Bush rules out 'blanket amnesty'

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You know, near as I can tell not a single blessed one of my ancestors was what the modern U.S. would refer to as a "legal immigrant".

Wee-eell -- maybe my Mohawk gran'ma.

It kind of amuses me that the descendants of uncontrolled, "illegal immigration" would get their Hanes in a half-hitch because other people are trying to do what their own gr-gr-grandparents did.

Anyone interested in history should research some of the screamsheet articles on the sure and certain demise of the United States due to the damned dirty Irish Catholics (or the Yellow Peril), and compare those articles to the modern stuff about the sure and certain demise of the United States due to these damned dirty wetbacks.

LawDog
 
Lawdog,

I see. Those of us who believe we should follow our immigration laws
are racists? How many of your honored ancestors were on the dole? None, I am guessing. Yours is an odd position for someone who is at least half-law; I can't account for your other half.
 
I can think of no issue where the paths diverge in such a radical way. If it ain't fixed there will be a social explosion.

Believe it or not, California actually passed a ballot initiative (or Proposition, as they call them there) that said no taxpayer funded services (welfare, health care, etc) for illegal aliens. I believe a petitions are circulating in AZ right now to put a similar measure on the ballot there. The CA measure was killed by the courts. Which court and on what grounds, I'm not sure, but probably some sort of "equal protection" BS-I just went and looked, and Amendment XIV only applies to citizens .

The people are trying to revolt. But the pols aren't listening. And everyone who brings it up gets smeared as a racist by the elites.


And Lawdog, whatever may have happened in the past, the law is the law. Should we just decide not to enforce it?
 
Newsflash: Israel's borders are open to any Jew (or relative of one) that wishes to enter. In 1990-1995, ONE MILLION Russian-Jews entered the country. The population increased 20%. Yet the standard of living went up, not down.

Thank you for proving my point.

When more Jews moved into Israel (a Jewish country,) I'm not surprised in the least that it wasn't harmful.

There is a common thread there among those people; Judaism.

With many of the illegals entering America, most of them have zero in common with this country and its people.

They do not want to learn our language, conform to our customs, etc.

You didn't read the article that was posted above, did you?

Please read this:


The Dangers of Our United States Immigration Policies"




Richard D. Lamm, former governor of Colorado, writes this article on immigration, in which he lists five grave concerns about the United States continuing it present immigration trend. Lamm is director of the Center for Public Policy and Contemporary Issues at the University of Denver. The article appeared on the website of the Rocky Mountain News.

***
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?
 
Oh I see, LawDog.

"Your grandpappy killed mine, so you better feel guilty."

Actually, my ancestors didn't immigrate until 1912, but my skin is white and I'm of European stock, so I guess I better feel guilty.

I expected more of you...
 
There is a common thread there among those people; Judaism.

You're so WRONG. First of all, many of the immigrants are not Jews, they're just relatives of Jews. Second, practically nobody actually PRACTICES or knows anything about Judaism. All you have to do to get an Israeli citizenship is to prove that you're a Jew or a relative of one. You get an IMMEDIATE citizenship, and nobody cares you don't know hebrew.
 
LawDog,
Just because people are against illigal immigration does not make them racist. That was very low, especially for a moderator. I thought this site was called The High Road for a reason but I guess I was wrong. How do you suppose we support everyone and anyone that wants to come here? Here in North Carolina the Social Services offices have signs up in spanish telling people how to get benifits without a social security card. My state is actually helping illigals get welfare. That is a slap in the face of every hard working legal American that could not get help even if they begged. I dont blame anyone for wanting to come here. I do blame my government for letting them stay when they broke the law to get here. And those Irish you refer to came here legally and to had to pass all kinds of health test before they were allowed to stay. Many got sent back home. They didnt just swim across the ocean and break the law to get in. Oh Im sure there were some stowaways and the like but the large majority came here LEGALLY. That is the difference.
 
"Newsflash: Israel's borders are open to any Jew (or relative of one) that wishes
to enter. In 1990-1995, ONE MILLION Russian-Jews entered the country. The
population increased 20%. Yet the standard of living went up, not down.

In the 1950's, Israel accepted a Morrocan immigration which was almost equal to
the amount people already in the country. Same deal."

I think I'll be more impressed when you can report accepting ten million illegal Moslems. Now that would be a newsflash.
 
*snort* Racist?

Obviously some disagree with my post. They may not have read all of it, but they disagree with it.

So, just because I'm in a really nasty mood, why don't we take another look at my post, actually read more than the first and last sentence and see if we can distill what, exactly, people disagree with.

You know, near as I can tell not a single blessed one of my ancestors was what the modern U.S. would refer to as a "legal immigrant".

You may disagree with this point, but I know my family history, and not a one of them checked in with INS.

Wee-eell -- maybe my Mohawk gran'ma.

Again, you may disagree with this point, but I have family history on my side.

It kind of amuses me that the descendants of uncontrolled, "illegal immigration" would get their Hanes in a half-hitch because other people are trying to do what their own gr-gr-grandparents did.

I do find this to be amusing. You may disagree that it is humorous, and that is fine, but it quite frankly tickles my funny bone.

Anyone interested in history should research some of the screamsheet articles on the sure and certain demise of the United States due to the damned dirty Irish Catholics (or the Yellow Peril), and compare those articles to the modern stuff about the sure and certain demise of the United States due to these damned dirty wetbacks.

By process of elimination, the crux of the disagreement and (near as I can tell) the the reason I'm the target of the ever-popular 'racist' mud-slinging tactic.

So, gentlemen, educate poor, little ol' illiterate me upon the reason, exactly, why this paragraph makes me a racist, or why, exactly, y'all find fit to disagree with it.

It is a simple statement that it is my opinion that a comparison between the hysterical anti-immigration propaganda of American history and the hysterical anti-immigration propaganda of the current era would be interesting.

Assuming, of course, that those doing the comparison actually read more than a sentence or two.

So. Bloody well what is the disagreement with that paragraph, hmm?

Do you disagree that anyone who is interested in history should do a comparison between an opinion from the past with a similar opinion from the current era?

Do you disagree that such a comparison would be interesting?

Do you disagree that Irish Catholic immigrants of the 1800's were frequently referred to as 'damned dirty' by those who argued against their immigration?

Do you disagree that there was a period when Chinese immigrants were frequently referred to as the 'Yellow Peril' by those who argued against their immigration?

Do you disagree that Mexican immigrants of the current era are sometimes referred to as 'damned dirty wetbacks' or worse by some of those who argue against their immigration?

Do you disagree that there is anti-immigrant propaganda floating about at this time that is every bit as vicious as the worst of the propaganda floating about in the 1800- and 1900's?

Well, enlighten me, do. Which point do y'all disagree with?

LawDog
 
Most of the propaganda I see bruited about in the media is pro-immigration, not anti-, and increasingly that same propaganda has dissolved the distinction--a critical one--between legal and illegal immigration.

I belief it was you, Lawdog, who implied that those of us who are concerned about the illegal invasion--for that is exactly what it is--are de facto racists. There ARE racists around, true enough, but those racists are on both sides of this issue. You think La Raza and MALDEF are not racist organizations that practice racial politics? It is obvious that this is a hugely important issue and that it is, outside of talk radio, not getting the hearing it deserves. Not a word from the Democratic candidates in any of the debates. There is no issue more important than the re-constitution of one's country in violation of the law and the public will.

This is not just an issue of security or of "matching willing workers with willing employers." That is clear enough to anyone who has everyday familiarity, as I do in Los Angeles, with the consequences of our current hands-off policy.
 
And I will add this, Lawdog: there is racist propaganda floating about, both in this country and in Mexico, that is every bit as invidious as the anti-immigrant slurs you point to. I think millions of us, frankly, are pretty fed up with the anti-gringo b.s. that emanates from the Mexican fatherland. We are tired of hearing how Mexicans are going to "reclaim" what is "rightfully" theirs. It is not their culture that created the wealth and prosperity, civil freedoms, and civil order that distinguishes "Alta California" from Baja California and farther south. Anyone who speaks candidly about these issues is immediately branded a racist. But no one is really fooled. And all of this is going to become Big Politics rather soon, whether the powers that be and the parties that be want it to. Taxpayers in California are not going to write the open-borders crowd, whether socialist or Mexican nationalists, a blank check. What comes of that remains to be seen. If there's a Bosnia in America you will have Ted Kennedy and George Bush to blame for it.

My guess is that you live far from the border and in a kind of Never-never land when it comes to the impact, fiscally and culturally, of what is going on.
 
We can thank the pols for passing very nice immigration laws, and then telling the INS not to enforce them. Doris Meissner (INS head under Clingon, sorry, Clinton) did absolutely nothing for 8 years. INS became under funded and incapable of doing the job. The result is 9/11.

If we can get existing law ENFORCED, things will be much better!
 
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