts and in other ways that this form of labor imposes. With school spending of more than $7,000 per student per year, even a small family costs far more than a low-wage family pays in taxes.

5. America is increasingly becoming, day by day, a bilingual country, yet there is not a bilingual country in the world that lives in peace with itself. No nation should blindly allow itself to become a bilingual-bicultural country. If it does, it invites generations of conflict, tension and antagonism. America has historically demanded that its immigrants be self-supporting and English-speaking to join our polity. We vary from that rule that made us "one nation, indivisible" at great risk to America's future. Today, when over 40 percent of today's massive wave of immigrants is from Spanish-speaking nations, people can move to America and keep their language, their culture and their old loyalties. If the melting pot doesn't melt, immigrants become "foreigners" living in America rather than assimilated Americans.

6. Our social fabric risks becoming undone. It is important to America's future that we look at how Mexican immigrants are doing. Too many of our Hispanic immigrants live in ethnic ghettos. Too many are unskilled laborers, too many are uneducated, too many live in poverty, too many are exploited, too many haven't finished ninth grade, too many drop out of school. The Center for Immigration Studies issued a report last year, which found: "Almost two-thirds of adult Mexican immigrants have not completed high school, compared to fewer than one in 10 natives not completing high school. Mexican immigrants now account for 22 percent of all high school dropouts in the labor force."

But what is most disturbing is that second and third generations don't do much better. Again, the study from The Center for Immigration Studies: "The lower educational attainment of Mexican immigrants appears to persist across the generations." A recent report from the center shows that two-thirds of Mexican immigrant workers lack even a high school education; as a consequence, two-thirds of Mexican immigrant families live in or near poverty. The question has to be asked: By tolerating illegal immigration are we laying the foundations for a new Hispanic underclass? A Hispanic Quebec?

[ovrtaxt]

You can get about 4 grand a year in tax refunds (depending on the number of kids you have) without paying any taxes.

They call it a refund when they didn't pay anything to begin with. In other times, we would have called it THEFT.

[getget]

Geneva Convention definition of a refugee as someone forced to flee because of a well founded fear of persecution, be it religious, political or other.

[Libertarianize the GOP]

ping

[FITZ]

Yes --- the illegals are useful to the Mexican government's goal of becoming a completely parasitic one, surviving completely off the USA's economy. The problem for the future is that a parasitic economy is like one big welfare society. The workers leave the country and send money back to those who can't or won't work until they can get them over the border, then they don't send money back anymore. Of course many of these guys send money back just for a while, human nature takes it's course, they find a lover and forget the wife and kids back home. Mexico is losing control over it's crime problem in some areas makes our inner cities look nice and safe.

[iconoclast]

bump for later

[philetus]

"And still our Republican politicians insist on appeasement."

I don't doubt for a minute, that the politicians who insist on appeasement, are being paid off by big business that wants the "cheap labor".

[getget]

Globalization make the U.S more Dependant on the U.N !!

[FITZ]

Vicente Fox hates indians and poor people, so he sends them here. Like little slaves and servants, they work and send home the money which goes right into Fox's secret bank accounts.

He did get a whole lot richer ---- something like 30% richer since he's been president. There was an article in the Mexican paper --- El Diario which was condemning Fox's economic plan for Mexico. His plan is to do nothing for that economy just so that as many people will leave as possible to go to the USA, get our jobs and send money back as long as they will. He kills two birds with one stone that way --- he gets rid of the brown people for Mexico and they send money in to Mexico.

One flaw in his plan --- apparently some Mexicans are getting tired of it ---- because Fox's PAN party lost 25% of it's Congressional seats this past July. And Lopez Obrador is moving on up.

[ETERNAL WARMING]

American citizens want the American Dream too. Too bad it too moved overseas. China and India are currently enjoying it.

[getget]

Protection of refugees covers a wide field of activities. It begins, or rather should begin, immediately after the refugee has crossed the border of his country into a country of asylum. Is he within the mandate of the United Nations and "eligible" for the benefits of the Convention on the Status of Refugees written in 1951 and now ratified by fifteen parliaments? It is easy to see that in a decision on this vital point the United Nations Office for Refugees should already play a part. Otherwise, the newly arriving refugee will see his fate unilaterally decided by the authorities of the country in which he seeks asylum. In the course of the years, different procedures for establishing the "eligibility" of a refugee have been worked out between governments and our Office. They vary from leaving the decision in principle to our representation in the country concerned - as is the case in Belgium - to our having an observer on the national committee in charge of ruling on the eligibility of a refugee. Ever since the 1951 Convention came into force in April, 1954, the importance of cooperation between governments and our Office in matters of eligibility has increased. For the refugee a favorable decision means obtaining a reasonable "status", whereas an unfavorable decision would mean lasting uncertainty and perhaps an "illegal" existence, even expulsion. Moreover, a fair trial of the newly arriving refugee has become increasingly important, because (integration, into the economy of the country of asylum is possible only when the refugee has a legal status upon which to base his efforts to establish himself.

[getget]

VII. PREPARED FOR A CHANGING WORLD

274. Enhanced leadership and strategic management in the United Nations: As a result of these actions and recommendations, the Secretariat will have a leadership structure and work programme with four main sectors reflecting the Organization's primary strategic areas: peace and security; economic and social affairs; development cooperation; humanitarian affairs, with human rights as a cross-cutting issue. The Senior Management Group and the executive committees for each sector will promote greater coherence among the United Nations departments, programmes and funds and provide a framework for reform. The proposed appointment of a Deputy Secretary-General will enhance the ability of the Secretary-General to manage such challenges as cross-functional sectors and complex emergencies. The recommendation that the General Assembly might periodically adopt a focus for its work is aimed at enhancing its role in setting strategic directions and priorities for the United Nations.
http://www.unhchr.ch/html/hchr/unrefor.htm

[4.1O dana super trac pak]

Actually if you look at the welfare rates of legal immigrants you will understand why there is a backlash against legal immigrants as well. Legal immigration should be severely curtailed IMHO. The future of this country is in the balance.

[4.1O dana super trac pak]

I would really like to have a face to face chat with one of those policians one day.

[getget]

Yes thanks to Globalization make the U.S more Dependant on the U.N , N.G.O most of them are big business

[getget]

New World Order Rising? - Thoughts on the UN World Summit on Sustainable Development
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/news/743512/posts?page=10

[snippy_about_it]

Thanks for posting this getget.

Good read ping to you SAM.

[cyborg]

I disagree with you on one point. Legal immigrants being on welfare has nothing to do with this issue which is illegal aliens entering the US. I don't like anyone on welfare. However, if a person is paying taxes, they are paying into the system and like or not, welfare is an 'entitlement' to a legalized immigrant and a citizen.HOWEVER, I'd like to know why City of New York is advertizing the 'food card' to 'immigrants without fear'. Hello Bloomberg you useful idiot...

Anyway, I've not a problem with putting more regulations on legal immigration. That certainly would lower immigration numbers.

[cyborg]

When you do, please video tape the carnage so we can all play 'caption this' on FR please :-)

BTW, I always try to call the useful idiot NYC mayor every friday on his show...wonder why I can't get on?

[SAMWolf]

Bump! Thanks for the ping Snippy

[Alberta's Child]

The one problem I have with this article is that it examines immigration in a vacuum, without noting the devastating impact that the political/legal climate in the modern U.S. is going to have on the future of this nation.

A modern, affluent nation that kills more than a million unborn babies every year, and then allows more than a million illegal immigrants to cross the border every year, does not need "immigration reform" -- it needs a large-scale psychiatric examination for all 280 million of its people.

With each day that passes, I'm becoming more convinced that we're watching a slow-motion unraveling of this nation along the lines of the Tower of Babel story from the Old Testament.