Posted on 01/24/2003 1:06:56 AM PST by hoosierskypilot
There is a quaint fact that tends to be forgotten in discussions of immigration policy: the law is the law. The law says that some persons have a legal right to be in the United States and some do not. This law is not arbitrary: it was made by a legitimate, democratically elected government expressing the will of the American people. Therefore, it is high time to get serious about enforcing it by deporting all of our illegal aliens. Fortunately, this is not as hard as it looks, as we already deport some of them and merely need to apply the same programs to a greater number of people. Politically, it may be hard; logistically, it’s no big deal.
The raw numbers are staggering. The U.S. Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS) estimates there are currently more than eight million illegal aliens living within our borders, with more than a million more expected to be here by the end of 2003. It’s not like the public is unaware of the problem. Successive polling in recent years has consistently shown a clear – and thus far unanswered – mandate from the American electorate for its elected officials to faithfully enforce the laws they are sworn to uphold by removing the swelling illegal population. But key constituencies inside the governing class – principally the cheap labor lobby on the Republican side and the ethnic lobbies on the Democratic side – have successfully frustrated American democracy and the rule of law on this point.
Under pressure and in fits and starts, the federal government has been making token gestures of deportation, which prove that something could be done if the political decision were ever made to get serious. Between 1995 and 1998, funding for removing illegal aliens more than doubled, resulting in a rise in deportations from 50,400 to 171,000. Early INS estimates for Fiscal 2002 deportations come in at 147,345.
But with a pool of eight million potential deportees, appreciable progress will only be achieved through a general deportation policy, i.e., the principle that every person whose illegal status becomes known gets deported. The key thing to understand is that this would not require, as opponents would have us believe, some kind of fascistic police state out of a B-grade movie. All it would require is that well-established, existing programs for deportation operate on greater numbers of people.
Fundamentally, the politics of deportation may be heated, but actual deportation is quite boring.
It’s not as though it hasn’t been done before. In 1954, during the Eisenhower Administration, INS Commissioner Gen. Joseph May Swing instituted a mass search-and-removal operation targeting illegal aliens from Mexico scattered throughout the Southwest and Midwest. It coordinated the efforts of the U.S. Border Patrol, municipal, county, state and local police forces, along with the military. The coordinated and strategic use of resources and manpower soon produced positive results. In Texas, the nation’s second-largest state, the government needed only around 700 men to do the job, netting approximately 4,800 deportees on its first day and 1,100 daily thereafter. Deportees were shipped back to Mexico via rail and ship, often deep into the interior of the country to discourage recidivism. When funding for the initiative ran out that fall, the INS claimed some 2.1 million removals, including those who voluntarily returned to Mexico before and during the operation. Following the 1954 effort, illegal immigration dwindled until the mid-1960s.
This is the real benefit of deportation: it discourages illegal immigration in the first place, reducing both the enforcement burden and the social problems that immigration causes. Once would-be immigration criminals realize they will only be deported, their numbers drop within a range that can easily be contained. Ironically enough, this means that a laxer immigration policy, not a stricter one, requires more manpower to enforce the tatters of law that remain, and costs more money to run. Once would-be illegals get the message, there will be a lot fewer of them.
(Excerpt) Read more at frontpagemag.com ...
I don't support a guest worker program because the questions I asked & many others cannot/will not be answered. You don't have to go door to door to round them all up & deport them. The government has to eliminate the incentives for illegals to come here. Stop access to social programs, stop anchor babies & extended family immigration, stop free medical care, stop free education, and impose severe penalties on employers who knowingly hire illegals.
The Feds should withhold funds from states that accept the Mexican ID, that have law enforcement agencies with policies that allow illegals to be released, and LEA's that do not coordinate w/ the INS to deport illegals.
The Feds should revoke FDIC standing to any financial institution that takes the Mexican ID.
These policies in conjunction with increasing the number of border patrol agents would be a good start in eliminating the desire to cross the border illegally.
I agree with all that. I just wouldn't like to see door-to-door searches with agents entering my home looking for illegals who aren't here.
Then why create a huge government bureaucratic guest worker program? It is not that we need the guest workers (or illegals) it is just that they depress the wages below the market rate. There are plenty of people who will do the jobs – when the wage becomes attractive enough. When employers have to pay the legal rate to guest workers, there will be no need for the guest workers, because at this rate Americans will be willing to take the jobs.
I'd be content w/ hitting the lottery tomorrow night!
We're both dreaming!
One of the first to clearly outline the solution ... DEPORT the criminal Illegals.
The day a real round-up begins, many illegals will deport themselves.
I work beside illegals every day. They are taking the jobs of Americans. I know Americans not working whose skilled jobs have been taken by illegals. It is not true these illegals are doing jobs Americans won't do. They are being hired in lieu of Americans. It's a powder keg and is going to blow up.
Spot on Fitz!!!
While we're at it close every Mexican consulate in America issuing ID's to criminal trespassers, AND send to prison traitors like RAT minority leader Polisi who assumed executive authority by arm twisting fed agencies in San Francisco to accept these foreign government issued ID's as valid for getting services ( say tax dollars )intended to assist American Citizens, and foreign nationals who are here legally.
It makes the situation you describe all that more despicable. One is trying to make things right and is threatened with deportation and the break up of a family.
The other are just low-life leeches that are not threatened. Just allowed to live here sucking the blood of the American people.
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