[longeyes]

Our Border Brigades
The nativist right is wrong.

Tuesday, January 27, 2004 12:01 a.m.

Conservatives of a certain ilk are piling all over President Bush's immigration reform, and one of their favorite complaints is that the U.S. has never really tried to "control its borders." One question: Then what is it we've been doing for nearly 20 years now?

At least since the mid-1980s, the federal government has invested steadily more money and effort to stop illegal immigration. It's true that the policy hasn't worked, but not because it hasn't been tried. The crackdown on "illegals" began with the 1986 Immigration Reform and Control Act, which these columns opposed but was a favorite of Ed Meese and Alan Simpson, the main restrictionists of that time.

IRCA traded amnesty for illegals currently in the U.S. in return for introducing "employer sanctions." The idea was to harass employers to ensure the nationality of their new hires, under threat of fines or worse if they hired undocumented aliens. This strategy was always a stretch, since most businesses have more urgent things to do than serve as deputies to a federal agency like the INS. A new false-document industry naturally grew, honest employers had no way to sort the real IDs from the fake, and the illegals kept coming in search of work.

As that failure became obvious in the 1990s, a new generation of restrictionists (Texas Congressman Lamar Smith, former "Crossfire" host Pat Buchanan) focused on policing the border. So we gave that a try. The Clinton Administration began operations like "Gatekeeper" and "Hold the Line," which involved planting motion-detection devices along the border, installing remote-control cameras high atop towers and building three-tier walls that went on for miles.

The number of border patrol agents tripled and the most popular corridors for illegals--San Diego and El Paso--were sealed off. The thinking was that the treacherous mountains and deserts in between would serve as natural deterrents. But once again, the border brigades were wrong.



Between 1990 and 2000, illegal immigration rose by 5.5 million people. Circular migration is now less common, human smugglers have increased their fees, and rather than deter newcomers the mountain and desert "funnel
effect" has resulted in hundreds of additional deaths from exposure. As one government official told us, "We underestimated the will of these people."

Nor has any of this been done on the cheap. Walter Ewing, a research associate at the Immigration Policy Center, has run the numbers. In a new paper titled, "The Cost of Doing Nothing," he notes that "Since 1993, the amount of money spent each year by the federal government for border enforcement has more than quintupled from $740 million to $3.8 billion." (See the nearby chart.) And though much of that has been spent along the Mexican border--77% of illegal aliens come from Latin America--undocumented immigration "has continued at a rate of about 500,000 per year," Mr. Ewing writes.

This latest failure now has the restrictionist right endorsing ever more extreme measures. Some suggest spending more billions to build a wall across the entire 2,000-mile Mexican-U.S. border. Others want to deploy the U.S. military, as if an already stretched Army doesn't have enough missions. Somehow draining the terror swamp in the Middle East seems a lot more vital to U.S. security than stopping busboys from crossing the Rio Grande.

But there's no guarantee that even this--so insulting to American traditions--would work. Immigrants would find other ways to make it here, whether by overstaying their visas after arriving by airplane, smuggling by boat, or travelling first to Canada before crossing over. Will we build a wall across Ontario too? Or how about mass roundups and deportations? We suppose the feds could do all of these things, assuming the Republican Party could still win elections trying them, but at what financial and psychic cost?

Conservatives pride themselves on realism, so if a policy keeps failing for nearly two decades maybe some new thinking is in order. That is precisely what Mr. Bush is doing. His temporary guest worker proposal would provide a means for new immigrants to enter the country legally as well as a way for the government to keep track of their whereabouts in the interests of homeland security.



The plain truth is that the U.S. depends on these workers more than the nativist wing of the GOP likes to admit. As Mr. Bush said recently, the reality is that our economy continues to create opportunities for low-skilled workers while the pool of Americans willing to fill these jobs continues to shrink.

In 2001, undocumented immigrants filled 1.4 million jobs in the wholesale and retail trades alone, according to the Pew Hispanic Center. More than one million worked in manufacturing and another 1.2 million worked in agriculture. Without these immigrants, employers would be forced to raise wages to attract Americans, perhaps to levels above what productivity and competition allowed. Certain jobs would simply not get done, as is now the case in Europe, as companies automated or moved more jobs overseas. Far from costing the U.S. jobs, immigrants today allow some industries to survive and expand.

Their entry to America is not without its problems and costs. But a sensible policy would tackle those, as Mr. Bush proposes to do, rather than pursue the fantasy that we can or should close our borders like some isolated ancient kingdom.

[Cool Hand Luke 22:36]

So now, American citizens who care about such quaint concepts as citizenship and national soverignity, who care about the astonishing costs of unrestrained illegal immigration in terms of health care, education, and policing, and who care about the terrorist threat that open borders represent, are mere "nativists" to the grandees at the Wall Street Journal.

How sick.

I guess it would be much more convenient for the editors at the WSJ and the businesses that depend on US taxpayer subsidized illegal workers if the peon "nativists" would stop squawking about having to subsidize the illegals free health care, soon to be fraudulently obtained social security benefits, free education, etc.

"Step aside redundant "nativist" peon. You're much too expensive to be an efficient revenue generation unit. We're importing Mexicans to replace you, and BTW you'll be paying all costs associated with this replacement program."

[moa]

This is a weak article. It denies the reality that you have to turn off the spigot of under-defended borders, if you expect even meager effectiveness in a guest worker program.

Hey, and how about the War on Terrorism and our naked flanks, not too mention the alien crime wave. Not even mentioned really.

And letting in illegal aliens with their families under a guest worker program will create millions of "anchor" babies that are American citizens at birth. It will bankrupt the social welfare system unless there is enormous increases in taxes at every level of government.

It will further balkanize the nation. Most of these people will not assimilate, I bet. The plan is counter to assimilation.

The articles arguments are overly simplistic and short sighted.

Also, America is more than just an "economy". The WSJ should know better.

[Balog]

Good Lord, to think I used to respect the WSJ.

[fix]

Many consider the WSJ to be a conservative newspaper. It is not. It tends to print conservative viewpoints when they match the viewpoints of Republicans. I no longer consider the Republican party conservative. It is merely less liberal than the Dems. Likewise, the WSJ is merely less liberal than the NYT.

[glocksman]

The WSJ is first and foremost a business newspaper.
Illegal immigrant labor is useful to business.
Therefore, the WSJ will defend illegal immigration and attack anyone who threatens the flow of wage supressing illegal labor.

[longeyes]

As one government official told us, "We underestimated the will of these people."

And they also underestimate the will of the American "nativists."

It is absurd to argue, as WSJ appears to, that we have really made a serious effort to curtail illegal immigration. We have not. We haven't because entities like the WSJ, with their strange bedfellows on the Left, don't want us to.

Now they are telling us not to bother, it's hopeless, let's just relax further. Ridiculous. There are many things, both carrot and stick, we can do to stanch the flow of illegal immigration, and they have been cited in this forum, and elsewhere, many, many times. The fact is that illegal immigration is no longer a secret--we can thank Bush for inserting it into public discussion--and the politicians are getting worried that a sleeping populace is about to bolt upright awake and start asking some very hard questions.

[El Tejon]

You'll stop illegal immigration right after you get a hand on drug running.:D

[Waitone]

I just wish someone in congress would grow a pair of convictions and introduce legislation which exactly replicates how we currently enforce existing legislation. Then see how far that legislation would get in the congress.

To say ratified legislation is a failure when it was never enforced is infantile argumentation. Every poster on THR could write essay after essay on the different between legislation and enforcement of that legislation. That is the legacy of gun control. Make it look like something is being done but don't dare actually do something.

Pathetic argumentation. How can I get a job writing absurd columns that a 7 grader could pick apart?

[El Tejon]

Wait, "immigration control" is exactly like "gun control." It is motivated for reasons not stated. It is as equally effective and counter-productive.

[Selfdfenz]

Many in business want cheap labor but many more want to be out from under the potential hammer stroke of federal charges if caught hiring illegals.

Pretty simple really.

Bush is online for both camps.

I won't even begin to addess the silly WSJ arti. But this is my favorite:

"This latest failure now has the restrictionist right endorsing ever more extreme measures. Some suggest spending more billions to build a wall across the entire 2,000-mile Mexican-U.S. border. Others want to deploy the U.S. military, as if an already stretched Army doesn't have enough missions. Somehow draining the terror swamp in the Middle East seems a lot more vital to U.S. security than stopping busboys from crossing the Rio Grande.
But there's no guarantee that even this--so insulting to American traditions--would work."

I must ask...
Insulting to who's traditions.....certainly not mine. Building the wall and putting troops on the border employes Americans at efforts that are monumentally worthwhile. And, that money stays in THIS economy rather than Mexico's.

S-

[Jonesy9]

"Restrictionists" and "nativists" eh? WOW!

[Navy joe]

I want people to come to America but, If we do not control how many people are here it will no longer be American. America has finite land space and resources. If the population increases unchecked then the only thing left is less resources per person(not necessarily bad) and eventually a lower standard of life. Kinda self defeating since people are sneaking in for our high standard of living. The borders can be controlled, Congress can legislate how many people a year we let in. Personally since I have more in common with some Mexican illegals than I do some Americans I propose we deport a soccer mom to Afghanistan for every illegal that does get in. :D


Immigration control sounds stupid if you do not believe in some nationalism, or if you believe in globalism, or if you think Cali and Tejas belong to Mexico. For me, please check constitutionalist libertarian nationalistic nativist.

[Baba Louie]

It wouldn't surprise me to see someone in the near future create another Zimmermann Telegram linking Islamic jihad terror types to Mexican Azatlan freedom fighters as a distraction device to the big picture happening over in Asia.

Before ya go calling me froggy, remember, Lenin got Russia out of WWI with the help of his German friends. It works sometimes.

And in 1911 we had a whole bunch of troops on the border, complete with illegal invasion of Mexico when it suited us.

American business needs and feeds Mexican illegals, the WSJ is just reporting a fact of life... some of the language may be slanted to sway the crowd one direction or the other.

As for being a "Nativist", We all came here from Somewhere. Even the natives. Think vicious cycle. Think natural order. Filling the void, as it were.

It's no big deal. Just the continued evolution of political reality. Think of them all as Future Voting Taxpayers.

[standingbear]

American business needs and feeds Mexican illegals, the WSJ is just reporting a fact of life... some of the language may be slanted to sway the crowd one direction or the other. how true.how very sad but true.

[longeyes]

How much of American business needs and feeds Mexican illegals? A small fraction. And that fraction could largely be manned by American citizens.

How much more unskilled, uneducated labor--plus its dependents--do we need in a country whose wealth derives from productivity based on engineering, science, and organizational efficiency? If we wish to modify our economy to be a nation of serfs and menial laborers, then, yes, emphatically we need all the warm bodies we can get. I doubt that is the vision most Americans have for their country.

If we need a guest worker program it must be highly delimited in scope and we must curb costs by restricting benefits. Anything else is cultural and fiscal suicide.

[RightIsRight]

How much of American business needs and feeds Mexican illegals? A small fraction. And that fraction could largely be manned by American citizens.

Having been in the construction business for 20 years, I got a chuckle at the naivete of that statement.


do we need in a country whose wealth derives from productivity based on engineering, science, and organizational efficiency?

Who do you think builds the houses these engineers live in? How about the highways the scientists use to drive to their labs? Who do you think cooks the dinners of the "organizational efficiency" experts? Who do you think washes their dishes?

Bush's plan may not be the panacea.

However, ignoring the situation is not going to make it go away.

[El Tejon]

The American economy could not function without illegal immigration.

[romulus]

That's rather a stretch...how would the American economy cease to function without illegals? Would the laws of a market economy suddenly cease to function as they always have upon their departure? :confused:

[longeyes]

"Having been in the construction business for 20 years, I got a chuckle at the naivete of that statement."

You know what they say: to the man with a hammer in his hand the whole world looks like a nail.

I see you got in the construction business about the time that construction companies started to get addicted to cheap, off the books, non-American labor. I live in L.A. so I'm very aware of who's laying the bricks and pounding the nails. But you're telling me that American citizens, who used to do these jobs for higher wages, can't do them and aren't available? Please. I'm trying to remember the last time I saw a Black man on a construction crew around here; there used to be plenty. Now all of a sudden they've forgotten how to handle a 2x4? I guess their problem is they'd like to paid more than $50 a day without benefits.

As I said, there's room for a stratum of unskilled, uneducated labor. But that pool is already here. Now we need to bring millions more here? How many people do we need working in car washes, washing dishes, mowing lawns? Well, great, import a slave class and see how long those slaves remain happy, and how long the people who thrive off their labor remain that way too.

"The American economy could not function without illegal immigration."

And we wonder why the welfare state is inexorably growing?

[longeyes]

By the way, RightIsRight, it's starting: Rep. Dana Rohrbacher (R-CA) is reporting that he's receiving death threats from Latinos incensed at his legislative proposal to crack down on health care give-aways to illegal aliens. Rohrbacher wants hospitals to fingerprint and photograph illegals coming in for care (for deportation purposes) and to only provide critical, immediate-need services. Anything else will be billed to the patient's employer. Incidentally, Rohrbacher adds that Bush's proposal is DOA in Congress, at least for '04.

[RightIsRight]

longeyes,

My foreman makes $50,000 a year (of which he pays all applicable taxes), has a company truck and cell phone. Yep, he is from Argentina. Yep, when I hired him, he was illegal. I helped him get his green card because he worked harder than anyone else I have ever had work for me.

I have never paid any of my employees "off the books", ever. None of my employees or their families has been on the welfare rolls. It is a nice sentiment to believe that these people are stealing 'American' jobs, but that sentiment is a bunch of BS, to say the least.

Your romantic notion of aliens stealing American jobs doesn't play out in my experience.

Does it happen? I would think so. However, around here, it is the exception, not the rule.

[romulus]

It's not the willingness to work that I have an issue with but the unwillingness to assimilate and become Americans. This is a new phenomenon in the history of immigration in this country, aided by political corrctness and outwardly racist groups like La Raza. The institutional support for assimilation is no longer there. Frankly I care more about domestic tranquility that I do about productivity. There'll always be lazy asses to contend with...

[JPM70535]

Not to cast a wet blanket over the latest attempt to deal with the flood of illegal immigrants from south of the border, but granting them "Guest Worker" status does nothing to solve the problem.

As long as the penalties for hiring undocumented workers are not enforced vigorously and consistantly, there is no reason for the illegals to cease their migration. Only if the hoards coming north find no work, no sanctuary, and no Social Welfare system to act as a safety net will the floodgates be closed.

IMO, the hypothesis that the Illegals take only low paying jobs that Native born Americans will not do is misleading. I completely agree that by and large, our citizens shun the Agricultural jobs traditionly filled by the illegals. The question I think should be, why are the jobs so low paid? Could it be that there is this never ending flow of 3rd worlders willing to work for sub-standard wages that allows Employers to keep wages low and maximize profits to the detriment of the workers?

I firmly believe that the key to getting our country back on the road to real prosperity, where our legal citizens can find employment at wages that wil allow them to enjoy the American dream is to stop the flood of illegals from the Southern Border. Hell, follow the Israeli plan if all else fails, and build the wall that some call for. The cost would have to be less that providing medical care and social welfare for the unending mass of Hispanics inundating the Western States. ( Before you call me a Racist, if the problem was a mass immigration of Canucks from the North, I would be just as adament, but it ain't so.)

After the influx from the South is contained, then and only then can the process of stoping the export of living wage manufacturing jobs to 3rd world countries be started.

Make no mistake, if American Corporations are allowed to shift high paying jobs overseas to cut costs and maximize their profits, with no regard for the workers displaced by these moves, the ultimate result can only be the downsizing of the American lifestyle. It just is not possible to live the same lifestyle on McDonalds wages as on GMs, and when all the production jobs are gone, Service Industry is about all there is left for vast numbers of the former Middle Class. Couple that with the movement of High Tech computer jobs to places like India and the future does not look too bright for my Kids generation. Free trade, in my opinion , to put it bluntly sucks!

We need to wake up and smell the coffee.

JPM

[Standing Wolf]

There's no way in @#$%^&! I'll vote for anyone who advocates amnesty for the millions upon millions of illegal aliens that infest our nation.

[RightIsRight]

romulus,

You make a great point.

I concede that I know little about the immigrant situation out west. I only speak from my experience here in NJ.

Many of the Hispanic immigrants I have known and/or met want to assimilate into our society. They work during the day and go to night-school to learn English.

However, there does remain a substantial portion that refuses to assimilate. I do worry about them.

Militant groups like La Raza et al scare me. They rally for "Hispanic Rights" like Al Sharpton rallies for whatever the hell he rallies for.

The bottom line remains; there are many immigrants who want to work and expect no special perks from the govt. Just as there are many Americans who don't want to work and expect special reparations from the govt.

[longeyes]

RightIsRight, you got your good foreman. I'm happy for you. But you didn't address my point: how many more millions do we need to bring in here NOW, on top of the six, eight, ten, or twenty million--because who really knows any more?--we already have working, and not working, here? Maybe in NJ things look different, but in the Southwest it's an entirely different story, though not one you won't be experiencing soon enough. Most illegals aren't foremen making $50K a year and once their public benefits are added in they are anything but cheap labor. It just doesn't compute.

And Romulus is on target. This is also a cultural and assimilation issue. Multi-cultural, multi-lingual nations have historically lacked stability; I doubt this one will be any different. This new group of immigrants doesn't feel the need to adapt to the mainstream culture, and why should they when they can get the rest of us to subsidize them generously without demanding it?

I think when most major trends are "discovered" it usually signals that we are at the end, not at the beginning, of a movement, which is why Bush's proposal is so ill-timed and fatuous. He's 20 years too late; the need for "cheap labor" came and went. We're now running huge deficits and have ten million of our own unemployed--but NOW he wants to open the flood gates and "do the right thing?" No, people are waking up, and the pols had better wake up too. Bush isn't looking past this coming Election and making sure that he and his friends are well taken care of. Any Democrat who had the smarts and the cojones to grab the illegal immigration issue would win in a landslide this November; as it is they will probably give Mr. Bush the scare of his life.

[glocksman]

If you want to see what a sudden influx of illegals do to both a community and an industry, just look at the meatpacking business.

Meatpackers used to be among the highest paid blue collar workers with a job turnover rate among the lowest in the country and a good safety record.

After companies such as IBP figured out that hiring illegals was a lot cheaper, the meatpacking industry busted the unions, imposed massive wage cuts, and imported illegals by the thousands to work in the plants.

Today, meatpacking is one of the lowest paid jobs with no benefits and a turnover rate that boggles the mind. And the influx of illegals has driven prices up, welfare budgets up, and crime up in the small Midwestern towns where the packing plants are.

After seeing the damage illegal aliens have done to the people who were in the meatpacking industry and the towns in which the plants were located, Bush has lost my vote with his insane plan to legalize the estimated 12 million illegal immigrants. :cuss:

[bjengs]

Rightisright said (cobbling together here):My foreman makes $50,000 a year (of which he pays all applicable taxes), has a company truck and cell phone. Yep, he is from Argentina. Yep, when I hired him, he was illegal. I helped him get his green card because he worked harder than anyone else I have ever had work for me.

I have never paid any of my employees "off the books", ever. None of my employees or their families has been on the welfare rolls. It is a nice sentiment to believe that these people are stealing 'American' jobs, but that sentiment is a bunch of BS, to say the least.

Your romantic notion of aliens stealing American jobs doesn't play out in my experience.

Many of the Hispanic immigrants I have known and/or met want to assimilate into our society. They work during the day and go to night-school to learn English.

However, there does remain a substantial portion that refuses to assimilate. I do worry about them.

Militant groups like La Raza et al scare me. They rally for "Hispanic Rights" like Al Sharpton rallies for whatever the hell he rallies for.

The bottom line remains; there are many immigrants who want to work and expect no special perks from the govt. Just as there are many Americans who don't want to work and expect special reparations from the govt.I agree with this. I know a Peruvian and his El Salvadoran wife who have done the same as your Argentinian friend.

HOWEVER, this is a case of anecdotal evidence. Average native Americans like you and me ;) never see the welfare bums precisely because they are not like your foreman or "the Hispanic immigrants [you] have know and/or met." By definition, you would never have met them.

I agree with you about "stealing American jobs" being a bunch of BS, too. I, for one, have never bought into the Marxist class distinctions. But it is becoming increasingly obvious that the gap between the wealthiest and the poorest is widening. The current immigration policies contribute to this in the following ways:

1) We have a massive influx of labor keeping wages down. Illegals can work at a wage that a legal citizen is not allowed to work for i.e. no payroll taxes etc. The notion of "they do the work that no one else wants to do" is alluring but hardly axiomatic.

2) This block of workers is content with their current situation i.e. little upward mobility thus taking the already depressed wages (see #1) and maintaining the status quo.

3) We (unwillingly) import a class of people who represent the "nothing left to lose" segment of a relatively poor country. I would expect that your Argentinian friend, just like my Peruvian acquaintance, takes offense if anyone calls him "Mexican." There is a reason for that. South American immigrants can generally be regarded in the same light as European immigrants: not just coming here for some improvement, but to become an American with the same wealth aspirations as the natives.

This is not meant to be confused with the garbage economics of the "jobs are headed overseas" arguments (the arguments are garbage, NOT the arguer!) . That is more a testament to the unionization of labor here. Also, glocksman, you make a great point, but don't universally associate "busting the unions" with "hiring illegals." The dissolution of labor unions is always a good thing.

bjengs
The True Conservative

[Joe Demko]

The dissolution of labor unions is always a good thing.

Really? Is the dissolution of corporations always a good thing, too? If not, perhaps you could explain why capital should be permitted to organize, but not labor.

[bjengs]

Really? Is the dissolution of corporations always a good thing, too? If not, perhaps you could explain why capital should be permitted to organize, but not labor.I apologize to everyone for going off-topic. I will reply to Golgo in private with the exception of pointing out that I didn't even imply that unions should be illegal.

[longeyes]

The problem with both labor unions and corporations is the same: consolidation of power.

The future of unions in America turns on bringing illegal aliens into their ranks. It appears corporations like the idea too. So do hack politicians looking for votes and retention of their own power and control.

And that leaves the rest of us where? To be hard-working entrepreneurs, outside the realm of both forces, but still obliged to pay the taxes to support a system that works against our best interests?

[HankB]

People who say we need illegal aliens because "they do the work no Americans will" are, in effect, saying there are NO able-bodied Americans on welfare. To paraphrase Mark Twain, capitalism is the system where one has the choice of working or starving. Tamper with the second half of the equation by providing welfare, food stamps, etc., and suddenly hard work isn't the ONLY alternative to hunger. Many find the low standard of living a welfare check provides is an acceptable alternative to a job.

From what I see, if one could wave a magic wand and banish all illegal aliens, the biggest effect would be on rich folks who would have to start mowing their own grass, restaurants that would have to pay more for dishwashers, and farmers who would have to raise prices to pay for more expensive labor and/or machinery. (But then maybe we could do away with farm price supports, in which taxpayer dollars are used to keep prices UP.) The money saved by NOT providing free education and other services to illegal aliens and their families would probably make up for a slight uptick in food cost. To say nothing of the reduced cost of crime. It's not the willingness to work that I have an issue with but the unwillingness to assimilate and become Americans. This is a new phenomenon . . . Right . . . and it was predicted by many a couple of decades ago, as soon as the Left began pushing "Diversity" as a goal in and of itself.

[longeyes]

To follow up on what HankB just said...

We've seen America WITH illegal immigration. We should try, for a while, seeing it WITHOUT. Shut down the flow. Then we can decide if we can live without "cheap labor" or not and whether we're really better off.

I think it's obvious a lot of people wouldn't want us to conduct that experiment, even if national security issues were also present.

[moa]

An over abundance of cheap labor stifles innovation and invention. Probably another reason the business community wants millions of illegal aliens working on and off the books for sub-standard wages.

Innovation and invention require research and development along with imagination and hard work, and money.

The interesting part about Mexican nationals is they basically have a license to kill in America.

If a Mexican national commits a crime in the USA that is punishable by the death penalty or life imprisonment, the are home free if the can escape back to Mexico. The Mexican government will not extradite them if the potential sentence is death or life imprisonment.

In many places the sentence for murder is often death or life, especially if the victim is in LE, or corrections, or is a politician, or involves another felony.

[longeyes]

Tancredo: Illegals plan
will not pass Congress
But representative believes Capitol Hill would produce worse immigration bill

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Posted: January 28, 2004
1:00 a.m. Eastern



© 2004 WorldNetDaily.com

A leading voice in Congress for tough immigration reform believes President Bush's plan to allow millions of illegal aliens to remain in the country will not pass, but he fears his colleagues will open the door wider.


Rep. Tom Tancredo, R-Colo.

"I don't think that's going anywhere," Rep. Tom Tancredo, R-Colo., said of the president's proposal in an interview yesterday on Joseph Farah's WorldNetDaily RadioActive program.

"If something comes out of this Congress, it'll be worse," Tancredo said, noting Democrats want to make it even easier for illegals to stay in the United States, and many Republicans would support them.

Bush has proposed sweeping changes that would allow the 8 million to 12 million illegal aliens thought to be in the country to remain if they have a job and apply for a guest-worker card. The immigrants could stay for renewable three-year periods, after which they could apply for permanent legal residence.

Responding to a caller, Tancredo said he is aware citizens who fiercely oppose Bush's plan will not find support in the Senate.

"There isn't a member of the Senate you can look at as a stalwart on this issue," the congressman said. "Not one."

Tancredo said lawmakers wonder: "Are there enough people who would say this is their No. 1 issue; or would the economy, jobs, education and all the rest still take precedence?"

He said most of his colleagues think "if they can finesse it, if they can just get by it, give lip service to, 'Yes we've got a problem,'" that is enough.

In fact, he believes he is so isolated in his position that Tancredo-for-president movements are beginning to crop up across the nation.

Laughing, Tancredo said, "You think to yourself, now if [the administration doesn't] look at that and think, 'Man, there's got to be something out there, because, who in the heck is Tom Tancredo?'"

The White House apparently is aware of the opposition, Tancredo indicated, noting the president confined the issue to a 40-word paragraph in his State of the Union message and received a tepid response from his audience.

"I looked around and it was only the sergeant-at-arms and the Cabinet who applauded," he said.

As WorldNetDaily has reported, a number of Americans say Bush's plan is giving them physical symptoms of anxiety, and some are even contemplating leaving the U.S. out of a sense of betrayal.

A recent ABC News poll found 52 percent of the nation opposes an amnesty program for illegal immigrants from Mexico, while 57 percent oppose one for illegal immigrants from other countries. Both results are roughly the same as when the administration floated the idea two-and-a-half years ago.

When WND asked its readers what they thought about the president's speech, the top response in the daily poll found over 31 percent of respondents saying "I agree with most everything except his plan to legalize illegal aliens."

A group called Tennesseeans for Tancredo is calling for a Tancredo write-in candidacy on the Internet, declaring on its website Americans need to "make noise, collect signatures, build a grass-roots movement that attracts citizens from all walks of life and all political parties."

But the Colorado lawmaker has dismissed any notions of a presidential run.

"A lot of people think my politics are crazy, but I'm not delusional. I don't think I'm going to be president of the United States," Tancredo told the Rocky Mountain News last week.

He said he supports the president on most issues besides immigration and believes he would have little effect on the president's chances, the paper reported.

Last week, he launched "Team Tancredo," a political action committee to raise money for candidates who oppose amnesty for illegal immigrants.

He told Farah's audience yesterday: "We're going to go after every Republican and Democrat incumbent. We're going to run primaries against them. Help me fund it."

[longeyes]

January 28, 2004, 10:02 a.m.
Earth to WSJ
Clueless on immigration.

By Mark Krikorian

Now, I like the Wall Street Journal. But its editorials on immigration always have a whiff of the
Soviet about
them. Like an apparatchik blaming the collapse of the USSR's agriculture on 75 straight years of
bad weather, the
Journal's writing on immigration has no connection to reality. Tuesday's lead editorial claims that
the United States
has tried in vain for two decades to enforce the immigration law, and now it's time to try
something new (namely,
the president's guestworker/amnesty proposal ). The piece is laced with the usual libertarian
contempt for
conservatives, with such leftist smears as "extreme," "restrictionist right," and "nativist wing of the
GOP," and even
refers to "undocumented," rather than illegal, aliens.

But it's the basic factual claim of the piece that's so absurd. The new party line is that open
borders aren't just
desirable (a la the Journal's perennial call for a constitutional amendment abolishing America's
borders) — they're
inevitable. Another member of the open-borders apparat, Tamar Jacoby, had a recent piece in
The New Republic
(here, but you have to pay for it) subtitled "Why we can't stop illegal immigration." In the
Journal's words, "if a
policy keeps failing for nearly two decades maybe some new thinking is in order."

Actually, I agree. The problem is that the "new thinking" we need is a commitment to enforce the
law. Over the
past 20 years, we have done almost nothing to control immigration except beef up the Border
Patrol. And while
that's a worthwhile goal in itself, any border agent will tell you that his job is only one part of any
effort to enforce
sovereign borders.

The Journal claims that the ban on hiring illegals, passed in 1986, has been tried and failed.
Again, this is false.
Enforcement of this measure, intended to turn off the magnet attracting illegals in the first place,
was spotty at first
and is now virtually nonexistent. Even when the law was passed, Congress pulled its punch by
not requiring the
development of a mechanism for employers to verify the legal status of new hires, forcing the
system to fall back on
a blizzard of easily forged paper documents.

And even under this flawed system, the INS was publicly slapped down when it did try to
enforce the law. When
the agency conducted raids during Georgia's Vidalia onion harvest in 1998, thousands of illegal
aliens —
knowingly hired by the farmers — abandoned the fields to avoid arrest. By the end of the week,
both of the state's
senators and three congressmen — Republicans and Democrats — had sent an outraged letter
to Washington
complaining that the INS "does not understand the needs of America's farmers," and that was
the end of that.

So, the INS tried out a "kinder, gentler" means of enforcing the law, which fared no better.
Rather than conduct
raids on individual employers, Operation Vanguard in 1998-99 sought to identify illegal workers
at all meatpacking
plants in Nebraska through audits of personnel records. The INS then asked to interview those
employees who
appeared to be unauthorized — and the illegals ran off. The procedure was remarkably
successful, and was meant
to be repeated every two or three months until the plants were weaned from their dependence
on illegal labor.

Local law-enforcement officials were very pleased with the results, but employers and politicians
vociferously
criticized the very idea of enforcing the immigration law. Gov. Mike Johanns organized a task
force to oppose the
operation; the meat packers and the ranchers hired former Gov. Ben Nelson to lobby on their
behalf; and, in
Washington, Sen. Chuck Hagel (R., Neb.) (coauthor, with Tom Daschle, of the newest amnesty
bill, S.2010)
made it his mission in life to pressure the Justice Department to stop. They succeeded, the
operation was ended,
and the INS veteran who thought it up in the first place is now enjoying early retirement.

The INS got the message and developed a new interior-enforcement policy that gave up on
trying to actually
reassert control over immigration and focused almost entirely on the important, but narrow,
issues of criminal aliens
and smugglers. As INS policy director Robert Bach told the New York Times in a 2000 story
appropriately
entitled "I.N.S. Is Looking the Other Way as Illegal Immigrants Fill Jobs": "It is just the market
at work, drawing
people to jobs, and the INS has chosen to concentrate its actions on aliens who are a danger to
the community."
The result is clear — the San Diego Union-Tribune reported earlier this month that from 1992 to
2002, the
number of companies fined for hiring illegal workers fell from 1,063 to 13. That's thirteen. In the
whole country.

Coming at it from the other side, when we have tried to enforce the law, it's worked, until we
gave up. The
aforementioned Operation Vanguard in Nebraska was a good example — if enforcement wasn't
working, why
would the employers have bothered to organize against it? Likewise, in the immediate aftermath
of the passage of
the 1986 immigration law, illegal crossings from Mexico fell precipitously, as prospective illegals
waited to see if
we were serious; we weren't, so they resumed their crossings.

In the wake of 9/11, when we stepped up immigration enforcement against Middle Easterners
(and only Middle
Easterners), the largest group of illegals from that part of the world, Pakistanis, fled the country
in droves to avoid
being caught up in the dragnet. And the Social Security Administration in 2002 sent out almost a
million "no-match"
letters to employers who filed W-2s with information that was inconsistent with SSA's records;
i.e., illegal aliens.
The effort was so successful at denying work to illegals that advocacy groups organized to stop
it and won a
90-percent reduction in the number of letters to be sent out.

Tony Blankley, the Washington Times's editorial-page editor, summed it up nicely in a recent
column:

I might agree with the president's proposals if they followed, rather than preceded, a failed
Herculean, decades-long national
effort to secure our borders. If, after such an effort, it was apparent that we simply could not
control our borders, then, as a
practical man I would try to make the best of a bad situation. But such an effort has not yet
been made.

The Journal's editorial writers, despite their many strengths, suffer from the malady of all utopian
ideologues: an
unwillingness to acknowledge facts that are inconsistent with infallible theory.

— NRO Contributor Mark Krikorian is executive director of the Center for Immigration
Studies and a
visiting fellow at the Nixon Center.

[longeyes]

Democrats offer plan on aliens


By Amy Fagan
THE WASHINGTON TIMES



House Democrats yesterday proposed granting legal residency and the eventual option of U.S. citizenship to millions of illegal immigrants now working in the United States.
Laying out their own principles for revamping the nation's immigration laws in response to what House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi called President Bush's "political ploy," Democrats went beyond Mr. Bush's plan for a temporary-worker program and called for a system of "earned legalization" for illegal aliens.
At a Capitol Hill press conference, Democrats proposed allowing illegal immigrants who have worked in the United States for a yet-to-be-determined minimum period of time to stay here and be granted permanent legal residency, creating a "pathway" to eventual citizenship.
"The president's proposal is a political ploy, and not the solid foundation on which we can build an improved immigration policy," said Mrs. Pelosi of California. "Democrats have a better way."
Mrs. Pelosi said Mr. Bush's recently proposed plan doesn't create a meaningful way for illegal aliens to become U.S. residents or citizens; doesn't reduce the backlog of U.S. citizens' petitions on behalf of relatives who are here illegally; and doesn't help tens of thousands of teenage illegals attend college here and eventually be granted legal status.
In addition to proposing measures to address those concerns, Democrats endorsed a temporary-worker program that would give foreigners the option to stay in the United States and eventually earn permanent legal status here.
President Bush's plan, in contrast, would allow illegal aliens already here, as well as newcomers, to work in the United States legally for three years under a temporary-worker program. When their three-year permits expired, such immigrant workers would be required to return to their home countries.
Once back in their home countries, they could apply for legal U.S. status through the existing system. Under the Bush plan, the three-year work permits could be extended in some cases, but not indefinitely.
"The president wants to give [illegal aliens] a lot, but the Democrats want to give them the jackpot," said Steve Camarota, director of research at the Center for Immigration Studies.
Sen. John Cornyn, the Texas Republican sponsor of legislation that essentially mirrors Mr. Bush's proposal, said requiring workers to eventually return to their home country will reduce future illegal immigration by strengthening struggling foreign economies.
"In my recent visit with government leaders in Mexico City, I was repeatedly told that they want their workers to come back, to return home with capital and skills," he said. "They need those small-business owners, those entrepreneurs to strengthen a weakened middle class."
Mr. Cornyn's bill and Mr. Bush's proposal would provide incentives for immigrants to return home after their legal work period here expires.
But Democrats like Rep. Luis V. Gutierrez, Illinois Democrat, said it would be unfair and unworkable to deport immigrants who have worked in the United States for many years. He praised Mr. Bush for opening the door to immigration changes, but said the government won't be able to enforce Mr. Bush's plan.
"There is not the political will ... to conduct that massive deportation," he said.
Mr. Camarota agreed.
"At least the Democrats are realistic," he said, adding that illegal immigrants in the United States, "aren't going home now and they're not going to go home with President Bush's proposal."
Democrats propose allowing foreign-born minors who are here illegally to stay in the United States, attend college and eventually earn legal status. Democrats said that "at minimum" they support a bill, already approved by the Senate Judiciary Committee, to allow states to grant in-state college tuition rates to illegal-alien students. That bill would also authorize federal officials to halt deportation of such students and allow the students to eventually become permanent U.S. residents.
Mrs. Pelosi said if Mr. Bush were serious about improving the system, he would call for immediate action on the House counterpart to that Senate bill, as well as another House bill that would allow 500,000 illegal agricultural workers to become legal permanent residents.
Democrats also propose enhanced family-reunification provisions. They seek reinstatement of a law that would allow illegal immigrants, sponsored by immediate family members who are U.S. citizens, to stay in the United States and apply for legal status, instead of being forced to return to their home countries before seeking legal admission. Mr. Bush tried to revive that law in the past, but it was "beaten down in the House," Mr. Camarota said, and the measure is not part of Mr. Bush's most recent proposal.

[romulus]

Sounds like the Democrats really have mastered the art of snatching defeat from the jaws of victory...Bush comes up with a plan that is unpopular and could sink him, so they come up with an even more idiotically radical plan...

[longeyes]

Romulus,

I think you may be describing Bush, not the Dem candidate. Bush is doing everything he can to alienate his core conservative constituents. How many swing votes is he really going to get? If Bush keeps listening to Karl Rove we will have a Jackass in the White House come next January.

Frankly, it's getting harder and harder to care. What will come will come, and those of us who care will deal with it as needed. I personally believe that regardless of who wins the stuff is going to hit the fan within the next four years.

[romulus]

Oh, I agree with you about Bush alienating his core constituency - me being one of them. It would be a good time for the dems to leave it at that, but then they go and one-up him on this issue. Seems stupid to me...who looks more dangerous NOW on immigration policy?

That's all I'm saying

[longeyes]

It does seem remarkable that the Democrats would believe that even a majority of their own constitutents would favor such a liberal immigration policy. The hard-core left, sure, but what are they?--15 per cent? Why would mainstream Democrats back an idea so dangerous to their own jobs and wealth?

At the risk of looking like one of the tinfoil hat contingent, I must say that I see precious little substantive difference between the elites of the two parties. In the end both groups are laughing all the way to the bank and counting on the passivity and/or stupidity of the American electorate to get their way.

In a world where two Skull & Bones men may end up vying for the Presidency--is this a first?--almost anything can happen.

[Omega_7]

And it's not voting

And no one wants to give up the beer and the superbowl to commit to the only solution left.

[Joe Demko]

There's only one real solution to the current situation

Is that a fact? Since you're the guy who brought it up, why don't you step up to the podium and tell us about all the other solutions you tried which didn't work? Don't forget to include why, since you think there is only one real solution, you aren't out there leading that solution.

[Omega_7]

I will simply say that one cannot herd wildcats.. this is a day of treachery and great evil and I in no way expect my solution to become popular, for the reason listed above.. bread and circuses, weakness and treachery.

If the founders had lived in a society like ours they would have lived very short lives indeed.

Oh, and I see you feel you are going to hell, sir. Not all of us are, however. We do have a choice.

[Waitone]

Sounds like the Democrats really have mastered the art of snatching defeat from the jaws of victory...Bush comes up with a plan that is unpopular and could sink him, so they come up with an even more idiotically radical plan...Correct. And that tells me quite clearly that there is a severed relationship between the ruling class and tax paying class at least on the issue of illegal immigration. Instead of seeing an opening where democrats could do some serious damage to Bush, thye instead propose a more extreme plan.

No, the desires of the taxpayer are clearly not an issue for the ruling class. It will be interesting to see what other issues arise where the ruling class simply dismisses the expectations of the taxpaying class.

[longeyes]

Economic self-determination (money), freedom of speech, the ability to defend oneself and resist oppression.

We all know what the great chain of being, oppression-wise, is.

We will be told to absorb illegal aliens, we will be told to subsidize them. And the next step is Social Security "integration" or "totalization." Grin and bear it.

McCain-Feingold is alive and well, a perfect muzzle. Next will be "hate speech" silencing all forms of serious dissent.

Guns...well, we all know what's on the runway there, don't we?

[emc]

For those of you who do not already know, under federal guidelines, illegal aliens qualify for Medicaid. :barf: Here in Indiana, Medicaid spending has increased much faster than inflation, and shows no sign of stopping.

Many people have stated that illegals do jobs that Americans will not. As previous posters have pointed out, they have been and are now taking jobs that provided decent wage scales, such as meatcutters, etc. On a recent radio talk show, a caller mentioned that his neighbor, a painting contractor, had been complaining about not getting the work when bidding on jobs that he normally would have gotten. On further investigation, the neighbor found out that he was being underbid by painting crews staffed and sometimes run by illegals. Clearly this trend will suppress wages for American citizens.

For me at least, I am perfectly willing to pay more if it means that my neighbors will continue to be employed and aid in the stability of their families, their lives, and our neighborhoods. I do not see that illegals pushing down wages and taking good jobs can work in our favor.

FWIW,

emc

[Master Blaster]

RightisRIGHT

Yep, when I hired him, he was illegal. I helped him get his green card because he worked harder than anyone else I have ever had work for me. .I have never paid any of my employees "off the books", ever.



Now you also said you never paid him off the books.

How did you pay him on the books while he was illegal????

fraudulent Social Security ID????

You paid withholding on his behalf HOW??????????

Or maybe you just called INS and said hey I've got an Illegal here and I'm gonna pay him on the books?????

Of course you did not hire him because he was cheap labor.

You were concerned for his welfare how selfless you are.

There just wasn't any american who had his great ability with language and his obvious skills. Atl east not on the day laborer corner he was standing on with the other illegals when you picked him up.

Maybe it was his references or his past job history, Oh wait when you hired him for all you knew he was wanted for 10 brutal murders in his native country.

Certainly you did not hire him for cheap labor or to take advantage of his plight.

Right?????

:barf: :barf:

We have plenty of low skilled folks here who are unemployed or in prison who would love to have a minnimum wage job.

Next time a local hotel puts an ad in the paper go look at the line of americans waiting to apply.:barf: :barf:

I have friends and family members who run various small businesses, and pay just above minnimum, they have no problem attracting employees, because they treat them with respect and a little consideration.

Not one of them is employing an illegal nor have they ever done so.

The reason illegals are cheap labor is because every middle class tax payer out there is subsidizing the labor by paying their hard earned taxes so that the social services these illegals use are paid for.

When you hire an illegal alien you are stealing FROM ME.:fire: :fire:

Glocksman has it right on the money, the big Cos like tyson foods and walmart are getting rich while they are destroying the ability of the little guy to make a decent living. Soon industry will have the same problem Henry Ford had when he first introduced the model T ( the rich did not want it and the average working man could not afford it), and the same problem Ford workers in Juarez Mexico have. You have to pay a decent wage so people can afford the products you make, this gives them an incentive to work and their work makes a profit for you. It seems that this basic economic fact is being forgotten.

[Omega_7]

Rapes his daughter and/or steals a bunch of his tools and high tails it. Many of the horde from down south (and from Asia) were felony criminals in their native land. Here's their plan: Come here, get ignorant and selfish Americans to help you out, or engage in the drug trade ... what short sighted fools many Americans have become.. make an extra thousand today while selling your heritage and your progeny out. :uhoh:

[Master Blaster]

Yep everything is predicated on this quarter and the short term buck.

Thats why we have great successes like Adelphia, Global Crossing ,and the largest american company at one time ENRON.

If the trend keeps up America will become a third world country.

[longeyes]

"Yep everything is predicated on this quarter and the short term buck."

Amen.

Capitalism used to be about building businesses, producing stuff your fellows wanted to buy to improve their lives.

That was before the lawyers, the accountants, and marketing team commandered capitalism. Oh yeah, and let's not forget the Wall St. analysts and the silent partners in the government watchdog units who are de facto directors on the board.

[bjengs]

And that was definitely before the government stuck its paws into every single corner of commerce. The lawyers don't have a thing to do if there aren't BS laws in the first place.

[longeyes]

Ah, it just gets better and better: Schwarzenegger now says he's ready to cut a deal on a bill to grant driver's licenses to illegal aliens. Well, now isn't that special? The man's in Sacramento because the voters were counting on him NOT to do this. I guess it's time for another recall, only this time let's not stop with Schwarzenegger...

Man, it's hard not to get cynical.

[Orthonym]

Must be quick; apparently if I take longer than a minute or so composing and polishing my post, it evaporates. For what it's worth, I'm a semi-nativist. All I have time to say before the timeout. I hope this gets posted.

[Orthonym]

More people on planet than things for them to do. Mexican culture not same as N.A. culture. My opininon, N.A. anglo culture better than Mex. culture. Vicente Fox shoving both welfare and racial problems off on us. He's quite white, sending Indios across border. They send money home. Edward Abbey was right, give rifle and 1000 rounds to Mexican border crossers, tell'em to go home and finish revolution!

[Art Eatman]

"Timing out" has to do with your ISP or with your own computer's settings. THR, itself, has zilch to do with timing out.

:), Art

[Stealth101]

Master Blaster .........
Thank you for that great reply! You had me laughing so hard that I thought I was going to fall off my chair....

Longeyes.........
Once again you tell it like it is.........

I want to ask you all this....Are the rich in this country in trouble? Are they doing so bad, that they have tio resort to selling out the American people, for an imported slave class?

I think all of this greed and lack of caring for our country, by business and government alike, is going to be our nations undoing.
This nation is a gift from God and should not be taken for granted...............

[bjengs]

Schwarzenegger now says he's ready to cut a deal on a bill to grant driver's licenses to illegal aliens. Well, now isn't that special? The man's in Sacramento because the voters were counting on him NOT to do this.
I think I'm even more cynical than you. It was my impression that he was elected on the premise that he could do exactly the same things Gray Davis was gonna do, only he had to make it look less shady. Seriously! If Davis cuts this deal, they'd say he was getting paid by somebody (and it would be true). If Gov. Schwarzenegger does it, it's just a political battle lost.

His only test for success is if the state economy starts recovering. Which AIN'T gonna happen without a wave of repeals. Los Angeles City Council, by the way, is considering BANNING WAL-MART from the county, as a sop to the unions. Man, my days here are so numbered...

[longeyes]

Bjengs,

Well, we shouldn't have expected too much from Schwarzenegger. We saw Ted Kennedy whispering into his ear after all. And Mr. Schwarzenegger is nothing if not ambitious and full of himself. He will go the way of all politicians, a deal here, a deal there. What will be interesting is what happens if the $15 billion bond issue should fail to pass; it will take something like that happening to snap Californians out of their dream state.

Stealth 101 asked why the mega-rich should have to sell out the American people--aren't they, after all, rich enough? Perhaps there's nothing conscious or conspiratorial about it, maybe it's just a mutated form of the Invisible Hand which is part of the process itself. Get enough super-rich people together and individually they will make decisions that conduce to the detriment of the masses. Why shouldn't the Invisible Hand have its own dark side after all? I think "selling out" is viewed by the high and mighty as just the next phase of capitalism, an expansion of the system to the global level that will lift up the entire world. That this means the erosion of traditional American culture or the obsolescence of the Constitution weighs less in their minds than the advancement of international capitalism and multi-national prosperity. A little "creative destruction" that, longer-term, benefits more people than it hurts.