Immigration Is Not National Security: Lack of It Imperils the Nation

Policy Review ^ | Dec 2006 | Mary Eberstadt

[arnoldfwilliams]

In sum, the insistence by impassioned theorists that illegal immigration south of the border is the pre-eminent problem of our time makes perfect sense — or would, had those been Salvadoreans piloting airplanes on 9/11, Guatemalans bankrolling their efforts, Hondurans plotting attacks on the subways and government buildings of Europe, and Mexicans across the global labor diaspora plotting how to bring down the American government, presumably by poisoning our gardens and toilets. If you do not think that is the way it went down, then Occam's razor dictates this: The sheer volume of emotion on the subject of illegal aliens makes most sense as a manifestation of denial about who would really like to see the end of the American republic — as it turns out, one form of many now circulating.

[DTogo]

Maybe if there weren't 20 million or so illegals and their kids flooding the job market, we wouldn't need minimum wage increases, because in a real job market supply and demand would work to keep wages adequate.

BINGO!! WE HAVE A WINNER!!

[Rurudyne]

I'm not saying that we don't already have a problem with lawlessness among those who are citizens or who are lawfully here; but, I am saying that when a demographic group is accepting of the idea that laws––especially laws which are actually quite important and not arbitrary–– they don't feel they should have to obey are laws that they don't have to obey ... this is a problem.

I'm glad you brought this up.

Really, their motivations and justifications do not matter: no more than those of a shop lifter or someone who recklessly speeds through a school zone.

There is a law they don't feel they should obey and so they don't obey it.

The laws they disobey are the very laws which would give them proper status before our laws and properly place them within our social contract by which we are governed.

They are called "illegal immigrants" for precisely this reason.

That they are here the way they are here: there is in fact NOTHING they can lawfully do ... except possibly leave as quickly as they can.

This is true even if they otherwise behave in a perfectly lawful manner once they are here.

[arnoldfwilliams]

"Illegal Alien Crime Wave"

Yeah, right.

Yet when we look more closely at neighborhoods, other patterns appear. Your "study" purporting to show that "Illegal aliens murder 12 Americans daily" is a good example of a statistically invalid study: only a little work exposes the problems. And, by the way, if I were to buy racial stereotyping, my biggest threat is black people. Do you want to export them all, too?

It's about at this point I'd like you to pull yourself up short and rethink what you're doing.

[arnoldfwilliams]

That they are here the way they are here: there is in fact NOTHING they can lawfully do ... except possibly leave as quickly as they can.

Then this is magic.

In your description, this is more serious than murder (since the statement you made is not true of murderers, who can enter contracts to appear on television shows). In mine, it's a traffic ticket, a citation. But I'd put it another way, too. Why, knowing as I do that 819,000 Americans are unemployed who might get minimum wage jobs, do I look at an unemployment rate of 4.5 percent and say that it would be bad FOR AMERICA to send the 11-12 million "illegals" back? Perhaps because I know that 12 million is a much larger number than 819,000. It really is. And it doesn't matter if that 819,000 does two jobs: they still won't replace the ones you kick out.

Which brings me to my final point. In your description, I would suggest that America doesn't have an illegal alien problem. It has a citizenship problem. How can we assimilate and regularize these people to remove any remaining barriers to their profitable employment? (I know, that's not an easy question. But it's worth thinking about, and we have done it in bigger percentage terms before.)

This country is pretty empty. I've driven across it enough to know just how empty some parts are. We have room.

[WatchingInAmazement]

Every crime by an illegal alien is a preventable crime. All your BS won't change that and the fact that AMERICANS are dying while you insist there is no problem.

Shame!

[arnoldfwilliams]

Maybe if there weren't 20 million or so illegals and their kids flooding the job market, we wouldn't need minimum wage increases, because in a real job market supply and demand would work to keep wages adequate

Why, knowing as I do that 819,000 Americans are unemployed who might get minimum wage jobs, do I look at an unemployment rate of 4.5 percent and say that it would be bad FOR AMERICA to send the 11-12 million "illegals" back? Perhaps because I know that 12 million is a much larger number than 819,000.

It really is. And it doesn't matter if that 819,000 does two jobs: they still won't replace the ones you kick out. In addition, you assume that you would have all the jobs still in place without them here.

What we see, instead, is American businesses which sell, for example, groceries in some towns with a higher hispanic population simply close when they leave because they are afraid. Those are Americans you've added to unemployment: and ones with OK jobs (I've worked at Albertson's -- it wasn't the limit of my ambitions, but it was a good job).

[WatchingInAmazement]

This country is pretty empty. I've driven across it enough to know just how empty some parts are. We have room.

What a fool you are. Much is not habitable. Cities are OVERCROWED. We're fighting over fuel and water, the schools are going to HELL.

It is not your business to decide that this country is wide open to anyone YOU want here.

[arnoldfwilliams]

Every crime by an illegal alien is a preventable crime.

So are three-quarters of ALL OTHER MURDERS. Didn't you know that before someone murders, he's typically been arrested several times for other offenses? And yet I don't see you using this, much more reliable method of crime prevention: so I think you ALSO don't care about crime prevention, you're just looking for another thing to hang around your focus on illegal aliens.

[arnoldfwilliams]

What a fool you are. Much is not habitable. Cities are OVERCROWED. We're fighting over fuel and water, the schools are going to HELL.
It is not your business to decide that this country is wide open to anyone YOU want here.

Just a moment while I pull into the gas station, get out my shotgun, and clear a way to the pumps .... or was that fighting metaphorical you wanted to describe? It is not "my business" -- but neither is it yours. It is public business, and the public will decide, through its representatives, as always. Both of us can lay out our cases. So far, I think I'm keeping up.

[DTogo]

So as long as certain ILLEGAL behavior is good for American businesses, we should look the other way and not enforce the law, right? Maybe we should encourage rape and murder, because it helps keep the police, courtroom workers, and prison guards employed?

[arnoldfwilliams]

So as long as certain ILLEGAL behavior is good for American businesses, we should look the other way and not enforce the law, right? Maybe we should encourage rape and murder, because it helps keep the police, courtroom workers, and prison guards employed?

Maybe we should do two things: think what we want to accomplish with this law, and ask if our goals are being met, and if they are not, OVERHAUL IT. I'm pointing out that NEITHER of our goals are being met at the moment: you are not living in your monocultural paradise, and I don't have a way to keep businesses going that employ people who need jobs. In addition, I'm suggesting that your goal, expel all the illegals, is an example of the kind of protection we would achieve if we mined our own harbors. We'd be safe from attack: well and good. But I'd also be safe from coffee, which I need to get going in the morning. Can we instead discuss ways to either protect local industry without mining the harbor or solve the citizenship and assimilation problem another way?

Several people seem to think that because I would like to find a way to use those whose only crime is crossing the border, I'd keep those who had committed all kinds of other crimes. Not a good idea. But deporting them means two things: that we have a controllable guestworker program and border enforcement. The control of the guestworker program would help your request: so would the border enforcement. Whether that means that all illegals would become "guestworkers" or how the shift would occur is what legislative action is for. But don't take away my coffee, OK? You wouldn't like to drive near me if you did.

[kabar]

Which brings me to my final point. In your description, I would suggest that America doesn't have an illegal alien problem. It has a citizenship problem. How can we assimilate and regularize these people to remove any remaining barriers to their profitable employment? (I know, that's not an easy question. But it's worth thinking about, and we have done it in bigger percentage terms before.)

Arnold, we have lost control of our borders and immigration. We have allowed the poor and uneducated from Mexico and Central to self-select themselves to enter this country. We are not selecting the immigrants we need to compete in the global economy. Couple that with a legal immigration policy that allows six times more immigrants to enter annually than was the case before 1965 and you have a major problem.

It is not a matter of having enough space to accommodate this burgeoing population, but rather, the infrastructure to support them. We are adding 1.5 to 2 million immigrants [legal and illegal] annually. They consume services and resources. Our economy will not always be operating with an unemployment rate of less than 5 percent. We have entitlement systems that are going down the tubes within a decade without major reform. There are 50 million people on Medicaid today, many of them illegals. Our schools, hosptials, prisons, and social welfare systems are being stretched to the limit. We can't permit this invasion to continue.

Arnold, here are some official US census population figures for you to chew on:

1900--76 million

1920--106 million

1940--132 million

1950--151 million

1960--179 million

1970--203 million

1980--226 million

1990--249 million

2000--281 million

Present--300 million

2015 [Projection]--322 million

2020 [Projection]--336 million

2030 [Projection]--364 million

During the 56 year period 1950 to 2006, we doubled the population of the US, i.e., added 150 million. We will add another 64 million in less than 25 years. And the numbers may be larger than that since illegals don't comply with the census requirements.

[WatchingInAmazement]

so I think you ALSO don't care about crime prevention, you're just looking for another thing to hang around your focus on illegal aliens.

If you're saying I have an "agenda" that would be the first thing you got right today. I want illegal entry into this country STOPPED.

No one has to "look" for anything to add to this problem. It's in our face every day, you know it, but somehow it profits you.

How many funerals going on today because of illegal immigration? How many hundreds of court trials? Someone is likely dying right now while you defend the reprehensible.

Interesting website you have. http://notebuyer.livejournal.com/

Your latest offering is a real jewel.

18th-Dec-2006 08:31 am - The Reason I Object to Immigrant-Bashing Rubes

You don't even know the difference between immigration and illegal law breaking. So tell us, how is the real estate business in California? Lots of fixer uppers, I'd bet. Maybe you're one of these kind of "developers"

Arizona

http://images.google.com/images?client=firefox-a&rls=org.mozilla%3Aen-US%3Aofficial_s&hl=en&q=Arizona+colonias&btnG=Search+Images

New Mexico

http://images.google.com/images?svnum=10&hl=en&lr=&client=firefox-a&rls=org.mozilla%3Aen-US%3Aofficial_s&q=Colonias+New+Mexico&btnG=Search

TEXAS

http://images.google.com/images?client=firefox-a&rls=org.mozilla:en-US:official_s&hl=en&q=Texas%20colonias&btnG=Google+Search&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&sa=N&tab=wi

[arnoldfwilliams]

You're angry. You've decided that it's the illegal aliens who deserve your anger. And me, lingering in the background and "profiting" from them. Displacement: I've seen it before.

There are no illegal aliens in my client list: they don't buy shopping centers, or set up office buildings, or renovate the apartments I find loans for. So I don't "profit" from them. But, in the words of a former post, I do need coffee, and I don't want you mining the harbor. Hire all the customs people you need. But hire them. Give them a sensible legal framework to get things done. They don't have it now. They haven't had it for years.

[wolfcreek]

"Don't want to believe facts?"


I can tell you right now, those *facts* are BS! Where those *facts* came from is even more disturbing. (NYT Mag?)

BTW, most of us who follow the illegal immigration threads have heard all this OBL crap before.

[Rurudyne]

The example of the traffic citation you gave is spurious because of what an officer of the law may "judge" for himself: it doesn't present the possibility of one going to where there is an emergency but rather presents the possibility of someone engaged in extraordinary actions during an emergency.

If there were someone bleeding in the passenger seat––or a pregnant woman––an officer could (and indeed will) provide escort since the literal obligation to act in protection of a life supersedes the obligation to enforce an inferior law.

This is why we treat people entering our country illegally because they are fleeing persecution or worse differently than those who enter illegally for any other reason.

A comparable straw-man argument is made by the Pro-Abortion folks who speak of times when the physical life of the mother is endangered. I say this is a straw-man argument precisely because even IF ALL abortions were illegal, there would still be a circumstance under our Common Laws where an abortion could occur without legal ramifications: the Common Law right to "self defense" or the obligation to come to the aid of another whose life is endangered supersedes other considerations.

But Pro-Abortion folks improperly act as if this "life of the mother" special case is their knockout punch when in fact it is no such thing.

While I cited shop lifting or reckless endangerment as examples of laws which persons may feel they shouldn't obey: the truth is that illegal immigrants put themselves in a position similar to that of a squatter.

A squatter is one who illegally assumes residence in an abandoned or long disused structure. There is even a form of squatting where one stops paying lawful rent and then refuses to leave.

The difference between an ordinary squatter and what might be termed an 'illegal squatter' is that the latter takes up residence in a structure that is neither abandoned nor legally in long disuse.

Consider if your family owned a beach house that you visited every so often. One day a person acquires entrance to this home and takes up 'residence' as a squatter. Your home is neither abandoned nor legally disused so these are outside of the normal definition of being a squatter.

Now, suppose that these invaders on your property actually were otherwise respectful of it and did nothing worse than live there and subject to to ordinary wear and tear––a cost that you'll ultimately have to bear. In such an extraordinary case––where they do not tear the place to bits or leave it a foul mess where the "brown goo" in the bucket in the living room scampers when your insurance adjuster attempts to take a picture of it for evidence (something I've actually seen ... roaches everywhere)––when you arrive for your annual vacation what will you think about their presence?

Especially if the local government has an asinine law like New York City that accords squatters "rights" to be where they are if they've been there long enough?

True, you will eventually be able to prove that the structure was neither abandoned nor did these 'tenants' ever have a legal contract with you so that they could be in residence; however, that doesn't negate the fact that you'll not only bear the final cost of their presence but that you will also bear the legal liability for same (at least till they are lawfully removed).

Illegal Immigrants are like these pseudo-squatters. They operate on the basis that their needs or wants supersede the rights and desires of those who are citizens or else lawfully here. They are stealing their residency.

Or are you now going to argue that just because there is a lot of empty land out there that the United States of America is abandoned or legally disused?

Are Illegal Aliens really acting in contempt of our laws so that they can settle in these vast, open spaces? If so, then what of the vast, open spaces of Mexico?

Such an argument is spurious.

Likewise, your assessment that there is an economic need for these people to be here is spurious. It is so precisely because they disallow it by the terms of their entry: we are not talking folks who came here legally and then overstayed (which would be akin to a normal form of squatting where one has an agreement to pay rent that has ended even though residency continues).

If there is an economic need that requires immigration, then it is our privilege to set the terms for that immigration and not the privilege of those who impose themselves on us.

You are really arguing for nothing less than a national form of assigning "squatters rights" to people who are invading our homeland––which is neither abandoned nor disused.

Maybe someday you'll find that allowing people who hold the laws that should govern them in contempt the leeway to set the terms of any debate about them and their illegal behavior is a bad idea.

Or else why not be consistent and demand for the cause of social justice––"justice" rendered to groups or legal entities––that true justice rendered to Persons be finally and fully done away with?



P.S. Just for clarification, the "demographic group" of which I've spoken is Illegal Immigrants irrespective of their race or place of origin.

[DTogo]

you are not living in your monocultural paradise

笑っちゃう！！ HA HA!! Haven't lived in one those since I left high school for boot camp!

But I'd also be safe from coffee, which I need to get going in the morning.

Coffee is imported, legally.

But don't take away my coffee, OK? You wouldn't like to drive near me if you did.

It's not about YOUR coffee. And if you drove poorly you'd get a ticket, which would be good because it keeps the traffic cops employed, right?

[Lurker]

Mary conveniently ignores the fact that illegals have killed many more times the number of Americans than were lost on 9-11.

L

[arnoldfwilliams]

Coffee is imported, legally.

That's because we have sensible laws on coffee import. We don't have sensible laws on people. The point is that the current system is quite broken, and the way to fix it is to recognize that we have a problem, we don't have the luxury of sweeping through and arresting everyone (sorry, at 12 million immigrants, even if each police arrested two or three an hour for their 8 hour shift, and could get them to booking, that turns out to be too long a job for too many people, to say nothing of the housing and transport costs to get them back to the border. So we have to work toward another solution, or set of solutions, that will work within budget constraints.

[arnoldfwilliams]

See comment 43.