Free Republic

Illegal Aliens: A Few Myths to Keep in Mind . . . Mexico City. Last Tuesday the Pew Hispanic Center announced that 41 percent of Mexicans surveyed in February and 46 percent questioned in May stated they would live in the United States if given "the means and opportunity." Indeed, two out of 10 people interviewed said they were prepared to enter the U.S. illegally. These figures could have amazing consequences because our Spanish- speaking neighbor has a population of nearly 106 million inhabitants.

Bringing San Diego to the forefront of the immigration debate, House Republicans will hold field hearings on the issue Wednesday at an Imperial Beach border patrol station. Two opposing immigration bills from the House and Senate will head for negotiations after the hearings senators and representatives are holding across the country this summer. San Diego area representatives have been heavily involved in the debate, some authoring sections of the House bill. Measures proposed in the House bill, H.R. 4437, include: making illegal presence in the country a felony, building 698 miles of fencing along the border, requiring employers to use...

Mexican politicians continuously demand more visas for their citizens, an expanded guest-worker program, and "regularization" of illegal aliens living north of the Rio Grande. While neglecting to mention that the United States admits nearly one million legal newcomers each year, they also fail to publicize: (1) the extremely high salaries they receive, often—in the case of federal and state legislators—more than their counterparts in developed nations that have substantially longer annual sessions, (2) the generous stipends that they grant themselves, including year-end aguinaldos and end-of-term bonuses of tens of thousands of dollars known as bonos de marcha, and (3) the...

The results of the recent special election in California's 48th Congressional District are a sober wakeup call to economic conservatives who believe in the free movement of goods, capital and labor. Self-appointed, vigilante immigration restrictionist Jim Gilchrist received a sizable 14.4 percent of the vote for Congress on a single-issue, immigrant bashing platform. Colorado Congressman Tom Tancredo, who endorsed Gilchrist, is trying, with some success, to raise immigrant-bashing to a top-tier issue in the 2008 elections. Anti-immigration sentiment is one symptom of a larger neo-Mercantilist disease that is also threatening the globalization of trade and capital flows. Unless true free-market...